FYI by "There's no run button," I meant running on the world map. The run option you see at 4:26 is to run away from battles. Every turn based RPG has that.
This comment should really be pinned. It was especially confusing because it was during the transition of "two or three battles within the span of four or five steps" and "there is an auto-battle button." I played this game and Arcana far more than I should have, and I have beaten both of them. They are both rather bland and generic, yet strangely intriguing.
@@wesleyoldham4222 arcana is not bland though, i mean the gameplay is but i never seen battle screen like Arcana , but I just can't beat the game , i remember finishing a dungeon and immediately send to another and i was like , Oh No ,my cards already ran out and going back just is pretty far and just go through and died XD
I rented this game once when I was kid and really liked it. Then I tried finding it again but never could. So my child mind started to idealize it in memory until I remembered it as the best game ever that I would never play again, like something from a dream.
Sometimes, it's just better not to challenge these fond buried memories and leave them at that. Being repaid with disappointment upon rediscovery is not a good trade off.
@@nozoto to be fair, I just loved any and all RPGs. And I think up to that point, I had only played Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy 2 (or 4, whatever). So this was still cool to me at the time.
@@nozoto That's how I feel about Another Code on DS. I loved it as a teen but am almost afraid to replay it all these years later, fearing I remember it more fondly than it actually was. There's also that feeling when you have been eyeing a game for ages, fantazising about how incredible it is, so when you finally get ahold of it you refrain from playing it out of concern that the game won't hold a candle to your expectations/fantasies.
I rented this game multiple times as a kid. One time I rented it and that little note section at the end of the manual had writing in it. "Badbad is really strong be careful"
Tecmo had killer composers, then, the Ninja Gaiden series being their crown masterpiece. Hell, the menu theme of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball has stuck in the back of my mind to these days, and I haven't picked the game up in years.
I love how after their famous Bowl Tecmo concluded that their name should go before _all_ their titles, even TECMO SECRET OF THE STARS ---- A FANTASY. What a name, what a box art, what a way to market a game
This is mind-blowing this was posted today. True story. I was 4 years old growing up and I remember my parents renting this game. I remember in particular the volcano part. It was so creepy to me at that age and it's something I remembered my whole life. This game I would randomly think about every few years, go on Google to try and find it but I didn't remember anything about it other than it being a RPG and the volcano. I could never find it and would just give up. The second I saw the game box on this RUclips video pop I knew this was the game! Just so crazy to me. It's been almost 20 years now and I finally found the game
This was that RPG that you picked up at the rental store when the one you were playing through was rented out and you've played all the others already.
@@Belgand That's the way things went back in the day. Considering for a moment that games back then were technically more expensive due to inflation being a lot lower at the time, renting was the best path for that. It was wild back then!
I emulated this game as a kid and played to the final fight. But, at least according to GameFAQs at the time, I soft-locked the game because I never learned this one necessary technique and had already saved before the final fight. Years later I picked up the cart (before retro game prices headed to the stars themselves), but have yet to play through and finally finish it. Maybe soon, though 🌠
Same lol,the one thing that surpised me when our party were wearing Bunny Outfit (it changed the appearance of our character) i was mildy surprised by it back then
I remember playing this game years ago, on a PSP SNES emulator, however, when I play the game years later, I still forgot what to do. This game is known as Aqutallion in Japan.
I kept reading that as Aquatallion and couldn't figure out why he was pronouncing it so weirdly, like Octallion. Not that I realize there's no middle 'a', I admire his dedication to English orthography in the face of such bizarre words lol
I feel like you're insulting RPG Maker 2000 games, but you're not wrong. It feels like someone was learning how to code and are doing the tutorials for each section to learn the basics. Even in 1995 this game felt like an NES game that got face lifted into a SNES game.
@@sjake8308 Back then? Yeah...they were good back then and I was really addicted to rpg maker, but over a decade later all rpg maker stuff aged very badly for me.
Favorite part of the game: You get attacked by a cat in the second town. Worst part of the game: The Kustera have 11 members, meaning you can create a versatile team of 1 to 5 members. That team is only allowed to fight a few bosses in this game. They are also locked out of the final dungeon completely. Instead they have four shrines that are labyrinths with a bunch of random battles, a story progression treasure in each, and no boss. EDIT: Updated because you can fight a few bosses as Kustera, not just Sidon in the forest. However, the majority of bosses are exclusive to the Aqutallion.
Best part of the game is hearing for hours about what a badass this Badbad gang leader guy is then getting to his empty house and fighting him and he looks like a little bootleg clone of Kid Dracula.
@@jessespiers9699 You can quickly grind levels by going to Set in battle. Change Animate to off, and change MsgSpd to 0. Then use Auto battle against weak enemies. You can abuse the Swap option in the menu in dungeons if you get in over your head. I used to take a few steps, then save. Also, there's a glitch in the game where you can cast a level 0 spell outside of battle. If you don't have enough MP to cast the level 1 version of a spell, just press left before casting it. Your current MP will become less than 0, but you can use it to cast Repel, Flee, and Heal as many times as you want outside of battle. There are a couple of Kustera who can cast heal, and there's a few that are good for tanking enemies. I usually use the tanks to wipe out enemies and exploit the healing spell glitch between battles.
One thing you got wrong you can fight several bosses as kustera. You can fight badbad, I think catboo, Sidon, booth, godem, the ghost pirate, the clarken, even bio booth and godem.
@@b.k.2411 Thank you for pointing that out. The only boss I was able to fight as the Kustera was Sidon. I had no idea you could actually fight BadBad as David instead of Ray and Tina until I tried it just now. I don't really consider Catboo a boss. It gets the boss music, but it's also a monster in random battles 10 minutes later, and the Likado fight can be skipped entirely. I guess it's official status is boss, though. And Cat Boo is definitely iconic. I guess I'll have to play the whole game again now and try the other bosses you listed.
I remember playing this game when I was in elementary. I rented it from what eventually became known as Hollywood Video. I got pretty far considering; at least I thought I had at that age. I rented the game again a few weeks later and was shocked by the progress other people who rented the game had done; and kinda gave up at that point realizing the game was way too huge for me to finish correctly just by renting it for a few days every week.
Tecmo actually made a pretty great rpg called Radia Senki for the nes. It was never released stateside, but there is a pretty good translation patch. If you haven't played it it's worth the play through. For the time the story was quite good and it had a squad base action battle system. It's shame the team from that game didn't work on this.
I decided to play this game again after seeing this review. Secret of the Stars really was a mixed bag of good and bad. It would have been an excellent game for the original Nintendo, but instead it was made many years later on the SNES. Things like item descriptions not being in the menu, and the fact that the X and Y buttons don't open menus or anything make it feel like it was designed for the original NES. It had some really cool concepts like combo magic, but it also had too many shortcomings to be anything more than a mediocre game. *LIST OF SOME MAJOR PROS AND CONS. PROBABLY NOT WORTH READING:* The game had two teams, but seriously underused one of them. And the one it underused was the team that could actually be customized (the Aqutallion were 5 exact members, and the Kustera could be 1 to 5 members from a roster of 11 characters). One of the first dungeons has two monsters that can merge together for the remainder of battle. It's a cool mechanic, but the animation for it is not good (the two monsters move offscreen and the fused one replaces them). Certain spells can fuse into combo magic. Certain weapons can also be part of combo magic. For example, you can have Ray cast Fire 1 and Cody attack with a FireSwrd equipped, and it will unleash Burn Blade. The problem is you have to figure them out or look them up, and only the Aqutallion party can do combo magic. There are two weapons in the game that let the equipped character hit twice. The ElfinBow for Kathy, and the DiscArmar for Leona. Even GameFAQs and the RPGClassics sites don't have these attributes listed, which is weird because they both actually have a lot of info about this game. EDIT: RoyalSwrd and BestClaw also hit twice. BestClaw is for Leona and Evelyn, and RoyalSwrd is for Ryu or Jubei (there is only one RoyalSwrd in the game. BestClaw is in a single treasure chest, but is also a drop item). There's a town that grows as the story progresses. It gets a warehouse, and a dance hall, and some other stuff. I don't think you can influence the town like you can in Breath of Fire 2, though. But, like Breath of Fire 2, the town can fly around at the end. You get a UFO that carries the town and can house your three ships (a sailing ship for each team and an airship). According to the manual "The Select, X, Y, L, and R buttons are not used." They actually made a SNES RPG that only uses A, B, Start, and the control pad. The story is probably the most generic I've ever seen. Something about time travel and a prophecy, and a destined team of kids with special powers who are helped by the Kustera. The in game descriptions are terrible. Shops will explain what their items and equipment do, and there is an NPC in at least one town who will examine any items you are carrying. But otherwise it's up to you to figure out things like Rat-Tail lets you escape a dungeon, and BrknMoon recovers MP but may break after use. The spells usually have three levels, but it's up to you to figure out how they differ. The level 1 and 2 versions of Power effect the user, but level 3 can be cast on a teammate. Land could debuff the opposing party, or it could do something random (like Chance from Dragon Quest 2), but I don't remember which levels of the spell had which effects. There's a great bug in the game. If you don't have enough MP to cast a spell, you could still cast a level 0 version out of battle. When cast, your MP would go below 0, but it would be displayed as over 500. This glitch meant you could fully heal your party outside of battle, and you could even cast Flee or Fly By to get back to town safely.
I actually beat this game on a rental, back in the day. Only thing I remember about it is that you could sail around the world forever without hitting any land if you started in the right spot. So I used rubber bands and a turbo controller to sail forever, hitting random ocean encounters and turbo-mashing the A button to kill them. Grind on autopilot. And that's my most vivid memory of this game. Rigging it to play itself, while I went and did something else.
4:47 - I know that's honestly just another episode in "Fun With Abusing The Name Entry Screen", but I like to believe that your hero is taking that particular line as a question about their sobriety status and is responding with a slurred "Hellllllll YEAH~" before crashing to the floor.
I remember playing this game as a rental back in the day. I know it's bad, but it's become a guilty pleasure for me. Also, the music is definitely on point even if nothing else about the game is all that good.
Agreed. Same with me. I still like the game, even if it's garbage. The music was always great for me and I've even remastered some of it. I love it that much!
This is one of those SNES games that I've always been aware of but never played. Always sitting there on the shelf, with a box that stood out among the crowd. I considered getting it more than once.
My brother in Christ, let me introduce you to the 1992 game called Contra III. Frankly this fails to compare with Dragon Warrior II & Crystalis from the NES.
Outside of the battles this has got to be the lowest effort graphics I've ever seen in an SNES JRPG. Final Fantasy IV was the same ROM size and came out two years earlier but (other than battle backgrounds) looks way better.
Plenty of RPGs released for snes that time looked much better. Secret of Mana was released in 1993 and looks great. Even some NES rpgs like Crystalis released sooner look much better.
I unironically love this game, even have it on display as one of only a handful of SNES-era CIBs I own. (And it's not an easy one to find!) The music really does hit you in the nostalgia. Sure, it's not the best RPG, but it's infinitely more playable than most of the WRPG/Ultima/First Person dungeon crawlers from that era, it's got that pick-up-and-play JRPG feel to it, grinding and saving your game is satisfying, etc. Remember, jRPGs were a new concept and many of us were experiencing these things for the first time. But I think something you missed here is that this game has a great sense of humor. There are some hilarious scenarios and ridiculous boss fights that are supposed to be funny (this game doesn't take itself seriously, so neither should you). I'd compare it to Great Greed for Game Boy, which is celebrated as one of the best original Game Boy games for its sense of humor and quirky dungeon settings. Secret of the Stars pays off IMO when you first reach the airship. Really love the musical theme when you're flying over the second overworld. This game is underrated, and is a TOTAL hidden gem. If you could've played it in the 90s before you knew the entire breadth of the SNES library and had lots of spare time as a teen to chill out, pick up from your last save and enjoy the music and the grind, I bet you'd have enjoyed it too.
@@JMFSpike Glad I'm not alone! It's sad to see so many comments dunking on the game without having ever tried it. They might be surprised. There's so many fun things, like the ability to recruit a Tecmo Football game character to your party and the fact that any character can wear the Bunnysuits!
I never beat it but got maybe half-way through it. Not in the top tier of games on the system, but there's something charming about it. There's someone who does speedruns of it (and has for RPG Limit Break iirc) and it's really fun to watch.
I really liked this game back in the 90's. There was a rental store nearby that had this and Breath of Fire 1 for RPG rentals, so I alternated between the two. I still really like this game to this day. It does look like an NES game and the translation is wack, but I disagree that it's "bad, bad", it's genuinely funny in how bad it can be. One thing you didn't touch on is how this game has a town building, recruitment mechanic that was nearly perfected in games like Skies of Arcadia, but this aspect was totally ahead of its time. I'd highly recommend this game for people that like really old school RPGs and are forgiving of bad translations, dated graphics, and simple mechanics. I genuinely believe that there is a lot of good in this game.
I read about this in the Epic Center column of Nintendo Power. As a lover of RPGs, I really wanted to play it, but it never showed up in a rental store, in the small town I lived in.
Lol DIRECT opposite here! I too saw it in Nintendo Power, but thought it looked absolutely terrible, it DID show up at my rental store, and it became a punchline with my brother and I.
If I remember correctly, the Japanese version of this game was intended to be comedic, a parody of RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The North American version got rid of any parody elements and played it straight.
It absolutely was. There is a scan of the Japanese manual. On it there is a small comic strip where the character Dan brutally murders all his party members.
I just don't feel a proper retranslation of the game would fix anything, sadly. The generic, slow-paced unbalanced combat, high encounter rate, total lack of direction, and huge disconnect between the two parties made it feel like a game that tried real hard not to be any good. It succeeded in showing the world just what it was truly capable of. An effort that amounts to masterfully shooting in your team's net - an impressive display of totally going in the wrong direction.
man, ok I'm a huge RPG fan and it kinda hurt to see someone tear this game apart like that, I actually liked this one a lot as a kid. I mean sure, it's no breath of fire 1 or 2, and it's a far cry from Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger but at least to me, it wasn't all that bad. I actually remember a time back about... 30years ago..? yeah, maybe more, when my local game/movie rental store "Family Video" had this game, and one of the workers there knew me cause I was in there every to every other weekend, and I rented this game out a lot. They would actually ask me about tips and tricks when I'd rent it (cause they wanted to beat it too) and I'd help them out best I could, I mean... I was a kid lol, and hey, I earned a free rental out of it too! so to a kid it was a pretty sweet deal. Anyway, I'm one of the few folks who'll actually bring this game up and honestly, I actually do find it to be a hidden gem, although maybe I should replay it to refresh my memory. All the same while its definitely rough around the edges, I enjoyed it a lot. The graphics didn't bother me, they reminded me of Soul Blazer, another classic game on the SNES. Sure, not as graphically impressive as the sequel to Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, but still not terribad either then again-again, graphics've never really been all THAT important to me anyway. Honestly, what I remember the most about this game is some of the spell combos you could do, I think there was one called "Big Bang" that required all 4 or 5 of your main party to pull off and it was devestating to say the least. Actually, maybe it was called "Devestat" XD I honestly can't remember. Course, the one boss that really stood out to me, and I'll never forget is "Bad Bad" I mean... what kind of name is Bad Bad!? XD and... ironically enough, that's the boss the one employee was struggling with too lol All in all, YMMV but its a good game, not great, not bad, but good at least in my opinion
I played this game a lot back in the day and actually beat it, and it also has the dubious distinction of being the game I was playing when I found out my folks split up 25 years ago. My parents won't admit it but I have to assume that in retrospect that me playing Secret of the Stars was the reason for the split...
Homncruse is a direct phonetic translation of the Japanese term for homunculus. Edit: After watching this I will assume the translators probably didn't translate the name properly since it looks like it's The Big Bad's name and went with the phonetic pronunciation. That or they just didn't know.
Localizers often don't have as much context afforded to them as you might think, it turns out, especially back then. Homncruse is kinda funny, but I'll always laugh at the Kraken monster translated as "The Clarken".
@@SwordfighterRed That reminds me that Claude from Star Ocean 2 was named Crawd at first. There was still a voice clip in the game with him saying "Crawd has advanced forward".
I enjoyed this game years ago. I thought having 2 separate parties as well as casting an element on a sword was pretty cool. I never thought much of the story but it was fun for it’s time.
I remember there was a section in this game where you had to walk behind a town's wall and talk to someone. I had to read an FAQ to figure that out o.O
I recently replayed this. Not a great game but it still was a fun replay. The challenge is pretty decent. The translation is hilarious. The music is really good though. And "DR. GARY BLOWS GAS" is an all-time hilarious video game quote.
don't forget bread and plum-plums. I think plum-plums have a chance to heal fully but the rng is a bit low on that. Though it did happen on a boss fight once and kept me alive.
0:14 My goodness, that sprite with its intricate, detailed shading... and the hilariously tiny battleaxe, awww! What a contrast with the rest of the background and sprite work. Traced that out of some Fantasy Magazine or DnD manual, didn't you, art team?
I remember this game fondly back when my stepfather bought it for me when we were at an old mass retail-trade center about ten years ago since I saw it as one of the old-school JRPGs I had yet to try. I played the heck out of it and enjoyed it for the most part. The translation definitely could have used some improvement like you mentioned, especially from what I understand that the original version of "Aqutallion" in Japan actually had more of a decent story. Aside from that, my only other real gripe about this game is that while it's nice ways to have the other party of the Kustera, it's just that they made it so that they don't really change anything besides the "puzzles" of having to use two parties in certain areas to open things up. The fact is that everything they can do for you in terms of fighting capabilities is done just as well or even better already with the Aqutallion party. And there's no real story element to the Kustera characters, and it would have been nice if they had been given some kind of actual plot of their own to make them relevant to the storyline.
I played it back then despite not knowing English. I got stuck because of the missing 'goldnail' item for the ship. I learned more than 20 years later that it is behind a single tile in one of the many generic towns.
I knew this one was going to be a winner when I saw the guy trying to beat up a stump, even before you said anything about it. With those impressive skills, maybe he should get into the landscaping business
Is it rough? Yes. Is it simple? Yes. Is the translation hard to follow? Yes. But it's charming as hell. I disagree with it being a pass, and i proudly own a cartridge.
I actually just played this game for the second time in 20+ years a couple months ago. I remember the game being frustrating as a kid, but this time around I played it with a shockingly difficult to find ROM patch that fixed the translation and rebalanced the combat/encounter rate. This time around I was able to beat the game and actually understand what was going on, but it still wasn't good. It was clearly meant to be on the original NES. Funny thing is that the only reason I even remembered this game was because the soundtrack totally slaps. Funny how powerful a good soundtrack can elevate something in your memories like that. The 7th Saga was another one like that. Hate the game, but that soundtrack is fantastic.
@@ianbraun271 Unfortunately, I don't have a link. It's been a while. I found it posted in a forum concerning the game. If I recall, the patch was something of a personal passion project someone was doing and he got quite a ways into it. The patch I have is 'mostly' complete, which was good enough in my opinion. The guy also seemed to stop working on it back in 2015 or something, so it was buried deep in the forum I found it in. I eventually got to it through a bunch of google searching, so it is possible to find again, I just can't remember the forum name. It was a very generic looking forum. White background, grey text, nothing fancy. Hopefully that helps narrow it down a bit if you go looking for it.
Someone thought "Tecmo Secret of the Stars. :< -> :>?" on that romhacking site, and decided to make a patch to fix some of the problems. Whether or not it's turd polish is up to everyone else to decide. I haven't played any part of Aqutallion in years; I only played it when my sister wasn't looking since she had the SNES. I might not be the best judge of good games to begin with, since I didn't hate Quest 64.
I remember some guy complained about this game because it had you playing as children instead of adults. I responded, "Hey, what about Grandia? That had you playing as kids, too!" And he shot back, "Yeah, but that's Grandia. This is more like the anti-Grandia."
To be fair to the Rat-Tail item, games back then came with huge instruction manuals full of item and skill databases, fold-out world maps, and other neat things to help the player. We would've been able to look up what it does. But yeah, this is definitely a game only a kid who grew up with it could love.
Good review! I vaguely remember hearing about this game as a kid, but never actually played it. The one major thing that makes it tough to go back to older JRPGs is the awful random encounter rate and cryptic clues. It just makes some older games a complete grind to slog through. I guess there is a reason you never hear about this game anymore. Though, why do some bad games have just incredible music?
This is actually one of my all time favorite RPG's, and yes, I *would* consider it a hidden gem for sure. Some of that is because of the nostalgia. I played a lot of it growing up. However, I played through it again a few years back and still love it. It does some cool things. It did the dual tech thing *before* Chrono Trigger, you play through the game with 2 separate parties (kind of annoying, but also a neat idea), and you actually get to build a town which is a very cool feature you didn't mention. Yeah, the graphics are basic and lack any detail, but it gives them a uniqueness that makes them quite charming. Story and translation are admittedly horrible, but at times it becomes a "so bad it's good" kind of thing. I mean, there is a villain named BadBad. Yes, it is a very basic RPG like early Dragon Quest games, but it was originally released in 1993 in Japan and it still has those unique features that make up for that.
Glad other people recognize this game being more than just "bad graphics bad story". The auto-attack system in this game is also way ahead of it's time. It's grindy sure, but you can turn off animations and crank up the speed and grind a ton within 5 minutes. The game booklet is also quite above average imo. It includes full character progression previews, dual techs, item descriptions and art. In my humble opinion, this game is a perfect and honest candidate for a remake.
This was way more playable when we were kids and there weren't a dozen JRPGs coming out every month and we actually had time and patience to play things! Back in the day there might be a couple Grade-A games a year in the genre (if that). This was the kind of game you rented from the video store until you beat it.
That's absolutely still the case. The number of games released annually may have increased since the mid-90s, but the percentage that are actually worth playing has stayed exactly the same and possibly lowered slightly.
@@bigduke5902 I would say it's drastically lowered, due to the prominence of lengthy tutorial levels, overcomplicated controls, excessive amounts of "story" (even in games that don't need it), and the general trend of the industry to remake or sequelize instead of creating new IP.
@@rars0n To think there was a time when I was excited that video games were becoming more cinematic. Instead of appreciating games as the uniquely interactive medium they once were, I wanted them to imitate a non-interactive one hoping that would earn some sort of mainstream legitimacy. Well I got my wish! Games finally "made it" and I barely recognize em!
Despite how much you dislike this game, I think I want to play it. Graphically it reminds me of Mystic Quest. Which I have, and have played thorugh and enjoyed, even though it was a bit dull. Sometimes these games are great to pass some time.
As someone that played the game a lot (I still have my cart) and LIKES it, I'll say... everything said in the video is 100% accurate. Game is bad, but I don't think it's unfun. I still enjoy playing it knowing it's not a quality game. Hell, one of my favorite thing about the game is the mistranslated enemy names. Talanchula instead of tarantula, Sourceris instead of sorceress, Clarken instead of kraken, Homncruse instead of Homunculus, the list goes on. I love that! And the town building thing was cool. Back in the days, only this game and Breath of Fire 2 did that (from my experience anyway), and it's a system I wished to see more in RPGs. It had a very personal flair to it, you know? Also, the music was pretty good.
I really enjoyed this game as a kid and even have some nostalgia for it once in a while ... even though it is objectively a terrible game. Can't forget those old days, the only way to know if the game was terrible was to rent it from your local video store and try it. xD Good video bro, thanks for the trip down memory lane .... No one I know has ever heard of this game haha
Drunk you should review Rudra No Hihou. Awesome graphics, interesting plot, amazing soundtrack, and a unique create your own spells battle system, and it's made by Squaresoft. It's my 4th favorite SNES turn based RPG and I've played nearly all of them.
This is the first time I've seen anyone mention this game. I remember grabbing the rom some 20 years ago... I honestly enjoyed many of the shit-tier RPGs (Lagoon, Paladin's Quest) but I couldn't stand this one for more than an hour. Looks like I didn't miss much -- thank you so much for suffering through this one so I'll never need to!
I liked the part at 4:06 when Dan used bomb level 1. Dan looks like a dude who has his act together. Takes a lot of confidence to go out with your hair and outfit looking like that. We could all learn from Dan.
I enjoyed this game. Definitely didn’t suck back in the day. We are just programmed now to not appreciate the ugly games. It has some fun parts. The dual parties were way ahead of it’s time. Same with recruitment. This game does NOT suck if you judge it on its own merit and not compare it to the classics.
Ah... no. - Many other games were out when this one was released and did a far more stunning job. They're remembered to this day as being good; it's not a matter of how we're "programmer now" any more than it was back then. - The dual parties added next to nothing to the game and mostly felt like playing two seperate RPGs taking place in the same world and with the same game assets. Many games had multiple concurrent parties prior to this - those parties just meet up eventually and became a single group so all sides can continue having a point. - Yeah, it does suck if you judge it by its own merits. Nobody gave it rave reviews even back then. I know. I was around. I even have the Nintendo Power issue that talked about it (they called it "mediocre"... in a magazine that's largely just there to sell these games to kids!) There's such a thing as personally enjoying a game, which you clearly did, and a game being good or not based on basic, agreed-upon standards. And this game, while possibly enjoyable, was not good. Of course, if you want to evaluate free of any standard or basis for comparison, I'm sure you can prove me wrong. But you could also make a care for dog poop being the best thing in the world by those criteria. If the "classics" became classics in the first place, it's because they did something right - the fact this game is not one of those "classics" alone [...no, seriously, it's like over half of SNES RPGs...] should be enough to tell you it just couldn't hack it!
Thanks Drunk! One thing I would add is that sometimes you comment on the box art. And woof. That’s rough. That kid(?) in front has a face too small for his giant blonde head.
Man... while I admit I'd forgotten about this game, I saw the title and remembered actually enjoying it when I was like 14. Clicked on the vid expecting maybe a "hidden gem", but I guess there's a reason no one ever talks about it and I'd basically forgotten it. Also, I file it under S for Secret. The box art is weird, but the title screen clearly has Tecmo in smaller print above the title. As well, it's pretty much just listed as "Secret of the Stars" everywhere.
I mainly remember this game from Team Sponkel's incomplete play-through of it, aka The Greatest "A Fantasy" Ever Told. They also covered issues the game has, mixed with a bit of playful banter.
It's kinda funny, your complaints are similar to my recent experience with Suikoden II. The item limit, you don't even pick weapons, just upgrade them. That being said I'm having a great time lol
My memory of this game based on a rental when I was a kid was that it was not great, but pretty good. I did find that progression was slow. It must have been the the impression that the music left on me or something.
Legit only remember this game from it's Nintendo Power coverage, in roughly the same series of issues that had Chrono Trigger. It always struck me as one of those games you pick up because it was in the clearance bin, nothing spectacular. But as a RPG starved kid at the time it did look moderately appealing despite knowing it probably wasn't anything worth seeking out.
I love this channel and most of the videos you do but I gotta admit I chuckled when I saw this video pop up in my suggested feed. I read the title and instantly flashed back to my childhood and thought "It wasn't even worth playing in 1995"
FYI by "There's no run button," I meant running on the world map. The run option you see at 4:26 is to run away from battles. Every turn based RPG has that.
What RPG in the 2D era had a run button? Outside of FF6s sprint shoes, I can't think of a single one.
Ah, I had just commented asking about that. It wasn't clear given the context it was brought up with, haha
This comment should really be pinned. It was especially confusing because it was during the transition of "two or three battles within the span of four or five steps" and "there is an auto-battle button."
I played this game and Arcana far more than I should have, and I have beaten both of them. They are both rather bland and generic, yet strangely intriguing.
Don't feel bad. At least we get to giggle at how you say that EXACTLY when you see the word "run" in the battle menu. :3
@@wesleyoldham4222 arcana is not bland though, i mean the gameplay is but i never seen battle screen like Arcana , but I just can't beat the game , i remember finishing a dungeon and immediately send to another and i was like , Oh No ,my cards already ran out and going back just is pretty far and just go through and died XD
I rented this game once when I was kid and really liked it. Then I tried finding it again but never could. So my child mind started to idealize it in memory until I remembered it as the best game ever that I would never play again, like something from a dream.
Sometimes, it's just better not to challenge these fond buried memories and leave them at that. Being repaid with disappointment upon rediscovery is not a good trade off.
@@nozoto to be fair, I just loved any and all RPGs. And I think up to that point, I had only played Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy 2 (or 4, whatever). So this was still cool to me at the time.
@@nozoto That's how I feel about Another Code on DS. I loved it as a teen but am almost afraid to replay it all these years later, fearing I remember it more fondly than it actually was.
There's also that feeling when you have been eyeing a game for ages, fantazising about how incredible it is, so when you finally get ahold of it you refrain from playing it out of concern that the game won't hold a candle to your expectations/fantasies.
Baby's First RPG...you never forget your first. 😇
My first was either a rented CT. Then Lufia II (which became my fav rpg from snes up to this day).
I rented this game multiple times as a kid. One time I rented it and that little note section at the end of the manual had writing in it. "Badbad is really strong be careful"
The cultural impact he had on this game, I would say its accurate.
This was one of my first RPG's I've ever played. I finished it, but I remember absolutely nothing about the story. But I do remember the music.
Tecmo had killer composers, then, the Ninja Gaiden series being their crown masterpiece. Hell, the menu theme of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball has stuck in the back of my mind to these days, and I haven't picked the game up in years.
The music is the only good thing about this game.
Aquatillions
I love how after their famous Bowl Tecmo concluded that their name should go before _all_ their titles, even TECMO SECRET OF THE STARS ---- A FANTASY. What a name, what a box art, what a way to market a game
Haha. Yeah that box art is pretty bad..
This is mind-blowing this was posted today. True story. I was 4 years old growing up and I remember my parents renting this game. I remember in particular the volcano part. It was so creepy to me at that age and it's something I remembered my whole life. This game I would randomly think about every few years, go on Google to try and find it but I didn't remember anything about it other than it being a RPG and the volcano. I could never find it and would just give up. The second I saw the game box on this RUclips video pop I knew this was the game! Just so crazy to me. It's been almost 20 years now and I finally found the game
They still had SNES rentals late into the GCN era?
@@kekeke8988 1994 -1995 was when this game came out. Nowhere near the game cube Era lol
@@orionchevalier2032
You said your parents rented it 20 years ago when you were 4 years old which would mean they rented it in 2003.
@kekeke8988 ahh true my fault. I meant its been almost 30 years now. I'm 32. Lol.
I’m happy you received the closure!! Very satisfying
This was that RPG that you picked up at the rental store when the one you were playing through was rented out and you've played all the others already.
Remember having to rent JRPG’s more than once and hoping & praying that your save file wasn’t over-written?
@@Genethagenius Yep. Or the other end of that, getting a game with all 3 slots full and trying to decide which to overwrite to start your game.
That was Hydlide for me...god I HATED that game!
I can't even imagine renting an RPG. RPGs were always something you just needed to buy.
@@Belgand That's the way things went back in the day. Considering for a moment that games back then were technically more expensive due to inflation being a lot lower at the time, renting was the best path for that. It was wild back then!
I emulated this game as a kid and played to the final fight. But, at least according to GameFAQs at the time, I soft-locked the game because I never learned this one necessary technique and had already saved before the final fight. Years later I picked up the cart (before retro game prices headed to the stars themselves), but have yet to play through and finally finish it. Maybe soon, though 🌠
Same lol,the one thing that surpised me when our party were wearing Bunny Outfit (it changed the appearance of our character) i was mildy surprised by it back then
That's some real bad design right there
You really shoulda stuck to emulating it cause it's infinitely more bearable
I was all like, "Hey! A SNES JRPG I've never heard of!" Then I watched the video and thought, "Hey, I'll pretend I've still never heard of this one."
Maybe you should actually try playing it yourself instead of letting this drunk RUclipsr guy tell you what to think
@@mugsofmirth8101 maybe you should try not taking everything so seriously.
@@mugsofmirth8101 For someone named "Mugs of Mirth", you sure have a skeptical attitude towards those who imbibe
@@chompythebeastThat's a reference to the Quran
@@bigduke5902referencing the Quran? What was referencing it?
Always love your rpg reviews because how many random laughs I get from all the characters calling you a drunk
2:59
HcBailly shout-out! Greatest JRPG LPer out there, for anyone not in the know! SNESDrunk: man of good taste, confirmed.
I remember playing this game years ago, on a PSP SNES emulator, however, when I play the game years later, I still forgot what to do. This game is known as Aqutallion in Japan.
I kept reading that as Aquatallion and couldn't figure out why he was pronouncing it so weirdly, like Octallion. Not that I realize there's no middle 'a', I admire his dedication to English orthography in the face of such bizarre words lol
@@chompythebeast Yeah like wtf is that even supposed to mean
SNES Drunk is the closest thing to a father I've ever had.
Then you should have a talk with your mother
Lmfao
Unfortunately your father was destroyed by Homncruse.
Sorry I left when you were so little, your mom was annoying
What?
Secret of the Stars was really ahead of its time. It really _feels_ like an RPG Maker 2000 game!
I feel like you're insulting RPG Maker 2000 games, but you're not wrong. It feels like someone was learning how to code and are doing the tutorials for each section to learn the basics. Even in 1995 this game felt like an NES game that got face lifted into a SNES game.
I dunno, I've played some pretty good RPG Maker 2000 games.
@@sjake8308 Back then? Yeah...they were good back then and I was really addicted to rpg maker, but over a decade later all rpg maker stuff aged very badly for me.
@@mistc9873 Except that there are also many NES RPGs way better than it. lol
Violated Heroine is the best rpgmaker 2000 game.
Favorite part of the game:
You get attacked by a cat in the second town.
Worst part of the game:
The Kustera have 11 members, meaning you can create a versatile team of 1 to 5 members. That team is only allowed to fight a few bosses in this game. They are also locked out of the final dungeon completely. Instead they have four shrines that are labyrinths with a bunch of random battles, a story progression treasure in each, and no boss.
EDIT: Updated because you can fight a few bosses as Kustera, not just Sidon in the forest. However, the majority of bosses are exclusive to the Aqutallion.
Best part of the game is hearing for hours about what a badass this Badbad gang leader guy is then getting to his empty house and fighting him and he looks like a little bootleg clone of Kid Dracula.
That's where I never got past in the game. My Kustera party sucked.
@@jessespiers9699 You can quickly grind levels by going to Set in battle. Change Animate to off, and change MsgSpd to 0. Then use Auto battle against weak enemies.
You can abuse the Swap option in the menu in dungeons if you get in over your head. I used to take a few steps, then save.
Also, there's a glitch in the game where you can cast a level 0 spell outside of battle. If you don't have enough MP to cast the level 1 version of a spell, just press left before casting it. Your current MP will become less than 0, but you can use it to cast Repel, Flee, and Heal as many times as you want outside of battle.
There are a couple of Kustera who can cast heal, and there's a few that are good for tanking enemies. I usually use the tanks to wipe out enemies and exploit the healing spell glitch between battles.
One thing you got wrong you can fight several bosses as kustera. You can fight badbad, I think catboo, Sidon, booth, godem, the ghost pirate, the clarken, even bio booth and godem.
@@b.k.2411 Thank you for pointing that out. The only boss I was able to fight as the Kustera was Sidon. I had no idea you could actually fight BadBad as David instead of Ray and Tina until I tried it just now.
I don't really consider Catboo a boss. It gets the boss music, but it's also a monster in random battles 10 minutes later, and the Likado fight can be skipped entirely. I guess it's official status is boss, though. And Cat Boo is definitely iconic.
I guess I'll have to play the whole game again now and try the other bosses you listed.
This game is one of those that has a place in my heart. I used to rent it from blockbuster until i beat it. Good times.
I remember playing this game when I was in elementary. I rented it from what eventually became known as Hollywood Video. I got pretty far considering; at least I thought I had at that age. I rented the game again a few weeks later and was shocked by the progress other people who rented the game had done; and kinda gave up at that point realizing the game was way too huge for me to finish correctly just by renting it for a few days every week.
Tecmo actually made a pretty great rpg called Radia Senki for the nes. It was never released stateside, but there is a pretty good translation patch. If you haven't played it it's worth the play through. For the time the story was quite good and it had a squad base action battle system. It's shame the team from that game didn't work on this.
I decided to play this game again after seeing this review. Secret of the Stars really was a mixed bag of good and bad. It would have been an excellent game for the original Nintendo, but instead it was made many years later on the SNES. Things like item descriptions not being in the menu, and the fact that the X and Y buttons don't open menus or anything make it feel like it was designed for the original NES. It had some really cool concepts like combo magic, but it also had too many shortcomings to be anything more than a mediocre game.
*LIST OF SOME MAJOR PROS AND CONS. PROBABLY NOT WORTH READING:*
The game had two teams, but seriously underused one of them. And the one it underused was the team that could actually be customized (the Aqutallion were 5 exact members, and the Kustera could be 1 to 5 members from a roster of 11 characters).
One of the first dungeons has two monsters that can merge together for the remainder of battle. It's a cool mechanic, but the animation for it is not good (the two monsters move offscreen and the fused one replaces them).
Certain spells can fuse into combo magic. Certain weapons can also be part of combo magic. For example, you can have Ray cast Fire 1 and Cody attack with a FireSwrd equipped, and it will unleash Burn Blade. The problem is you have to figure them out or look them up, and only the Aqutallion party can do combo magic.
There are two weapons in the game that let the equipped character hit twice. The ElfinBow for Kathy, and the DiscArmar for Leona. Even GameFAQs and the RPGClassics sites don't have these attributes listed, which is weird because they both actually have a lot of info about this game.
EDIT: RoyalSwrd and BestClaw also hit twice. BestClaw is for Leona and Evelyn, and RoyalSwrd is for Ryu or Jubei (there is only one RoyalSwrd in the game. BestClaw is in a single treasure chest, but is also a drop item).
There's a town that grows as the story progresses. It gets a warehouse, and a dance hall, and some other stuff. I don't think you can influence the town like you can in Breath of Fire 2, though. But, like Breath of Fire 2, the town can fly around at the end. You get a UFO that carries the town and can house your three ships (a sailing ship for each team and an airship).
According to the manual "The Select, X, Y, L, and R buttons are not used." They actually made a SNES RPG that only uses A, B, Start, and the control pad.
The story is probably the most generic I've ever seen. Something about time travel and a prophecy, and a destined team of kids with special powers who are helped by the Kustera.
The in game descriptions are terrible. Shops will explain what their items and equipment do, and there is an NPC in at least one town who will examine any items you are carrying. But otherwise it's up to you to figure out things like Rat-Tail lets you escape a dungeon, and BrknMoon recovers MP but may break after use. The spells usually have three levels, but it's up to you to figure out how they differ. The level 1 and 2 versions of Power effect the user, but level 3 can be cast on a teammate. Land could debuff the opposing party, or it could do something random (like Chance from Dragon Quest 2), but I don't remember which levels of the spell had which effects.
There's a great bug in the game. If you don't have enough MP to cast a spell, you could still cast a level 0 version out of battle. When cast, your MP would go below 0, but it would be displayed as over 500. This glitch meant you could fully heal your party outside of battle, and you could even cast Flee or Fly By to get back to town safely.
The kid party vs adult party was the one good idea this game had. It would probably double the size of a competent game, though.
Also “Fight Drunk!”
Please tell me I get to equip either "BARSTOOL" or "BRKNBOTL".
I actually beat this game on a rental, back in the day.
Only thing I remember about it is that you could sail around the world forever without hitting any land if you started in the right spot. So I used rubber bands and a turbo controller to sail forever, hitting random ocean encounters and turbo-mashing the A button to kill them. Grind on autopilot.
And that's my most vivid memory of this game. Rigging it to play itself, while I went and did something else.
There is a part in FF6 that you can do that kinda. Grinding in FF6 is kinda fun though.
What kind of bad guy is named Badbad? It’s like naming your cat Catcat.
Badbad: double the power greed, double the evil
Catcat: double the appetite, double the purr 😅
MeowMeow is definitely an option.
Or Cat Boo.
4:47 - I know that's honestly just another episode in "Fun With Abusing The Name Entry Screen", but I like to believe that your hero is taking that particular line as a question about their sobriety status and is responding with a slurred "Hellllllll YEAH~" before crashing to the floor.
Nice review man! Even if the game is not that fun it's always fun to learn about retro titles you never heard of before! Awesome video!
5:22 solid advice!
You beat me, I came to the comments to write the same. Best advice 10/10
Nice HC Bailey reference. I love the guys in depth playthroughs
I always look forward to your videos! Keep up the great work!
I remember playing this game as a rental back in the day. I know it's bad, but it's become a guilty pleasure for me. Also, the music is definitely on point even if nothing else about the game is all that good.
Agreed. Same with me. I still like the game, even if it's garbage. The music was always great for me and I've even remastered some of it. I love it that much!
This is one of those SNES games that I've always been aware of but never played. Always sitting there on the shelf, with a box that stood out among the crowd. I considered getting it more than once.
The game came out in 1993 in Japan, so I'm willing to cut it some slack in the graphics department.
My brother in Christ, let me introduce you to the 1992 game called Contra III.
Frankly this fails to compare with Dragon Warrior II & Crystalis from the NES.
So did Mega Man X. I rented this when it was new and was unimpressed even then.
Outside of the battles this has got to be the lowest effort graphics I've ever seen in an SNES JRPG. Final Fantasy IV was the same ROM size and came out two years earlier but (other than battle backgrounds) looks way better.
in 1993 came secret of mana man. be serious.
Plenty of RPGs released for snes that time looked much better. Secret of Mana was released in 1993 and looks great. Even some NES rpgs like Crystalis released sooner look much better.
I unironically love this game, even have it on display as one of only a handful of SNES-era CIBs I own. (And it's not an easy one to find!) The music really does hit you in the nostalgia. Sure, it's not the best RPG, but it's infinitely more playable than most of the WRPG/Ultima/First Person dungeon crawlers from that era, it's got that pick-up-and-play JRPG feel to it, grinding and saving your game is satisfying, etc. Remember, jRPGs were a new concept and many of us were experiencing these things for the first time.
But I think something you missed here is that this game has a great sense of humor. There are some hilarious scenarios and ridiculous boss fights that are supposed to be funny (this game doesn't take itself seriously, so neither should you). I'd compare it to Great Greed for Game Boy, which is celebrated as one of the best original Game Boy games for its sense of humor and quirky dungeon settings.
Secret of the Stars pays off IMO when you first reach the airship. Really love the musical theme when you're flying over the second overworld. This game is underrated, and is a TOTAL hidden gem.
If you could've played it in the 90s before you knew the entire breadth of the SNES library and had lots of spare time as a teen to chill out, pick up from your last save and enjoy the music and the grind, I bet you'd have enjoyed it too.
Finally, someone else who loves the game as much as I do! Sadly, we may be the only two people on the planet who can see how good this game really is.
@@JMFSpike Glad I'm not alone! It's sad to see so many comments dunking on the game without having ever tried it. They might be surprised. There's so many fun things, like the ability to recruit a Tecmo Football game character to your party and the fact that any character can wear the Bunnysuits!
I never beat it but got maybe half-way through it. Not in the top tier of games on the system, but there's something charming about it. There's someone who does speedruns of it (and has for RPG Limit Break iirc) and it's really fun to watch.
Glad I'm not alone either
@@dr.zither Wow, I really didn't think there were this many fans of the game. Awesome.
I really liked this game back in the 90's. There was a rental store nearby that had this and Breath of Fire 1 for RPG rentals, so I alternated between the two. I still really like this game to this day. It does look like an NES game and the translation is wack, but I disagree that it's "bad, bad", it's genuinely funny in how bad it can be. One thing you didn't touch on is how this game has a town building, recruitment mechanic that was nearly perfected in games like Skies of Arcadia, but this aspect was totally ahead of its time.
I'd highly recommend this game for people that like really old school RPGs and are forgiving of bad translations, dated graphics, and simple mechanics. I genuinely believe that there is a lot of good in this game.
6:30 "I'd rather play Lagoon than this game." SUBSCRIBED!
It's always a good day when Drunk uploads one of his signature videos! Thanks, man!
I read about this in the Epic Center column of Nintendo Power. As a lover of RPGs, I really wanted to play it, but it never showed up in a rental store, in the small town I lived in.
Lol DIRECT opposite here! I too saw it in Nintendo Power, but thought it looked absolutely terrible, it DID show up at my rental store, and it became a punchline with my brother and I.
If I remember correctly, the Japanese version of this game was intended to be comedic, a parody of RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The North American version got rid of any parody elements and played it straight.
Sad. Some humour could've elevated the game.
It absolutely was. There is a scan of the Japanese manual. On it there is a small comic strip where the character Dan brutally murders all his party members.
I just don't feel a proper retranslation of the game would fix anything, sadly.
The generic, slow-paced unbalanced combat, high encounter rate, total lack of direction, and huge disconnect between the two parties made it feel like a game that tried real hard not to be any good. It succeeded in showing the world just what it was truly capable of. An effort that amounts to masterfully shooting in your team's net - an impressive display of totally going in the wrong direction.
I thought this was some US exclusive game? Guess I was wrong back then.
man, ok I'm a huge RPG fan and it kinda hurt to see someone tear this game apart like that, I actually liked this one a lot as a kid. I mean sure, it's no breath of fire 1 or 2, and it's a far cry from Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger but at least to me, it wasn't all that bad.
I actually remember a time back about... 30years ago..? yeah, maybe more, when my local game/movie rental store "Family Video" had this game, and one of the workers there knew me cause I was in there every to every other weekend, and I rented this game out a lot. They would actually ask me about tips and tricks when I'd rent it (cause they wanted to beat it too) and I'd help them out best I could, I mean... I was a kid lol, and hey, I earned a free rental out of it too! so to a kid it was a pretty sweet deal.
Anyway, I'm one of the few folks who'll actually bring this game up and honestly, I actually do find it to be a hidden gem, although maybe I should replay it to refresh my memory. All the same while its definitely rough around the edges, I enjoyed it a lot. The graphics didn't bother me, they reminded me of Soul Blazer, another classic game on the SNES. Sure, not as graphically impressive as the sequel to Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, but still not terribad either then again-again, graphics've never really been all THAT important to me anyway.
Honestly, what I remember the most about this game is some of the spell combos you could do, I think there was one called "Big Bang" that required all 4 or 5 of your main party to pull off and it was devestating to say the least. Actually, maybe it was called "Devestat" XD I honestly can't remember. Course, the one boss that really stood out to me, and I'll never forget is "Bad Bad" I mean... what kind of name is Bad Bad!? XD and... ironically enough, that's the boss the one employee was struggling with too lol
All in all, YMMV but its a good game, not great, not bad, but good at least in my opinion
Total length of video: 450 secs.
Total length of "SNES Drunk": 2.5 secs
.56% of the video was spent listening to "SNES Drunk".
0:21: Since nobody ever mentioned it, no, I never noticed it as I wasn't even aware of its existence. Thanks for changing that though! :)
I have to say though that I really enjoy the music from this game as being part of your SNESdrunk relaxing music series.
I used to love this game. Finished it several times, it has real good depth with the spell combinations.
I played this game a lot back in the day and actually beat it, and it also has the dubious distinction of being the game I was playing when I found out my folks split up 25 years ago. My parents won't admit it but I have to assume that in retrospect that me playing Secret of the Stars was the reason for the split...
Homncruse is a direct phonetic translation of the Japanese term for homunculus.
Edit: After watching this I will assume the translators probably didn't translate the name properly since it looks like it's The Big Bad's name and went with the phonetic pronunciation.
That or they just didn't know.
Localizers often don't have as much context afforded to them as you might think, it turns out, especially back then.
Homncruse is kinda funny, but I'll always laugh at the Kraken monster translated as "The Clarken".
@@SwordfighterRed That reminds me that Claude from Star Ocean 2 was named Crawd at first. There was still a voice clip in the game with him saying "Crawd has advanced forward".
I enjoyed this game years ago. I thought having 2 separate parties as well as casting an element on a sword was pretty cool. I never thought much of the story but it was fun for it’s time.
I remember there was a section in this game where you had to walk behind a town's wall and talk to someone. I had to read an FAQ to figure that out o.O
I first played this game a couple years ago, with emulation and walkthrough. Enjoyed it. Maybe I'll replay it in the near future. Saludos.
I recently replayed this. Not a great game but it still was a fun replay. The challenge is pretty decent. The translation is hilarious. The music is really good though. And "DR. GARY BLOWS GAS" is an all-time hilarious video game quote.
don't forget bread and plum-plums. I think plum-plums have a chance to heal fully but the rng is a bit low on that. Though it did happen on a boss fight once and kept me alive.
@@VulpasIt seems to be considered a rental store RPG, so "replay" is turning it on twice. 😂
Little known fact: Homncruse did his own stunts in this game.
underrated
0:14 My goodness, that sprite with its intricate, detailed shading... and the hilariously tiny battleaxe, awww! What a contrast with the rest of the background and sprite work.
Traced that out of some Fantasy Magazine or DnD manual, didn't you, art team?
5:21: "Fight drunk!" Best advice ever for getting through this game? 🤣
I remember this game fondly back when my stepfather bought it for me when we were at an old mass retail-trade center about ten years ago since I saw it as one of the old-school JRPGs I had yet to try. I played the heck out of it and enjoyed it for the most part. The translation definitely could have used some improvement like you mentioned, especially from what I understand that the original version of "Aqutallion" in Japan actually had more of a decent story. Aside from that, my only other real gripe about this game is that while it's nice ways to have the other party of the Kustera, it's just that they made it so that they don't really change anything besides the "puzzles" of having to use two parties in certain areas to open things up. The fact is that everything they can do for you in terms of fighting capabilities is done just as well or even better already with the Aqutallion party. And there's no real story element to the Kustera characters, and it would have been nice if they had been given some kind of actual plot of their own to make them relevant to the storyline.
I played it back then despite not knowing English. I got stuck because of the missing 'goldnail' item for the ship. I learned more than 20 years later that it is behind a single tile in one of the many generic towns.
I knew this one was going to be a winner when I saw the guy trying to beat up a stump, even before you said anything about it. With those impressive skills, maybe he should get into the landscaping business
The next task would be to lay sod where the stump was, then put trim around that whole grassy area
Is it rough? Yes.
Is it simple? Yes.
Is the translation hard to follow? Yes.
But it's charming as hell. I disagree with it being a pass, and i proudly own a cartridge.
5:22 "FIGHT DRUNK!"
Good advice.
"PLEASE HELP!"
"No"
"PLEASE HELP!"
"No"
"PLEASE HELP!"
"No"
"PLEASE HELP!"
"Yes"
"THANK YOU"
I actually just played this game for the second time in 20+ years a couple months ago. I remember the game being frustrating as a kid, but this time around I played it with a shockingly difficult to find ROM patch that fixed the translation and rebalanced the combat/encounter rate. This time around I was able to beat the game and actually understand what was going on, but it still wasn't good. It was clearly meant to be on the original NES. Funny thing is that the only reason I even remembered this game was because the soundtrack totally slaps. Funny how powerful a good soundtrack can elevate something in your memories like that. The 7th Saga was another one like that. Hate the game, but that soundtrack is fantastic.
Link to the rom patch? I've been looking for it too, but can't find it.
@@ianbraun271 Unfortunately, I don't have a link. It's been a while. I found it posted in a forum concerning the game. If I recall, the patch was something of a personal passion project someone was doing and he got quite a ways into it. The patch I have is 'mostly' complete, which was good enough in my opinion. The guy also seemed to stop working on it back in 2015 or something, so it was buried deep in the forum I found it in. I eventually got to it through a bunch of google searching, so it is possible to find again, I just can't remember the forum name. It was a very generic looking forum. White background, grey text, nothing fancy. Hopefully that helps narrow it down a bit if you go looking for it.
@@ianbraun271 It's on the romhacking forum by a user named pkt_paladin. RUclips throws a tantrum when I try to post a link. :c
Someone thought "Tecmo Secret of the Stars. :< -> :>?" on that romhacking site, and decided to make a patch to fix some of the problems. Whether or not it's turd polish is up to everyone else to decide. I haven't played any part of Aqutallion in years; I only played it when my sister wasn't looking since she had the SNES.
I might not be the best judge of good games to begin with, since I didn't hate Quest 64.
I remember some guy complained about this game because it had you playing as children instead of adults. I responded, "Hey, what about Grandia? That had you playing as kids, too!" And he shot back, "Yeah, but that's Grandia. This is more like the anti-Grandia."
To be fair to the Rat-Tail item, games back then came with huge instruction manuals full of item and skill databases, fold-out world maps, and other neat things to help the player. We would've been able to look up what it does.
But yeah, this is definitely a game only a kid who grew up with it could love.
LMAO at the Rat Tail armor. Your AC is 1990.
Good review! I vaguely remember hearing about this game as a kid, but never actually played it. The one major thing that makes it tough to go back to older JRPGs is the awful random encounter rate and cryptic clues. It just makes some older games a complete grind to slog through. I guess there is a reason you never hear about this game anymore. Though, why do some bad games have just incredible music?
Because composers back then largely weren't involved in the game development process, they usually just got a task and got payed and that was it.
@@Justforvisit Well, yeah, but I actually meant that as more of a rhetorical question.
This is actually one of my all time favorite RPG's, and yes, I *would* consider it a hidden gem for sure. Some of that is because of the nostalgia. I played a lot of it growing up. However, I played through it again a few years back and still love it. It does some cool things. It did the dual tech thing *before* Chrono Trigger, you play through the game with 2 separate parties (kind of annoying, but also a neat idea), and you actually get to build a town which is a very cool feature you didn't mention. Yeah, the graphics are basic and lack any detail, but it gives them a uniqueness that makes them quite charming. Story and translation are admittedly horrible, but at times it becomes a "so bad it's good" kind of thing. I mean, there is a villain named BadBad. Yes, it is a very basic RPG like early Dragon Quest games, but it was originally released in 1993 in Japan and it still has those unique features that make up for that.
Glad other people recognize this game being more than just "bad graphics bad story".
The auto-attack system in this game is also way ahead of it's time. It's grindy sure, but you can turn off animations and crank up the speed and grind a ton within 5 minutes.
The game booklet is also quite above average imo. It includes full character progression previews, dual techs, item descriptions and art.
In my humble opinion, this game is a perfect and honest candidate for a remake.
Glad to know you have shit tastes in video games.
@@MinecraftMartin 110% agree!
This was way more playable when we were kids and there weren't a dozen JRPGs coming out every month and we actually had time and patience to play things! Back in the day there might be a couple Grade-A games a year in the genre (if that). This was the kind of game you rented from the video store until you beat it.
That's absolutely still the case. The number of games released annually may have increased since the mid-90s, but the percentage that are actually worth playing has stayed exactly the same and possibly lowered slightly.
@@bigduke5902 I would say it's drastically lowered, due to the prominence of lengthy tutorial levels, overcomplicated controls, excessive amounts of "story" (even in games that don't need it), and the general trend of the industry to remake or sequelize instead of creating new IP.
@@rars0n To think there was a time when I was excited that video games were becoming more cinematic. Instead of appreciating games as the uniquely interactive medium they once were, I wanted them to imitate a non-interactive one hoping that would earn some sort of mainstream legitimacy. Well I got my wish! Games finally "made it" and I barely recognize em!
Despite how much you dislike this game, I think I want to play it. Graphically it reminds me of Mystic Quest. Which I have, and have played thorugh and enjoyed, even though it was a bit dull. Sometimes these games are great to pass some time.
This game was made just so snesdrunk could amaze us with those fantastic playlists. #upbeat2 cant wait :)
As someone that played the game a lot (I still have my cart) and LIKES it, I'll say... everything said in the video is 100% accurate. Game is bad, but I don't think it's unfun. I still enjoy playing it knowing it's not a quality game. Hell, one of my favorite thing about the game is the mistranslated enemy names. Talanchula instead of tarantula, Sourceris instead of sorceress, Clarken instead of kraken, Homncruse instead of Homunculus, the list goes on. I love that! And the town building thing was cool. Back in the days, only this game and Breath of Fire 2 did that (from my experience anyway), and it's a system I wished to see more in RPGs. It had a very personal flair to it, you know? Also, the music was pretty good.
Dang, some of the enemy sprite artwork looks SICK though! Too bad it was wasted on this game. Great video!!
I really enjoyed this game as a kid and even have some nostalgia for it once in a while ... even though it is objectively a terrible game. Can't forget those old days, the only way to know if the game was terrible was to rent it from your local video store and try it. xD
Good video bro, thanks for the trip down memory lane .... No one I know has ever heard of this game haha
2:31 SPIKE'S SISTER..... WUFF!!!!
I love RPGs. Thanks for another great video. Now I need to go find your video on Mario RPG!
I enjoyed it. I didn't think it was so bad.
I still have this cart and have been waiting for you to do a video on it. I knew it was rough, but I wanted to know what the expert thought 😅
I played this on emulator, and i remember absolutely falling in love with the music!
The game was decent, but one of those grindy old school RPGs.
That's what frameskip is for.
Pretty sure "Homncruse" IS a typo. This is the game that refers to a giant octopus as a "Klarken", after all.
Kent Klarken!
Drunk you should review Rudra No Hihou. Awesome graphics, interesting plot, amazing soundtrack, and a unique create your own spells battle system, and it's made by Squaresoft. It's my 4th favorite SNES turn based RPG and I've played nearly all of them.
This is the first time I've seen anyone mention this game. I remember grabbing the rom some 20 years ago... I honestly enjoyed many of the shit-tier RPGs (Lagoon, Paladin's Quest) but I couldn't stand this one for more than an hour. Looks like I didn't miss much -- thank you so much for suffering through this one so I'll never need to!
"If I had wheels i would be a wagon", man that had me laughing out loud
I really liked this one when I was younger. Truth be told, I still play this one today. It's a pretty decent one for an entry level rpg player.
I don't know, I enjoyed this one back in the day, but it looked and played like a NES game
5:14
Aqutallion became Drunk...
Aqutallion is Drunk!!
I'm watching this video laughing at how you read the dialog at 12:30am and I have to get up at 6am for work😂
I liked the part at 4:06 when Dan used bomb level 1. Dan looks like a dude who has his act together. Takes a lot of confidence to go out with your hair and outfit looking like that. We could all learn from Dan.
I enjoyed this game. Definitely didn’t suck back in the day. We are just programmed now to not appreciate the ugly games. It has some fun parts. The dual parties were way ahead of it’s time. Same with recruitment. This game does NOT suck if you judge it on its own merit and not compare it to the classics.
Oh no my dude, this was garbage when it came out. One of the worst RPGs on the system. We knew it was a turd then and it continues to steam today.
Ah... no.
- Many other games were out when this one was released and did a far more stunning job. They're remembered to this day as being good; it's not a matter of how we're "programmer now" any more than it was back then.
- The dual parties added next to nothing to the game and mostly felt like playing two seperate RPGs taking place in the same world and with the same game assets. Many games had multiple concurrent parties prior to this - those parties just meet up eventually and became a single group so all sides can continue having a point.
- Yeah, it does suck if you judge it by its own merits. Nobody gave it rave reviews even back then. I know. I was around. I even have the Nintendo Power issue that talked about it (they called it "mediocre"... in a magazine that's largely just there to sell these games to kids!)
There's such a thing as personally enjoying a game, which you clearly did, and a game being good or not based on basic, agreed-upon standards. And this game, while possibly enjoyable, was not good. Of course, if you want to evaluate free of any standard or basis for comparison, I'm sure you can prove me wrong. But you could also make a care for dog poop being the best thing in the world by those criteria. If the "classics" became classics in the first place, it's because they did something right - the fact this game is not one of those "classics" alone [...no, seriously, it's like over half of SNES RPGs...] should be enough to tell you it just couldn't hack it!
Thanks Drunk! One thing I would add is that sometimes you comment on the box art. And woof. That’s rough. That kid(?) in front has a face too small for his giant blonde head.
HCBailly shoutout!
Heh, as you are saying "there is no run button here" there is literally a RUN button on screen
That's to run away from the battle, not to run on the world map
Man... while I admit I'd forgotten about this game, I saw the title and remembered actually enjoying it when I was like 14. Clicked on the vid expecting maybe a "hidden gem", but I guess there's a reason no one ever talks about it and I'd basically forgotten it. Also, I file it under S for Secret. The box art is weird, but the title screen clearly has Tecmo in smaller print above the title. As well, it's pretty much just listed as "Secret of the Stars" everywhere.
Always appreciate your honesty and based approach!
5:22 "Fight Drunk!" Don't worry, I already did that last Friday night
I mainly remember this game from Team Sponkel's incomplete play-through of it, aka The Greatest "A Fantasy" Ever Told. They also covered issues the game has, mixed with a bit of playful banter.
It's kinda funny, your complaints are similar to my recent experience with Suikoden II. The item limit, you don't even pick weapons, just upgrade them. That being said I'm having a great time lol
I like the design and colors of some of the enemies in the battle scenes.
My memory of this game based on a rental when I was a kid was that it was not great, but pretty good. I did find that progression was slow. It must have been the the impression that the music left on me or something.
you have to level up your two parties individually.. doubling the grind time.
I love this game lol rose tinted glasses make it special to me though
Legit only remember this game from it's Nintendo Power coverage, in roughly the same series of issues that had Chrono Trigger. It always struck me as one of those games you pick up because it was in the clearance bin, nothing spectacular. But as a RPG starved kid at the time it did look moderately appealing despite knowing it probably wasn't anything worth seeking out.
Okay, Scotty. I think my grandmother used to use that wagon line.
I love this channel and most of the videos you do but I gotta admit I chuckled when I saw this video pop up in my suggested feed.
I read the title and instantly flashed back to my childhood and thought "It wasn't even worth playing in 1995"
Naming your lead character Drunk was the best thing to ever happen to this script. 😂
The music is fantastic, so nostalgic.