Stella Deus was a SRPG released for the PS2 in 2004 my and developed by Atlus in my opinion With one exception EVERYTHING about that game is either bland generic or just playing bad.
The story:
It is actually pretty interesting, it has a lot of interesting idea.
the world is dying!!!
How is the people reacting? How is the government, church, the institution that compose this world reacting to this?
it all would be pretty interesting if the main villains were interesting, if it had a good pacing and have some well written conflict and character development, I am not 100% if the original script was bad of if the translation ruined it, what I do know it could be one of the greatest story in a SRPG.
The English dub is terribly even for me!, I have played Arc Rise fantasia with the English dub
The Gameplay:
When you thing about a SRPG two kinds of games come into mind, Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea like games where grind is everything with a deep customization system or Fire Emblem were each unit feels unique to use (even if they share the same class) and customization isn't deep but it has a lot of strategic thinking, Stella Deus attempts both and succeed in neither. Each character has a job/class and each job has a certain skill that they can learn if they have enough points to acquire, you can benefit from it as long as you have a free slot to equip it, each character has their class that they share with a generic party members which is pretty much palette swaps of enemy unit, the generic units have access to 3 promotion while the unique character has 4, there is crafting mechanic that is quite complex with it you can craft a scroll that if use in a party member it will grant them the possibility to learn a skill from other classes.
I get why there is a generic variant of each character that because some character have a really bad availability, the generic variant don't have this problem, the issue is that because of the scroll you can craft the difference between each class became less relevant, sure there are stats difference but besides a magic unit VS a melee unit there aren't many different between the class in the game, in fire emblem a Paladin is different from general which is different from a sword master which is different from a beserker in final fantasy tactics a Squire is different from a Knight which is different from a Monk which is different from a lancer/dragon which is different from Samurai, but in Stella Deus it feels like there are only 2 classes the one that can use magic and the ones that hit hard, in fire emblem promotion is something that feels special and that is reason to celebrate but in Stella Deus it feels pointless, the only thing that promoting does in Stella deus is a slight increase in stats (the equivalent to 1 or maybe 2 level up) and increase the number of skills you can acquire (which because of the scroll system isn't that big of deal) in fire emblem promotion increase stats that are equivalent of 3 to 4 level up and increase stats that cannot be normally increase such as moviment and constitution and they are also increase the caps (the limit of how high a certain stat can go), I am not saying that promotion in Stella Deus should be like fire emblem but it should be a big deal or it shouldn't be there at all.
Some JRPG players have a tendency to avoid SRPG that you can't grind in fear of locking them self in a winnable situation but unless the SRPG in question has deep customization, I think that a game shouldn't let you grind, not because I am against grind but because when they do they normally have a lot of grinding instead of a well balanced difficult, in fire emblem I know when I am bad at playing, because the game is designed around the idea that I can't grind, in Stella Deus is hard to know whether or not the game wants me to grind or I am just bad at playing it, but the game is mostly about grinding how do I know that? There was a Certain stage that the boss which had a lot of HP spammed stun or paralysis, guess what was the solution? It was to make a scroll that grants a unit the ability to learn cure a spell that only healer can normally use that cure, after grinding for hours make everyone learn cure equiped it and in that if someone gets paralysis use it, meanwhile trying to kill the boss.
Not only that enemies are spongy, even if you are overlevel you can't one shot them,not only that maps in Stella Deus are poorly designed and even if the object is to kill the boss the maps feels like it is a kill all enemies map even if it isn't. The fact that the game is slow doesn't help this issue.
The music is composed by the same due that made final fantasy tactics OST so you would expect that the music would be the same quality as FFT or even higher considering the fact that some years passed after FF tatics but it very bland unoriginal repetitive and boring, did they declined ?
No, because after that they did the FF 12 OST which is amazing but they didn't put effort into the project , say what you want about hamauzo but all the games he made the OST had a consistent quality, meanwhile Stella Deus has a similar case of Astria Ascending were they thought that if they just contract a person with relevant names in the industry it would make that aspect of the game automatically good, what they don't understand is that for a artist not every project is created equally.
The graphics and art style:
They are the only positive aspects of the game, the art was made by Shigenori Soejima the same person who would latter do the art for the person series, and I think that the transition of Stella Deus concept art to in game art is better than his latter works with the person series, I saw a lot of criticism around the lifeless pastel colors that this game has going for it but I personally love it and it fits quite well with the setting.
Pros
- + -Great Art Style
- + -The Story has a good Premise
Cons
- - -Bad Voice acting
- - -Slow and Griding gameplay with bad Maps
- - -Story that is a wasted potential
- - -Music is Bland and Forgettable
4
Gameplay
It tries to mix what made Fire Emblem and Tactics Ogre Good, but in the end it made a bastard Child, that has the worst of both worlds.
9
Graphics
This was one of Soejima's first major works, and before Metaphor it was the only game that I felt like made the best of his art style, the muted plate color goes well with the plot.
4
Story
There are people who defend this game's plot, because of it's theme of Environmentalism and Organized religion but it doesn't change the fact, the character in this story are flat as paper.
6
Sound
While it Doesn't have any music that I would consider bad in itself (and one that's decent) this game's music is has no flavor, it just exist.
2
Replayability
There's bunch of easily missable content (Mostly recrutable characters) but in my opinion 40 hours JRPG shouldn't have stuff like that specially when it's gameplay is slow.
5.2
out of 10
Overall
This game had a lot of potential, a Beautiful Art style, interesting lore , and some good gameplay ideas, but for some reason Atlus ruined it, making one of the worst SRPG I have ever played.
