Secret of the Stars

"The secret is how people actually enjoy this game"

In an earlier review, I said that Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger were my first role playing games. I take that back. This was my first role playing game. I was about eight when I first played it, and I really enjoyed it immensely. The battle system was all new to me. The idea of actually not controlling your characters directly was amazing. And I really hadn't seen graphics much better than Donkey Kong Country, so they didn't matter to me. I thought this game was really, really good.
Skip five or six years. I've played through many good role playing games, such as Final Fantasy IV, Chrono Trigger, Ogre Battle 64, Final Fantasy VII, and many other great games. I know what's good and what's bad in one. I recall my immense enjoyment of Secret of the Stars, so I go out of my way to find it. I did so. After playing about ten minutes of it, I turned it off. It was boring, it looked really bad, and I was generally disappointed by the game. It was probably because it was my first experience into the realm of role playing games, but five years later, I see no reason why I would've enjoyed this game so much.

The Graphics in Secret of the Stars are that of classics and clunkers from the past, such as Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV, and Dragon Warrior. Back in the day of games such as these, this kind of Graphics would have been perfectly acceptable. However, this was 1995. In fact, I think the game was released the same month as Chrono Trigger. And let me tell you something: Chrono Trigger, and most other late day Super Nintendo games, had Graphics infinitely superior to these. This is the Graphics caliber of a regular Nintendo. But this wasn't released on the regular Nintendo, it was released on the Super Nintendo, which was capable of much more. To put it simply, this game has VERY bad Graphics.

As with the Graphics, this video game, if you could call it that, has some terrible Music and Sound Effects. As compared to Final Fantasy IV, a game released four years back, this game had ear screeching Music and Sound Effects. As compared to Dragon Warrior, a game nearly a decade older than this game, they're about on par in sound quality. That isn't good. Now, compared to the actual MUSIC of Dragon Warrior, we're talking terrible stuff. You will IMMEDIATELY tire of the music in this game. The songs are TERRIBLY annoying, and the memories of listening to the song twenty minutes ago for this review torment me right now, while listening to something actually good. Trust me, you will not want to listen to the music in this game. Turn on something decent.

The Story in this game? Don't make me laugh. This game has a story to span the eons... as one of the worst stories in a late Super Nintendo RPG of all time. You play as a character (who has no actual name, as a matter of fact. You name him.) who has been taken in by ''Mrs. Sonya'' (sounds like somebody out of my brother's kiddy games!) since his parents died. Your character wishes to become an ''Aqutallion Warrior'', just like your late father. You go to the nearby town of Likado (amazingly, you and Mrs. Sonya live in the country, but there are three people outside your house!) to gain help. A ''Kustera Warrior'' tells you that you must find the Crest that your father once, hidden somewhere in the mountains, and use it to defeat Homncruise and his cronies, or else certain destruction will come to the world. This actually sounds like it has some real potential to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the plot in the game keeps going on that level, with absolutely nothing in the category of plot development. Ouch. Boredom reigns supreme in this category. I also have to note the fact that EVERY SINGLE WORD in the entire game is in caps. It's not good for the eyes, and it strays me away from paying attention to dialogue, as well.

Well, the game has bad background points, such as bad plot, Graphics, and Sound Effects. But if a game is fun to play through, that completely runs over the bad presentation of the game. Well, sadly to say, Secret of the Stars is definitely NOT a fun game to play through. Bear with me here. It IS a Role Playing Game, and you DO have large parties to control. However, you have absolutely NO innovation. You can use the Fight command, you can use Magic, you can guard, and you can use items. You can also run from battles. And that's about it. It's all very, very simple. In fact, it's so obvious to what moves you are going to make, that you have an ''auto'' command where the computer chooses what moves you make. Usually, the ''auto'' commands in games are really crappy choices. Here, though, it actually makes some sense on its choices. That's only because the choices are so blatant, though. I have to give the game points for the idea of controlling two parties at once... but that's about it.

The game isn't even that hard. All of the challenge in this game comes from looking around like an idiot for where to go. This is usually because the game gives you no clues on where to go next, or it is because you weren't paying attention to the text anyway, because it hurts one's eyes so much with its caps. While you are wandering around to find where to go, you will get into so many random battles that you probably will run out of items, and die. It doesn't help that you can't save on the world map-only in towns. For emulator players, thank the holy Gods for Save State.

Well, this game really doesn't have much play value anyway, so there really isn't any Replay Value in this game. Not only will you probably cease to finish the game in the first place, you have no motivation to play it through the entire way, whether to understand the story more, or to enjoy the... ''fun'' battles in the game. No Replay Value here, folks.

OVERALL SCORES
Graphics: 2/10
Sound: 2/10
Story: 6/20
Game Play: 10/30
Challenge: 4/15
Replay Value: 2/15
OVERALL: 26/100, 26%, 3/10

This game is the absolute worst game I have ever played. It's not fun to sit through. It is absolutely annoying to look at. It has a terrible presentation. There is absolutely no saving grace to this game that may, in fact, convince you to actually play the game all the way through. Do not get this game, for your sake.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/01, Updated 06/18/01