So this game is fun, has nice exploration, fine combat, dark fantasy vibes.

It just can't really be called a Metroidvania. If you enter a game looking for something and it never shows up it can sour an expirence.
Outside of non linearity, the one thing that actually makes a Metroidvania a Metroidvania is power up progression. Blasphemous does not have this. It's a non linear action platformer with no power up progression at all, making it more like a 2D Dark Souls than a Metroidvania. I've heard the 2nd one does much much better at this and I'm very excited about it

I do not understand the acclaim this game has received like at all: the writing is 4th grade level at best, the dialogue itself is so dull it gave me a migraine within the first hour, and the plot feels like a bunch of aimless tropes that they couldn't be bothered to flesh out enough to allow for even a little bit of narrative parity between character motivations and the events unfolding (though maybe they expect you to have played The Messenger to understand certain aspects of the game's worldbuilding? idk). The main characters are basically nothing, Garl's whole schtick is annoying and forced, and pretty much every interaction feels like it was written for a Nick Jr. show or something.

The combat is serviceable, and I had fun with the boss fights at least. It isn't enough to say that it's merely inspired by Super Mario RPG; it IS Super Mario RPG, but with a bit of Mario & Luigi mixed in (like literally, from the start the boy has Geno Blast and the girl has the Mario & Luigi koopa shell). Unfortunately the numbers are all so fucked up that even if you're defending every enemy attack perfectly, you end up needing to heal constantly. Not to mention the hapless addition of tedious mechanics like live mana, which kinda just feel like an attempt to say they're totally not copying Mario RPG wholesale while adding virtually nothing of note of their own to the mix. Which is fine, I suppose, but the end result is something much less compelling than any Mario RPG I've ever played.

Really though, don't let the gorgeous pixel art fool you; under the hood Sea of Stars is a grey, formless sludge of an RPG that attempts to limply replicate games like Chrono Trigger and even non-video game media like Avatar: the Last Airbender, without really understanding what made those pieces of media work so well in the first place. I truly wanted to give this game a fair shake and at least appreciate it for what it is, but at only a few hours in, I'm already at the point of not being able to figure out a reason to keep going. There are so many more interesting games out there, especially within the RPG genre itself, that I could be getting an actual meaningful experience from instead.

Eu tive uma revelação enquanto estava jogando esse jogo, e é que eu não gosto da from software por causa dos souls likes, n é esse genero que me mantem consumindo seus jogos, eu gosto da from software por causa de todo o seu DNA q foi construido desde os primórdios do playstation. Eu não esperava gostar tanto de armored core 6, não é uma obra prima revolucionária que destrói toda a minha concepção sobre o entretenimento geral, mas é um jogo com tanto coração e tão honesto sobre si mesmo, tão divertido, customizável, épico, e com uma das melhores boss fights que a from já fez, que nao precisa ser mais que isso, um puta de um jogasso do caralho que eu recomendo para qualquer pessoa que gosta de mecha.