In Stars And Time

wow.... gay people..........

I never thought that there could exist a game that would make me cry harder than OneShot did, but oh boy was I wrong. In Stars And Time is a masterpiece. There are very few games that made me feel guilty for buying them while they had a discount, and this is one of them. I haven't met a singular person in my life who I wouldn't recomend this game to.

Was initially put off by the combat being shallow and the fantasy of being a party at the end of their journey not really being fulfilled as your abilities and equipment are very sparse in variety and quantity. However, after the first set of the early game the narrative and exploration are excellent and the game as a whole felt very worth going through. Not for people looking for a game for the gameplay, but an amazing story experience for those willing to persist. 8/10 smile

If I could give this a "mixed", I would. This game has a lot going for it, such as its dialogue, characters, and artstyle to name a few. I even like the gameplay of the timeloops, even though it can be tedious at times; I think it does a great job of using player experience as a means of storytelling. If you are a fan of LGBTQ stories or VNs or Webtoons I'd recommend. Now onto why I didn't care for the game: this game is so incredibly unsubtle in its writing that it feels borderline insulting at times. This game's central theme is Change, and by god does that game love to shove that down your throat at all times. The villain wants things to not Change and thus freezes the world, the good guys want to stop the loops so things Change. The moral of the story is that you should embrace Change in your life, no matter how daunting it is. For god's sake, there is a character straight up called the CHANGE GOD. Another thing that really makes the narrative grating is the main character: Siffrin. Being the main character, you get to listen to his internal monologue and thoughts, and Siffrin has A LOT of faults. He will often repeat what just happened or his internal conflict over and over rather than letting us figure it out for himself. There is no room whatsoever for the player to connect or empathize with SIffrin's character or struggle, because he is CONSTANTLY looping it over in his mind. Occaisonally, he'll even repeat a phrase over and over in his head in a single textbox to imply stress or anxiety, which works the first time, but rapidly becomes annoying, as if the game is screaming "HEY THIS IS HOW HE FEELS IN CASE YOU DIDNT KNOW." A reason I like video games, especially RPGs, is that we the player can connect to the characters on our own terms. Even in a game like OMORI, for instance, which has a silent protagonist, we can still connect with them through their mannerisms and backstory, which is slowly shown to us through symbolism and imagery. In Stars and Time doesn't do this, it does the exact opposite. It will hold your hand and tell you everything you'd ever need to know about a character's thoughts and feelings with out any delay. At times it just feels like I'm reading a fandom wiki page for a character than actually playing a game. It genuinely feels at moments like the dev didn't trust the player enough to pick up on the themes and motifs in their game, so they just made it as obvious as possible, which really irks me. At times it feels like the writing is actually insulting my intelligence with its blatant "change" theme. Tip to devs: learn to trust your audience, they're not dumb. It's sad that the narrative irked me so much because everything else about this game is good. It's just that the writing bothered me so much that it took the game's quality from a 8-9 down to like a 5, which is such a shame because I can tell that this was a passion project. Buy this game if you want a generally lighthearted story with not a ton of subtlety. If you're looking for a masterclass in writing, I'd recommend looking elsewhere. 5/10 (bordering on a 6 because I do really want to like this game)

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I now hate croissants.

It really is worth playing to the end. great story and characters and the mystery of the whole game is just so good. It is a bit repetitive tho, but come on thats the premise of the whole game