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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hoshigami_jpn.jpg]]
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3''Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth'' is a StrategyRPG released on the Platform/PlayStation 1 in 2001 by a development team known as "Maxfive", published by ''Creator/{{Atlus}}'', and mostly known to its audiences for being [[NintendoHard extremely difficult]].
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5The game begins in the FloatingContinent of Mardias, where HeterosexualLifePartners Fazz and Leimrey--who are mercenaries--are just hanging out minding their own business. Unfortunately, TheEmpire, Valaim, attacks Fazz' now-DoomedHometown. Leimrey gets separated from Fazz, who goes off on a journey to recover his friend. In the process, Fazz discovers that this game's particular brand of GreenRocks, "Coinfeigms," are bad because using them causes irreparable drain on TheLifestream -- and that various forces are conspiring to bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt via this very mechanism. Fazz, being TheHero, decides he's not going to stand for this. A ClicheStorm of [[HilarityEnsues Gameplay Ensues]].
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7Coming out on the heels of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and marketed as a SpiritualSuccessor because many of the same programmers worked on both games, ''Hoshigami'' featured SpritePolygonMix graphics, a ClassAndLevelSystem, {{Main/Permadeath}}, and grid-based gameplay, just like ''FFT''. However, there the similarity ends. ''Hoshigami'''s class system is much more limited: characters can worship one of six gods, which gives them access to a preferred weapon and an alignment on the ElementalRockPaperScissors hexagon (catalogued below), and that's it- none of the Mix & Match which made ''FFT'' so fun. Coinfeigms had particular spells engraved on them and could be customized as well as leveled up, an arrangement which, though not uncool in its own right, simply increased the feeling that the game was derivative of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII other recent acts]]. The damage modifiers were pretty messed up: you expect lower damage when attacking head on, sure, but how about about doing ''100 times'' more damage when you BackStab? (Oh, and, the fact that the enemy ''always'' outnumbers you means that there's only one person who's going to be taking that 100x damage up the booty, and it's ''not'' the AI.) Finally, [=MaxFive's=] brave attempt to avert DeathIsCheap simply drove home why that trope is an AcceptableBreakFromReality: any character who wasn't a RequiredPartyMember (and very few were) could die, and if they did, you had to recruit a brand-new [[PlayerMooks Player Mook]] ''and train him up from scratch''. This ForcedLevelGrinding did not go over well with players -- especially when combined with the NintendoHard difficulty level which practically guaranteed at least one soldier lost per battle.
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9On the plus side, the Coinfeigm system was appreciated by most reviewers, as was the RAP system: instead of characters having one saunter and one action per turn, every square moved, sword swung, spell cast or special move deployed would add to the character's "[[FunWithAcronyms Ready for Action Points]]" Gauge. Nominally, once the gauge was up to 100 RAP, the character's turn was over, but you could keep filling it past the 100% mark if you had a [[GoddamnedBats Goddamn Bat]] to kill or a character who needed to limp to safety. Of course, that just slowed down that character's next turn, which would only arrive once their RAP Gauge had emptied again, so it paid to think twice before you overloaded your character with RAP and abandoned him in an exposed position. This system was well-received by reviewers and players, and, with little modification (changing to a count-down-''from''-100 "Action Points" system) was reused in the team's next project.
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11The game also featured a CombinationAttack system in the form of "Shoot" attacks and "Sessions". "Shooting" an enemy would push him back one square ("back" being relative to whatever direction the shooter was facing), which was handy in, say, knocking opponents off cliffs. But, if you knocked him into one of your characters who had been told to wait in "Session" mode, that character would Shoot the baddie ''again''. With some care you could set up a Session that involved all six of your characters, which practically guaranteed a OneHitKill (well, six-hit kill) and significantly upped the chances that some of the victim's equipment would be [[RandomlyDrops Randomly Dropped]].
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13The game was eventually remade for the Platform/NintendoDS as ''Hoshigami Remix''; despite efforts on the developer's part, it was still hard and tedious. A Platform/PlayStation2 SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/StellaDeusTheGateOfEternity'', got better scores: while it was still a ClicheStorm and didn't feature much in the way of ReplayValue, at least it wasn't NintendoHard.
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15!! This game provides examples of:
16* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Six per battle, sometimes seven.
17* CombinationAttack: The larger the combo, the better chance of you stealing something.
18* CriticalEncumbranceFailure: Each item you equip has a weight value that reduces either your speed or your action points; this means that Sonova-aligned players tend to be the slowest characters on the field.
19* ElementalRockPaperScissors: An eastern elements-inspired hexagon, in which elements both oppose and assist one another: Fire opposes Ice and assists Force; Ice opposes Wind and assists Earth; Wind opposes Force and assists Lightning; Force opposes Earth and assists Fire; and Earth opposes Fire and assists Ice. There's also the Light and Dark elements that oppose each other and assist Lighting and Fire respectively.
20* {{Expy}}: Fazz might as well be [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics Ramza's]] {{Elseworlds}} counterpart.
21* FloatingContinent: Mardias, the main setting.
22%%* ForcedLevelGrinding: And how!
23* GreenRocks: Coinfeigms grants the user the ability to cast magic.
24* GuideDangIt: How to best improve Coinfeigms, how to steal items from the enemy, how to win a battle without massive LevelGrinding...
25%%* IsometricProjection: How all battles are presented.
26* ItemCrafting: Coinfeigms can be improved with various seals.
27* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: The twenty-floor Towers of Trials.
28* JackOfAllStats: Sword users in general, and Fazz in particular, will probably see the most action due to their versatility, good movement range, and consistent damage output.
29* MultipleEndings: Depending on which path you chose to take throughout the game, and which characters you have in your party.
30* NintendoHard: Between the battlefield mechanics, and the obfuscation of important mechanics, it can be considered this.
31* {{Permadeath}}: If your generics fall in battle and you don't have resurrection magic, they're gone for good.
32* SlidingScaleOfTurnRealism: Characters have a pool of Action Points as well as an innate speed.
33* SpritePolygonMix: Characters, and battlegrounds, respectively.
34* SquishyWizard: Those with healing magic tend to fall fast thanks to ShootTheMedicFirst.
35%%* VisualInitiativeQueue

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