As a fan of retro-ish games like Breath Of Fire, my first impression of the trailers for Sea of Stars definitely hits home as it’s a beautiful game. The Nintendo Switch released demo is definitely on my radar as it provides a tantalizing glimpse into the game’s features, including free-form exploration, stunning pixelated graphics, an enchanting soundtrack, and more. So here’s a fast travel to the points of what I like playing the Sea Of Stars Demo so far.
Graphics – I do appreciate the love for pixel retro that has gone into the development of Sea Of Stars, combined with modernize refinements that give it finer details boost to the game. It feels like playing a classic RPG like Breath of Fire, but with finer detailed environments and atmospheric lighting that truly bring the area to life, creating a atmospheric range of moods and emotions. The character designs are also well made, with a diverse cast of characters, each with its own unique expressions, personalities, shapes, and sizes. It’s becoming crystal clear that the developers have put a lot of love and care into this game, and I’m excited to see more.
— Sea of Stars (@seaofstarsgame) January 27, 2023
Gameplay: On the exploration aspects – I am pleasantly surprised by the level of freedom allowed in exploring the city in this game. While swimming and jumping around the city grants a degree of exploration, I found that the options for discovering loot were limited to chests scattered throughout the city, which felt underwhelming compared to the forest exploration where you can gather more ingredients from herbs and foliage. This also gives me less incentive to explore more of the city and the dungeons with less loot around. Climbing, on the other hand, plays a crucial role in exploration and is well executed with animations and sound cues, with different heights of climbing ledges expertly woven with the level design with different tonal reach and color approaches.
Camping, either be it indoors or outdoors as long as there is a campfire, allows players to cook for survival and listen to spooky stories from NPC that goes by the name Teaks – although I noticed that the story remains fixed in the demo (just one so far). The world map is intriguing, with a sleeping snotty dragon in the background, but I find that the walking pace felt a wee bit slow and the controls felt a bit unwieldy in the world map.
Gameplay: On the combat aspects – The combat in Sea Of Stars is pretty engaging, with the ability to block to lessen the blow and deal extra double attack damage by pressing the A button at the right moment before a hit. The enemies’ turn timer is displayed at the top of their heads, and there are also locks on top of the enemy’s head that players can interact with a certain set of attacks to weaken the enemies’ next action or cancel it entirely – turning it into a form of puzzle elements designed into combat. However, the demo lacked more random battles and is mostly fixed, leaving it fully unexplored. Combo attacks between party members are nice to have but am not sure how to build up the gauge better. Furthermore, the leveling-up system doesn’t replenish health which I find quite odd to me. Despite this, the combat mechanics shows good promise and I’m looking forward to seeing more in future builds of the game.
Gameplay: On the fishing aspects – What’s a JRPG without fishing, in this case, it is well-implemented and enjoyable. Players are able to throw in their hooks and control where they land in the water, and fish will bite the hook if it falls in their zone. The fishing mechanic becomes challenging as players must steer the fish while it’s struggling to escape, and if they successfully guide it into the straight highlighted zone, they can press A to reel it in. The deeper the fish is; the harder the fish fights, making it harder to steer, and players risk breaking their fishing line if they press A at the wrong zone. I understand that there is also the possibility to knock the fish unconscious in midst of steering, adding an extra layer of fun. Later on, I discovered that while the fishing mechanic is intuitive and engaging, it has its own set of limitations such as throwing the hook at a far distance was a steerable breeze, but I find it difficult to cast my line for fish that were close to my dock by example.
Music- While the game has no voice-acting, I was struck by the impactful musical score in this game. The flute, instrumentals, and seagull/animals chittering sounds were especially powerful, fully immersing me in the game’s world. As well as the loading, level-up screens, and camping play a pinching shimmering stars-like song chimed into the background music is a personal favorite of mine, and I found myself idly lingering in certain areas just to take in and breath-in the beautiful soundtrack through my ears.
So far, Sea Of Stars did not disappoint and I look forward to this once it reaches the shores of release on August 29th on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation consoles.
