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Stardust Crusaders's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Audio | #4 | 3.692 | 3.692 |
Theme Interpretation | #8 | 3.308 | 3.308 |
Polish | #8 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Engagement/Fun | #9 | 3.154 | 3.154 |
Overall | #10 | 3.242 | 3.242 |
Magical Girl Concept | #11 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
Originality/Creativity | #12 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
Graphics | #15 | 2.692 | 2.692 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
My main characters are magical girls with magic powers(fire and water)
Which theme(s) did you pick?
Stardust Crusaders/Golden Wind
How does your game fit the theme(s)?
The mains are called Stardust Crusaders, and the enemies are the Golden Wind.
Were the graphics/audio assets for your game made during the jam?
Yes they were
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Comments
Got to be honest, art wasn't great (though I appreciate that it was custom art; default RPGmaker art often puts me off), I was disappointed by hardly any interactables in the environment (one of the main strengths of rpgmaker games imo), and combat was completely unengaging (since both characters had the exact same kit). However it was carried by the funny writing, EXCELLENT bgm choices, and your voice acting which brought a smile to my face. I also appreciate the effort to provide some varied setpieces to go through. The final dungeon felt like it could be the skeleton for more elaborate puzzles in an expanded version. Solid work!
Thanks. I had fun making the game, but now realize no matter how good it looks to me, my art skills are not good.
Good news is art skill can be practiced. Character design is harder to learn imo, and I really enjoyed yours.
I enjoyed the custom artwork, variety of attacks, diverse gameplay, and the Saturday morning cartoon storyline. There were few issues with passability and tiles being on the wrong layer, but nothing major. Combat was a bit one dimensional, and some attacks like the AOE ones were not very useful in most situations. It was also really just a matter of healing when low on HP, and then you'd win. Would be cool to see some more mechanics sprinkled into the combat. The voice acting was really cool, but magical girls may be a bit outside your typical VA range.
I didn't really know what to expect going into this one. It does kind of have that so bad it's good feel to it, though it's clearly done deliberately and some parts of it are surprisingly well thought out. I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously, and I think that's why it works.
There are some interesting sequences and level design in this game. The puzzle are not terribly complex, but they're well executed, and I especially liked the rope and switches (which was also an interesting use of perspective). Although I found some areas difficult to navigate and the graphics, well, I'll get back to the graphics, it did at least avoid one of my pet peeves about RPG Maker games: big empty dungeons that exist for the sake of being dungeons. The environments have a surprising amount of variation and plenty of detail. The parallax objects in the foreground was a neat touch as well.
I do wish there was more interactivity, but it didn't really take away from the game. I only realized this when I started writing this review!
The combat was functional. I thought it was pretty good while I was playing the game, but after looking back on it post game I realized how repetitive and simplistic it is. What I liked was the slightly nonstandard mechanics for gaining MP, and all the little detail animations including enemies getting "tired" when their HP is worn down. What I realized post-game is that it's pretty much a spamfest and there's little strategy to choosing attacks versus certain enemies for instance. I think the combat would get boring if the game was longer or grindier, but in its current state it works.
I didn't find the lack of grinding or progression a hinderance given the relatively short length of the game.
The minigames were a great idea, and technically impressive in a "wow, they did x thing in y engine" way. On the other hand, I didn't find any of them very enjoyable. The fire ant thing was insanely frustrating and difficult because the motion isn't smooth and there aren't really any hitboxes per se. I think it took me about four tries to get through it. The minecart chase is just kind of lame. It kind of feels like just awkwardly walking down a long path. There isn't really any sense of inertia or motion.
I do appreciate that the game is forgiving overall, letting you redo failed segments with no penalty and not forcing you to redo too much. Although I personally liked it, I think the combat is going to be way too easy for a lot of players.
The graphics, audio, and overall presentation... is going to be divisive. For the record, I liked it, but I think it would be totally understandable to hate it. The visual style is hard to describe, but I think "90s multimedia project" is the most descriptive way of putting it. A mixture of MSPaint drawings and liberal use of photos as textures. Sprite and animation quality ranges from surprisingly good considering the constraints of the style to completely unrecognizable as anything.
The sound effects and music are pretty generic, but the voice acting is worth mentioning. It is one hundred percent so bad it's good. I'm pretty sure all the voices are actually one person, the accents range from a passable impression to bordering on racist caricature, and the tonal range is basically either completely flat or completely exaggerated. Those all sound like complaints, and objectively, they are, but the voice acting is seriously one of my favourite parts of the game because of the "flaws". Coupled with the absurdity, wacky humour, and overall jank, the bad voice acting absolutely seals the deal.
The story and especially the humour are really what carry this game. It is weird to say the least, and maybe not to everyone's tastes, but I enjoyed it immensely, and I was rolling with laughter the whole way through. I think this is where the game is either going to fly or fail; either you love the absurd humour, questionable production values, and overall jank, or you hate it.
It does feel like a random episode of a longer series, which I have somewhat mixed feelings about. That adds to the absurdity of the whole thing, but it also makes it feel lacking context at times.
Finally, a note on length. It's just about perfect. It's not horrendously long, but it's long enough to have some meat to it, and it's paced very well and rarely feels like it's rushed or dragging.
I love so-bad-it's-good jank. I love truly bizarre shit that occasionally comes out of game jams. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Wow that was a lot to unpack. Thank you for the feedback.
That was a charming short RPG! I'll get the main negative out of the way right at the top... the combat was not very enjoyable, largely because battles stretched on way too long. It also didn't feel like there was much strategy, or even a difference between the 2 characters mechanically.
With that out of the way, I enjoyed the wacky story. Kudos for fulling voice acting it all! Not something you see very often in a jam game. While I didn't love the combat, I enjoyed the wide variety of minigames and interactive segments.
Graphically, while a little rough around the edges, I'd take this over the polished but overused default RPG maker art any day. It has style and personality that set it ahead of a lot of other RPG maker games I've played.
The length felt just right for the game. With snappier and more engaging combat, it could be a little longer and still work. (Thoughts for future installments)
Overall, I enjoyed my time playing this! Great work!
I bombed hard on the battle system. I plant to make more episodes, so I will think of ways to make battles more engaging.
i laughed at the voice acting the first time, then realised there was no way to turn it off, restarted, and then realised there was no way to skip the intro... nonetheless I found myself pretty amused throughout. Stuff like starting out at Episode 4, the general sociopathy of Pyra... in some ways I kind of feel this would have worked better as a pure adventure game. Certainly the RPG battles bog things down; enemies have a lot of HP and interacting with the interface isn't fun. I don't know if this is an engine thing or what but there's weird stuff like the AOE attacks not showing AOE targetting indicators and suchlike.
Outside of the battles, I was impressed with the variety of strange minigames and custom animations, like Oceania jumping into the lake. The minecart chase sort of fell flat because the spider immediately caught me then we just... simply beat it to a pulp. Following the spider cave just felt sort of unfair to even try and avoid the damn things because they have, what, like a tile's worth of avoidance possible? Good scripting on them though, not sure how easy that is in that engine...
I think on the whole I liked it a decent amount, mostly due to the script and the various jokes sprinkled throughout. It's very funny, and that counts for a lot in my books. (The boss's casting animation is also hilarious)
Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed the wackiness. Not sure how to turn off VA DURING the game. If you know how, let me know. Also seems most didn't care for my battle system. I'll work on tweaking that in the next episode.
A funny RPG that revels in its own wackyness. Characters are over the top and hilariously voice-acted. The plot is ridiculous. The music is funky and awesome.
Negatives: Battles take very long and don't involve much strategy. Why does a Lokust have something like 400 HP? They drag down this otherwise enjoyable game. Also there is no option to turn off the voice acting once you've selected it. I like to read fast, and the voices take longer than the text so it gets annoying.
I agree with battles. I should have made them more gimmicky.
The game by itself is ok. But with the voice acting? A+.
For real though, I encountered strange parts like being able to bypass the unpassable log in the cave or enemies swaying up and down even when defeated.
Thank you. I worked really hard on making it. Glad you liked it.