Sea of Stars
Game Title: Sea of Stars
Released: August 28, 2023
Game Length: 42 hours
Grade: A-
Gameplay
Type: Turn-based games usually have some sort of knack implemented to keep things interesting. Some games generate a rock-paper-scissors approach. Others develop a color-coded system that calculates how strong a character's attack will be. Sometimes games like to establish a form of chance by adding percentages like a hit-miss ratio. Sea of Stars doesn't exactly have a lot of these traditional tactics. There is a clear indication on what type of equipment you should be wearing as each area has their own set number. You are given a choice in what stat your characters will obtain but there will always be an overall balance of upgrades across the board. Each character has three skills, crossover combinations with other team members you can learn overtime, and one ultimate move.
Reactionary: What sets the game apart is how much the game relies on input from the user. If you press the button when you strike the opponent, you will deal a second blow. The particles that get left behind will help boost a character's magic ability. Use it during a normal strike and it adds an elemental property. If you match your element to what is displayed over the enemy when they are casting, you can essentially "interrupt" them before performing a move. Press the button when they hit you and the amount of damage will be reduced. Most of the fun comes from guessing when the enemy strikes.
Strategies: Although the amount of avenues you can take in battle might appear limited, a lot can happen when you are able to swap up to five (or six in the true ending) characters between three positions. Each person has an elemental type that reflects their types of moves. Valere has the crescent moon that can bounce between targets or can protect you from a single blow. Zale can throw out a quick heal or splash a sunball at multiple targets. The poison type does not slowly drain enemies but can "delay" their move for more time. Arcane has the chance of repositioning foes or healing the group. Understanding who should be out replenishing their MP can be just as important as watching the cost of each of their skills.
Options
Food: A big portion of the game revolves around finding ingredients, obtaining recipes, and cooking meals. Since ingredients replenish from fishing pools, respawned enemies, and crop sites, they are the only items that you can farm, sometimes literally, for currency. You can prepare meals at any save site whether by campfire, stove, or cooking pot. You can hold a maximum of 10 meals with no leniency for the ones you find in picnic baskets or craft multiples of. You can eat in exploration or in battle. Or you can choose to use character skills to restore your health.
Relics: Unlike party trinkets that can be equipped to provide you additional perks, relics are exclusively there to make your life better (or worse if you want). The recommended ones that automatically turn on when you buy them will provide you things such as additional experience or fishing improvements. However, if the game proves to be too difficult there are a wide-range of items that will assist smoothing out your experience such as automatically healing you after each battle, reducing damage, sometimes automatically block an enemy, or display a shooting star for each successful button-press.
Impressions
Music: The tracks they generated for the game are certainly impressive. They went above and beyond making a variety of songs for every kind of situation. Since they are all decently made, there aren't any specific ones that caught my ears other than maybe Mountain Trail. The thing that really piqued my interest is the attention to detail. For example, the tone of the music shifts between day and night. Since your characters practically learn how to change the time of day anywhere you go, this can cause some very interesting twists in the aesthetics. Not just that, but there is a third version that the band of pirates (gotta' love wordplay) perform at every inn. The coolest part is their interactions with the music. You see, they won't physically animate with their instrument unless that part is in the song. Even further, the instrumental portion of the member you converse with will stop playing in the song as well. That is some fine quality work there. They can be unlocked by finding music sheets in the world.
Environment: Traveling across each of the regions can get exhausting with there being over a hundred different areas. You'll find yourself going all over the place underwater, underground, and even underworld. Some places can get terribly grotesque as you continue to wage war against the corruption. The biggest problem of the game is the lack of information. The only map available is the one overhead when changing locations. There isn't a way to mark locations, remember where exactly the chests were, or remember where all the characters of the game are located. While some statistics are shown in a book with various achievements below deck, there is no database that tells you the type of enemies, locations, shops, towns, or characters. There is no quest system that keeps you up-to-date on your objectives. You cannot teleport to or out of a region. You must physically enter the entrance of a locale and run to your destination. Some require you to traverse through another region. Traveling does get slightly easier when shortcuts such as ladders and straight pathways are formed after solving puzzles. There is also a parrot that will inform you on any sort of treasure or rainbow conch you might have missed from each of the islands. However, backtracking can still become a nuisance when the landscape doesn't always make it clear if you are on the right path or skipped past something on the way. Thankfully, you are able to revisit every location and collect any item you might have missed.
Story: The thing about the story is that it is sort of all over the place. A standard game normally provides the player a goal from the outset and ends when you reach that goal. This game constantly throws out twists and loopholes that purposely extends the story. There are pros and cons to this approach. Distractions and surprises can certainly spice up your gameplay when you spend a little bit off the beaten path helping some pirates find a ghost ship or being dragged to a new area. However, at a certain point these deviations become so extensive that you begin wondering if you are ever going to reach that point of no return. The plot doesn't seem to make much sense when it runs away from you. Despite how the game does its best to explain every single element from teleportation to current events, the writers are not able to logically fit the narrative in any realistic fashion. Don't get me started on the number of time-bending mechanics that are only there for puzzles and events. Being able to manipulate time has some serious implications on the world when you sit down and really think about it.
Characters: I will not deny the fact that the characters are well-developed. Their personalities are very distinguished and complex when things unfold. However, their actions are questionable when certain things get pushed aside for the narrative. Some were not happy with the ending. A lot of this has to do with how the game is a prequel to The Messenger. What I do like is how the game subtly changes when different members join your team. These include how the splash screen changes locations, the characters in your party are shown around the campfire, the characters in your main party or those shown in a cutscene are displayed during the loading screen, the UI changes depending on current events, idle sequences are unique for each character, and how your team traverses across tightropes or ridges. B'st, an interesting fellow you receive later in the game, has the most animated shapes while doing ordinary activities like climbing ladders or swimming underwater. Characters will show emotions during conversations and accurately reflect their current status after major events. The only thing that seems to change cosmetically for the characters is the colored tip of your weapons.
Endgame
Before Transition: If you were going at a steady pace, you'll come to a point in the game about 20 hours in where you start to wonder if you should go back and find those extra secrets. You might have opened up some shortcuts and new travel routes but you can't quite speed your way around the map quite yet. What you do have is a new town and some points of interest that can benefit your gameplay. Let's take a look at some of them:
- After completing the Wind Tunnel Mines, make sure you seek out the Trader's Signet inside the mines to open up the Hidden Market in Brisk. There is an experience relic called Tome of Knowledge that would be of great benefit.
- Your goal right now is to obtain 39 Rainbow Conches to Mirna in Docarri Village. This will allow you to collect four building plans to expand your town.
- The Town of Mirth provides you a lot of new features once you have collected the four caretakers. While it is possible you have found them before the building is constructed, they can be rather elusive if you aren't paying close attention to the candidates.
- If you are low on cash, it would be a good idea to visit the Quiz Master in the Town of Lucent and answer some questions. This will provide you some funds for each of your members to visit the spa for a permanent upgrade.
Before Final Area: It becomes clear after a certain point that the end is near around 25 hours in. Surprisingly, there are a ton of things you can do beforehand. What you want to do is have a good chat with all of your party members at a camp site and get their word on what sort of ultimate prize you should go after now that your solace warriors have gained some of their powers. Most of these will be required for the True Ending:
- There is a door with five little purple dots that you might remember seeing back at the Mountain Trail. To open it, you will need to complete all five shrines. You won't be able to encounter three of these until you have the power to fly up over their high territory boundaries.
- You can finally see what all those dots do under the water all over the map. There are three docarri seal fragments that open a hidden boss in the fourth ruins.
- Out in the middle of nowhere, there is a chance of finding something called Romaya Secret Passage. While you could solve the puzzle and receive the hints at any time, it would be better to do them in the order they intended. Hortence, on your boat, will tell you of a distressed spirit. Yolande will tell you where the necromancer is. If you went to Yomara in Songshroom Marsh, she will lecture you on not looking at her cauldron which shows you where to go next. The cave behind Duke Aventry provides the sequence. His grave is in the other cave closeby.
- The Arena in Brisk that has been under construction will now be available.
- All you need to do to help Serai is listen to her story and follow the route through the Cerulean Expanse. Be prepared for a tough fight against the Queen That Was.
- If you are really determined to experience things to the full, you must obtain all 60 rainbow conches no matter how excruciating it is to find some of them. One of the hardest ones is hinted by a single stuttering robot in Repine that appears after an important event.
After Credits: The good news is you can fast forward through all the Kickstarter names and save your game with a silver star right before the final boss. You don't have to start all the way over. There are some new events and optional content that now can be completed.
- You finally get to learn what that monument in the Moorlands is all about and perform a Chrono Trigger exchange for a happy ending.
- Make sure to talk to your team really well until you get the Hook of Time. You will need it to pull up that thing in the water at Stillpond Island. What you find will lead you to the elusive Gilded Invitation that you have been pulling your hair out to find for the Golden Pelican in Brisk.
- After visiting the restaurant, you will obtain your final recipe and question pack to complete those auxiliary achievements.
- Instead of fighting the lieutenant, you will be given the opportunity to fight another foe.
Easter Eggs
After Second Credits: Once you run through all the names for a second time for a gold star, there is still something left unfinished. You still need to break the fourth wall and meet the developers. There are four flimsy hammers that you will need to obtain. One of them is automatically handed to you after watching the True Ending. For the other three, you will need:
- Complete all ten champion tables. Two will need to be built. Mirth will require the innkeeper at Lucent. At a certain point, you can buy a Deployable Wheels Table from the Watchmaker for 250G in the Clockwork Tower to install at Repine. Be careful when you come up against the priest and assassin combo. After all nine are defeated, you can compete with the Watchmaker for the flimsy hammer.
- Answer both casual and expert options for all 11 Question Packs.
- Catch all 23 types of fish. The Master Fisherman's final reward in Mirth will be a flimsy hammer.
Crypt: It is interesting to note that the Kickstarter Project raised $1.6 million when the developers were only asking for around $133,000. An entire crypt was dedicated to the backers with messages on gravestones that were simple in nature for the first tier, had a character-sized figure for the second tier, or a full-sized statue for the third tier. A large donation was supposed to have the privilege of creating the Cryptwalker but later changed to a vote from members of the community. The code that he asks for is for those who have a gravestone.
Runes: A code was introduced in The Messenger that can be applied to Sea of Stars. If you visit Morraine in Mirth after his house is built, he will give you his office key. There you can grab a nice piece of equipment and observer an oddly shaped rune that essentially translates to a list of names who participated in a snowball fight.
Summary
Review: There are many parts of Sea of Stars that is wildly entertaining. Making sure you press the buttons to deal extra damage or reduce incoming damage keeps you on your toes. Matching elemental properties to interrupt enemies gives you some room to strategize. There isn't much variety in changing characters or your equipment but there is enough optional content that makes finding chests a joy. Relics can be activated to smooth over your experience if things get too difficult. There is a lot of passion when it comes to little details like how each band member plays their instrument according to the song and how characters are displayed on the splash or loading screens. There is a lot of optional content through cooking meals and collecting rewards that can extend your gameplay. Regions can either be fun or annoying depending on how much you backtrack. Perhaps the most detrimental part of the game is how there is a void of information with no database offering lore references, enemy types, locations, characters, or quest objectives. There is no way to teleport directly to a location or leave a region without running to the traditional enter and exit points. The story can get very confusing with a bunch of loose ends unless you simply like watching things unfold. I recommend this game for those looking for an adventure.