Stella Glow
Overview -
Those that don't closely follow the Japanese gaming industry may not know much about Imageepoch. Founded in 2005, they are most well-known for the 'Luminous Arc' series, a trilogy of strategy RPGs featuring a fantasy world with witches and magic. Unfortunately, the company filed for bankruptcy this year… but not before Atlus could get their hands on the localization rights for the 3DS title 'Stella Glow', which is a spiritual successor to the 'Luminous Arc' titles. As Imageepoch's swan song, how well does 'Stella Glow' shine?
Video Review
'Stella Glow' looks pretty great on the 3DS. In battle, characters move around the grid fields in a 3D chibi form. They look simple, but are nicely animated. Attack and spell effects look good on the 3DS screen, though they can become tiresome to watch after a while (thankfully, the battle animations can be turned off). Outside of battles, the game is mostly relegated to 2D scenes with character portraits, which looks better than the chibi characters would for story events. Characters and monsters are also colorful and well-designed (well, most of them, anyway), giving 'Stella Glow' a nice visual design in spite of its "typical" anime trappings.
Audio Review
The music in 'Stella Glow' is fantastic. The battle themes are wonderful at holding the mood, and the various vocal tracks for the Witches are catchy and extremely well done. Additionally, this title has a lot of voice acting, with all of the major scenes voiced, and overall the voice acting is high quality. I find that there are no voices that offend, and some rather strong performances as well.
Final Thoughts
2015 has been a great year for strategy RPGs. 'Stella Glow' stands along the likes of 'Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker' and 'Disgaea 5' to give SRPG fans and new genre players alike plenty of high quality titles to work through. 'Stella Glow' may have a couple of odd design quirks that may bring it down a bit, but Imageepoch's final title provides a great experience for all but the pickiest of RPG fans.