Secret of the Stars

"One big joke."

I think I do not exaggerate when I say that this is one of the cheapest, most laughable and by far (at least for me) the lamest, laziest and most insulting rpg attempt ever made. Ten years ago, Secret of The Stars would have been a mildly interesting alternative, and I mean ten years before its release date, 1995 (do the math).

It is very simple, with Secret of The Starts Tecmo has surpassed the ``too crappy to be true`` category, and of course I am not talking about the graphics only, that is always the last thing in importance for me, and there are worst looking rpgs in the Snes.

I have heard that the original Japanese version (called Aqutallion) has a ton of changes, better dialogue, more sprites and some other improvements, but I don`t know what to think, this game is so cheap and pointless, it should never had existed in the first place.

Story 1/10:
Words like simple, idiotic, vacuous or unoriginal doesn`t even begin to describe how unbelievably dull and lame the ``story`` is. But wait a second, what story?. Literally, nothing happens for almost the entire game.

Sometimes there are completely irrelevant and utterly simplistic events (find this, kill this evil guy who threatens our village, etc), but Tecmo did`t move a finger to make them look better than they are, and they are pathetic. The dialogue for example, it is so limited that every time someone opens his mouth you`ll wonder what is the difference between a Neanderthal and one of this game`s characters.

In short, it is all about wandering around horrible looking places where nothing remotely important ever happens, meeting characters that are as deep as a sack of potatoes and reading dialogue lines that are so offensively cheap and simplistic that make President Bush`s speeches seem like Shakespeare.

What!?, do you still want to know something about the ``plot``?, well, what about this: the main boss is called Homncruse, and his minions Bad Bad, Bingo, Bad Bunny... for god`s sake give me break!, where are Ronald McDonald and the Cookie Monster then?, yesh.

Graphics 3/10:
The expression ``dated as hell`` doesn`t even begin to describe this title`s graphics. At the beginning this looks like some kid of joke, but no, it isn`t.

It is true that there is a couple of games out there such as the ineffable Brandish whose graphics are at par with this one, or an ultra obscure and odd Snes rpg called Burai: Hachigyoku No Yuushi Densetsu (with almost twice as much megabytes it looks a lot worse than this one and it is probably the most visually dated video game of all time), not an excuse for me anyway.

Sometimes it is hard to figure out what in the world that bunch of pixels on the screen are, for example in the first mountain you`ll wonder: ``that green thing over those white rocks (white rocks?)...is that mucus?, and why is the water green here?``. I am not completely sure about it, but I would say it`s vegetation, and about the green water, well, I don`t even want to think about that.

The battle graphics are a mixed bag though, battle backgrounds aside, for a 1995 Snes rpg they are as bad as Wayans Brother`s movie (which means bad beyond words as well as mind numbing), the enemy sprites are so-so and usually very stupid (we have to fight against football players, mobsters...why go on right?, and keep in mind that the game isn`t pretending to be satirical or anything), as I was saying, the enemies are ridiculous and completely out of place, including you party members of course, the first girl who joins you for example, she looks like an obnoxious kindergarten brat, ok, now imagine that obnoxious little girl wielding a sword that looks like a horse enema... yeah it is as gross as it sounds.

The battle backgrounds on the other hand are quite good, nothing specially remarkable but often pretty nice, and so much better than the rest of the graphics that they seem out of place, everything in this game is out of place. Whatever, the visual aspect is still sub par.

Music 5/10:
It`s okay, by far the game`s greatest feature, and there is a couple of pretty nice themes, the boss theme for example, which I have to admit that, if a bit short and repetitive, sounds cool and catchy.

Gameplay 3/10:
Extremely classic, which is a good thing, but also painfully tedious, slow and boring, which is a terrible thing.

The combat system is Dragon Quest-esque only that slow and boring as hell. It is passable due to the auto-fight option though, were it not for that the game would be nearly unplayable (like the game isn`t enough already).

Something I find interesting is the Swap option, because we have two parties to build up and switch through the game (the only interesting idea in the whole game). However, with a character development and interaction as deep and involving, this ends up being horribly annoying very quickly, and we have to build up both ``teams``. Now tell me something, if there`s no way to stand the main character and his dull companions, why would you want to deal with you partner`s?.

The menus and character customization are slightly better than the average menu screen of a Nes rpg, but they are still horrendously slow and tiring.

The lack of saving points is also exasperating, for example, it takes almost an hour and a half to get to the first one, and as far as I have seen we can only save while in towns. This is crazy, there is no way to endure this medieval torture for more than five minutes and the guys from Tecmo expect us to save every tow hours?!.

Overall:
To summarise, there is a word that describes this game like no other, and that word is ``insult``, Secret of The Stars is not dated or misunderstood, and it is not for hardcore rpg fans only, it is rubbish, plain and simple, and for a 1995 title it is much more than rubbish, but as we are not permitted to swear here, that is as much as I can say.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05