Wander Stars

++ Great artstyle ++ Lovable characters and interactions + Unique turn-based puzzle-combat + Nice music * OK story, open ended -- Very repetitive in every aspect -- Many bugs -- Save game bug - Missable RNG interactions Biggest draw for me was the artstyle, which is reminicent of older Anime. I liked it a lot! Furthermore the characters are charming and the interactions between them were very fun as well, driving motivation to continue. I also have to say, that the combat is very unique, I have not seen anything like this model before. The music was catchy and fit the game pretty well. The story was OK, being self-contained episodes with an open ending. Some better, some worse. While the combat model is novel, I now realize why I delayed continuing the game for so long. It's just not that fun for me, to actually PLAY the game. In fact, the entire game feels repetitve as hell, as there is little variety everywhere: NPCs, animations, music, sound effects, fights, it's just all way too similar! Another bad part are the many, many bugs, which pop up with regular frequency: Word pages locked, Word selection locked, unresponsive scrolling, no weaknesses shown, current damage not shown, very annoying overall. Additionally, the map spaces are randomly generated, and differ from run to run, including small character interactions!? The character interactions are the best part of the game, you shouldn't make them missable random events! I don't know how much I missed due to this, and that's a real shame. Lastly there was a severe save game bug, which was reportedly fixed. Well, guess what... All in all the experience was... passable I guess. But I would have really expected more for that price.

I sometimes wish steam had a star system or angled thumbs. If your hesitant to buy then id recommend just watching a playtrough and treating it like your watching an anime Art is gorgeous, hitting that early 90s anime artsyle perfectly. Fully animated segments are stunning, while most enemies have 4ish portaits that are stock still. Story is okay, the main draw is that you have a magic map thats been ripped into many pieces but they can combine and even point to each other, making me think that it was gonna be a galaxy crossing adventure to find these other pieces, but no most of the work has already been done offscreen Combat is disappointing, you choose 1 attack type, 1 optional elemental type, and as many optional modifiers you can fit in. This seems fine until you realize that if an enemy is weak to say a punch, but is immune to ice/fire then your better off just using modifiers to increase your damage. Enemies immunities rarely make sense, such as a robot thats immune to slash, but not stab or bite, even tough they all cause bleed . By episode 6 i was 1 turning most enemies with the same attack combination every turn, and unless the enemy was immune to that combo i had little incentive to switch off it. Ultimately i enjoyed my time with the game, and i dont regret playing it.

DO NOT GET THIS It is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unbelievably charming for exactly the first two episodes, but it's clear this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game is barely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ holding itself together and is using randomness and time-wasting to avoid letting you see how limited it is. '200' words where every single one is some variation of "effect" "same effect but stronger and more costly", "same effect but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and hits a random amount of times". This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not because there is nothing good, but because everything that is good shows how the devs KNEW what kind of strengths they had to play to, then they shat this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nonsense so they had some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ product to push and could make some money. wanted to love this, don;t make my mistake. to anyone who has started rightfully fearing that the roguelite tag means "We will not actually finish this game in a tight and directed fashion, instead we're using a lot of RNG to make up for our laziness", RUN, trust your instincts

Absolutely delightful! Fun cast of character, enjoyable gameplay loop, it may be listed as a roguelite but in reality it plays more like a jrpg in 90's anime form, and totally succeed at doing so! The story is simple but the characters more than make up for it and are interesting to follow. And playing the whole game really feels like watching anime like dragon ball, Slayers or Trigun to mention a few, in big part thanks to the visual style and the music/sound effects used. One of the best game i played in a while, Very highly recommended!

I thought this game would be about grammar, but it's actually about math. If you like the idea of doing low level algebra to fight in anime style turn based battles then this is the game for you! It also has a fun story with very loveable characters.

I was actually really excited to play this one. Really good trailer, and it had that 80's type of anime stylle which is really what I wanted to see. But ultimately it was so dull and lazy. Super simple animations in combat, like no difference of a fast punch and special punch for example. There is no animation for eating the ice cream or different items. Also I felt like it's barely a real rogue like as it felt pretty set. I couldn't see when the enemies were going to attack so it was always the same thing every battle, which went like this: Check the enemy to see what they're weak to. Attacking everything I got until I had nothing left then Make sure to defend. I do appreciate the style, I just wish more was done with it since it's a game.

I'm loving the game, but the bugs kind of bother me I love the art and vibes of the game, it does make me feel like I'm playing a 80s shonen anime. The combat mechanics are fun and different and not too hard, which I appreciate. The tatics mostly involve finding out what the enemy is weak and making them forfeit asap, my personal challenge is trying to do most of the things in one round. And it's super fun! I love the dialogues, the characters are fun, the portraits are awesome, the enemies are interesting, specially from the 1st area. The story is interesting and I'm invested on it. thought I'm not 100% sold on the chapter roguelity meta progression of the game, I don't mind it so it's whatevs for me. I think the chapters feel kind of long for me to want to finish them more than once. That all said, which are the most important aspects!! The bugs are bothering me. I'm playing on steam deck and the gamepad implementation is sometimes weird. It selects ui elements that are out of the frame, like selecting the a word from the first page and I'm on the third. The pep window I have to scroll with left thumbstick and with right because one changes the selected item and another moves the "view". Back button on star of the chapter doesn't work, but if I click on it with touchpad, it works. These ones are more "ok" because while they bother me I was able to play ok. But on chapter 5 the nodes on the map were overlapping and weird, out of place. Saving and quitting to main menu and comings back fixed it, so I continue playing. But next map the same thing happened. So I re-did the "fix" and it seems it skipped a map completely? The story progressed and I don't know what happened, I reached the end of the chapter without understanding what lead to it, which makes me sad because as I mentioned, I'm interested in the story!! And after I received all the points, a cutscene happened and black screen so I had to close the game :/ Anyway, gret game, hope devs can fix these technical issues!

In Wander Stars, you play as Ringo, a young girl with a passion for kiai, a fighting style in which you use words to attack your opponent. The game has a very strong presentation inspired by 90s shonen anime, especially Dragon Ball Z. Not only does it look amazing, but the music and sound effects also fit the theme perfectly, and it really feels like you're playing through an anime. There aren't many actual animated cutscenes, but I think it's understandable, given the scope of this project, and it being an indie game. The devs have done a fantastic job with their available resources, providing a very fun adventure with memorable characters. Each chapter in the game is divided into maps with different tiles, each one generally being combat, an event, or an item. The combat is turn-based, and you must combine different words to unleash each attack: an action, and adjective and an element. Each word takes up a different amount of space in your available slots, and stronger words have bigger cooldowns so you can't just spam your most powerful abilities over and over. You unlock more words as you play, and can use points earned in each chapter to buy upgrades and to permanently unlock words to pick from for your initial chapter loadout. It's a very creative system, and it's fun to try different word combinations and discover the most powerful strategies. However, there are also some downsides. Enemies usually have weaknesses and resistances against certain words, which in itself is an interesting system that makes combat deeper, but I believe it could have been implemented in a better way. You might initially expect an enemy's traits to apply to all enemies of the same type, but this isn't how it works in this game. You may fight an enemy, then later fight another identical one that for some reason has different weaknesses and resistances. Certain chapters have specific enemy types that always have certain traits, but this doesn't detract from the fact that most enemies you'll encounter have seemingly arbitrary weaknesses and resistances attributed to them. This means that you almost always need to manually discover these traits, which requires you to use a specific ability. And, even after discovering the traits, the UI isn't very good. It doesn't have enough space to show all traits at once, so it instead slowly scrolls down those long lists. If this was something you only had to do once per enemy type, it wouldn't be too bad, but the fact that this changes for every individual enemy, and also the fact that those lists can get very long, make it so this really slows down combat. I have to admit that, as much as I really enjoyed the game, I was starting to feel fatigued from this toward the end. The combat is great, but if the player had better means to take quick decisions without having to spend so much time analyzing those lists, it'd be even better. What makes it worse is that enemies can also be immune to certain words, so you really do need to pay attention to those lists, otherwise you risk dealing zero damage even if you combine your strongest words. Despite this frustrating aspect, the combat is overall still very good. But what really elevates the game for me is the presentation, the story and the characters. The devs' passion for the world they've created really shines through, and I loved this adventure. If you're a fan of classic anime, or just enjoy the tropes, you should definitely check this game out.

[h2]前言：龙珠动画风格的单词冒险RPG [/h2] 《Wander Stars》是一款龙珠动漫风格、“单词组合”创新玩法的回合制RPG冒险游戏。整体十分精致的美术，从人物造型、画风线条、夸张的动作表情，都具备着浓浓老式日漫的怀旧味道。虽然游戏实际上是由一家西班牙独立团队Paper Castle Games制作，但在气质上却是用游戏完美复刻了日漫模式的热血与氛围。 [h2]玩法：用词语搓出必杀技“超级无敌闪电旋风劈” [/h2] 游戏采用了带有局外养成的、章节制的冒险闯关剧情模式+额外难度的“挑战模式”。共计十个篇章、用节点式随意走动的地图形式，讲述了苹果头少女“铃果”为了寻找失踪的哥哥、与逃避过去的神秘小偷“沃狼”结伴踏上宇宙冒险，寻找能够互相吸引、融合的神秘“游星地图”碎片。 每章节既有丰富手绘动画演出的剧情内容、也带有稍显“肉鸽模式”的随机体验。流程中随机获取单词、每场战斗也会根据战况，如“首回合胜利”、“无伤”、“弱点发现”之类的评价、获得荣誉点数，用于章节之外进行养成，永久提升属性+为后续章节开始时提供更多可选词条。整体单个章节大约一个来小时的每章流程，节奏不慢、也如同追剧一般观赏动漫风格的冒险。 游戏的战斗玩法也具有创新独特的成分。虽然依旧是回合制RPG战斗的模式，但玩家不是从预设技能表里选一项、消耗MP使用，而是用初始具备、或是肉鸽流程中获取到的词语，组合出“必杀技”——通过词语来进行的荣誉战斗“气合”。 从拳击、踢击、格挡等各种绿色“行动词”、超级、快速、锋利等buff性质的红色“修饰词”、以及火、水、风之类的蓝色“元素词”，共计200+单词。通过多个修辞词叠加、让一个行动词同时获取伤害加成、冷却缩减、属性克制、debuff施加等多重效果，绘制成一句中二无比的“超级无敌闪电旋风劈”~ [h2]体验：龙珠动画风格的单词冒险RPG [/h2] 当然，为了增添策略性、每个词语使用后都有独立的一定冷却回合、并不能一直使用一套词语，且词汇的冷却时间战斗外也继承、需要探索空白格子时才会冷却-1。同时，同一回合能使用的词语数量也受限于词语槽位、也相当于卡牌游戏的费用了；而当击中敌人弱点时，能够积累一定的SP、当需要时用来回复费用、获得临时的槽位。 整体战斗方面，在“气合”荣誉战斗的背景下，除了赶尽杀绝、将敌人HP减少为0，也能充满武德的让敌人放弃战斗。Boss之外的各种敌人都具备一个“破防区间”，当修血修到破防区间时结束回合，敌人就会放弃攻击、表示“再会”，并为玩家提供一枚“士气激励”的被动buff。 有的增强战斗属性、有的提供回血构筑上的便利，譬如“开局显示敌方弱点”/“枪械免疫”，“可携带行动槽位+2、元素槽位-1“等等。总之，他们说着什么友情啊、羁绊啊、未来啊的，就隔这台下应援当拉拉队了。 [h2]总结[/h2] 一款具有令人怀念的日式动漫风格、“单词组合”创新玩法的回合制RPG冒险游戏。最近已更新支持简体中文。 虽然比较遗憾，整体的攻击动作并没有特别大的差异性，并不是说我搓出一个很长的必杀，就会有一个很帅的攻击动画了~但绝对还是物有所值的游戏质量与体验，值得一试~ [quote]加入[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GHYX]干货游戏[/url]&关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35106417/]咱的鉴赏家[/url]，不定期为大家带来游戏体验分享，也期待您来一起分享自己的游戏体验干货~[/quote]

This game is definitely a hidden gem and one of my favorite games from 2025. I love the style of the game, with it bringing me back to older shonen manga I used to read growing up. The ensemble cast were all great, melding well together. The story was also fun to play through and I enjoyed watching everyone grow into themselves. The gameplay was also fun and I really liked stringing together crazy attack names. It feels fairly unique compared to other RPGs out there and definitely left an impression on me.