Sea of Stars

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 40 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Just about right, maybe drags in certain sections.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased. It was better than I expected and I was pretty excited for it.
• Why I played: I love the related material and the biggest inspiration; The Messenger, and Chrono Trigger respectively.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would, and especially to anyone who enjoyed the above mentioned games. Or to anyone who likes other throwback rpgs, like Chained Echoes.

Sea of Stars was pretty great. There is a lot I could talk about, but also a lot that I feel like is spoiler territory. It's kind of one of those games that is always revealing new stuff. The combat is fun, it's like a mix of Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG(especially remake). There are timed button presses when you do pretty much anything, and you can swap character in and out, though I don't recall the original Super Mario RPG did that, so maybe I should liken it to Final Fantasy X in that regard, even if it's far from the only RPG with that mechanic, it's one of the more popular.

The Chrono Trigger inspiration for combat comes in the form of the combo abilities and how combat is initiated and characters are placed etc. The Chrono Trigger inspiration doesn't stop there because it's really in so much of the game.

It has all kinds of extra rpg stuff too, like a couple decent mini games, fully animated cutscenes, a little bit of a town building, etc. It can drag at certain points I think. Because of how leveling up is treated and how dungeons are designed, and how encounters are built, the game expects you to experience every single moment of the game. No skipping encounters, no short cuts through the dungeon, no ways to just move things along. While many rpgs are longer, they have parts that can be rushed for when you're just trying to make story progress. This can negatively impact certain parts when you're trying to "fully" complete the game. Without spoiling anything, there is a difference between completing the game and "fully" completing the game and I think the intended experience is really to fully complete the game. It doesn't feel like optional content to me, but I suppose some people will just wrap it up right there.

Thankfully, for me, it wasn't too tedious because I was making progress toward my "full completion" throughout the entire game by doing almost all it had to offer. This is also why I can see how certain sections drag. But generally, because I loved the combat, it wasn't too bad. I do just wish sometimes some more of the dungeons had something akin to teleport points once you beat them. Or maps. There is only an overworld map. Maps of the inner areas, towns, etc. could have helped.

The other point that I can see not being to everyone's taste is how the relics work. The relics are partially difficulty adjustments and partially necessary mechanics, but it doesn't exactly explain them the best. Some make the game obviously harder, some make the game obviously easer, and some are just bonuses. It puts the onus on the player to customize the difficulty to what they'll actually enjoy the most and I don't think that works for everyone. Simpler Easy/Normal/Hard with it explaining the changes I feel is generally the best way to do it, IF you have difficulty options at all. I'm usually of the mindset the best experiences are the "intended" difficulties, but that's just me. The other things like fishing rod upgrades and faster travel should have just been automatically applied separately.

While there is obviously the big threat to the world and such in this game, I would say the writing is generally pretty light hearted. It's going for the heart warming moments, and the clever and less clever tongue in cheek moments and some just in your face jokes. It's not all too different than The Messenger in that aspect, but it's definitely a step above it. This is a game that isn't meant to be taken too seriously. It's a game for game's sake.

It's a good one though.