Sea of Star Review: Almost a Classic

I really wanted to love this game. I’m not usually so blunt with my openings, normally I have a longwinded spiel on something connected to what I’m reviewing, but I feel like such an opening is appropriate because I really did want to love this game.

Sea of Stars is a new game by indie studio Sabotage. The same studio behind The Messenger, a 2D Ninja platformer that I really enjoyed. A bit derivative of other games, but a solid time with a surprisingly well-done story.

I first heard about Sea of Stars through internet buzz. A lot of people were hyped for this because of the excellent pixel graphics and because it was meant to be a throwback to classic JRPG’s from the 16-bit era. I’ve reviewed some of those in the past and have played quite a few more that I haven’t reviewed, yet.

Despite never growing up with them, I do love a good 16-bit RPG. With some of my favourites being Illusion of Gaia, Super Mario RPG and one my all-time favourite games Chrono Trigger. And sure enough, the latter was what I heard Sea of Stars compared to the most.

A game developed by a talented studio who made a game I had previously liked, and based on one of my favourite games? Yeah, that would certainly grab my attention.

The buzz around the game didn’t help matters either. This game looks set to be a new indie darling like Shovel Knight. It’s been praised to hell and back by both players and critics as a modern classic.

And fair play to all of them but I can’t say the same myself. I was very underwhelmed by Sea of Stars overall. Now that isn’t to say the game is bad, I would say I still liked the game when all is said and done, but it had some serious issues holding it back that left me feeling disappointed at the end.

Now I’m actually going to start with the presentation first because it’s easily the best part of the game. The graphics are definitely a throwback to the 16-bit era, but with modern touches that could never be done on those old systems.

The world is absolute lush with colour and detail. It’s one of the most vibrant, imaginative worlds I’ve seen in a long time. One of the islands you visit has a giant dragon curled over a mountain shaped like a flute that puts it to sleep through music. That’s wonderfully creative, and just the kind of imagination you saw in the classic 16-bit games.

And when the game wants to be foreboding it does so admirably. There are some creepy locations in this game with some bordering on outright body horror. Though it never goes too far, so squeamish players shouldn’t worry too much.

The character sprites are also very expressive and well animated. There’s so much charm to a lot of the animations that give the characters a lot more personality and life. And it doesn’t suffer from looking too pixelated, everything looks very smooth and almost hand drawn at times.

It’s a great looking game. There are even some great animated sequences that, admittedly aren’t handled the best. Some sequences are fantastic and make perfect sense why they’re animated, other times it just feels like they did them just because they could.

But while the game looks good, it sounds even better. The soundtrack absolutely slaps. Which isn’t surprising given The Messenger also had a phenomenal soundtrack. Every single track in this game is a banger. From the battle theme to the town themes, to the tune that plays on the overworld, every moment of the game is an utter musical delight.

And in keeping with the Chrono Trigger inspirations, the music has several tracks from guest composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Who also helped with the soundtrack for the original Chrono Trigger and did the entire soundtrack for Chrono Cross. You can kind of tell when he is handling the music because his style is different, but the music is so good the shift in style isn’t a problem at all. If anything, it just adds variety.

So, I have no complaints when it comes to the presentation. It’s near flawless in both technical skill and artistry. It’s in the gameplay and the writing where the game stumbles for me.

Let’s start with the gameplay first. Now if you’ve played a JRPG before, then a lot of this is going to feel familiar. You explore a big overworld, visit towns, explore dungeons, solve some puzzles and take part in battles. It’s all very traditional.

In fact, if you’ve played Chrono Trigger then the game is going to feel extremely familiar because the way the overworld works is almost identical. You’ve got one big overworld where you simply navigate from place to place, then the actual locations where you can explore and do all the stuff you would expect. Even the way enemies work is the same, no random battles here, you just enter a battle at set points when running through areas.

Each area is almost treated like its own level. Each has a linear design for progression, with hidden treasure found off the beaten path. There is some backtracking required for side quests or the more hidden collectibles in the game, though the levels are designed in a way that makes this process mostly harmless.

I say mostly because you will sometimes have to trek through entire sections of these areas to get what you need or even to get where you want to go. And while there are shortcuts to make this process easier, it doesn’t make it any less tedious.

Now there is an ability you get that makes backtracking a lot easier, and if you’ve played any kind of JRPG I think you will know what this is, but you don’t get this until the end of the game. So it’s probably best to save any kind of backtracking until you get to that point.

But a lot of the game is very standard, which is the problem. There isn’t much the game does that you haven’t seen before. Now it does attempt to spice things up with overworld abilities for traversal or puzzle solving but they don’t really add much to the experience, and these were taken from Mario and Luigi and Breath of Fire so even this isn’t original.

You could make the argument that it being derivative is the point. it is meant to be a throwback to the classic RPGs of the 16 bit era after all. And that is true. I didn’t go into this expecting something innovative, and as long as it’s done well it should be ok.

And it is, but it also doesn’t do much that’s great. It does what’s required of it and not much else. I never felt like the game went the extra mile to make anything particularly great.

The level design is good and none of the levels outstay their welcome, but outside of their visuals and music, I don’t remember much about them. The puzzles are all extremely simple and basic. None of them required much thought to complete aside from maybe one and that’s only if you don’t pay attention.

The towns you visit are handled a bit better. They all have their own distinct atmosphere and a lot of secrets to find. Though I found the town of Brisk to be too overly labyrinthian for its own good, it’s way too easy to get lost there.

But again, nothing is too outstanding. Most of the stuff you do in the towns is what you do in every other RPG, talk to NPC’s, and buy equipment. And while there are a few fun side quests in towns most are over before you know it.

The one area that does shine though is the battle system. It’s a turn-based system like the classics but it has things that make it stand out. The way turn orders work being one of them.

In most JRPG’s the turn order is determined by your speed or agility stat. The higher that is the earliest you’ll move, simple as. But Sea of Stars doesn’t have that. Instead, your characters can move in whatever order you want them too, with enemies having a countdown timer showing when they’ll attack.

Every character also has their own special moves that have different effects. Some heal, some have a wide area of effect that affects enemies grouped together, some move enemies around, and some will affect every enemy at once.

These special moves cost MP, which can be refilled by either using an item, or by simply using your normal attacks. Using normal attacks will also cause enemies to drop Live Mana which can then be absorbed to boost your attacks using your Special Attack stat.

Each attack also has different properties that enemies are weak to. Trying to exploit those to end fights faster is big part of combat, but it goes further. Whenever an enemy is about to do a big attack, they’ll create a lock. These locks have symbols showing the different properties that your attacks have, and by using attacks that match those properties you can remove those symbols and getting rid of them all breaks the lock and interrupts the attack.

There is a lot to this battle system. It’s far more strategic than a lot of JRPG’s. Let’s be honest, most JRPG battles basically devolve into tapping the attack button repeatedly for the vast majority of encounters. It can get pretty mindless.

But in Sea of Stars that won’t fly. Even in basic encounters you’re constantly having to make on the fly decisions. Take lock for examples, there are going to be instances where you don’t have the resources to break them. You might not have the MP required to use the special attacks you need to break them.

So, what do you do? Well one character has a special that lets you delay an attack to give you more time, so you can use that to give you the time needed to build the MP for the attack you want. Or you can use that time to get more Live Mana which adds elemental properties to your attacks and use that instead.

But let’s say you don’t have any of the resources to get rid of the lock. Well, you can just get rid some of the symbols to lower the damage of the attack. You always have an option, and a large part of the strategy comes from deciding which is the best for the current situation. Do I get rid of the lock and waste resources, or can I tank the hit and pick off the weaker enemies instead.

That’s not all about the battle system. You also have Combo Moves where two characters perform a more powerful attack. These require combo points which build up as you attack enemies. Combo points don’t transfer over between battles, but Combo Moves are more powerful and don’t cost MP to compensate. It’s almost like a free attack.

On top of that, by spending Combo Moves you build up the Ultimate Meter, and when that’s full you can then perform a character’s Ultimate Attack. A big flashy cinematic move that does tons of damage. I repeat, there is a lot to this battle system.

And it’s a really good system. it’s simple enough to understand, but with plenty of nuance and depth to dive into. The game even incorporates Mario RPG style action commands for blocking and attacking, adding in an action element to the proceedings.

But for as fun as the battle system is, it has things holding it back. For one thing I wish there was more variety in the action commands. Most just involve hitting the button at the right time, with very few of them shaking it up. In Mario RPG you had commands that involved mashing the button, holding it down and even rotating the D-Pad. It’s not as varied here.

The battle system also starts to wear thin in the latter half of the game. Truth be told, while the games battle system is more strategic, it’s also not that challenging. Once you figure everything out it actually becomes really easy.

And it isn’t through being over leveled. The game is balanced in a way where that’s impossible and you’ll always be at the level required, which is good since you don’t have to worry about grinding. No, it’s really because you almost never have to worry about resources.

One of the challenges in RPG’s is resource management. Making sure you have enough items, or conserving your MP so you have it when you need it. But resources are never scarce in Sea of Stars.

That hypothetical about running low is a rarity. Since you can build up MP through normal attacks, it’s very easy to build MP back up again. So long as you vary your attacks you should never be without MP. Even if you do take a big hit, you’ll have plenty of healing options. Either through spells or healing items.

Now the game does try to balance this by only giving you access to 10 healing items at max, but this isn’t as restrictive as it looks. For one you can get healing items very easily. Not just from buying them or finding them in chests, but also by cooking them at various camp sites. And the game gives you plenty of ingredients to cook whatever you need.

Those campsites can also be used to fully heal your team, and they are plentiful. You’ll make it a bit way into an area and you’ll find a campsite to heal. There’s no downside to healing from these either, enemies don’t respawn or anything so if you need to heal just go back to a campsite.

It makes it really easy to conserve your healing items. In fact, you’ll be doing that anyway since you will barely use them. You start the game with a pretty good healing spell that costs very little. And given how fast you can build MP, it’s very easy to rely on that for almost all your healing needs.

The only times I used healing items were to get rid of them and make room for better ones, or during boss fights. The latter of which I only did because bosses are more wars of attrition than anything else.

Yeah, even the bosses aren’t that difficult. They’re just massive damage sponges. As long as your patient you should be able to beat them no problem. Some do have interesting gimmicks and strategies, but they aren’t that hard to deal with.

Now in all fairness, Chrono Trigger wasn’t that difficult either. It was a fairly accessible RPG which is what Sea of Stars is trying to be. There are even relics you can turn on or off that can make the game easier or more challenging.

But, Chrono Trigger did have more challenge to it. Namely in picking the right team combinations. If you went in with the wrong team it would certain battles much harder if not outright impossible.

But in Sea of Stars that’s never an issue. Because you can swap party members in and out mid battle with no cost. So, if you don’t have the guy you need, you can just swap them in and you’ll be perfectly fine.

This just comes across as cheap. I know why it’s like this, it’s because of the lock system. If they made it so you couldn’t affect them at all it would be horribly unfair. But there must have been another way to balance this without making it this easy to swap characters in.

I know I said earlier that you can find relics that make the game a little more difficult, but a lot of these come across as super hard challenges for experts, rather than a way to adjust the game to a decently challenging level.

The only instance where I felt legitimately challenged was during one of the side challenges, and even that only too me a few attempts to beat. Other than that, most of the game was a breeze, which made a lot of the combat less interesting despite the more tactical nature of the battles.

But another reason for that is the lack of meaningful growth. It never really felt like I was getting stronger as I progressed. Sure, I was increasing my stats as I levelled up and got better equipment, but it never felt like it made much of a difference because the enemies were also getting stronger as the game progressed. You only ever noticed the power increase when you go back to previous areas and one-shot weaker enemies.

You could make the argument that every RPG is like this. Aside from ones that can be broken in half. You wouldn’t be wrong; in a lot of RPGs, you don’t notice the stat boosts as you progress through the game that much.

Here’s the difference, in those RPG’s you would unlock new more powerful abilities as you levelled up. This was the case in Chrono Trigger as every character had a bunch of new spells and attacks, they could learn on top of combo attacks for every possible team combination.

This is where Sea of Stars completely drops the ball. Because every character only learns 4 moves. Only 4? That’s barely anything, and one of those move is your ultimate which you’ll rarely use anyway.

Now you do have more combo moves, but even those are limited. Every character only has one combo move with another, aside from the two leads who have three for each other. Chrono Trigger also did this, but that also triple moves that needed an entire team and you used them in Chrono Trigger much more frequently.

Outside of boss battles you don’t use or need the combo moves. Which means you’ll see the same moves over and over throughout the majority of the game. That makes the battles get old. By the end of the game, I was more than done with the battle system.

All that being said, it is still a good system. It has just enough depth to it that it takes a while for it to truly wear out its welcome. I’d say near the last third is where it lost me, which is a good 20-30 hours in.

But I think the battle system is emblematic to my overall feelings on the gameplay. Everything is done well, but it never coalesces into something great. It has all the necessary elements; it just never quite comes together in the way that you hope.

But my biggest issue by far is the lacklustre customisation elements. Every time you level up, aside from the regular stat increases, you can choose one stat to get a bonus increase. Sounds good but it really doesn’t mean much.

Even if you try to focus on one stat, by the end game the differences between them will be minor. And most of the difference is what the characters already had by default. So it only feels like you can nudge a character in a certain direction, rather than mould them in the way you want.

And since the boosts you can pick are random each time you won’t always get the one you want. Compare this to the Mario and Luigi games, where every level up you had free reign over which stat got a bonus. Giving you freedom in how each brother played.

And I’m going to level with you, you’re probably going to end up prioritising the Mana stat since it gives you more MP to play with. Which is the only stat whose increase feels substantial since it lets you do more moves.

There is more customisation in the form of the equipment. Armour and weapons are unique for character so not much to do there, but there are accessories that anyone can equip that let you slightly modify characters a certain way.

Except there are some accessories only certain characters can equip, and you’ll probably end up using them anyway because they’re good. So even in this regard you still have little in the way of customising characters to your liking.

Look, JRPG’s are not the strongest when it comes to customisation. It’s always way more limited compared to western RPG’s. Have you seen what Baldur’s Gate 3 lets you do? It’s mind blowing the amount of stuff you can customise in that, and I cannot to play it when it comes to Xbox.

Even Chrono Trigger was lacking in this regard. But in Chrono Trigger you did have customisation in the form of team composition. Even though you couldn’t really change how each character played, you could at least decide which characters you brought into battle. That’s how a lot of JRPG’s get around that.

But in Sea of Stars, since you can swap characters mid battle freely with no consequences, even team composition is taken away from you. So there isn’t any kind of customisation in this that isn’t stifled in some way. Extremely disappointing for me because I would argue customisation is a corner stone of the RPG genre.

But the customisation is the only part of the game that I can say is bad. Everything else is good. Derivative yes, not as good as it could be, oh most definitely, but still good. It’s a nice cosy adventure that harkens back to the classics. And for fans of classic JRPG’s that will be enough for them.

The game isn’t slacking on content either. The main story will take about 20-30 hours to complete, with a lot of side quest and activities to partake in that should add an extra 5-10 hours. And it is worth going out of your way to do the side content because it’s how you unlock the games true ending.

Not every side activity contributes to that, but a good chunk of it does. And a lot of it is fun. There’s a fun fishing mini game that’s one of the better ones I’ve seen in a game, there’s an entire side quest that involves building a town which is really rewarding to see develop, and there’s a lot of optional boss battles and dungeons which are fun, though they still suffer from some of the issues I mentioned earlier.

Really the only side content I didn’t care for was Wheels. This is a mini game you can play in every tavern that works like a mixture of miniatures and slots. You pick two playing pieces based on classic RPG classes and you use them to attack your opponent to bring their life points down to zero. You attack by building energy which can only be done by playing a slot machine and getting the right number of symbols there.

It's not a good mini game at all. It tries to be strategic with different pieces having unique playstyles and strategies, but the slot machine element doesn’t mesh well with it at all. It’s too random to be a good strategy game, and it’s too strategic to be a fun game of chance. Even when I win it felt like it was because I got lucky, not because I came up with a good strategy.

Aside from that, most of the games content is enjoyable. And despite my criticisms I would say the game is a good time. It’s nothing outstanding but it is good for what it is. I would say this game is the JRPG equivalent to a cheeseburger. Nothing outstanding but it goes down easy, and you feel nice and full when it’s over. It’s JRPG comfort food basically.

There is nothing wrong with this. Sometimes you need comfort food, not everything needs to be a groundbreaking masterpiece. The problem is that Sea of Stars takes clear inspiration from games that are groundbreaking masterpieces.

Not just Chrono Trigger, but also games like Golden Sun and the Mario RPG’s. Games that are undisputed classics of the genre, and it’s not as good as any of them. It’s not as ambitious or as daring, nor as tightly designed mechanically. Nothing it does is bad but when you copy greatness you’re always going to be compared to greatness.

Sea of Stars is not a bad game by any means, but because of its ceaseless effort to homage the classics it unfortunately situates itself in the shadow of those classics. A fact that is only worsened by its incredibly weak narrative.

The basic premise of the game centres around Zale and Valere. Two children born on a summer and winter solstice that have the power of the sun and the moon. Raised as Solstice Warriors, they’re duty is to stop the ambitions of The Fleshmancer. An ancient evil Alchemist who seeks to destroy the world through powerful being called Dwellers.

Zale and Valere must travel across the world to stop The Fleshmancer along with their best friend Garl. A cheerful boy with no magic, but a big heart and great cooking skills. And they meet a variety of colourful characters, including some that will aid them in their quest, and have a series of adventures along the way.

I’ll give the game this, in the beginning the story is fine. it’s not exactly original, but it is a fun little adventure story. There’s a lot of interesting lore to uncover and the game has a lot of heart and charm to the writing that makes the early game story a lot of fun.

It clearly wants to be a nice breezy adventure with a cast of lovable characters, and it works. At first, but after a while the games charm wears out and the flaws in the writing and narrative become more and more obvious as the game goes on.

The characters are not interesting. A lot of the NPCs have fun quirks, but they are very one note and most contribute little to the overall narrative. You run into a group of pirates that travel with you, but all they end up doing is act like a music player in the various taverns around the world. They have unique eccentricities, but they’re so shallow otherwise that’s all you’ll remember them for.

Sadly, the main characters don’t fare much better either. Except for Garl. Garl is the best character in the game, he’s got a fun-loving attitude, he’s super nice to everyone he meets, he has a great sense of adventure and he’s just a really lovable guy. He absolutely steals the show.

However, I mean that in the worst way possible. See Garl is a perfect example of nepotism in character writing. It is abundantly obvious that he is the character the writers liked the most to an almost comical degree.

Everybody loves him, nearly every major interaction involves him in some way, he has the most accomplishments of all the characters, even the true ending of the game revolves around Garl. It is Mary Sue levels the amount of favouritism he gets and frankly, it comes off as manipulative. I liked Garl at first, but once I realised how much more attention he was getting from the writers, I ended up kind of hating him.

And the sad thing is that they spend so much time on Garl the other characters suffer as a result. Zale and Valere are beyond boring. I couldn’t tell you anything about their personalities despite spending 30+ hours with them.

Their only character arcs are trying to become Guardian Gods, the supreme beings Solstice Warriors can turn into, but they have no personal reasons why they want to do this, they just do. It never feels like they have any real agency and end up feeling like passive observers in their own story.

Most of the interesting character stuff comes from the other characters. Sadly, I can’t talk about it in detail without going into spoilers which I don’t want to do in case you haven’t played it yet. But suffice to say, I found the other party members to be far more engaging.

Though that isn’t to say they were that much more interesting. Honestly the character arcs are very weak and don’t have satisfying pay offs. Which is a shame I’ve played a lot of 16-bit RPGs with strong character development.

Chrono Trigger is one of them, every character in that game had a really well-developed arc especially if you did the side quests, but here’s another example, Illusion of Gaia. If you haven’t played it, it’s a fantastic SNES action RPG from Quintet and Enix that I highly recommend.

Now the story of Illusion of Gaia has you going on a journey to put the world back together, and along the way your friend’s journey with you and help out. And these friends change over time, they fall in love and leave the group, they grow more mature, and you really grow to care for them.

There’s a great scene in Illusion of Gaia where you get lost at sea with a spoiled rich girl. The entire sequence is just the two of you alone on a raft trying to survive, you see them as the days pass and they grow closer, and you can see the rich girl slowly becoming humbler as she adjusts to the situation. It’s a brilliant scene and one that stuck with me after I finished the game.

Sea of Stars never has much of an equivalent. There are plenty of moments between characters, but I never feel like we learn much about them. And that’s because of them revolve around their relationship with Garl. Jesus Christ, what is with the favouritism to Garl.

There just isn’t much to these characters. I just couldn’t find a reason to care about them because I never felt like I got to know them. And if I don’t care for the characters, how can I possibly expect to care for what happens to them.

Even the villains don’t leave much of an impression. Most are just big monsters, and the few human bad guys have weak motivations that make their attempts to make them sympathetic fall flat. The only villain I thought was interesting was The Fleshmancer because there are hints that he has a deeper history.

Hints is all they remain though. This leads me to the biggest issue with this game’s narrative. The game wants to be a light breezy adventure, but it also wants to have its cake and eat it too. There are hints to a deeper narrative and interesting themes, but it never follows through with them.

Most of the story and character arcs the game sets up aren’t given satisfying emotional conclusions. They just get dropped from the story entirely or just kind of end in an unsatisfying way. There was a lot of interesting build up to some of the story, but it completely fails to pay off.

The ending is also very underwhelming. It just kind of stops with no feeling of real closure to anything. There is some DLC on the way that could hopefully expand on things, but it doesn’t change the fact that the base game story left me feeling dissatisfied.

I should also mention that this game takes place in the same universe as The Messenger. Though outside of some minor easter eggs and a reference to it in the true ending, there isn’t much connecting the two games. So don’t if you haven’t played that, you can jump into this blind and not be lost.

Sea of Stars is very easy to recommend to a very specific set of players. If you grew up with or have a deep affection for classic JRPG’s then you’re going to absolutely love this. It has all the elements you know and love with a great presentation on top of that. Yeah it has flaws with its gameplay and narrative, but most classic JRPG fans should be able to look past that and enjoy the nice breezy adventure it offers.

But to everyone else, it’s a tepid recommendation. If you like RPG’s and want a nice simple one to kick back and play, then it isn’t a bad one to try out. And if you have Game Pass then it’s definitely worth trying out since it’s free.

But at the same time the story is lacklustre and the gameplay, while fun, never coalesces into anything outstanding. It’s a decent game, but far from a new indie masterpiece and certainly not up to the standards of the classics it models itself on.

And honestly, if you were looking to get into 16-bit RPG’s I would recommend any of those classics over this any day. Those games were far more ambitious and innovative and were much more consistent with their designs and storytelling than Sea of Stars. In short, this ain’t the next Chrono Trigger. Not even close.

It’s a shame I didn’t take to Sea of Stars more than I did. I still had my fun with it, I did feel compelled to 100% it, but I can’t I’m eager to back to it. Even with a New Game+ option I don’t I’ll be playing this again anytime soon. This was a one and done for.

I can see the affection Sabotage has for those old RPGs, and I completely understand why some people love it, but it just didn’t fully work for me. But if Sabotage build on what they did here and improve on the writing and gameplay, we could very well have a modern classic on our hands. All the elements are there for one, but as it stands Sea of Stars is only almost a classic.