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Not my favourite star

  • Liberty
  • 01/26/2016 11:24 AM
  • 1664 views
Star's Favour is the first solo game by Indra and was created within a week, which is awesome! Of course, games made in such short time crunches are going to have issues and this one is no different.


Writing
Writing in a short dungeon crawl is usually not something that really stands out, but it is something of Indra's forte - making cute, quirky, interesting characters. Unfortunately, while some aspects were done well enough, others were a bit on the nose.

Plot
The plot is pretty simple - a crazy crew of three ladies and a likeable lad are thrown into the deep end by a Star Spirit (called Starlet) who would like for them to pretty please clean out the star temple of monster while she sleeps off a hangover. Being an adventurous lot, they decide to go with the flow and hop aboard a shooting star, making their way to the temple, where they will be beset by many foes.

It's simple and it works to set the stage for a good old stomp through a dungeon of critters to turn into kebabs. There's not much more to the story, sadly, and the ending is decent, at least.

Characters
Characterisation was handled by small spots of dialogue when learning new skills, and at least two of the characters got a pretty decent personality going. Unfortunately, I... wasn't a big fan of all the groping, personally - nothing to do with the genders of the gropers, it just really felt like it was a bit excessive as that's what most of the dialogue was about. It came off as though Mab and Karnak's only defining characteristics were 'sexual lesbians' instead of being actual characters.

I know Indra probably didn't intend for them to come off that way, and it is a short dungeon crawler so you can't expect too much of the cast, but when most interactions talked about groping and the other two characters asking for them to please stop with the sexual talk or get a room... it was awkward. Which is a pity, because usually Indra's characters are quite well written and interesting and one of the big reasons people play games made by her (bar the overall great mapping and interesting systems, of course).


Presentation
Overall, the presentation was handled well. There were a couple of spelling mistakes here and there but for the most part, considering it was made within a week, it was well done.

Graphics
Graphics were taken from some of the store packs (DS and Crazy Leen's packs, to be precise) and they worked well together, helping to convey the feeling of a temple quite well. The mapping was well done, though it could get a bit disorienting going up and down, and with the help of MakioKuta's art for the characters (at the end, not during the game itself), it was rather charming.

Sound
Sound was well done, too. Pretty basic, really, but everything fit as it was supposed to and nothing clashed. The music fit the area really well, too.


Gameplay
Here's the real meat of the game and unfortunately it's a bit of a mixed bag. There wasn't much to the game outside of battles - no puzzles, at least - and interaction was limited to talking to NPCs and monsters, and nabbing chests for items.

Battles
Battles were the main part of the game and as such the thing that should have shone the most. While they did have some great aspects, they were not the best I've seen from Indra.

There were some things done right - like the strategy of having certain skills play off each other in order to encourage setting up and dealing more damage with careful thought, and I wish there'd been a bit more of that.

Some skills really had their time to shine during certain battles, like Chain Lightning during the battle with the 8 or so gargoyles - it was extremely satisfying to see the enemies take all that damage.

Backstab was always a sure bet for satisfaction, especially when you got Mab's fourth skill, which never failed to inflict curse, even though it was supposed to have the same chance as Olga's axe skill (which didn't do too well after it was upgraded).

Battles also took a long time to get through which really dragged down the experience. The aforementioned Chain Lightning battle had eight enemies that were hit eight times (about 80-100 HP each time) and took over three rounds to be defeated. That's including the damage they were taking from my other area attacks that the other characters had (about the same amount of damage), meaning a total of around 3000 HP. It was crazy and while it was great seeing the numbers flash by with Chain Lightning, I couldn't help but also feel disappointed by the pay-off. I was using the perfect skill, dealing a shit-load of damage just like I was supposed to - thinking about the battle and planning out my attacks to fit - and I got no feeling of elation over my cleverness.
It was great that I got to see all those numbers but after they flashed through I was disappointed that they weren't dead at my feet. And again, and again. Three times. The battle dragged on longer than it should have, taking away the best part of setting up a strategy and using your skills. Nevermind that I'd had to work to get that skill in any case, so I should have at least had one battle where I could have just destroyed an enemy with it, if only to make it feel worthwhile.

A lot of the battles were just doing the same thing over and over and that really made them a lot more dull than they should have been. There were precious few that I can remember a day later as being cool or interesting - the last battle, the gargoyles and the two dragons. One other battle I recall is the Golem, only because of how underwhelming it was when I was told it was supposed to be a hard battle... only to have it die within two turns.

Other
As to upgrading - silver slimes would drop an item which allowed you to upgrade your first two skills. I would have liked to have been able to upgrade the other three skills (gained from another item that you got from golden slimes), too, but that was not to be.

I was also quite upset that a certain skill of Mab's got wrecked by the upgrade - instead of healing 80-100 damage on herself, it now only healed 20-30 to the whole group. With Health over or around 200, it seemed beyond silly and I just stopped using the skill in question, when before the upgrade I used it quite a bit.

In usual Indra fashion, after battle you would be full healed and all items used in battle were returned to your pack. This helped cut down on chests - which were used to hand out equipment instead (bar the odd chest here or there that added a type of item to your pack).

There was also an added challenge of defeating all blue slimes to get a special reward, but said reward was a bit underwhelming, even if it was useful. I would much prefer to have been given a few silver salts and have to choose which skills of the three 'found' ones to upgrade but I guess the doubled item amount was neat too.

Summary
The graphical and sound aspects of Star's Favour are quite well done, but unfortunately, while there are clearly some good design aspects when it comes to battle skills and strategy it just isn't enough to make more than a handful of the many battles engaging or fun. You soon fall into a routine of doing the same thing over and again.

Usually, this is where the plot would come into play and make the game shine a bit more, but again, the writing - while decent in a technical point of view - felt very samey and lack-lustre. With no puzzles or other interactions to take your mind off the grind, and precious little exploration or treasure, the game ended up feeling a bit bland.

Don't get me wrong, though - the game wasn't so bland that I wanted to put it down, but I didn't feel any charm that I usually feel when playing a game by Indra, and I'm sure part of that was the limited time frame it was made in.

Play the game - it has some decent elements - but don't expect the usual flair.

Posts

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Just to clarify, I only did art for the ending credits and the images she used on the summary page. The actual face sets used in game (during conversations, battle, and in the menu) came from a generator.

(sorry, just don't want to take credit where it isn't due)

Anyway, an overall fair review.
No problem. I had meant that art but I edited to clarify a bit better. ^.^)b
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