A look back at: Secret of the Stars

Haha, no.

The first time I played this, I played it for an hour, then I read some reviews and decided nah, it's just not worth playing. Fast-forward five or so years later and I just decided to return to it, because despite bad reviews, some people were willing to give it the benefit of a doubt. I decided to be that way as well, but then I still was disappointed in the end. Very standard RPG with double the grinding because you have to maintain two separate parties, slow overall navigations, a random encounter rate that just cannot ultimately decide just when to give you an encounter, and a plot that is just basic, and blows a few chunks just to make it seem worse.

There are some things I credit, like Decatas which is a well done town, plus a few other gimmick places like Sleepers full of sleeping idiots, Box Town which has a boxing place, and Amaboss the female-only place where you have to sneak in with bunny girl outfits. Decatas in particular is segmented into four distinct parts, separating rich and poor, and it's cool. Old Hill, the town you create, is also nice as it grows, gets destroyed, and grows again. The theater is of no use, but the other places are better. Once I figured out combination magic, I couldn't hesitate to try it out, and it made random encounters more fun.

Too bad the game's encounters are already monotonous. I mentioned earlier that there are two separate parties, and they get used to get through some places cooperatively, although those dungeons are quite sparse. Specifically a few early-game dungeons where the Kustera simply find items while the Aqutallions pursue the main plot, and one point where only the Kustera can access a place to get "iums". There's the final stretch of dungeons, to get through four mazes, with frequent switching of parties to open specific doors and go through party-specific places until you get to each of the four bosses, sadly this is annoying thanks to the encounter rate. Then you get to the big bad through a long and annoying spiral slog, get into an unwinnable fight, leave for a plot item and come back through that same spiral, god just end the game already!

But perhaps I can tolerate this stuff if it weren't for such bad, bad translation. I mean just look at this crap. "The Laboratory has been explored!" Uh duh, you obviously meant exploded. There's others that are bad. "Adults Town" "I'm Full Ben" just get outta here. The enemy names are just facepalm-inducing. Badbad, Badman (should be mafia guy or something), Bohr (boar), Clarken (kraken), Galuda (garuda), Gas Slag (gas slug), two forms of Ghost that are different, Grizley (grizzly), Lace (lich), Oga (ogre), Pump King (pumpkin), Sourseris (sorceress), Specter (spectre), Talanchula (tarantula), Trool (troll), Val Eagle (possibly bald eagle), Vegelisk (basilisk), and Wyte (wight). Just, no. These guys needed a proper translator before they released this.