#edit: oh yeah funniest thing about the endgame was that the credits had a button to multiply the scroll speed

[somethingwittyandweird]

So I finished Sea of Stars today (as anyone with me on their dash will find out as soon as they scroll past this post). Long story short, I loved it! It was a really solid experience from start to finish, and I'm going to take a moment here to sing some praises.

Early on the first thing that charmed me was the environment design- it felt like I could follow my character's journey visually on the world map through the zones when I entered and exited them, which just testifies to how well made the overworld map is. The environment designs were just great in general- every place was visually interesting and some of the backgrounds were absolutely jaw dropping.

I liked the combat system! It's not hard by any means but it's fun. It starts out slow to ramp up the interesting features and many times in the early game I felt like combats were over before I got to use any cool moves, but by the time you unlock all the mechanics it's a really dynamic system. I like the choice to flatten the MP bars and skill costs and put an emphasis on alternating spending MP on two-three skills and then basic attacking to replenish it. The live mana system gives another dynamic angle that ended up feeling a lot like Octopath's BP system in execution (again, setting up a cadence of small attacks to charge -> big damage attack -> repeat) but also interacted well with the lock system. The combo attacks are a highlight and the elemental lock system encourages nearly all of them to enter the rotation. The only gripe I have is that the Obligatory Indie RPG Timed Hits Like Paper Mario, while they do have good feel once you get them down, *really* could have used a timing example on first appearance, or someplace to practice using them. When a new party member showed up with a completely different attack pattern, it took me several fights of pressing A at random times during the animation to figure out where the right timing window was. Turning on the modifier that gave feedback on perfect timing was helpful to know when I had it, but I didn't like having to guess what part of the animation I was aiming at in the first place.

The characters were excellent- though I don't have much to say about some of them, others of them felt like they were aimed directly at me and the types of character I like. There were multiple times that I was delighted to see a new character get to join the ensemble and not just remain in place. I think they were all treated well by the story and most importantly, all had their moments to shine. On that, the story in this one was also excellent- some good twists and some *really* heartfelt plot beats that will stick with me. One visually shattering moment in the middle gave me that awe-struck "oh to experience that again for the first time" feeling whenever I passed through that area thereafter. Just an overall good story well told.

Like I said in my last post, I enjoyed the gamefeel of traversal, which is surprising since JRPGs aren't really a movement focused genre. But again, with the addition of verticality, climbing up ledges and rock walls, and later on the grapple hook to cross gaps, I was pretty engaged even when backtracking- though there was very little backtracking, since the world and environments were designed as very straightforward and easy to navigate. The collectibles and sidequests were at a good challenge level where they weren't free but they also didn't take dozens of hours to scour the world for the hidden door, etc. The game also gives you a modifier that gives a radar for collectibles too making it easy to get that nice shiny completion star. And the sidequests were all worthwhile too, especially the late game character-specific questlines. The full completion reward true ending surprised me at first, but I settled into it once the feelings started to flow.

It wouldn't be fair to the game to not mention the way it wears its love for Chrono Trigger and other SNES-era JRPGs on its sleeve. If "Guest Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda" wasn't enough of a clue, the story is tucked full of easter eggs and references, combo attacks and enemies and environments and plot beats that fans of Chrono Trigger would identify easily. But I think it handles the inspiration well, being an homage that still keeps up its own identity. The lore tying it to the studio's other game, The Messenger, helps with that. It's not just "hey let's remake this game we're all nostalgic for beat for beat" and more "hey let's do our own thing but throw in a lot of nods for us and for other people who are nostalgic for this."

Overall, playing the game was great to end 2023 and finishing the game is a killer start to 2024! A very hearty recommend from me.