I rented this game once when I was kid and really liked it. Then I tried finding it again but never could. So my child mind started to idealize it in memory until I remembered it as the best game ever that I would never play again, like something from a dream.

FYI by "There's no run button," I meant running on the world map. The run option you see at 4:26 is to run away from battles. Every turn based RPG has that.

I rented this game multiple times as a kid. One time I rented it and that little note section at the end of the manual had writing in it. "Badbad is really strong be careful"

SNES Drunk is the closest thing to a father I've ever had.

I love how after their famous Bowl Tecmo concluded that their name should go before _all_ their titles, even TECMO SECRET OF THE STARS ---- A FANTASY. What a name, what a box art, what a way to market a game

This was one of my first RPG's I've ever played. I finished it, but I remember absolutely nothing about the story. But I do remember the music.

I was all like, "Hey! A SNES JRPG I've never heard of!" Then I watched the video and thought, "Hey, I'll pretend I've still never heard of this one."

My wife was working in the background on her computer when I got to the good music part (5:30 ish), and she goes "it sounds like you're listening to ice cream truck music", while at the same time I was reading another comment stating that you were the closest thing to a father he ever had, and now I literally cannot stop laughing at the this sequence of events.

This is mind-blowing this was posted today. True story. I was 4 years old growing up and I remember my parents renting this game. I remember in particular the volcano part. It was so creepy to me at that age and it's something I remembered my whole life. This game I would randomly think about every few years, go on Google to try and find it but I didn't remember anything about it other than it being a RPG and the volcano. I could never find it and would just give up. The second I saw the game box on this KZfaq video pop I knew this was the game! Just so crazy to me. It's been almost 20 years now and I finally found the game

This was that RPG that you picked up at the rental store when the one you were playing through was rented out and you've played all the others already.

Secret of the Stars was really ahead of its time. It really _feels_ like an RPG Maker 2000 game!

Favorite part of the game: You get attacked by a cat in the second town. Worst part of the game: The Kustera have 11 members, meaning you can create a versatile team of 1 to 5 members. That team is only allowed to fight a few bosses in this game. They are also locked out of the final dungeon completely. Instead they have four shrines that are labyrinths with a bunch of random battles, a story progression treasure in each, and no boss. EDIT: Updated because you can fight a few bosses as Kustera, not just Sidon in the forest. However, the majority of bosses are exclusive to the Aqutallion.

I emulated this game as a kid and played to the final fight. But, at least according to GameFAQs at the time, I soft-locked the game because I never learned this one necessary technique and had already saved before the final fight. Years later I picked up the cart (before retro game prices headed to the stars themselves), but have yet to play through and finally finish it. Maybe soon, though 🌠

The kid party vs adult party was the one good idea this game had. It would probably double the size of a competent game, though. Also “Fight Drunk!”

I remember playing this game years ago, on a PSP SNES emulator, however, when I play the game years later, I still forgot what to do. This game is known as Aqutallion in Japan.

5:22 solid advice!

I actually beat this game on a rental, back in the day. Only thing I remember about it is that you could sail around the world forever without hitting any land if you started in the right spot. So I used rubber bands and a turbo controller to sail forever, hitting random ocean encounters and turbo-mashing the A button to kill them. Grind on autopilot. And that's my most vivid memory of this game. Rigging it to play itself, while I went and did something else.

Always love your rpg reviews because how many random laughs I get from all the characters calling you a drunk

I decided to play this game again after seeing this review. Secret of the Stars really was a mixed bag of good and bad. It would have been an excellent game for the original Nintendo, but instead it was made many years later on the SNES. Things like item descriptions not being in the menu, and the fact that the X and Y buttons don't open menus or anything make it feel like it was designed for the original NES. It had some really cool concepts like combo magic, but it also had too many shortcomings to be anything more than a mediocre game. *LIST OF SOME MAJOR PROS AND CONS. PROBABLY NOT WORTH READING:* The game had two teams, but seriously underused one of them. And the one it underused was the team that could actually be customized (the Aqutallion were 5 exact members, and the Kustera could be 1 to 5 members from a roster of 11 characters). One of the first dungeons has two monsters that can merge together for the remainder of battle. It's a cool mechanic, but the animation for it is not good (the two monsters move offscreen and the fused one replaces them). Certain spells can fuse into combo magic. Certain weapons can also be part of combo magic. For example, you can have Ray cast Fire 1 and Cody attack with a FireSwrd equipped, and it will unleash Burn Blade. The problem is you have to figure them out or look them up, and only the Aqutallion party can do combo magic. There are two weapons in the game that let the equipped character hit twice. The ElfinBow for Kathy, and the DiscArmar for Leona. Even GameFAQs and the RPGClassics sites don't have these attributes listed, which is weird because they both actually have a lot of info about this game. EDIT: RoyalSwrd and BestClaw also hit twice. BestClaw is for Leona and Evelyn, and RoyalSwrd is for Ryu or Jubei (there is only one RoyalSwrd in the game. BestClaw is in a single treasure chest, but is also a drop item). There's a town that grows as the story progresses. It gets a warehouse, and a dance hall, and some other stuff. I don't think you can influence the town like you can in Breath of Fire 2, though. But, like Breath of Fire 2, the town can fly around at the end. You get a UFO that carries the town and can house your three ships (a sailing ship for each team and an airship). According to the manual "The Select, X, Y, L, and R buttons are not used." They actually made a SNES RPG that only uses A, B, Start, and the control pad. The story is probably the most generic I've ever seen. Something about time travel and a prophecy, and a destined team of kids with special powers who are helped by the Kustera. The in game descriptions are terrible. Shops will explain what their items and equipment do, and there is an NPC in at least one town who will examine any items you are carrying. But otherwise it's up to you to figure out things like Rat-Tail lets you escape a dungeon, and BrknMoon recovers MP but may break after use. The spells usually have three levels, but it's up to you to figure out how they differ. The level 1 and 2 versions of Power effect the user, but level 3 can be cast on a teammate. Land could debuff the opposing party, or it could do something random (like Chance from Dragon Quest 2), but I don't remember which levels of the spell had which effects. There's a great bug in the game. If you don't have enough MP to cast a spell, you could still cast a level 0 version out of battle. When cast, your MP would go below 0, but it would be displayed as over 500. This glitch meant you could fully heal your party outside of battle, and you could even cast Flee or Fly By to get back to town safely.

This game is one of those that has a place in my heart. I used to rent it from blockbuster until i beat it. Good times.

The game came out in 1993 in Japan, so I'm willing to cut it some slack in the graphics department.

I unironically love this game, even have it on display as one of only a handful of SNES-era CIBs I own. (And it's not an easy one to find!) The music really does hit you in the nostalgia. Sure, it's not the best RPG, but it's infinitely more playable than most of the WRPG/Ultima/First Person dungeon crawlers from that era, it's got that pick-up-and-play JRPG feel to it, grinding and saving your game is satisfying, etc. Remember, jRPGs were a new concept and many of us were experiencing these things for the first time. But I think something you missed here is that this game has a great sense of humor. There are some hilarious scenarios and ridiculous boss fights that are supposed to be funny (this game doesn't take itself seriously, so neither should you). I'd compare it to Great Greed for Game Boy, which is celebrated as one of the best original Game Boy games for its sense of humor and quirky dungeon settings. Secret of the Stars pays off IMO when you first reach the airship. Really love the musical theme when you're flying over the second overworld. This game is underrated, and is a TOTAL hidden gem. If you could've played it in the 90s before you knew the entire breadth of the SNES library and had lots of spare time as a teen to chill out, pick up from your last save and enjoy the music and the grind, I bet you'd have enjoyed it too.

I remember playing this game as a rental back in the day. I know it's bad, but it's become a guilty pleasure for me. Also, the music is definitely on point even if nothing else about the game is all that good.

What kind of bad guy is named Badbad? It’s like naming your cat Catcat.

I didn’t ask for anything for my birthday today, but a new SNES Drunk video is a gift I greatly appreciate. Thanks, Alex!

If I remember correctly, the Japanese version of this game was intended to be comedic, a parody of RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The North American version got rid of any parody elements and played it straight.

Homncruse is a direct phonetic translation of the Japanese term for homunculus. Edit: After watching this I will assume the translators probably didn't translate the name properly since it looks like it's The Big Bad's name and went with the phonetic pronunciation. That or they just didn't know.

This is one of those SNES games that I've always been aware of but never played. Always sitting there on the shelf, with a box that stood out among the crowd. I considered getting it more than once.

2:59 HcBailly shout-out! Greatest JRPG LPer out there, for anyone not in the know! SNESDrunk: man of good taste, confirmed.

This was way more playable when we were kids and there weren't a dozen JRPGs coming out every month and we actually had time and patience to play things! Back in the day there might be a couple Grade-A games a year in the genre (if that). This was the kind of game you rented from the video store until you beat it.

I actually just played this game for the second time in 20+ years a couple months ago. I remember the game being frustrating as a kid, but this time around I played it with a shockingly difficult to find ROM patch that fixed the translation and rebalanced the combat/encounter rate. This time around I was able to beat the game and actually understand what was going on, but it still wasn't good. It was clearly meant to be on the original NES. Funny thing is that the only reason I even remembered this game was because the soundtrack totally slaps. Funny how powerful a good soundtrack can elevate something in your memories like that. The 7th Saga was another one like that. Hate the game, but that soundtrack is fantastic.

I really liked this game back in the 90's. There was a rental store nearby that had this and Breath of Fire 1 for RPG rentals, so I alternated between the two. I still really like this game to this day. It does look like an NES game and the translation is wack, but I disagree that it's "bad, bad", it's genuinely funny in how bad it can be. One thing you didn't touch on is how this game has a town building, recruitment mechanic that was nearly perfected in games like Skies of Arcadia, but this aspect was totally ahead of its time. I'd highly recommend this game for people that like really old school RPGs and are forgiving of bad translations, dated graphics, and simple mechanics. I genuinely believe that there is a lot of good in this game.

Tecmo actually made a pretty great rpg called Radia Senki for the nes. It was never released stateside, but there is a pretty good translation patch. If you haven't played it it's worth the play through. For the time the story was quite good and it had a squad base action battle system. It's shame the team from that game didn't work on this.

I recently replayed this. Not a great game but it still was a fun replay. The challenge is pretty decent. The translation is hilarious. The music is really good though. And "DR. GARY BLOWS GAS" is an all-time hilarious video game quote.

Despite how much you dislike this game, I think I want to play it. Graphically it reminds me of Mystic Quest. Which I have, and have played thorugh and enjoyed, even though it was a bit dull. Sometimes these games are great to pass some time.

I always look forward to your videos! Keep up the great work!

I read about this in the Epic Center column of Nintendo Power. As a lover of RPGs, I really wanted to play it, but it never showed up in a rental store, in the small town I lived in.

I remember playing this game when I was in elementary. I rented it from what eventually became known as Hollywood Video. I got pretty far considering; at least I thought I had at that age. I rented the game again a few weeks later and was shocked by the progress other people who rented the game had done; and kinda gave up at that point realizing the game was way too huge for me to finish correctly just by renting it for a few days every week.

It's always a good day when Drunk uploads one of his signature videos! Thanks, man!

I played it back then despite not knowing English. I got stuck because of the missing 'goldnail' item for the ship. I learned more than 20 years later that it is behind a single tile in one of the many generic towns.

Little known fact: Homncruse did his own stunts in this game.

I played this game a lot back in the day and actually beat it, and it also has the dubious distinction of being the game I was playing when I found out my folks split up 25 years ago. My parents won't admit it but I have to assume that in retrospect that me playing Secret of the Stars was the reason for the split...

I remember some guy complained about this game because it had you playing as children instead of adults. I responded, "Hey, what about Grandia? That had you playing as kids, too!" And he shot back, "Yeah, but that's Grandia. This is more like the anti-Grandia."

This is actually one of my all time favorite RPG's, and yes, I *would* consider it a hidden gem for sure. Some of that is because of the nostalgia. I played a lot of it growing up. However, I played through it again a few years back and still love it. It does some cool things. It did the dual tech thing *before* Chrono Trigger, you play through the game with 2 separate parties (kind of annoying, but also a neat idea), and you actually get to build a town which is a very cool feature you didn't mention. Yeah, the graphics are basic and lack any detail, but it gives them a uniqueness that makes them quite charming. Story and translation are admittedly horrible, but at times it becomes a "so bad it's good" kind of thing. I mean, there is a villain named BadBad. Yes, it is a very basic RPG like early Dragon Quest games, but it was originally released in 1993 in Japan and it still has those unique features that make up for that.

Nice review man! Even if the game is not that fun it's always fun to learn about retro titles you never heard of before! Awesome video!

Nice HC Bailey reference. I love the guys in depth playthroughs

5:21: "Fight drunk!" Best advice ever for getting through this game? 🤣

I enjoyed this game years ago. I thought having 2 separate parties as well as casting an element on a sword was pretty cool. I never thought much of the story but it was fun for it’s time.

LMAO at the Rat Tail armor. Your AC is 1990.

5:14 Aqutallion became Drunk... Aqutallion is Drunk!!

5:22 "FIGHT DRUNK!" Good advice.

0:21: Since nobody ever mentioned it, no, I never noticed it as I wasn't even aware of its existence. Thanks for changing that though! :)

I played this on emulator, and i remember absolutely falling in love with the music! The game was decent, but one of those grindy old school RPGs.

3:29 look at the badass 90s sunglasses on that NPC

I don't know, I enjoyed this one back in the day, but it looked and played like a NES game

4:47 - I know that's honestly just another episode in "Fun With Abusing The Name Entry Screen", but I like to believe that your hero is taking that particular line as a question about their sobriety status and is responding with a slurred "Hellllllll YEAH~" before crashing to the floor.

I first played this game a couple years ago, with emulation and walkthrough. Enjoyed it. Maybe I'll replay it in the near future. Saludos.

I used to love this game. Finished it several times, it has real good depth with the spell combinations.

man, ok I'm a huge RPG fan and it kinda hurt to see someone tear this game apart like that, I actually liked this one a lot as a kid. I mean sure, it's no breath of fire 1 or 2, and it's a far cry from Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger but at least to me, it wasn't all that bad. I actually remember a time back about... 30years ago..? yeah, maybe more, when my local game/movie rental store "Family Video" had this game, and one of the workers there knew me cause I was in there every to every other weekend, and I rented this game out a lot. They would actually ask me about tips and tricks when I'd rent it (cause they wanted to beat it too) and I'd help them out best I could, I mean... I was a kid lol, and hey, I earned a free rental out of it too! so to a kid it was a pretty sweet deal. Anyway, I'm one of the few folks who'll actually bring this game up and honestly, I actually do find it to be a hidden gem, although maybe I should replay it to refresh my memory. All the same while its definitely rough around the edges, I enjoyed it a lot. The graphics didn't bother me, they reminded me of Soul Blazer, another classic game on the SNES. Sure, not as graphically impressive as the sequel to Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, but still not terribad either then again-again, graphics've never really been all THAT important to me anyway. Honestly, what I remember the most about this game is some of the spell combos you could do, I think there was one called "Big Bang" that required all 4 or 5 of your main party to pull off and it was devestating to say the least. Actually, maybe it was called "Devestat" XD I honestly can't remember. Course, the one boss that really stood out to me, and I'll never forget is "Bad Bad" I mean... what kind of name is Bad Bad!? XD and... ironically enough, that's the boss the one employee was struggling with too lol All in all, YMMV but its a good game, not great, not bad, but good at least in my opinion

I remember there was a section in this game where you had to walk behind a town's wall and talk to someone. I had to read an FAQ to figure that out o.O

I remember this game fondly back when my stepfather bought it for me when we were at an old mass retail-trade center about ten years ago since I saw it as one of the old-school JRPGs I had yet to try. I played the heck out of it and enjoyed it for the most part. The translation definitely could have used some improvement like you mentioned, especially from what I understand that the original version of "Aqutallion" in Japan actually had more of a decent story. Aside from that, my only other real gripe about this game is that while it's nice ways to have the other party of the Kustera, it's just that they made it so that they don't really change anything besides the "puzzles" of having to use two parties in certain areas to open things up. The fact is that everything they can do for you in terms of fighting capabilities is done just as well or even better already with the Aqutallion party. And there's no real story element to the Kustera characters, and it would have been nice if they had been given some kind of actual plot of their own to make them relevant to the storyline.

😐"Mom, I want Mario Legend of the Seven Stars." 🙍‍♀️"Sure thing, darling." Comes home with 👆

Ah my child hood right here. A game that I wish was put on the Switch SNES online library yet I know will never be.

I knew this one was going to be a winner when I saw the guy trying to beat up a stump, even before you said anything about it. With those impressive skills, maybe he should get into the landscaping business

I enjoyed this game. Definitely didn’t suck back in the day. We are just programmed now to not appreciate the ugly games. It has some fun parts. The dual parties were way ahead of it’s time. Same with recruitment. This game does NOT suck if you judge it on its own merit and not compare it to the classics.

6:30 "I'd rather play Lagoon than this game." SUBSCRIBED!

Pretty sure "Homncruse" IS a typo. This is the game that refers to a giant octopus as a "Klarken", after all.

I have to say though that I really enjoy the music from this game as being part of your SNESdrunk relaxing music series.

As someone that played the game a lot (I still have my cart) and LIKES it, I'll say... everything said in the video is 100% accurate. Game is bad, but I don't think it's unfun. I still enjoy playing it knowing it's not a quality game. Hell, one of my favorite thing about the game is the mistranslated enemy names. Talanchula instead of tarantula, Sourceris instead of sorceress, Clarken instead of kraken, Homncruse instead of Homunculus, the list goes on. I love that! And the town building thing was cool. Back in the days, only this game and Breath of Fire 2 did that (from my experience anyway), and it's a system I wished to see more in RPGs. It had a very personal flair to it, you know? Also, the music was pretty good.

I wouldn’t go quite as far as calling the game bad, but I’d be lying if I said it was any better than okay. The one interesting gameplay mechanic it has is switching between the two parties, but that is fairly under-utilized. I think a game that used this mechanic for some interesting puzzles, and has a more compelling story-related reason for why I’m switching between the two parties, could have the potential to be great.

There was ONE thing that this game did AWESOMELY that never happened again until the Star Ocean games IIRC: combination magics.

Lol, I rented this as a kid and remembered kinda liking it. Those were different times though. Kinda like a Stockholm Syndrome effect, just kind of learn to like whatever trash you ended up being stuck with for the weekend. 🤣

Heh, as you are saying "there is no run button here" there is literally a RUN button on screen

This game was made just so snesdrunk could amaze us with those fantastic playlists. #upbeat2 cant wait :)

As an extensive player of RPG’s going all the way back to the old dragon warrior and ultima games, I must say that Lagoon is vastly underrated know.

I mainly remember this game from Team Sponkel's incomplete play-through of it, aka The Greatest "A Fantasy" Ever Told. They also covered issues the game has, mixed with a bit of playful banter.

I liked the part at 4:06 when Dan used bomb level 1. Dan looks like a dude who has his act together. Takes a lot of confidence to go out with your hair and outfit looking like that. We could all learn from Dan.

Good review! I vaguely remember hearing about this game as a kid, but never actually played it. The one major thing that makes it tough to go back to older JRPGs is the awful random encounter rate and cryptic clues. It just makes some older games a complete grind to slog through. I guess there is a reason you never hear about this game anymore. Though, why do some bad games have just incredible music?

Man... while I admit I'd forgotten about this game, I saw the title and remembered actually enjoying it when I was like 14. Clicked on the vid expecting maybe a "hidden gem", but I guess there's a reason no one ever talks about it and I'd basically forgotten it. Also, I file it under S for Secret. The box art is weird, but the title screen clearly has Tecmo in smaller print above the title. As well, it's pretty much just listed as "Secret of the Stars" everywhere.

5:22 "Fight Drunk!" Don't worry, I already did that last Friday night

Not going to lie, when it said "Fight Drunk!" with that music in that moment I forgot how abysmal this game is and thought "Hell yeah! Fight Drunk!" but as soon as that music ended I was like "Oh, right, this game sucks."

I still have this cart and have been waiting for you to do a video on it. I knew it was rough, but I wanted to know what the expert thought 😅

you have to level up your two parties individually.. doubling the grind time.

I've never played it but people's opinions seem to vary based on how old they were when they first played it lol.

I would like to say that compared to the vast majority of other channels, SNES Drunk gives Breath of Fire 2 it's due credit. (BoF2 is my favorite game)

I'm watching this video laughing at how you read the dialog at 12:30am and I have to get up at 6am for work😂

I love RPGs. Thanks for another great video. Now I need to go find your video on Mario RPG!

I would argue that the translation is the best thing about Secret of the Stars, because some of the mistranslated creature names are pretty funny when you realize what they're supposed to be. Like, "Homncruse" is pretty definitely supposed to be "Homunculus", and the fact that they got it so wrong is amusing to me. That this is the best thing about the game is a pretty damning indictment of it, I think.

That western art mirrored version of the original Japanese box art is OOF!😵‍💫

I really liked this one when I was younger. Truth be told, I still play this one today. It's a pretty decent one for an entry level rpg player.

I enjoyed it. I didn't think it was so bad.

Naming your lead character Drunk was the best thing to ever happen to this script. 😂

Ok, this game get's a lot of flak. Allow me a minute to at least point a few things out that are often overlooked: The item descriptions, yeah could have been more accessible but they were there. I think also you're overlooking the fact that this game came with a paper manual just like every other SNES game. Rabbits tail description was right there as well. This game did dual/tripple/multi-techs way before Chrono Trigger. Each of the characters commands their own element as well. You get to build a town, and recruit residents. Watch your town evolve and it's built, destroyed by the villain, your town coming together to rebuild again. Recruit more people. Not something that still quite common yet either in 1993. And two world maps, neither of which was underground. How many games did we get where the 2nd world map was in the sky? Yet, no thought went into this game? The auto-attack system in this game way way ahead of its time. Yeah it's grindy, but at least they gave you some options like turning off the animations and turning up the speed. You could literally be done with your grinding in like 5 or 10 minutes and be ready to overcome the challenge you were underleveled for. Breath of Fire, great series, didn't offer you that luxery despite also having an awful encounter rate. Glad you acknowledged the music though. I just don't see how you can say "all around bad" with a straight face. Feels like you maybe rushed this review, or just honestly missed or dismissed a lot of thought that went into this game. Everyone's got their own sensibilities though. This game featured mechanics and ideas that Chrono Trigger and Breath of Fire 2 are known for, but this game came out before them. Yet, no thought went into this game? All around bad? With all due respect, I just can't get on board with that. There's too much charm and innovation in this 1993 game for me to call it "all around bad". I also think there should always be a cozy place for games that are so simple. I try to appreciate the simple graphics and story. Maybe it's just me, but if I'm coming from some hyper-complex game with political intrigue and micro-management systems, a game like this is great for resetting your palette. I know, not for everyone. But I personally think there's value in that kind of thing. :p

"If I had wheels i would be a wagon", man that had me laughing out loud

I like the design and colors of some of the enemies in the battle scenes.

The music is fantastic, so nostalgic.

4:47 Drunk? Yes.

I've really enjoyed the game at the time, just after finishing Chrono Trigger. The graphics are bland, but the music is nice and there are a lot of neat ideas.

I tried to play it long ago. I quit after the first time I was able to do combo magic because it was the cherry on the top of an overall underwhelming experience. The most interesting thing is how Cody joins your group transformed into a lion, so he attacks enemies as a lion (with lion sprite animation and everything) until you turn it back to human. That's pretty much all I remember from that game.

I like this game, sometimes simple is good. I also like The Room