Sea of Stars by Sabotage Studio is a 2023 turn-based RPG that takes you to a journey through a magical world in the shoes of Valere and Zale, two young Solstice Warriors with a task to save the world.
Shovel Knight is often praised for how well it took inspiration from retro platformers and achieved the positive memory tainted by nostalgia we remember from the 90s games. Sea of Stars deserves similar credit for its genre. It feels like the old retro RPGs but with a modern look and feel.
The soundtrack is an absolute banger. The songs are great and they pull your into the universe of the game in a super immersive way.
The gameplay is split in three parts: overworld travel, platforming and combat. Platforming has some puzzle elements but nothing too complex. Mostly environmental puzzles where you need to find lever and switches that move things or open doors.
The game is very story-driven and storytelling is where it shines. The plot is nothing special: a very traditional RPG story of saving the world following hero’s journey arch. But the way it’s done lifts it up. The visuals and aforementioned music is fantastic. Characters have depth and personality and the story has good twists and turns.
Then there’s combat. It follows a traditional turn-based combat formula with attacks, magic skills and items. You fight against hordes of enemies and bosses and how you sequence your moves, use your abilities and keep your party healthy is the key.
Three mechanics rise from the basics: time-based parry & attack bonuses, combos and locks.
When you attack or you are being attacked, a well-timed button press will give you bonuses and some attacks can hit multiple times for as long as you manage to time your button presses accurately. This is similar to the mechanic in Super Mario RPG games and adds a new layer on top. It’s also very forgiving: you don’t have to hit any of them to be able to beat the game so they offer just a nice bonus for those you want to aim for it. For me, it makes the combats feel more dynamic and gives me more to do.
You have a shared combo meter that fills up as you do attacks and you’ll be able to learn variety of different combo moves depending on which characters are in your party and you can spend your collected combo to do very powerful team moves.
Finally, locks are symbols presented for bigger enemy attacks. If you manage to land attacks that correspond to those symbols, the opponent is stunned.