|
STORY OF EARTH AND STAR
|
By Gardes Astale
|
|
This game is horrible.
|
|
PRESENTATION
|
 
|
Graphics
The towns & dungeons are all Mac & Blue, the overworld uses the tileset from Lufia 2, there are some RTP characters, and
they're all squeezed into the most cramped fucking maps I've seen for ages. Most are only slightly bigger than the screen and
have approx. two (2) geographical features surrounded by so many trees/walls/identical houses with no door/impassable snowdrifts
that you're restricted to 2-tile-wide corridors for movement a good deal of the time. Does this make navigating towns
annoying? No, because there's only ever one place to go anyway. Does it make it harder to avoid monsters? No, because they
move v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y. Does it make the game look FUCKING HORRIBLE? Yes!
Most NPCs are constantly walking on the spot, which makes it look like they're dancing. The 'shooting star', which I think it
meant to be poignant, comes off looking like a flying "KA-POW!" sound effect from Batman. The facesets are from a bunch of
different games, don't match up with each other, and look nothing like the characters. This game is horrible.
Music & Sound Effects
Ever considered purchasing the Lunar 2 soundtrack? Good news! Just download Story of the Earth and Star, which contains every
song from Lunar 2! It doesn't even use them right, either, since happy happy music plays throughout most of the dramatic
scenes, and the boss battles change to the boss theme *after the first turn*, not *when the combat actually starts*.
Speaking of combat, for most of the cutscene fights, the screen goes black and we hear BIFF SLASH ARGH ZONK. I don't know if it deserves any extra points for Sound Effects, since their only purpose is to save Gardes the trouble of animating the fights. Then again, how the fuck would they
fight each other in such cramped spaces? Makes the trailer fight from Kill Bill 2 look positively roomy. This game is horrible.
Originality
There are some edits of the characters lying down, as well as custom monsters made from charsets, meaning the most powerful
warrior on the planet is smaller than a mouse when you actually fight them. There are also a lot of Final Fantasy 6 monsters.
This game is horrible
Extra stuff
Me & Slinky spent about an hour laughing at the dialogue over AIM. Then I played it for another three hours and it stopped
being funny. This game is horrible.
|
|
STORYLINE & CHARACTERS
|
|
Storyline
OH JESUS CHRIST I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS.
"Long, long time ago lived two different people in this time and space. Born in the green earth and by the blue ocean is
the people of the Earth. A place where the Natural Forces dwells. Up within the sky, unreachable by the hands of Earth lies
the kingdom with special gifts". This goes on for another ten paragraphs about people living on a star, and then we're
told that it's "Dedicated to the fans of Role Playing Game". Really, after an introduction like that, how can it
possibly go wrong?
We then join a hero, called Hero, who is being menaced by a bunch of thugs with looping animation that makes it look like
they're dancing. They're also each individually called "Bad Guys". Hero dispatches them with his trusty legendary
sword, and breaks into the HQ of an evil organisation called either "Shadow Wing", "Wing Shadow" or "Shadow Wings" depending
on nothing. Who are they, and what do they want? Luckily, Hero clues us in! "In case you didnt know, they are a bunch of
guys who threaten people". This turns out to be pretty accurate, since, throughout the course of the game, they don't
actually *do* anything bad, but, boy, do they threaten like a motherfucker! Hero beats up their leader, and is offered
all the treasures of the world if he joins them. Hero's response? "The only treasure shadow wing ever gets is by stealing
and if not then by robbing innocent people". Good on him, I say! Then it abruptly ends and we find out that this was just a story being read by the *actual* hero before he
goes to bed.
This actual Hero, who you get the enter a name for - I called him "McNugget" - is a prince who will one day inherit the
kingdom, and has a bodyguard / mentor / best friend / fencing teacher who I called "Jesus". McNugget is asked to go hunting,
which he doesn't want to do, because HE IS REBELLIOUS! He
convinces Jesus to leave the castle with him to go on an adventure, just like in his Adventure Book! McNugget and Jesus then
go through a secret passage which is apparently inside a bucket, fight some slime in the sewers which connect to the bucket
by a regular-sized door, and wind up coming out of a door which is right on the front of the castle. Secret passages tend to be more discrete than that. They reach town, where McNugget encounters a helpless young female mage (Judge
Judy) and her brother (Van Helsing). He 'has a feeling' he'll see them again, which is the sort of foreshadowing we don't
need since we just entered the characters' damn names. After being in town about thirty seconds, they go back to the castle,
where McNugget finds out he is going to be engaged to the princess of a neighbouring kingdom! "I'm 18 but their forcing me
to do something I don't like" thinks poor McNugget. His plan? Escape. Again. Through the bucket.
Yes, he goes on an adventure. Yes, he meets up with Judge Judy and Van Helsing again. They go on another adventure. Judge
Judy is poisoned by a dragon, so they go on another adventure to find a cure. Where is the cure? "A store in town". Wow, talk
about anti-climactic. But, disaster! It's been bought already by a mysterious young woman, Fuckface, and her bodyguard,
Moopie. McNugget falls for Fuckface immediately, so, of course, I figured she's the princess he's engaged to, fleeing her
castle for the same reason. I didn't get to the part of the game where this is revealed, but I did look at the end sequence,
and I was right. By the way, this review contains spoilers.
Princess Fuckface then tells us a story which we already knew because we saw the intro, then there's a maze and a desert and
a shooting star and Shadow Wing are actually real and WHY FUCKING BOTHER? This game is horrible.
Characters
McNugget is streetwise and adventurous. We know this because we get told, as it would be impossible to figure it out from his
behaviour. Jesus is one of those guys with a sword who says "..." all the time. Judge Judy is a helpless female mage who
casts healing spells, but can't fight or defend herself, because that's what girls do! How did they ever get the vote? I
don't know! Moopie is shitty and only used in a few battles. Van Helsing fights with his fists, which means he's exactly
the same as Jesus, only with a different attack animation and shorter hair. Fuckface is identical to Judge Judy, only she has
BOOK SMARTS including - and I am not making this up - the knowledge that it usually doesn't rain in deserts. These are a
counterpart to McNugget's STREET SMARTS, and together they help each other blah blah I wish they would all die. This game is
horrible.
Cut Scenes
OH CHRIST THEY'RE LONG. It's all talking, and, as you should have gathered by now, the dialogue is like something from
Babelfish. They talk about love, life, adventure and how dragons "are indeed extinct, but we saw one recently". They
have nothing new, interesting or coherent to say about any of these subjects, but, fuck, these are some long cutscenes. This
game is horrible.
Originality
"Based on the story of the Lunar Series". But, really, it's so fucking generic that it didn't need to be based on anything. This game is horrible.
Script
"As you can see this is my room. My room is in a castle"
"Your blughing"
"WE WILL MEET a AGAIN!"
"We are the trio best looking man in town."
"Do you think you got the guts to take me on one on one? Do you, castle freak?"
"It is not wise as someone might saw us."
"I thoght you were a tall and strong man but your just a kid"
"I guess I have you aquaintances today. I really enjoy it too."
"The doctor is oled but he can cure anything"
And my favourite:
"We are only going because it is dad's order!?!?"
"............"
"Oh, the silence answer again!"
I used the same number of periods, too. This game is horrible.
|
|
GAMEPLAY
|
|
Event Programming
No, nothing bugs. No, there's nothing to bug, since it's so simplistic and linear. Wanna know how linear? We get told "I don't need to go here" if you try to go anywhere except where Jesus / Fuckface tells you. If there's no exploration, why is there an overworld? Because other games have them, I guess. I'll give some credit for having
Enter Hero Name working, but that's just a copied RTP.EXE file rather than event work. This game is horrible.
Fun Factor
You probably laughed at the dialogue. That's all the fun you can get out of this, and it's only funny at the start of the
game - a few hours later and you'll... probably quit, I guess. Why the fuck are you playing this after I warned you that this
game is horrible?
Combat
See the "AI" button? Press that and you'll win. You have a ridiculously powerful skill which can kill almost any enemy in one
hit, and costs a whopping 5MP, of about 40 at low levels - I never had to use an MP-restoring item once in the entire game.
Once it's outlived its usefulness, your regular attack will be at least twice as powerful, and every boss can be taken down
with about 5 hits. You do need to heal pretty often, but since the item which heals all your party members costs 50GP, it's
not like that's a problem, especially since chests routinely contain 2000 - 5000 GP. YES, YOU CAN BUY 99 OF THE ITEM WHICH
HEALS A TON OF HP TO YOUR ENTIRE PARTY AFTER OPENING ONE CHEST. Balance? Who needs that? This game is horrible.
Dungeons
Lots of small corridors and very slow monsters. It's like an Olympic athlete being pursued by shambling zombies, but there are only
five zombies and they disappear when you go through the nearest door. Chests appear in clumps of 2, and the dungeons are
massively linear, so you end up with a mighty fuckload of treasure and cash, even if the only thing you bother fighting is
the boss. "But wouldn't that leave you really underpowered?" No, because all the bosses are unbelievably easy. Monster
sprites have no relationship to the monster, so if you touch a golem, you'll probably fight some mice and a bird. This game is horrible.
Puzzles & Minigames
None. It's the same fucking dungeon-town-dungeon process over and over. This game is horrible.
|
|
OVERALL
|
|
|
I may have dropped a few subtle hints that maybe this isn't as good as Knights of the Old Republic.
|
|
|
