http://www.stelladeus.jp/
Finished Pinegrow's newest SRPG Stelladeus a few days ago but considering how much I want to say about it I've been too lazy to actually sit down and write until now.
Thanks to Jackfrost's sleuthing we know that Pinegrow was once Max Five who made a universally hated SRPG called "Hoshigami". Yet now, under the supervision of Atlus they seem to have been reborn as a really good development team. Though Hoshigami is touted by many as the worst SRPG of the 32-bit generation, I'd say Stelladeus is quite possibly the best SRPG of this generation. So in other words, they improved.
Ok so I guess first I will do a quick overview concerning the big question of "Why is it so good?". Ranked in order of goodness IMO:
#1 The writing
#2 The voice acting
#3 The character designs
#4 The music
#5 The story
#6 The gameplay
And just to get it out of the way. The only thing negative I'll say about the game is that the battles are a little slow. Slower than TO/FFT but were not talking about FM length. The longest battles in Stelladeus are maybe 20 mins. A usual battle is about 5-10 mins I think.
Also, unlike Hoshigami, there is no insanly difficult map setups (archers all on cliffs while you move upwards and die). The game is pretty standard difficult-wise.
So now I'll go into more detail about each section:
#1 The writing:
The writer of this game is a famous Japanese fantasy novelist who wrote The Record of Lodoss War novels which the well known anime TV & OAV are based off of. Going from that I expected a strong fantasy tale, but what I did not expect was such fine writing. This guy has a way with words. The story in Stelladeus contains a lot of philosophical arguments. The main character Sphida (or whatever you choose to name him) is a character that rather than trying to change minds through violence or power, uses facts and metaphors to create logical statements and try to argue why people's ideals are flawed. With a 3rd rate writer this would have failed IMO, but this guy is quite intelligent and makes very good statements that even convince the player. You may be asking yourself "Why would you need the lead character to convince you, the player, that he is right?"...Well the answer to that is the antagonist characters's reasoning are usually just as smart and there were quite a few times when I'd agree with an antagonist's line of thought, even if brutal, because it would be quite sound logically. So in the end I would just say that the writing is some of the finest I have seen in a game.
#2 The voice acting:
Usually I wouldn't put voice acting so high on my list. But I'll be frank: The voice director for this game should get much appriciation and hopefully a raise as he takes many familiar voice actors from the game/anime community and has them deliver incredible performances. Even the NPCs have extremely good acting which isn't usually the case. Something about the speed and way they portray emotions just hits the mark in this game and combined with the great writing makes a fairy strong impact on your overall game impression. Sadly I think the weakest voice actor is the lead character, but he's still ok just not really amazing like most of the others. Top mention goes to the voice actor of Seon (too lazy to look up cast/staff atm, maybe I'll fill in later), and Akio Ohtsuka (Solid Snake) gets a special mention as the lead antagonist Dignus.
#3 The character designs:
The character designs in the game are by the other art guy at Atlus for the Persona/SMTIII stuff who'se not Kaneko. Like the SMT and Persona series the designs are pretty crazy and very cool looking. The most credit I give the game comes in the form of body armor. Not only did he come up with really cool character designs, but everyone has very realistic armor considering their class. For instance the healers wear a mask and full body armor because they need a ton of protection (rather than the usual white mage in a cheap robe). The archers have a shield attached to one of their shoulders, thus protecting their face as they fire. Basically sleek + realistic = very good designs. Each character also has a good amount of high-res full screen art to use during the dialogue scenes and there is a good enough variety that the emotions of the character during a scene are portrayed well visually.
#4 The music:
Not too much to say here. As some people have noticed in the past. A game ost != how the music effects you in a game. Music can be used terribly in a game, or at other times wonderfully. Luckily this is the case of music being used very well. The music fits the scenes well and the battle music never gets boring. Overall one of my favorite soundtracks in a game this year.
#5 The story:
While the story isn't the most original endearing tale ever told in a game, it's pretty good. I'll give a brief overview of the intro text which sets up the tale.
"A while ago a white sea of nothingness began approaching the main continent of the world. Everything it passed over would disappear completely. People thought the end of the world was upon them and riots broke out everywhere. People were murdering each other, stealing, doing whatever as they were afraid of the end. One day a religious group stood up and proclaimed 'The sea of nothingness is God's will! Those who accept it without fear will be welcomed by God!' Suddenly within days the rioting and killing stopped as the religion spread. People lost their fear, but at the same time lost any hope for the future as they just waited and prayed for the 'peaceful end'. One day a man named Dignus brought up and army and attacked the main kingdom, he went into every land and commited genocides against the languid people declaring "for those who would not attempt to live, there is nothing but death". In one of the smaller villages an Alchemist is working daily to try to stop the 'sea of nothingness' from approaching, he lives with a young lad. One day Dignus's army approaches this village and the tale begins...".
So the story is the often used topic of relgion and it's place in the world. There is a good amount of politics like Tactics Ogre/FFT, but there is also more of a adventure party tale similar to a traditional rpg. It's a good mix IMO. The characters on all sides are fleshed out quite well and I really liked a good amount of them. Between the great art, top-notch writing, and really good voice acting the story and characters came to life before me.
#6 The gameplay. (this will be the longest, thus going last)
I seriously am not looking forward to typing all this >_< The gameplay system is decently complex and I'm gonna try to describe all the aspects.
Game structure goes like FFT/TO/FFTA (I heard Hoshigami was a FFT rip off, well Stelladeus is pretty much the same thing structure wise). There is a 2d map with dots, you go to the next red dot and then watch some story and then fight a battle and then more story then back to world map. On the world map you can access the shop which gets new items in as you advance in the game, the guild where you can take quests (some involve fighting, some involving bringing items, some involve correct responses), play the mini-games (lottery, fighting tournament, training) or perform alchemy. You can also upgrade your characters from the world map.
First I'll describe the battle system. It's based on a grid. The game runs on a AP system. Each turn you start with 100 AP and then as you do things the AP lowers. For instance moving forward may cost 20AP per square, or if I have a lot equipped and am heavy it will cost 25AP per square, or if it's water it'll cost 30AP per square, etc... Then attacking once for a swordsman may cost 25AP, while attacking once for a spearman costs 40AP. So the game is figuring out how to best use your AP. The game also has a move+attack option where when selecting "move" if you put it over an enemy within range your character will run at them and attack in 1 movement which IMO tends to have a higher chance of critical. Each character has skills which usually cost a lot of AP+MP and then there is the combo attack.
Combo attack is really awesome and a must for getting ahead in the game. Basically at the start every character can participate in 1 combo per battle. As you go along the number raises. When you select combo attack with a character, a range in yellow will appear. The secret is that the enemy has to be in your yellow range AND the yellow range of whoever else you want to include in the combo. This takes some getting used to as everyone's yellow range is in a different shape. But when you unleash a 6 person combo...O_O there goes even a boss
Also when you finish an enemy by combo you gain more money by a multiplier of the people involved. So for instance I found money a problem during the 1st half of the game when I wasn't using combos much. I'd get about 4000gold per battle. Then when I started doing 6 person combos as many times as I could per battle I'd end with 150000gold per battle. Not only that but there's a good chance you'll steal equipment off the enemy if you kill them with a combo attack. Thus combo is the key.
The there is the EZ skill. EZ skill is a skill that automatically affects anything within a yellow range around a character. When moving your cursor around the map, if you stick it over an enemy you'll see a yellow range and what EZ skill they have equipped. These can be negative (poison, stone, automatic shutdown if AP is below 50, attack down 20%) or positive (clear status, heal 10%, increase hit percentage 20%, heal MP %10). If you take advantage of the EZ system it will really help your battles.
The class system is very different from the TO/FFT sytsem. Every character is set in their default class. What happens is that when you upgrade you can buy skills for your character [attack/magic, support (attack + 20%, dodge + 20%, poisen block,etc..), and EZ skills] using SP points which are earned in battle when you attack or kill an enemy. You can also use SP points to just up any personal stat by 1. Anyhow when you find a class-up item for your class (Ie:Swordsman) and you meet the stat requirements you can go up a class and become 'Master swordsman'. This raises all your stats and opens up an new set of buyable skills. The final classes for all the main characters are hidden in subquests near the end and unlock really really good skills.
Ok, so what's left? There's a 100 floor dungeon that's selectable from the menu at any time. You can choose what floor to do out of all the one's you've done so far (basically if you've cleared 1-4, you can choose 1-5 next) and the floors are an arrangement of enemies who are all the level of the floor. So level 5 is all level 5 enemies. Once you beat a floor you leave back to the map screen, so it's just hopping in and doing 1 at a time. The purpose of this is an easy way to level and gain money whenever you need it.
Speaking of levels, the stat gains you achieve each level up are huge and basically if there is a 3+ level gap between 2 characters, the lower one won't be able to even touch the higher one and the higher one will kill the lower one in 1 hit. So you want to be around the same level as the enemies at all time or high above them if you don't want a challenge (though to get to a level high above them you would have to fight higher level enemies in subquests or the cave and those would be challenging so it's pretty balanced).
There is no permenant death. When you enter a battle your group always starts with full HP/MP. Even if it's a 2 part battle you'll start the 2nd part at full. So no healing or anything between areas.
Loading times are good.
I'll save the best for last. The alchemy is awesome. It's basically item synthesis/creation but damn if it's not the best one ever in an rpg. It's incredible easy/player-friendly, it's really balanced (you can make the best sword in the game from the first battle but it would cost so much money you really can't), and it's just so damn fun. Basically every item has a rank (1-18), when you attempt to put 2 together it will show you the resulting item and you can choose to go ahead or not. So you can test a whole bunch of stuff without actually losing the item or using money which is nice. Usually the right level 1 + level 1 item will make a level 2 item and two level 2 items will make a level 3 item, but it gets a little more complex later on. Still the idea is that even a level 18 sword can be made from several hundred level 1 items merged in this ladder towards the eventual end. It's really cool because as your leveling up you can take your money and put it towards buying materials and making things. Getting a weapon 4 levels ahead of the current story enemies makes your character godly for a bunch of battles, but slowly the curve will catch up and you'll start needing to save up and make new weapons. You can also make items which teach you support skills, or accesories which have various skills. Basically I spent a lot of hours making weapons in this game and I had a great time doing it, and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't bother with item creation in games as it's usually a pain in the ass.
So the difficulty for any map is basically determined by your character levels + weapon levels vs. enemy character levels and enemy weapon levels. So in the end if any map is too hard, you improve your strategy +/or create some weapons +/or do some leveling. Also remember that combo is your friend and helps you take out higher level enemies
Alright, so in the end Stelladeus is a serious SRPG done in a similar style to TO/FFT with a great story, good battle system, great upgrade/item creation system, and top notch presentation in terms of visuals & audio. Is it better than Matsuno's classics? Hmm, I'm not going to compare them because they, especially TO, have a special place in my gaming memories but since neither is on PS2 I'll say without doubt that Stelladeus is the serious SRPG to get this generation and after SMT/DDS/Stelladeus Atlus is on a roll with fantastic rpgs and I wouldn't be surprised if Atlus US bringsover Stelladeus down the road though I imagine they won't put "from the makers of Hoshigami!" on the package
Finished Pinegrow's newest SRPG Stelladeus a few days ago but considering how much I want to say about it I've been too lazy to actually sit down and write until now.
Thanks to Jackfrost's sleuthing we know that Pinegrow was once Max Five who made a universally hated SRPG called "Hoshigami". Yet now, under the supervision of Atlus they seem to have been reborn as a really good development team. Though Hoshigami is touted by many as the worst SRPG of the 32-bit generation, I'd say Stelladeus is quite possibly the best SRPG of this generation. So in other words, they improved.
Ok so I guess first I will do a quick overview concerning the big question of "Why is it so good?". Ranked in order of goodness IMO:
#1 The writing
#2 The voice acting
#3 The character designs
#4 The music
#5 The story
#6 The gameplay
And just to get it out of the way. The only thing negative I'll say about the game is that the battles are a little slow. Slower than TO/FFT but were not talking about FM length. The longest battles in Stelladeus are maybe 20 mins. A usual battle is about 5-10 mins I think.
Also, unlike Hoshigami, there is no insanly difficult map setups (archers all on cliffs while you move upwards and die). The game is pretty standard difficult-wise.
So now I'll go into more detail about each section:
#1 The writing:
The writer of this game is a famous Japanese fantasy novelist who wrote The Record of Lodoss War novels which the well known anime TV & OAV are based off of. Going from that I expected a strong fantasy tale, but what I did not expect was such fine writing. This guy has a way with words. The story in Stelladeus contains a lot of philosophical arguments. The main character Sphida (or whatever you choose to name him) is a character that rather than trying to change minds through violence or power, uses facts and metaphors to create logical statements and try to argue why people's ideals are flawed. With a 3rd rate writer this would have failed IMO, but this guy is quite intelligent and makes very good statements that even convince the player. You may be asking yourself "Why would you need the lead character to convince you, the player, that he is right?"...Well the answer to that is the antagonist characters's reasoning are usually just as smart and there were quite a few times when I'd agree with an antagonist's line of thought, even if brutal, because it would be quite sound logically. So in the end I would just say that the writing is some of the finest I have seen in a game.
#2 The voice acting:
Usually I wouldn't put voice acting so high on my list. But I'll be frank: The voice director for this game should get much appriciation and hopefully a raise as he takes many familiar voice actors from the game/anime community and has them deliver incredible performances. Even the NPCs have extremely good acting which isn't usually the case. Something about the speed and way they portray emotions just hits the mark in this game and combined with the great writing makes a fairy strong impact on your overall game impression. Sadly I think the weakest voice actor is the lead character, but he's still ok just not really amazing like most of the others. Top mention goes to the voice actor of Seon (too lazy to look up cast/staff atm, maybe I'll fill in later), and Akio Ohtsuka (Solid Snake) gets a special mention as the lead antagonist Dignus.
#3 The character designs:
The character designs in the game are by the other art guy at Atlus for the Persona/SMTIII stuff who'se not Kaneko. Like the SMT and Persona series the designs are pretty crazy and very cool looking. The most credit I give the game comes in the form of body armor. Not only did he come up with really cool character designs, but everyone has very realistic armor considering their class. For instance the healers wear a mask and full body armor because they need a ton of protection (rather than the usual white mage in a cheap robe). The archers have a shield attached to one of their shoulders, thus protecting their face as they fire. Basically sleek + realistic = very good designs. Each character also has a good amount of high-res full screen art to use during the dialogue scenes and there is a good enough variety that the emotions of the character during a scene are portrayed well visually.
#4 The music:
Not too much to say here. As some people have noticed in the past. A game ost != how the music effects you in a game. Music can be used terribly in a game, or at other times wonderfully. Luckily this is the case of music being used very well. The music fits the scenes well and the battle music never gets boring. Overall one of my favorite soundtracks in a game this year.
#5 The story:
While the story isn't the most original endearing tale ever told in a game, it's pretty good. I'll give a brief overview of the intro text which sets up the tale.
"A while ago a white sea of nothingness began approaching the main continent of the world. Everything it passed over would disappear completely. People thought the end of the world was upon them and riots broke out everywhere. People were murdering each other, stealing, doing whatever as they were afraid of the end. One day a religious group stood up and proclaimed 'The sea of nothingness is God's will! Those who accept it without fear will be welcomed by God!' Suddenly within days the rioting and killing stopped as the religion spread. People lost their fear, but at the same time lost any hope for the future as they just waited and prayed for the 'peaceful end'. One day a man named Dignus brought up and army and attacked the main kingdom, he went into every land and commited genocides against the languid people declaring "for those who would not attempt to live, there is nothing but death". In one of the smaller villages an Alchemist is working daily to try to stop the 'sea of nothingness' from approaching, he lives with a young lad. One day Dignus's army approaches this village and the tale begins...".
So the story is the often used topic of relgion and it's place in the world. There is a good amount of politics like Tactics Ogre/FFT, but there is also more of a adventure party tale similar to a traditional rpg. It's a good mix IMO. The characters on all sides are fleshed out quite well and I really liked a good amount of them. Between the great art, top-notch writing, and really good voice acting the story and characters came to life before me.
#6 The gameplay. (this will be the longest, thus going last)
I seriously am not looking forward to typing all this >_< The gameplay system is decently complex and I'm gonna try to describe all the aspects.
Game structure goes like FFT/TO/FFTA (I heard Hoshigami was a FFT rip off, well Stelladeus is pretty much the same thing structure wise). There is a 2d map with dots, you go to the next red dot and then watch some story and then fight a battle and then more story then back to world map. On the world map you can access the shop which gets new items in as you advance in the game, the guild where you can take quests (some involve fighting, some involving bringing items, some involve correct responses), play the mini-games (lottery, fighting tournament, training) or perform alchemy. You can also upgrade your characters from the world map.
First I'll describe the battle system. It's based on a grid. The game runs on a AP system. Each turn you start with 100 AP and then as you do things the AP lowers. For instance moving forward may cost 20AP per square, or if I have a lot equipped and am heavy it will cost 25AP per square, or if it's water it'll cost 30AP per square, etc... Then attacking once for a swordsman may cost 25AP, while attacking once for a spearman costs 40AP. So the game is figuring out how to best use your AP. The game also has a move+attack option where when selecting "move" if you put it over an enemy within range your character will run at them and attack in 1 movement which IMO tends to have a higher chance of critical. Each character has skills which usually cost a lot of AP+MP and then there is the combo attack.
Combo attack is really awesome and a must for getting ahead in the game. Basically at the start every character can participate in 1 combo per battle. As you go along the number raises. When you select combo attack with a character, a range in yellow will appear. The secret is that the enemy has to be in your yellow range AND the yellow range of whoever else you want to include in the combo. This takes some getting used to as everyone's yellow range is in a different shape. But when you unleash a 6 person combo...O_O there goes even a boss
Also when you finish an enemy by combo you gain more money by a multiplier of the people involved. So for instance I found money a problem during the 1st half of the game when I wasn't using combos much. I'd get about 4000gold per battle. Then when I started doing 6 person combos as many times as I could per battle I'd end with 150000gold per battle. Not only that but there's a good chance you'll steal equipment off the enemy if you kill them with a combo attack. Thus combo is the key.The there is the EZ skill. EZ skill is a skill that automatically affects anything within a yellow range around a character. When moving your cursor around the map, if you stick it over an enemy you'll see a yellow range and what EZ skill they have equipped. These can be negative (poison, stone, automatic shutdown if AP is below 50, attack down 20%) or positive (clear status, heal 10%, increase hit percentage 20%, heal MP %10). If you take advantage of the EZ system it will really help your battles.
The class system is very different from the TO/FFT sytsem. Every character is set in their default class. What happens is that when you upgrade you can buy skills for your character [attack/magic, support (attack + 20%, dodge + 20%, poisen block,etc..), and EZ skills] using SP points which are earned in battle when you attack or kill an enemy. You can also use SP points to just up any personal stat by 1. Anyhow when you find a class-up item for your class (Ie:Swordsman) and you meet the stat requirements you can go up a class and become 'Master swordsman'. This raises all your stats and opens up an new set of buyable skills. The final classes for all the main characters are hidden in subquests near the end and unlock really really good skills.
Ok, so what's left? There's a 100 floor dungeon that's selectable from the menu at any time. You can choose what floor to do out of all the one's you've done so far (basically if you've cleared 1-4, you can choose 1-5 next) and the floors are an arrangement of enemies who are all the level of the floor. So level 5 is all level 5 enemies. Once you beat a floor you leave back to the map screen, so it's just hopping in and doing 1 at a time. The purpose of this is an easy way to level and gain money whenever you need it.
Speaking of levels, the stat gains you achieve each level up are huge and basically if there is a 3+ level gap between 2 characters, the lower one won't be able to even touch the higher one and the higher one will kill the lower one in 1 hit. So you want to be around the same level as the enemies at all time or high above them if you don't want a challenge (though to get to a level high above them you would have to fight higher level enemies in subquests or the cave and those would be challenging so it's pretty balanced).
There is no permenant death. When you enter a battle your group always starts with full HP/MP. Even if it's a 2 part battle you'll start the 2nd part at full. So no healing or anything between areas.
Loading times are good.
I'll save the best for last. The alchemy is awesome. It's basically item synthesis/creation but damn if it's not the best one ever in an rpg. It's incredible easy/player-friendly, it's really balanced (you can make the best sword in the game from the first battle but it would cost so much money you really can't), and it's just so damn fun. Basically every item has a rank (1-18), when you attempt to put 2 together it will show you the resulting item and you can choose to go ahead or not. So you can test a whole bunch of stuff without actually losing the item or using money which is nice. Usually the right level 1 + level 1 item will make a level 2 item and two level 2 items will make a level 3 item, but it gets a little more complex later on. Still the idea is that even a level 18 sword can be made from several hundred level 1 items merged in this ladder towards the eventual end. It's really cool because as your leveling up you can take your money and put it towards buying materials and making things. Getting a weapon 4 levels ahead of the current story enemies makes your character godly for a bunch of battles, but slowly the curve will catch up and you'll start needing to save up and make new weapons. You can also make items which teach you support skills, or accesories which have various skills. Basically I spent a lot of hours making weapons in this game and I had a great time doing it, and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't bother with item creation in games as it's usually a pain in the ass.
So the difficulty for any map is basically determined by your character levels + weapon levels vs. enemy character levels and enemy weapon levels. So in the end if any map is too hard, you improve your strategy +/or create some weapons +/or do some leveling. Also remember that combo is your friend and helps you take out higher level enemies
Alright, so in the end Stelladeus is a serious SRPG done in a similar style to TO/FFT with a great story, good battle system, great upgrade/item creation system, and top notch presentation in terms of visuals & audio. Is it better than Matsuno's classics? Hmm, I'm not going to compare them because they, especially TO, have a special place in my gaming memories but since neither is on PS2 I'll say without doubt that Stelladeus is the serious SRPG to get this generation and after SMT/DDS/Stelladeus Atlus is on a roll with fantastic rpgs and I wouldn't be surprised if Atlus US bringsover Stelladeus down the road though I imagine they won't put "from the makers of Hoshigami!" on the package