Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth

"Slow start, big finish."

The game starts off slow and it is extremely difficult in the beginning. However, after taking the time to read the tutorial things got much easier. The first two battles of the game are relatively easy compared to the third battle. That is if you take the same approach to this game as if it was FFT.
The key to this game would have to be the sessions and the coins. If you manage to get yourself some high lvl coins in the beginning you can breeze through many of the early battles, however, they are still difficult if you rush. The brighter side of things is the battles become easier as the game progresses. In the beginning it would take about 2 to 3 hours between battles to lvl up your characters so you don't get obliterated. But in later battles the amount of time leveling up between battles gets much shorter.

The battles usually consists of 12 to 16 enemies and 7 friendly units. It may look overwhelming at first but the good news is they do not attack you all at once. They usually stay in groups of 5 or 6. I think the developers intentionally did this to soften the difficulty. So you can plan your attack on groups without fear that the other enemies will rush you from behind.

The game itself has many little features that makes it good. There is a House of Sessions in the options that will keep you busy for many hours, beating all 40 lvls will get you something very useful (VERY USEFUL!). The deity system is pretty much like job system on other rpgs. I think it is better because of the relationship between deities, best explained in the tutorial so I will not go into that. There are no random battles however there are Tower of Trials all around the world map which you can use to increase levels and get better armor, skills, coins, and weapons. If you don't use the tower, the game becomes near impossible. Another great feature are the engravings you have to do on coins. The idea is to engrave special seals onto coins (coins cast spells) to increase its stats. Special combinations will increase the lvl of your coins. Tip: save often when engraving because dual engraving coins might change the coin to a lower lvl coin. I spent much time engraving my coins. With a good set of coins and powerful mages, battles become almost too easy. Sometimes you can kill all the enemies with 2 mages.

The battle menu seemed relatively simple. That is until I actually tried to do some actions. There were waaaay to many confirmation questions. That almost ruined the game for me until I turned it off in the options after the first battle. Note: you really must turn it off, otherwise you'll pull out your hair (Turn off NAVIGATION in Options:settings).

The game loses points in the music. It's very repetitive and get boring. I suggest turning on the stereo and muting the game.

The best aspect going for this game is the story in my opinion. However you will need to play much of the game before the story becomes apparent. There are also good twist and turns that you do not expect later on in the game. The game is pretty much linear aside from all the things to do between fights. Also there are multiple endings depending on how you answer game questions and also which character you have in your party at the end.

If you can get past the first chapter, this game becomes very good.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/01, Updated 12/29/01