Its been a long time since I played any kind of turn-based adventure RPG. I played them a lot when I was a kid and had my Gameboy consoles but I generally lost interest in them as I grew up. The fact that I'm generally appalled by turn-based combat doesn't help either. Through all of this Golden Sun 1 and 2 are still some of my all time favorite games from my childhood.
A few days ago I saw that Sea of Stars was trending on new & popular on Steam. It reminded me a bit of those good old days but I decided that $40 was to much for something I most likely wouldn't end up liking. Then, when browsing the game catalogue on my PlayStation 5 later in the day I saw that the same game was included in the subscription, and so, I decided to try it.
What is Sea of Stars?
Sea of Stars is a turn-based adventure RPG inspired by a lot of classic games. In the few reviews I've read I see it compared a lot to Golden Sun, Chrono Trigger and the old Final Fantasy games. The game utilizes pixel art for all of its art and visuals which is something I really like. High resolution pixel art can look so damn good when done right and Sea of Stars definitely does it right. There's a lot of awesome visuals all throughout this game.
Combat uses a very basic turn-based system. You can choose to attack, use skills or use items when it's your turn. You also get to choose which of your team members will get to attack on your turn which adds a little depth to combat, especially when it comes to exploiting weaknesses. You can't just attack with the same team member over and over again as any team member you use will be on cooldown until all other team members have taken a turn.
There's more to talk about when it comes to combat, like using combos and special powers as the game goes on which adds even more depth but I'm not going to dive into every single detail about this. I generally hate turn-based games and get bored of them really quickly but after playing Baldur's Gate 3 I've kind of changed my mind on that. It seems like I'm missing out on a lot of great games because of that so I've decided to try and push through the hate a bit.
My thoughts
I've played the game for about 2-3 hours right now and so far I'm really liking it. There are a few sections of dialogue that are just way to long but when the game starts and you get to explore somewhat freely, discover secrets and progress the story in other ways than just pressing X to advance dialogue the game really picks up. There's not anything groundbreaking about the gameplay but it brings back just enough nostalgia to keep me interested.
I find the story to be OK but not very engaging so far and the combat is ok. It's not very in depth but since combat is generally over rather quickly that's fine with me. My favorite part of the game is the exploration and finding secrets. I'm always a nerd for scouring every corner of a map to find every piece of treasure and resource. It's the competitionist in me. Exploring is really rewarding as well as I've found some armor pieces and cooking recipes that I would have easily missed if I didn't keep an extra eye out. Some of these armor pieces even doubled the defense of some of my characters. Definitely a rewarding experience.
It's going to take me some time to finish this one as I really only play my PlayStation 5 a few hours on the weekend but I'm fine with that. There's no other games on the PS5 that's been able to captivate me lately so I'm in no rush to get on to the next one.
If you're into turn-based adventure RPGs then I can really recommend Sea of Stars based on the first few hours of gameplay. The pixel art looks so good and they've done a really good job of crafting a highly visual and beautiful world.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.