My Long Rant/Analysis of Sea of Stars (SPOILERS INSIDE!)

[Professor Q]

This is a copy paste of a series of texts I sent to my friend outlining why I didn't think this game was great. I thought I would share it here, both for your consumption and as feedback to the devs.

For some background, I reviewed The Messenger as part of the Metroidvania Review project I ran for four years or so, and I gave it a 5 out of 5. Needless to say I was pretty excited to see what SoS had to offer going into it. I wanted to like this game. As I say at the beginning of this copy/paste, I don't consider this a professional "review", it's literally just a casual rant I texted to my friend. The copy paste starts now:


Alright, I'm not going to sit down and write a full review but I might as well get some discussion points.

Overall: Sea of Stars is a lot of good fun with only a bit of gore to worry about in terms of family friendliness. The production values are phenomenal, with amazing fully animated cutscenes and some really awesome music.

It doesn't live up to the classics it is aping but it's also not a complete waste of time.

Moving forward with reasons it does not live up to the classics, I'll start with the gameplay. Most of these comparisons will be between Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, since that seems to be the foundational inspirations for what Sea of Stars is.

Sea of Stars is slightly more strategic and overall mechanically tighter than those two examples, but it also suffers from being incredibly shallow given how long its runtime is.

Both CT and Mario RPG contain some pretty big copouts. CT has its mega elixir stockpile and generally low difficulty, and Mario RPG has what may be the most OP character in RPG history - a character who has both the second highest attack power and the ability to cure the party to max HP and cure their ailments in one cheap move. You CAN play both those games with self imposed challenges, but by default they're not particularly deep specimens themselves.

Sea of Stars has its limited item system, but generally speaking if you can't plan out your moves at least a few in advance you're going to get spanked by the game's difficulty. This is especially true if you can't master the timing of the timed hits system.

Where Sea of Stars falls apart is variety.

While MRPG and CT both have pretty basic battle systems it makes up for it with almost every fight containing some kind of gimmick that alters how you need to approach the fight.

Magus changes his weaknesses constantly, arrow dude shoots buttons and restricts moves, Lavos's final form is actually the bit on the right rather than the body itself, Yaridovich makes copies of himself - just as a few examples.

These kinds of gimmicks aren't completely absent from Sea of Stars, but if you're playing optimally you might not be forced to see any of them, since almost all of them are the result of failing to break the enemy's spell in time.

This streamlining of strategic approach removes some of the narrative identity some of the battles COULD have had, and by the end of the game I kind of felt I was executing the same exact pattern ad nauseum rather than seeing new things from a mechanical standpoint

This variety issue is exacerbated by there being a strange lack of visual variety on top of that. In the end all three games in this comparison have the same goals of subtracting enemy HP while preventing your own HP from being subtracted, but Sea of Stars kind of proves that set dressing does hold some importance.

To demonstrate what I mean, I go back to Mario RPG. Mario has three different weapon types in that game - Shells, Fists, and Hammers. Other characters are basically the same. Mallow has Cymbols and sticks. Geno shoots his arms, bullets and stars. Peach has slap gloves, war fans, and frying pans. Bowser even throws Mario with one of his attacks.

This not only adds variety to the timed hits system, it's also entertaining to watch. Plus it really emphasizes how powerful you've become when you kick a comically large red shell at your enemies.

The weapons in Sea of Stars are all stat bonuses. Zale is going to have the same two hit scimitar combo at the beginning of the game as he will at the end.

Add this visual sameness to the fact that each character has functionally only three moves, and even though the bones of the combat are very strong, the combat as a whole starts to look a little emaciated as you move up from its admittedly strong legs.

[We then talked back and forth a bit before I sent this]

So short version of exploration in Sea of Stars - I appreciate some of it but it's hit or miss. I'd say more than half the time it just feels like busywork. Like you're playing a walking simulator, rather than it serving some kind of purpose other than slowing you down.

Contrast that with Mario RPG where every level feels like a Mario level, or Chrono Trigger where the dungeons are chock-full of hidden trinkets and gimmicks, and it's the same problem SoS has with its combat. It feels too cut from a pattern.

I was also pretty tired of the spoke and hub design a majority of dungeons had (aka you enter a room and have to go off in one of three side paths to collect a key of some themed flavor.)

[Another delay in texts, this was a three day conversation]

[597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Professor Q:

They also needed to cut the first hour of the game and just go en media res if no component of the story was going to be about their personal growth.

Absolutely. I thought the demo had a perfect start (if you haven't played it, it starts at X'tol). The breathtaking mountaintop view. The badass and comedic human cannon ball arrival to set the tone. We meet the characters doing what they do, in a hurry under time constraints - vague hint that the eclipse is important. Nobody telling us anything. There's fights right off the bat. Seraï, the quest's main driver, is in the first screen.

[shtj94]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Professor Q:

Lol at your last comment. I liked Garl but I could totally see that perspective.

I'm getting a bit annoyed by Garl's constant "We're Solstice Warriors we can help" when he's the only non Solstice Warrior in the team. And he just keeps doing it. When you notice how much Garl is dominating the convos, it's hard to unsee.

Would be better if Valere and Zale took actual part in the conversations, but they're mostly just stand there while Garl did most of the talking. So yeah, IMO ValereZale's blandness and Garl's attention hogging goes hand in hand with each other.

I disagree with people claiming they have no personality at all, or that they both have the exact same personality. You have to ignore some big chunks of the game to think either.

Would you mind giving an example when their personalities are shown, and affect the plot in a meaningful way? And not Zale going "HaHaHa. ThAt's OuR GArL" every once in a while.

[PozerWolf]

Diposting pertama kali oleh shtj94:

I'm getting a bit annoyed by Garl's constant "We're Solstice Warriors we can help" when he's the only non Solstice Warrior in the team. And he just keeps doing it. When you notice how much Garl is dominating the convos, it's hard to unsee.

I actually thought that would effect Zale and Valere later down the line. As in, eventually when Garl uses that as his way to spark a conversation with towns folk, Zale would just come up to him and ask "hey, could you calm down on using our name like that?" and have some sort of character development from there. But, eh... nothing just came from that.

[Superlucas1231]

I'm surprised op didn't mention how the true path basically invalidated a large part of Valere's and Zale's character arc. Say whatever you will about Garl, but having him come back at the end of the game felt kinda cheesy. Like, Valere had that whole cut scene about how grief isn't a bad feeling that eventually go away, and how she tries to cope with Garl's lost by remembering the good times with him.

..only for Garl to come back at the end and make that entire scene redundant and, in the context of the story trying to teach something to the play, fake. The scene makes Valere's grief (and to an extent, the player's grief) literally go away due to a deus ex Garl rev.

[597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh shtj94:

Would you mind giving an example when their personalities are shown, and affect the plot in a meaningful way? And not Zale going "HaHaHa. ThAt's OuR GArL" every once in a while.

I've already complained many times in these threads and in my review that it's awful that pretty much every character speaks in the exact same sociolect and idiolect. All of them have at least one "*Ahem*" and "Hahaha!" line. No disagreement there. That hurts the presentation of personality, but it doesn't mean there isn't any shown in what they do or the content of what they say.

I see personality differences everywhere. They're just not the typical dramatic mentally ill anime leads. Just count the times Zale is the first to speak in a high pressure situations or the first to bring up any uncomfortable or funny topic. It's hard to notice when ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane Garl is breaking the ice with a wrecking ball in almost every scene, but it's there.

Very first scene at the mountain trail, Zale is shouting how he hates sewing, then Valere feels comfortable enough to mockingly impersonate Moraine. Zale gives the order or suggestion to split up.

Zale often shouts excitedly in all caps. Valere doesn't. "OUR FIRST BIG ONE" or something like that when you kill the boss slug.

When they're finally alone in Brisk, Zale complains the pirates are crazy and Valere pacifies him saying at least they seem harmless.

At first entering Lucent tavern, Zale brings up that he's worried about Garl and that he thinks bringing him along was a mistake. Valere just wants to leave it up to fate.

When the Wizard's Lab boss comes alive, Zale is warning the party that he feels great power and tells them to get ready. He takes charge like this for a bunch of bosses, basically all the rare times Garl isn't playing Leonidas with his cookware and screaming "Loser!"

When they're sitting on the bed next to Garl's, Zale remarks on his urge to act with great energy that he had when Garl got summoned by Woe, but also on being afraid to do so. Valere says she felt no such thing.

He also says he worries a lot about his prophecy - he's also the first to even talk openly about his prophecy, which he wasn't supposed to. Only after that does Valere disclose hers, and she doesn't spend time and energy worrying about hers.

Tons and tons of these examples throughout the entire game. Next playthrough I'll have to collect them into a list to paste every time the same dismissive comment gets repeated with no evidence.

It's notable that when Garl dies, when the two are at their breaking point, it's Valere who punches a tree - she loses her typical restraint, while Zale just sulks sitting - he loses his energy he normally has everywhere else.

Also, I never made the claim that their personality "affects the plot in a meaningful way." I could ask you the same about a whole littany of great JRPGs. For most of them, the protagonist's personality is flavor totally irrelevant to the plot, like their anime fake hair colors and personalized weapons.

And I already said I read SoS as a messianic and creation myth to set up the world for future games. I don't ask if ♥♥♥♥♥' personality affected his plot meaningfully or not.

But now that you mention it, it is somewhat significant to the plot that the divinity the solstice warriors inherit forms their personality, even for ones who aren't incarnations of gods. So at the extreme, the traumatized pathological winter warriors end up as cowards and quitters like Brugaves and Moraine, while Erlina becomes a monster of pure energy.

The characters even remark on this in Lucent, that it is common knowledge that winter warriors are more carefree and subdued while the others are fiery and chaotic.

Zale is the "spark" no matter who you choose.

[Professor Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh TCSyd:

Sad to say it, but I agree with pretty much everything you wrote.

What bothered me the most was the overuse of prophecy. I was hoping for some kind of subversion at some point, but it never came. The whole sequence with Garl and The Sleeper was absolutely ridiculous.

I was admittedly kind of tired of chosen one plots even before starting this game, but now I'm checking forums before playing anything to see if there's any kind of prophecy element (at least one that is taken at face value) because I for sure need a LONG break from the trope after this game.

[Zengar]

I think about 30% of Zale dialogue is hahaha
The game ends up in a weird place because the protagonist are ultra chosen ones on the path of ascension with little to no flaws. I mean, they are destined to incarnate cosmic magic and behave more like forces of nature than people. As the game advances they are referred more and more as Solen and Luana instead of their actual names. They spent their entire youth sewing and training pretty much isolated from everybody. Both of them had much more personality as children pre-training and I think it's intentional.
If we think about it, they are the equivalent of Dwellers but made by Reshan. This whole thing about creating Solen and Luana to protect a timeline from the Fleshmancer and also how the game ends, knowing that they cannot come back. They only do it for Garl, who is their one true cable to humanity. And during the true ending, at the end, when they go visit him, they didn't age, don't say anything and the game doesn't even show us their faces!!
The actual protagonist of the story is Garl. But as OP noted, Garls most important acts are all ass pulls, instructions he received mystically to "win". Garl is even more of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chosen one than the solstice warriors.
But is he really? The entire game is this battle between the fleshmancer and Reshan. Reshan does ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everything, he is the great eagle so he delivers the children to moon cradle. He created the elder mist, he created the multiple timelines in the first place and the only thing he really cares about is convincing the fleshmancer to stop voluntarily. He makes the timestop, the living glass, gives you the amulet to not need the eclipses and so on and on. Like it shows on the scene with the archivist, if it wasn't for Garl that would knock knock on him, the timeline would have fallen like many others so guess who is telling Garl what to do? Who else can tell Garl exactly what to do, so they get to that very ultra rare specific set of conditions in order to win and give him one more chance to convince his friend to stop.
Thats right, it's Reshan. And it is a cool story in itself, but its just not cool to play an rpg with so little agency on what is happening. Everyone is just pawns in the alchemist game and it goes so far that the main characters are barely people.

[Ancient Toaster]

Thanks for the read. I'll hold off on this game until there is a DEEP sale.

[Professor Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Zengar:

I think about 30% of Zale dialogue is hahaha
The game ends up in a weird place because the protagonist are ultra chosen ones on the path of ascension with little to no flaws. I mean, they are destined to incarnate cosmic magic and behave more like forces of nature than people. As the game advances they are referred more and more as Solen and Luana instead of their actual names. They spent their entire youth sewing and training pretty much isolated from everybody. Both of them had much more personality as children pre-training and I think it's intentional.
If we think about it, they are the equivalent of Dwellers but made by Reshan. This whole thing about creating Solen and Luana to protect a timeline from the Fleshmancer and also how the game ends, knowing that they cannot come back. They only do it for Garl, who is their one true cable to humanity. And during the true ending, at the end, when they go visit him, they didn't age, don't say anything and the game doesn't even show us their faces!!
The actual protagonist of the story is Garl. But as OP noted, Garls most important acts are all ass pulls, instructions he received mystically to "win". Garl is even more of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chosen one than the solstice warriors.
But is he really? The entire game is this battle between the fleshmancer and Reshan. Reshan does ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everything, he is the great eagle so he delivers the children to moon cradle. He created the elder mist, he created the multiple timelines in the first place and the only thing he really cares about is convincing the fleshmancer to stop voluntarily. He makes the timestop, the living glass, gives you the amulet to not need the eclipses and so on and on. Like it shows on the scene with the archivist, if it wasn't for Garl that would knock knock on him, the timeline would have fallen like many others so guess who is telling Garl what to do? Who else can tell Garl exactly what to do, so they get to that very ultra rare specific set of conditions in order to win and give him one more chance to convince his friend to stop.
Thats right, it's Reshan. And it is a cool story in itself, but its just not cool to play an rpg with so little agency on what is happening. Everyone is just pawns in the alchemist game and it goes so far that the main characters are barely people.

Well, as I mentioned, I think it'd be really awesome if the story was a about Re'shan and the Fleshmancer, but Re'shan literally just nopes it out of the party with no satisfying conclusion, and their relationship is thus left threadbare.

Honestly I'd be satisfied with all the other characters being pawns in their game if Sea of Stars actually spent some more time defining what the game actually is and what the stakes are.

[Zengar]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Professor Q:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Zengar:

I think about 30% of Zale dialogue is hahaha
The game ends up in a weird place because the protagonist are ultra chosen ones on the path of ascension with little to no flaws. I mean, they are destined to incarnate cosmic magic and behave more like forces of nature than people. As the game advances they are referred more and more as Solen and Luana instead of their actual names. They spent their entire youth sewing and training pretty much isolated from everybody. Both of them had much more personality as children pre-training and I think it's intentional.
If we think about it, they are the equivalent of Dwellers but made by Reshan. This whole thing about creating Solen and Luana to protect a timeline from the Fleshmancer and also how the game ends, knowing that they cannot come back. They only do it for Garl, who is their one true cable to humanity. And during the true ending, at the end, when they go visit him, they didn't age, don't say anything and the game doesn't even show us their faces!!
The actual protagonist of the story is Garl. But as OP noted, Garls most important acts are all ass pulls, instructions he received mystically to "win". Garl is even more of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chosen one than the solstice warriors.
But is he really? The entire game is this battle between the fleshmancer and Reshan. Reshan does ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everything, he is the great eagle so he delivers the children to moon cradle. He created the elder mist, he created the multiple timelines in the first place and the only thing he really cares about is convincing the fleshmancer to stop voluntarily. He makes the timestop, the living glass, gives you the amulet to not need the eclipses and so on and on. Like it shows on the scene with the archivist, if it wasn't for Garl that would knock knock on him, the timeline would have fallen like many others so guess who is telling Garl what to do? Who else can tell Garl exactly what to do, so they get to that very ultra rare specific set of conditions in order to win and give him one more chance to convince his friend to stop.
Thats right, it's Reshan. And it is a cool story in itself, but its just not cool to play an rpg with so little agency on what is happening. Everyone is just pawns in the alchemist game and it goes so far that the main characters are barely people.

Well, as I mentioned, I think it'd be really awesome if the story was a about Re'shan and the Fleshmancer, but Re'shan literally just nopes it out of the party with no satisfying conclusion, and their relationship is thus left threadbare.

Honestly I'd be satisfied with all the other characters being pawns in their game if Sea of Stars actually spent some more time defining what the game actually is and what the stakes are.

I agree. At some point, the game stops being about the solstice warriors and becomes about Reshan. But then they go and take out Reshan out of the picture but the game never goes back to being about the solstice warriors.

[Trefex]

game was bad, i'm appalled at the positive review ratio it has. i read portions of your write up, and i agree the story was lackluster, the combat was what did it in for me, couldn't even finish it.

[Scourge]

Glad I found this "review" as I had similar feelings and everyone seems to just praise it.

Was expecting to get more of a CT vibe from the game with dual/triple techs or at least some more techs per character in general. The bosses/ults have so much animation put into them that it seems odd that the playable characters never got much more than what they begin with. Even Zales dash strike is just him vanishing with slashes appearing on enemies. I get that he is about speed but it just felt lazy to me and i'm kind of surprised they didn't want to include a speed stat when a characters desire is to be fast.

Also no poison stat but you have a poison dmg type. I get that they didn't want stat ailments, even though I think the cooking mechanic could have worked well with ailments and buffs, but why not just go with something else? Hell Keenathan can use wind magic, why not give her wind magic? or portal magic? Does anything even explain Serais portal ability? I'm playing thinking she must have some limitation and that's why were aren't just using it to travel around and then I use her ult... and then I watch her open a giant portal underground...

Probably a nitpick and I could be wrong on this (I can't play to confirm, game keeps crashing on me) but did Garl/Zale/Valere have any parents? I don't recall any and maybe it isn't important but it seems weird to not have any of them when Garl was born in Mooncradle and Zale and Valere, who aren't very old, could only have come from 2(?) towns and one of them you can't leave. I would have been interested to know how people felt about having their children taken away from them because they were born on a solstice. Surely some wouldn't be happy about it. Brugraves and Erlina at least had some issues with the organization.

So much of the game just felt like "how do we get from point a to point b" without taking into account how it affects the world/story as a whole.

Apologies if this is all old news and i'm beating a dead horse. I don't check boards very often and I just had to rant about this game a bit (which i could go on much longer :P).

[DaylightDemon]

i think its a fair critique but considering the sum of all its parts, i would say sea of stars is still a very good game and a nice hommage to classic jrpgs. i dont really have issues with the videogameyness of the narrative or the mechanics. this game knows what it wants to be and yeah fair enough, it could have been more coherent and more thought out. but speaking for myself i can only say that not once while playing i was overly distracted with the issues you bring up. if you pick hard enough, you can deconstruct almost every videogames logic, especially jrpgs.

[Professor Q]

Maybe it's because I generally go into this genre looking for narrative satisfaction, and maybe especially since this was a follow up to The Messenger, but I feel like this game's issues go beyond just nitpicking.

I do think the game flows well enough, which again works great if the main appeal here was the gameplay, like in a Metroidvania. I might have given this a pass if the gameplay was consistently interesting, but as mentioned it ran out of gas for me fairly early on.


If the story is going to ♥♥♥♥ then it needs a variety of strategic approaches and some depth of mechanics, but sadly the mechanics are as shallow as the narrative here.

[Professor Q]

Side note, I recently played Chained Echoes and I felt a lot more satisfied finishing that game.