had the same experience here as i did with okami: this is a game that designed around its style first. the team has said that it was built to be how we remember the old jrpgs, not as they actually were; in practice this means the thing that is prioritized is the setpiece, the spectacle, the feeling, over the things that might lend the game internal coherence, like story and character.

that's not to say it's bad! style-first is a totally valid way to build a game, and it can work; games are audiovisual experiences. but the games that it's recalling are primarily remembered for their stories and characters - chrono trigger's narrative is rich and beloved, super mario rpg's characters are vividly drawn, golden sun's worldbuilding is beautiful and detailed. sea of stars' writing is just.... so bad, so empty. characters make dramatic pronouncements and never follow through; there's no payoff for the main conflict. (in the standard ending, anyway. i'm not going back to get the true ending. i shouldn't have to.) zale and valere get it the worst: they have the same bland personality, the same odd subservience to the needs of the plot (such as it is). they have no interiority at all. what do they really think about all this? about their lost childhoods? about their relationship to each other, and to their party members? we will never know; they are only surface-level. much like the rest of the game.