Sea of Stars review

A love letter to the role-playing classics of yesteryear, Sea of Stars incorporates a few modern nuances alongside its warm sense of nostalgia.

The first few hours of 2018’s The Messenger felt like a respectful homage to Tecmo’s classic 8-bit action platformer, Ninja Gaiden. But gradually, Quebec City-based developer Sabotage Studio revealed additional inspirations. The game’s linear footpath unfolded into a sprawling Super Metroid-style pursuit of items, as the visuals and chiptunes shifted toward the 16-bit generation. What began as a facsimile of a single game ended up generating a fuzzy sense of nostalgia that referenced multiple titles.

Sea of Stars demonstrates the studio tackling an exceedingly challenging genre: the role-playing game. Here, the dominant reference point is Chrono Trigger, with the game even duplicating a line of dialog as a bothered NPC hands you an item. But momentarily, a multitude of other references trickle in. The turn-based combat allows players to augment their orders with a timely, Super Mario RPG-style, button press. Thanks to the requirement of the sporadic controller input, navigation feels lively, mirroring the way Joker scampered from scaffolding in Persona 5’s prologue.

Prose for RPG Pros

Like many of yesteryear’s role-playing classics, there’s a strong sense of adventure that drives Sea of Stars. The title opens with a mysterious recorder of history contemplating over a moment that’s a mere speck of time. But it’s a decisive outlier in an otherwise unremarkable span of perpetuity, which nearly describes a few moments in Stars’ script.

Yes, the game’s dialog can occasionally flirt be poetic. But even when it’s just pushing the exposition along, Sea of Stars has a richer vocabulary than many modern titles. In fact, I wish it embraced its bookishness more often.

Adapt Worldbuilding

Despite the occasional bit of eloquence, the writing team at Sabotage avoids being unnecessarily long-winded. Sea of Stars typically maintains a healthy pace across its 30 to 40-hour trek. Sure, it’s fundamentally a story about teens with latent superpowers discovering their potential. While Stars occasionally revisits well-worn tropes, it’s also smart enough to habitually put a new twist on things.

But of all, the exploration that accompanies these conversations is often rousing, pushing players through exotic landscapes, rather than just retreading clichéd high-fantasy venues. Revisit previously seen venues and NPC have new things to say, while villages change.

A Pair of Unremarkable Leads

On the upside, this means the plotline surveys topics like moral responsibility and grief. But more often, the game chases after a light-hearted tone. Yet, as impressive and detailed as Stars’ worldbuilding is, the game’s two leads are rather lackluster, missing many of the qualities that can make a protagonist relatable.

The game’s two main characters, Zale and Valere, were born on the summer and winter solstice, which means they inherited the job of eliminating monsters remaining from a centuries-old dispute. But beyond the look of their sprites and their different abilities, the pair are almost indistinguishable. Sure, you get a gender choice, but parity between Zale and Valere means there’s a missed opportunity for banter. Fortunately, the rest of Sea of Stars’ cast fare better and often provide an array of backstories, such as a pair of immortal alchemists with oppositional moral stances.

And while there’s a bit of poignancy here and there, Sea of Stars is content with keeping things light. There’s an abundance of fourth-wall-breaking explanations and gags like a giant named Y’eet who flings your party around. And while some might enjoy the jovial humor, other players may bemoan the shortage of poignancy. Often, the heartbreaking lows can make subsequent high points feel much more potent. But all too often that’s not the case with Stars, which forgoes the typical RPG melodrama for a more even approach.

The Stunning Sea

But beyond the nondescript leads and a mood that never gets too dark, Sea of Stars commits few transgressions. Environmental design is especially adept. There’s a noteworthy density to the game’s locales, which reduces the tedium of navigating around maps and dungeons. With geographical novelties like a slumbering dragon coiled menacingly around a mountain, subterranean interiors drenched in emerald-green hue, and villages positioned on picturesque vistas, Stars habitually shines.

While the scenery is remarkably rich and alive, the amount of animation shouldn’t be overlooked. Undoubtedly, the artists at Sabotage were obsessed with the environmental movement, making diminutive flora dance about or subaquatic objects sway with the tide. Although interiors can be a bit dark at times, the decision allows for impressive shadows and lighting around Zale’s solar magic. And with ten tracks from Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda, Stars soundtrack is just as beautiful. Here, tracks soar alongside tensions while moody dirges echo during the game’s most reflective moments.

Locks Become the Key to Success in Combat

Pleasingly, the game’s turn-based combat is accessible while nuanced, with player decisions just as weighty as character stats. To keep the fights lively, a quick button tap can augment attacks, defensive stances, or healing, and there’s just enough timing variation across encounters to make sure that you’re paying attention. You’ll also have to be mindful during longer fights thanks to the game’s lock mechanic.

Here, party members need to issue a specific number of attribute-based attacks to invalidate an incoming enemy assault. So, if a pair of sword icons appear, your team will need to attack with at least two bladed-based attacks to defuse a health-depleting devastation.  The trick is that these countermeasures require mana, which in turn involves issuing standard attacks. The sole shortcoming are some of the game’s boss encounters. Occasionally, regenerative enemies can make these showcase standoffs feel like battles of attrition.

An Essential Experience

Drawing inspiration from seminal RPGs such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, Sea of Stars could evoke SNES-era delight. The same smile that was illuminated by a CRT’s glow could emerge as you reconnoiter the game’s world and interact with its colorful inhabitants. For those who never had an opportunity to venture into 16-bit era role-playing, Stars shows why the era is so revered- while giving the proceedings a contemporary sheen. Either way, Sabotage’s latest is a retro RPG that’s requisite.

Sea of Stars was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher