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Tecmo Secret of the Stars: A Fantasy (SNES) artwork

Tecmo Secret of the Stars: A Fantasy (SNES) review


"It also just FEELS like this game was thrown together at the last minute, or had a bad translation. All of the dialouge text in the game is in caps. It's annoying to see ''YOU MUST GO TO THE CAVE OF LIGHT''. Now imagine seeing that all the time. The text is badly translated, and reeks of that ''awkward translation'' stink."

Secret of the Stars (SoS) is a very unique game for the Super Nintendo. It combines the gameplay of a boring Nintendo game with that of an early Game Boy RPG. The combination is simply craptacular.

The game is made by Tecmo, and while I haven't looked it up, this was their first forray into the world of RPG's. And it shows. A lot.

The story is the typical ''save the world from the evil power''. You and four other warriors must unite to defeat this power that killed your father. It's all very ho-hum, with a few twists here and there.

The perspective is traditional RPG. You choose from commands such as attack, magic, and defend. There's also an option for auto, which will automatically attack and heal for you, as the situation demands. You can run away from fights also.

The gameplay in SoS is best described by one word - SLOW. Normal battles take at least a minute to win, usually more around three. It takes three choices just to launch a single attack. The enemies are very tough, but even easy monsters take a while to kill. The auto command is a godsend, but then you just watch your character hit enemies instead of wasting time to pick it yourself.

The challenge level is above average. However, a lot of it's ''cheap challenge''. The game will tell you to do things, then give you no idea how to do it. You have to walk around randomly, talking to everyone, until you're lucky enough to trigger an event. It doesn't help that your character moves at a snail's pace across the world map and in towns.

There's the standard amount of equipment. You can buy weapons, helmets, armor, items, the normal fare. They're a bit pricey though, so you'll spend a lot of time just working up gold.

Hit points can be replenished at any bed. Just walk into it and wham, you're healed. However, for magic points, you have to find portals to heal yourself. This can be annoying as hell to have to walk all the way back to a portal to heal your magic points.

The lackluster and boring gameplay make it hard to keep your attention on the game. The weak storyline can not keep your attention. The fun factor accordingly takes a MASSIVE hit. This game is not fun to play.

It also just FEELS like this game was thrown together at the last minute, or had a bad translation. All of the dialouge text in the game is in caps. It's annoying to see ''YOU MUST GO TO THE CAVE OF LIGHT''. Now imagine seeing that all the time. The text is badly translated, and reeks of that ''awkward translation'' stink.

The graphics could have easily been duplicated on a Regular Nintendo. This would have been acceptable if this was an early generation Super Nintendo game, but this is a mid-generation game. Plain colors and bad animation are simply not acceptable.

The sound is very mundane. There's nothing memorable or epic here. Sound effects are also not incredibly strong, and forgettable.

All in all, there are much better RPG's out there for the Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy 3, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG are all better (and more fun) then this game. If you've beaten all the system has to offer, then you might want to try this game, but don't spend anything over 20 bucks on it.



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Community review by sgreenwell (Date unavailable)

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