Cosmic Star Heroine Review

 

Cosmic Star Heroine

 It's been a long time coming but I've finally played Cosmic Star Heroine. I was around for this game before it released and even got to talk to one of the developers on ResetEra back in 2017. Cosmic Star Heroine is developed by Zeboyd Games. This indie JRPG pits you in the role of Alyssa, a space secret agent as she uncovers that her agency has created an unethical mind control device. Cosmic Star Heroine is inspired by the SNES/Sega era of JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star IV, and Lunar: Eternal Blue. For the genre this is a relatively short game. I ran over just 14 and a half hours in my playthrough, but it might just be me and where I am currently but it felt like a full game length like a Final Fantasy and it took me about three weeks to finish it just like a FF.

 

Cosmic Star Heroine is also fast paced in correspondence to its length. The story moves about quickly, you are getting new party members quite often and seeing new locations fairly quickly. The story of Cosmic Star Heroine is my least favorite part of the game. I do like that this is set in a sci-fi world which most JRPGs are in fantasy so I like the change, but the plot and the details of it were bland to me. The dialogue was also bland which didn't help me feel connected to any of the characters so when something happened to one later on I didn't feel anything. The only character that I did feel some personality from was Clarke, who is a comic relief robot that loves to dance, but since the pace of the game is so fast you don't get a lot of time with him in the story.

Where Cosmic Star Heroine does shine is in the combat. Cosmic Star Heroine's battle system is turn based with a catch. Like with Pokemon party members can only have a set number of actions at a time. In CSH it's limited to eight moves, but unlike Pokemon most of these moves cannot be reused, instead in order to reuse moves you have to use the Defend command which reduces damage taken but also recharges your moveset so essentially you really one have seven moves and a recharge move. But there are additional actions you can take as well. The game also has items you can use like in most RPGs, but unlike other RPGs they can only be used once and that's once per battle. Recharging does not reset your items and it's shared across the whole party. You are only limited to three items in a battle. When I researched online I saw a GameFaQs post that said you can unlock a fourth slot by talking to a NPC, but when I did it it didn't work so I don't know if it's true. You also have the Program system which is kind of like your supers or limit breaks in the game, but not necessarily as some characters can get a few of these moves in their regular moveset, but like items they can only be used once per battle and don't require any special conditions so you can use them immediately. 

 

You can unlock moves or accessories that can allow for additional actions as you progress in the game. This is would all be pretty standard on its own, but you also have the Style and Hyper mechanics. Style is a percentage number that shows next to your character's HP bar. The higher it does up the more damage you do and then if it's over 100% you can do additional damage with Burst attacks. Certain moves have Burst attached which uses up all of your Style for additional damage or affects. And then we have Hyper. Hyper or Hyper Mode occurs a set number of turns which is dependent on each character and their equipment and it's indicated by a yellow glow. When your character is in Hyper mode they also do extra damage and status ailments are more likely to inflict as well. So you have the skills themselves, Style, Burst, and Hyper that determine damage. It took me most of the game to understand all these mechanics. At the beginning of CSH there is a tutorial, but it's a text dump that you receive all at once before the first real battle and it's just too much to throw at someone. I think it would've been a lot better if the game spaced these out in battle between a couple of fights. I do appreciate that CSH provides an in-game explanation of these in the menu screen as I was also wasn't sure which eat stat did in this game either. It's just a shame I didn't quite understand everything in the battle system until about the last two hours in the game.

So the mechanics of the game basically encourage you to get rid of enemies as soon as possible by dealing massive amounts of damage by saving Hyper for when you have at least 100% Style and using Burst to use any additional Style. You also have elemental affinities and enemy types that also play part in this. Each party member plays differently from one another which is great for a system like this. The only character that I could never get to work was Finn though. He just seemed underpowered compared to everyone else and another character that can turn enemies into the spectral type, that attack to me seemed like it could never work because the curse status ailment only works on spectral enemies and after I inflict that type onto an enemy and then try to inflict curse it never works. The battle system is fun once you get the hang of it and CSS offers multiple difficulty levels for you. Given how light the story is I think the best way to play this is on the Agent or higher difficulties.

Outside of that I was engaged by exploration. Cosmic Star Heroine has various cities and planets you can visit and I always enjoyed talking to NPCs, finding items, and discovering side quests. There's a decent amount to offer outside of the main story towards the end of the game. You can also acquire support characters that are not in your party but offer additional support like more healing, additional XP. 

The music in CSH is okay. There's nothing that stood out to me and I doubt I'll add anything from it to my music library. Overall this is a fine game. I love the JRPG genre so I will eventually play this again, but overall it didn't leave a lasting impression on me.