Wander Stars
Paper Castle Games · 2025 · Story Rich, Anime, RPG, Turn-Based, Roguelite
PC
Very Positive93% · 136
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About Wander Stars
Join Ringo, a young martial artist looking for her brother, and Wolfe, a mysterious scoundrel running from his past, as they join forces in an unlikely partnership to collect the pieces of the fabled Wanderstar Map. Across 10 “episodes” of anime-inspired adventure, Ringo and Wolfe will have to work together to find answers, make up for past mistakes, and travel across the universe in search of their goal. And who knows, maybe they’ll learn how to get along at some point!
Trained in the ways of Kiai, a magical form of martial art and also the universe’s most exciting form of televised entertainment, Ringo can combine words to create customized attacks in intense turn-based battles. During her race across the universe you’ll expand Ringo’s vocabulary, equip Pep Up bonuses earned through honorable victories and level up her spirit power. Defeat or befriend a cast of fearsome space pirates, mysterious scoundrels, cute witches, high school delinquents, talking crows, and skilled martial artists on your way to becoming a Kiai master.
SUPER SPECIAL FIRE KICK! Battles in Wander Stars are settled through a unique combat system that combines the structure of turn-based JRPGs, the strategic layer of deckbuilders and the spectacle of animes like Dragon Ball Z.
Create custom attacks by combining words up to the limit of your spirit level. The more spirit you have, the more slots you have to place words into and the more powerful and complex actions you can take.
ACTION WORDS do something e.g. KICK, BLOCK or ITEM.
MODIFIER WORDS modify actions e.g. SUPER (+1 damage), FAST (reduces cooldown) or HUGE (attacks all opponents).
ELEMENTAL WORDS add an elemental impact and status effects e.g. FIRE (burn) or WATER (wet).
All words have cool downs and opponents might be weak or strong against specific attacks or specific elements. You won’t know which until you engage them in battle so you need to be prepared to improvise.
With over 200 words to collect across the game there is a near infinite number of possible unique attacks to make. Things start off easy but as you expand Ringo’s vocabulary you’ll need to carefully select which words you take into battle, building strategies around your mix of categories, blend of offensive and defensive words, giving yourself options to manage your opponents weaknesses and strengths, consider optimizing the juggling of cool downs and, of course, which attacks sound the coolest.
The result is an accessible, immediately fun but deep combat system.
The core ethos of the Kiai martial art is to fight with honor. Defeating an opponent with honor can turn the most heated of rivals into the fastest of friends! Befriend your rivals to earn their words of encouragement in the form of useful Pep Ups which can be equipped to give you special bonuses in combat. Travel the universe on a rollercoaster adventure as you seek the pieces of the Wanderstar map, Ringo’s lost brother and the answers to Wolfe’s mysterious past.
This is a tale of mystery, adventure, betrayal, redemption, unlikely allies, twists, turns, surfing capybaras, health-restoring empanadas, forgotten shopping lists, rifts in space AND rifts between lovers.
Along the way you’ll build a found family of colorful characters, each with their own thing going on. They might not all get along at first, but that’s nothing a thrilling space adventure can’t fix! And even with the trail gone cold, take heart, for these wandering stars are bound to find each other…
Wander Stars is inspired by the anime the developers grew up watching in 1990’s Venezuela and shows like Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, One Piece and more.
It plays out across 10 “episodes”, each of which takes between 60-90 minutes to complete. Each episode features a map to explore with procedurally generated battles, special events and other secrets to find along with the main story events.
Tackle your playthrough an episode at a time or binge the whole thing in one go - the choice is yours.
You can even replay episodes to find all the side adventures, NPCs, and party member banter you might have missed! Try new paths as you explore ever-changing maps with randomized special events, lurking rivals, and tantalizing treasures. The experience is never quite the same!
Trained in the ways of Kiai, a magical form of martial art and also the universe’s most exciting form of televised entertainment, Ringo can combine words to create customized attacks in intense turn-based battles. During her race across the universe you’ll expand Ringo’s vocabulary, equip Pep Up bonuses earned through honorable victories and level up her spirit power. Defeat or befriend a cast of fearsome space pirates, mysterious scoundrels, cute witches, high school delinquents, talking crows, and skilled martial artists on your way to becoming a Kiai master.
SUPER SPECIAL FIRE KICK! Battles in Wander Stars are settled through a unique combat system that combines the structure of turn-based JRPGs, the strategic layer of deckbuilders and the spectacle of animes like Dragon Ball Z.
Create custom attacks by combining words up to the limit of your spirit level. The more spirit you have, the more slots you have to place words into and the more powerful and complex actions you can take.
ACTION WORDS do something e.g. KICK, BLOCK or ITEM.
MODIFIER WORDS modify actions e.g. SUPER (+1 damage), FAST (reduces cooldown) or HUGE (attacks all opponents).
ELEMENTAL WORDS add an elemental impact and status effects e.g. FIRE (burn) or WATER (wet).
All words have cool downs and opponents might be weak or strong against specific attacks or specific elements. You won’t know which until you engage them in battle so you need to be prepared to improvise.
With over 200 words to collect across the game there is a near infinite number of possible unique attacks to make. Things start off easy but as you expand Ringo’s vocabulary you’ll need to carefully select which words you take into battle, building strategies around your mix of categories, blend of offensive and defensive words, giving yourself options to manage your opponents weaknesses and strengths, consider optimizing the juggling of cool downs and, of course, which attacks sound the coolest.
The result is an accessible, immediately fun but deep combat system.
The core ethos of the Kiai martial art is to fight with honor. Defeating an opponent with honor can turn the most heated of rivals into the fastest of friends! Befriend your rivals to earn their words of encouragement in the form of useful Pep Ups which can be equipped to give you special bonuses in combat. Travel the universe on a rollercoaster adventure as you seek the pieces of the Wanderstar map, Ringo’s lost brother and the answers to Wolfe’s mysterious past.
This is a tale of mystery, adventure, betrayal, redemption, unlikely allies, twists, turns, surfing capybaras, health-restoring empanadas, forgotten shopping lists, rifts in space AND rifts between lovers.
Along the way you’ll build a found family of colorful characters, each with their own thing going on. They might not all get along at first, but that’s nothing a thrilling space adventure can’t fix! And even with the trail gone cold, take heart, for these wandering stars are bound to find each other…
Wander Stars is inspired by the anime the developers grew up watching in 1990’s Venezuela and shows like Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, One Piece and more.
It plays out across 10 “episodes”, each of which takes between 60-90 minutes to complete. Each episode features a map to explore with procedurally generated battles, special events and other secrets to find along with the main story events.
Tackle your playthrough an episode at a time or binge the whole thing in one go - the choice is yours.
You can even replay episodes to find all the side adventures, NPCs, and party member banter you might have missed! Try new paths as you explore ever-changing maps with randomized special events, lurking rivals, and tantalizing treasures. The experience is never quite the same!
ABOUT THE DEVELOPER
Paper Castle Games is a game development studio currently based in Spain and founded in Venezuela in 2013. We’re a team of friends making story-driven games, and we like to think outside the box to subvert conventions and create unique and engaging experiences.DLC & expansions
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What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Absolutely delightful! Fun cast of character, enjoyable gameplay loop, it may be listed as a roguelite but in reality it plays more like a jrpg in 90's anime form, and totally succeed at doing so! The story is simple but the characters more than make up for it and are interesting to follow. And playing the whole game really feels like watching anime like dragon ball, Slayers or Trigun to mention a few, in big part thanks to the visual style and the music/sound effects used. One of the best game i played in a while, Very highly recommended!5 found this helpful
I was actually really excited to play this one. Really good trailer, and it had that 80's type of anime stylle which is really what I wanted to see. But ultimately it was so dull and lazy. Super simple animations in combat, like no difference of a fast punch and special punch for example. There is no animation for eating the ice cream or different items. Also I felt like it's barely a real rogue like as it felt pretty set. I couldn't see when the enemies were going to attack so it was always the same thing every battle, which went like this: Check the enemy to see what they're weak to. Attacking everything I got until I had nothing left then Make sure to defend. I do appreciate the style, I just wish more was done with it since it's a game.3 found this helpful
In Wander Stars, you play as Ringo, a young girl with a passion for kiai, a fighting style in which you use words to attack your opponent. The game has a very strong presentation inspired by 90s shonen anime, especially Dragon Ball Z. Not only does it look amazing, but the music and sound effects also fit the theme perfectly, and it really feels like you're playing through an anime. There aren't many actual animated cutscenes, but I think it's understandable, given the scope of this project, and it being an indie game. The devs have done a fantastic job with their available resources, providing a very fun adventure with memorable characters. Each chapter in the game is divided into maps with different tiles, each one generally being combat, an event, or an item. The combat is turn-based, and you must combine different words to unleash each attack: an action, and adjective and an element. Each word takes up a different amount of space in your available slots, and stronger words have bigger cooldowns so you can't just spam your most powerful abilities over and over. You unlock more words as you play, and can use points earned in each chapter to buy upgrades and to permanently unlock…2 found this helpful
This game is definitely a hidden gem and one of my favorite games from 2025. I love the style of the game, with it bringing me back to older shonen manga I used to read growing up. The ensemble cast were all great, melding well together. The story was also fun to play through and I enjoyed watching everyone grow into themselves. The gameplay was also fun and I really liked stringing together crazy attack names. It feels fairly unique compared to other RPGs out there and definitely left an impression on me.2 found this helpful
The incredible concept and unique combat mechanics drew me in, and it made me cry as my reward for playing through all the way. This game is worth every penny.2 found this helpful
While I'm always down for a tribute to 90's anime and a unique concept for an RPG, this didn't stick with me as much as I wish it did. The story gets kinda lame and it's hard to stick with; and the combat becomes rather dull. But is spiced up nicely with a SPIRIT JUSTICE or ATOMIC BLAST. There are some bugs where you'll end up skipping a turn or the cursor doesn't scroll and you end up checking out something not visible, but this is a small project so I'm more willing to look past that. This game definitely isn't anyone's first choice, but worth checking out regardless.
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