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 take on the basic 2D RPG sport 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 sport.

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 complete 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 gentle jabs of humor in direction of each other.

However, 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 greatest pal, Garl. When Zale and Valere left him behind for 10 years to finish their coaching, Garl spent his personal years coaching alone to discover ways 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.

Right from his first look, Garl is a real hero, even when he doesn’t have powers. He’s not solely the voice of motive when Zale and Valere discover themselves in a battle, but in addition a fiercely courageous and dependable pal who doubles as their prepare 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 provides them the power to face even the hardest of battles, which makes the sport ridiculously enjoyable and satisfying to progress via from a storytelling perspective.

While the primary trio of characters themselves are a piece of artwork, Sea of Stars really comes alive via astounding visuals. While it’s true that many fashionable video games have progressed to favor the reasonable 3D method, Sea of Stars has chosen to revisit and revamp the extra nostalgic 2D pixel artwork model, and with enormous success.

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

As if the beautiful pixel artwork current in each location wasn’t sufficient, this degree of execution carries over even to the Overworld map, the place simply as a lot love and element will be discovered. Furthermore, Sea of Stars has carried out a cinematic really feel to necessary 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 model can really be in a contemporary sport, 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 via the story.

Seriously, I misplaced depend of the quantity of occasions 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.

Combat makes use of the normal flip-primarily based motion that was discovered current in lots of RPG titles through the years. However, Sea of Stars does a fantastic job at constructing on this and including additional components to maintain gamers entertained in a world of fashionable video games. On prime of the flip-primarily based fight, there’s a enjoyable aspect of technique concerned with the enemy Casting mechanic, which will be defused with intelligent use of your get together’s magical and weapon talents.

Combat additionally transitions to and from exploration seamlessly, and makes adventuring and exploring really feel thrilling and entertaining. Some talents are a easy choose and assault, whereas others, comparable to Zale’s Sunball or Valere’s Moonerang may 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 way more interactive, which helps the repetition of battle to be as thrilling as potential.

Furthermore, there’s a timing mechanic for each assault in Sea of Stars. Timing an additional button enter on the precise 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 precise second your enemy assaults permits you to block some of the facility, permitting you to take much less harm. As every enemy within the sport has completely different assaults which might be full with distinctive animations, studying the timing required to dam every transfer is an pleasing problem.

Exploration is very pleasing, permitting you to run, soar, climb, dive, swim, and crash your method via every location. You can even forage substances alongside the best way for Garl to show into tasty meals on your get together. Many areas that you just encounter have puzzles that you’ll want to resolve to progress. At first, I wasn’t thrilled on the thought, as I typically lack the persistence to finish a future of puzzles in a single sitting with a sport. However, with Sea of Stars, I used to be pleasantly stunned to search out that the puzzles are pretty simplistic and easy, 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 completely different actions you’ll be able to have interaction in to offer your self a break from the primary story. You can go fishing at a number of completely different places, head out on a crusing journey, prepare dinner up a storm together with your substances, and even play the in-sport tabletop minigame, Wheels.

Difficulty can be extremely customizable via the merchandise mechanic often called Relics. Relics are a particular sort of merchandise that may be discovered, bought, and picked up by your get together members. Each Relic has a bonus sport mechanic that you may toggle, comparable to auto-therapeutic after battle, decreasing incoming harm, or making blocks simpler to attain. I discover this to be reasonably intuitive, as as an alternative of merely having straightforward, regular, and onerous modes, Sea of Stars permits the participant to customise the problem 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 actually battle 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 via journey. The sport has a considerably ‘cozy’ feeling to it for an RPG as a result of beautiful aesthetics of the art work and degree design however is loads entertaining and stress-free with out falling into the zone of being boring.

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

About the creator

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-onerous Ghost-Type Pokemon fangirl. Her favourite video video games embrace Overwatch 2, Life is Strange, The Last of Us, and Pokemon – all of which she is going to by no means tire of.