Star Overdrive Reviews
An uneven, but ambitious adventure. Caracal has taken ingredients from some key titles and genres, added a brilliant traversal mechanic and cooked up a chilled-out, sci-fi wasteland odyssey. The game's mysterious, drip-fed narrative will keep you intrigued, and every moment spent on the grav board is undeniably enjoyable. Although Cebete may feel overly familiar, its vibrant landscapes and hidden secrets still make it worth exploring.
Star Overdrive has bags of heart and a huge amount of ambition, and it manages to bring those things together with enough style to cover up some of its less-polished elements.
Star Overdrive follows the creative path of the last two Zelda games and adds a hoverboard to the formula to make it even more interesting. It has a few design decisions that mar the overall experience, but that doesn't mean skating around this alien-planet-shaped skatepark isn't really fun.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Hoverboards and rock music made the fortune of Back to the Future and the formula works quite well also in Star Overdrive. The game developed by the Italian team Caracal presents an aesthetically pleasing sci-fi adventure, with a setting that is not particularly original but fascinating and full of activities. Some 'stiffness' problems in the walking phases, small technical stumbles and a bit of repetitiveness in situations, however, prevent it from taking off.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Star Overdrive is an enjoyable open world experience, but it can become a bit tedious, specifically when it comes to upgrading the hoverboard. While you're shown the recommended stats for each area, they do change depending on the area you're in and if you waste your materials, it can be time consuming to get more. That said though, I still enjoyed my time with Star Overdrive and if you enjoy open world games similar to the Legend of Zelda on the Switch, Star Overdrive might be right up your alley.
It's an exciting journey that of Star Overdrive, a game that, with all its structural limitations, has proven capable of exciting and entertaining, despite the seemingly insurmountable goal that the Roman team of Caracal has placed at the base of the project.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While it could’ve been a bit more fleshed out, Star Overdrive is a genuinely fun version of: “What if Breath of the Wild was Tony Hawk?”
Star Overdrive rides with so much damn heart and style that it's hard not to appreciate its charm. While the combat definitely feels like more than a speed bump, and the camera can be road rage inducing, the exhilarating thrill of movement, unique storytelling and killer retro vibe keeps the somewhat bumpy ride going. Everything is nicely wrapped up in a compelling mystery, and if you're down to drift through the world of Cebet to solve it, Star Overdrive definitely earns a place in your indie collection.
Star Overdrive is a thrill of a game that was a joy to play almost from start to finish. Yes, there are issues here and there with the grinding and some questionable control decisions. But over looking that we are treated to a fun adventure title with a unique twist on the genera. I do wish the world (and our lead) had a little more personality. But if you're looking for a game in the tradition of the most recent Zelda titles this might be for you.
Star Overdrive isn't trying to be the next massive open-world blockbuster, but what it offers is focused, stylish, and incredibly fun. It captures a sense of movement and freedom that's hard to describe until you've flown across a massive dune, trick-boosted off a rock, and landed mid-swing into an enemy group. It's got bugs, some literal, some framerate related, but it also has soul which becomes clearly apparent as soon as you start playing. It knows what it wants to be and hits the mark with flair. If you like style forward games with movement based exploration, layered dungeons, and a keytar that hits like a truck, Star Overdrive is the perfect addition to your collection.
But it all comes together in the final game as a clunky project with too many influences and too little of its own. I am mostly disappointed in Star Overdrive because I can see the gem of a good game that was there and it just doesn't come to fruition. Even if the performance was more consistent and the animation was a bit more polished, there is very little to the loop here that makes Star Overdrive a good recommendation.
It may be quite lonely on Star Overdrive's planet but there's so much to see and do and its rockin' vibes help tie it all together. 🪐
Star Overdrive is another example of a game where a cool reveal didn’t live up to the end result. Whatever inspiration there was to be found in last year’s trailer didn’t make it to the finished product, and there’s little here to make the game worth recommending.
The imagination is clear throughout, and the team at Caracal Games has done a wonderful job in creating an interesting world that deserves your attention and time. If you're looking for a unique Zelda-like, with a rough 20-hour playtime and a mysterious sci-fi tale, then Star Overdrive might just be what you're after.
Star Overdrive feels like a seamless fusion of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, offering a fresh and exhilarating take on the action adventure genre.
It’s not a perfect title, but it’s wonderfully memorable, and I highly encourage anyone and everyone to take a chance on Star Overdrive. The beauty is simple, in the end: Bios and Nous are one, and that drives their entire future to the stars and beyond.
While the initial few hours really made me fall in love with Star Overdrive, the longer I spent with it, the more some of its design choices made me fall out of love and start to notice and experience the extreme tedium that is baked into progressing the main story. The hoverboard is essential to the game, which is why the slow moments of it can result in far too much trial and error as you attempt to master it to sail high to your next objective. While its story’s conclusion was certainly worth the journey, the path there was sadly a bumpy one.
Star Overdrive delivers bursts of brilliance with its exhilarating hoverboard traversal and momentum-based platforming, but ultimately gets bogged down by repetitive combat, underwhelming upgrades, and an overly ambitious design that fails to come together cohesively.
Star Overdrive is bold in its proposal, but it fails to deliver an experience whose lack of polish in crucial aspects such as movement and combat prevents it from being widely recommended. With a good dose of patience, it is possible to enjoy the story of BIOS and NOUS, but it is difficult not to look at this creative universe and notice a potential that has not been fully realized.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Star Overdrive has a strong foundation with its stylish hoverboard exploration and interesting combat options via the Keytar, but fails to fully realize this potential. The world feels empty, the main character lacks personality and many of the creative ideas are limited.
Review in Dutch | Read full review