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[JackFrost2012]

So, Stella Deus was developed by a company called Pinegrow.
The staff of Pinegrow used to work at a company called Max Five.
Max Five made an unbalanced, overly difficult SRPG called Hoshigami for the PSone.
"Hoshigami" is Japanese for "Star God."
"Star God," in Latin, is ... "Stella Deus"?!

STELLA DEUS = HOSHIGAMI

IT'S A TRAP!

 

[Dead]

Tre` to thread, I repeat TRE` TO THREAD

 

[duckroll]

Yes, SHOCK TWIST ENDING! WHAT THE FUCK!

To think I almost bought this today before this. >_<

I know Bebpo bought it, I'm sure some others have too, please post impressions, maybe Max Five improved? Or... is there some other secret in this ploy.... grrrrrr

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

I remember Doug liking Hoshigami, although he probably thinks "overly difficult SRPG" is a contradiction in terms.

 

[radios shipping overview]

WELL THAT ABOUT WRAPS IT UP

OST purchase link

 

[maskrider]

Yeah, please post impressions if you bought it and playing it. The art style is really cool.

 

[Bebpo]

IT'S A TRAP!

Indeed.

I fell for it and bought the game this afternoon and have been playing for about 4 hours (only 2 of which register on the game clock!). Here were my initial impressions after 30 mins:

--Battle animations are too long and unskippable. The main problem here is that each character might attack 3 times per turn and you have to sit through the animation over and over.

--Battles are a bit on the slow side since your characters can't move very far per turn. I mean when the first small battle you enounter in ch.1 takes 20 mins...I hope this doesn't mean were gonna see hour long battles in the game.

--Presentation could've been a little better. Like after a character chooses an attack the game kinda pauses for a second to do the attack animation. Also after a character finishes their turn there's another second pause before it switches over to the next character. I mean the game is simple 2d sprites for the most part...really shouldn't be taxing the PS2 ^^;; The loading is also questionable.

But despite those small annoyances I'm pretty happy with it so far:

++ Music is used extremely well. After so many rpgs using their soundtracks poorly, this is good stuff.

++Character art is great

++I like the story so far, it's an interesting world view. Kinda reminds me of Baten Kaitos for some reason.

++Dialogue is enjoyable as are the characters so far.

++Battle system is interesting, has some good posibilites with the AP and EZ systems. The upgrading stats and buying new skills through SP earned in battle seems good too.

Since then I got to the 2nd and 3rd battle, the 3rd battle featuring the first boss. Well in the 2nd battle you're fighting enemies with 120HP who do like 50HP damage on your 140HP characters. You take your time and beat that to discover it goes straight to the 3rd battle...the first boss. He has ~900HP, can do 200HP damage in one attack if critical and your attacks do a whopping total of about 15HP per turn. Oh and did I mention that if you're main character dies the game ends! MWAHAHAHAH yes, you do and redo the 2nd battle and get to the 3rd battle again only to figure out that THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAT THIS GUY WITHOUT POWER LEVELING. 3rd battle, 1st boss, and now you must go to the 50 floor leveling dungeon and just level for a few hours so you can survive...AWESOME! @_@

Atlus has allowed on the market a trap of the most evil kind >_<

...at least Mario Tennis turned out good :\

 

[Catalyst]

I've heard a lot of good things about Hoshigami, and only the haters were people who were dicking around, not knowing what the hell they were doing with the game, and didn't understand it. Just what I heard, though.

U HERD RONG!!!!111111111111

1111

 

[Dead]

Indeed.

I fell for it and bought the game this afternoon and have been playing for about 4 hours (only 2 of which register on the game clock!). Here were my initial impressions after 30 mins:

--Battle animations are too long and unskippable. The main problem here is that each character might attack 3 times per turn and you have to sit through the animation over and over.

--Battles are a bit on the slow side since your characters can't move very far per turn. I mean when the first small battle you enounter in ch.1 takes 20 mins...I hope this doesn't mean were gonna see hour long battles in the game.

--Presentation could've been a little better. Like after a character chooses an attack the game kinda pauses for a second to do the attack animation. Also after a character finishes their turn there's another second pause before it switches over to the next character. I mean the game is simple 2d sprites for the most part...really shouldn't be taxing the PS2 ^^;; The loading is also questionable.

But despite those small annoyances I'm pretty happy with it so far:

++ Music is used extremely well. After so many rpgs using their soundtracks poorly, this is good stuff.

++Character art is great

++I like the story so far, it's an interesting world view. Kinda reminds me of Baten Kaitos for some reason.

++Dialogue is enjoyable as are the characters so far.

++Battle system is interesting, has some good posibilites with the AP and EZ systems. The upgrading stats and buying new skills through SP earned in battle seems good too.

Since then I got to the 2nd and 3rd battle, the 3rd battle featuring the first boss. Well in the 2nd battle you're fighting enemies with 120HP who do like 50HP damage on your 140HP characters. You take your time and beat that to discover it goes straight to the 3rd battle...the first boss. He has ~900HP, can do 200HP damage in one attack if critical and your attacks do a whopping total of about 15HP per turn. Oh and did I mention that if you're main character dies the game ends! MWAHAHAHAH yes, you do and redo the 2nd battle and get to the 3rd battle again only to figure out that THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAT THIS GUY WITHOUT POWER LEVELING. 3rd battle, 1st boss, and now you must go to the 50 floor leveling dungeon and just level for a few hours so you can survive...AWESOME! @_@

Atlus has allowed on the market a trap of the most evil kind >_<

...at least Mario Tennis turned out good :\

through your sacrifice many a yen and dollar will be saved. I salute you sir. Nice impressions as usual.

Anyways yeah I have the Ost, pretty nice, some decent Sakimoto in there. But I dont know if I could justify giving money to the guys behind hoshigami.... forced power leveling, especially that early in the game sounds irritating :/

 

[maskrider]

Indeed.

I fell for it and bought the game this afternoon and have been playing for about 4 hours (only 2 of which register on the game clock!). Here were my initial impressions after 30 mins:

--Battle animations are too long and unskippable. The main problem here is that each character might attack 3 times per turn and you have to sit through the animation over and over.

--Battles are a bit on the slow side since your characters can't move very far per turn. I mean when the first small battle you enounter in ch.1 takes 20 mins...I hope this doesn't mean were gonna see hour long battles in the game.

--Presentation could've been a little better. Like after a character chooses an attack the game kinda pauses for a second to do the attack animation. Also after a character finishes their turn there's another second pause before it switches over to the next character. I mean the game is simple 2d sprites for the most part...really shouldn't be taxing the PS2 ^^;; The loading is also questionable.

But despite those small annoyances I'm pretty happy with it so far:

++ Music is used extremely well. After so many rpgs using their soundtracks poorly, this is good stuff.

++Character art is great

++I like the story so far, it's an interesting world view. Kinda reminds me of Baten Kaitos for some reason.

++Dialogue is enjoyable as are the characters so far.

++Battle system is interesting, has some good posibilites with the AP and EZ systems. The upgrading stats and buying new skills through SP earned in battle seems good too.

Since then I got to the 2nd and 3rd battle, the 3rd battle featuring the first boss. Well in the 2nd battle you're fighting enemies with 120HP who do like 50HP damage on your 140HP characters. You take your time and beat that to discover it goes straight to the 3rd battle...the first boss. He has ~900HP, can do 200HP damage in one attack if critical and your attacks do a whopping total of about 15HP per turn. Oh and did I mention that if you're main character dies the game ends! MWAHAHAHAH yes, you do and redo the 2nd battle and get to the 3rd battle again only to figure out that THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAT THIS GUY WITHOUT POWER LEVELING. 3rd battle, 1st boss, and now you must go to the 50 floor leveling dungeon and just level for a few hours so you can survive...AWESOME! @_@

Atlus has allowed on the market a trap of the most evil kind >_<

...at least Mario Tennis turned out good :\

Thanks for the impression. I think I'll pass, but I'll check on the OST.

 

[john tv]

 

[Catalyst]

Indeed.

I fell for it and bought the game this afternoon and have been playing for about 4 hours (only 2 of which register on the game clock!). Here were my initial impressions after 30 mins:

--Battle animations are too long and unskippable. The main problem here is that each character might attack 3 times per turn and you have to sit through the animation over and over.

--Battles are a bit on the slow side since your characters can't move very far per turn. I mean when the first small battle you enounter in ch.1 takes 20 mins...I hope this doesn't mean were gonna see hour long battles in the game.

--Presentation could've been a little better. Like after a character chooses an attack the game kinda pauses for a second to do the attack animation. Also after a character finishes their turn there's another second pause before it switches over to the next character. I mean the game is simple 2d sprites for the most part...really shouldn't be taxing the PS2 ^^;; The loading is also questionable.

But despite those small annoyances I'm pretty happy with it so far:

++ Music is used extremely well. After so many rpgs using their soundtracks poorly, this is good stuff.

++Character art is great

++I like the story so far, it's an interesting world view. Kinda reminds me of Baten Kaitos for some reason.

++Dialogue is enjoyable as are the characters so far.

++Battle system is interesting, has some good posibilites with the AP and EZ systems. The upgrading stats and buying new skills through SP earned in battle seems good too.

Since then I got to the 2nd and 3rd battle, the 3rd battle featuring the first boss. Well in the 2nd battle you're fighting enemies with 120HP who do like 50HP damage on your 140HP characters. You take your time and beat that to discover it goes straight to the 3rd battle...the first boss. He has ~900HP, can do 200HP damage in one attack if critical and your attacks do a whopping total of about 15HP per turn. Oh and did I mention that if you're main character dies the game ends! MWAHAHAHAH yes, you do and redo the 2nd battle and get to the 3rd battle again only to figure out that THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAT THIS GUY WITHOUT POWER LEVELING. 3rd battle, 1st boss, and now you must go to the 50 floor leveling dungeon and just level for a few hours so you can survive...AWESOME! @_@

Atlus has allowed on the market a trap of the most evil kind >_<

...at least Mario Tennis turned out good :\

So basically like The Slums of Dorter of FFT all over again, eh?

 

[demi]

Hey someone sell me a copy of Hoshigami please? Thanks!!!!!!

one

 

[Bebpo]

Oh and I wanna mention the incredibly brain-dead AI of the game.

I your character is on a cliff 1 height level above an enemy. Instead of the enemy walking to the side where the stairs up the cliff are...they walk into the cliff wall, walk left one step, walk right one step, walk into the wall again, then end their turn. They'll never find the way up the cliff unless you lead them there. @_@

 

[duckroll]

http://www.stelladeus.jp/system/rap.html
vs
http://www.hoshigami.net/system/rap.html

Argh, they're even using the same AP system from Hoshigami! Do they HAVE NO SHAME?!

 

[JackFrost2012]

Hey, has anyone heard anything about this new GBA game? Wait a minute...

How could Atlus do this to us poor gamers? Well, if I learned one thing from Sneakers, it's that anagrams have all the answers.

Oh Great and Powerful Anagram God: how could Atlus do this to us poor gamers?

HOSHIGAMI = GOSH I AM HI

STELLA DEUS = DE SALE SLUT

HOSHIGAMI + STELLA DEUS = SHO, I'D SELL A SHIT GAME. U?

 

[Bebpo]

Ok I just wanna update saying after some more time with the game I think my early impressions were unfair on the game.

The battle system is interesting and pretty well balanced. The way you level up your characters by buying skills (action commands/spells), support skills (poison defense, magic+10% type of things), and EZ skills (Dodge 20%, Recover 5% type of things) is actually pretty creative.

The characters besides the stereotypical crazy henchman are pretty well written and actually seem human and don't take sides on things going on in the world rather they listen to both sides and think on their own.

The pacing of leveling-up and stuff actually isn't bad at all once you figure out good strategy. Well placed archers and healers while taking advantage of ultra powerful combos (a character can only be in 1 combo per battle) is much more important than just leveling. I don't think the leveling is any worse than FFT at this point.

Also no perm-death in the game and you always start every battle with all your party in full HP/MP even if it's a battle directly following a previous one.

So even if it was made by the Hoshigami people, about 6 hours in I'm finding it pretty engrossing in a Tactics Ogre/FFT sort of way. Having the best rpg score since Baten Kaitos helps too

 

[Soul4ger]

Don't you get the impression that companies shouldn't be allowed to do this? It should be like child sex offenders... No matter where they move, they have to let everyone know what they did, just to warn them. I think games should come with something like that attached to the back...