Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth

"Easily dismissed at first glance, but a true gem"

After seeing two reviews go up that have obviously been from people who spent 2 hours or so on the game, and failed to read the instruction manual, I decided to write this up.
Admittedly at first I was thrown off as well: you have to know how the system works in this game to have success.

Gameplay: 10

Having 7 characters in battle is a good thing. It allows for a much greater variation in battle. The menus can be turned off, so it does not ask for confirmation constantly.
The RAP system is how battle goes: each activity in battle
takes away a certain amount of a meter you get, such as moving one square, attacking, using an item, or casting a spell. Your next turn is then based on how much you used, so if you only move on square in a turn, the next turn for that character will be soon. You can also just stand still, and manually adjust how much of the RAP meter you want to expend, giving great control over when your characters will proceed.
The magic system is done with confeigms. These are coins that any character can equip( some characters can equip more coins than others ) that cast spells. Their effectiveness is based both on the coin's individual statistics, and the magic power of the user. The coins can raise in level using seals, and seals also adjust statistics. Understanding the complex system of seals and engraving the confeigms will allow one to create very powerful confeigms even early in the game, and change the tide of the battles.
The battles themselves are admittedly very hard. You are often outnumbered by 2:1 odds, and given the territorial disadvantage. There are, however, ways to get around this once you understand the game. You can deal with the challenge and not build up coins/characters, and enjoy a very tactically satisfying and challenging game. Any given map also has a level cap on it, so that you can just level well above the enemy and easily kill them. Or use high level confeigms, giving one powerful one to each character, and life will be good.

Music : 7

The low part of the game, well not really low, just as low as it gets. There are occasionally nice musical scores during battle, one in particular that is good. None of the other ones really stand out, and while not bad, are nothing amazing like Final fantasy music or something.

Story : 10

You have to take some time to get into the characters, but there is some great development with characters, and they are an integral part of the story line. The unique characters that you obtain as it progresses depend on the decisions that you make, and there are dozens of possibilities as to what kind of group you will end up with. Also many endings to enjoy later on.

Replay value: 9

It really depends on how much you want to see the other endings, and what characters you can obtain. Once more is discovered on the game, we will see many different routes for markedly different characters. However, it does take a bit of time to develop characters, so that may not be for everyone.

Rent or buy? Buy: You need time to see how good the game is. At first..it will just suck, really. I hated it when I first started. Once I understood the system though..wow it was a great game with a lot of avenues to enjoy. If you like tactics games like Shining Force, FF tactics and Tactics Ogre, you will like this game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/01, Updated 12/29/01