Star Seeker In: The Secret of the Sorcerous Standoff

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Review code provided by the kind folks at mazette! on behalf of Benedict Ide)

Star Seeker, released in 2020 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022, is a game that combines elements of Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel genres in a manner very reminiscent of the Ace Attorney series. In fact, this game is so similar to that franchise in many respects that I would be absolutely astounded to discover that Capcom’s legal drama wasn’t an inspiration for this game, although there are certainly elements of classic LucasArts Graphic Adventure games here as well. If you’re a fan of either the Graphic Adventure or Visual Novel genres, I’ve probably caught your attention, as this game is clearly drawing from some of the greats of the genre.

Players find themselves in a contemporary world where a Castlevania-style castle floats in the sky above a modern city, and magicians buy extra virgin virgin blood on the black market for outlawed rituals, with all this magical mumbo jumbo more or less coexisting beside the mundane. Players take the role of the titular Star Seeker, a paroled wizard working as a consultant for the police department, helping them to solve crimes involving magicians and their magic.

This game makes use of some really wonderful-looking pixel art visuals with a cartoony and distinctively expressive art style that seems like what one might expect if a classic LucasArts game were created for the Game Boy Advance – you have some really excellent, cartoony character designs with thick black outlines and chunky text. This is backed by synthesized music that feels right at home with these slightly retro-style visuals.

While many games may try to evoke the style and quality of writing from Phoenix Wright and LucasArts games, few succeed as well as Star Seeker, which lands somewhere in the same area as those games. Its characters are witty, irreverent, well-crafted and interesting, and the story is delightfully kooky. Plus, and I feel this is important, the humor here actually works, not just making pop culture references and joking about breaking the fourth wall (although there’s definitely plenty of that), but also giving players some really great character moments and some really fun interplay between the game’s characters.

The gameplay itself has players moving around a room and inspecting evidence to get a feel for what happened at the crime scene, and then piecing it together by answering very specific questions about that crime scene. Players aren’t rushed, and can mull back and forth to figure things out, and breaking down the mystery in this way is a great way of taking a complex question of “just what the heck happened here!?” and making it much more easily digestible. When I first started trying to solve the mystery at hand I had most of the pieces but was still confused as to just what turn of events transpired, but the way the game walks you through solving this mystery makes you feel like you’re really the one putting the pieces together without making it seem truly difficult or that you’re ever having to make any great leaps in logic.

One of the clever things this game does is allowing players to use “mind magic” to view pieces of evidence laid out in a visual manner rather than having to select them from a list, and they can even opt to turn on or off pieces of evidence that aren’t relevant to the current questions at hand so they don’t come up as menu options when deducing the answers to questions, giving players more tools to make the process of elimination easier. I can nitpick that this game could have benefitted from the use of the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen, which the game does not use, but it works perfectly fine without it.

Quite frankly, I loved every minute of my time with this game. Everything about my time spent with Star Seeker I felt like this is exactly what I want when I play a Graphic Adventure or Visual Novel game like this. However, if you read those last two sentences carefully enough, you may see the biggest issue I had with this game – time. Star Seeker is depressingly short for a game as good as it is, clocking in between one or two hours. Picture playing one of the Ace Attorney games, but the game ends after you complete the first case. I would absolutely play through a game five times as long as this, if it maintained the same quality throughout.

Having said that, I can’t very well claim that this is a bad value – at $6, Star Seeker is still a great choice for Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel fans looking for a bite-sized adventure. If you’re even the slightest fan of either genre, in fact, I’d say you might want to consider this a must-buy, just as long as you prepare yourself for the disappointment that it’s so damn short and when you’re done with it you’ll want more of it. Still, while it last, you’ll be delighted by its great style, its excellent characters, its fun story, and its great sense of humor.

tl;dr – Star Seeker is a game that combines Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements in a way that’s reminiscent of both classic LucasArts games and the Ace Attorney series, putting you in the role of a detective trying to unravel a magical murder mystery. The game’s writing is outstanding, with great characters, a fun story, and a delightful sense of humor, the visual style is appealing and distinctive, and the gameplay seems to effortlessly guide players through solving the mystery without holding their hands too much. In fact, this is pretty much an ideal entry in the genre save for one thing – it is depressingly short. Still, for a mere $6, Star Seeker is a must-buy for any fans of the Graphic Adventure or Visual Novel genres craving a fun, brief bit of detectiving.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel, Best Story, Funniest Game, Most Overlooked, The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award

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