Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Just doing up a simple import impression thread as no one had an OT claimed and myself was not interested enough to do an actual OT for this title.
About
Stella Glow is an SRPG and the last title made by the now defunct Japanese game development studio Imageepoch Inc. that is published under SEGA.
General
From playing for a few hours now and progressing in the story overall this is quite the decent title. Has some real nice music, voice work and the 2D character and background art is great. As expected the small 3D character models are nice looking also and that never has been an issue with Imageepoch in general.
Game is narrative focused as expected, so story bits with SRPG fights in between. Some sections are voiced with others being text only. So this is not a fully voiced title.
Story
Story so far am enjoying it and its what one can expect from a fantasy RPG. So with that in mind just dont go thinking too hard about things and you should be able to enjoy the game. Also the characters who have show up so far are pretty good in the sense of none of them being irritating by either writing or poor voice acting.
There is also sections of the game where the player is given "free time" which basically is limited actions up to 3 that allow the player to partake in various events such as conversations with story characters to raise their friendship, take on part time work to earn money, help tune (power up) your witch allies by clearing special event dungeons. Things like visiting the equipment shop, gem shop, my room do not take up a token.
Town / World Map Navigation
Navigation around the town is handled by a menu system.
The world map is an actual map with paths on it, similar to other SRPG titles. Areas where battles can take place will also display the general level of difficulty also.
On the World Map during mission time, there will be points on the map that are colored Blue with an enemy icon. These are free battles that you can do before heading to the main objective point which is colored Red. While these free missions are optional, its pretty important to do them for the money and exp that can be gained. Along with extra supplies from enemy drops.
Free battles on the World Map can be done multiple times once you advance a bit more in the story. On occasion you might need to enter the town to reset the battle spots, other times they seem to reset on their own.
There are also higher difficulty battles which contain high lv enemies but give good rewards and a nice way to build up exp / cash, though they can take time to finish since you will have to cheese your way to win depending on the lv spread between you and the enemies. To access these missions you pay using the Play Coins. At the moment the only one I have available costs 2 Play Coins.
Combat
Combat is pretty straightforward SRPG stuff, so should not be anything too difficult for new players. With a few interesting features thrown in. Such as the heavy knight character in the game has a chance to protect characters adjacent to them. And the song system which has various effects.
As with other SRPGs tiles / height have effects on accuracy, damage, etc. Same with facing of the enemy / characters.
Combat animations are done by a separate animation scene, you can see those in the trailers video. The good thing is if the player get sick of watching them it can be turned off it seems by pressing the Y button. Have not done that yet though.
Leveling up refills HP / SP and stats go up automatically.
EXP is gained attacking / counter-attacking / healing etc. Where Im at currently EXP does not seem to be shared, so you need to keep things alive so lower lv characters can get the larger exp reward for kills.
Also if a battle is going poorly and you want to restart, no need to go loading up data again as there is an actual start battle over from the beginning option which is appreciated.
In the missions if you check the Mission Objectives, there will be sub objectives that if completed will award the player with equipment / supplies that are listed. Though since these appear on story missions too (which can only be played once), it is suggested to try and accomplish these if possible. Some examples are, Main Character kills X amount of enemies on the map, Get the first hit in combat, Dont let any allies retreat, etc. Pretty standard stuff.
Folks may wonder why the AI is not more aggressive, but honestly with the title if it was and constantly advanced towards the player would make things overly difficult. This title seems to work off of trigger locations / proximity for getting the AI active in battle, so getting closer to an enemy or passing a certain point on the map is what will trigger them to start advancing towards or attack the player. While some many not like that too much I would have to say its a fair compromise.
Battle Maps
While things in the game start off small with maps, later on there are some larger maps available. The details on some of the maps are nice too. The only one thing I would say folks will have an issue with is that the game does not support rotating the map itself. You can zoom in / out though, but its nothing special.
The free battle maps, while the map base is the same there will be occasions where the set monsters will be different at times. Its not "randomized" just a different pre-set monster list is called up and placed.
In Closing
Overall think this will be quite an enjoyable game and am glad to see that their last title did not turn out to be some sort of mess. At least not yet anyways, but early impressions are quite positive from the full game and hope others who will be purchasing it will enjoy the title also.
Media
World & Game System
Teaser
Risette Song / Gameplay
Popo Song / Gameplay
Sakuya Song / Gameplay
Moldimolt Song / Gameplay
Someones playthrough video of the eShop demo version.
