Sea of Stars Review – Genre Excellence

Sea of Stars feels like an excellent genre film directed by someone with a lot of experience. It looks and feels familiar; you basically know what to expect and can probably even predict the major beats, but it doesn’t hinder the experience. It’s so perfectly executed that it made me want to take in everything and in this instance, swim among the stars. I dreaded Sea of Stars’ conclusion not because I feared the worst but because I didn’t want to leave the world and stop playing.

Sea of Stars, a 16-bit RPG adventure that is heavily inspired by the likes of Super Mario RPG (and Chronotrigger in particular), follows a small group of friends as they grow and gain experience over a 25-hour journey. It is centered around the Solstice Warriors – two children who were born via a magic eagle, instead of a traditional birth, and are able to control both the power of sun and moon. What begins as an adventure about defeating a monster doesn’t take long to turn into something bigger than everyone involved in ways that impressively feel both small and personal and epic when necessary.

Sea of Stars really is about the responsibility of friendship, as well as gods and magic. The story does a great job of showing the different sides of it. It’s true that the villains in Sea of Stars are evil, while I do understand why everyone is doing it. This approach is admirable, as it feels familiar in the genre while also experimenting with bigger ideas like immortality or playing around with concepts such as shared consciousness. I eagerly pursued all the optional threads and listened to every extracurricular story from Teaks, our traveling historian, which is a compliment to the game’s world-building.

A fantastic RPG is hidden behind the engaging story. Sea of Stars has an engaging story, but it also features a fantastic turn-based RPG. The combat encourages you to lean on special abilities and combos so you’re not just doing the same basic attack on every enemy. I love the combat because it has timed-button-press bonuses. Sea of Stars is a great game for those who enjoy a little extra damage or getting more hits with timed button presses.

Scenarios are based on characters’ special abilities and feel puzzle-like, without being too reliant on one solution. Also, it does its best to not penalize you for using all of your members and experimenting. Sea of Stars allows you to add new party members late into the game. I found that the tardy were just as useful as the rest of the party. The game makes the party feel vital, and that’s not something I feel with RPG parties.

Both the audio and visuals deserve special mention. The music is an excellent homage to the 16 bit era. I can still hear many of those tracks and musical cues in my head. It does an excellent job of setting up themes and playing around with them later on in the game. Each environment has a lot of color and details. Massive characters and giant bosses look amazing, and the lighting effects are incredible. The changing of the day is a common effect used to solve puzzles. It looks impressive and I was never bored of it.

Sea of Stars offers a throwback to the 16-bit era that will appeal to those who enjoy RPGs. It is also a good entry level game. Sea of Stars is free of the annoying bugs that plagued earlier games. Sea of Stars is a great game. Simple things like traveling around the globe are easy to do, the plot moves along quickly, and you don’t need any farming experience. The result is a thrilling, consistent adventure that includes fun combat.