Wander Stars

Wander Stars follows Ringo, a young martial artist searching for her brother, and Wolfe, a mysterious scoundrel fleeing his past. They form an unlikely partnership to find the pieces of the fabled Wanderstar Map, uncover answers and make amends as they travel across the universe. The story unfolds over 10 anime-inspired episodes, each taking about 60–90 minutes to complete.

Kiai battles

Ringo practices Kiai, a magical martial art that is also the universe’s televised entertainment. In turn-based battles, you combine words to create custom attacks, with the number of slots available limited by Ringo’s spirit level. Building her spirit power gives her room to make more powerful and complex attacks.

The words fall into three categories:

• Action words: perform actions such as KICK, BLOCK or ITEM.
• Modifier words: change an action, such as SUPER for +1 damage, FAST to reduce cooldown or HUGE to attack all opponents.
• Elemental words: add an element and its effects, such as FIRE to burn or WATER to make a target wet.

Each word has a cooldown, and opponents may be weak or resistant to particular attacks or elements. You discover their strengths and weaknesses when you fight, so you must adapt your choices in battle. More than 200 words can be collected. As Ringo’s vocabulary grows, you choose which words to bring into battle and build strategies around their categories, offensive and defensive options, cooldowns and the opponents you face.

Rivals and allies

Kiai calls for fighting with honor. Defeating an opponent honorably can turn a rival into a friend, whose encouragement earns Pep Ups: bonuses you can equip to help in combat. Along the way, you can defeat or befriend space pirates, scoundrels, witches, high school delinquents, talking crows and martial artists.

Ringo and Wolfe also gather a found family of colorful characters, each with their own concerns. Their journey includes betrayal, redemption, unlikely allies, twists, surfing capybaras, health-restoring empanadas, forgotten shopping lists, rifts in space and rifts between lovers.

Episodes and exploration

Each of the 10 episodes has a map to explore, with the main story events alongside procedurally generated battles, special events and secrets. Maps change between visits, with randomized events, rivals and treasures. You can play one episode at a time, continue through the whole story or replay episodes to find side adventures, NPCs and party-member banter you missed.