Sea of Stars (2023, Playstation 5) Review

'TIS A PRETTY SHALLOW POND

Also for: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One, Xbox Series

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Hear ye, hear ye! We've all been misusing the word "retro"!

I recently learned on a podcast that the word "retro" is the wrong way to refer to old games - for instance Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI - played decades after their original release. The correct term would be "vintage". A vintage gamer will usually go the extra mile to play a game as close to the original experience as possible, preferrably on original hardware, viewed on a screen that was available at the time.

Games like Sabotage Studio's Sea of Stars, on the other hand, is the real "retro"; a brand new release deeply inspired by old classics. As a Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), Sea of Stars mimics games like the aforementioned Chrono Trigger (1995) to a tee. The slightly askewed top-down perspective, the story setup and structure, the ways battles are fought, the crossover between fantasy and sci-fi, the colorful pixel graphics, the melodious soundtrack, the innocent atmosphere, the existential stakes - it all evokes memories of the 16-bit era JRPG classics.

Usually, I love retro games more than vintage (for instance, I much prefer the retro sidescrolling platformer Shovel Knight over the old classics that inspired it). Good retro releases tend to infuse all the improved, modern game design standards into the charming vintage gameplay and aesthetics. In some ways, this is true of Sea of Stars as well, but in this case it emulates it all too well. So well, in fact, that it becomes almost indiscernable to vintage. And whenever I play a vintage game for the first time, it feels like homework, something I do because I should have a grasp on gaming history and not because I really want to.

For me, the lingering question is: Why do I keep rewarding myself with long breaks after each play session? Why do I procrastinate instead of rushing back to my couch to keep playing? Or in short: Why do I repeatedly lose interest in Sea of Stars? The answers are not straightforward. On the surface level this game is flawless. It's got amazing flair in its visual presentation and a very catchy soundtrack, and the story carries the experience to a satisfying conclusion on the other side.

The story revolves around the Solstice Warriors, a few promising youngsters in a school called Zenith Academy, led by the illustrious headmaster Moraine.  Their purpose, in this waterworld of isolated small islands, is to fight off the minions of "the Fleshmancer". He's an evil alchemist who creates all manner of creatures to unleash upon the world, including the most dangerous Dwellers, who eventually become World Eaters unless the Solstice Warriors intervene. Their ability to harness celestial powers make them the only ones able to harm a Dweller.

Good pacing and a couple of clever plot twists keep the interest going throughout the very linear progression, shepherding you back and forth across a couple of small overworld maps. You play as either Zale or Valere, children of the sun or moon, respectively, and can freely switch back and forth between the two. This is the game asking you: "Do you wanna play as a boy or a girl?" Personality-wise they're interchangeable, existing as a duo mostly as a matter of inclusion, and since you control both in combat the choice is merely superficial.

Although I played as Zale from beginning to end, I found the blue-haired, staff-wielding monk Valere to be a more valuable asset in combat. I kept using her timed "Moonerang" (moon-boomerang) skill extensively throughout the game. It's a fun one; a small, magical crescent moon that bounces between the enemies and her staff with increasing speed, until you fail to parry the incoming projectile on time and the attack cycle ends. I believe it can, theoretically, go on forever, but it gets harder to pull off with each rebound.

These kind of timing-based inputs keep the engagement going during battles. By timing button presses right you can bolster damage dealt to enemies and partly block their attacks. It's a slight design detail, borrowed from Super Mario RPG (1996), that makes the turn-based combat more engaging than it should have any right to be. Add to that a few different special attacks and combos - dependent on party setup - and you've got a good number of options to deal with any enemy.

And, as the cherry on top, I have to mention the devastating finishers (similar to Final Fantasy "limit breaks") that become available once you've charged up a combo-meter on the side of the screen. Every character has their unique one, presented through a fantastic animation, with different effects on the battlefield. Some deal devastating, elemental-specific damage, whereas others heal you up and delay enemies by a few turns.

More NPC:s eventually join your troupe, all of which have more personality than the rather dull main duo. The way you can freely throw them in and out of combat adds another tactical dimension. They each bring a new elemental skill to your squad, and with them also added opportunities to break enemy "locks"; powerful attacks that can be weakened, or even interrupted, if you dish out the correct types of damage.

In theory, this is a fun, engaging way to further strategize combat, but the randomness often puts you in situations where you're helpless to break these locks in time. For instance, the acid locks start to appear before you have any character with an acid-based skill, meaning you're helpless from preventing that attack.

This is one reason that I grew tired of combat long before the game was over. In spite of the numerous options in every situation, I eventually funneled my choices into the same few, most effective countermeasures. The other ones either were too weak, too situational or consumed too much mana. In spite of all the good intentions and hard efforts, the combat quickly grew repetitive.

The combat issue illustrates how Sea of Stars presents many tools to experiment with, but only a few of them matter. It feels too reactionary; every time an enemy charges up a powerful attack, I use the same attack patterns to interrupt it. I rarely use my skills progressively and creatively. I never go on the offensive, because there's hardly any window to do so. I break locks and heal up, and that's it. The same illusion of freedom goes for character leveling; each level increase boosts most of your stats and then you can add a few extra points in a skill of choice. Which one doesn't really matter in the long run.

Outside of combat, Sea of Stars puts most effort into first impressions - graphics and sound - whereas the stuff that matters to me - exploration, story, character - feels formulaic. The world contains all manner of cute critters as inhabitants, like moles, monkeys, robots, giants, fish people - all designed in a wide-eyed, expressive manga style. It's immaculate in execution, but nothing about the grand total hooks me. It leans too heavily into cute nostalgia over something I'm personally not nostalgic about. And playing an old game without much emotional investment often feels like studying for an exam that's never coming.

After a somewhat overindulgant introduction, the game settles into a good, steady pace. The experience circumvents the need for grinding, or going on long sidequest detours, by adding enough experience through main quest progression to keep your characters sufficiently strong. No random encounters exist, since every enemy is visible in exploration mode. You can attempt to outrun or sneak your way past many of them. And if you beat them, they don't respawn until you retreat to the world map and return. The game also throws in a few easy box-sliding and time-manipulating puzzles to make you feel clever. And it keeps the engine running.

For better or worse, it's by-the-book game design. But for me, everything about Sea of Stars feels too safe, as if the game is designed by a crew who has studied the genre all too well. They know exactly how to structure a JRPG story down to every beat, how to twist every animal into a mythological beast and how to color the world into a fascinating picture. That's all dandy. Here's the kicker - it all feels so textbook and predictable that the impact is lost on me. They know the rules well enough to avoid all the pitfalls, but they don't dare to twist or break them into something that grabs me by the balls. They take no risks whatsoever.

The story is very strictly directed, binding the different environments and gameplay elements together, giving you a sense of growing into a proper hero/heroine. It accomplishes this through storytelling alone, but it's kind of futile when the gameplay's combat strategy never evolves much past the first couple of gameplay hours. You start out with the most useful abilites that grow with your character level, and I felt disappointed when I beat the final boss using the same measly special attack that took down the very first one. The story may have portrayed me like a divine entity, but the combat didn't let me feel like one.

And every plot twist comes at the exact "right" moment. Some of them I couldn't predict, but some of them are very obvious (some of them are so apparent that the designers poke fun at them through the PS Trophy title). No matter what, whenever I saw a twist approaching - never mind if I guessed right or wrong - I braced for something to happen. This didn't completely ruin the impact, but it lessened it.

This game is also very easy. I didn't die once throughout the playthrough, in spite of not stopping to grind even once. I finished only a few quick sidequests. I caught every type of fish in the fishing mini-game (which was fairly quick and decent) and discovered some hidden items and locations off the beaten path. I only tried the "Wheels" board game, available in taverns all over the game world, once. I lost and deemed it was not for me. I went on many slight detours to gather cooking ingredients, only to find that food often was redundant. Character skills and frequent campfires provided me with sufficient healing.

But mostly I just beelined the main quest, going from one key location to the next, and I still don't know what the "game over"-screen looks like. I don't mind this easiness - in fact, I applaud it. It made the game better by improving the pacing and keeping the challenge quite well-balanced. I'd say Sea of Stars is a fine beginners JRPG. It even allows you to purchase in-game items, the so-called relics, that make the combat even more beginner-friendly - or harder it you prefer it that way.

As for veterans, I think Sea of Stars tickles the nostalgia bone among people who grew up with consoles, but not so much for computer owners. As far as I can remember, JRPG:s weren't really a thing on any home computer system until Final Fantasy VII got ported to PC in 1998. As an Amiga player in particular I missed the entire two-dimensional 16-bit JRPG-era. My preferences were dungeon crawlers and Dungeons & Dragons-influenced western-developed CRPG:s, like Eye of the Beholder and Champions of Krynn.

Sea of Stars radiates competence down to the smallest detail. It's as a whole it crumbles somewhat; the game is somehow less than the sum of its shining parts. It seems so open and free, so clever and polished, but I mostly just respond to enemy attack prompts in combat and follow a somewhat predictable storyline - with some dead giveaway plot twists - that I cannot influence in any way. I travel a world map that doesn't let me deviate from the main course a lot, making me question why they bothered making it.

I won't dissuade anyone enticed by the pretty pixellated visuals from trying it out. It's a competently made game that might open up a new genre for some gamers, as well as a trip down memory lane for seasoned SNES-players. It's just that I can clearly see and sense the attempt to rope me in on pure nostalgia. And this game's Square-shaped inspirational peg doesn't really fit my round nostalgia hole. You can interpret that however you wish (you pervert).