Cosmic Star Heroine is an RPG that has clear Chrono Trigger influences made by the studio that brought us Breath Of Death VI and Chtulu Saves the world a few years ago. I really enjoyed these games and I also really enjoyed CSH, a game about a special agent in a futuristic security force that gets tangled into a conspiracy and has to fight her way out of it with her fellow party members. The battle system and other mechanics in this game are pretty good and the story was fairly engaging. I also liked the music and some of the graphical choices they made, so I’d totally recommend it to everyone!
I started the game on the normal difficulty - although being able to change it on the fly was a neat addition, and I feel like this was the right choice. The battle system is somehow turn-based but your turn order is defined on a track; characters with more speed get more actions and you know what is coming up next. Like in other games from that developer, you gain ‘style’ each passing turn which makes you more powerful, but enemies do as well, so if battles last too long, you could be in trouble. Another interesting mechanic in the battle system is ‘Hyper’. Each turn your hyper gauge fills and when it’s full you do way more damage. Each character needs a different number of turns and there are plenty of ways to use Hyper for greater effect, so timing your move, status effects and buffs in order to deal a ton of damage is a pretty fun and strategic aspect to the fights.
For your battle actions, you have a lot of options, too many options, I feel like. Each character can equip seven skills and these skills can be one-use or reusable. The neat thing is that the one-use skills get recharged if you use an eight skill that will usually put your character in a defensive position, but as you level up you unlock more of these with various effects like healing your party or taunting while you guard. Moves do a ton of different things, from damage to inflicting status ailments to giving your characters and subsequent moves various properties. Status ailments are treated differently than a random chance and it makes them feel more valuable, so that’s cool as well. You have items that are shared between your party and recharge at the end of a fight and you also have programs that are based on the gear you have equipped, which gives you another set of moves to use. Like I said, it’s a lot.
The story has you recruit a ton of party members and you’ll quickly figure out what your favorite party composition is. Everyone can do a little bit of everything, but some of your fellow teammates have specific stats and abilities that make them better for support, damage or taking hits. The locales and NPCs you meet are fine, the game becomes a bit meme-ey at some points but it’s not too bad as to distract from the experience. I had many Chrono Trigger flashbacks while playing the game, from the way some encounters started with enemies that reminded me of foes from the SNES classic to the Grandia Fair homage, this was all pretty well done. I can’t say I am the biggest fan of the cutscene style, however.
Overall, CSH is a pretty great game, I have some issues with the menu controls, navigating between certain screens of the menu is weird, also pressing ESC will let you quit the game but lose all progress while the save option is elsewhere (a save and quit would’ve been nice) but they’re pretty minor. If you enjoy RPGs and want a straightforward fun adventure with enough system complexity to keep you engaged, I totally recommend this one!
