• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

90s anime-inspired RPG Wander Stars announced for Switch and PC

Bullet Club

Member

'90s anime-inspired RPG Wander Stars announced for Switch and PC​


Publisher Paper Castle has announced Wander Stars, a turn-based RPG that doesn't just draw inspiration from 1990s anime like so many games have done — it practically breathes the aesthetic, right on down to delightfully cheesy attack names.




If the game's announcement trailer doesn't have your fists pumped for some Shōnen showdowns, perhaps Paper Castle's plot and gameplay overviews will do the trick.

About
Wander Stars is a turn-based RPG with roguelite elements where you make your own attacks by combining words to make your own fighting techniques. Learn new words to collect, combine, and experiment to discover enemy weaknesses, synergies, and strategies that will help you win your battles!
The story of Wander Stars follows Ringo, a young martial artist looking for her brother, and Wolfe, a mysterious scoundrel running from his past, as they join forces in an unlikely partnership to collect the pieces of the Wanderstar Map.

Key Features
  • Make Your Own Attacks – Collect and combine different types of words to make your own fighting techniques like a SUPER AWESOME FIRE KICK!
  • An Anime You Can Play – Each run plays like an anime episode where you experience the adventure through exciting cutscenes and intense battles.
  • Wander into Adventure – Explore every place you visit through a randomized map and find treasures, rivals, special events and more!
  • Binge and Reruns – Replay episodes to learn hidden aspects of the story, find any events you missed, and train to earn permanent upgrades.
Until today, I thought for sure I've played plenty of anime. What is Tales of Arise, if not anime given interactive form? Clearly, I underestimated what it takes to deliver the complete hero-shouting experience.

Should you wield the courage to turn Wander Stars from a developer's dream into a full-blown reality, be sure to keep your watchful eye on the game's pending Kickstarter campaign.

Source: RPG Site


LcyPeJU.gif
 
Not enough half naked girls.

Technically true but more importantly:
1) No Mecha (Seriously, 90's anime without mecha?)
2) Not violent enough (If they were trying to go for 80's/90's shonen, Dragon Ball Z and Fist of the North Star are the most notable examples and this seems dumbed down compared to both. Also, the main character doesn't resemble a 90's shonen protag at all. In fact... kinda has more resemblence to Fem-Ranma, and Ranma 1/2 was a love comedy, not a shonen. And Ranma-lookalike looks weird as heck with those overly-muscly-for-such-a-chibi-build legs... and feminine eyelashes. Even if the character is meant to be a girl, those feminine eyelashes are weird because the character does not look like they're trying to be pretty. Funny thing is, something as simple and obvious as SPIKY HAIR would have done wonders for the protagonist design, which makes it weird they didn't go for it.)
3) Furry is styled more like Beastars than 80's/90's anime furries. Remember the ones that appeared in OG Dragon Ball (Or, if you're not familiar with that, maybe the beastiary in Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger would give a similar idea)? Yeah, that wolf would be totally out of place next to those.
4) The animation in motion looks like what happens when you excessively DVNR the film grain out of 90's anime. That's technically one up from what I expected since it's not oversaturated in color contrast, but it still needs something to not make it feel "off" from retro anime more.
 

JimboJones

Member
Yeah I got an email about this, probably cause I have their other game under hero on my wish list.
Eh looks ok, hopefully a demo appears at some point.
The roguelite part is a bit off putting though.
 

Fuz

Banned
Technically true but more importantly:
1) No Mecha (Seriously, 90's anime without mecha?)
2) Not violent enough (If they were trying to go for 80's/90's shonen, Dragon Ball Z and Fist of the North Star are the most notable examples and this seems dumbed down compared to both. Also, the main character doesn't resemble a 90's shonen protag at all. In fact... kinda has more resemblence to Fem-Ranma, and Ranma 1/2 was a love comedy, not a shonen. And Ranma-lookalike looks weird as heck with those overly-muscly-for-such-a-chibi-build legs... and feminine eyelashes. Even if the character is meant to be a girl, those feminine eyelashes are weird because the character does not look like they're trying to be pretty. Funny thing is, something as simple and obvious as SPIKY HAIR would have done wonders for the protagonist design, which makes it weird they didn't go for it.)
3) Furry is styled more like Beastars than 80's/90's anime furries. Remember the ones that appeared in OG Dragon Ball (Or, if you're not familiar with that, maybe the beastiary in Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger would give a similar idea)? Yeah, that wolf would be totally out of place next to those.
4) The animation in motion looks like what happens when you excessively DVNR the film grain out of 90's anime. That's technically one up from what I expected since it's not oversaturated in color contrast, but it still needs something to not make it feel "off" from retro anime more.
1) Yes, seriously.
2) Dash Kappei is a Shonen and there's no blood. Well, apart that from his nose. Just an example.
3) True.
 

Fuz

Banned
Did someone say 90s anime?!


Man, I hate this shit.
I used to buy a manga magazine that was similar to Jump magazine, in the sense that there were single chapters of different mangas.
Then, they decided to start publishing that crap. That's where I stopped buying that magazine.
CLAMP are a scourge on manga and anime. They basically put the foundation for the worst, most insufferable art styles and tropes.
 

CGiRanger

Banned
I mean, I could sorta see the influence or inspiration behind the aesthetic.

But it's just not visually appealing whatsoever. The character designs themselves are just bad.
 

Holammer

Member
Give the protagonists some rockin' sweet tits and they would corner the angry & muscled short-stack market.
I would buy it, for a friend.
 

Fbh

Member
You had me at "90's anime"................................................ then lost me with everything else
 

zeorhymer

Member
Something really wrong with Ringo's proportions. It's not even SD cute. Combat looks interesting, but yeah can't get past Ringo who is the main point of the story.
 
Cool, main character looks like a female Gohan

210px-DBFZ_TeenGohan_5L.png


I like it

I will start by saying I disagree with the character looking like Teen Gohan. If the character actually DID look like Teen Gohan it'd be a more competent design, and I can tell that Toriyama's work had some influence on the design, but Ranma-head clashes with the Kid-Goku-arms and stubby, Chibi-Chun-Li-legs (Like, geez, imagine if OG Dragon Ball's kid Chi-Chi or GT Pan had those legs, they'd look more muscular than Goku's!). It's a mis-mash of styles that do not blend, and on top of that the character looks androgynous in a way that doesn't match up with how androgynous characters were ever presented in a 90's anime.

Something really wrong with Ringo's proportions. It's not even SD cute. Combat looks interesting, but yeah can't get past Ringo who is the main point of the story.

The problems with the design of the protagonist boil down to a mismash of 4 elements that do not blend;
1) Ranma-style head (But with small Dragon-ball-esque pupils for the eyes, rather than the more Shoujo-genre type Takahashi usually draws.)
2) Dragon Ball-style chest/arms (For "kid" characters, that is.)
3) Street Fighter II-style legs (Probably more comparable to Gem Fighter Mini Mix considering how stubby they are, but people know SFII better...)
4) All awkwardly combined in a way that tries to keep the character androgynous enough that you need to be told she's a girl.

(Now, think about those sources for a bit - Ranma characters are mostly teens. The DB kid designs are from kids less than 12 years old. The Street Fighter parts are from characters that are fully matured adults in their mid-20s. Yeah, that sums it up: Ringo is a Chimera of a character design.)

Incidentally, I do think making the character intentionally look androgynous was the idea, which is why they didn't opt for some notable "muscular anime woman" designs that may had been more consistent with the intended style. Assuming "muscular androgynous girl" was what they were going for, that is. (If I were to pick a character to take some cues from for the design - figuring that what they were going for required something not as sexualized as some of the more obvious ideas, I'd probably have suggest putting a martial arts spin on a character like Mora Bascht from Gundam 0083. But they may had wanted something more child-like to begin with, which... uhm, I'm not sure what to say about that, I thought GT Pan was a perfectly acceptable archtype there but...)

edit: Dangit, quoting no worky. Let me edit those in...
 
Last edited:

Gifmaker

Member
Looks super dope actually, I dig it. I'll keep an eye on that, it seems like a really visually interesting experience.
 

noqtic

Member
I want to gameplay outside of combat, one of those screenshots on the steampage has me a bit worried.

Art style doesn't bother me
 
Top Bottom