Excellent Turn Based RPG
User Rating: 10 | Sea of Stars XBSX
I remember when Sea of Stars was announced and it caught my eye. I’d played the studio’s other game, the Messenger, so I knew their previous work. A turn based RPG would be a completely different direction though. The first thing that I liked about Sea of Stars was the art. I’m a huge fan of pixel art in general, so that was the first thing to catch my eye. Speech bubbles have excellent portraits of the speaking character, the environments are beautiful and meticulously crafted, and character sprites are detailed and gorgeous. What I didn’t expect were hand drawn cutscenes as well. Major plot points have short cutscenes where you see the world in a beautiful proprietary art style. The next thing that caught me was the combat. Turn based RPGs don’t always have the most engaging combat, but Sea of Stars has timed actions to make combat more involved. You can time your attacks to increase damage or time an enemy attack so you can block and reduce damage received. It’s a fine throwback to Super Mario RPG. Throughout my 42 hours with Sea of Stars, the combat never began to feel dull. The story in Sea of Stars is not its strongest aspect, but it does the job and makes the characters more endearing. Over the course of the game, I found myself appreciating the characters and their personalities. Their struggles felt compelling and it kept the game interesting. I am only sad that the game has come to and end. Sea of Stars is an excellent game with fun combat and a superb art style. I recommend it to anyone who likes an old style turn based RPG.
