What would you do if you were forced to relive your failures over and over again?
In Stars and Time tells the story of Siffrin and their adventurer friends—a found family bound together by fate in order to end the tyrannical reign of an evil king. But as victory is just within the party’s...
What would you do if you were forced to relive your failures over and over again?
In Stars and Time tells the story of Siffrin and their adventurer friends—a found family bound together by fate in order to end the tyrannical reign of an evil king. But as victory is just within the party’s grasp, a tragedy occurs, the clock resets, and they have to do it all again.
As Siffrin’s the only one who notices this loop, each new start wears away at his cheerful veneer, yet he keeps going in hopes he can end this temporal tragedy once and for all.
In Stars and Time is a time-looping RPG adventure. With each loop, Siffrin gains a new perspective on the world around them, opening up new solutions to puzzles and allowing them to make better choices in conversation. Equip memories as armor, pray to the Change God to improve your team’s capabilities each loop, and challenge deadly foes to Rock, Paper, Scissors as Siffrin seeks the truth.
Our Adventurers
Siffrin (he/they): Stressed, depressed, and under duress. (Don’t worry about it. They’re doing fine.) The punmaster protagonist of our neverending tale.
Mirabelle (she/her): A caring and nervous housemaiden mysteriously blessed by the god she so ardently follows.
Isabeau (he/him): Defender with a heart of gold. Cares dearly for his people and his friends.
Odile (she/her): The mature and nonsensical researcher studying…something. (No, she will not tell you what it is.)
Bonnie (they/them): Wait a minute, who brought this kid along???
Features
Save the world through the power of Rock, Paper, Scissors in strategic turn-based RPG combat encounters.
Ignore the limits of time and space to fix your past mistakes by repeating the same two days over and over again.
Equip the memories you have of your friends to make your party stronger in combat.
Watch the fate of this world unfold as you escape the twists and turns of this endless(???) loop.
Eat samossas with your friends!
Get heckled by a cheeky ethereal being of infinite starlight.
Pray to a god for good luck in your travels. You’re gonna need it.
Another RPG Masterpiece.
In this game, there is a bit of a slow start, and it picks up later on.
I loved all the party members it was always fun interacting with them. Exploring around the world ISAT felt really rewarding.
The battle system itself is easy to play with. ATB system with literal Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanics.
For anyone starting off (a recommendation): explore the world and pay attention to tiny details. Once you hit ACT 3, you'll get kicked out of comfort zone and the ball will roll.
I'm glad I played this game before 2023 ended. Highly recommend!
I really enjoyed In Stars and Time. It's diagetic in it's tutorials and it's game over system, both of which are core components of it's overall story.
I've beaten the game twice over now, so I feel like I've gotten a pretty good grasp on both the quality of it, as well as how it feels to play it: which is, frustrating at times.
The game will mess with you, force you to go back, stuff like that, but it gives you systems to make that easier. You're supposed to feel frustrated with it at times, because that's how the protagonist feels: frustrated, tired, exhausted, etc. Art can be frustrating, and ISAT's gameplay seems to manage that pretty well sometimes!!
The gameplay is okay. I got a little exhausted of battles at some points, but you have the means to avoid combat (running away, either in battle or outside of it).
The story is the games shining factor I think. There are moments which really caught me off guard my first time around, and others which still make me emotional on subsequent playthroughs. I can recommend ISAT to anyone who's willing to struggle a bit, who's willing to let their guard down and get immersed in a game's story, world, systems, etc. It's a beautiful experience.
its a good game if you want a story with emotion depth thats not too long.
unique, if simple fighting style.
humor is cute and will illicite sensible chuckles. and/or cringe.
bit pricey though.
In Stars and Time is a weird game. The entire point of its time-looping premise means that, from a gameplay standpoint, you 'exhaust' the progression halfway through (give or take) and the games becomes more and more repetitive after that point (despite the options that become available to 'make things go faster'). I don't know if this is the best way the premise could've been executed, especially because if you have any interest in the optional content you'll need to repeat a lot of stuff a lot of time, which becomes tedious very fast; perhaps, more content being put into the combat for instance wouldn't have been unwelcome. However, I understand why the game was made with this structure and, thus, why it can be considered a 'by design' feature of sorts. Because it does service the story, and while that doesn't really make the issue any better, it makes sense in context.
And the story is where the game truly shines. Overall, the game is supported by an interesting world-building, albeit a lot of it is conveyed by text, that is also connected to its time-related incipit to a an extent. Thankfully, the writing is great and manages to hold everything together, and excels when it comes to the cast of main characters that move the story and, most likely, will be the main reason you'll want to push forward: all with very different traits, quirks, backgrounds, and problems that make them all memorable, and a lot of the major story beats are based on those characters and their interactions with each other.
I don't consider the game perfect in all aspects by any means, but I think that overall the final result is still something remarkable that deserves to be known by more people. And, if there's a chance that you may connect with one or more of the characters in a very specific way (confession: that's what happened to me), then the game may get dangerously close to a "one of the best games I've played" kind of deal. Despite this, keep in mind what I said in the first paragraph within this review and consider what you're getting before buying: it's a great time loop story, but it's also a time loop game with some undeniable quirks.
—oh, and if you're wondering about "START AGAIN: A Prologue" and its abscence from GOG, don't worry too much. In spite of its name, START AGAIN's relationship with the main game is complicated and it's hard to explain why without going into spoiler territory, let alone the fact that every player of both has their own opinion on the matter. For what it's worth, in my case I believe that In Stars and Time is its own beast that can be enjoyed on its own fully. Yes, there are connections with START AGAIN, things that go beyond its nature as a prototype, a demo-of-sorts of ISaT, but to me those are additional insights that are food for theorycrafting rather than an essential part of the main story. And gameplay-wise (yes, including what I said earlier) I believe playing ISaT blind has its own merits. So feel free to dive into ISaT on GOG (well, if you don't care about achievements at least :P), your enjoyment won't depend on whether you've played START AGAIN first.
This isn't a story so much as a parasocial fanwank about characters you're given no reason to care about who all act like annoying preteens, except for the literal preteen, who is like a hyperactive 5-year old. This is what passes for "characterization" in Weeblandia, you see.
Play mostly involves going back and forth to fetch keys. When the time-loops are introduced it actively makes the game worse.
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