Review: Starstruck: Hands of Time

It’s hard to really figure out what Starstruck: Hands of Time is about based on trailers or screenshots. Half of it is a rhythm game. Half of it is an adventure. The other half is about smashing things as a giant hand. Actually having played through it, I still don’t really know what it’s about.

Starstruck: Hands of Time (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Createdelic, LLC
Publisher: Createdelic, LLC
Released: September 16, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Starstruck has you sent back from the future to try and prevent a somewhat-unexplained apocalypse. Your robot companion hones in on a pair of humans, both aspiring musicians. One is Edwin, who lives in the shadow of Dawn. The other is Dawn, who lives in the shadow of her brother.

Finally, there’s your hand, which you use to interfere with the flow of time. Do you remember that Simpsons Halloween special where Homer travels back in time and, while he initially tries not to affect the future, eventually gets frustrated and just starts smashing things? That’s what you’re doing with your hand. Initially, your computerized companion says something about not creating a paradox before realizing that, wait, you’re actually trying to create a paradox, so you might as well smash everything.

It’s fun. It’s barely necessary in terms of narrative, but just being able to lay waste to the environment is fun in a Katamari way. It even challenges you to destroy as much as possible and locate hidden things in the environment, which encourages you to just replay these segments. Messing with the timestream could have been depicted in a number of ways, and this is such a great way to do it.

The most immediately striking thing about Starstruck is its art style. Most things are presented as a diorama that mixes mundane objects, disparate toys, and plasticine figures. But it gets even better than that, as it also incorporates video elements, laying them behind the player-controlled models, which gives them a surreal effect.

There is some unevenness to the art style, but it makes good use of it. I think that, at least once, it uses the fact that you can’t really tell why something looks the way it does to later reveal what it represents.

When I played the demo of Starstruck: Hands of Time a couple months back, I was deep into packing for a move. Now that I have room to breathe without inhaling cardboard, I got out my Rock Band 4 Fender Jaguar. It made me want to play Rock Band 4 more than anything, but it also improved the feeling of the game. Sort of.

There’s no strumming. You just press the fret buttons in time with the prompts. I’m not sure how much you know about playing a guitar, but it’s very much not that. You lift and press the strum bar to move to the higher and lower pitches. It’s kind of awkward, especially at higher difficulties where you’re pressing chords, er, multiple buttons at once. It’s still fun to play, regardless of whether you’re on keyboard (that is, a computer keyboard, not the piano type) or a Rock Band/Guitar Hero guitar.

Speaking of which, it looks like the Guitar Hero 2 (360 version) Xplorer guitar gets recognized by the game and bound automatically. For my Fender Jaguar, I had to bind the buttons, but it wasn’t difficult and worked fine.

I was actually excited every chance I got to pull out the guitar, which, thankfully, comes up rather frequently. It’s a major part of gameplay. I said in my write-up of the demo that I hated the music, but thankfully, it turned out to only be that one song that I didn’t like. I mean, I still didn’t like the lyrics much whenever they came up, but the soundtrack, in general, is really enjoyable. You can play the songs separate from the story, and I would totally do that.

The adventure aspect of the Starstruck, on the other hand, is a smidge weak. I wasn’t looking for things to rub on other things, but there isn’t a tonne to really do in the world. There are guitars that you can find and equip for visual reasons, and there are optional songs to take part in (at least one, that I recall), but not a whole lot. And I think there’s a bit of a missed opportunity to get more intimate with the game world.

Which actually leads me to my main issue with Starstruck: its story isn’t entirely well told. I really want to temper my words, because I want to be clear that it isn’t bad. It has a lot of value and inventiveness. It’s just that it seems unfocused. So much so that, when all is said and done, I’m not sure what the core message is supposed to be. Was there just one? If not, then the other themes get diluted, and nothing gets full closure.

There’s symbolism like the heavy presence of ouroboros, the illusion of immortality through art, and being true to yourself. It brings up so much and explains so little. It spins its tires on plagiarism and by the end of it, I wasn’t sure if it was saying that it’s bad or unavoidable. Or maybe I’m not supposed to focus on that. Maybe it’s about the fact that you need to be yourself, because becoming famous by simply copying someone already successful will leave you feeling hollow. Or that all your heroes live in the shadow of someone else. Or maybe it’s both, as well as some sort of statement on the difference of fame and infamy.

The fact that it doesn’t really punctuate itself might have a lot to do with the fact that the narrative can’t tell if it’s more interested in the characters or the message. The characters themselves are all unique, and their problems are clearly stated, but you don’t live with them. You don’t really spend enough time with their issues to get a good understanding of their problems. I’m curious about Edwin’s TV-addicted parents. You see Lucy’s problem demonstrated, but the depths of her despair was a complete mystery to me. Likewise, I don’t understand the antagonist. I don’t get their motivations or their, er, status.

Not understanding or not being able to fully grok the point could just be me. I feel I’m typically receptive enough to recognize artistic intent, but I can’t possibly say how others will connect or interpret it. However, I still think that better attention to the characters would have paid off massively.

With that said, it’s told with enough visual and verbal flair that it doesn’t significantly matter. Starstruck knows how to set a scene effectively, so regardless of whether you fully understand the subtext, it’s easy enough to follow the grander plot and be entertained by its storytelling.

I’ve played and reviewed a lot of games this month, and there was a point where I felt breathless beneath a pile of them. However, the one I wanted to play most after starting it was Starstruck: Hands of Time, but it was also the one I needed to push down in priorities since I had more urgent deadlines. I think it says something that I had to restrain myself from playing it too soon.

It wound up being 4 hours for me, and that includes a bit of time I spent just playing the songs, searching for guitars, and repeating the smashy sections. There are multiple endings, but they are based mostly on decisions you make toward the end of the game, rather than any sort of branching narrative.

It wasn’t until the last act of the game that the fires of my enthusiasm met with a damp log. It wasn’t enough to put me out entirely, but it did take down the heat. Starstruck sets itself up for a homerun and winds up just making it to fourth base. It filled out the paperwork correctly, but forgot to sign and date the bottom. Uh, what I’m saying is that with a bit more time dedicated to its storytelling, it could have been the complete package. As it stands, you might be impressed by its personality, but you won’t necessarily be starstruck.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}