Starlight Legacy

¡Me gustó! Es como si los Final Fantasy pixel y Pokemon hubieran tenido un hijo. Es un RPG convencional, así que si has jugado algún Final Fantasy te vas a sentir bastante familiarizado. Sigo avanzando en el juego, pero hasta el momento me ha enganchado. Un punto a mejorar son los controles, al inicio traté de retroceder al menú anterior y le di ESC y me sacó jaja. Ya una vez que le agarras la onda a los controles la experiencia es buena.

[h1]We Need a Magna Carta[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The game's advertising mainly focuses on nostalgia aesthetics and RPG gameplay rather than story and characters, but there are some mature themes like racism, cultural genocide, [spoiler]and ethnic cleansing[/spoiler] against the Lusorians, thanks to the Evarian royal family's imperialism. The early part of the game has several NPCs mention it and the major inciting incident for the adventure is that the Lusorian rebels burned down an essential magical tree as a form of protest against laws that ban Lusorians from using magic. We also have division among the rebel group itself and how the more moderate faction fears the extreme faction will hurt their cause. However, the Lusorian separatists stop being important during the second half of the game. They don't do anything even when [spoiler]King Lennox takes control of Starlight Castle in preparation for his genocidal plans.[/spoiler] Additionally, I feel like the persecution of Lusorians suffers from the pitfall of "tell, don't show" because we don't really get to see much direct oppression of them outside of Lennox petrifying Caden. At best, a Lusorian soldier mentions that an Evarian soldier was harassing Lusorians, causing one of the roads to be temporarily closed, but I think it would have been better if the party saw the deed up close and helped the Lusorians stop that corrupt soldier. As for the issue of the separatists' methods, Caden is presented as being way too extreme and is willing to screw over the entire continent just to make a point. At the same time, the Starlight Warriors come off as not being proactive enough in opposing King Lennox, since they didn't prioritize dethroning him when they had the chance. As a result, [spoiler]they played into Lennox's hands and allowed him to obtain the power of the Eternity Gem[/spoiler]. Additionally, the passiveness of the moderate separatists means they are also slow to respond to Lennox's schemes, so maybe there is a point to them essentially doing nothing in the second half of the game. Still, I wish the moderate separatists, especially [spoiler]the rebellious Princess Esther[/spoiler], would have done something during the final stages of Lennox's plans. Better late than never. As for King Lennox, the game does a lot to set him up as an evil, yet cunning Machiavellian villain, but I feel like his motives go too off the rails towards the end of the game. His cruelty towards the Lusorians is established to be a result of his ancestors' past conquest of the continent and because he despises rebellious elements, but [spoiler]after he gains control of Starlight Castle, he decides to kill everyone in Evaria Kingdom and not just the Lusorians. His reasoning is that he wants to build Lennox Kingdom over the remains of Evaria Kingdom, which makes absolutely no sense because there is nothing stopping him from just renaming the kingdom. Not to mention that killing off his entire population makes no sense from a conqueror's perspective, since he still has to worry about war with other countries and killing too many of his own citizens would weaken the country in terms of military conscription and labor. That said, I will admit his final boss name and ultimate attack name left an impression on me, lol.[/spoiler] As for the party members, none of them got much characterization and they mainly serve as a big ball of stats. At best, Frida is the sister of the separatists leader, Caden, but she never really gets involved with them even when the moderate faction takes over. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The game has good mapping for the most part. You have seamless map transitions in the overworld, along with shortcuts that can be used once you find specific key items for traveling and removing obstacles. This encourages the player to backtrack to old areas once they gain new field items, though I think this can be enhanced if every location on the map menu also had a treasure count listed. The battle system looks like a standard turn-based RPG, though it will also mark which enemies or allies have been targeted by your skills/spells so that you can more easily keep track of your chosen actions. You have a limit of four spells, can only pick one Skill, can equip two pieces of hand gear, and one accessory, so customization might feel a bit limited compared to other RPGs. However, there isn't much restriction on the combinations of skills, spells, and gear, so you can create some interesting setups if you know what you're doing. Additionally, the Summon skill can circumvent the spell limit to some extent by letting you summon anything from the bestiary, but bestiary summons will always cost twice as much as their equivalent spells. As for the balancing, the game starts out fairly consistent in its difficulty, but some enemies can feel cheap with petrify and instant death infliction. To compensate, your characters maintain their prior buffs once they're revived, but getting KOed means not getting EXP. The metal ball enemies towards the end of the game feel kind of OP though, since they can cast a buff that blocks magic damage, all while they naturally resist physical attacks. The endgame also has trapped treasure chests where you have to fight up to 10 enemies, which is actually harder in some ways compared to fighting a singular boss, but it's still doable because the game does give you decent AOE options and specialized damage builds. Stat down spells are very meta, since an enemy with debuffed offensive stats won't be able to deal more than single or double digit damage. [h2]Other[/h2] The soundtrack is another strong point of the game, especially when it comes to the regular boss theme. Though with optimal lategame setups, you might kill the boss too quickly to fully listen to it, lol. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 7/10 Although the developer likely didn't intend for the story to be the main focus, I think there's some untapped potential in the story and that the separatists could have been made more relevant. The combat is just okay and the mapping and exploration are the game's strongest points.