In Stars and Time has flashes of brilliance but then descends into frustratingly repetitive stretches, especially during the latter parts of the story. Without engaging mechanics, the narrative weight falls entirely on the time loop and characters, which struggle to maintain momentum during the midgame slump. The reliance on these elements could have worked, but ultimately, the pacing and lack of gameplay complexity made me wonder if it was all worth it.
The first half of the game is passable. While I think the writing can be overly saccharine and hammy, it does a fair job establishing the personalities of your party members and fleshing out the lore of the world and rules of the time loop. The first dozen loops are engaging because you're still learning the story's rules and discovering new information. However, after the midway point, the game loses steam fast and only regains momentum in the final hour or so. Once you've exhausted the flavour dialogue in the dungeon during the early hours of the game, you're left with only plot-relevant information, which is doled out so painfully slowly that I lost interest as my patience was tested with repeated loops that contained nothing special.
As the loops continue the main character understandably becomes socially withdrawn and emotionally disconnected from his friends. In terms of gameplay, this results in him refusing to read books because he doesn’t care or refusing to follow potential leads as they crop up which means even more looping later on. I understand that the game wanted to build frustration in both the player and main character, but it doesn’t amount to very much when the responses from your party are just “Wow, I wonder what’s up with him?” over and over again for hours until the game reaches its conclusion.
As the time loops pile up, the protagonist retreats further into himself, offering only hollow banter to maintain the façade of normalcy with his companions. The consequence of his emotional state only serves to extend the loop cycle even further. This repetitive dynamic, while thematically relevant, agonisingly drags on for hours at a time. It creates a very miserable playing experience that didn't appeal to me. Frustration and repetition being used to create a strong emotional bond between the player and main character is expected given what the story is about, but the game never does anything particularly interesting with it.
At one point I revisited a dusty tome in the library, only to receive a single new sentence hinting at a future interaction only exemplified the game's reliance on backtracking. I had given up expecting the game to open up in any meaningful way at this point. Progression is so disappointingly linear and selective, the gameplay is equally boring and effortless that I was tempted to stop playing entirely. I only kept going because I liked the characters and assumed this frustration would build into a good final act.
Sadly, I was still left feeling dissatisfied despite liking the ending.
My main issue with In Stars And Time is that there isn’t enough variance in each loop, no unique sequence breaks, and no way to gain relevant information quickly enough that makes it feel worth playing for dozens of hours. The game is successful in building frustration and boredom for both you and the main character, yes, but in service of what exactly? A message I already agreed with and could see coming a mile away?
While the game excels at mirroring yours and the protagonist's ever increasing desperation and hopelessness, it fails to translate this into engaging gameplay. This ultimately results in a game that isn't fun to play and a story that is both predictable and bloated with repetition.
In Stars and Time's story of self-discovery, consequences and the power of connecting with other people will resonate with many of us, but it just isn't worth slogging through a chore of a game that left me thoroughly underwhelmed for the majority of its runtime.
The first half of the game is passable. While I think the writing can be overly saccharine and hammy, it does a fair job establishing the personalities of your party members and fleshing out the lore of the world and rules of the time loop. The first dozen loops are engaging because you're still learning the story's rules and discovering new information. However, after the midway point, the game loses steam fast and only regains momentum in the final hour or so. Once you've exhausted the flavour dialogue in the dungeon during the early hours of the game, you're left with only plot-relevant information, which is doled out so painfully slowly that I lost interest as my patience was tested with repeated loops that contained nothing special.
As the loops continue the main character understandably becomes socially withdrawn and emotionally disconnected from his friends. In terms of gameplay, this results in him refusing to read books because he doesn’t care or refusing to follow potential leads as they crop up which means even more looping later on. I understand that the game wanted to build frustration in both the player and main character, but it doesn’t amount to very much when the responses from your party are just “Wow, I wonder what’s up with him?” over and over again for hours until the game reaches its conclusion.
As the time loops pile up, the protagonist retreats further into himself, offering only hollow banter to maintain the façade of normalcy with his companions. The consequence of his emotional state only serves to extend the loop cycle even further. This repetitive dynamic, while thematically relevant, agonisingly drags on for hours at a time. It creates a very miserable playing experience that didn't appeal to me. Frustration and repetition being used to create a strong emotional bond between the player and main character is expected given what the story is about, but the game never does anything particularly interesting with it.
At one point I revisited a dusty tome in the library, only to receive a single new sentence hinting at a future interaction only exemplified the game's reliance on backtracking. I had given up expecting the game to open up in any meaningful way at this point. Progression is so disappointingly linear and selective, the gameplay is equally boring and effortless that I was tempted to stop playing entirely. I only kept going because I liked the characters and assumed this frustration would build into a good final act.
Sadly, I was still left feeling dissatisfied despite liking the ending.
My main issue with In Stars And Time is that there isn’t enough variance in each loop, no unique sequence breaks, and no way to gain relevant information quickly enough that makes it feel worth playing for dozens of hours. The game is successful in building frustration and boredom for both you and the main character, yes, but in service of what exactly? A message I already agreed with and could see coming a mile away?
While the game excels at mirroring yours and the protagonist's ever increasing desperation and hopelessness, it fails to translate this into engaging gameplay. This ultimately results in a game that isn't fun to play and a story that is both predictable and bloated with repetition.
In Stars and Time's story of self-discovery, consequences and the power of connecting with other people will resonate with many of us, but it just isn't worth slogging through a chore of a game that left me thoroughly underwhelmed for the majority of its runtime.
These characters are my best friends, and i will die exactly 82 times for them.
It's a story about trauma, depression, and specifically the rumination that happens over and over in your head. Might be the game that made me cry the most. I see far too much of myself in Siffrin.
This is a very premature review, and I want to come back and give this game a better shot... Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
I died once, and I'm discouraged from coming back.
I bought this game on Steam and Switch. It's been on my wishlist for a while, I've avoided watching playthroughs of it, I was really looking forward to it. I can tell that there's a lot of charm and care and things to love with this game, but I'll cut to the chase—
The writing in this game pushes me away from immersion at almost every turn.
- So often I feel like I should have a choice in how I respond, with the prompt literally asking me how, yet there is only one option to select
- The themes and narrative is clearly very diverse, accepting, and understanding to personal struggles, but is written with such modern internet quirks and - albiet - charm that it already feels dated and young
- Lastly, this game has a personality and humour to its writing that can bee seen in almost every aspect of dialogue, whether it's side characters, background character, or your own internal narration, there is an attempted humour at nearly every turn, and it almost never clicked with me, instead taking away the severity of immersion that I want to feel with text that is made far more bloated than it needs to be because of this
The game seemed fairly linear and slow at the beginning, and at least, according to other reviews, that doesn't go away. Unfortunately, that made a big impact on my impression of the game, because after only a few hours I went searching for reviews to try to see if others were in the same boat.
What really tipped me off was that first death. My character was described as someone capable for exactly the scenario I was in. I, as the player, had the agency to explore the area myself. Both of us were capable, yet a scripted event caused us to fail. An underwhelming death on its own, only to be paired with the game's narration insulting the protagonist's stupidity. I get that this moment was about our character feeling that way about themselves, but I wasn't convinced as a player. I didn't feel bad for them. I didn't feel mistaken myself. I just felt annoyed.
I don't want to be annoyed with this game. I hear it's very good, but unfortunately, there was a lot rubbing me the wrong way that caused me to look for similar feelings shared elsewhere, and the rest of the game doesn't seem very appealing for me to continue.
Maybe I will, I would like to, but this was my very brief first impression
I died once, and I'm discouraged from coming back.
I bought this game on Steam and Switch. It's been on my wishlist for a while, I've avoided watching playthroughs of it, I was really looking forward to it. I can tell that there's a lot of charm and care and things to love with this game, but I'll cut to the chase—
The writing in this game pushes me away from immersion at almost every turn.
- So often I feel like I should have a choice in how I respond, with the prompt literally asking me how, yet there is only one option to select
- The themes and narrative is clearly very diverse, accepting, and understanding to personal struggles, but is written with such modern internet quirks and - albiet - charm that it already feels dated and young
- Lastly, this game has a personality and humour to its writing that can bee seen in almost every aspect of dialogue, whether it's side characters, background character, or your own internal narration, there is an attempted humour at nearly every turn, and it almost never clicked with me, instead taking away the severity of immersion that I want to feel with text that is made far more bloated than it needs to be because of this
The game seemed fairly linear and slow at the beginning, and at least, according to other reviews, that doesn't go away. Unfortunately, that made a big impact on my impression of the game, because after only a few hours I went searching for reviews to try to see if others were in the same boat.
What really tipped me off was that first death. My character was described as someone capable for exactly the scenario I was in. I, as the player, had the agency to explore the area myself. Both of us were capable, yet a scripted event caused us to fail. An underwhelming death on its own, only to be paired with the game's narration insulting the protagonist's stupidity. I get that this moment was about our character feeling that way about themselves, but I wasn't convinced as a player. I didn't feel bad for them. I didn't feel mistaken myself. I just felt annoyed.
I don't want to be annoyed with this game. I hear it's very good, but unfortunately, there was a lot rubbing me the wrong way that caused me to look for similar feelings shared elsewhere, and the rest of the game doesn't seem very appealing for me to continue.
Maybe I will, I would like to, but this was my very brief first impression
(This is a rewrite of my first ever review on Backloggd! For posterity’s sake I’ll leave up that review here, but I don’t love it and I’m writing this review as an improvement on what I wanted to say back then.)
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Before I played In Stars and Time in November of 2023, I played the proof-of-concept version, START AGAIN: a prologue a whole year and a half earlier, in April of 2022. I usually don’t play demos, especially not paid demos, but I’d been following this project based on the art style and I felt like it was something special. I liked the prologue well enough. It was charming and I was drawn to the characters. The prologue starts in medias res as the party prepare to defeat the “final boss”, the King, at the end of their JRPG journey. The catch is that the protagonist, Siffrin, is stuck in a time loop and nobody else in the party is aware. Despite this, Siffrin resolves to carry this burden alone, and to use this ability to defeat the King without worrying his allies.
My one big issue with this demo was that, although I liked him as a character, Siffrin’s decision to bottle up his feelings and keep the time loop a secret made no sense to me. It seemed contrived that he wouldn’t, even once, experiment with the time loop and tell his allies about what was going on. If it caused any issues, it wouldn’t matter – he could just loop back and START AGAIN. After the demo, I was a little disappointed but still hopeful the full release could turn my opinion around.
As the full release approached, I grew really excited. I’d been following the dev’s monthly dev logs on Steam up to release, and I bought the full game in the first week after it came out, a rare event for me. I finished it in 6 days, binging it between study sessions for my upcoming exams. I was hooked, and by the end of the game, In Stars and Time had fully recontextualized the demo.
Siffrin didn’t tell his party about the time loop because he loves them. He didn’t tell them because he refuses to be vulnerable.
When I played the demo I saw these characters from my omniscient point of view as the player, as little pawns to command in whatever way would progress the plot. Siffrin’s refusal to open up felt like an arbitrary obstacle put in place by the creator as if to say “but then we wouldn’t have a plot, would we?” But Siffrin isn’t the player, and he isn’t aware he exists in a video game. To him, the rest of the party aren’t pawns; they’re his allies. His friends. His family.
What’s more, Siffrin is incredibly repressed. He’s reserved, happy to nod along in the background because he believes that placing himself as the centre of attention will lead everyone to hate him as much as he hates himself. He sees himself as inherently less valuable than others, and takes the time loop to be his chance to martyr himself in service of his family.
I’m reminded of Jacob Geller’s video Time Loop Nihlism, wherein he talks about Deathloop and the way replaying a game desensitizes us. The more we play, the more we’re able to abstract NPCs from living, breathing people into gameplay systems. Our immersion fades with each repeat as cause and effect become predictable. This was the mindset I had playing the demo.
In Stars and Time actively subverts this idea. Siffrin refuses to allow nihilism to overtake him. Sure, if anything happened to a family member, he could reset the timeline and fix it. But in that moment, in that present moment, his family would suffer, and that suffering would be real. For the same reason we wouldn’t kill a person even though they’ll die sometime in the future anyways, Siffrin won’t let his family come to harm even though he can reset the harm they suffer. The time loop is his burden and his alone, and he will do everything in his power to allow his family to be happy for as long as he can.
In Stars and Time is repetitive. You will repeat the same dungeon over and over for the game’s entire runtime. You will fight the same enemies over and over. The same bosses. Siffrin’s family will repeat the same dialogue again and again. You will find the same items scattered throughout the dungeon. You will walk between the same rooms in the same layout looking for the same keys to progress. There are plenty of quality-of-life features to reduce frustration; you can loop to specific areas in the dungeon after dying, you can skip seen dialogue, and Siffrin retains levels between every loop while his family retain their levels at checkpoints within the dungeon. But, no matter what, you will repeat the same events over and over. You will be sent back and forth, and at several points you will progress to a certain point in the dungeon only to realize you had to do something in a now blocked-off area, forcing another reset. The ludonarrative is excellent and encourages the player to experience Siffrin’s frustrations alongside him.
This is why Siffrin’s character arc is so compelling. The whole game, he does his best to protect, long past the point the player has. Every so often he’ll make a major breakthrough, and his enthusiasm is extreme. This is it! He’s figured it out! That enthusiasm soon fades as his plans inevitably lead to more and more dead ends. Even Siffrin has his breaking point, and his growing disillusionment with the repetition, the monotony, makes him a fascinating tragic protagonist. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but the toll the time loop takes on his mental health, compounded with his poor self-esteem and inability to show vulnerability, make Siffrin an amazing and relatable protagonist.
I could praise everything about this game if I wanted to, but I chose to focus on Siffrin because his characterization is central to what makes In Stars and Time so engaging. I love its characters, its world-building, its music, its everything. Please, if what I’ve written above is at all interesting and you can stomach the repetition, you owe it to yourself to play In Stars and Time.
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Before I played In Stars and Time in November of 2023, I played the proof-of-concept version, START AGAIN: a prologue a whole year and a half earlier, in April of 2022. I usually don’t play demos, especially not paid demos, but I’d been following this project based on the art style and I felt like it was something special. I liked the prologue well enough. It was charming and I was drawn to the characters. The prologue starts in medias res as the party prepare to defeat the “final boss”, the King, at the end of their JRPG journey. The catch is that the protagonist, Siffrin, is stuck in a time loop and nobody else in the party is aware. Despite this, Siffrin resolves to carry this burden alone, and to use this ability to defeat the King without worrying his allies.
My one big issue with this demo was that, although I liked him as a character, Siffrin’s decision to bottle up his feelings and keep the time loop a secret made no sense to me. It seemed contrived that he wouldn’t, even once, experiment with the time loop and tell his allies about what was going on. If it caused any issues, it wouldn’t matter – he could just loop back and START AGAIN. After the demo, I was a little disappointed but still hopeful the full release could turn my opinion around.
As the full release approached, I grew really excited. I’d been following the dev’s monthly dev logs on Steam up to release, and I bought the full game in the first week after it came out, a rare event for me. I finished it in 6 days, binging it between study sessions for my upcoming exams. I was hooked, and by the end of the game, In Stars and Time had fully recontextualized the demo.
Siffrin didn’t tell his party about the time loop because he loves them. He didn’t tell them because he refuses to be vulnerable.
When I played the demo I saw these characters from my omniscient point of view as the player, as little pawns to command in whatever way would progress the plot. Siffrin’s refusal to open up felt like an arbitrary obstacle put in place by the creator as if to say “but then we wouldn’t have a plot, would we?” But Siffrin isn’t the player, and he isn’t aware he exists in a video game. To him, the rest of the party aren’t pawns; they’re his allies. His friends. His family.
What’s more, Siffrin is incredibly repressed. He’s reserved, happy to nod along in the background because he believes that placing himself as the centre of attention will lead everyone to hate him as much as he hates himself. He sees himself as inherently less valuable than others, and takes the time loop to be his chance to martyr himself in service of his family.
I’m reminded of Jacob Geller’s video Time Loop Nihlism, wherein he talks about Deathloop and the way replaying a game desensitizes us. The more we play, the more we’re able to abstract NPCs from living, breathing people into gameplay systems. Our immersion fades with each repeat as cause and effect become predictable. This was the mindset I had playing the demo.
In Stars and Time actively subverts this idea. Siffrin refuses to allow nihilism to overtake him. Sure, if anything happened to a family member, he could reset the timeline and fix it. But in that moment, in that present moment, his family would suffer, and that suffering would be real. For the same reason we wouldn’t kill a person even though they’ll die sometime in the future anyways, Siffrin won’t let his family come to harm even though he can reset the harm they suffer. The time loop is his burden and his alone, and he will do everything in his power to allow his family to be happy for as long as he can.
In Stars and Time is repetitive. You will repeat the same dungeon over and over for the game’s entire runtime. You will fight the same enemies over and over. The same bosses. Siffrin’s family will repeat the same dialogue again and again. You will find the same items scattered throughout the dungeon. You will walk between the same rooms in the same layout looking for the same keys to progress. There are plenty of quality-of-life features to reduce frustration; you can loop to specific areas in the dungeon after dying, you can skip seen dialogue, and Siffrin retains levels between every loop while his family retain their levels at checkpoints within the dungeon. But, no matter what, you will repeat the same events over and over. You will be sent back and forth, and at several points you will progress to a certain point in the dungeon only to realize you had to do something in a now blocked-off area, forcing another reset. The ludonarrative is excellent and encourages the player to experience Siffrin’s frustrations alongside him.
This is why Siffrin’s character arc is so compelling. The whole game, he does his best to protect, long past the point the player has. Every so often he’ll make a major breakthrough, and his enthusiasm is extreme. This is it! He’s figured it out! That enthusiasm soon fades as his plans inevitably lead to more and more dead ends. Even Siffrin has his breaking point, and his growing disillusionment with the repetition, the monotony, makes him a fascinating tragic protagonist. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but the toll the time loop takes on his mental health, compounded with his poor self-esteem and inability to show vulnerability, make Siffrin an amazing and relatable protagonist.
I could praise everything about this game if I wanted to, but I chose to focus on Siffrin because his characterization is central to what makes In Stars and Time so engaging. I love its characters, its world-building, its music, its everything. Please, if what I’ve written above is at all interesting and you can stomach the repetition, you owe it to yourself to play In Stars and Time.
GAME IS FLAWED AS HELL AND THE COMBAT KINDA SUCKS BUT THE STORY TOUCHED MY SOUL GOAT RAW PEAK FIRE FICTION
Not in a LONG time have I been glued to my computer, desperately wanting to keep seeing a video game's story unfold. It's an amazing, emotional, beautifully written and executed game. Easily one of my new favorites.
finally a game that really makes you FEEL like you’re going insane
One of the best RPGs I have ever played. Understands what it's doing and commits to it fully. This one really surprised me!
Neat game with some neat ideas but ultimately flawed execution. Too saccharine (to the point where I thought the real end was another fake-out) and keeps the mysteries I found the most engaging unrevealed. Would've liked expanded fast-forward features and a bit more playing with the time-looping idea: Sequence breaking, runs that are totally different etc.
too loopy for me
I love this game and dislike it at the same time:
Cons:
- I get that the point of looping so so much and going through it all again is to make you suffer like siffrin, but 14 hours in I realized I missed just one tiny thing in my gameplay to further the story and ragequit. like, no, thanks- I could've played 3 shorter RPGs in that time. I understand the aim but the gameplay overshadowed the story and worldbuilding at some point. i was 1 hour away from turning into act 4 siffrin irl.
-the ost is...................................fine? but lacking. again, the same songs over and over and over GOD-
-maybe that's me but so much of the worldbuilding felt..incomplete? so, colors disappeared, ok. then what. do they explain this. if not ill eat my arm
-not a fan of king turning flat out evil when there was the possibility of a complex villain
-some dialogue was too 2016 uwu tumblr positivity blog for me
-same w the artstyle, its cute but isabeau was giving me funko pop LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
pros:
-adored the representation even though its not a requirement for me to enjoy things. i loved seeing casual, joyful transness, talks about being aroace and expectations etc. + having a mentally ill physically disabled mc.
-interesting tidbits of worldbuilding
-dont kill me but I liked the king. runs away now
-the characters were more complex than I assumed, I ended up loving them all deeply
-as someone w a memory disorder, I liked how sifs amnesi was handled
-the fighting system is cool
-i liked the Change belief, felt grounded and developed
Cons:
- I get that the point of looping so so much and going through it all again is to make you suffer like siffrin, but 14 hours in I realized I missed just one tiny thing in my gameplay to further the story and ragequit. like, no, thanks- I could've played 3 shorter RPGs in that time. I understand the aim but the gameplay overshadowed the story and worldbuilding at some point. i was 1 hour away from turning into act 4 siffrin irl.
-the ost is...................................fine? but lacking. again, the same songs over and over and over GOD-
-maybe that's me but so much of the worldbuilding felt..incomplete? so, colors disappeared, ok. then what. do they explain this. if not ill eat my arm
-not a fan of king turning flat out evil when there was the possibility of a complex villain
-some dialogue was too 2016 uwu tumblr positivity blog for me
-same w the artstyle, its cute but isabeau was giving me funko pop LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
pros:
-adored the representation even though its not a requirement for me to enjoy things. i loved seeing casual, joyful transness, talks about being aroace and expectations etc. + having a mentally ill physically disabled mc.
-interesting tidbits of worldbuilding
-dont kill me but I liked the king. runs away now
-the characters were more complex than I assumed, I ended up loving them all deeply
-as someone w a memory disorder, I liked how sifs amnesi was handled
-the fighting system is cool
-i liked the Change belief, felt grounded and developed
THE game that made me cry of all time
Wasted 100+ hours of my life and probably going to a little more just to 100% this game eventually. and it was completely worth it just so I can see Siffrin and his friends move on together. Light Spoilers Ahead.
This is one of the best RPGMaker games I have ever played next to the Hello Charlotte series and dare I say the one with the funny dog. This grabbed me the moment I saw a scrimblo lil guy with a wizard hat and sold me the more I kept playing, I have never played a rpgmaker game with such tight writing and characterization before, just seeing Siffrins slowly going desperate and insane in all the big and small ways the game presents to you was a treat to behold and I just wanna hold and protect the little guy. also this is just Higurashi minus the bloodshed I'm just saying, but in a good way.
You eventually just start feeling like him too, going through the motions, seeing the same dialogue, afraid you'll miss something even though you know it's always the same, the actors playing their roles... especially if you're achievement hunting. The game >can< get repetitive, yes, but I believe that's the point, and the game always lets you know what you have to do through your friendly neighborhood Loop.
It's hard of me to choose a favorite, mostly bc they're all great, but it's between Isabelle and Odile, Odile's design and just her personality in general is peak hag and I really really really like her :) while Isa is a lovable himbo and I just, that one scene where he's in bed does something to be man I wanna be bearhugged by him and have a friend like him that's all I love the refrigerator :> I am totally normal about him as much as he's normal about Siffrin. Cute Himbo aside,
If any of you related to Siffrin, even as much as I did, please, talk to someone, talk to people about your problems. I know it's hard, it's scary, and you don't want to get hurt. I understand. Wouldn't it be nice to go back in time? Wouldn't it be nice to freeze everything just so you could breathe? There are many times in my life where, I just wanted everything to stop. But everything has to change, move on, grow, live, keeping that all inside of you, to fester, to brood, to rot, it never ends well, and you might do something you'll regret. Whatever problems you are facing, you are never alone.
I loved this game, and I can't wait to see what the dev does next.
This is one of the best RPGMaker games I have ever played next to the Hello Charlotte series and dare I say the one with the funny dog. This grabbed me the moment I saw a scrimblo lil guy with a wizard hat and sold me the more I kept playing, I have never played a rpgmaker game with such tight writing and characterization before, just seeing Siffrins slowly going desperate and insane in all the big and small ways the game presents to you was a treat to behold and I just wanna hold and protect the little guy. also this is just Higurashi minus the bloodshed I'm just saying, but in a good way.
You eventually just start feeling like him too, going through the motions, seeing the same dialogue, afraid you'll miss something even though you know it's always the same, the actors playing their roles... especially if you're achievement hunting. The game >can< get repetitive, yes, but I believe that's the point, and the game always lets you know what you have to do through your friendly neighborhood Loop.
It's hard of me to choose a favorite, mostly bc they're all great, but it's between Isabelle and Odile, Odile's design and just her personality in general is peak hag and I really really really like her :) while Isa is a lovable himbo and I just, that one scene where he's in bed does something to be man I wanna be bearhugged by him and have a friend like him that's all I love the refrigerator :> I am totally normal about him as much as he's normal about Siffrin. Cute Himbo aside,
If any of you related to Siffrin, even as much as I did, please, talk to someone, talk to people about your problems. I know it's hard, it's scary, and you don't want to get hurt. I understand. Wouldn't it be nice to go back in time? Wouldn't it be nice to freeze everything just so you could breathe? There are many times in my life where, I just wanted everything to stop. But everything has to change, move on, grow, live, keeping that all inside of you, to fester, to brood, to rot, it never ends well, and you might do something you'll regret. Whatever problems you are facing, you are never alone.
I loved this game, and I can't wait to see what the dev does next.
It’s been almost two months since I’ve finished this game, and I’m still thinking about it. I’ve written and rewritten this review several times since then, trying to explain how a game that wears its flaws on its sleeve ended up as my game of the year. Because in all honesty, this should not work as well as it does in practice. This is a game about the most tedious parts of a RPG and uses them to drag you into the shoes of a character going through a depression spiral. It uses its time loop narrative to numb you, the boss battles whose gimmicks you figured out hours ago to bore you, and a slow drip feed of information to keep you going. Maybe this is the run! Maybe this time something different will happen! After all, three acts is a typical story structure—
But as much as this game clicked for me and refuses to leave my brain, I think the main reason that it did work for me was because I came into this already invested in these characters and wanting to know more about their world and their story. This leads to the hottest take I have about this game: the prologue version serves as a better introduction because we’re thrown right into the middle of things and have to piece together the context for ourselves. If I’d been introduced to this story through the slow opening of the final town, I’m not sure if I would’ve been as immediately invested or charmed as I was through the mystery of the prologue version. And thanks to extremely late game reveals (if you know, you know), I think that prologue should’ve made it into the main game. It’s a good litmus test to see if this will work for you, because if it does? The storytelling in this game will hit you like a bus.
That personal investment got me through a chunk in the middle where I just could not parse what the game wanted from me. I spent more than a few hours stuck on a hint, and after not getting it through several runs, I had to look at someone else’s playthrough to continue the story. A section of the finale had some dialogue in a room that I never went to in any of my loops (but I recognized the text from the prologue, so it was fine). Audio cues from battles would load strangely on my Switch (although I’m not sure if this is RPG Maker’s fault or not).
This is all to say that the game isn’t without flaws. But, I think it’s fascinating when game mechanics are used in service of a story instead of the other way around. In Stars and Time is definitely One Of Those, where the mechanics - the time looping, the boss fights, the battle system, the equipment, etc. - are not the point so much as how those things make you, the player, feel as the story unwinds itself in front of you. As a result, how much you, the player again, are willing to put up with these mechanics directly correlates into how much you personally care about the story, its characters, and its world.
Even with the parts that frustrated me, all of it was worth it for that ending, and for the story that has remained in my mind since I finished it. The character writing is amazing, the worldbuilding is incredible, and the mystery at the center of this time loop had me thinking about this game even when I wasn't playing it. I loved this game, and anyone with any level of interest in it should at least give it a try. Play the prologue first if you’re curious about it and then move on to the full game. I hope it grabs you by the heart the way that it did with me.
But as much as this game clicked for me and refuses to leave my brain, I think the main reason that it did work for me was because I came into this already invested in these characters and wanting to know more about their world and their story. This leads to the hottest take I have about this game: the prologue version serves as a better introduction because we’re thrown right into the middle of things and have to piece together the context for ourselves. If I’d been introduced to this story through the slow opening of the final town, I’m not sure if I would’ve been as immediately invested or charmed as I was through the mystery of the prologue version. And thanks to extremely late game reveals (if you know, you know), I think that prologue should’ve made it into the main game. It’s a good litmus test to see if this will work for you, because if it does? The storytelling in this game will hit you like a bus.
That personal investment got me through a chunk in the middle where I just could not parse what the game wanted from me. I spent more than a few hours stuck on a hint, and after not getting it through several runs, I had to look at someone else’s playthrough to continue the story. A section of the finale had some dialogue in a room that I never went to in any of my loops (but I recognized the text from the prologue, so it was fine). Audio cues from battles would load strangely on my Switch (although I’m not sure if this is RPG Maker’s fault or not).
This is all to say that the game isn’t without flaws. But, I think it’s fascinating when game mechanics are used in service of a story instead of the other way around. In Stars and Time is definitely One Of Those, where the mechanics - the time looping, the boss fights, the battle system, the equipment, etc. - are not the point so much as how those things make you, the player, feel as the story unwinds itself in front of you. As a result, how much you, the player again, are willing to put up with these mechanics directly correlates into how much you personally care about the story, its characters, and its world.
Even with the parts that frustrated me, all of it was worth it for that ending, and for the story that has remained in my mind since I finished it. The character writing is amazing, the worldbuilding is incredible, and the mystery at the center of this time loop had me thinking about this game even when I wasn't playing it. I loved this game, and anyone with any level of interest in it should at least give it a try. Play the prologue first if you’re curious about it and then move on to the full game. I hope it grabs you by the heart the way that it did with me.
I loved the story in this game so much. The cast of characters was excellent, and the world and plot were very engaging. This game made me feel so many things. I'd go as far as to say that I could feel it in my soul at times.
However, the gameplay could be (deliberately?) tedious at times and regardless of any creative intent, I do think that brought the experience down quite a bit. You just spend a lot of time replaying pretty much the exact same content. But I think it'd bother me a lot less if text and turn speeds were a bit faster. With that being said though, I do think that the core battle system here is fun.
Regardless of the tedious aspects, I really do think that this game is worth playing. Please do not let the time loops alone turn you away from the game entirely. When it's good, it's GREAT.
However, the gameplay could be (deliberately?) tedious at times and regardless of any creative intent, I do think that brought the experience down quite a bit. You just spend a lot of time replaying pretty much the exact same content. But I think it'd bother me a lot less if text and turn speeds were a bit faster. With that being said though, I do think that the core battle system here is fun.
Regardless of the tedious aspects, I really do think that this game is worth playing. Please do not let the time loops alone turn you away from the game entirely. When it's good, it's GREAT.
Great narrative hindered by forced loops. I almost dropped the game at one point because I was sick of the game forcing you into unwinnable scenarios where you had to loop again. It also wasn't always clear where exactly you need to go, forcing you to explore the same old castle over and over again just to enter the right room and inspect the specific object you'd seen a hundred times before. I found the characters boring at first but eventually they grew on me which redeemed the game in the end.
This review contains spoilers
I appreciate how gay and online this is as someone who's also those things and it's cute enough. I don't know that the time loop gimmick did much mechanically except induce frustration, which was clearly intentional but I don't know if that excuses it. It did undeniably make me feel what Siffrin felt though.
What really bothers me the most though is that the combination of intensely self-loathing protagonist and unbelievably accepting and ideal friends comes across to me as an unintentionally narcissistic fantasy. Mirabelle allegedly struggles with anxiety as well, but while this never seems to manifest in a way that really hinders anyone, Siffrin's issues are so immense that they trap everyone in an endless recursion of time, for which the solution is his friends' uncritical love for him. I would have been much more positive on this if it had ended differently, but this isn't nearly as thoughtful as a story of this nature ought to be. In retrospect I have similar thoughts about Omori and have to wonder if there's something about these indie RPGs that results in these stories, or if this took inspiration from that.
What really bothers me the most though is that the combination of intensely self-loathing protagonist and unbelievably accepting and ideal friends comes across to me as an unintentionally narcissistic fantasy. Mirabelle allegedly struggles with anxiety as well, but while this never seems to manifest in a way that really hinders anyone, Siffrin's issues are so immense that they trap everyone in an endless recursion of time, for which the solution is his friends' uncritical love for him. I would have been much more positive on this if it had ended differently, but this isn't nearly as thoughtful as a story of this nature ought to be. In retrospect I have similar thoughts about Omori and have to wonder if there's something about these indie RPGs that results in these stories, or if this took inspiration from that.
I'm finally done, and what a beautiful, ambitious, and exhausing game this was! It has the charming visuals and characters you'd expect from a quirky indie RPG, and the time loop twist unravels character quirks in a way that really enhances the comedy.
The setting is interesting, and I loved learning about each character's complex relationship with their culture. There's a lot of subtle storytelling and attention to detail in every conversation. I was initially frustrated by the unanswered questions, but the bittersweet feeling it left me with wasn't unpleasant. At the core is a personal journey about self love and accepting the past, and the central mystery works when you look at it as a broad metaphor for Siffrin's trauma.
Speaking of Siffrin, what a great protagonist! His aloof personality struck home for me, as well as how the game mechanics are used to explore his self hatred. They're my favorite character in the cast and a welcome addition to the time travel suffering gang. My two personal favorite side characters, Bonnie and Odile, are both realistic takes on their archetypes. Bonnie is one of the more believable child characters I've seen, and their conflicting relationship with Siffrin was a highlight for me. Odile's cynical older woman persona contrasted with her gentler side is insanely endearing. There's something refreshing about a scientifically minded character being portrayed so tenderly. I love this woman. Mirabelle was the least interesting to me at first, but learning about her struggles with her religion made her compelling. Isabeau's sincere affection and surprising moments of insight always warmed my heart. His crush on Siffrin is very cute.
The most contentious part of this game is the backtracking, and it does make it harder to recommend. It can be used to great effect, but the lack of player freedom is grating. Siffrin is an autonomous protagonist and I love him for it, but being unable to plan ahead for things he hasn't figured out is tedious in an uninteresting way. I get that RPG maker is limited, but more nonlineratity would've improved act 3-4. I'm also annoyed by one plot detail you can miss out on, but it's a minor issue.
Overall, I loved this game and it's dear to my heart. It has everything you could want from a time looping story, and charming characters that make the early acts breezy and fun. I cannot recommend it enough.
The setting is interesting, and I loved learning about each character's complex relationship with their culture. There's a lot of subtle storytelling and attention to detail in every conversation. I was initially frustrated by the unanswered questions, but the bittersweet feeling it left me with wasn't unpleasant. At the core is a personal journey about self love and accepting the past, and the central mystery works when you look at it as a broad metaphor for Siffrin's trauma.
Speaking of Siffrin, what a great protagonist! His aloof personality struck home for me, as well as how the game mechanics are used to explore his self hatred. They're my favorite character in the cast and a welcome addition to the time travel suffering gang. My two personal favorite side characters, Bonnie and Odile, are both realistic takes on their archetypes. Bonnie is one of the more believable child characters I've seen, and their conflicting relationship with Siffrin was a highlight for me. Odile's cynical older woman persona contrasted with her gentler side is insanely endearing. There's something refreshing about a scientifically minded character being portrayed so tenderly. I love this woman. Mirabelle was the least interesting to me at first, but learning about her struggles with her religion made her compelling. Isabeau's sincere affection and surprising moments of insight always warmed my heart. His crush on Siffrin is very cute.
The most contentious part of this game is the backtracking, and it does make it harder to recommend. It can be used to great effect, but the lack of player freedom is grating. Siffrin is an autonomous protagonist and I love him for it, but being unable to plan ahead for things he hasn't figured out is tedious in an uninteresting way. I get that RPG maker is limited, but more nonlineratity would've improved act 3-4. I'm also annoyed by one plot detail you can miss out on, but it's a minor issue.
Overall, I loved this game and it's dear to my heart. It has everything you could want from a time looping story, and charming characters that make the early acts breezy and fun. I cannot recommend it enough.
Beaucoup de points discutables en terme de gameplay mais l'écriture des persos et la narration sont assez folles.
AUGHHHHHHH
This review contains spoilers
OVERALL THOUGHTS
After putting 42 hours into In Stars and Time I can walk away and say I'm happy I played it. The game was deeply charming, filled with well-written characters and used its character-driven narrative to a full and fulfilling extent. While the combat was simple and often lacking in areas, the game makes up for its shortcomings by fully taking advantage of the unique gameplay aspects that revolve around the timeloop mechanic. The attention to detail when it comes to interactions and new monologues/dialogues you get as you go forward in loops is very well done and makes the world feel a bit more alive and reactive to your actions as a player.
As an RPGMaker game coming off the backs of things like Omori, Undertale, and OneShot, ISAT manages to stand out amongst them due to its unique premise and gimmick. It deserves in some ways to stand among some of these iconic titles with accolades of its own.
(huge spoiler warning from here on out!)
POSITIVES
As I said, the game is incredibly charming. The characters feel real and fleshed-out. The writing feels mature especially for the topics it tackles, and it feels real in a way I think a lot of games like these tend to fall short in.
the characters.
The Friendship Quests were truly standout moments. Mira's internal conflict about her religious values vs. her sexuality/romantic orientation. Odile's discussion about identity and being biracial and how our origins may or may not affect us. Isabeau's everything. It was all very well done, incredibly so. I feel though Bonnie's Friendship Quest tells us more about Siffrin's own state rather than Bonnie but it services the story and gives important context to Siff's charater so I don't mind that it's in a slightly different direction compared to all the other ones.
I also personally very very much connected with both Mira and especially Isa's stories. I loved them a lot.
On top of that, all the dialogue and little exchanges your party has climbing up the castle is well written. The characters have a dynamic that bounces very well off each other, and you do get the feeling that these characters have been companions for a while. It's just nice, it's cozy.
the art.
The game's art and music is lovely and deeply charming. The sprites are silly and make me very happy! Though I do wish some of the music especially in Act 5 & 6 were able to be better utilized but I'll talk about that more when I get into my critiques.
the gamplay.
And on the topic of gameplay, the general gameplay 'loop' is good. It's solid. It uses the time travel mechanic well, and while it can be frustrating that the game really does waste a lot of your time even with the ability to skip through dialogue, it wasn't egregious enough to me where it stood out as a large issue. I thought that the amount of new content there was when going back and forth around the house was enough to satisfy me.
However, I did have a period of around 3 hours (from hours 10-13) where the game was unfun. This was after I had gotten the ability to beat the King, but found myself actually struggling to kill him. While this could very-much be a skill issue (fair), I think some aspects of the looping mechanic during that small section of the game, combined with backtracking, can mix for a poor experience.
a-ha moments.
But I think it's Act 4 where the game shined the most. I was taking notes for a huge majority of the game, I'm a very forgetful person so it was incredibly helpful to me. I also went out of my way to get every possible side quest and achievment I could. Everything without a guide (though I had friends nudging me when I needed help), I saw every nook and cranny of the game that you can reasonably find without a guide or without a huge amount of luck and coincidence. I saw the secret ending (we'll talk about it), I saw the sus route, I saw the statues, I saw all of Bonnie's stuff, I saw it all. This was by-far my favorite part of the game. This part of the game was a puzzle-solving mystery at its core. You're given hints by Loop and nudges, but early on thinking to myself "Hm, there's a specific sound that plays when I do something 'suspicious' in loops. I wonder if I can do all of those in a row and Odile might call me out on it" and then that happens.
That was an INCREDIBLE feeling. I love love those types of moments in games, the ones where you can craft a theory about a mystery the game lays out for you, and be right about it.
This, to me, was the best part of the game. It's when its gameplay loop and narrative melded the most closely together. Getting the Memory of Sadnesses was also just a lifesaver, and the castle felt much more like a complex puzzle than a dungeon, and that was a very good thing at this point in the game.
It reminded me in many ways of discovering certain mysteries in Outer Wilds, and I really appreciated that from the game. Overall it was just very very well crafted in that regard, and since that part of the game is a HUGE chunk of the game (especially for me, who did it all) I think that alone puts it above many other games that don't have this level of satisfying mystery solving.
NOT-SO POSITIVES
Alright. The game is good. We've established that. Everything I say here on-out is out of love <3
combat.
The combat in the game is deeply, deeply shallow. While I wasn't expecting super high-key strategy in this turn-based RPG, there's a lack of any real creative usage of the combat mechanics. The Rock-Paper-Scissors concept is fascinating, and so is a turn-based/time-based economy over something like mana power, but it's not really utilized to its fullest extent.
Where the combat is good, is when it works with storytelling elements. The way Siff slowly starts to completely overpower everyone else in the party, so that after Bonnie is "killed" and you try to fight the King again, it is noticably harder because Siff is so fuckin' slow. It's how Siff will slowly get every kind of ability, and how when those abilities upgrade they lose their punny names because it demonstrates Siff's deteriorating mental health. It's how Siff gets (Just attack.) and it's the best fuckin' ability in the game. It's how you can kill yourself mid-combat with the dagger as a way to speed shit up.
bosses.
But none of this has to do with the actual combat. The most interesting boss fight was the one on Floor 1, because it forced you to utilize typings and turn economy to the extreme. No other gimmick came even close to this, and this one was still incredibly shallow. The enemies all tell you exactly what their typing is on their hands. There's no difficulty there. The only big difficulty spike is with the King, but it's not nessecarily so hard that you need to be super strategic. You just need to survive long enough to dwindle his health down while using Mira's shields on the insta hits. You target the tears during phase 2, and you're fine.
Now, the King fight doesn't need to be complex. It actually probably serves the game that it isn't too grueling, you have to do it over and over again after all, but I don't think saying "well the game inteded this" is always a fair defense when the criticism is still something that could be addressed. If you intend to make something bad, you still made something bad.
Anyways, the "boss fights" in Act 5 & 6 were also deeply disappointing. Mal du Pays is a nothing boss that offers 0 complexity, it's just there for a story reason. Bigfrin also doesn't do anything interesting, only giving you the choice to hurt your part or hurt yourself while Mira heals you. And the Loop secret boss has (1) attack and heals themselves, I was actually literally unable to die to Loop due to having the Starry Hat which healed me enough per round to make their attacks laughable.
This, kind of sucked. I get that a couple of these are story bosses, and story bosses don't need to be actual proper boss fights, but it does mean that by the time you beat the game you haven't really come to any gameplay conclusions. There's story conclusions, but there's no big capstone on the gameplay which kind of blows!
This isn't addressing these bosses at all as narrative pieces, narratively they were servicable, fascinating even at times, but I think you can do both and the game failed to even make an attempt at it in my opinion.
And there's so much stuff you could do with a Loop bossfight. Like, c'mon! That's you! A previous version of you! Why don't they have your abilities? Why aren't they more powerful than you? Why can't they maybe predict your attacks, or try to lock you in time somehow? You could even break the traditional conventions of the turn-based system even more, with their power of Time Craft!
I think that's the biggest missed potential of the game. I wish it had utilized gameplay just as well in the combat as it did in the exploration/puzzle aspect to serve the story.
Because the latter was done so well.
unsolved mysteries.
Another topic of contention for me would be the unsolved mysteries the game leaves you with. What happened to the country Siffrin was from? What was with the red color we saw in the sky, in Loop's eye, on the ground during the Bigfrin fight, when Siffrin tried to say the country's name?
The game sets itself up as a mystery in many ways, in fact, super directly! The game asks you to theorize about Loop, the game asks you question how the loops work. The game asks you to be clever and think to go back to check the statue, to be suspicious on purpose, to go through the Garden Room 20 times to speedrun touch therapy (just me?), it's asking you in so many ways to think about the game and try to put the dots together.
And then it.
Doesn't.
Answer.
Everything.
The country's existence (and now lack-thereof) is a huge, huge important plot element, to both Sif's motivation and to the King! The main villain for a large part of the story! Why don't we get answers about this?!
I understand the story has more to do with the emotional aspect, the emotional core of Sif's character, motivations, wishes, trauma, etc. but to set yourself up as a mystery and not provide answers to half of those big questions is not that good.
If the game didn't want to answer everything, it shouldn't have set the player up to want to get answers. I also think there's just a lot of areas in the plot you could squint and poke holes at, but that's a given to 98% of time loop/time travel-adjacent media so it gets a pass there.
CLOSING
Overall the game is good, and I'd highly recommend it to 82% of people. The last 18% I'd need to give a few asterisks and a couple warnings to. Those warnings to be "while the game has combat, it stays shallow, don't stress about it too much" and "not everything gets answered, even if the game makes you think it will be, be satisfied with the answers you get and don't think too hard about it"
I feel a bit bad that my critiques sound harsh, and I want to reiterate I really really really really really loved this game, I criticize it because I wish it could be better and the way I process media and my thoughts about it is wrapped in talking about it and figuring out how I feel about it.
8/10
After putting 42 hours into In Stars and Time I can walk away and say I'm happy I played it. The game was deeply charming, filled with well-written characters and used its character-driven narrative to a full and fulfilling extent. While the combat was simple and often lacking in areas, the game makes up for its shortcomings by fully taking advantage of the unique gameplay aspects that revolve around the timeloop mechanic. The attention to detail when it comes to interactions and new monologues/dialogues you get as you go forward in loops is very well done and makes the world feel a bit more alive and reactive to your actions as a player.
As an RPGMaker game coming off the backs of things like Omori, Undertale, and OneShot, ISAT manages to stand out amongst them due to its unique premise and gimmick. It deserves in some ways to stand among some of these iconic titles with accolades of its own.
(huge spoiler warning from here on out!)
POSITIVES
As I said, the game is incredibly charming. The characters feel real and fleshed-out. The writing feels mature especially for the topics it tackles, and it feels real in a way I think a lot of games like these tend to fall short in.
the characters.
The Friendship Quests were truly standout moments. Mira's internal conflict about her religious values vs. her sexuality/romantic orientation. Odile's discussion about identity and being biracial and how our origins may or may not affect us. Isabeau's everything. It was all very well done, incredibly so. I feel though Bonnie's Friendship Quest tells us more about Siffrin's own state rather than Bonnie but it services the story and gives important context to Siff's charater so I don't mind that it's in a slightly different direction compared to all the other ones.
I also personally very very much connected with both Mira and especially Isa's stories. I loved them a lot.
On top of that, all the dialogue and little exchanges your party has climbing up the castle is well written. The characters have a dynamic that bounces very well off each other, and you do get the feeling that these characters have been companions for a while. It's just nice, it's cozy.
the art.
The game's art and music is lovely and deeply charming. The sprites are silly and make me very happy! Though I do wish some of the music especially in Act 5 & 6 were able to be better utilized but I'll talk about that more when I get into my critiques.
the gamplay.
And on the topic of gameplay, the general gameplay 'loop' is good. It's solid. It uses the time travel mechanic well, and while it can be frustrating that the game really does waste a lot of your time even with the ability to skip through dialogue, it wasn't egregious enough to me where it stood out as a large issue. I thought that the amount of new content there was when going back and forth around the house was enough to satisfy me.
However, I did have a period of around 3 hours (from hours 10-13) where the game was unfun. This was after I had gotten the ability to beat the King, but found myself actually struggling to kill him. While this could very-much be a skill issue (fair), I think some aspects of the looping mechanic during that small section of the game, combined with backtracking, can mix for a poor experience.
a-ha moments.
But I think it's Act 4 where the game shined the most. I was taking notes for a huge majority of the game, I'm a very forgetful person so it was incredibly helpful to me. I also went out of my way to get every possible side quest and achievment I could. Everything without a guide (though I had friends nudging me when I needed help), I saw every nook and cranny of the game that you can reasonably find without a guide or without a huge amount of luck and coincidence. I saw the secret ending (we'll talk about it), I saw the sus route, I saw the statues, I saw all of Bonnie's stuff, I saw it all. This was by-far my favorite part of the game. This part of the game was a puzzle-solving mystery at its core. You're given hints by Loop and nudges, but early on thinking to myself "Hm, there's a specific sound that plays when I do something 'suspicious' in loops. I wonder if I can do all of those in a row and Odile might call me out on it" and then that happens.
That was an INCREDIBLE feeling. I love love those types of moments in games, the ones where you can craft a theory about a mystery the game lays out for you, and be right about it.
This, to me, was the best part of the game. It's when its gameplay loop and narrative melded the most closely together. Getting the Memory of Sadnesses was also just a lifesaver, and the castle felt much more like a complex puzzle than a dungeon, and that was a very good thing at this point in the game.
It reminded me in many ways of discovering certain mysteries in Outer Wilds, and I really appreciated that from the game. Overall it was just very very well crafted in that regard, and since that part of the game is a HUGE chunk of the game (especially for me, who did it all) I think that alone puts it above many other games that don't have this level of satisfying mystery solving.
NOT-SO POSITIVES
Alright. The game is good. We've established that. Everything I say here on-out is out of love <3
combat.
The combat in the game is deeply, deeply shallow. While I wasn't expecting super high-key strategy in this turn-based RPG, there's a lack of any real creative usage of the combat mechanics. The Rock-Paper-Scissors concept is fascinating, and so is a turn-based/time-based economy over something like mana power, but it's not really utilized to its fullest extent.
Where the combat is good, is when it works with storytelling elements. The way Siff slowly starts to completely overpower everyone else in the party, so that after Bonnie is "killed" and you try to fight the King again, it is noticably harder because Siff is so fuckin' slow. It's how Siff will slowly get every kind of ability, and how when those abilities upgrade they lose their punny names because it demonstrates Siff's deteriorating mental health. It's how Siff gets (Just attack.) and it's the best fuckin' ability in the game. It's how you can kill yourself mid-combat with the dagger as a way to speed shit up.
bosses.
But none of this has to do with the actual combat. The most interesting boss fight was the one on Floor 1, because it forced you to utilize typings and turn economy to the extreme. No other gimmick came even close to this, and this one was still incredibly shallow. The enemies all tell you exactly what their typing is on their hands. There's no difficulty there. The only big difficulty spike is with the King, but it's not nessecarily so hard that you need to be super strategic. You just need to survive long enough to dwindle his health down while using Mira's shields on the insta hits. You target the tears during phase 2, and you're fine.
Now, the King fight doesn't need to be complex. It actually probably serves the game that it isn't too grueling, you have to do it over and over again after all, but I don't think saying "well the game inteded this" is always a fair defense when the criticism is still something that could be addressed. If you intend to make something bad, you still made something bad.
Anyways, the "boss fights" in Act 5 & 6 were also deeply disappointing. Mal du Pays is a nothing boss that offers 0 complexity, it's just there for a story reason. Bigfrin also doesn't do anything interesting, only giving you the choice to hurt your part or hurt yourself while Mira heals you. And the Loop secret boss has (1) attack and heals themselves, I was actually literally unable to die to Loop due to having the Starry Hat which healed me enough per round to make their attacks laughable.
This, kind of sucked. I get that a couple of these are story bosses, and story bosses don't need to be actual proper boss fights, but it does mean that by the time you beat the game you haven't really come to any gameplay conclusions. There's story conclusions, but there's no big capstone on the gameplay which kind of blows!
This isn't addressing these bosses at all as narrative pieces, narratively they were servicable, fascinating even at times, but I think you can do both and the game failed to even make an attempt at it in my opinion.
And there's so much stuff you could do with a Loop bossfight. Like, c'mon! That's you! A previous version of you! Why don't they have your abilities? Why aren't they more powerful than you? Why can't they maybe predict your attacks, or try to lock you in time somehow? You could even break the traditional conventions of the turn-based system even more, with their power of Time Craft!
I think that's the biggest missed potential of the game. I wish it had utilized gameplay just as well in the combat as it did in the exploration/puzzle aspect to serve the story.
Because the latter was done so well.
unsolved mysteries.
Another topic of contention for me would be the unsolved mysteries the game leaves you with. What happened to the country Siffrin was from? What was with the red color we saw in the sky, in Loop's eye, on the ground during the Bigfrin fight, when Siffrin tried to say the country's name?
The game sets itself up as a mystery in many ways, in fact, super directly! The game asks you to theorize about Loop, the game asks you question how the loops work. The game asks you to be clever and think to go back to check the statue, to be suspicious on purpose, to go through the Garden Room 20 times to speedrun touch therapy (just me?), it's asking you in so many ways to think about the game and try to put the dots together.
And then it.
Doesn't.
Answer.
Everything.
The country's existence (and now lack-thereof) is a huge, huge important plot element, to both Sif's motivation and to the King! The main villain for a large part of the story! Why don't we get answers about this?!
I understand the story has more to do with the emotional aspect, the emotional core of Sif's character, motivations, wishes, trauma, etc. but to set yourself up as a mystery and not provide answers to half of those big questions is not that good.
If the game didn't want to answer everything, it shouldn't have set the player up to want to get answers. I also think there's just a lot of areas in the plot you could squint and poke holes at, but that's a given to 98% of time loop/time travel-adjacent media so it gets a pass there.
CLOSING
Overall the game is good, and I'd highly recommend it to 82% of people. The last 18% I'd need to give a few asterisks and a couple warnings to. Those warnings to be "while the game has combat, it stays shallow, don't stress about it too much" and "not everything gets answered, even if the game makes you think it will be, be satisfied with the answers you get and don't think too hard about it"
I feel a bit bad that my critiques sound harsh, and I want to reiterate I really really really really really loved this game, I criticize it because I wish it could be better and the way I process media and my thoughts about it is wrapped in talking about it and figuring out how I feel about it.
8/10
I'm too emotional right now. Maybe I'll write extended thoughts some other time but man. I've never really gotten into Time Loop stories before, but this one absolutely hooked me. Gameplay does get a little bit stale around the halfway point but everything comes together in the end. I get the feeling that this score might increase over time.
Overall: I fucking love the funny "Quirky Indie RPG" genre. Give me like 20 more of them or something I don't care
EDIT: I changed my mind already. It's getting 5 stars.
Overall: I fucking love the funny "Quirky Indie RPG" genre. Give me like 20 more of them or something I don't care
EDIT: I changed my mind already. It's getting 5 stars.
A pretty standard turn based RPG with a very modern art and writing style to it. Ultimately a little too "tumblr" for me, personally.
Let's start on a positive note for this one:
The game has a neat artstyle and a good sense of presentation, it knows what it wants to look like with both the black-and-white shading and the character design and is not afraid of doing its thing.
The animations are quite fluid but still remind you of the older top down RPGs.
The Soundtrack is ok and the sound effect do help you feel that vibe of old RPG.
That is were the good stuff ends though.
The idea for the character to do things differently and experiment on the same dungeon because of a time loop is fun on paper, but the way In Stars and Time does it make it oh so boring; the combat gets boring fast with it being a glorified rock-papers-scissors and no amount of new mechanics they put can save it. You could try to avoid combat, but doing it is futile since most of the dungeon is just small corridors so you are quite literally FORCED to fight every time.
While some of your progress does get transported from one loop to the next, running around to get the same keys every time got so boring I put down the game and never picked it up.
The idea is cute and the presentation is not bad, but god it felt like a chore every time a new loop began.
Small appreciation for the characters though, they are well written and their banter is very fun to read.
The game has a neat artstyle and a good sense of presentation, it knows what it wants to look like with both the black-and-white shading and the character design and is not afraid of doing its thing.
The animations are quite fluid but still remind you of the older top down RPGs.
The Soundtrack is ok and the sound effect do help you feel that vibe of old RPG.
That is were the good stuff ends though.
The idea for the character to do things differently and experiment on the same dungeon because of a time loop is fun on paper, but the way In Stars and Time does it make it oh so boring; the combat gets boring fast with it being a glorified rock-papers-scissors and no amount of new mechanics they put can save it. You could try to avoid combat, but doing it is futile since most of the dungeon is just small corridors so you are quite literally FORCED to fight every time.
While some of your progress does get transported from one loop to the next, running around to get the same keys every time got so boring I put down the game and never picked it up.
The idea is cute and the presentation is not bad, but god it felt like a chore every time a new loop began.
Small appreciation for the characters though, they are well written and their banter is very fun to read.
Gameplay and presentation were a bit basic, with some slightly annoying repetition at times, but apart from that it was a fantastic and touching story.
The characters are endearing pretty much immediately and throughout, and the small slice of the world presented is pretty interesting.
Not much more to say, just a great little game throughout.
The characters are endearing pretty much immediately and throughout, and the small slice of the world presented is pretty interesting.
Not much more to say, just a great little game throughout.
This game makes me feel in a way I wish more games would. An absolutely lovely cast with such variety all completely knocking it out of the park, but of course that's natural when the rest of the writing is magnificent. Every new detail I hear about any character or the lands they come from is a delight, and the central conflict always feels like it has enough weight, pulling the rug out from under you when you think you have the hang of things.
A lot of time loop games can over time get really annoying with the busywork they ask of the player and while it's definitely an intended effect from the story to have the player grow tired of some of the routine, the extent the game goes to in order to ease some of the more irritating elements really shows it's being designed by people (or person, rather) who know what they're doing.
In case this game needed more to be complimented on, the presentation is absolutely off the charts. The black and white aesthetic could have made the game feel somewhat flat but there is such life and personality to all the world design and especially the character art. It's always a lovely time to see one you haven't before. This is accompanied by a soundtrack that may not hold the same staying power of some indie juggernauts like Undertale or Omori, but still provides an excellent expression of the constantly shifting emotions this game goes through. Not to say anything outright but track 24 on the soundtrack makes me tear up.
As for complaints, the only thing I can muster up is near the end a few of the necessary steps become a bit cryptic but it's nothing I could knock off a point for.
With all that being said, I can absolutely say that if this game has not exploded withing the year, there is something deeply wrong with the industry because this game deserves as many eyes on it as possible.
A lot of time loop games can over time get really annoying with the busywork they ask of the player and while it's definitely an intended effect from the story to have the player grow tired of some of the routine, the extent the game goes to in order to ease some of the more irritating elements really shows it's being designed by people (or person, rather) who know what they're doing.
In case this game needed more to be complimented on, the presentation is absolutely off the charts. The black and white aesthetic could have made the game feel somewhat flat but there is such life and personality to all the world design and especially the character art. It's always a lovely time to see one you haven't before. This is accompanied by a soundtrack that may not hold the same staying power of some indie juggernauts like Undertale or Omori, but still provides an excellent expression of the constantly shifting emotions this game goes through. Not to say anything outright but track 24 on the soundtrack makes me tear up.
As for complaints, the only thing I can muster up is near the end a few of the necessary steps become a bit cryptic but it's nothing I could knock off a point for.
With all that being said, I can absolutely say that if this game has not exploded withing the year, there is something deeply wrong with the industry because this game deserves as many eyes on it as possible.
This game was an absolute joy to play, and I would recommend it to anyone. The story was incredibly compelling and every single character oozed with personality. Watching as the protagonist slowly spiraled into insanity as the loops broke them was heart wrenching; and the conclusion was by far one of my favorite video game endings of all time. I wish there was more to play!
Hard to give a final rating before completing it, BUT i have enjoyed it quite a bit so far! I have felt a bit of a tedious memory challenge in my playthrough, but it's a great one if you enjoy games with that classic time loop meta
Takes a while to get going, maybe even too long.
But once it has gotten going it really just doesn't stop.
It's a bit difficult to talk about without spoiling anything (and I don't wanna write a spoiler tagged review either because I don't feel like I actually have that much to say about it) but this game hit me really hard at an emotional spot that I have been incredibly vulnerable at for the past year or so.
And then the ending was just incredibly carthatic.
Of course, a game hitting me this close to something so personal to me, while making it a game I deeply care about, also makes it a bit more tricky to recommend. What if other people feel differently about this?
But also I feel like even though the game feels incredibly personal to me, it is actually about a fairly universal feeling. Now that I think about it, that might actually be what the game is about.
But once it has gotten going it really just doesn't stop.
It's a bit difficult to talk about without spoiling anything (and I don't wanna write a spoiler tagged review either because I don't feel like I actually have that much to say about it) but this game hit me really hard at an emotional spot that I have been incredibly vulnerable at for the past year or so.
And then the ending was just incredibly carthatic.
Of course, a game hitting me this close to something so personal to me, while making it a game I deeply care about, also makes it a bit more tricky to recommend. What if other people feel differently about this?
But also I feel like even though the game feels incredibly personal to me, it is actually about a fairly universal feeling. Now that I think about it, that might actually be what the game is about.