Rating
Wander Stars
Wander Stars is a turn-based RPG with roguelite elements where you make your own attacks by combining words! Create your own fighting techniques, befriend your rivals, and explore the universe in this story-driven adventure inspired by 90s anime.
Details
- Released
- September 18, 2025
- Developer
- Paper Castle Media
- Genres
- Role-playing (RPG) · Adventure
- Publisher
- Fellow Traveller
- Platforms
- PC · Switch · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S
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Wander Stars Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
I'm a huge fan of both video games and anime, but when I first got my hands on Wander Stars, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Early screenshots made the game out to be a clever vocabulary RPG with an old school anime aesthetic. That’s exactly…
Deckbuilding titles have been there and back again in recent years, and I’ve played just so, so many of them. From Fights in Tight Spaces to Phantom Rose 2: Sapphire, it’s clear that the roguelike approach of letting you build your arsenal of whatever on the fly is here to stay. With Slay the Spire 2 on the horizon, you need something truly different to help pull focus and get people’s attention. Wander Stars, a bold new experiment from Paper Castle Games, pulled the wool over my eyes w...
The narrative isn’t the strongest, but it is entertaining and delightfully cheesy. And while the battle system has its flaws, collecting words and stringing them together is very fun. If you get softlocked, you can replay an episode with different words.
For players who grew up loving ’90s anime or those fascinated by experimental mechanics in RPGs, Wander Stars is worth experiencing. It may not fully deliver on the limitless potential of words, but when it hits, it feels as satisfying as the perfect sentence – or punch - landing exactly where it should.
Do you love 90's anime tropes? How about the ability to use your words in combat? Wander Stars offers 90's nostalgia with an intriguing battle system. Unfortunately, performance issues on the Switch hold it back from greatness.
At the end of an episode, you can spend Honor, effectively experience points, to permanently raise certain stats or limits, like the number of attack words you can bring into battle. A star ranking system encourages return trips to each episode, but I found that once was enough for me. Some stuttering, some janky animations, and even a softlock put a damper on my time with it, but Wander Stars is a relatively fun romp while it lasts, particularly if you're in it more for the RPG mechanics over the plot.
Influences for games can be so unapologetic in their aesthetics, marketing, and tone, in the most sincere and genuine way. Wander Stars uses shounen anime/manga from the ‘70s, ’80s, and early ’90s, with Dragon Ball at the forefront of its influence, to craft a grand space adventure with its turn-based combat, combining verbs and adverbs to chain powerful attacks, and a boisterous/exuberant child lead. Unfortunately, constant game-breaking bugs in every boss fight, losing save data multi...