kisui is Ranting about Sea of Stars
Yeah, unfortunately this is going to be a rant (a very subjective rant with exaggerated anger). Mostly because of how it is a lost opportunity. I believe the game is made with tons of love, but at the same time they pour all their love in one aspect and abandon the others. This rant is because the game has great potential and are still made with care but they make one of the most heartwrenching game design. Disclaimer: I haven't finished the game yet (5 hours out of 20-30 hours), It is so bad I have no desire to continue it.
The game has a really, really beautiful art and animation sprite. It is also filled with hand-drawn anime style cut-scene, that is smooth, beautiful and exciting. The pixel sprite are bold, beautiful, and fun. Imageries that induces nostalgia of playing games from childhood, yet much more polished. The art is like princess cut high carat diamond, no matter how you look it from any side, there is no other word then amazingly beautiful.
At the same-time, I played the game for 5 hours and the gameplay is absolutely basic, all glitter no depth, the story doesn't flow smoothly, the characters personality is blander than toilet paper, and the world building is not detailed at all.
They already have the art that can make the game as masterpiece, they could only fix either the gameplay or the writing to make the game became great. With the great and both average gameplay and average writing, I could still give the game a great score, but unfortunately the writing is awful (and I read that the game studio didn't hire proper writing), and the gameplay, I couldn't believe they have audacity to call this RPG with that barebone system.
So no, I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy this. Just watch a play through on youtube, not there is anything to watch. I bought it because the game receives stellar reviews but only to be disappointed. It is around 15-20 hours gameplay for around IDR 200k (USD 12) but I got it on a 50% discount and I still think it's not worth it.
Heavier Gameplay and Story Spoiler Below
So I would not repeat about the art again, it is beautiful, period. The only good thing of the game. Maybe even the music too. But the gameplay and the writings... awful.
The gameplay is unique and fun at start, it is classic turn based RPG inspired by Chrono Trigger (which the game IS a love letter to CT) mixed with QTE button like Mario RPG or recently reviewed Clair Obscure:E33. This itself, I wouldn't say innovative or boring, but it does contribute to my hate like my review of E33 before. 30% damage increase or 30% damage decrease based on parrying itself is not fun for no reflex action gamer like me, especially where in some part it is mandatory and the tell is even worse than E33, what's more in E33, resurrection and is easy. In this game, it's not. A mistake cause you the whole battle without chance of recovering.
Another addition to combat mechanic is the lock system. Enemies has countdown on when they will attack (1-3 turns) so if you want to avoid damage you need to kill that enemies first and sometimes enemy has "locks", a system where they telegraph their next BIG attack that is cancelable by hitting them using the correct weapon or element. On paper, it is awesome. But in reality, the "locks" are really annoying. They give 65% damage resist to the enemy while casting the big attack. Moreover, the locks are pretty much random with a very soon time limit. For example, you have 4 locks of 2 blunt attack, 1 slashing attack and 1 sol element attack. If the turns counter is 2 remaining, it might be possible for character to use combo attack dealing 2 blunt damage and another dealing 1 slashing-sol and close the lock. But sometimes the combination is just impossible due to bad luck, since none of your remaining character has the correct elements or type. Moreover, the locks can be used by all enemies, in an encounter where it is 3 vs 3, and each enemy have 2 "locks", it is literally impossible to solve them. I once have an encounter with 5 enemies, whose lock is to summon 2 more enemies EACH and I need to solve them within 2 turns. I need to solve 10 locks in 2 turns, which is impossible. This result in me only being able to clear 4 locks, and 6 new enemies shows up adding to initial 5).
Then the game only has 4 attack elements (blunt, slashing, sol, lune) and it never expand from that, the elements might give resistance or vulnerabilities to enemy but all attacks from all skill basically doesn't have any purpose other than dealing with locks. The game doesn't have status effect or condition. And all skills are either, healing or dealing damage single target or Area of Effect. Dealing similar damages no matter what skill you use only differing in the Action button timing. And it got worse as the game progress, you only have a limited amount of skills and characters that never develop gameplay-wise and enemies became more spongy, giving you a very repetitive combat.
The game also provides you with different character Duo MC that is a bruiser and a speedster by lore. But in gameplay, there's no difference of those two other than element they use. I didn't see speedster moves different than bruisers move. In fact, meta wise, there's no such speed attribute, the game only have physical attack-defense, magical attack-defense, MP and HP. 6 attribute to rule them all and progression of each character doesn't really different! No character is excel at one thing while other is better at other! They might as well removing the magical attack and merge it to physical attack and it won't have noticeable gameplay changes. There are no "extra turn skill" that speedster normally have, or "defense break skill" that bruisers always showcase. All skills are the same skill with different skins.
Moreover, like any other RPG, it has equipment system, but for what!? Everything is just number fix! Oh I found a new equipment, here enjoy +2 attack (repeats for every equipment in the game), making this the blandest and most useless equipment system in the genre. Without the equipment system, they can just move the numerical fix to level up and the game won't have any difference. It's not like fine tuning exists in the game. Even the most fine tuned effort for equipment, provide only a very tiny impact.
The game also gives you Relic system which supposedly changes the difficulty of the game. Like giving you visual cues on perfect action button timing or removing locks damage resistance from the enemies, but their implementation is just so wonky, the game is still not fun with or without it. Moreover, they have the audacity to have relic like "shorten cooking animation". Like they know cooking animation is too long and boring and they need to give relic for it but YOU NEED TO BUY THE RELIC FIRST FROM AN NPC 4 HOURS IN. THEY KNOW THIS WILL BE ANNOYANCE AND THEY FORCE PEOPLE TO BUY IT. Relics that changes the gameplay is a good idea rather but bad execution, but QoL relic is just awful. You could argue a lot of games have this, but a lot of game always ties them to story, like finishing a quest showing your mastery over the system, or talking to certain NPC for lore reason. But this! They put it without any lore or quest at all! A major meta-lore disjunction!
Then moving on to gameplay outside combat, like any RPG it requires puzzles and exploration. The game boasts its vertical exploration which kinda cool, but after spending time in the game, the exploration is a chore and is not REWARDFUL! The game is filled with beautiful level but unnecessary amount of walking around in the same place and backtracking! They have these nooks and cranny but all you do is spent time looking at moving animation without any rewards! Oh you find a secret path with a mini puzzle (not could even be considered one, you just need to push a hard to reach but reachable button), here's the reward, 25 gold which could not even buy a single weapon. Exploration should be rewarding, not chore-like! Indeed the game has beautiful moving animation and should highlight it, but they care so much about graphics and art, they forgot the gameplay is boring. In fact 5 hours of gameplay could be padded into 1 hour and no loss! If the game is 20 hours, I bet it is 10 hour game with 10 hour unnecessary filler of rewardless exploration and spongy enemy combat. I must admit the level design is cool but again, all the game has is design but bad at everything else.
You think the gameplay is the worse offender? Think again! Now the writing.... Ugh... Not hiring a proper writer is the biggest mistake the studio makes. Let's begin with entry point. The game opens with a cut scene of how a group of people is attacked by monsters. After the scene ends, the game goes into wordy narration on what are those monsters (basically an evil cultist summoning monsters ruining balance of the world). This is the opposite of show, not tell. What's more, the game even after 5 hours, doesn't really explain, who are the cultist actually, what are their motives and who are the group of people. Another example is the first town, it was a town with a flying magical academy in it. The town has two inside house NPC, both doesn't really say anything but greetings. I want to KNOW what this town is, why does it has a flying academy, but no, that's not important, just accept it! I thought it was just at the beginning then I reached the third town, a really big port town filled with NPCs but again! None of them say anything funny or meaningful! Let's compare with Expedition 33. At first town, you learn a lot of things, how each NPC is waiting for a major event, how the event repeats every year, how the city is born. But no, in this game all you get is "hello" or "what a nice day", "welcome to port town of Brisk." Compare again with recent JRPG Trails of the Sky (remake). In one of the port town, each NPC actually delves into their own story at the minimum or how the town came to be, how the town depends on trading, who governs the town. But in Sea of Stars? No, each NPC talk is generic, boring, and doesn't reveal anything! This game doesn't have enough worldbuilding that deserves the story rich tag. Many people defend this as reference to Chrono Trigger, but Chrono Trigger is not this boring and it was made with all the hardware limitation. It does not excuse a game that fails to overcome its predecessors.
No, the world building is not the only writing mistake, the character delivery is also aweful. There Duo Main Character (I can't even remember their names) are extremely bland. They both have the same personality (despite introduced as speedster and bruiser) of "Yes" man/woman. The game begins as them as chosen kids, who are chosen by who knows (barely explained) to be solstice warrior. The kids are too young to go to the magical academy who trains solstice warriors (who knows why, never explained), then not even 30 minutes in game, the Kids ranaway to FORBIDDEN CAVES and got themself into danger and rescued by headmaster who doesn't scold them and just say something like "oh, you really want to study at the academy, fine let's go to academy where you will have 10 years quarantine without any reason and cannot go to the city ever." Then next 5 minutes talks about "To graduate you must weave a magical fabric." The duo asks "why and how?" The headmaster reply, "you will know by feeling." Then the duo "Oh well, let's just do it." Then after 10 years montage, the duo managed to weave their magical fabric and just say "Is this is?" "I think so." Then congrats you graduate. Without any explanation, without any deep story, without any reason. And this repeats for the whole 5 hours. The Duo MC are just following the wind, saying yes to everything, without understanding anything. Even silent protagonist have more personality then these two plain bread. All their actions are never explained, they just do. All the worldbuilding and the main plot are just there without backstory. People are just evil and these two are the heroes. Period. And oh God, there's this side character who has more personality then all the NPC combined but it was just too much. He yaps all the time, decide things all the time, and force us to do things all the time. If the two MC is brainless white bread, this guys is sparkly glittery ball of extremely sweet cake (not in a good way).
What's more due to bad writings, their relationship and bond are not delivered properly. As the MCs are chosen ones, the side guy is a childhood friend. They promised to see the world someday. As they see the world, the MC just stay minimum words requirement while the side guy screams "ADVENTURING IS THE BEST!" Sure, but it was a scene on sunrise mountain where they see a world magical wonder. There's no "I'm glad you guys are with me." or "I hope the peace stays forever. As solstice warriors, those are our duty." Cliche? Yes! But those are the important dialogues to show bonds and personalities. Instead all we got is more amazing visuals combo-ed with bland, bland, and more bland writing. The studio are so high up in they sky about their visual art, they could not see the awfully bad writing. Even after 5 hours in the game, I can't remember a good dialogue, story progress, or proper worldbuilding. They did try on a miniscule amount of scene, but the delivery and pacing is just so bad. It is like they hurry people up because they want people to look at new area (probably because they want to show off the good look) rather than immersing a place and developing characters and story.
The game feels like concept art you are proud but you also want to sell, so they make the game bare minimum, like posting images on social media and getting likes from it, that's what the game feels like.
Some may defend the studio saying it is a good entry for people who never played RPG before due to low complexity. It might be bare bones but it is not low complexity, and again the story and writing doesn't justify it. It is more like "My First RPG" for 5 years old gen alpha with short attention span, then market it as the best game of the year.
It was a game, that I know, made with love but also one of the most boring game in my life. I don't usually rant about game but that is exactly why I rant about it. The game just has too much potential and love and they threw it away all for a sorry excuse of an RPG. I am sad that something that could be a brilliant diamond turned out to be a burnt out coal with glitters on it. I hope the studio can get the feedback on their writing and learn from it.