Beyond the Star

Hello adventurers!
The author of Beyond the Star, a RPG Maker MZ made for the 2021 "Touch the Stars" one month game jam (hosted by Nick_Komodo & StudioBlue, and I remember playing and reviewing a game called Forest Star, that was made for that jam too) is manolo24, author of a couple of other games I reviewed before: Don't go to Sleep and the very emotional Live Again.

While the two other games are mentioned before were narrative games, this is instead a more traditional jrpg (that includes exploring dungeons and battling demons and dragons), with a party of one and two interesting systems: class system and crafting, anyway as usual let's start from the story!

Mark is our classic hero, a fighter that's looking for a star. He arrives at a town looking for informations, and the mayor, a wizard, will give him some directions. The problem is that the nearby areas are infested by monsters, but there are also rival adventurers (that often act as unavoidable boss enemies).


This is a game of combat and duels! Bold words, but you're not the first nor the last hero I'll defeat today!

All battles are visible and in some cases avoidable, there are no random encounters, and the good thing is that you can also save anywhere. It's a good thing because there are various threats, from harmful floor tiles to monsters that can become invisible.

The town is our central hub where we can collect subquests, rest at the inn and buy equipment and consumables... of, better, CRAFT them, because except for those who are earned as a reward (or looted from a boss). All items, including armors and weapons or potions are crafted using various basic items that can be looted from enemies or bought from the merchant inside the inn. Items can be normal weapons or armors, or something more complex that include resistance to some damage types or extra bonuses to critical hits.

This was the crafting system, anyway mind that you can find food like fruits or vegetable that are a sort of "inferior version" of the craftable potions, that let us recover Health points, Mana Points or cure the poison and silence status, for example.


In this game equipment isn't bought or found but it's crafted!

Now, the class system: our Mark begins as a warrior but can add a secondary class OR change both his primary and secondary class. These are found after winning some battles or completing some quests, and you can become a merchant, wizard and so on. Each class must be levelled up separately and offers several skills that can be bought spending points, but you can access only to the skill lists of the equipped classes. The nice thing is that each time you earn a level Mark is completely healed.
And my advice is to learn a lot of levels, in other words: grind! Both for the items and for the experiences. Unfortunately some bosses are far tougher than the common enemies, and for example the dragon and the druid are pretty strong by the time you will meet them. I'm pretty sure that the first battle will end in defeat!

Visually the game looks really cool since it has a sort of old-FinalFantasy-retro-style (using Ocean's Dream Nostalgia Graphics Pack), even if the facesets are clearly retro-fitted versions of the classic rpgmaker MZ Rtp heroes. Mapping is also pretty good and the game is colorful but with some nice effects of mist and clouds added to the top. It's charming!


This is not only a game about exploration and battles but also secondary quests... like looking for a missing dog!

Final Verdict
Beyond the Star is a quite good for an event game, a nice retro-styled rpg, I admit I'd have liked it a little more if some battles were easier (having enemies with immunities to some statuses is often annoying, after you bought a particular skill) and there was less need to grind, but aside for this the game is pretty good and enjoyable, so if you like the genre, I'm pretty sure you will have fun! 3.5/5!