Do yourself a huge favor and play SEA OF STARS!

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Sea of Stars (Reviewed)

Developer: Sabotage Studio

Publisher: Sabotage Studio

Released: Aug 29th, 2023

Price: $33 USD

Sea of Stars is not your average JRPG, it is full of life and charm an breathtakingly beautiful taking you on a trip you'll never forget. The essence here is to tell you a unique story about two warriors on an adventure, through the genuine feel and vision of classic retro games with a modern approach to it both visually and musically.

Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, Breath of Fire and Super Mario RPG.

If these games spark any sense of yearning within you for something genuinely made with a purpose to entertain you with adventures, characters, stories you should stop reading and get the game without a doubt in my mind this will be a delight for you.

Story

There's something deep about playing a game that treats you as a person rather than a wallet and not a participant, and that intends to guide you through the story via your own eyes, without filtering anything through eye candy and visual effects.

The story is recounted by The Immortal Archivist. While sifting through some tomes in search of something important, they came across an intriguing story about Valere and Zale, two Solstice warriors on a quest to purge and cleanse the world of the monstrous creations of the evil alchemist known as The Fleshmancer.

The story is genuinely compelling, with a sense of purpose and depth. It's not just mediocre. For those looking for a true adventure story, this is where it can be found.

Presentation

Breathtaking Words alone cannot capture the range of emotions this game elicites. The genuine grief of a gamer disregarded by the large quantity of recycled games made by AAA behemoths for quick cash on the latest trend, with no interest in revisiting classics or truly creating something fresh. This game treats you like a human being.

While Yasunori Mitsuda may be unfamiliar to many, it is something to celebrate as a renowned vintage video game music producer of numerous games regarded as the best of the golden years. This game contains some of the most uplifting, cheerful, sorrowful, and interesting music I've heard since replaying Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, and other games. It's all because of him and his fantastic musical talents.

Look at those pixel-art graphics. This barely scratches the surface of what this game is capable of delivering you at such a low price when compared to every other game of similar "style" and "quality" attempting to promote itself as a 70 dollar game while their games are worthless in comparison. This game is worth more than 33 dollars.

Consider the game. It conveys a great deal of emotion with the graphics it displays alone. Your characters are in peril, or your foes have low health? Their facial expressions and body language change, their eyes droop, they appear weak, and they appear to be alive rather than static dull NPC sprites. They could have left it out and been lazy, but they didn't; instead, they put forth effort, which speaks volumes when it comes to a developer showing you with actions not words.

Gameplay

Entertaining and engaging There is so much here in terms of gameplay along with the fantastic idea to have the elements of Super Mario RPG real time events for blocking, attacking and even chaining your abilities for even higher output of damage which is so satisfying if you managed a massive combo or a last minute block to negate enough to survive!

You're forced to strategize instead of spamming skills and attacks. To make the most of your present fight, think about when and what combos to chain together. The moon and sun, as well as slash, blunt, and other traits, are used to assist you to break through enemy defenses and take them out of their channel before their turn, reducing their damage or cancelling the ability entirely. It's done really well.

Unlike most JRPGs, when your characters die in this game, the phrase "unconscious" is used. You must survive long enough for them to get back up, after which they will recuperate 50% of their lost HP after two or more turns, depending on how many times they have been knocked unconscious. Because you cannot resurrect them, it is vital to your ability to strategize considerably more successfully in battle.

Features

Where to begin? I've never seen anything like the levelling system before. I've seen the ability to manually choose your stats and the ability to power yourself as you move through the game's story, to completing objectives throughout the game to give everyone a boost in a specific trait or ability as a whole, but the ability to randomly choose one of four stats to give an extra bonus into, to help each character in a field they are great at or even terrible at, is very refreshing to see, even if it is very simple at it's core.

Traditional mini-games like fishing, which were very common in Breath of Fire and many others, may sound strange to some, but something as simple as fishing or skipping a jump rope and being rewarded for having fun and enjoying what the game has to offer has been something we as gamers have gradually drifted away from.

Wouldn't be a classic without some form of table top battle in this example, it's the game Wheels. You spin a lever (3) times to lock in actions, walls and to empower your units for levels and attacks. It's easy to learn, freshly modern, and emanates the same appeal as the classics that got us to where we are now in gaming.

Conclusion

I really don't know what to say I mean this in the most sincere way possible. There is guaranteed to be something here for you to get excited about no matter who you are as a person or as a gamer. This is only the tip of the iceberg; there is so much more to this game and where it is heading. Secrets, missions, narrative, and world creation. You'd be foolish not to at least test it for yourself and possibly refund it if the game isn't to your liking in the end. You have literally nothing to lose as you can even go as far as trying the demo!

When I sense an explicit need and want to quit most games released now especially from big name brands in order to escape to a better time when video games were created to delight people for hundreds of hours, regardless of how challenging or simple those games were for a reasonable price it really makes you think doesn't it?

Why aren't corporations ready to invest their money on things that people adore?

You can go back in time and play any popular game from that era. They age like excellent wine, and the majority of the time it isn't nostalgia. It's because they were designed with true gameplay in mind with severe limitations of their disk space meaning developers had to be creative and were willing to take risks, rather than layers of microtransactions and visual flair to keep you psychologically stimulated.

I can't put this game down. It encompasses everything that is and always will be retro inspired gameplay with a modern approach that not even Chained Echoes can match and I thought that game was an up and down slope of good and bad.

This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them.

If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.

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- Pawkt