Sea of Stars Review – A Magical, Modern Take on Nostalgic Pixel RPGs

Sea of Stars on PC

Set in the identical universe as Sabotage Studio’s earlier title, The Messenger, Sea of Stars is a contemporary tackle the basic 2D RPG recreation style that many grew up with. If this has made you hesitant, then no want to fret, as this new addition to the universe is a prequel to the timeline and stands as its personal separate story and recreation.

The story of Sea of Stars kicks off with an extremely particular story centered round timeless friendship, which units the tone for Zale and Valere’s total journey. It’s clear that they maintain a particular bond proper from the start, joking about their academy days and the strict guidelines of their Professor in mild jabs of humor in the direction of each other.

Nonetheless, whereas Zale and Valere are intriguing and lovable characters on their very own, there’s a 3rd addition who completely steals the present – their powerless, childhood finest pal, Garl. When Zale and Valere left him behind for 10 years to finish their coaching, Garl spent his personal years coaching alone to learn to defend himself, with none magical powers. The three had at all times deliberate to go on an journey collectively, and the truth that Garl by no means gave up on this dream and labored onerous to arrange, regardless of his pals being absent for 10 years, speaks volumes for his character.

Proper from his first look, Garl is a real hero, even when he doesn’t have powers. He’s not solely the voice of cause when Zale and Valere discover themselves in a wrestle, but additionally a fiercely courageous and dependable pal who doubles as their cook dinner, ensuring the Solstice Warriors at all times enter battle with a full stomach. The particular factor about this trio is that whereas all of them have their variations, their timeless loyalty and friendship with one another offers them the energy to face even the hardest of battles, which makes the sport ridiculously enjoyable and satisfying to progress by from a storytelling perspective.

Whereas the primary trio of characters themselves are a murals, Sea of Stars really comes alive by astounding visuals. Whereas it’s true that many trendy video games have progressed to favor the realistic 3D approach, Sea of Stars has chosen to revisit and revamp the extra nostalgic 2D pixel artwork fashion, and with enormous success.

The environment of every space you go to is beautiful, using shiny and vibrant colours to deliver every location to life. Landscapes are full with charming music and illuminated by dynamic lighting, using many intricate and delicate particulars to breathe life into each scene, equivalent to character animations and expressions throughout scenes of dialogue, animals scurrying away as you run by, the delicate delicate ruffles of tree leaves within the wind, or the ripples of water in opposition to the rocks beneath.

As if the beautiful pixel artwork current in each location wasn’t sufficient, this stage of execution carries over even to the Overworld map, the place simply as a lot love and element could be discovered. Moreover, Sea of Stars has applied a cinematic really feel to vital moments of the story with totally rendered, hand-drawn 2D animated cutscenes, which breathes one other layer of life into the characters and world of this already vibrant and magical title.

In each sense, Sea of Stars reveals off simply how profitable and breathtaking the normal 2D pixel artwork fashion can really be in a contemporary recreation, and units the bar extraordinarily excessive for any followers. Battle animations are eye-catching and satisfying, exploration and journey is entertaining, characters are lovable and distinctive, and the music in each scenario, from story to journey, to fight, uplifts emotion and drive to maintain shifting ahead by the story.

Significantly, I misplaced rely of the variety of instances I discovered myself bopping alongside to the battle tunes or utterly immersed in a model new location purely from the intriguing music that was beckoning me for journey.

Fight makes use of the normal turn-based motion that was discovered current in lots of RPG titles through the years. Nonetheless, Sea of Stars does an amazing job at constructing on this and including further components to maintain gamers entertained in a world of contemporary video games. On prime of the turn-based fight, there’s a enjoyable factor of technique concerned with the enemy Casting mechanic, which could be defused with intelligent use of your social gathering’s magical and weapon skills.

Fight additionally transitions to and from exploration seamlessly, and makes adventuring and exploring really feel thrilling and entertaining. Some skills are a easy choose and assault, whereas others, equivalent to Zale’s Sunball or Valere’s Moonerang can have you holding a button to cost energy, or timing a number of inputs to volley assaults between your self and the enemy. This retains fight rather more interactive, which helps the repetition of battle to be as thrilling as potential.

Moreover, there’s a timing mechanic for each assault in Sea of Stars. Timing an additional button enter on the actual second your assault hits an enemy will will let you deal an additional swing or burst of magic, and ship extra energy. This additionally stays true for enemy assaults, the place timing the enter of your house bar button on the actual second your enemy assaults lets you block a few of the energy, permitting you to take much less injury. As every enemy within the recreation has totally different assaults which might be full with distinctive animations, studying the timing required to dam every transfer is an pleasing problem.

Exploration is extremely pleasing, permitting you to run, soar, climb, dive, swim, and crash your manner by every location. It’s also possible to forage substances alongside the best way for Garl to show into tasty meals on your social gathering. Many areas that you just encounter have puzzles that you’ll want to unravel to progress. At first, I wasn’t thrilled on the concept, as I typically lack the persistence to finish a future of puzzles in a single sitting with a recreation. Nonetheless, with Sea of Stars, I used to be pleasantly stunned to search out that the puzzles are pretty simplistic and simple, with out being too boring.

You received’t want to fret about getting sick of exploring new areas and beating monsters in battle, as Sea of Stars has a number of totally different actions you’ll be able to interact in to present your self a break from the primary story. You possibly can go fishing at a number of totally different areas, head out on a crusing journey, cook dinner up a storm along with your substances, and even play the in-game tabletop minigame, Wheels.

Issue can be extremely customizable by the merchandise mechanic often called Relics. Relics are a particular kind of merchandise that may be discovered, bought, and picked up by your social gathering members. Every Relic has a bonus recreation mechanic that you may toggle, equivalent to auto-healing after battle, decreasing incoming injury, or making blocks simpler to realize. I discover this to be quite intuitive, as as an alternative of merely having straightforward, regular, and onerous modes, Sea of Stars allows the participant to customise the issue precisely the best way they’d wish to, and this may be modified with a easy press of a button at any time.

After spending hours having fun with this title, I really wrestle to search out something to complain about, and the factors that do come to thoughts are minor nitpicks. Sea of Stars, in my eyes, is a panoramic masterpiece that tells a heartwarming story of the strengths of friendship by journey. The sport has a considerably ‘cozy’ feeling to it for an RPG because of the beautiful aesthetics of the paintings and stage design however is lots entertaining and enjoyable with out falling into the zone of being boring.

Sea of Stars efficiently modernizes and builds on the normal 2D pixel RPG recreation and proves how such a style has the potential to thrive among the many saturated market hype for reasonable video games by lovely storytelling, partaking gameplay, and brilliantly written characters.

In regards to the writer

Grace Black

Grace is a author, digital artist, and character illustrator from New Zealand with a love for fiction and storytelling. Grace has been writing for Twinfinite for seven months and within the video games trade for a 12 months. She’s a horror fanatic, occasional anime enjoyer, and die-hard Ghost-Kind Pokemon fangirl. Her favourite video video games embrace Overwatch 2, Life is Unusual, The Final of Us, and Pokemon – all of which she is going to by no means tire of.