Cosmic Star Heroine is a good, but not great game. It draws from many inspirations, mainly the Japanese RPGs of the 16 bit era. The story - a space opera, as the developers like to call it - has a nice outline, but has only very shallow character development or story. Just like the original games! Completion time for the game is around 15 hours. But the gameplay - a very modern, great to play interpretation of the classic turn-based battle systems - is easily one of the highlights, as is the awesome soundtrack and pixel art. Really, the music alone is worth the money! I really recommend this game to everybody who loves classic JRPGs.
This game is really well done and easily captures the spirit of the old Lucas Arts PnC games. I just have two criticisms: First, you play up to five characters, similar to Maniac Mansion. However, I feel that (outside of prsonality), the characters don't really feel that different. Some tasks can only be completed with certain tasks, but I feel that it's not executed to 100%. Second, and this is purely a personal preference, this game breaks the fourth wall too often, but in a style which I do not completely like. It references old point and click games A LOT. Every second joke is basically about Monkey Island or Lucas Arts. This is fine, but becomes redundant after a while. Everything else is really great, with all the pros and cons of classic adventure games. I think fans of the genre will thoroughly enjoy it, while newcomers might not fully understand each and every joke.
