Sea of Stars Review – A Treasure Trove of Beauty

The developers of The Messenger, Sabotage Studio, decided that they wanted to make an ambitious Role-Playing Game similar to Chrono Trigger and Breath of Fire; that is where the concept of Sea of Stars comes from. It started as a project they put up on Kickstarter that got giant in the gaming spaces. It is one of my most anticipated games of the year, so being able to review this game was something I was ecstatic about. With how big of a year 2023 is turning out to be, that is honestly a shock. You’ll see what I mean in this Sea of Stars Review.

Game Name: Sea of Stars
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, PC (Reviewed)
Publisher(s): Sabotage Studio
Developer(s): Sabotage Studio
Release Date: August 28th, 2023
Price: $34.99

The premise of the game is Zale and Valere are solstice warriors, and they are tasked with defeating enemies called the dwellers. They have to utilize their special powers over the moon and the sun to destroy these evil monsters. Throughout the journey, you will hear some narrative from an unknown voice who is writing the story of the solstice warriors. You will meet a variety of companions in this adventure, all as diverse and interesting as the next.

Controlling Solstice

Sea of Stars has a variety of outlets in its gameplay loop. You will generally receive some narrative about your next task from the master of the solstice warriors and how to accomplish this goal. Generally, it will also involve hints as to what to do in the next location as you prepare yourself for the fight against these Dwellers. Afterward, you will gain control of either Valere or Zale, depending on your choice at the beginning of the game as to who you want to control. Other than who you control in the overworld and the dungeons, this choice doesn’t impact anything. You will solve puzzles that can be either basic or interestingly complex. These puzzles will help you get into new areas of the game as well as potentially finding secret objects. When you encounter enemies, you can attack them from the back before combat starts to get an edge or just start combat normally. Combat starts as soon as the enemy sees you and gets close enough.

Sea of Stars has some easy-to-play and fun-to-master mechanics in its combat gameplay. There is a cycle of turns in each round. When it is your turn, you can choose any of your party members who haven’t yet gone in the round. You will see the turn order based on the number over the enemy’s head. Unfortunately, enemies can go at the same time, though, so you might see the number one over two enemies at a time. It is best to try to avoid taking damage, but if you can’t help that, try to figure out who is the most threatening to keep alive. When you do a basic attack, if you press the action command at the time of the hit, your character will do a second strike dealing more damage. When the enemy goes to hit you, if you press the action button right before the hit, it reduces the damage done to your character. You can find scrolls throughout the overworld to teach combo moves that utilize multiple party members.

Enemies in Sea of Stars can charge up or do giant moves. You will notice if they have symbols over their head, like a sword or a moon. This means that if you are unable to hit them with everything above their head, they will unleash the special move. Even if you can’t see yourself being able to do the moves in time, if you can hit them enough times, the damage will be reduced from the special move. Enemies also have weaknesses and resistance. You can notice some enemies may have a physical or magical resistance. If you hit an enemy, they will drop solstice energy that you can utilize by pressing the boost button before your character unleashes their attack, and their normal attack will be fused with their solstice affinity. You can stack three boosts of solstice energy into your attacks. It is worthwhile to figure out the weaknesses and affinities of your characters to best utilize the strategy and who would best deal the most damage to the monsters.

Becoming Heroes

The pixel art in Sea of Stars is stunning. Each animation appears to be handcrafted in single-frame moments, which is slightly ludicrous. Each breath, sword swing, and even push-up looks so well-animated and lively. And yes, they did a full cycle for push-ups and push-ups when tired, from what I can see in the slight frame intervals. Sea of Stars features some of the best-animated pixel art I have seen in a game to date. Not to mention that the game also has fantastic animated cutscenes with anime aesthetics. New areas of the world or new party members will generally have them before their introduction.

I played Sea of Stars on both Steam Deck and ROG Ally to see if there was any difference between the two. Though, I do have to say that my preference was to go to Steam Deck for this game. It utilized the battery the best with the low consumption this game had on the device, giving me more hours of playtime without needing to go back to charge the battery. The ROG Ally did have the upper hand when it came to visuals, as it has a screen capable of displaying 1080p, but I think the 720p resolution fits the pixel aesthetics well, so it wasn’t a huge loss, and my gameplay on the Steam Deck was a consistent 60fps without a single stutter on my end. Even combat was seamless when entering from traversal. There are a few hiccups when particle effects hit the screen in waves, but it doesn’t have a frame stutter; it freezes the game itself for a few seconds before going back to a perfect 60fps.

Exploration

The narrative of Sea of Stars is great, but the thing that makes me come back to this game again is the post-game content. They have a minigame called Wheels that has a system of rules that can be quite addictive if you like some game of chance to go with your strategy. There are also a lot of relics you will be able to find in the world and give them to Teaks, who will be able to tell you a story of lore from the world itself. Treading down the unbeaten paths for relics or treasure chests was very worthwhile. There is also the ability to build up a town you get access to later for more buildings and opportunities for stores and NPCS later down the line.

Sea of Stars has many secrets all lying in wait for you to figure out. Each NPC has a history and can give you subtle hints on places you can go and things you can accomplish, so speaking to every person you find is useful. You will also get access to the entire map eventually, which will let you trace your steps back to places you couldn’t do due to your lack of abilities at the time. This game loves letting you trek off the linear path to find out more places you can unlock and figure out. I had way too much fun and satisfaction solving some of these puzzles and can recommend that you shouldn’t just stop at the first ending you receive in the game. The story of the game takes about 30 hours to finish! Maybe more if you are spending extra time doing some of the side content or looking for rainbow conches.

There is a system where you can find system relics. They can make the game have a dynamic difficulty based on the challenge you want. Do you want a challenge and the ability to even further master the combat? Turn on a relic that will reduce the timing of blocks and strikes to get pixel-perfect accuracy. Is an enemy too hard for you? Turn on the relic that reduces the damage you receive from enemies. This is one of the best uses of dynamic difficulty, also letting you find more relics through exploration or just find them at stores. This game has a ton to do and to unlock.

Saving the Solstice

Overall, Sea of Stars was an ambitious title, and in my opinion, Sabotage Studios has knocked it out of the park. I love everything about this game and will want to play this game for years to come. They took the inspiration from so many of the best JRPGS and added and built on top of them. It has amazing art, music, characters, a great narrative, and an addicting gameplay system. This checks all the boxes I loved about games like Chrono Trigger and Golden Sun. I recommend this game to everyone willing to give it a shot.

Sea of Stars releases on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, and PC on August 28th, 2023.

Review Disclosure Statement: Sea of Stars was provided to us by Sabotage Studio for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.

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