Starbites

With its lighthearted tone, entertaining characters, and charmingly overzealous commitment to world-building, it feels almost mean-spirited to criticise Starbites - like telling a kid full of starry-eyed passion that they're just not good enough to make the sports team.However, to look past the game's glaring technical flaws would require you to avert your eyes from the screen entirely, and we all know that's not how games are played. Even if you can push past the myriad shortcomings of this shoddy Switch port, you'll be left with a middle-of-the-road RPG with an undercooked narrative and simplistic gameplay systems that strive for adequacy and little else.

While this turn-based RPG has some significant downfalls, developer Ikinagames punches above their weight as Starbites provides satisfying character building mechanics and a fun combat system making it a simple, yet solid RPG.

Starbites delivers tight, nostalgic tactical combat, but a thin story, and sometimes banal world hold this JRPG back.

NIS America's new RPG Starbites is the debut of their partnership with Korean developer IKINAGAMES and a take on sci-fi adventures.

Starbites marks the console debut of IkinaGames, as they have finally pushed into the console space with their sci-fi turn-based action title, Starbites. While a strong story and endearing characters truly shine through, the excessively repetitive combat and drab environments sadly drag down this could-be classic.

Starbites is a game whose battle system had a lot of potential, but is sadly held back by a repetitive structure which sees the player traversing the same areas and performing the same actions repeatedly. It is very hard to recommend this title to JRPG fans

Starbites overall is a charming, short and sweet turn-based JRPG, if you are wanting something that is not going to break the bank but not break into a lot of your social hours then this may just be worth your time, the general PS2 aesthetic is really charming and makes you feel like your playing something from the early 2000s again. It does not have a lot of ground breaking features but its charming story and simple gameplay makes Starbites stand out on its own.

STARBITES has a fun gameplay loop, but it's not very innovative. The same can be said of its aesthetics and story, which leaves it somewhat mediocre when viewed from the outside. That said, it was a very fun experience. I had been looking for an engaging and fun RPG without great pretensions for some time, and it fulfilled exactly that function.

Starbites needed more time in the oven. Apart from the numerous technical and graphical shortcomings on the Nintendo Switch version, the writing could use some redrafting and editing to punch up the pacing. The RPG gameplay is on the simplistic side and rarely challenging to the point it becomes boring, but it's serviceable for younger gamers who crave a mecha JRPG fix.

STARBITES, my lovely people, is an interesting little game. On one hand, we have a lovely reminder of how things were in happier, more beautiful days. On the other hand, we have some decisions and implementations that really leave something to be desired. Side A and side B, like everything in life.