I started Sea of Stars right after I finished with Clair Obscure: Expedition 33. Oddly enough, both games share a bit more than just genre - both came out of nowhere, got big fuss on gaming media, got rewards and GOTY nominations, became legendary indie success stories, both drew inspiration in cult classics and both were deemed "genre revivers" by said media. So, let's see if Sea of Stars did a better job at filling those big shoes.
Unlike Clair Obscure, this one mostly took from Chrono Trigger - one of Squaresoft's timeless masterpieces - but didn't just copy the SNES gem. Sea of Stars provides you with aesthetic choices similar in spirit, not form (mostly) - bright and colorful 2D pixel-art graphics (but not in Toriyama's style obviously), a world filled with all kinds of locations and inhabitants. Then comes the battle system which also nods towards Chrono Trigger's mechanics (enemy positioning, combo attacks, fixed enemy positions instead of random fights), but adds its own layer of complexity with parrying and "elemental locks" that turn battles into a puzzle guessing games sometimes. They even got Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger's composer) to create several tracks for the game as a stretch goal on Kickstarter.
Also can't skip mentioning a clever way of adjusting game difficulty - you have a bunch of relics (some available by default, some you'll have to find or buy in shops as you progress through the game) that can either make the gameplay easier or more difficult or just be a quality-of-life change (like increasing speed of sailing). You can change them anytime you can call the party menu which is also very nice.
Battle Mechanics
Since I've already touched this topic, let's stay here for a while. First of all, we have some similarities with Clair Obscure here - again a classic turn-based jRPG system with a modern gimmick, this time it's also Parry and Timed Attack mechanic. While not as crucial as in Clair Obscure initially, it can be unforgiving with a certain relic on (and you'll need to kill 10 bosses with that relic on if you're going for all achievements).
You have several timings to keep in mind:
- Timing your basic attack turns it into a double strike and can add extra effects for some characters (like making the second attack AOE).
- Timing your attacks is critical for certain lock combinations so you'd better get used to it right from the start. There is a relic that will auto-input basic attacks for you at the cost of less bonus damage, but this won't help with skills and combos.
- Certain skills require you to time your attacks and not all of them are obvious. For example, Valere's Moonerang skill is quite easy to understand - you hit the button before the projectile hits you (might need to get used to the input delay though). But Garl's healing skill has no indication of the correct moment to press at all, at first I didn't even realize that you could power up this skill until I saw someone mention it on Reddit.
- Certain enemy attacks do multiple hits and you'll need to block each of them. Blocking won't negate all damage, but this can still be the difference between winning and losing it some fights (especially in the DLC).
- You will have to adjust your attacking skills timings based on the battle and enemy positioning - for example, with Moonerang you'll have shorter window with enemies closer to you so some battle formations can be like short-medium-long and so on while the speed keeps increasing.
Overall it's not bad and somewhat forgiving, so you can keep going without being a timing guru if you prefer a more classic approach. But you will still have to deal with the second main gimmick - locks.
The battle goes in a straight order and you can see when the next enemy attack will be with a small number of turns before it near the enemy. Sometimes there'll also appear a bunch of locked squares above the enemy indicating that the next attack will use a skill and that you should probably interrupt it by breaking all locks. This is critical in some boss fights and is an absolute must with the Artful Gambit relic (enemies will be invulnerable while they are casting and the locks are not broken).
Each lock represents an "element", so to unlock it you just need to strike the enemy with certain element. There are six in total -Sword, Blunt, Sun, Moon, Venom, and Arcane - and basic attacks also have some of these elements. You can also infuse your basic attack with character's element (basic attacks create certain mana spheres that you can use on a character to power up the attack). The DLC does this somewhat differently, but we'll talk about it later.
Now, for now it seems somewhat self-explanatory - hit the enemy, see which locks become visible, keep going (somewhat like a Minesweeper game). But here's where the difficulties start:
- Most of lock combinations don't give you room for mistake. You need to be ready to execute them perfectly.
- Sometimes there's not enough time to break all locks (e.g. a boss might start casting an attack with 8 locks and only 1 turn beforehand)
- Breaking only some locks may reduce the effect of the casted skill (do less damage or restore less health), but that's not always the case - sometimes it's all or nothing.
- Some lock combinations are impossible at certain points in the game. You may not have characters with a proper element or a certain combo skill to break a certain lock combination
- Sometimes you have everything, but you've just played your character with an element that is required to break the lock the enemy starts casting next and you're out of options to break it (and that's just annoying).
But there are certain ways to make your life easier. First of all, once you unlock a lock, it stays open when the enemy casts the same skill again, which is extremely helpful in boss battles. Secondly, the lock combinations are fixed, so you won't have to keep playing a guessing game during the boss battle after you get some successful unlocks. Also, certain characters have skills that will allow you to see some locks or break extra locks. And finally, you can turn on Signifying Glass relic to see all the locks requirements without the need to guess.
Now, while the battles are strictly turn-based, all this gives them a lot of dynamic and the need to think ahead. You can attack with any of your characters on your turn (the one you attack with becomes "disabled" until you've played 3 characters and then then new turn starts) and you can also freely swap party characters in-battle without wasting turns. You need to plan which characters will farm for mana with basic attacks and which ones will use skills (skills require MP that can be restored with basic attacks or certain healing items). You need to build up your combo meter to use powerful combo skills to break locks or deal heavy damage and unleash ultimate skills (that you build up by using combos and skills). Luckily, both meters are preserved between battles.
It is also worth mentioning that all of your characters level up at the same time. You can pick one out of three or four stats to get an extra boost on level up and you'll definitely want to pursue Mana Points and HP while you can.
Non-battle gameplay
Sea of Stars is not only about battles, it gives the player a lot more to do. First of all, you get Dungeon Exploring and Puzzles - every major location in game will require you to solve some kind of a puzzle, whether just a platforming one or using some of the non-battle abilities that you'll unlock throughout the game. Your party can not only run around, but also jump over small gaps, climb, swim, walk on narrow paths, balance on ropes and so on from the very beginning and will learn more tricks like moving objects, using a grapple hook and changing the time of day that will be used in puzzles basically everywhere. Some puzzles are required on the main paths while others will lead to certain goodies (and you'll absolutely have to get everything if you're aiming to get the "true" ending and all achievements).
While this may sound exhausting, it actually makes all of the locations more unique and keeps the experience fresh as pretty much every area has its own gimmick. You'll have to fight currents and plan your jumps in one area and do a Lost Woods type of puzzle in another. Also, you'll have to backtrack to previous areas later in the game as some stuff will be blocked behind late-game abilities. Don't worry, though, while traveling around the map is tedious early-game, it will become easy as pie towards the end.
It's also important to mention that the game emphasizes heavily on verticality - you'll need to climb up and down multiple levels with layouts getting more complex towards the end. Sometimes it backfires when the perspective gets kinda tricky and it becomes hard to understand on which "height" certain element is placed, but that's a matter of a couple of screens in total maybe.
The best point and a personal big thanks to developers goes for making nothing in game missable. Don't worry if you didn't find a chest in some area - you will be able to get back later.
Now, outside those Zelda-esque sheganigans you also have such activities as:
- Fishing - there are multiple fishing spots around the world and you'll need to catch at least one of each for an achievement and "true" ending. Also, it's a good source of resources for cooking.
- Harvesting - while not much of an "activity" per se (you'll find certain resources like crops and mushrooms while running around dungeons or as rewards from some battles), you may find yourself in the need to farm some of these towards the end of the game (especially if you're low on gold or if you're going for the cooking achievement). Luckily there are a few spots that hold a bunch of various resources so you could keep coming back for more.
- Cooking - all of the healing items in game are food which means you can cook everything from the most basic small health increase to full HP/MP for the whole party, just make sure to find all of the recipes.
- Camping - camp spots allow you to cook and restore your HP/MP, but you can also set up a camp and talk to your party members (will be necessary to unlock their personal quests in end-game). Also, some non-battle party members will visit your camp at various points throughout the story and Teaks will be there pretty much always to let you listen to some lore.
- Wheels - what good jRPG can avoid having some kind of a tabletop mini-game? Wheels may look like it's all about luck like a slot machine, but it's more about choosing right figurines and adjusting your plans to the hand you got. Not too hard, can be a bit annoying but it's quite nice overall.
- Side quests - you'll have a bunch of them, some being longer, while others may be just go from point A to point B. You'll even get to build your own city, how cool is that?
- Trivia game - you'll find Question Packs around the world and you'll need to perfectly nail all of them to get to the "true" ending. Good thing is you can replay them as many times as you like without any penalties, so with a pen and paper you can eventually get all the right answers even if you don't remember them (or look it up online, some questions are pure evil).
Graphics and Sound
The game doesn't give a damn about being a "2D pixel-art" indie cliche and absolutely unnecessarily goes above and beyond in small details giving cool effects here and there. Lighting effects, glass-like effects, crafty animations and so on and so on - it just looks and feels gorgeous.
It also features really nicely animated cutscenes. Extra points for adding cutscenes to the DLC as well, they were unexpectedly even better than the main game's ones.
The sound design and music are gorgeous with "Encounter Elite!" making me want to play the game the moment I heard that theme. You will also notice that even though the game lacks voice acting, each of the characters has unique "voice" when the text is typed in their dialogue boxes. The most prominent one is probably B'st, and he also has some of the most creative animations. Just look at him going around various traversal routes!
An extra nice touch is that there are multiple versions of most of the themes depending on when they are played. For example, you'll get "acoustic" versions playing in taverns by your fellow pirate crew while a more electronic approach plays in some of the late-game areas.
Lore and Story
This is where things start going downhill. Main plot is the weakest aspect of the game due to many reasons. First of all, writing is just not good sometimes - you can tell that the writers struggled with some texts like I struggle with this article right now. It's never a good sign when your characters names have apostrophes and diacritics at the same time.
While it is not bad, the story just fails with pacing. The intro is tedious as hell as you get about half an hour of quite boring dialogues, and any major story developments won't even start until you get to the second island. You will get some interesting pieces of lore here and there before that though, so at least that part keeps up pretty well.
Overall, it's not unusual - you'd get somewhat similar presentation in older jRPGs, so it's not really that surprising when the leader of the Order suddenly says "screw this all, I'm retired" and just does nothing until the end of the game. But it doesn't excuse other problems, like hooks set up here and there and never properly referenced again, main conflict focus changing all the time and the stakes getting actually lower and lower as you keep going.
Both of the main characters are also weirdly not main characters. They are sidekicks of what starts as a comedic relief for the party. I've seen quite a lot of complaints online about Garl and I can agree that he does seem like a Gary Stu kind of self-insert character - he's just way too perfect, ends up doing all of the important things (or not, there are plot holes here), is constantly referenced by both Valere and Zale and leaves both of them zero space to actually develop as characters. This is partially fixed by the DLC which focuses solely on the main characters, but that's just not good enough. Major spoiler warning: the true ending to DLC also screws this up again by making Garl an even more important character out of the blue.
The lore tries to keep up and to provide you with some backstory for most of the events and characters thanks to random dialogues and stories you hear from Teaks. Some of them will come in advance (like the pirate ship one), while others you'll hear after facing certain bosses or visiting certain places. It tries to build up some kind of mythology and history of the world and does this really well for some of the characters, but essentially slips into the "mysterious cliffhanger" type of crap in the ending.
I would say that there's a lot of missed opportunities here and some good potential for the sequel, if the can properly execute and connect all the loose ends. Current story is not terrible, it's just underperforming and tries to puff up to look bigger than it is. Don't fail for its bluff and don't expect too much and you'll be able to enjoy it.
DLC
Throes of the Watchmaker DLC gives more screentime to some of the more interesting NPCs like the Watchmaker and Artificer. You need to beat the game at least once as it's accessible only after the credits roll over.
The DLC takes place in a completely new location with several dungeons. It takes balancing issue somewhat creatively by making you play with some new characters. Yes, I know I've said that it focuses on the main characters before and yes, you will be playing as Valere and Zale but these two will be different.
Not giving out too much of the story, you'll end up in a location where Solstice powers are effectively useless and both MCs will end up imprisoned and it will be up to Artificer (who you remember being an NPC in the main game) to save them. After that they'll learn new tricks and will receive new Classes essentially that better suit the circus theme of this world.
So, if at this moment you go to your Party menu, you'll see an option to switch between DLC and Main parties and you'll see different Valere and Zale in both of them. These new ones have new outfits, completely different skills, stats and equipment. Your party will be limited to these 3 characters and they'll all start with level 1. Easy to balance when you don't need to care about player's end-game builds, right?
Wrong. For some reason, the devs decided to make DLC much harder than the main game (there's even a warning about it before you start). The battles are much more difficult, there're barely any camping spots and most of the skills are essentially not doing anything damage-wise. None of the skills felt fun or good to execute and all the battles felt like a chore which was disappointing.
The new locations had some nice design ideas, but felt somewhat dull compared to the main game though it is expected by the nature of the world where the DLC takes place. While the level design here is also a bit worse and unnecessarily convoluted, the DLC gives and extra boost to puzzles by introducing puzzle-in-a-box concept and a new swap-a-tile mechanic. Neat!
They've also tried to be creative with the bosses here, giving most of them a unique gimmick, most notable being the Narciss King and the final boss. The former will charge at mirrors periodically and you'll have to accurately time your attacks to move the spotlight and break his charging of a powerful attack (and I hate to admit it, but I messed up a dozen of times on the first attempt just due to the habit and accidentally aiming at the switch instead of the boss).
The latter is a completely different story. While cool looking and unique, the final boss requires your to be familiar with Wheels mini-game which is completely optional in the main game so you could theoretically skip it and be very surprised with this boss's gimmick. You'll control only two of your three characters at a time (which is a bummer, since you get your most powerful combo attack not so long before this fight and can't even use it here) and you'll have to fight two of the boss's figurines on a giant Wheels table. The boss will play Wheels, so you can try to attack the slots to break charge on some of the figures. You'll need to defeat all of the figurines, so this could be a long and tedious battle that will end up with a surprise though, not unlike the main game's final boss.
Overall Thoughts
Overall I liked Sea of Stars. It has its flaws in storytelling, can be tedious with battles sometimes (especially in the DLC) and backtracking even in the late-game can be annoying, but it overall provides a good jRPG experience and tries to vary it to make sure the player is not bored (well, maybe it could try better in the first act). You won't need to grind at any point in the game (with the only exception being if you want to get Eye of Yomara in a secret shop on your first visit to Brisk - that's where the fishing farming comes into play). It took me about 50h to complete the main game and DLC and get all achievements - except for the multiplayer ones. Yes, one of the big updates (that also introduced the Mystery locks and other changes) added its own set of achievements one of which requires all 3 characters controlled by players - so you better have 3 controllers if you want to get that one.
Luckily, none of these are required for the platinum trophy, so the most tedious one you'll have to do to get it is the one to kill 10 bosses with Artful Gambit relic on. While it's not too bad if you plan to make a second playthrough in NG+ for example, otherwise you are stuck with restarting NG+ over and over and fighting the first boss which takes about 5-6 minutes each time.
And to wrap it up, go check out the soundtrack. There are 3 albums from the main game OST and one from the DLC.