Stella Deus is a great game despite its flaws.

User Rating: 7.3 | Stella Deus PS2
By drswank | Review Date:
Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity is the latest strategy RPG offering from Atlus. While it’s an enjoyable game, the elements that make it up are a mixed bag. On one hand you have the totally customizable and addictive gameplay that made games like Disgaea great, as well as a story that’s better than other recent strategy RPG offerings such as Phantom Brave and La Pucelle; but on the other, some bad voice acting gets in the way of the story and takes away from the overall charm of the game. That’s not to say that these negatives take away from the overall game, as Stella Deus is one of the best strategy RPG games to come out in the last couple of years. Stella Dues takes place in the in the world of Solum that is getting covered in a poisonous mist called “miasma” which caused the world to go into chaos. In the midst of the chaos came the Aeque religion, this preached a peaceful end for everyone. People lost all hope and, in turn, became apathetic and uncaring, living only for their peaceful end. Then a man named Dignus stepped forward, declared himself overlord, and slaughtered the uncaring people. Now the world’s alchemists are hard at work trying to research a way to prevent the miasma from spreading by killing spirits and harnessing the spirit energy for their research. In the meantime, there is some resistance as the people of the Aeque feel the exact opposite of the alchemists. They feel that killing spirits are only causing the miasma to spread faster, and they feel that the only way to prevent the world from becoming a big parking lot is to open the gate of eternity, which will bring more spirits into the world and cause the miasma to recede. The story focuses on Spero, a young lad enlisted in the imperial legion to hunt spirits. He is torn between the desperate pleas to stop killing the spirits and the promise of a better world from his friend, and imperial alchemest Viser. Those who have played games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea should feel at home here as the gameplay is your typical strategy RPG fare. You travel an over world map, going from town to town to further the story along, pick up new additions to your party, or hop for new items. The pattern becomes clear in the very beginning that every new town you reach presents a new battle. You start battle by placing up to six characters on a map and accomplishing goals like killing all of the enemies or protecting a certain character. Your character starts each turn with a set number of ability points where movement, attacks, magic, and items use up (AP). The more AP each character has at the end of their turn, the sooner they’ll be up again with another turn. You can also strategically alter the order where characters take turns by decreasing and increasing the amount of AP characters have at every turn. That way your healer will be ready after a boss’s turn or so your characters can all ambush the same enemy. Characters will gain experience points and skill points after every turn depending on their performance which will go towards learning new skills and, of course, leveling up. If you find yourself stuck on a particularly difficult battle and unable to further the story along, you can also visit the catacombs found in every town you happen across. The catacombs allow you to power up characters and make extra money without furthering the story along or getting stuck in a boss battle. The deeper you go in the catacombs, the more difficult things get. Luckily you can always replay the easier levels to break in the new additions to your squad. In addition to the main cast of characters, you’ll also be able to pick up additional clerics, swordsmen, lancers, knights and alchemists to fill out your numbers. While these additional characters are more customizable than some of the main characters, you might find yourself using the main characters, or a certain set of characters for every battle. Each character type has their own special abilities, lancers can attack from two spaces away or two enemies at a time, alchemists can learn ranged spells, and swordsmen can wield dual weapons for example. Members of your group can also perform team attacks when they’re in range of other characters for extra damage. Certain combinations of characters will unlock even more powerful and visually impressive attacks. It’s up to you to mix and match for best results. One unfortunate aspect is that team attacks are limited to a certain number for every battle, though that only adds to the strategy of it all. Aside from the story mode, you can also visit guild located in each town and take on side quests for a small registration fee and an even bigger reward. These quests can be as simple as reading a letter from a mysterious friend, arm wrestling the local champion, or helping an alchemist create scrolls, to fighting off a division of the Overlord’s imperial legion. You can also fuse items to create new weapons, armor, and accessories at the guild. For the sacrifice of a couple of items you may have lying around, you can combine them to create items that’ll let your party learn new skills, earn additional ranks, better weapons and armor in addition to other anomalies. The best part about this is that when you’re looking to fuse some items, the game will provide you with the expected outcome which eliminates any trial and error, which helps in terms of finances and resources. Keeping in step with the rest of the genre, visuals are strictly old school with the developers opting to use 2D sprites. The visual style works well as characters are bigger than other strategy RPG’s out there and look nice, though you’ll notice some jagged edges on them here and there. They’re all well animated and the transition between animations looks pretty good most of the time. Special attacks also have some visual flare, though nothing as over-the-top as Disgaea gave us. Special attack animations are recycled a lot as enemies as well as your characters all use the same types of attacks for their respective classes. You’ll also encounter the same types of monsters over and over again, with bosses and other out worldly baddies being the only variety. The cut scenes in between battles are done using a combination of the in game engine and character portraits. Said portraits are well drawn, but you won’t notice much change in character expressions. Most old school gamers will appreciate this classic approach to the presentation of the game, though an open mind is required for those gamers who like to count polygons. The one place where Stella Deus falters is in the sound department. The voice acting on some of the main characters is the most stilted, wooden, and completely devoid of any emotion. I think I heard my kindergarten teacher read story books to the class with more emotion than what most of these characters exhibit. There are even a few instances where the actors talk so softly that the background music drowns them out. A bunch of bad voice actors just takes away from an otherwise intriguing story. During battle characters will utter one- liners as well as miscellaneous grunts, but it all sounds muffled and quiet only to return to regular levels during the following cut scene or during team attacks. Music is acceptable and features some unobtrusive, yet forgettable tracks. Battle sounds are also well done as you’ll get those squishy anime cleaving sounds when damage is being delivered and spells offer some nice explosion noises. Despite its setbacks in the audio department and dated (yet charming) visuals, Stella Deus is a great strategy RPG for those clamoring for a new experience with the genre. With all of the side missions and the story mode, hard core gamers could spend upwards of ninety hours on this game, especially replaying the story mode with different characters and abilities. While it may not have the flair of previous games put out by Atlus, Stella Deus does offer some nice new additions and a great story to back it up.

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