Riley D.

I went into Sea of Star expecting what most reviews told me to expect. A enjoyable retro turn based rpg with a basic story and combat system without too much depth. I feel like these reviews greatly undermined the "without too much depth part. The game's gameplay and story don't feel shallow they feel nonexistant. First though let me start with a breakdown of my 2 star rating and what I liked about the game. Rating breakdown: Story/Characters:1/5 Gameplay: 0/5 Visuals: 4/5 Positive criticism: - Amazing pixel art -Amazing animations -Expressive character portraits -Great combat animations -Good character design Negative criticism: -Lacking quality of life improvements normally found in modern rpgs (for example no fast travel) -Combat is not complex enough for how much you need to do it -To much combat and dungeon crawling compared to plot events (about a 80/20 split) - Pasing is sooooo bad. Fetch quest based filler story where you can go about 3 dungeons in a row without any major plot points happening (example: dungeon a opens a lift to dungeon B which has the key to open dungeon C where the real boss it.) -You max out characters skills about half way through the game to combat after that lacks variety and new features -Characters have 0 personality. If you close you're eyes and try to figure out which of the 6 playable party members are saying a given sentence you would only be able to tell which one Garl is the other have no discernable personality traits. -Villains are very one note. The game has a shockingly large amount of villains throughout the game but the majority are simpley "I am evil and I will never tell you why before I end up dying or dissapeasing after my boss fight to never be mentioned again. There are only 2 villains who "betray" the party and only one of them actually has an interesting reason to do so. And then that character presumably dies offscreen. :/ Conclusion: Sea of stars is an unfortunate combo of a bad story with bad characters and an initially interesting combat system which peaks early and gets old very fast. RPGs can still be very good with one of these features but when it lacks both is begs the question of why am I even playing this game. Overall thie game is like a plastic flower. Very beautiful but lacking in soul.