I’m not going to lie, the only reason I even play RPGs are for the story. I feel that’s the heart of this genre, but also it’s Achilles’ heel. Nothing ruins a RPG faster to me than a poorly written story and Sea of Stars has one of the worst. The story is a disaster and most of it doesn’t makes sense partially due to the world building which is all of the place and without any clear direction. There are so many plot holes and certain things are just never explained throughout the story and sometimes you’re left with questions that are just never answered.
It also didn’t help that the dialogue in the Sea of Stars had some of the worst I’ve read and is best described as cringe worthy. The entire cast of characters felt like tropes and lack any real depth especially the main two characters, Zale and Valere. Holy shit, these two are some of the most boring characters I’ve ever seen! Neither one have any unique personality traits that make them stand out from the other cast of characters or even one another. Valere and Zale feel like one character most of the time and talk like your local average NPCs.
The ending of the game was extremely unsatisfying and felt so lazy. Granted there is the true ending that you can unlock, but you’ll have to spend several hours by completing specific side quests in order to get it. After watching the ending on YouTube because I couldn’t stand to play this game anymore and I’m glad I didn’t! In my personal opinion, it’s not really worth the time because ‘the real’ ending barely changes anything and the one change there is, takes away the only emotional moment in the entire game.
Another thing that really annoyed me was that the main antagonist didn’t get any real form of retribution in this ending despite all the horrendous things they did to others throughout the story. The worst they got was a case of wounded pride. I’m not saying the villain needed die, but why couldn’t the protagonists trap them in a time loop or something. Honestly, I think I’m putting more thought into this than writer/s did, clearly.
The combat is pretty mediocre and kinda of restrictive. Each character gets three skills and one ultimate which doesn’t really give you whole lot to strategize with and makes the battles repetitive. There are combo moves that you can use, but I found I mostly just used mending light to heal and to boost my ultimate meter. The rest of the combos I found to be kinda of useless. What also brings down the combat is that the fights can go on way too long especially the boss fights. On a bright note is that game gives you relic you can buy in game that make the battles easier.
Even with all this there are some good things in Sea of Stars. Outside of maybe Eastward, the pixel art is probably the best I’ve seen. I enjoyed the exploring of both the dungeons and towns. I found it fun discovering secret rooms and solving the puzzles which in all honesty were kinda of easy. I did find it annoying that in some of the towns you weren’t able to go in half the buildings. Most of the music was really well done and some of the tracks were really catchy. I think that’s mainly from Yasunori Mitsuda’s help with the sound track though.
Overall:
It isn’t enough to have both gorgeous pixel art and a good sound track in an RPG. You need a solid story with compelling characters to really bring it all together. It’s seems to me that Sabotage cared more about the visual aesthetics and the music than the narrative they were trying to tell. Sea of Stars is disappointing as it is soulless, and I’m so glad I played this on Gamepass instead of buying it. What a waste of time! That’s thirty hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Pros:
+gorgeous pixel art
+good sound track
+fun exploration and puzzles
Cons:
-awful story
-dull characters
-cringey dialogue
-lazy ending including the secret ending
-battles go on way too long
-combat feels restrictive
It also didn’t help that the dialogue in the Sea of Stars had some of the worst I’ve read and is best described as cringe worthy. The entire cast of characters felt like tropes and lack any real depth especially the main two characters, Zale and Valere. Holy shit, these two are some of the most boring characters I’ve ever seen! Neither one have any unique personality traits that make them stand out from the other cast of characters or even one another. Valere and Zale feel like one character most of the time and talk like your local average NPCs.
The ending of the game was extremely unsatisfying and felt so lazy. Granted there is the true ending that you can unlock, but you’ll have to spend several hours by completing specific side quests in order to get it. After watching the ending on YouTube because I couldn’t stand to play this game anymore and I’m glad I didn’t! In my personal opinion, it’s not really worth the time because ‘the real’ ending barely changes anything and the one change there is, takes away the only emotional moment in the entire game.
Another thing that really annoyed me was that the main antagonist didn’t get any real form of retribution in this ending despite all the horrendous things they did to others throughout the story. The worst they got was a case of wounded pride. I’m not saying the villain needed die, but why couldn’t the protagonists trap them in a time loop or something. Honestly, I think I’m putting more thought into this than writer/s did, clearly.
The combat is pretty mediocre and kinda of restrictive. Each character gets three skills and one ultimate which doesn’t really give you whole lot to strategize with and makes the battles repetitive. There are combo moves that you can use, but I found I mostly just used mending light to heal and to boost my ultimate meter. The rest of the combos I found to be kinda of useless. What also brings down the combat is that the fights can go on way too long especially the boss fights. On a bright note is that game gives you relic you can buy in game that make the battles easier.
Even with all this there are some good things in Sea of Stars. Outside of maybe Eastward, the pixel art is probably the best I’ve seen. I enjoyed the exploring of both the dungeons and towns. I found it fun discovering secret rooms and solving the puzzles which in all honesty were kinda of easy. I did find it annoying that in some of the towns you weren’t able to go in half the buildings. Most of the music was really well done and some of the tracks were really catchy. I think that’s mainly from Yasunori Mitsuda’s help with the sound track though.
Overall:
It isn’t enough to have both gorgeous pixel art and a good sound track in an RPG. You need a solid story with compelling characters to really bring it all together. It’s seems to me that Sabotage cared more about the visual aesthetics and the music than the narrative they were trying to tell. Sea of Stars is disappointing as it is soulless, and I’m so glad I played this on Gamepass instead of buying it. What a waste of time! That’s thirty hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Pros:
+gorgeous pixel art
+good sound track
+fun exploration and puzzles
Cons:
-awful story
-dull characters
-cringey dialogue
-lazy ending including the secret ending
-battles go on way too long
-combat feels restrictive