racketboy.com

This was a game that my lovely partner got for me at the start of the year. Much like the last few games she’s gotten me, this is a favorite of hers that she really thought I’d love too, so I wasted no time in getting right to it. Just to not bury the lead, I definitely didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as she did, but I’m still glad that I played this, as it was a very interesting time. It took me around 23 hours to finish the English version of the game on Steam playing with my Xbone controller.

in Stars and Time is the story of Siffrin, an adventurer at the end of their kingdom saving quest along with their friends Mirabelle, Bonny, Isabeau, and Odile. It’s been a long and difficult road to get to the House where the evil King lives, but they’re here at last, and it’s time to free the land from the King’s time freezing powers! However, our hero meets a problem very shortly into the final dungeon: a giant boulder crushes them and kills them instantly. However, thanks to some mysterious and fortuitous magic, they simply wake up in the field outside town the previous day, exactly as they had been. With these strange and often confounding time rewinding powers in tow, it’s up to Sif (and friends) to save the kingdom! (No matter how many rewinds it takes <w>).

While I certainly don’t hate it, I have a lot of lengthy and complicated feelings about the narrative in this game that are roundly un-positive in nature (so there are gonna be some relatively significant spoilers here, needless to say). A lot of it simply comes down to me not being sold on the idea of a time loop-focused turn-based RPG being not a terribly great idea, but we’ll get to more of that later. The game has some serious peaks and valleys in its design. When it’s good, it’s heckin’ awesome, and there were a good few moments (including the climax) that had me nearly in tears because they were just so touching. However, when it’s bad, it’s *miserable*, and those miserable sections significantly crowd out the excellent sections.

You need to beat the King for the first time before the story really starts getting into anything serious or engaging about the characters, but that’s like 7+ hours into the game (roughly a third of the way in). For the first seven hours, you’ve got nothing but very shallow (and very dialogue-heavy) banter between your party and exposition about the setting to tide you over before we start engaging with any of the larger themes this story is about. While I certainly know some who didn’t find this quite so grindingly dull, that was absolutely not the case for me. I remain thoroughly unconvinced that the start of the narrative needed to be so incredibly long in getting to the actual point of the story, and I think the first leg of the story would’ve been significantly improved by having more foreshadowing of what was to come, or at least a bit less exposition and a bit more intrigue or conflict between our party.

No small amount of my issues around this point revolve around our main character Siffrin. Yes, I very well understand that the whole point of their character is that they’re reserved and have trouble speaking their mind. I also understand the parallels the game is trying to draw between him and the King in how they’re each going about trying to keep the good times of the present from escaping them. What I really do not understand is why we needed to have a story with these kinds of themes told *this* way. Sure, it’s a neat gimmick for the gameplay loop, but, and I repeat myself here purposefully, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that a story exploring these themes needed to take the form of a time looping turn-based RPG.

The narrative is far too slow and Siffrin is simply too reserved a character to carry this story for a length of 20+ hours. Even with all of the insight into their internal monologue, the moments that were meant to be heaviest ended up either feeling a bit too silly or a bit too tactless to ever really have much weight for me. While I would never go as far as to assume that the author just doesn’t have enough experience with this kind of mental illness to properly write about it, I’m fairly comfortable in saying that they certainly need more practice if they’re going to write about it effectively. Sif being *so* reserved means that the character-building moments/breaking points we do get with them very often feel like they’re coming out of nowhere because the shift is so sudden. It makes for a story that’s very difficult to care about because it’s so hard to tell where the emotional core, that thing we’re meant to care about, is actually meant to be.

I absolutely understand that, to a degree, the game is meant to be tedious to go through because it’s trying to get us into Sif’s mental state. They’re going crazy from the time loop’s repetition just like we are. This is the intention, anyhow, as I found this to just not work the way they wanted it to either. Time loops in real life aren’t real. While that doesn’t need to be a deal-breaker, the main thing the time loops do to Sif is push them to the mental breaking point that they’re finally able to communicate with their friends (their found-family) about what’s been bothering them so badly all this time. What’s missing here are any other sources of confrontation between Sif and his friends. Sif has no abrasive parts of their personality to misinterpret one way or the other as to how his friends feel about him.

The only thing that drives a wedge between them is how Sif is the only one stuck with the time loop problem and no one else is ever privy to that information. I certainly sympathize with what an awful time Sif is going through, but it is lost to me how I’m meant to sympathize with being under an affliction so distant from any possible human reality. Sif has a lesson to learn about his behavior, sure, but the interpersonal conflicts that come from that are borne entirely by the contrivance of the narrative rather than anything we, the audience, can relate to. To paraphrase their own words, they’re sick of being stuck with what are action-repeating dolls that look like their friends rather than the friends they spent this entire adventure with. That’s all well and good, but we, the audience, *only* know the friends from this time loop.

The only tedium we’re experiencing is having to repeat the same boring dungeon crawl and simple random encounters over and over again. We don’t have any relationship that’s been stolen from us because the whole conceit of the game is that we’re only here for the time loop. I really did grow to love the characters in this story, but more than anything I just wished they were in a better told narrative. If we wanted to explore the themes of Siffrin (and the others) being unable to communicate their feelings properly (due to various reasons I won’t waste any more ink detailing here), I fail to understand how just showing us the entirety of their adventure in a traditional, linear story would’ve not been a better way to show that. It really feels like the main creative forces behind this game were so in love with the idea of a time loop story that they never really considered the actual practical constraints that that puts upon the storytelling, and the whole product suffers dearly for it.

I really, really wanted to enjoy the story that iSaT presents, but it just isn’t put together well enough that I could ever get there. It feels like unless you can just project your own experiences with these struggles onto Siffrin and use that to empathize with him, the game really never communicates the main meat of the story well enough to get you to that point properly. I’m very interested to see what this author’s next game will be, as the excellent parts of this story really are something great (and I love the queer representation too, of course), but as is, I have a really hard time recommending you go through this particular story with all of the various narrative issues it has.

And that’s just the narrative! ^^;. Mechanically, this is a turn-based RPG made in RPG Maker, and while it’s aesthetically based on rock-paper-scissors, the actual way that plays out mechanically is just a 1>2>3>1 (like with Pokemon’s grass, fire, and water) three-element weakness triangle system. It’s simple, but it works well enough to get you from point A to point B, and it’s got some clever twists. The boss battles are quite well put together, and the way your cooldowns on your respective abilities between characters function is a very fun and clever way to give the player a collection of spells to use without burdening them with a mana point system of some kind.

While I don’t have any really big issues with the mechanics in a vacuum, the fact of the matter is that this is a time loop turn-based RPG, and much like with the narrative, this begins presenting problems due to the very conceit of our adventure. While I found the mechanics fun and interesting enough for the first run through of the dungeon, they simply do not have the legs to carry a 20+ hour adventure. Needing to run through the same sections of dungeon over and over is tedious in a way that dreadfully outstays its welcome (and not in a way that actually benefits the narrative, as I explained earlier). Sure, there *is* an item you can equip that makes the wandering enemies run away from you rather than towards you, but it’s an entirely optional item. I didn’t even find it until nearly the very end of the game, and I really fail to see any reason why it’s not an unmissable item given to you much earlier.

Frankly, on the whole, I really fail to see why the game needed to be a turn-based RPG at all. There are a small handful of equippable weapons and armors to find, but they’re rarely anything but side-grades, and they’re so few in number that they could easily just not exist at all and the game would be no worse for it outside of just having a few less bits of side content. Same goes for the equippable “memories” that doing certain main or side quests can give you. It’s a neat idea, but it really doesn’t justify how bad everything else is. Sif keeps their memories, so they don’t lose stats between time loops, but your party *do* lose stats between time loops.
You’ve got to go through the entire final dungeon (which took me about an hour and a half on successive tries) from the start at least once after that first time clearing it, and if you’re unlucky like me, it’ll be more than once more (as I’m still not completely sure why the first time didn’t trigger properly).

Sif may be tough, but bosses are simply too strong to just not level up your party on those successive runs, so you *must* grind against those wandering enemies to get them strong enough no matter how strong Siffrin is. You also can’t replay sections further ahead in time (something you need to do very frequently, especially once we get to the large section of the game where you’re wandering around playing detective for what’s causing the time loops) without spending a currency only gained by fighting random encounters. You get an equippable memory later on that increases the amount of this currency you receive, but again, I ask why even have this burden at all if you’re just going to give the player so many tools to make it slightly less tedious? That is far from the only boost the game gives you to make life less tedious, so I can only conclude that the developers knew very well just how tedious this all was, so why even have it here at all if it does so little?

Even if the game had no combat at all, going all over the final dungeon and town would be a huge scavenger hunt-ing pain in the game’s second half, so it’s not like removing the combat would make the game un-tedious if that tedium was as intentional for the sake of the narrative as it seems. I’m very strongly of the opinion that iSaT would’ve been a much stronger experience had they just made it an adventure game with no combat at all (beyond maybe a few story encounters that are little more than glorified cutscenes). As poorly engaging and plodding as I found the narrative to be, a huge factor in just how bad that was is just how badly the mechanics double-down on the tedium of the play experience.

I wasn’t sold on the idea of a time loop-based turn-based RPG when Radiant Historia did it 15 years ago, and I’m certainly not sold on it now. Sure, having no combat sure would’ve made the game shorter, but frankly I think this story could’ve well done with being like 10+ hours shorter, because it would’ve made the pacing and impact of the narrative far stronger. Should this team make another turn-based RPG, I seriously hope that they better consider how their mechanics and narrative work in tandem with one another, because the failure to do so here really seriously harms the experience.

Aesthetically, at least, in Stars and Time is pretty much just straightforwardly excellent in a way I cannot criticize. Character designs are super distinct and interesting, and the loads of different portraits used for their faces brings that to life excellently. Monster designs are cool (even if the game struggles with enemy variety), and the environmental designs do a lot despite being so simple. While a game entirely in monochrome may sound like it’d struggle to have a strong art style, in Stars and Time handily disproves that, and the music is pretty darn good too~.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. As much as I’ve complained about this game in great detail, I by no means hate it entirely or anything like that. Did I frequently feel like my time was being disrespected in a way I found contemptuous? Yeah, it’s hard to deny that I did indeed feel that way. However, this game’s strong points are still *so* strong that I think it’s worth checking it out regardless. Even beyond how I feel, the number of friends/partners whom I’ve talked to at this length about the game who had a response amounting to “yeah, I really can’t disagree with any of your issues with the game. I just didn’t dislike my time with it as much as you seem to” makes me that much more confident that my level of disdain for this kind of game design is far from universal. Even if I think that iSaT is a *very* flawed experience, it’s still one with some very brightly shining spots of brilliance that people seem to really love, and you very well might do as well.

I’m not particularly into competitive games, and I’m certainly not very into competitive puzzle games. However, watching some oooold Giant Bomb videos where they played this together just made it look so interesting and fun that I just had to try it out myself. It was a little more annoying to find than I would’ve liked it to be, but once I got a way to play it, I was off to the races. I ended up playing through the story mode twice, once on easy with the Ninja, and then on normal with the Shaman. I actually didn’t even realize the game defaulted to easy mode until I got to the end of the credits and saw “try normal mode!” presented to me XD. My two playthroughs took me 1 and 3 hours respectively, but frankly normal mode was so hard that I don’t dare try hard mode (let alone the even more difficult expert mode <w>;; ).

Tetris Battle Gaiden *does* have a narrative of sorts to its single player mode. You pick one of the game’s eight characters, and you get a little splash screen telling you about why they’re embarking on a quest to face this dragon. However, in order to face the dragon, they’ll need to defeat the other seven rivals looking for it too! It’s a collection of very silly premises, and they fit the silly tone of the game very well (even if a fair few of them like Aladdin or Shaman are hardly politically correct character designs ^^; ).

This is a 16-bit puzzle game, though. Story don’t particularly matter in these, and especially not for a block dropping game like Tetris. Battle Tetris Gaiden, however, is no typical competitive Tetris, and that’s what makes it so fun~. For starters, rather than totally normal tetronimos, every however many pieces (you can change how often in the options menu) you get a piece with a bit of magic in it. Plonking the magic-having piece into your board and clearing it in a line will bank it for use in your magic bar, and each of the eight characters has four different spells they can cast for the increasing amounts of magic (and how much magic you’ll need can also be adjusted in the options menu).

Each character has four completely different spells to the others, however, and while the game may not be the most thoroughly balanced product in the world, there’s a good mix of power between the characters that lead them to be best played in different ways and different ways of aggression. Shaman, for example, my favorite one to play against the AI, has no level 4 spell of his own and simply casts a random other character’s level 4 spell (which is very rarely useful). Instead, the best path forward is confusing your opponent by casting the level 2 spell, which makes their pieces spin uncontrollably, and then go for a killing blow with his level 3 curse spell which makes trash lines come up on the bottom of their board extra fast. Looking for the character that fits your playstyle the best is great fun just like it is in any fighting game, and with spells range from completely copying your opponent’s board to blasting away 3 adjacent vertical lines of your own board with a giant laser, finding the character that fits you the best is all part of the fun here too x3

Those magic spells seem pretty great right? Maybe even overpowered? That’s the beauty of the last clever twist that Battle Gaiden adds to the competitive Tetris formula. Rather than each player having their own respective next piece coming to their board, the two of you *share* a conveyor belt of incoming pieces. Because you’re both drawing from this same pool (and can’t save pieces for emergencies either) where you can see 3 pieces ahead of where you are now, this becomes a game all about multitasking your opponent to death. You’re looking for the best places to put your next piece on your board, the best chance to use your next magic between both boards, and you’re trying to deny your opponent as much magic as possible in the meanwhile. It makes for great, frantic fun that’s a really unmatched experience as far as competitive puzzle games go.

The aesthetics of the game are super fun and charming too. Music isn’t my favorite Tetris music ever, but the various characters all have fun themes which you can pick which one in particular you’d like to have playing all the time via the options menu (which I bring up a lot because it’s really good for a game of this era, puzzle game or no!). Characters are silly and expressive in their animations, and the playing field is always very clear as to what’s going on, so there’s no experimentation or guesswork needed beyond just confirming what each player’s magic powers do.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It’s a real shame that this game never left Japan back in the day, because it’s easily one of the best Tetris games ever released. Even in the modern days of super fun Puyo Puyo Tetris and scads of other falling block competitive puzzle games, nothing can really compare to just how well put together the easy to learn, tough to master experience of Tetris Battle Gaiden is. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, especially competitive ones, at all, then you’re doing yourself a huge disservice by sleeping on this one!

Wanting some normal Tetris to unwind and destress from the high-octane adrenaline rush of Tetris Battle Gaiden, I ended up picking up this version of Tetris too at the recommendation of a friend. All I really wanted was just some normal Tetris on my Super Famicom, so I was surprised and intrigued by the two other modes, Macialiss and Sparkliss. It’s kinda hard to call a Tetris game that’s primarily single player “beaten”, but Sparkliss does have a 100 stage puzzle mode that I finished, so I figured I may as well call it beaten and write a review for it even if my days of puttering about and spending time with the normal Tetris mode are far from over. It took me about 8 or so hours to complete Sparkliss’s puzzle mode (I managed to do 95 of them myself while looking up the last 5 <w> ), and then I spent another handful of hours messing around with the other two modes.

Even in the very fun puzzle mode, there’s no story to speak of in a Tetris game like this, so I’ll just get straight to the gameplay parts~. First, there’s normal old Tetris. There’s an endless mode along with a “standard” mode of a good few dozen stages where you’re fighting to make 25 lines in each level while also not getting doomed by the slowly increasing speed or the slowly increasing amounts of trash at the bottom of the screen. Very similarly, you’ve got Magicaliss, which is much like the normal Tetris mode but with a twist. Each rotation of the tetronimo changes its color between red, green, and blue, and making a complete line of one color removes all pieces of that color. Additionally, you’ll also get neutral black blocks falling too, and they’ll only be made colorful by being adjacent to a matched colorful line (they also might not even be tetronimos!). Magicaliss is a neat idea, but it didn’t super grab me, and it’s easily the mode I played the least of.

The Sparkliss mode that has the puzzles is a very interesting and different experience from the other two modes, however. In Sparkliss, just matching a line of blocks doesn’t actually clear anything. Instead, your pieces will very frequently have bombs in them, and what completing a line actually does is send a circuit through it that’ll detonate any bombs in that line. These explosions are then made even more powerful by any other simultaneously completed lines (even already completed lines of neutral blocks further below) or chains created by explosions. Much like the Rensa mode that some Tetris games (like Tetris Battle Gaiden) have, any blocks above an explosion will fall with gravity, so really whacky and powerful chains are possible if you’re crafty enough.

The normal mode for Sparkliss did my head in a bit too much with just how different it was, but the puzzle mode is what got me super hooked x3. In the puzzle mode, there are 100 stages of preset boards, and you have a certain number of particular pieces to use to completely clear the board by the time you’ve set the last piece. It’s simple enough once you get a handle on the rules, but a lot of these puzzles are truly devious, and there were one or two I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten without looking up no matter how long I attempted them <w>;;. It really scratched my retro puzzle game itch, though, so I had a ton of fun with it! So much fun that I played it for 8 hours straight until I was finished! XD

The aesthetics of the game are nice, but it is just Tetris at the end of the day. The different backgrounds, colors, and songs for each mode are neat, but there’s really only so much you can talk about the visuals for in a Tetris game. The music, at least, may not be my favorite in terms of tracks to Tetris to, but it’s certainly varied enough that I’ll still find myself humming it after a play session x3

Verdict: Recommended. While there’s nothing that’ll blow your socks off like a Tetris Battle Gaiden would, this is still a really cool and clever version of Tetris that’s well worth looking into if you’re a fan of falling block puzzle games. If you’re a big puzzle game fan like me, the Sparkliss mode is loads of fun, but if you’re just looking for something a bit more simple to pass the time, then you can’t go wrong with a solidly built and well varied version of Tetris like this~.