Since it was announced in 2020, I’ve been fawning over Sabotage Studio’s Sea of Stars for simply how beautiful it is. It is a strange thing to say given the studio’s previous title, The Messenger, didn’t light a fire under me. Also, to put it nicely, NES/SNES-era RPGs always bored me to death. So it makes perfect sense that a dyslexic, who has found great difficulty getting into the likes of Chrono Trigger, is reviewing a game inspired by and composed by one-half of the Chrono Trigger composers.

Set in the mythical land of medias res, you start your journey as either Valere or Zale with the other following. The characters then reminisce (training montage/tutorial) and get us back to the start of their journey to finish up their training. The two prophesied Solstice Warriors are on an adventure to rid the world of the last remaining evil Fleshmancer and its minions. This leads to a journey of friendship, magic, and enjoying the modern staple of indie games. That is, cooking and fishing mini-games. I’m typically a curmudgeon with such a story, yet though I may have been high on coffee (drink responsively) I found myself cheering and exhaustively exhaling due to engagement.

Sea of Stars has an active turn-based combat system not too dissimilar to the Mario RPGs of the 90s and 2000s. Where I’m typically bored or frustrated with such RPGs, here I’m left working on actual strategy and thought. You might be fighting mythical rams from time to time, but you don’t have balls to throw and the combat isn’t incredibly redundant after 27 years. It is more complex than I can explain in a single paragraph to entice you. Each piece of the combat puzzle feeds into itself to create little loops that extend the length of combat but also make fights more engaging than almost anything else I’ve played turn-based-wise.

The Mario comparison is true in that when a hit is about to land you can tap A for Xbox controllers (or use X on PlayStation) and you’ll get a little bonus. A well-timed tap for defense also mitigates some of the damage. Sea of Stars is also a game focused on characters with magical powers, specifically magical attacks. Of course, these special attacks take up MP like all RPGs of its kind. Nonetheless, the physical attacks feed into the system by generating MP mid-fight. Later on, physical attacks also generate what is called “Live Mana,” a boost in fights that isn’t stored across battles but provides an extra kick to your attacks.

Throughout battles, you’ll be building up a combo meter that also gives an extra punch as party members combine attacks to give a special blow. So, if you do everything right, you can collect Live Mana after building up a combo, execute said combo, and (if timed correctly) you’ll get a second hit in with that tap and do a massive amount of damage in the process. That’s not only a more interesting combat system for a story-focused RPG, but that is the closest you’ll get to something turn-based that’s engaging without trying to do the Kingdom Hearts half-action/half-turn-based system.

On top of this, from time to time a bar appears above the enemies’ heads displaying what they are most susceptible to: Solar, lunar, sharp, or blunt attacks. If you’re able to get all attacks in on the time required (a turn or a few) that can weaken or all-out stop an attack from that enemy in their next turn. Not only are you looking to build up MP, Live Mana, and your combos, but you also have this mechanic to defang the monsters on your travels. As a bonus, downed party members in battle aren’t dead. Because of this, you can play defensively (tapping A and healing) until the round that they wake up and rejoin the fracas.

This is where I may break someone’s heart for a moment. It can be quite difficult to get the timing right on those defensive and offensive taps. Overall, accessibility isn’t something that is first in mind, at least not how I think it could be best implemented. There are sound cues, visual cues, and even an option you’ll find after you’ve first gotten frustrated with the taps, but the options menu is rather scarce of such things. Yes, there are language, sound, and other settings you’d typically find, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

In the game menu (Y or triangle) you’ll find something called Relics, which are items you’ll find or buy throughout your time in Sea of Stars. These are as close to accessibility and difficulty options/cheats as you’ll get and I am absolutely in favor of these being a thing. They include 100% health that regenerates after fights, a little star thing that appears above characters when you time something correctly, as well as increases and decreases in damage. These are ways to make Sea of Stars more malleable to the player and give them a greater chance of enjoying what they are playing. Though it is not entirely accessible.

Once you’ve gotten past the Evermist Island’s tutorial and into the Stonemason’s Outpost, you’ll finally get the 50% chance of automatic blocking. The thing is, by the time you’ve gotten there you’ve had to fight multiple bosses that can be difficult/frustrating (i.e. long), and some of those non-boss fights can pose a challenge to those players that are not too familiar with turn-based combat or this version of it. For those with mobility issues, that early point without the 50% chance of auto-blocking could be an issue because the timing is so fine. It isn’t FromSoft parrying levels of timing, but it is certainly narrow.

I’ve spoken about it before but stylized or thin pixel-based fonts can be an issue for dyslexics, and being a NES/SNES-inspired RPG there is a lot of reading to be done. I’ll get to the story in a second and talk about what I think about it. Sadly, between a lack of accessibility for something as simple as dyslexia or possibly an early relic that negates the need for unprompted very well-timed blocking, I think the accessibility/difficulty balancing for Sea of Stars somewhat ignores the point of accessibility in the first place. Eventually, you get options to mitigate the difficulty or increase it with the relics, but that’s like saying “There will eventually be a ramp, so for now crawl up these stairs.”

Being a roughly 30-hour RPG, there is a lot to talk about. While I intend to get into most of it, some of it I’ll leave out to prevent spoiling too much in the process. The young adventurers set off on their quest after 10 years of training and fight their way through all sorts of fantasy creatures: flying drills, purple geckos, whatever the that puffer/angler fish was on the beach of the second island, and lots more. Varele and Zale are joined early on in their adventures by childhood best friend Garl.

The “cheering and exhaustively exhaling” mostly comes from Garl as (to put it lightly) he’s the over-eager, non-innate-magic, chef/comic relief of the group. When he jumped out of the bushes bringing jam and the cooking segment of the game, I cheered as he gave something different from the other two’s stoic and RPG-style gung-ho attitudes. I don’t dislike many of the characters or much of the overall writing of Sea of Stars, though some of it does play on tropes of the genre. This includes over-eager characters, those intentionally with pigeon English, and the ever-present all-caps talkers.

I haven’t even spoken of the Pirates of Penzance, the shadowy cult of evil, your mentors being chiseled anime characters, the literal anime-like (sparse) introductions to locations and/or characters, and so much more. As I said at the top and throughout this review, I didn’t grow up with this love of this era of RPG. In fact, I’ve stated before I didn’t grow up even liking RPGs at all in the first place. It is only in recent years I’ve grown to enjoy the genre. Sea of Stars is a love letter to RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Secrets of Mana, early Final Fantasy, and the Mario (Super & Paper) RPGs.

There is a lot to enjoy about Sabotage Studio’s latest title, from engaging systems all around to an enjoyable story. I can’t stress how much I relish Sea of Stars, but I must say that the writing isn’t without issues. I have this problem with lots of RPGs, but the aforementioned text-based storytelling, a lack of optional fonts, and some (for lack of a better phrase) “over characterization” make some of the writing tiring to slog through. I’ve said it already: It is an RPG with text-based storytelling and it is going to have long talky segments. Sometimes getting through those can be tiring.

Our Flag Means Death here is where I was the most tired, or my name isn’t Keenathan. It is where I feel like I’m reading or waiting for a small animation (Yolande’s little “ta-dah!” thing) to relent so we get back to our adventure, betrayal, mystery, and so on. It feels like either an over-eagerness to do characterization or world-building when simply the art and the story on its own is arguably doing enough of that already to get me invested. In a story with urgency early on, going down the mines to chat to a mole-person about saccharine friendship to defeat god misses the forest for the trees.

When Sea of Stars is focused on the goal, its story is typical of this sort of RPG but is done well. However, when its eye slips and we are forced to sit through some flabbiness in the writing, it becomes typical of RPGs in the worst way. It isn’t a bad story and from what I can say without giving spoilers, the adventure to Wraith Island is only the beginning of a fun story that has urgency, clear desires, and basically everything you want from it. I would like to be able to rattle through the dialog without trouble with the font, but I can put up with that for the most part.

It is clear that I have gripes with Sea of Stars, but as much as I have those complaints because that’s sort of the nature of personal criticism, I also love Sea of Stars. I might not have the nostalgia, and I might not have the patience of those RPGs like this are aimed at, but despite being a love letter to those titles fans love, even I am enticed by Sabotage Studio’s Sea of Stars. Be it exploration with the commonplace lite-puzzles, a combat system with some actual challenge and excitement, or simply a story that feels like a fun urgent adventure. Either way, I mostly found myself excited to play more.

Ultimately, Sea of Stars is the twinkling light in a night sky of RPGs reminiscent of this era that modernizes, stays true to its roots, and looks absolutely stunning throughout. I’d have liked more accessibility options to be apparent as those with the likes of mobility issues find refuge in turn-based combat while still enjoying some challenge. However, I do like the Relic system once you’re able to open up more of them. I have my grievances with the story but sometimes I wish it was more direct in places to play not only into the urgency but also into the stoic nature of our main two.

A PC review copy of Sea of Stars was provided by Sabotage Studio for this review.

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Sea of Stars

$34.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• An enjoyable story with some proper pace.
• An engaging and fun turn-based combat system.
• Absolutely stunning throughout.

Cons

• Accessibility could have been done better.
• Some overeagerness in world-building and characterization.