4.5/5 ★ – PaperSpock's review of In Stars And Time.

In Stars and Time is, at its core, an RPG that effectively uses a time loop as a metaphor for depression. It's also a lot more than that. While not without some flaws, and aspects that will frustrate some players, I'm glad to have played it and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind repetition and backtracking, as long as they're used with purpose. My favorite thing about In Stars and Time is its characters and their dialogue. I genuinely enjoyed each and every one of them, and what they had to say to each other. It's rare that I like a main cast so well, or so quickly into a game (in fact, I fell in love with them back in my time with them in the demo, and at under a half hour into it). The story itself is also a highlight. As I started out by saying, the time loop in the story allowed the game to explore depression. There's the feeling of being trapped as attempts at trying new things lead to the same result with no escape at hand. Siffrin, the protagonist and only member of your party that remembers things from loop to loop, makes the decision to hide that they're looping through time. And this reminded me very much of how there have been times that I've tried to put on a convincing cheery facade at points I've been struggling. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Besides exploring topics of mental health, the game explores LGBTQ+ themes in ways I appreciated. All of the party is queer in one way or another, and a couple of the characters have their identites explored in meaningful ways. Beyond that, the culture of the country the game takes place in seems to center queerness, doing things like giving a child multiple names so that they can choose which one feels most comfortable when they become able to, for example, or how a branch of the world's magic system allows people to modify their bodies in gender-affirming ways. The worldbuilding is also fantastic. The game rewards you for checking every single item in every single room, often triggering conversations within the party. For example, that detail I just mentioned, about parents picking out multiple names for their children? That came from examining a stack of papers in a corner of a room! These conversations shed light on many different things including locations in the world, their cultures, the adventures that your party went on before it got trapped in a time loop, and more. I really enjoyed how one minor detail that I first came across in what felt like a throw-away conversation ended up being the first hint that I got towards a major plot point that was explored later on. The game rewards paying attention to this sort of thing. That, however, ties into the game's biggest flaw. It's sort of a necessary flaw for the story being told, but it's something that will turn some people away. A time loop that is fairly linear gets old pretty quickly. There's basically a single dungeon in the game, and you have to play through it many times. You do get the ability to fast forward conversations you've heard before, but this is a double-edged sword since it will sometimes also skip past new content. If something is truly important to the plot, the game will make sure you don't do that, but smaller details can be missed. The last thing I'll mention is the combat. The combat is based around a literal rock/paper/scissors system of weaknesses. Like, so literal that enemy sprites are basically always making hand signs, and if you figure out which sign they're supposed to be, you've figured out their weaknesses. There are some other interesting wrinkles to the game's sytems, but even so, they aren't the game's highlight and were wearing thin by the ending. All in all however, this game is a fantastic addition to the subgenre of JRPG-inspired games that introduce a major twist and some darker themes, like the Mother games, Undertale, or Omori. The things that it does well, for me, far outweighed any negatives, and make it a real highlight for 2023 for me.