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Korean "Communication x Survival" VN Buried Stars releases worldwide for Switch/PS4/Vita* on July 30th

Hours Left

Hours Left

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,421
I wasn't even aware this game existed until today, but this very cool looking Korean mystery Visual Novel, Buried Stars, has been confirmed for a worldwide release on July 30th for Switch and PS4. (*A Vita release was also announced, but will be exclusive to South Korea.)

The game will have Korean and Japanese voice acting, and Korean, Japanese, English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese text. Digital release only, outside of South Korea.

Info!
www.gematsu.com

Buried Stars launches July 30, gameplay trailer

“Communication x survival” visual novel Buried Stars will launch digitally for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 30 worldwide, publisher LINE Games and developer Studio LARGO confirmed t…
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com

Overview!
Buried Stars is a survival adventure game developed by Studio LARGO of LINE Games.
The story begins when the stage of a survival audition program suddenly collapses and buries the participating pop stars and a number of staff members. To find a way out, the player has to engage in intense communication with the survivors, gathering clues by studying their reactions from a series of conversations and searching for evidence left in social media feeds.
In the journey to unravel the dark secrets of each character and the truth behind the accident, the game deeply focuses on character psychology and complex human relationships. The player's decisions and actions during the game affect the narrative and lead to different endings. The key to reaching the endgame is managing the subtle emotional balance of the main character.
The game is illustrated with stellar artwork that seamlessly merges 2D anime-style characters with 3D backgrounds and features atmospheric sound design to boost the sense of suspense and drama.
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Videos!



English Opening Movie



Korean Gameplay Video




Music Samples

Here's the website, where you can read more on the game.

buried-stars.com

Buried Stars Official Homepage

Put it all on the line in this real survival audition! Real communication x survival x adventure game
buried-stars.com buried-stars.com

(Scroll down to the bottom to change the language to English. Note: The translation of the website seems a bit stilted compared to actual footage of the English version of the game.)

Hurray visual novels~
 
craven68

craven68

Member
Jun 20, 2018
4,550
Wow ! it's looking really good ! too bad not on pc ! I prefer to play them on pc than switch.
 
OP
OP
Hours Left

Hours Left

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,421
Jawmuncher said:
Is there a price on this?

Looks like there will be a physical release too in Korea
www.gematsu.com

Survival adventure game Buried Stars launches in July for PS4, Switch in Korea with English subtitles

Publisher LINE Games and developer Studio LARGO will release “communication x survival adventure” game Buried Stars for PlayStation 4, Switch, and PS Vita in July in Korea, the companie…
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com
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No price announcements yet for the western release to my knowledge.
 
Hexa

Hexa

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,738
Looks great. It'll be the first game I'll play with Korean voice acting so that should be interesting.
 
Azriell

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,109
Wow this sounds pretty great. I bought Raging Loop 99% blind recently and it really hooked me hard. I've been looking at different VNs since finishing it and I think this looks like exactly what I want.
 
Dinoegg_96

Dinoegg_96

Avenger
Nov 26, 2017
2,022
Hours Left said:
(*A Vita release was also announced, but will be exclusive to South Korea.)
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images
 
Grim

Grim

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
2,036
London, UK.
I've never played one of these types of he's, but what exactly is a visual novel supposed to be? What's the aim? I watched the gameplay video and have no idea.
 
OP
OP
Hours Left

Hours Left

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,421
Grim said:
I've never played one of these types of he's, but what exactly is a visual novel supposed to be? What's the aim? I watched the gameplay video and have no idea.
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It's basically what the tin says, a novel with visuals. So the main gameplay is reading dialogue and making choices, many times with branching paths depending on what you choose to do. (Or not do.) This one is a mystery game with a bunch of pop stars trapped underground after a stage collapse during a reality show. There is also a murderer among them targeting them for their "sins". You have to find out who the murderer is while also making choices that keep you and the other cast members and staff alive.
 
Pineapple

Pineapple

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 26, 2019
507
USA
Oh wow, I heard about this a while back and never thought we would get it.

adding to the wish list the second it's up
 
Dee Dee

Dee Dee

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,868
Can I just say that this has an exquisite JP voice cast as well. Anime fans will recognize SHIMONO HIRO (Zenitsu from Demon Slayer), my spirit animal EGUCHI TAKUYA (you can currently catch him in OreGairu) and ERI KITAMURA (currently Kurenai from Deca-Dence).

I'm somewhat confident in the budget and quality of this now, looking at the voice cast, I just really hope the EN translation and subtitles are good.
 
craven68

craven68

Member
Jun 20, 2018
4,550
i m going to stay with korean dub since it's the original voice acting. I should look about the dubbing actor if they are actors from drama or movie or something else.
 
KaiPow

KaiPow

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,116
In talks with LINE to review this one when it comes out and also get Cullen set up with doing a review (who you might know from doing Chaos;Child and other VN longform videos on YouTube)
 
OP
OP
Hours Left

Hours Left

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,421
Dee Dee said:
Can I just say that this has an exquisite JP voice cast as well. Anime fans will recognize SHIMONO HIRO (Zenitsu from Demon Slayer), my spirit animal EGUCHI TAKUYA (you can currently catch him in OreGairu) and ERI KITAMURA (currently Kurenai from Deca-Dence).

I'm somewhat confident in the budget and quality of this now, looking at the voice cast, I just really hope the EN translation and subtitles are good.
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It's interesting to hear the difference in tone between the Korean and Japanese voice acting.
 
E.T.

E.T.

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,035
Is there a list of Vita games that have come out in the past two years?
Curious if there are any gems for that great system still coming out.
 
Gradon

Gradon

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,471
UK
oh I saw this on the Switch eshop last night, very interested.
 
Apollo

Apollo

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,094
Honestly I'm 50/50 on buying it. It looks extremely cool, but the translation in the eShop screens looks a little rough.
 
eggs

eggs

Member
Oct 25, 2017
162
Yeah my biggest concern is the translation. In the trophies, looks like they spell 'Gauge' as 'Gage', and in the screenshot showcasing Phater, there's some awkward wording.
 
Shizuka

Shizuka

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,116
Finally got my review code. The review should take some time, but I'll be sure to share my impressions here while I play the game.

kodax_shc said:
Anybody know where to pick up a physical copy?

Looks like playasia may have had it up at some point. Not sure on any alternate sources for this.
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eBay should be your best choice if Play-Asia doesn't have it anymore.
 
Dee Dee

Dee Dee

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,868
Guys, play this, it is very good.

I played it for maybe 12h or so and got the "Normal Ending", which I highly suspect is the forced outcome of your first playthrough after 8h or so.
I'm now on Route A and stuff is getting interesting.

The translation quality is good with the usual inconsistency mistakes, typos and weird phrasing you get when you don't LQA properly (it's pretty obvious here), but the translators did an excellent job with what they probably had as context I assume. There's a few lines where names or genders are mixed up by accident and sometimes some phrasing clearly got lost in translation - but it's overall easy to follow what is going on and the small flaws don't distract too much.

You get a sanity meter that reacts to the type of topics you bring into conversations and how people react to them.
The normal ending makes it pretty clear that keeping your sanity high should be a priority, but that isn't too hard once you get a good read on how your fellow trapped contestants tick (and just never talk to Seil, what the hell, Seil??).

The gameplay usually consists of a major plot point unraveling in several scenes, during which characters will often ask you to give an opinion or make a decision on how to evaluate what is going on - this can influence both your sanity (depending on whether you make a good or a bad call) and your rapport with other characters.
I already had some decisions thrown at me that felt pretty meaningful, but I don't know how they will play out in the long run yet. I'm pretty sure some stuff leads to quick bad ends, but so far it seemed to be all avoidable if you have some sense of self preservation and read the clues carefully.

In between the major plot points, you get "conversations" with some characters where you go through keywords you have acquired through your deductions, from your social media feed that you can check at this point, or from conversations with other characters.
Those conversations generate major keywords that you need to make a final deduction to progress to the next plot point, but you also gain rapport points and affect your sanity meter depending on the topic you choose to bring up with specific characters.

When your rapport points are high enough, you unlock "Rapport Events" with the characters, not unlike S-Rank events in Persona. The other characters open up to you on those events, allowing you to learn more about their past or issues that they don't usually want to talk about. I really enjoy these rapport events, the stuff they talk about is always very well done, and never delves in to anime tropes like plot amnesia or hidden powers - I mean, at least so far.
I really like how all of them have their fair share of burdens, but as grown ups, are nearly all able to talk in a reflected and clear manner about the stuff they went through.

Once you saw the "Normal End" you can do a new run where stuff carries over - this allows you for example to see the rapport change effects of topics you brought up before, so you can avoid stuff that made people angry at you (and probably tanked your sanity).

I also had some investigation scenes, where you go through the POIs in a scene and unravel what happened or how the situation is.

I really enjoy it so far, I hope the true route doesn't go too much of the rails.
"Normal end" escalated REALLY QUICKLY though.

Final remark, I love the characters, but unfortunately, this is a survival game, so, uh, don't get too attached. *sobs*
 
Noire

Noire

Member
Oct 25, 2017
261
Dee Dee On your second playthrough did you pick different options from first playthrough to get different outcomes? I was reloading like crazy on first try to only pick options that up my meters and got that "normal" end lol. If I were still to go for the same positive options would it stay the same ending? It'd feel weird to tank myself now.
 
takoyaki

takoyaki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,677
Dee Dee said:
Guys, play this, it is very good.
[impressions]
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Thanks for posting your impressions, glad to hear the game is good!
Will try to get the physical edition, shame it's already sold out at PA.

edit: If anyone else is looking for the physical edition, it's available on ebay at around the same price from this seller on eBay who seems to have a lot of them in stock.
 
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Dee Dee

Dee Dee

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,868
Noire said:
Dee Dee On your second playthrough did you pick different options from first playthrough to get different outcomes? I was reloading like crazy on first try to only pick options that up my meters and got that "normal" end lol. If I were still to go for the same positive options would it stay the same ending? It'd feel weird to tank myself now.
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I still think that "Normal" is the forced ending on your first playthrough, on my second playthrough I played super conservatively to not get hit with sanity penalties and mostly just picked the options I had to for the keywords and stuff that upped rapport. (So yes, I picked other options.)

However, something different happened around the time the first corpse was discovered in the second playthrough.
I think unless you completely tank your sanity, you should be able to access a new route on your second playthrough because of that, even if you otherwise pick the same options.

I read on reddit a bit from people that ended up on "B route", while I got to route A, I have an idea what you need to pick for each, but I don't know where any of these routes lead yet.

Kinda exciting to play a mystery VN where there's no easy walkthroughs to look up yet.
 
CaviarMeths

CaviarMeths

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,655
Western Canada
This was on my wishlist and I was concerned by the complete lack of reviews and what looked like a bit of Engrish in the eShop screens. Thanks for your impressions Dee Dee. $63 CAD is still too steep for me, but I'll keep it wishlisted for when it goes on sale.
 
New002

New002

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,704
Thanks for the impressions Dee Dee. Looking to pick this up for my wife come Christmas so been checking in on this thread every once in a while to see if there are any impressions/reviews.
 
deepFlaw

deepFlaw

Knights of Favonius World Tour '21
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,496
Yeah, impressions definitely appreciated.

If I wasn't 5/8 of the way through Higurashi right now and there weren't otome games coming out real soon, I'd probably bite. I still might, if it holds up as you get further, since you are right that it's kinda neat to play something like this before a ton of info is out there...
 
Comrade Grogu

Comrade Grogu

Banned
Jun 20, 2020
4,090
Looks interesting. I've never played a VN except Fate/Stay Night (which I'm not done with yet) but I hear that Steam has a bad reputation when it comes to VNs. Is this true? Is this one butchered in any way by the translations or anything?
 
GSR

GSR

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,662
Thanks for the impressions! I might grab this and see if the JP localization has had better QC than the English one.
 
Exist 2 Inspire

Exist 2 Inspire

Member
Apr 19, 2018
3,970
Germany
Played the game for the last few days as well. Was not sure about it at first because of the rather high price but now i'm glad i bought it anway. Got two endings so far (bad and normal) and on my thried playthrough now. Would definitely say it's worth it and i would name it in one breath with games like Zero Escape or Danganronpa. Also agree with everything Dee Dee said, very nice summary.
 
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