Stella Glow (3DS)

[Nerroth]

[AnimeFangirl]

Any more specific release date other than "Holiday 2015"? There are some other good games coming out in the latter half of the year so I need to start planning now.

[dark998]

Launch Edition announced, Atlus sure knows how to get my money

http://gematsu.com/2015/09/stella-gl...-north-america

[AnimeFangirl]

My body is ready. Not getting the launch edition, though. My room is overflowing with enough junk as it is.

[serenade_beta]

Finished the game (a review in my blog).

Excellent. Best story I've seen in a game for a while.
At first, I had no interest in it, but eventually got around to playing it. Didn't know that Luminous Arc's staff worked on it.

Preordered the US version just for the bonus items.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Finished the game (a review in my blog).

Excellent. Best story I've seen in a game for a while.
At first, I had no interest in it, but eventually got around to playing it. Didn't know that Luminous Arc's staff worked on it.

Preordered the US version just for the bonus items.

I liked your review. I'll definitely consider getting this even if I don't end up pre-ordering it. It seems fun. Want to clarify that I read the non-spoiler parts of your character review and maybe part of your actual review, but I apparently forgot most of it... other than being encouraged to go and buy the game because it seemed fun enough.

[dniv]

Anyway, so I want to review this game because I haven't seen anyone talk about this game for a while, and that is a damn shame. You people are definitely missing out!

Before I say anything else, to get people's attention: this game is essentially a mix between FE Awakening and FF Tactics Advance... It's an SRPG that has the same sort of gameplay as both of those games, its story is on the same tier as both of those games, and it has a similar affinity relationship system (support conversation system) between characters that affects battle and plot (though in this case the dialogue only happens between your MC and other characters). So if you love that sort of thing, play this game.

The English release of this game was amazing. It isn't by any means a perfect game as there is a little laziness in some aspects of the animation for character dialogues, but at worst it's on the same level as the FE Awakening character dialogues. (It doesn't interfere with the playing experience at all.) This game has romance similar to that of FE Awakening, you will probably like it if you liked the romance in Awakening because this romance is distinctly better.

I have to say. This game reminds me a lot of Bravely Default. The playing experience basically involves underestimating the game as something pretty good and simple, but not amazing, and then getting "surprised" ( ) and then realizing that the game is freaking amazing as hell... and not nearly as simple as it may initially seem.

Since I don't really want to spoil anything in this review, I'm going to be rather generic in my review comments:

The Sound/Music:

Voice Acting: 10/10

OST: 10/10

Songs: 10/10

This game has really good music and voicing. The use of songs to spruce up battles and plot is a really well executed plot mechanic. The English VA's are also super good. This is probably the best VA'd english game I have seen... and a lot of the game's dialogue is voiced so you can enjoy that a lot. The complete OST of this game definitely falls within my top 10 favorite game OST's.

The Characters:

Character Complexity: 8/10 -> 9/10

Character backstory: 8.5/10

Character development: 9.5/10

The characters were much deeper than I expected. They are definitely one of this game's strong suits. It reminds me of Bravely Default in this aspect as well. The characters seem rather black and white until you get to a certain point and then... you're wrong.

The only reason it doesn't get a 10/10 is that the characters don't feel complex throughout the course of the entire play-through. It takes a while for some of them to become distinctly complex later on in the plot.

The characters definitely felt comparatively stronger than FE Awakening characters.

Expect a lot of solid character development through out the story.

The Animation:

Environments: 10/10

Cut-scene Animation: 10/10

Character animation: 9/10

Dialogue Animation: 7/10

My small complaint about dialogue animation from before was just that during dialogue (outside of cut-scenes), the game uses a lazy style of animation recycling only a few images (representing their different emotional states and/or attitudes) for the reactions of each character during dialogue. I eventually got rather used to this, and grew fond of it by the time I was part way through the story.

Other animation in the game is monstrously good. There are some cut-scenes that are absolutely spectacular both in a musical and visual sense. The environments look very nice, the moves are animated well, the enemies/characters are animated really well. I really applaud the game for making the characters look pretty good on the 3DS. The environments also look really nice and detailed.

The Story:

Enjoyment of the Story: 9/10->10/10

Depth of the Plot: 10/10

World-building: 10/10


The story and worldbuilding of this game ended up being way better than I had initially expected from the game.

My first run through of the game took around 50 hours of playtime.

The story in this game starts out in a very attention-grabbing manner. It instantly made me play through the entire prologue and then proceed onto the main game. At some points in the game, it may feel a bit as if this sort of story has been done before. At some point in your playthrough, after a certain plot-twist, you will change your mind. This is probably one of the best RPG stories I have seen in quite a while.

The story also got very deep. It covered some interesting emotional topics that went far outside the norm of other RPG's that I have played. This game had some very emotional scenes later on in the story. It really was a great experience for me, and I'm happy I went and played it on a sort of whim.

The world building in this game is another powerful plus. It starts out sort of "slow" (but also immediately vivid and interesting), and then ends up getting to a point where the world-building is extremely detailed. The world isn't necessarily that huge, but it ends up being explored rather thoroughly... and is well crafted.

__________________________________________________ __

Anyway, I strongly recommend this game to anyone who likes SRPG's like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy tactics. This was a really good game, and it has amazing music that you can enjoy listening to even after you're done actually playing the game.

If you like those sorts of games, then you'll probably regret skipping this game. Either way, it'd be a good way for you to kill some time until FE Fates comes out.

I was completely blown away by the game after finishing it... and I can say without a doubt that this game trolled me rather hard... in a good way.

[Kismet-chan]

Based on your review, it sounds fairly promising to me! I rarely play through games more than once, and FFTA sits on a very small list of games that I have broken that rule for because I adored it. (Wasn't as crazy about its sequel, but that's a story for another time.) I already love the art and voice cast, so if the gameplay is reminiscent of FFTA in any shape or form then I'm sold.

I'll have to pick it up when it's on sale someday.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by Kismet-chan

Based on your review, it sounds fairly promising to me! I rarely play through games more than once, and FFTA sits on a very small list of games that I have broken that rule for because I adored it. (Wasn't as crazy about its sequel, but that's a story for another time.) I already love the art and voice cast, so if the gameplay is reminiscent of FFTA in any shape or form then I'm sold.

I'll have to pick it up when it's on sale someday.

Yeah, FFTA is one of my favorite games of all time, some comparing this to that is a large endorsement for Stella Glow. This is why I started off with that comparison, because it makes SRPG fans pay attention much more easily.