Name: Star Child

Developer: AtlasAtrium

Story: The classic story of a girl and her all-powerful book through which she can literally rule the world. The stars have gone out in the world and with them, all of the magic. One day, Shioh comes to pray to the goddess, but her frustration gets the better of her. During her temper tantrum, the goddess answers her prayer, seeming to be more interested in the fact that the girl has grown so upset that she's insulting her goddess than in the actual problem the girl is there for. So she makes Shioh a bet: granting Shioh a book that can make anything real as long as what she writes is believable if she manages to make the world a better place, she can keep the changes. Shioh takes the bet and immediately starts writing an anime because of course she does.




Writing: Filled with flash and one-liners, if this weren't a video game where you need to use your hands, this would be the perfect story for popcorn. Amazing imagination has gone into the creation of this story while simple writing drives it. It really is the perfect presentation of a fairy tale. The character introductions are cliche and amazing. What happens when you get into the game is a masterclass on writing an action story. With nothing but quips and one-liners, we're able to get depth of character and satisfying arcs for all of the characters involved. Not a compliment or a praise; just a hard fact. While movies are busy these days over-explaining everything ad nauseum, with just a simple flip of a scythe, we see how Hilde really feels about her situation. The lines she delivers afterward merely punctuate it.

Gameplay: The combat is RPG style but it uses the type of mechanics I've come to regularly expect from AtlasAtrium. Select a combat style (or if you've built up the tech points, a coup de gras) and use abilities based on that style throughout the game. It always seems to make for some very fast-paced gameplay that seriously livens up a turn-based system. I did run into one very strange glitch. I reached a point where when I selected a restorative item, I could only select to use it on Nyx, except Nyx's HP was fine. I had no way of restoring Hilde. I tried using the arrows and Hilde wouldn't highlight. I tried using the mouse button, and Hilde would briefly highlight, but it would flip back to Nyx. I went through three battles unable to heal Hilde. I resolved the problem by finally just using a potion on Nyx. Once I did that, it selected Hilde, just fine. I suspect there's a plugin combination causing that. Fortunately, it didn't happen again.

Graphics: All of the usual suspects: Celianna, Zimmerman, Scyles; I'm not familiar with Inazuma, but it seems they're part of the development team. The character art in this game is simply amazing, which you can only come to expect from an AA game. Another thing I notice here: in the attack and status reactions of the characters, their sprite style suddenly changes. It's the same character, but in their reaction poses, they're not as detailed. I'm not sure if that's an artistic choice to make their action poses look more vibrant, or if they were on a time limit and figured people wouldn't get a good look and so cut corners and simply made those poses more indistinct. It just seemed worth mentioning. Also, animated enemy battlers for the win! And not just those cheap plugins that wave and distort the static battler graphics!

Sound: Busy! Everything about this game is designed to be exciting! The music is high octane and never stops.

Conclusion: Absolutely positively recommending this. This game is everything you love about video games. This game is the reason you started playing. I want to make a game like this!