Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth

"A Really Poor Execution of a Good Strategic RPG Game"

MaxFive had a really good idea for a strategical RPG game, but it was executed very horribly.

Gameplay - 4/10
The style of it is very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. For those who haven't played it, it's a type of game where the only significant player interactions are when you are either organizing your characters' equipment and abilities, or when you are in battle. Unfortunately, the ''flow'' in Hoshigami is very slow, and it is further plagued by very long load times. The equipment and ability menus are very cluttered and it can get confusing at times, such as trying to figure out how many swords of a particular type you have.

The battle system is much worse; the game flow just isn't smooth at all. Not being able to turn off Navigation Messages during battle means that you'll be pressing alot more buttons just to having a single character move, attack, and end its turn. What's more is that even after turning the messages off there are still alot of user prompts just for ending the turn. The Ready for Action (RAP) system is an original idea (as far as I know), but its implementation in this game is very horrible. Going over the RAP limit (which means your character will have to wait longer before its turn comes up again) with physical attacks is easy enough already, but any other action requires the bar to remain under the limit. This means casting spells or using items will severely limit your ability to move to your intended target, since even moving consumes alot of RAP points. While the idea of an Attack Session (a situation when you can knock your enemy into the path of your own teammates to do extra damage) is cool, trying to set it up while the remaining enemies (which usually outnumber your troops 2:1) slaughter you is really uncool.

There are alot of small things in this game that detract from the overall gameplay as well. The three that annoy me the most are:
1. After you exceed the RAP limit, the game still shows you the character's entire menu selection, instead of automatically ending your turn and allowing you to quickly determine the character's standby mode.
2. After a character from the story joins your party there is absolutely no more dialogue from that character. No battle dialogue, and no more involvement in the story, except in some cases their presence can trigger other story characters into joining your party.
3. The only way to gain experience (apart from story battles) is through the Tower of Trials, and it takes several hours to finish each one. Add to that the slow nature of the battle system and you'll see why only the smallest fraction of gamers would even bother playing it.

Story - 6/10
This kind of story is quite overused, but a story is still a story. A young mercenary and his middle-aged mercenary friend (who is more like a mentor at times) accept a proposition from the duke to help defend his nation, and while at it they discover a more evil entity (and a more sinister plot) at hand, yada, yada, yada. The story also undergoes slight variations along the way, based on your own decisions, which also ultimately determine the ending that you will get.

Graphics - 4/10
I'm one of those people who don't really get much ''oohs'' and ''ahhs'' from graphics, so my opinion on it is usually more lenient than other peoples', but this game actually makes my eyes open. The graphics here are very low quality, even lower than some 16-bit games. The map textures used for battles look like they have been rushed. There's hardly any animated water textures for wet floor panels, and floor and wall textures (like the bricks in the Tower of Trial) don't look like very good at all. The game's Coinfeigms, or magic effects are extremely horrible here as well! The PlayStation is capable of handing more complex graphical art than just a few pieces of ''shiny'' sprites! Apart from that, nothing else to say here, maybe except to change the game's font into something that's easier to read. Also in battle, maybe if the menus could ''scroll'' or ''morph'' into view, instead of simply appearing in front of you (reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics), it would make the game feel a bit smoother.

Music and Sound - 2/10
What is this!? While I have to admit that the main theme is very nice to listen to, the battle music is stupendously horrible! I remember hearing only about 2 or 3 battle themes, and they all sound like annoying elevator music! It doesn't have any ''feel'' of battle or combat at all. Something more ''orchestrial'' here would be nice, like Back Fire from the FF Tactics Soundtrack for the large-scale battles, and even the training theme from Tactics Ogre is a better selection for the Tower of Trials.

Replayability - 1/10
There are multiple endings to this story, but I only had the patience to view one of them. After that, I just didn't find myself wanting to play this game anymore. The bad gameplay and elevator music just take away the fun in this game.

To buy or to rent? - Rent
For the majority, definitely rent the game first. It's only $5 down the drain if you find that it's a really bad tryout, but a better idea would be to avoid this game entirely. The big number of small ''errors'' (is that an oxymoron?) make it bad enough already.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/02, Updated 06/12/02