Released in 2023, Sea of Stars is a retro styled RPG capturing the look and feel of RPGs from the 16bit era with added bells and whistles. Turn based combat is the weapon of choice and a lot of hidden little depths to keep coming back for more.

What’s good?

Sea of Stars doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, having some fun little in jokes, while also presenting a rich and detailed world to explore. No area overstayed its welcome and the enemies have a lot of variety, mostly helped by the lock system making battles into mini puzzles more than just who can hit who the hardest.

There’s a lot of secrets in the world to discover and the game doesn’t make anything too arduous. The most being the rainbow conch hunch, but even that becomes a lot easier to retrace steps in the later game.

The story is a classic good versus evil with a couple of twists here and there but like the enemies there’s enough variety there to keep things interesting.

What’s bad?

I’m going to get shot down for this, or say I don’t have a heart, but at the beginning of the game Garl’s character really grated on me to the point where I would use him as little as possible. Throw in that I have to carry around a character that doesn’t have the same power levels as the stars (which later becomes a mechanic in itself).

The fast travel at the end of the game is good but it would have been nice to be able to instantly leave an area even if not on the world map. I might be picking at straws here but when it gets to the point that enemies are one hit kills it becomes a bit tiring trailing through areas again.

How much did I play?

A lot! I played enough to get the true ending but I left the flimsy hammers after deciding that I wasn’t overly interested in spending more time to get a simple unlock (but I did read up about it).

Conclusion

Sea of Stars was on my wishlist for a while and it did not dissapoint. Despite my initial dislike of Garl the events of the game were enough for me want to play the true ending to bring him back. I look forward to more in this world (although The Messenger isn’t too my tastes) and can’t wait for the DLC.