Sea of Stars is certainly a game that rewards you the more time you put into it... until it doesn't. The art is great, the soundtrack? Even better. It really does feel like it pulls from the best parts of Earthbound, FInal Fantasy VI, Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario, and Chrono Trigger. The gameplay is a really great evolution of turn-based rpgs that makes really smart changes to how mp systems usually work and they add a lot of tools to make overworld exploring quite fun and rewarding.

The writing is fine when the scope of the story is small, but as it slowly and then quickly expands into typical rpg-fare- which is to say, save the world from a malevolent being, the cracks really start to form. The biggest of those cracks being really boring main protagonists. The choice of making two protagonists makes sense when doing a whole sun/moon thing sure, but they are both just super plain avatar characters. The rest of the party is fun but don't do nearly enough to make up for having cardboard main characters.

The other major crack is how rushed the third act of this game feels like. Characters leave and join your party/cargo so quick none of it feels natural. The ending too feels so stinted it made me knock this down half of a star because of how let down I was. There is a true ending but looking into how to achieve, it was a bit too much of a time sink for a game I was already starting to feel burnt out in.

Overall though I did really enjoy my time spent in this world and would happily return for DLC or some kind of sequel.