STARSTRUCK: HANDS OF TIME

Give this genre-hopping musical delight a big hand

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Developer/publisher Createdelic, LLC

Format PC, PS4

Origin US

Release 2021

Max Ponoroff might have the elevator pitch of the year. Starstruck’s director calls it ‘an adventure game where you can save the world through music and destroy it with a giant human hand’. You’re a spaceship captain who’s travelled back in time to 20XX to avert an apocalypse. An apocalypse that somehow involves Edwin, a boy who has aspirations of being a guitarist, and his friend Dawn, who has to deal with her cop mother arresting her during her gigs.

It’s a wonderfully nutty premise, but at first exploring Edwin’s town actually feels comfortingly familiar. Mother 3 is mentioned as an influence, clear from the sedate setting and charmingly odd humour. But Mother never had this gorgeous arts-and-crafts artstyle, one which should have The Origami King worried for its crown.