➤ The swan song 🎮

Imageepoch is a little-known developer that Nintendo 3DS owners will probably remember most for Yoshi's New Island, the latest chronological adventure of the green dinosaur created by Shigefumi Hino. In fact, Imageepoch has carved out a niche in the hearts of true Japanese RPG fans with some much lesser-known titles, such as 7th Dragon, Sands of Destruction and, above all, the Luminous Arc trilogy.

The latter, which began in 2007 on the Nintendo DS and then continued in the following two years, was aimed at two particular niches of fans: those who were looking for a turn-based strategic strategy in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics, a category almost extinct nowadays, and those who adore fantasy adventures based on somewhat stereotyped characters who, thanks to a good script, still manage to impress the player. The success of the new Nintendo handheld had prompted Imageepoch to start a new saga strongly inspired by Luminous Arc, a sort of reboot focused on the same themes: magic and music. Debts prevailed, however, and the Japanese developer was forced to close its doors shortly after completing the work. In short, his swan song was Stella Glow, a strategic RPG like we haven't seen for years.

Stella Glow is the latest game developed by Imageepoch, but also one of his best strategy RPGs

The witches of Regnant

If you have read our hands-on from a few weeks ago, and tried the related demo available on eShop, then you already know how this story begins. Otherwise, it is easy to say: the young Lisette finds a dying boy in the woods, takes him to the village of Mithra where he lives with his mother and takes care of him, baptizing him Alto. The latter, in fact, does not remember anything of his past, but thanks to his selfless and full of energy character, Alto manages to carve out a place in the community of the country, excelling as a hunter.

Everything changes when Hilda arrives, a witch who crystallizes all the inhabitants of Mithra. In the world of Stella Glow, in fact, a legend tells that men had risen against God and that the latter, in order to punish them, had deprived them of the gift of "singing". Only witches can still sing, unleashing deadly magical powers like those of Hilda ... and Lisette, who discovers she is actually the water witch. And here the demo ended, with Alto and Lisette being escorted to Regnant's castle to meet the empress. The story continues without saving some decidedly interesting twists. In fact, the empress intends to hinder Hilda's evil plans by resorting to the powers of Regnant's other witches, which is why she appeals to Lisette and Alto, starting a journey that will hold many surprises. Initially our heroes, accompanied by the best warriors in the kingdom, will have to find and recruit the various witches, who will prove to be decidedly eccentric and exquisitely Japanese characters in their idiosyncrasies, but then the plot will take a turn that is anything but obvious, questioning the same protagonists and their beliefs. Sparkling dialogues and over-the-top characters transform a script that has already been seen into a compelling story. Stella Glow is what can be defined as a "well written" RPG, in which each line has its weight and each character its why. Sometimes it takes itself a little too seriously and from time to time the narrative gets too long - if you don't know English, stay away: it's not localized in Spanish - but the ten chapters of the story offer a long adventure. right, without dead moments, which also allows you to deepen the narration through a system that recalls the Social Links of Persona 3 and Persona 4. In fact, between one battle and another, we will be able to spend our limited free time in the city, talking with the supporting actors to get to know them better.: it is an activity that is not exactly an end in itself, since it determines the ending of the story among the various possible ones, not to mention that it allows us to work part-time, earning some money after witnessing some nice gags, and enhance the witches through the so-called Tuning.

You call them if you want emotions

Stella Glow's witches are decidedly complex characters and behind the various stereotypes that fans of Japanese animation will know inside out there are concrete fears and rather disturbing backgrounds.

To expand and control their powers, the witches will have to get rid of their emotional baggage, and in this sense Alto and the others can physically help them: their psyche will become a dreamlike battlefield in which to defeat the enemies that block them. By completing these "side missions", witches will learn new spells to use in combat, because one of Stella Glow's strengths, inherited from Luminous Arc and old-school strategic RPGs, is the fact that each character is completely different from the others. You cannot choose the classes, as in Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, nor can you change the weapons held, which at most can be modified with special accessories that grant bonuses of various types. Each character wields a certain type of weapon and has access to different attack or defense skills so, whenever possible, the party must be chosen before the mission with due caution. Not that Stella Glow is a particularly severe strategic one, on the contrary, but sometimes it can be really challenging, and in fact it is possible to "grind" a few experience points between one story mission and another, in case it is needed, even if in most cases it is enough to circumvent the enemies with anomalous coups and directional attacks. The lion's share in the fighting is played by the positioning of the units. Attacking enemies from the side or from behind will allow us to inflict more damage, but the same goes for them, so we will have to be careful in the direction in which we turn the unit on duty after moving it on the checkerboard map. In addition, some abilities affect the positioning of the character who uses them or his targets, granting a certain strategic flexibility. From this point of view, Stella Glow knows her stuff and if you overlook the inherent repetitiveness of the genre you find yourself facing particularly surprising enemies and maps, especially from mid-game onwards.

The 3D effect

The stereoscopic effect is pleasant but adds nothing in terms of gameplay, merely "detaching" the interface from the game sequences. On the map and during combat skits, the added depth guarantees a minimum of extra showmanship, so it's worth activating.

Battles between Nendoroid

At first glance, Stella Glow certainly doesn't seem like one of the best exponents of the genre on Nintendo 3DS, and in a comparison with the likes of Fire Emblem: Awakening and Bravely Default, Imageepoch's game could hardly be the winner. Most of the narrative sequences are told through textual dialogues - almost always dubbed in excellent English - and illustrations that portray the characters in their different expressions and the scenario in which they are at that moment.

It's nothing particularly sophisticated, and there are very few intermission cartoon sequences. The style, however, is decidedly delicate, clean and "Japanese" at the right point: the trait of the character designer Eriko Fujiwara is soft and spot on, but imaginative and full of details both as regards the protagonists and their enemies. In battle the situation changes drastically because, during the combat skits that the game plays every time we interact directly with the enemies, the various characters take on super deformed features - or "chibi" - that could make those who prefer realistic proportions turn up their noses. The polygonal models, however squat and miniaturized, are still full of detail, and the special effects of the more pyrotechnic abilities hide the general woodiness of the animations. The skits in question tend to get repetitive after a short time, as often happens in this genre of strategic RPG, but fortunately they can be skipped by pressing a simple button. However, this does not speed up the flow of turns, which in the case of the enemies appears a bit too slow at times and can burden longer and more complicated missions. A small commendation, however, deserve the maps, colorful and full of tiny details that embellish them but that the developer could have done very well without including. Finally, being so focused on music and singing, Stella Glow certainly could not disappoint in the sound accompaniment, also because the soundtrack was composed by the great Yasunori Mitsuda, a musician who needs no introduction and who has worked on some of the most popular Japanese role-playing games ever.: Xenogears, XenoSaga and Chrono Cross, among others, but also Luminous Arc, incidentally. At the time a frequent collaborator of Imageepoch, Mitsuda gave an edge to the music of Stella Glow, and even if it did not seem among the most memorable of his career, we are still talking about an absolutely over the top soundtrack.

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Stella Glow is the typical RPG that comes out quietly, in a quarter full of headlines, and that in our Bel Paese few will spin regardless because "it's not in Spanish". And it's a shame, because it is a strategic one with controfiocchi, fun and challenging at the right point, supported by an interesting story and memorable characters. Imageepoch has closed its doors giving us a little pearl that reminds us of the good old days, and the world of video games now more than ever seems a little darker place.