Absolutely loved the art, characters, themes, story, everything about it! It had my favorite tropes, a hot character I like, and relatable themes. Also, the ost slaps!!
YOU LIKE WORDS?! YOU LIKE WHEN CHARACTERS TALK ABOUT THINGS AND STUFF AND YOU CLICK ON THINGS AND THEY SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT BAPHMODAD OR THINGAMOWHOZIT OR DID THE ZIPPY FLIPPY EARLIER? THIS GAME IS FOR YOU!
In Stars and Time has a nearly obscene amount of dialogue. Every single interactable in the game has a full-blown conversation tied to it. Dialogue remains quippy, familiar, and very of-the-time, whilst still having a contemporary wit that keeps you wanting to see more. And then you throw in the ways you can change every single dialogue encounter, and you get an absolutely dizzying amount of exposition and conversations about essentially nothing, but one of those conversations will be useful eventually.
This is what Stars and Time is banking on; you enjoying its main conceit - that of a single RPG dungeon that you traverse multiple times with new information each time to contextualize all of its puzzles - and how your characters reveal more about themselves, attempt to, and fail to change with every pass through. It's a massive puzzle box of dialogue where the reward is that you get to spend more time with your friends and care about your friends. And if you like that? The game will just continue giving and giving.
And I don't like that. I LOVE that.
In Stars and Time is glad to twist and pull its characters to the point of breaking, boiling them down to their merest existences as archetypes, ideas, character arcs and gameplay functions, twisting and turning them... but never once forgetting that these are characters. They feel, they believe, and they mean something, and because of that, In Stars and time has a beautiful lot to say about the simple condition of storytelling. The way that Mirabelle, Odile, Isabeau, and Bonnie's stories develop, progress, and regress through the game's runtime is as heartbreaking as it is well-considered and lovely. This is to say nothing of the player character, Siffrin, who just might be my favorite expression of a main character in a very long time; at the very least, I think he plays with the idea of BEING the lead in an incredible way! Watching these journeys slowly come to inevitable conclusions of both dread and catharsis has been one of the most gratifying experiences I've seen.
I realize, at this point in the review, I have done a very bad job explaining what In Stars and Time IS other than "they talk a lot and you navigate a dungeon and you think it's really good when they talk". There is turn-based combat based on a rock-paper-scissors effectiveness system, which is very nicely done and has a great flow to it until it stops mattering entirely halfway through the game and becomes an annoyance most times it shows up. There's some trial and error dungeon navigation that's a bit dull. Sometimes the game's RPG Maker roots show up and you can feel the game rubbing up against the limitations of the system. Sometimes yeah, it can feel like dialogue scenes might be going on a BIT long to emphasize a point. Really, perhaps the biggest issue with In Stars and Time is how every last bit of the game is so dedicated to its core narrative conceit - if you are not in love with what ISaT is selling, it will likely not get any better for you as it over-indulges in its own devices. Everything in this game is tied in to this form of character development and progression... and if you do love that, if this game speaks to you, then it's an unparalleled experience. I was slowed down a bit at times, but this game stunned me in the best of ways, in ways that I would want to write as a writer and love reading and imagining through. It is not a game I can recommend to everyone, but it is a game that I love, think celebrates BEING a game wonderfully, and think if you have even passing interest in, you owe yourself to at least give it the Steam Refund test; it could be something (and I think it IS something) truly special for ya.
In Stars and Time has a nearly obscene amount of dialogue. Every single interactable in the game has a full-blown conversation tied to it. Dialogue remains quippy, familiar, and very of-the-time, whilst still having a contemporary wit that keeps you wanting to see more. And then you throw in the ways you can change every single dialogue encounter, and you get an absolutely dizzying amount of exposition and conversations about essentially nothing, but one of those conversations will be useful eventually.
This is what Stars and Time is banking on; you enjoying its main conceit - that of a single RPG dungeon that you traverse multiple times with new information each time to contextualize all of its puzzles - and how your characters reveal more about themselves, attempt to, and fail to change with every pass through. It's a massive puzzle box of dialogue where the reward is that you get to spend more time with your friends and care about your friends. And if you like that? The game will just continue giving and giving.
And I don't like that. I LOVE that.
In Stars and Time is glad to twist and pull its characters to the point of breaking, boiling them down to their merest existences as archetypes, ideas, character arcs and gameplay functions, twisting and turning them... but never once forgetting that these are characters. They feel, they believe, and they mean something, and because of that, In Stars and time has a beautiful lot to say about the simple condition of storytelling. The way that Mirabelle, Odile, Isabeau, and Bonnie's stories develop, progress, and regress through the game's runtime is as heartbreaking as it is well-considered and lovely. This is to say nothing of the player character, Siffrin, who just might be my favorite expression of a main character in a very long time; at the very least, I think he plays with the idea of BEING the lead in an incredible way! Watching these journeys slowly come to inevitable conclusions of both dread and catharsis has been one of the most gratifying experiences I've seen.
I realize, at this point in the review, I have done a very bad job explaining what In Stars and Time IS other than "they talk a lot and you navigate a dungeon and you think it's really good when they talk". There is turn-based combat based on a rock-paper-scissors effectiveness system, which is very nicely done and has a great flow to it until it stops mattering entirely halfway through the game and becomes an annoyance most times it shows up. There's some trial and error dungeon navigation that's a bit dull. Sometimes the game's RPG Maker roots show up and you can feel the game rubbing up against the limitations of the system. Sometimes yeah, it can feel like dialogue scenes might be going on a BIT long to emphasize a point. Really, perhaps the biggest issue with In Stars and Time is how every last bit of the game is so dedicated to its core narrative conceit - if you are not in love with what ISaT is selling, it will likely not get any better for you as it over-indulges in its own devices. Everything in this game is tied in to this form of character development and progression... and if you do love that, if this game speaks to you, then it's an unparalleled experience. I was slowed down a bit at times, but this game stunned me in the best of ways, in ways that I would want to write as a writer and love reading and imagining through. It is not a game I can recommend to everyone, but it is a game that I love, think celebrates BEING a game wonderfully, and think if you have even passing interest in, you owe yourself to at least give it the Steam Refund test; it could be something (and I think it IS something) truly special for ya.
I found this game because of a tweet, and i'm so glad I did.
I don't want to explain anything about this game, but what I will say is I love the use of timeloops to tell stories, and especially ones that do it as well as this. I enjoyed the stories, characters, and combat thoroughly.
I docked 1/2 a star since the gameplay is very repetetive, and while that's the point it can feel a little contrived in it's need to make you feel exhausted with it. Thankfully there's a point where you can avoid them completely.
I wish I could go back and experience this game for the first time again
I don't want to explain anything about this game, but what I will say is I love the use of timeloops to tell stories, and especially ones that do it as well as this. I enjoyed the stories, characters, and combat thoroughly.
I docked 1/2 a star since the gameplay is very repetetive, and while that's the point it can feel a little contrived in it's need to make you feel exhausted with it. Thankfully there's a point where you can avoid them completely.
I wish I could go back and experience this game for the first time again
You feel like you're losing your mind along with the main character which is a pretty impressive feat. The ending left me satisfied.
Time Taken: 72 Hours. Minus a day where I accidentally left the game open so - 48-ish hours. I think the game should take around 25-35 hours if you are properly using the mechanics that make loops go faster and aren't insane about looking for new dialogue like I am
First time I reviewed this, I hadn't beaten the game. I now have done so. My opinion has become even stronger - This game has one of the most emotional and compelling stories I've ever seen, somehow manages to be repetitive without turning boring with the many mechanics it has to make loops go by faster as well. Please use them, and often. Don't be crazy like me and only use them like 3 times. Or do. I thought it was fun!
Absolutely amazing cast of characters, every party member has such good chemistry with each other. The pain Siffrin feels due to the time loops is palpable, it feels real. This is probably one of the few time-loop stories where I really felt the "Being in a time loop is fucking horrifying" feel. Siffrin is just an amazing character in general. Also, they still think way too similarly to how I do and that's still scary. I don't think I could choose a favorite out of the main cast.
Absolute gem of an indie game.
First time I reviewed this, I hadn't beaten the game. I now have done so. My opinion has become even stronger - This game has one of the most emotional and compelling stories I've ever seen, somehow manages to be repetitive without turning boring with the many mechanics it has to make loops go by faster as well. Please use them, and often. Don't be crazy like me and only use them like 3 times. Or do. I thought it was fun!
Absolutely amazing cast of characters, every party member has such good chemistry with each other. The pain Siffrin feels due to the time loops is palpable, it feels real. This is probably one of the few time-loop stories where I really felt the "Being in a time loop is fucking horrifying" feel. Siffrin is just an amazing character in general. Also, they still think way too similarly to how I do and that's still scary. I don't think I could choose a favorite out of the main cast.
Absolute gem of an indie game.
What makes In Stars and Time such a compelling story game is that it actually succeeds at doing something most of these indie RPGs fail at: being a GAME.
Don't let the Undertale pick in my top 5 fool you, the only bias I have towards "Earthbound inspired RPGs" is a pretty negative one, and it all comes down to pacing. I really can't agree with the excuse of "Oh, but it's supposed to be slow and monotonous because that's the theme of the game" because why would you ever want to recommend someone a game that's just straight up boring to sit through? You can get the point across that something is meant to feel dull in a way more succinct way than just making the actual gameplay dull. Too many people are willing to use this excuse to justify overly drawn out stories and it makes it hard for me to trust them when they tell me that the next indie RPG I play will finally be good.
ISAT is so refreshing because I don't NEED to use that excuse at all! Not sure what the reviews saying that the game is tedious are talking about, ISAT strikes a great balance of making situations feel repetitive without making them feel flat out boring. There are so many quality of life implementations that let you skip around to exactly where you need to be at any given time, and the game is shockingly great at directing you on what you need to do to progress. Timeloop stories need to strike a balance where the player can actually empathize with the character's emotions while also letting them enjoy playing something that isn't totally aimless and this game does it so well. Bad pacing will completely change my opinion on a story but ISAT is not guilty of it in the least.
I have a lot more that I would love to say about this, and obviously ISAT means way more to me than just being a playable game lmao. I'm not writing this review to try and convince people that this is the perfect indie RPG and all the others are totally worthless, I'm writing in the hopes that I'll convince the kinds of people who never would consider trying something like this to give this game a chance. It's one of the most beautiful stories I've ever experienced, bar none, and I'm so thankful that it was engaging enough to keep me playing through it all.
Don't let the Undertale pick in my top 5 fool you, the only bias I have towards "Earthbound inspired RPGs" is a pretty negative one, and it all comes down to pacing. I really can't agree with the excuse of "Oh, but it's supposed to be slow and monotonous because that's the theme of the game" because why would you ever want to recommend someone a game that's just straight up boring to sit through? You can get the point across that something is meant to feel dull in a way more succinct way than just making the actual gameplay dull. Too many people are willing to use this excuse to justify overly drawn out stories and it makes it hard for me to trust them when they tell me that the next indie RPG I play will finally be good.
ISAT is so refreshing because I don't NEED to use that excuse at all! Not sure what the reviews saying that the game is tedious are talking about, ISAT strikes a great balance of making situations feel repetitive without making them feel flat out boring. There are so many quality of life implementations that let you skip around to exactly where you need to be at any given time, and the game is shockingly great at directing you on what you need to do to progress. Timeloop stories need to strike a balance where the player can actually empathize with the character's emotions while also letting them enjoy playing something that isn't totally aimless and this game does it so well. Bad pacing will completely change my opinion on a story but ISAT is not guilty of it in the least.
I have a lot more that I would love to say about this, and obviously ISAT means way more to me than just being a playable game lmao. I'm not writing this review to try and convince people that this is the perfect indie RPG and all the others are totally worthless, I'm writing in the hopes that I'll convince the kinds of people who never would consider trying something like this to give this game a chance. It's one of the most beautiful stories I've ever experienced, bar none, and I'm so thankful that it was engaging enough to keep me playing through it all.
i remember i put off playing this game for so long because i knew i would become obsessed and it would interfere with my studies. now look where we are (100% completion, three separate playthroughs, multiple analytic thinkpieces in notion, consuming my every waking thought). fucking french people... man....
The story and time loop mechanic are really interesting and cool, the art is fantastic, the battles are engaging and the characters are fleshed out with well thought out personalites, but my GOD I can't stand the writing. The characters are constantly screaming (with shaking text boxes and all of that) and ramble and ramble and ramble about random background things to the point of being annoying. Almost all of the characters are just ANNOYING to me. Siffrin isn't really, but I can't comprehend why they can't stand croissants but love croissants with chocolate in them (proof of the insignificant things the characters focus on) and have to hide everything about the time loop from his friends. He doesn't have anything to lose from teliing his friends this so I don't understand why it's such a big deal to them on the fact that they can't tell their friends.
Bonnie is annoying to me. They do insignificant damage in battle, they're assigned to "snack duty" and are one of the worst offenders over screaming and chiming in to stupid things that don't matter, yet everyone bowed to protect them at all costs and the whole team would die and the king wins if it means Bonnie lives of course. They can't even talk about death around them.
I dont know but it's something about the tryhard unfunny undertale-esque writing that strikes a nerve in me. I love everything else about it though. My sister begs me to pick up this game again but if it means 7 more hours of screaming and 203982047 more text boxes about how Siffrin sounded like a cat when he bumped into a table...yeah no.
Bonnie is annoying to me. They do insignificant damage in battle, they're assigned to "snack duty" and are one of the worst offenders over screaming and chiming in to stupid things that don't matter, yet everyone bowed to protect them at all costs and the whole team would die and the king wins if it means Bonnie lives of course. They can't even talk about death around them.
I dont know but it's something about the tryhard unfunny undertale-esque writing that strikes a nerve in me. I love everything else about it though. My sister begs me to pick up this game again but if it means 7 more hours of screaming and 203982047 more text boxes about how Siffrin sounded like a cat when he bumped into a table...yeah no.
2 hours worth of content stretched out to 20. An extremely repetitive game that tries to make itself seem more interesting than it is.
Builds an intriguing world and only focuses on the most boring aspects of it. Walking down the same 6 hallways and interacting with the same rooms over and over and over and over again makes for an unsatisfying game experience.
The time loop makes for a good premise but Siffrin is afraid of changing too much so each loop plays out almost exactly the same with very little variance.
The characters are a lot of fun and are really memorable though, and interacting with them was enough for me to want to put up with the rest of the game.
Builds an intriguing world and only focuses on the most boring aspects of it. Walking down the same 6 hallways and interacting with the same rooms over and over and over and over again makes for an unsatisfying game experience.
The time loop makes for a good premise but Siffrin is afraid of changing too much so each loop plays out almost exactly the same with very little variance.
The characters are a lot of fun and are really memorable though, and interacting with them was enough for me to want to put up with the rest of the game.
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
rough around the edges but i haven't been able to stop thinking about it for days. i love rpgmaker games shoutout to my queers
Really enjoyed it, it was fun to play! I think the fact that we know so little about the characters and the surface level gameplay with solving things for the timeloops holds this game back a lot. Some frustrating things with progression regarding how the protagonist is characterized
I don't really mind if something is super predictable, I think I'm just well acquainted to time travel stories, but just keep in mind that if you also are, it's really easy to predict.
Ending is heartwarming, but I think lacked the punch it really called for. To the point where it feels kind of uncalled for
I don't really mind if something is super predictable, I think I'm just well acquainted to time travel stories, but just keep in mind that if you also are, it's really easy to predict.
Ending is heartwarming, but I think lacked the punch it really called for. To the point where it feels kind of uncalled for
Oh stars, I did not expect to like this game as much as I did. This is in no way a perfect game, but any deficiencies were overridden with the game's two best qualities - excellent writing and absolute earnestness.
The characters were written superbly, and the game did a good job making you like every one of them within the
first half hour or so. Despite each of them having the potential to come off as juvenile, the absolute innocence of their actions propelled them from 'overacting' to 'extremely loveable'. What helped here was the slightly off-kilter way the world was introduced, with a lot of knowing nods to traditional JRPG tropes. (I mean, their RPS elemental triangle is literally rock-paper-scissors). You're just expected to accept the world and it characters as they're presented, and it won me over.
Let it be said that the game falls under what I would affectionately call...tumblrcore. Vaugarde and the Change religion both seem like the queer utopia. Many aspects of world-building seem like scraps from other fiction thought experiments, and you hear the author silently mouthing wouldn't it be nice if the world was like this, wink wink? I'm sure some people would see this and immediately nope out, but it honestly wasn't an issue for me as tumblr-ness was never really placed front and center of the narrative. The challenges and growth that our protagonists experience are universal. Sif, Odile, Isa, Mira, and Bonnie's problems could be anyone's story. And by Change, the game ends on such a high note that you want to hug every single one of those idiots.
And wow, what a story. I laughed, I was scared, I was frustrated. All at the planned points too, I believe. The author is excellent at ludonarrative synchrony, leveraging gameplay to reflect and parallel what you and the protagonist are feeling. Siffrin's happy? So are you. Siffrin wants to crabbing end it all? Yeah I wanted to throw the steam deck down at times as well.
And... yeah, maybe that last point got a bit too much at times. If there's just one criticism, I think the game is slightly longer than it should be. Despite the QOL improvements, there are some parts starting the second half of the game where I felt like the gameplay could be tightened up while retaining the same message.
So yeah. Imperfect game, but one that hit me hard and I'll bet I'll be thinking about for a while.
The characters were written superbly, and the game did a good job making you like every one of them within the
first half hour or so. Despite each of them having the potential to come off as juvenile, the absolute innocence of their actions propelled them from 'overacting' to 'extremely loveable'. What helped here was the slightly off-kilter way the world was introduced, with a lot of knowing nods to traditional JRPG tropes. (I mean, their RPS elemental triangle is literally rock-paper-scissors). You're just expected to accept the world and it characters as they're presented, and it won me over.
Let it be said that the game falls under what I would affectionately call...tumblrcore. Vaugarde and the Change religion both seem like the queer utopia. Many aspects of world-building seem like scraps from other fiction thought experiments, and you hear the author silently mouthing wouldn't it be nice if the world was like this, wink wink? I'm sure some people would see this and immediately nope out, but it honestly wasn't an issue for me as tumblr-ness was never really placed front and center of the narrative. The challenges and growth that our protagonists experience are universal. Sif, Odile, Isa, Mira, and Bonnie's problems could be anyone's story. And by Change, the game ends on such a high note that you want to hug every single one of those idiots.
And wow, what a story. I laughed, I was scared, I was frustrated. All at the planned points too, I believe. The author is excellent at ludonarrative synchrony, leveraging gameplay to reflect and parallel what you and the protagonist are feeling. Siffrin's happy? So are you. Siffrin wants to crabbing end it all? Yeah I wanted to throw the steam deck down at times as well.
And... yeah, maybe that last point got a bit too much at times. If there's just one criticism, I think the game is slightly longer than it should be. Despite the QOL improvements, there are some parts starting the second half of the game where I felt like the gameplay could be tightened up while retaining the same message.
So yeah. Imperfect game, but one that hit me hard and I'll bet I'll be thinking about for a while.
This review contains spoilers
Might be my favorite quirky indie RPGMaker game about depression. I'm going to have to mark this one with spoilers because I can't really effectively describe why it hit me so hard without at least getting into some of the details. It is what it is, I'll keep it to a minimum. Like, this one really did just tear me apart with the themes and story it wants to tell. That punch also hits like a truck thanks to the strong, interweaving nature of the game's mechanics, storytelling devices, and character writing.
The core conceit of everything that happens in this game is that the main character, Siffrin, exists within a concrete timeloop that relives the last days of what would be any typical RPG story. You have a party of companions you've traveled with to the final dungeon that houses the big bad guy. You even start parked in a town just before heading into all of that. It's just like Final Fantasy! It even has ATB! So after spending some bonding time with your friends, you hop into the dungeon. Clearing the dungeon is...not simple. And it turns out the simplicity of ATB within a single dungeon and limited enemy roster is not the most interesting thing. Navigation puzzles are also hard, and you can find yourself in impossible to solve situations. Past that, you may find enemies that are impossible to overcome. Everything sets into a grind of trying and retrying to find solutions to these problems.
And that's okay, because you've been blessed with the immortality of being able to rewind time as many times as you need with no real repercussions for doing so. Your party may lose some items and exp, but you know where everything is while Sif himself never loses exp so it's easy to farm back up. You're always just a loop away from solving all your problems. Just one more loop....wait how many loops have I done? 50? Oh dear. Things become tedious. The battle system gets worn out. The never ending chain of "climb through every room of this dungeon to find one silly item" quests drive me insane. It wears down on Sif. He says so almost in step with the way I feel about it. The moment I'm fed up, Sif is fed up enough to find a way to help alleviate it. He becomes stronger, faster, able to navigate past enemies and trivialize the game.
This creates a problem. The problem is, that the people you are traveling with, your long time companions you've done a whole adventure with, are just really great. The way characters are written feels so organic and natural, it's like I've known them for the entire adventure I wasn't even there for. Sif has, so it makes sense. The dialogue boxes make heavy use of different fonts, size, and special animations alongside expressive character portraits. You can't not get drawn into loving this group. The problem is, they don't remember anything when we loop. So every time we do this, there's a song and dance to go along with it. You spend time with them and have different, difficult conversations on the loops. Really use this to your advantage to get to know them, appreciate them, even love them as a family. This has a limit. Over the course of 100 loops, you can only hear the same lines so many times. You start to zone out, mechanically skipping conversations, until you spend almost every loop more or less ignoring them as much as possible. Once you've fully bonded and pulled the inner strength out of everybody, that's enough right?
Eventually, they stop being people and start being actors to a play you're learning to orchestrate perfectly. You begin to disassociate away from them, and start to gamify everything. It's a slow process that's built up alongside the ever mounting tediousness of looping. Eventually it's just natural, and that's okay because you're doing this to save everybody. The disassociation never goes away though. Things are lonely. The failures also hurt, and the party never remembers that pain. But you do, every time you think you are on the verge of success, only to fall short, is crushing. Sometimes you see things that are downright horrible. Only you can carry that pain, and you can't tell them. They won't understand, you don't have time for this, maybe they'll even think you're crazy and abandon you. It's getting too hard to keep this entire act up anyways, so the game allows you to start tearing down the mechanical walls even harder so you can loop more efficiently. Where's the harm in looping when I can one shot everything and trivialize the final boss into nothing? One more loop, one more answer, and everybody is saved.
Just when I feel like I can't take anymore, Siffrin breaks right along with me. It's really spectacular how this all comes about, and I'm not really wanting to spoil the final acts for the people who didn't heed the spoiler warning! However, I will mention a couple things! Things that exist as borderline gags in the early game turn into legitimate trauma that the player wants to actively avoid alongside Sif. We, the player and Sif, begin to have the same feelings about how much failure we are willing to take and what lengths we'll go to in order to minimize that impact. We start to turn to cruel and awful, cynical things to help. The game will try and talk us to down from these ledges at every turn, to try and keep some semblance of self on the way down, but I personally did make choices I regret. When there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel, I was legitimately scared to continue out of fear that it would get ripped away from me. As if on cue, Siffrin yells out "it's too scary, I won't do it!"
Writing around the specific ways in which mental health can be so isolating and why people in those positions may choose to go harmful things is just really hard to nail down. Marrying those feelings to game mechanics is an even harder task. In Stars and Time manages to cross that line in a way that felt just right with me, and brought some serious tears along with it. I never felt like the game was forcing harm onto me, in fact it was quite the opposite. Always trying to tell me to take care of myself and try to do my best, but acknowledging that some situations are just hard to get by. On a personal level as well, there was representation in this game I didn't know I needed written in a way I didn't know I needed. It was full of surprises like that, things I didn't know I needed until presented in this way, so thanks for that InsertDisc5.
Ultimately, In Stars and Time resolves itself in a way that challenges the ideas we have to be hurt to be seen both through gameplay and story. It does so at the end of what feels like a genuine battle with itself, never willing to relent on the situations it places Sif in while always willing to offer a hand to pull them back up. That marriage of play and exploration of emotion is at a high peak here that's extremely rare, so hats off to In Stars and Time for providing me with something special.
The core conceit of everything that happens in this game is that the main character, Siffrin, exists within a concrete timeloop that relives the last days of what would be any typical RPG story. You have a party of companions you've traveled with to the final dungeon that houses the big bad guy. You even start parked in a town just before heading into all of that. It's just like Final Fantasy! It even has ATB! So after spending some bonding time with your friends, you hop into the dungeon. Clearing the dungeon is...not simple. And it turns out the simplicity of ATB within a single dungeon and limited enemy roster is not the most interesting thing. Navigation puzzles are also hard, and you can find yourself in impossible to solve situations. Past that, you may find enemies that are impossible to overcome. Everything sets into a grind of trying and retrying to find solutions to these problems.
And that's okay, because you've been blessed with the immortality of being able to rewind time as many times as you need with no real repercussions for doing so. Your party may lose some items and exp, but you know where everything is while Sif himself never loses exp so it's easy to farm back up. You're always just a loop away from solving all your problems. Just one more loop....wait how many loops have I done? 50? Oh dear. Things become tedious. The battle system gets worn out. The never ending chain of "climb through every room of this dungeon to find one silly item" quests drive me insane. It wears down on Sif. He says so almost in step with the way I feel about it. The moment I'm fed up, Sif is fed up enough to find a way to help alleviate it. He becomes stronger, faster, able to navigate past enemies and trivialize the game.
This creates a problem. The problem is, that the people you are traveling with, your long time companions you've done a whole adventure with, are just really great. The way characters are written feels so organic and natural, it's like I've known them for the entire adventure I wasn't even there for. Sif has, so it makes sense. The dialogue boxes make heavy use of different fonts, size, and special animations alongside expressive character portraits. You can't not get drawn into loving this group. The problem is, they don't remember anything when we loop. So every time we do this, there's a song and dance to go along with it. You spend time with them and have different, difficult conversations on the loops. Really use this to your advantage to get to know them, appreciate them, even love them as a family. This has a limit. Over the course of 100 loops, you can only hear the same lines so many times. You start to zone out, mechanically skipping conversations, until you spend almost every loop more or less ignoring them as much as possible. Once you've fully bonded and pulled the inner strength out of everybody, that's enough right?
Eventually, they stop being people and start being actors to a play you're learning to orchestrate perfectly. You begin to disassociate away from them, and start to gamify everything. It's a slow process that's built up alongside the ever mounting tediousness of looping. Eventually it's just natural, and that's okay because you're doing this to save everybody. The disassociation never goes away though. Things are lonely. The failures also hurt, and the party never remembers that pain. But you do, every time you think you are on the verge of success, only to fall short, is crushing. Sometimes you see things that are downright horrible. Only you can carry that pain, and you can't tell them. They won't understand, you don't have time for this, maybe they'll even think you're crazy and abandon you. It's getting too hard to keep this entire act up anyways, so the game allows you to start tearing down the mechanical walls even harder so you can loop more efficiently. Where's the harm in looping when I can one shot everything and trivialize the final boss into nothing? One more loop, one more answer, and everybody is saved.
Just when I feel like I can't take anymore, Siffrin breaks right along with me. It's really spectacular how this all comes about, and I'm not really wanting to spoil the final acts for the people who didn't heed the spoiler warning! However, I will mention a couple things! Things that exist as borderline gags in the early game turn into legitimate trauma that the player wants to actively avoid alongside Sif. We, the player and Sif, begin to have the same feelings about how much failure we are willing to take and what lengths we'll go to in order to minimize that impact. We start to turn to cruel and awful, cynical things to help. The game will try and talk us to down from these ledges at every turn, to try and keep some semblance of self on the way down, but I personally did make choices I regret. When there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel, I was legitimately scared to continue out of fear that it would get ripped away from me. As if on cue, Siffrin yells out "it's too scary, I won't do it!"
Writing around the specific ways in which mental health can be so isolating and why people in those positions may choose to go harmful things is just really hard to nail down. Marrying those feelings to game mechanics is an even harder task. In Stars and Time manages to cross that line in a way that felt just right with me, and brought some serious tears along with it. I never felt like the game was forcing harm onto me, in fact it was quite the opposite. Always trying to tell me to take care of myself and try to do my best, but acknowledging that some situations are just hard to get by. On a personal level as well, there was representation in this game I didn't know I needed written in a way I didn't know I needed. It was full of surprises like that, things I didn't know I needed until presented in this way, so thanks for that InsertDisc5.
Ultimately, In Stars and Time resolves itself in a way that challenges the ideas we have to be hurt to be seen both through gameplay and story. It does so at the end of what feels like a genuine battle with itself, never willing to relent on the situations it places Sif in while always willing to offer a hand to pull them back up. That marriage of play and exploration of emotion is at a high peak here that's extremely rare, so hats off to In Stars and Time for providing me with something special.
Just finished playing this, so my thought aren't fully formed, but I absolutely adored it. I felt like I was going insane right alongside Siffrin, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Truly a gem of indie game design.
"wehh wehhh this game is so repetitive wehh wehhhh its frustrating doing the same stuff all over" THATS THE POINT. In Stars and Time, along with being an incredibly written story with a lovable cast of characters who have amazing chemistry as a party, also has the best depiction of the existential horror of time-loops that I've seen in a piece of art, ever.
One of the best written games I've ever played. An extremely emotional and gripping story of what would happen if the lancer of a five-man band suddenly found themselves in a time loop and how that would affect them mentally. But also it's a lot more than that, though I'm honestly reluctant to explore how so. Just play it, it's incredibly good and best enjoyed blind.
This game ruined my life
game got better over time, but throughout all of it, it constantly reeks of tumblr. the art is nice, story as well (though it constantly confusingly changes between the tone in scenes, like a fun goofy scene instantly to a sad one, and vice versa, often due to one specific character. this can be good, like in lisa, but here its just shit), characters kinda suck, the gameplay loop is interesting and fun at least at the start (though not gonna give it props for the literal RPS combat), then it really starts to drag, the pacing gets clapped, and it feels like you're playing a manual endless eight, and you start to see the flaws in the time warp mechanic.
it's fun at least half the time, and the game obviously has quality attached to it, but it's flawed and very gay
it's fun at least half the time, and the game obviously has quality attached to it, but it's flawed and very gay
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