One word to describe this game: Family
(Read it in Vin Diesel Tone)
I found out about this game from one of my lecturers. I tried the early access/demo. The game is fun and all. Sort of reminds me of Castle Crasher.
StellaGale: The Trials of Fate is a narrative driven beat-em-up, hack and slash game. It features a classic 2D side-scrolling mechanic with a surprisingly fast combat system and a bit of platforming flavour. My experience so far in trying out the early version of this game has been a positive one.
Well, everyone deserves a compliment sandwich once in a while. So, I'm going to write it down in the form of a game review.
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PROS:
> Story and Character:
Gameplay is too short for me to really get into the story and character but provides enough backstory to understand what goes on in game and what motivates the character. Stella's motive and narrative aren't new in game storytelling, it's not even that special considering there exist hundreds of story with similar character personality and objective already airing in many forms of media, but still for such a short game, how the graphic choice and character design really capture the world-building the developer might be aiming at, along with nice pacing help this simple but heartwarming story of siblings' lives embark with such a nice start, really make one curious about the rest of the story.
> Combat:
Combat System is fun and satisfying, even for a short prologue, the game lets me launch endless combo on enemy especially after unlocking special move. The Shoryuken Special attack, mid-air attack then heavy slash combo will always be my favorite moves against all kind of enemies (until maybe the full game comes out and there exist enemies immune to upward knockback). The platforming is simple but fun. Some parts of the gameplay are lacking in instruction, which can be confusing at the beginning, but is still bearable.
> Graphics:
The visuals are GORGEOUS, I feel in love the first time I saw it. Some parts of the animation were still stiff, like the gun reload animation. But everything else is beautifully done. Overall, a lot of love for the graphics, but still, I have a few complaints about it as well. (Just 2 complaints, we'll come to the later in the CONS.)
> Sound:
Soundtrack is good, not someone who really enjoys melancholic soundtrack, but it fits the theme, and so I have no complaints about it at all.
Now let's get to the
CONS:
> Annoying trap placement:
I'm glad the traps aren't insta-kill, especially the pendulum. Some trap placements leave little room to maneuver, the way the pendulum moves makes it hard to predict how it's going to swing back (my bad, I should git gut), and the pendulum placement for special moves tutorial in Prologue 2, combined with the lack of instruction on which move to use and the proper way to use it (I found that firing Shoryuken while running gives more knockback than hitting in place) may be hard for some people to notice. Worst of all, the pendulum becomes unreachable for the moves and eventually the tutorial becomes unendable if the enemy used for the tutorial is hit until it reaches the left edge of the arena.
> Buggy interface:
The mission box for Prologue 2 and 3 sometimes disappears before the mission is completed. For the current linear playthrough, this won't matter much, the game is short so there's no need to panic. But I hope it doesn't persist until the finished product, especially if it happens while we're roaming on a larger map like the city in Prologue 2. I accidentally pressed M and opened up the unfinished map, so I think this game will have a wider, larger area to explore later on. Not good if the mission box disappears and you forgot what you're supposed to do.
> Buggy Artwork:
Some of the artwork is still buggy, for example in Prologue 2, I can't stop laughing at the way Stella's head is stuck to the wall of the staircase.
> Buggy Level:
I don't see the point of separating Prologue 1-3 and then adding the Full Prologue level, except for the fact that the Full Prologue adds an extra cutscene at the beginning of the game, whenever we finish a Prologue level, it always advances to the next one so I really can't see the reason here. There's also this one bug in the Full Prologue level: If you win the first fight against Bloody belly, the whole game gets stuck at the dialog scene. Bloody belly won't say his dialog and the game will just get stuck there. There's also in the third prologue where lack of instruction on how to activate the trap lever (we just need to hit the level with attack moves), the game camera will get stuck on the lever, it wouldn't prevent the layer from moving further, but the camera will get stuck there until we hit the lever, and the platform will be too high to be reached even by double jumping (we can just hit the lever with special moves without the need of reaching the platform).
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Now down here I will put my NEUTRAL opinion because it just felt odd, but as a player if that gave me advantages then I will be META-ing my way in the game:
> I found that the reload animation for gun attack (shift) was very slow, I don't know if this was by game design, intentional or not, cause if this was by game design and the developer plan on adding some ability like increasing reload speed then I just found exploitable glitch where I can force speed up the reload by rolling (space) during the reload animation, The action reloaded y gun instantly.
> Dev forgot to remove Ultimate placeholder where it can kill any enemy in a single hit and kill bosses in 2 hits. It can be activated with only 2 MP. Maybe this is the dev tool for accelerating the game or testing enemy and boss phase.
> I think since enemies can (and will) gang up on you and the boss hits pretty hard (don't worry guys, this game has a checkpoint system), putting item window as the default window in the tactical view (RMB) can help speed up the combat. The default window for Tactical view after reaching Prologue 2 is the Special move window, but the first thing people will look for after a restless battle is the healing potion, putting item window as the default view will speed up that process, unless the developer is planning on adding quick slot for items and equipment.
> Back to Rolling (space) I found rolling to be an extremely powerful move. I don't think this was intentional, I can dodge almost any kind of attack (except some boss attacks), even groundbashing boss attacks and survive, even funnier, I can roll at the exact position where the attack will land and it gives me extra attack bonus for dodging instead of damage. This move makes something like guard (ctrl) terribly useless, mice unleash 20 damage on attack while on guard, it negates the attack to 18, against the boss (bloody belly) it does nothing at all, Stella takes the same amount of damage whether the guard is on or off. Is this intended to work until we get something like a better shield upgrade or skill?
> I hope you guys will add some indicators to distinguish between accessible and inaccessible areas during free roam in Prologue 2. I'm not talking about mission indicators or area blocker that prevent us from reaching other parts of the map. I'm talking about how the sprites are put together. As I said before, the graphics are beautiful. But the area design being crammed together with similar tones and brightness, is sometimes confusing for the eye.
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Game is still pretty much in-development, I hope developer is able to develop better performance support and the promised end game replayability.
Other than that, I have nothing to complain about. Once again, the game is beautifully designed and has a very promising look and feel. I really hope the final product deliver an experience as satisfying as the demo.
Extra Note: The lecturer who showed me this game asked me to guess which song he composes for the game, according to my guess, the second song used in the city (Prologue 2 Soundtrack). 😂
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