The game starts out with a pretty good animation sequence that starts off the story. The animation is only about a minute or two long and is sort of a less detailed version of the show. The gems come home with a prism, and when Steven touches it he accidentally unleashes all the light from it. The gems then proceed to collect all the minions back into the prism.

The battle system is Super Mario RPG style, with time based attack combos and defensive blocks/parries. Steven plays as sort of a healer/item user, while each of the gems have 3 specialty moves and a basic attack. I ended up saving a lot of the items for the end game, and then never using them, so use them generously if you decide to play. I think you could use an item five times every battle and still have lots of items left over by the end game.

The main stages are super easy, and the bonus stages really push you to the limit cause they don't allow you to use your items unless you find them in the bonus stage.

V---Ending---V

The ending was sort of disappointing. It only awards you a short, 10 second animation in which the prism minions become smiling Stevens made out of light, and then disappear into fuzzy light particles. It felt like a very strange, abrupt and sudden stop in the game when I finally beat it. You travel about 8 hours into the game to fight to the end, and then suddenly you get a 10 second video of smiling Steven and the light dudes, and you're back at the title screen. It lacks emotional closure.

^-----------------^

All in all, the game is really very fun, and you might enjoy it even if you don't know anything about the cartoon Steven Universe.

In which case you should give it a watch. I was a bit cautious about the show because I had heard some people over-analyzing the liberal values in the show, and it sounded like a kind of show that shoves its agenda down your throat, but it really is nothing like that. The only episode that really even gets remotely preachy is the nuclear family episode, and even then it is more akin to schmaltzy sitcom moralism than it is to liberal propaganda. You really don't even notice or give it a second thought with the way they shaped the show. Every positive role model just happens to be female. While there are other shows that do the same in reverse, (having most positive characters be male).