2016
Played it on SteamDeck, finished it after 5 hours.
A very fine game. Loved getting immersed and using the map and compass to figure out where to go. Enjoyed the writing and the pacing - how the main relationship evolves and the mystery intensifies.
More experience like this, please. Short and tight stories with minimal but immersive mechanics. Edith Finch (which I loved and should replay soon) comes to mind.
A very fine game. Loved getting immersed and using the map and compass to figure out where to go. Enjoyed the writing and the pacing - how the main relationship evolves and the mystery intensifies.
More experience like this, please. Short and tight stories with minimal but immersive mechanics. Edith Finch (which I loved and should replay soon) comes to mind.
2023
Ever since I saw the first trailers for this game, I was excited for it. After ~30 hours and achieving the True Ending on my Switch, I found Sea Of Stars a wonderful yet flawed experience. An ambitious project by an apparently small but evidently capable team.
I played the game in two chunks of time. First when it was released, and then a few week ago until now. There's a reason for the break in between.
The absolute best feature of Sea Of Stars is its presentation; the pixel art is some of the best I've seen. The design of the environments, characters, and enemies is stunning and memorable. And it's all wrapped in beautifully detailed lighting and shadows, and lively particle and environmental effects that make the game a delight to look at.
The UI is minimal and effective, and practically non-existent during exploration, which immerses you further and makes appreciating the visual artwork all the easier.
The soundtrack is captivating too, and it's fun to listen to the interesting differences in instrumentation between the 'day', 'night', and 'pirate' versions of the songs. Yasunori Mitsuda's pieces are mesmerising gifts as well.
Some of the peripherals are wonderful, like the cooking - with the satisfying sound effects of the meal-prepping, the kitchen-ware at work, and the sizzling, coupled with the crisp food pixel art - as well as the fantastic Wheels mini-game, which also boasts amazing pixel artwork, satisfying sound effects, and a plain fun game-loop.
Sea Of Stars very much wears its Chrono Trigger-inspiration on its sleeves, with many aspects both within and around its combat system taken directly from CT, having its aforementioned composer as an invited guest, and even some obvious aspects from the story that parallels CT's. If you love Chrono Trigger will likely appreciate most of these. My mind was racing by imagining what CT would look like with the SoS coat of paint.
However, some of these similarities that the creators tried to replicate were just not properly executed. A particularly jarring instance is the transitions from the dungeons and towns in and out of the world map view, where the loading times would average 10 seconds and then you'd only spent as much time in the world map walking a straight line from one dungeon/town to the next, therefore triggering another 10-second loading screen. The world of Sea Of Stars is an ocean with a two handfuls of islands. Only after getting the means to travel across the ocean does the world feel "open". When you're walking through the islands it's rather an extremely linear affair with no exploration, to the point where sometimes this world view felt rather pointless. This is the one truly annoying thing I can say about Sea Of Stars.
There are other things that, while far from terrible, were not realised to its full potential, just felt flat, or they take too long to fall in place and click.
I felt the battle system had many interesting different mechanics, but at some point it became somewhat repetitive. I believe the pacing at which these mechanics were introduced was not well thought out, so they either came in too close or too far apart from each other, which resulted in feeling overwhelmed or bored, respectively.
Having played and enjoyed The Messenger (the creators' previous game, set in the same universe) I was already invested in this world, setting, and characters. Perhaps I was expecting too much from Sea Of Stars, but I felt the writing was thin for the most part, mainly because of the characters and lack of development thereof. I loved Garl from the get-go and until the end I thought he was most fun character with deservedly a big impact on the story and an earned emotional payoff. But even he felt rather basic at times. The rest of the roster felt thin and one-dimensional - even if their one quirk was fun and interesting. Worst of all, the main protagonists - Zale and Valere - are mostly uninteresting, and borderline robotic at times.
Only thanks to the rest of the characters and the connections to The Messenger that came up from time to time, I was still having a good time continuing. But at some point that wasn't enough.
After some hours, I felt my excitement to continue the game deflating. I guess these unpolished parts of the game started to add up and chop off the fun parts. At that moment I decided I needed a break, so I shelved the game - perhaps halfway through it - knowing that I'd come back to it later.
Months later, I actually felt like revisiting Chrono Trigger, which in turn primed me to pick up Sea Of Stars again. In retrospect, I think SoS requires a bit of patience from players, to go over the most sluggish bits of the story and the combat system.
When I came back to it, I actually felt like the combat finally clicked and became fun again. I also appreciated how the dungeons are full of unique interactions and diverse traversal mechanics, and the amount of puzzles kept exploration engaging. Perhaps the second half of the game is just better paced overall. All in all, I was fully hooked, and it was smooth sailing through some surprises in style to those found in The Messenger, all the way to the ending, and past it.
But it wasn't the True Ending. As is tradition on many games and specially RPGs, the True Ending requires completing some extra activities and side-quests. Fortunately, the majority of these side quests are well fleshed out and are rewarding experiences on their own, with some great battles and slight twists to the battle system. One of them - the trickiest, most time-consuming of them all - did however surface some annoying quirks in the game that would benefit from quality-of-life improvements: being unable to escape a dungeon / skip back to a dungeon entrance, and the map only showing the islands' name and not the towns/dungeons within the islands were the top most annoying things to deal with during endgame.
The reward was worth it overall, though. The final side-quest is wholly wholesome and the True Ending is satisfying and emotional.
Now I feel like revisiting The Messenger to see how they're connected. And I look forward to Sabotage's next project - hopefully in the same universe.
Sea Of Stars is chiefly a labor of passion and love, and a display of technical and artistic prowess that's mostly dragged down by weak writing.
I played the game in two chunks of time. First when it was released, and then a few week ago until now. There's a reason for the break in between.
The absolute best feature of Sea Of Stars is its presentation; the pixel art is some of the best I've seen. The design of the environments, characters, and enemies is stunning and memorable. And it's all wrapped in beautifully detailed lighting and shadows, and lively particle and environmental effects that make the game a delight to look at.
The UI is minimal and effective, and practically non-existent during exploration, which immerses you further and makes appreciating the visual artwork all the easier.
The soundtrack is captivating too, and it's fun to listen to the interesting differences in instrumentation between the 'day', 'night', and 'pirate' versions of the songs. Yasunori Mitsuda's pieces are mesmerising gifts as well.
Some of the peripherals are wonderful, like the cooking - with the satisfying sound effects of the meal-prepping, the kitchen-ware at work, and the sizzling, coupled with the crisp food pixel art - as well as the fantastic Wheels mini-game, which also boasts amazing pixel artwork, satisfying sound effects, and a plain fun game-loop.
Sea Of Stars very much wears its Chrono Trigger-inspiration on its sleeves, with many aspects both within and around its combat system taken directly from CT, having its aforementioned composer as an invited guest, and even some obvious aspects from the story that parallels CT's. If you love Chrono Trigger will likely appreciate most of these. My mind was racing by imagining what CT would look like with the SoS coat of paint.
However, some of these similarities that the creators tried to replicate were just not properly executed. A particularly jarring instance is the transitions from the dungeons and towns in and out of the world map view, where the loading times would average 10 seconds and then you'd only spent as much time in the world map walking a straight line from one dungeon/town to the next, therefore triggering another 10-second loading screen. The world of Sea Of Stars is an ocean with a two handfuls of islands. Only after getting the means to travel across the ocean does the world feel "open". When you're walking through the islands it's rather an extremely linear affair with no exploration, to the point where sometimes this world view felt rather pointless. This is the one truly annoying thing I can say about Sea Of Stars.
There are other things that, while far from terrible, were not realised to its full potential, just felt flat, or they take too long to fall in place and click.
I felt the battle system had many interesting different mechanics, but at some point it became somewhat repetitive. I believe the pacing at which these mechanics were introduced was not well thought out, so they either came in too close or too far apart from each other, which resulted in feeling overwhelmed or bored, respectively.
Having played and enjoyed The Messenger (the creators' previous game, set in the same universe) I was already invested in this world, setting, and characters. Perhaps I was expecting too much from Sea Of Stars, but I felt the writing was thin for the most part, mainly because of the characters and lack of development thereof. I loved Garl from the get-go and until the end I thought he was most fun character with deservedly a big impact on the story and an earned emotional payoff. But even he felt rather basic at times. The rest of the roster felt thin and one-dimensional - even if their one quirk was fun and interesting. Worst of all, the main protagonists - Zale and Valere - are mostly uninteresting, and borderline robotic at times.
Only thanks to the rest of the characters and the connections to The Messenger that came up from time to time, I was still having a good time continuing. But at some point that wasn't enough.
After some hours, I felt my excitement to continue the game deflating. I guess these unpolished parts of the game started to add up and chop off the fun parts. At that moment I decided I needed a break, so I shelved the game - perhaps halfway through it - knowing that I'd come back to it later.
Months later, I actually felt like revisiting Chrono Trigger, which in turn primed me to pick up Sea Of Stars again. In retrospect, I think SoS requires a bit of patience from players, to go over the most sluggish bits of the story and the combat system.
When I came back to it, I actually felt like the combat finally clicked and became fun again. I also appreciated how the dungeons are full of unique interactions and diverse traversal mechanics, and the amount of puzzles kept exploration engaging. Perhaps the second half of the game is just better paced overall. All in all, I was fully hooked, and it was smooth sailing through some surprises in style to those found in The Messenger, all the way to the ending, and past it.
But it wasn't the True Ending. As is tradition on many games and specially RPGs, the True Ending requires completing some extra activities and side-quests. Fortunately, the majority of these side quests are well fleshed out and are rewarding experiences on their own, with some great battles and slight twists to the battle system. One of them - the trickiest, most time-consuming of them all - did however surface some annoying quirks in the game that would benefit from quality-of-life improvements: being unable to escape a dungeon / skip back to a dungeon entrance, and the map only showing the islands' name and not the towns/dungeons within the islands were the top most annoying things to deal with during endgame.
The reward was worth it overall, though. The final side-quest is wholly wholesome and the True Ending is satisfying and emotional.
Now I feel like revisiting The Messenger to see how they're connected. And I look forward to Sabotage's next project - hopefully in the same universe.
Sea Of Stars is chiefly a labor of passion and love, and a display of technical and artistic prowess that's mostly dragged down by weak writing.
2024
Finished the "first tier" on SteamDeck after 9 hours.
Apparently the game has 3 tiers of secrets/things to collect, and I'm halfway through the second one (the first one giving you the credits).
Animal Well is a phenomenal experience, with an eerie and mysterious atmosphere, satisfying exploration and puzzle solving.
I especially loved how the "boss fights" are really tense puzzles instead of actual fighting, as there is no real combat in the game.
I probably won't spend the time it would take to complete the 2nd and 3rd tiers of the game, and I'm OK with that. What I got is already a super memorable and rewarding experience.
Apparently the game has 3 tiers of secrets/things to collect, and I'm halfway through the second one (the first one giving you the credits).
Animal Well is a phenomenal experience, with an eerie and mysterious atmosphere, satisfying exploration and puzzle solving.
I especially loved how the "boss fights" are really tense puzzles instead of actual fighting, as there is no real combat in the game.
I probably won't spend the time it would take to complete the 2nd and 3rd tiers of the game, and I'm OK with that. What I got is already a super memorable and rewarding experience.
I have never played Marvel vs. Capcom 2, so this is still the peak experience from that era for me.
I was even more obsessed with this one - and spent way longer playing it - than X-Men vs SF.
I love how good and tight it still plays.
Makes me wish they went back to this pixel-art style with a more modern roster of characters.
I was even more obsessed with this one - and spent way longer playing it - than X-Men vs SF.
I love how good and tight it still plays.
Makes me wish they went back to this pixel-art style with a more modern roster of characters.
I was obsessed with this one back then. With the new X-Men '97 show currently blowing my mind, I felt like revisiting the first X-Men-related game I ever played.
As an arcade fighter type of experience, it's still good fun but it feels a bit choppy.
As an arcade fighter type of experience, it's still good fun but it feels a bit choppy.
2014
With the hype for Hades II, I felt like revisiting this jewel of a game from Supergiant.
I’m a fan of the battle system; the planning mode is a great mechanic!
This time I also appreciated how the game forces you to try new builds by temporarily removing abilities when your health goes to zero.
A short, tight experience wrapped in amazing music by Darren Korb (Paper Boats is a favourite of mine!).
I’m a fan of the battle system; the planning mode is a great mechanic!
This time I also appreciated how the game forces you to try new builds by temporarily removing abilities when your health goes to zero.
A short, tight experience wrapped in amazing music by Darren Korb (Paper Boats is a favourite of mine!).
Still a total blast. The setting, art-style, music, souls-collecting - it's all great. The characters and story, although poorly written, are still memorable and fun.
Only beaten by Symphony Of The Night as the best Castlevania.
Only beaten by Symphony Of The Night as the best Castlevania.
2020
I gave the game a try for a couple of hours on the PS5 5-hour trial, and I was definitely not hooked. The only thing that seemed interesting back then was Night City itself; it had a solid identity, attitude, charm, and was full of details. But it wasn’t enough; the progression system and combat didn’t click, and the ‘street kid’ background combined with a male V felt very generic.
After the 2.0 update I decided to give it another chance; choosing a ‘nomad’ background and a woman V. I guess this combination of things was the perfect chemistry because I was quickly hooked and enthralled in V and her supporting characters and stories.
There were some minor bugs here and there, and one sudden game crash. Not ideal of course, but given the scale and ambition of the game, it’s not a deal breaker for me overall.
I’ve had a blast with Cyberpunk 2077. I love how every single side gig, no matter how small, it’s filled with details and backstory; none of them have felt generic or repetitive. The city is fantastically realised and diverse; I prefer to drive everywhere and I disabled the mini-map because I love riding through the city and taking in the scenery.
Combat is always satisfying - the music is amazing and takes the fighting energy to the next level, and the variety of possible approaches to combat makes it always fun.
Finally, the story and characters are super captivating and memorable. I love immersing in a story and this one grabs you from the start and never lets go.
Obviously the game has the baggage from its crappy state at launch, which understandably burned lots of people, and some of those rough edges are yet to be polished, but the game I experienced is an outstanding package - an all-encompassing high-end adventure.
After the 2.0 update I decided to give it another chance; choosing a ‘nomad’ background and a woman V. I guess this combination of things was the perfect chemistry because I was quickly hooked and enthralled in V and her supporting characters and stories.
There were some minor bugs here and there, and one sudden game crash. Not ideal of course, but given the scale and ambition of the game, it’s not a deal breaker for me overall.
I’ve had a blast with Cyberpunk 2077. I love how every single side gig, no matter how small, it’s filled with details and backstory; none of them have felt generic or repetitive. The city is fantastically realised and diverse; I prefer to drive everywhere and I disabled the mini-map because I love riding through the city and taking in the scenery.
Combat is always satisfying - the music is amazing and takes the fighting energy to the next level, and the variety of possible approaches to combat makes it always fun.
Finally, the story and characters are super captivating and memorable. I love immersing in a story and this one grabs you from the start and never lets go.
Obviously the game has the baggage from its crappy state at launch, which understandably burned lots of people, and some of those rough edges are yet to be polished, but the game I experienced is an outstanding package - an all-encompassing high-end adventure.
2016
It's been long enough since I first played Inside that it felt right to experience it again (but mostly it was super cheap on Steam's Autumn Sale).
The atmosphere is perfectly dark and tastefully unsettling. The environmental storytelling is gripping and the platform and puzzles are air-tight.
A truly memorable title.
(Now I'm wondering, what happened with Playdead?)
The atmosphere is perfectly dark and tastefully unsettling. The environmental storytelling is gripping and the platform and puzzles are air-tight.
A truly memorable title.
(Now I'm wondering, what happened with Playdead?)
It's bigger and better than its predecessors in many definitive ways, but it also regress in other ways, although arguably less significant ones.
It's a technical benchmark. The visuals, the scale of the city, the loading speeds - it's staggering.
I'm a fan of the symbiote/Venom stories, and I was looking forward to Insomniac's take with Miles mixed into it as well. Overall it was great if not a tad predictable.
I completed the main story at 14 hours (while doing some organic side-missions and whatnot) and got the platinum trophy at 29 hours. While it was fun all the way, it started to feel a bit repetitive by the end.
I also noticed a few minor glitches here and there during the whole campaign, but nothing outstanding; and given the scale of it all, it's frankly understandable.
Overall, this game is a display of ambition, technical prowess, and love for these characters and their stories.
It's a technical benchmark. The visuals, the scale of the city, the loading speeds - it's staggering.
I'm a fan of the symbiote/Venom stories, and I was looking forward to Insomniac's take with Miles mixed into it as well. Overall it was great if not a tad predictable.
I completed the main story at 14 hours (while doing some organic side-missions and whatnot) and got the platinum trophy at 29 hours. While it was fun all the way, it started to feel a bit repetitive by the end.
I also noticed a few minor glitches here and there during the whole campaign, but nothing outstanding; and given the scale of it all, it's frankly understandable.
Overall, this game is a display of ambition, technical prowess, and love for these characters and their stories.
1998
Really liked that the whole story is told during gameplay and with full control of the character. It has aged somewhat OK but at some point I just wanted to finish it so I could start the sequel.
2023
Glad I tried this game; I had never played this style of RPG before and it was fun and interesting for a while. The mechanics are very engaging and the lore and world is intriguing enough.
However there's an oppressive feeling to it all that ultimately makes it hard for me to want to keep going.
After spending like 2 hours on a very gripping but perhaps too-tense dungeon, my character was killed and then it hit me; the idea of going through that again wasn't appealing enough.
It's a little gem of a game for sure. And at the great price of free, it's absolutely worth trying. Just not sure if it will stress me more than entertain me.
However there's an oppressive feeling to it all that ultimately makes it hard for me to want to keep going.
After spending like 2 hours on a very gripping but perhaps too-tense dungeon, my character was killed and then it hit me; the idea of going through that again wasn't appealing enough.
It's a little gem of a game for sure. And at the great price of free, it's absolutely worth trying. Just not sure if it will stress me more than entertain me.
2008
I played a demo of this game back in the PS3 days and really liked it but never got the complete thing. Since it was dirt cheap on Steam I got it and went through and it's pretty much what that demo had promised.
It's a super stylish 3D platformer, with decent and fun parkour mechanics, but terrible combat and shooting.
The story is very shallow and felt like an afterthought; at some point I stopped caring about the plot and just looked forward to the challenges.
The visuals and music do a great job of setting the atmosphere and making the whole experience memorable. And it would have been even better without the shooting aspect of it all.
I still had a good fun time with it and I'm glad I finally experienced it after all these years from playing that PS3 demo!
It's a super stylish 3D platformer, with decent and fun parkour mechanics, but terrible combat and shooting.
The story is very shallow and felt like an afterthought; at some point I stopped caring about the plot and just looked forward to the challenges.
The visuals and music do a great job of setting the atmosphere and making the whole experience memorable. And it would have been even better without the shooting aspect of it all.
I still had a good fun time with it and I'm glad I finally experienced it after all these years from playing that PS3 demo!
2019
The feeling of handling these cool looking 3D-model of objects that are meant to be repaired and re-assembled is satisfying enough. The story or plot around each puzzle is very simple but it makes for a cozy vibe. All in all, a tight experience that I finished during a shortish flight.
2018
The Messenger starts like a 8-bit-era Ninja Gaiden inspired game, but it evolves into something more intricate and full of surprises and twists.
I only started playing it because I'm eagerly anticipating the release of Sea Of Stars, which is the new game from The Messenger developer's, Sabotage. More importantly, Sea Of Stars is a prequel of The Messenger. So I wanted to dig into this world in anticipation. I'm glad I did.
It's a fun, challenging platformer with engaging and varied mechanics and an interesting move-set. While it's not super fluid, it's still very fun and rewarding to move around.
I can't talk about the visuals too much without revealing some cool stuff, but I really like what they did in this regard; like a proper tribute to those classic platformers. The music is pitch-perfect for it, and some hooks are still playing in my head.
Having said that, the tone of the writing, while sometimes fun and cheeky, I felt it went too deep in that direction and as a result it took away from the interesting lore and the heft of the story.
Also, (trying to be vague here) the later part of the game suffers in terms of the placing of checkpoints, which was frustrating as it only made me feel like I was repeating some sections unnecessarily. However, the game makes sure to make it all worthwhile in the end, I felt.
Overall, The Messenger is a super tight package. Filled with variety of challenges as well as story and gameplay twists which feel ambitious for a indie developer's debut.
A memorable experience that definitely heightened my anticipation of Sea Of Stars!
I only started playing it because I'm eagerly anticipating the release of Sea Of Stars, which is the new game from The Messenger developer's, Sabotage. More importantly, Sea Of Stars is a prequel of The Messenger. So I wanted to dig into this world in anticipation. I'm glad I did.
It's a fun, challenging platformer with engaging and varied mechanics and an interesting move-set. While it's not super fluid, it's still very fun and rewarding to move around.
I can't talk about the visuals too much without revealing some cool stuff, but I really like what they did in this regard; like a proper tribute to those classic platformers. The music is pitch-perfect for it, and some hooks are still playing in my head.
Having said that, the tone of the writing, while sometimes fun and cheeky, I felt it went too deep in that direction and as a result it took away from the interesting lore and the heft of the story.
Also, (trying to be vague here) the later part of the game suffers in terms of the placing of checkpoints, which was frustrating as it only made me feel like I was repeating some sections unnecessarily. However, the game makes sure to make it all worthwhile in the end, I felt.
Overall, The Messenger is a super tight package. Filled with variety of challenges as well as story and gameplay twists which feel ambitious for a indie developer's debut.
A memorable experience that definitely heightened my anticipation of Sea Of Stars!