The best pixel art ive seen... and the worst witting.

[Ron]

Playing this game hurts me... because the art and music are so great, i can feel the artist's passion through every pixel and stroke, but it all turns sour whenever any character speaks or whenever I am reminded that the game has no plot or story whatsoever.

What a painful thing to behold... I wish a talented writer would be given this game to make the dialogue better and give these characters any semblance of a personality and character growth.

[Kaisha]

I feel ya. Running around seeing the world, solving puzzles, ect... was by far the most fun part of the game. The combat was kinda meh. And the characters/writing started as annoying and just went downhill from there.

[SuperBearCat]

Yea the story, characters and even the world are meh, but I'm having fun anyway because of the combat and area design. the soundtrack is nice too. Good game, but it's no Chained Echoes.

[mattbln]

Not sure where you guys are coming from. I thoroughly enjoy the writing. Funny as hell.

[Renee_meel]

Originally posted by Kaisha:

I feel ya. Running around seeing the world, solving puzzles, ect... was by far the most fun part of the game. The combat was kinda meh. And the characters/writing started as annoying and just went downhill from there.

I kind of disagree; I thought the pacing at the start was very very bad which made me not care about the writing. Constantly being stopped for endless info dumps or characters just talking about nothing important when you just started made me button mash since at that point I didn't care.

After a while into the game I thought the pacing and the writing improved with a funny twist on rpg clichés here and there.

[Weltall8000]

Yeah, I liked it. A bit cheesy. The two primary characters weren't really very much of characters, but everyone else was pretty good. The story was interesting, especially as it went on. They have a well thought out setting and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Not really my style of genre, but I'm probably going to pick up The Messenger just to see more.

[Koby]

The story starts off rather poorly and extremely cliche but it certainly improves as it goes on. By the end of the game I was enjoying the story and hoping for me.

[SuperBearCat]

Originally posted by mattbln:

Not sure where you guys are coming from. I thoroughly enjoy the writing. Funny as hell.

The Messenger's meta writing is fun. Sea of Stars is just bland.

[Broso]

This game literally has as much plot as Chrono Trigger or FF6. You guys really are having some high profile luxury issues here.

[Kaisha]

Originally posted by Renee_meel:

I kind of disagree; I thought the pacing at the start was very very bad which made me not care about the writing. Constantly being stopped for endless info dumps or characters just talking about nothing important when you just started made me button mash since at that point I didn't care.

I didn't mean that part. Yeah I agree, the 1st hour is just non-stop useless dialog. Tons of nonsense on sewing which lead to nothing. So much dialog to/from garl that was just variations of the same (I get it, you're childhood friends, can we move on?).

I meant like exploring the world, solving puzzles, etc...

[NewMoonShadow]

Originally posted by Broso:

This game literally has as much plot as Chrono Trigger or FF6. You guys really are having some high profile luxury issues here.

It's not about the PLOT, it's about the character-work. A story isn't built just around its central premise and the way the characters interact with it, but in the way the characters interact with EACH OTHER. The greatest RPG's of all time will spend almost as much time (if not more) having the characters interact with each other in fun and interesting ways, or exploring the characters' histories and personalities, as they do pushing the plot forward, including Chrono Trigger.

The character interactions in this game just aren't interesting, and when the game does stop to let a character have a moment to show their personality, it's usually bland, uninteresting, or just straight up painful.

My favorite modern example is "Tales of Berseria". That game had such incredible character-writing that they literally made free DLC that's nothing but the characters putting on a radio show, and it's one of my favorite bits of the whole experience.

[Army of Optimists]

The issues with the story just seem to be because games, especially JRPGs, tend to be character-driven stories. That is, the writing mainly deals with how the protagonist reacts and is changed by the events that unfold. Plot-driven narratives often have little or no character development and are more about how the grander world changes over the course of the story.

For a plot-driven example, think of a classic Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes and Watson don't normally develop at all through them. They're largely static personalities that are still meaningful in uncovering the mystery, but the center of the story is about how the pieces fit together to solve the crime.

Sea of Stars just tends more towards being plot-driven. It's a big history lesson on how events happened that eventually led to The Messenger. It's not the greatest writing on a line-by-line basis, but I find myself thinking a lot about the world they've set up.

If you were expecting typical character-driven JRPG melodrama, I can see why you'd be disappointed.

[SuperBearCat]

I just got to the point where something big happened to Garl. (super spoiler)
It;s weird that he suddenly becomes super know-it-all. so many plot deus ex convenience writing because of prophecy stuff.