It's rare I hit a point with a game where I'm like "there's so much potential here that I almost can't blame it for falling short", but here we are.

In terms of "pressure-cooker survival VN", I think Buried Stars has a fantastic setup - the top five contestants in an idol reality show, plus a floor director, trapped inside a collapsed building, waiting for rescue in six hours, and most crucially still having access to Twitter is just [chef's kiss]. Then it mixes in an "I Know What You Did Last Summer"-style murder threat and you've really got a stew cooking. It's helped by a pretty solid soundtrack and some great production values and art.

But goddamn if the remainder of the game isn't just it kneecapping itself over and over. The conversation system is basically extended trial-and-error; you have no idea what topics will increase your sanity, or decrease it, or increase/decrease your rapport with the other characters, or unlock a profile that you'll need to unlock a rapport event that you'll need to unlock the true ending... etc. etc. etc. Then the pacing takes a massive hit in the middle third of the game, and by the time it recovers you're almost at the end anyway.

When it comes to the story and characters, the game's got a great setup for a story about fame, fandom, social media, and the pressure to be someone you aren't, but except for a few good moments, it doesn't really do all that much interesting with it. I got more out of little flourishes like how the game will let you argue with people on Twitter for absolutely no benefit (and in fact it will damage your sanity meter) more than I got out of some of the main characters' arcs.

But more disappointing than any of that - and worsening all of it - is the localization. It's bad! I feel bad saying that because I know translation and localization is really damn hard, but this is bad in that it doesn't seem to have had any kind of editing pass done on it by a native speaker. There's plenty of sentences that were clearly translated out of context, and many many more that are just flat and awkward. At its worst, the game will throw a timed choice at you where both of the options are almost word salad. That's the exception, not the rule, but it's the kind of thing you only have to see a few times before it sours you on the whole experience. It also makes it harder to connect to the characters when their dialogue is a mess, because it creates a low-level stress of understanding what they're trying to say that makes it tough for any of it to land emotionally.

If you speak fluent Japanese or Korean, I'd recommend this game - I think the production values and strong concept outweigh the pacing issues. If you speak English, well, watch some YouTube videos of the start and decide if you can still enjoy the game as it is.

I always feel a little bad about comparing indie games to their influences, but this game is so aggressively "classic Paper Mario" that it's kind of impossible not to.

That said... it holds up pretty well against classic Paper Mario! There's just a lot to love here - the world is charming, the characters are charming, the art style is charming, it's just a good time all around. That's married with a surprisingly good amount of content (it took about 40 hours for me to clear, doing most sidequests along the way) and a battle system that lets you do some really fun builds once you get far enough in the game.

It's not perfect, though - the "once you get far enough in the game" is doing a ton of heavy lifting in that last sentence. Up until about the halfway point I was feeling pretty battered by the game's strict economy; even a regular battle can take a ton of time and resources, so healing is paramount, but free heals are few and far between, and items are costly enough and money scarce enough that I was always scrambling to stay afloat. Most of the game's interesting build options also don't show up until about halfway through, and then you're limited by how many points you've put into medal capacity. Eventually I found my feet and had a pretty good time with the battles, but I don't blame people who tap out before that.

I do wish the quest and level design was a bit stronger. A lot of sidequests in this game are about running all over the world, and while fast travel options eventually open up that still means a lot of time spent walking through the same few towns and dungeons. And speaking of dungeons, this game is big into environmental puzzles based on positioning and using your overworld abilities, a la Golden Sun... but when everything is paper-styled and there's limited indication of where you're actually facing, it can get real frustrating real quick. There's one puzzle room in the last dungeon that had me gritting my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter, because it was clear the devs had wanted a puzzle that required all three characters' abilities but the result was a frustrating, slow mess where I was fighting the controls and collision detection all the way.

"Wow that's a lot of negatives" you might be saying about now and honestly yeah, but I still think this game is worth it. It's just a solid, fun indie RPG and while it's got its share of headaches, they were never damning for me. Ultimately the joy of this world and the strengths of the gameplay well outweighed the frustration. Strongly recommended.