Celestian Tales: Old North

Just finished the game today. Didn't take too long, just over 10 hours. For the price and the fact that there are 6 perspectives to play through I think the length was about right. This is only part 1 of 3 parts, so the story is going to be continued in the next installment. I thought that the art and world were quite good. Animations were lacking in the environments, but everything looks nice. Music was also good, a lot better than I was expecting, honestly. This is a game you will play for its story and it's quite good. I was hooked from the beginning and played right through in 3 settings, quite rare for me these days! The characters were all more interesting than usual for the genre and the women were actually clothed! Battles are turn based and everything is very typical straight RPG stuff. I happen to love JRPGs so I was quite happy with all of the basic gameplay. Now, for a list of my negatives. I had a great time with the game, but I couldn't give it 5 stars for the following reasons: Too easy, even boss battles never challenged me Searchable areas glow, taking the fun out of discovery No ambient animations other than for water There were choices as promised, but very few overall and it seems I won't find out the consequences until the next game Quite a few grammatical errors and a town that supplies the region with wheat, but when you get there they say that they grow barley which they make into oats. Probably the weirdest grain related situation I've ever seen in a game :p I must warn that to me the game is really nothing like Grandia, Lunar, Suikoden, or Saga Frontier as stated in another review. Battle system is completely standard turn based command style with a 3 character party and while there are 6 characters to play as, the story merges almost within the first 10 minutes. I definitely recommend this game to fans of the genre. This is the first game in a long time that I really got into, I personally can't wait for the next one!

First it's fun to play for a short time and has interesting characters but unfortunatly that's all. Wasted potential 1: Characters You can choose on of the 6 Characters at the beginning, but that only really affacts the prologue, after that everthing excepting 1-3 very short scenes it's completely the same. The characters are very interesting and everyone could have gotten own substorylines unfortunatly that's not the case, the idea of the motivation for multiple playthroughs is missing completely. Wasted potential 2: Story In combination with the first point this almost kills the game, it's over before it even really started. At the beginning I thought oh The Outer Realms could intersting and a good story could take place there. It's the same with the world map, I thought som many places I'm looking forward how those are important to the story, but they aren't most of them are just decoration. At several points there was much potential for further story-develpment or good an intersting sub-stories, but everytime you think this might be important later you get disappointed it just ends before it gets more interesting. That results in a story which is only about average with many disappointments and terribly short. Wasted potential 3: Choices There are a few choices in this games, but even those which seem important either have no or minimal effect, like a sentence changed at the end of the game. That way even the last method to make a game enjoyable for a longer time, letting the player make choices so he gets interested in what happens if you choose something different, is useless. Wasted potential 4: Difficulty Unfortunatly in addition to the points above the game isn't even a bit challanging, you get healed completely after every battle, you level up way too easy. That's why even the gameplay gets boring after a short time. I didn't expect a game as big or good as the big titles but what I but her is just disappointing in almost every possible way.

This game is beautiful, especially considering it's an indie title. The water-coloring (and I think I spy some pastels) looks fantastic. The gameplay is a little like Grandia or Lunar, with a Suikoden-like story and character style, and maybe a little Saga Frontier in there too (at least the multiple storylines/character selection thing). For the price, you can't go wrong. It natively supports the Xbox 360 controller too, so that's a plus for me. And for those who care: It's not random battles (thus the Lunar reference). If you like classic JRPGs, give it a whirl...you might be surprised.

I just played through this game the first time. It took me about 7hours. Thing is you see alot of cities and other landmarks on the map but it doesnt seem like you will ever travel there. You can upgrade your weapons from c to c+ to b but no further. There is a huge open plot witch opens in the last third of the game and is not answered nor ended when you are through. So my question is , will there be another episode ? i mean i just became a knight and ... bam its over what the hell ?