The Messenger is one of my favorite games so I was very excited for this one; Sabotage Studios are making themselves known for developing very polished, stylish and fun indie titles that reward you for exploring everything there is to offer in their games. Not to mention super fun endgame content and tons of side quests and secrets to find. The fact that their games so far are a shared universe makes being a fan that much better; when you see/hear things from The Messenger in this, you get that much more excited.
Paper Mario for N64 and Persona 5 are some of the only turn-based RPG's I've played to the end and loved to death (Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door is also very high on that list). But they've never been my fave genre. All it took for me was knowing and trusting in Sabotage to deliver a top notch title and I was hooked pretty instantly from the start. The combat has timed attacks/blocks similar to Paper Mario, and lots of elemental special attacks/targeting weaknesses like Persona 5. I also loved that there's no random encounters like some JRPG's have where you're walking randomly and the screen flashes and you get sucked into a battle. Like the above games, Sea of Stars shows you enemies on the screen and you can run around them if you want, but it's best to fight 'em anyways for the XP.
The world, islands and towns are varied and interesting, with some standout areas (and some familiar for The Messenger fans), ultimately it's nothing you haven't seen in a fantasy RPG before... until it actually goes to some cool and unexpected places. I will admit, there's a moment in the story where I thought they were gonna suddenly pull a bait-and-switch like The Messenger famously does, but it's something different.
The story is fine, and the 2 main characters are unfortunately the least interesting of the bunch. All of your other party members, side characters and even the villains and bosses are more engaging. The plot constantly has you going from region to region, hopping from area to area without much of a suspenseful and engaging story to engage you with; honestly I didn't even know why I was going to a lot of these places other than the game just either telling me to go there or just placing me there automatically. It's mainly typical quest stuff, go to this dungeon, fight this boss and get this doodad, etc. and it was also a lot more linear than I was expecting (which isn't a bad thing!). There's some puzzles thrown in as well of course, but other than the endgame side quests, none of it was challenging in the slightest.
And speaking of that... this might be the easiest RPG of all time? The game lets you use these essentially cheat code items if you want which makes the game easier than easy mode, and I think it's mainly for accessibility, but even without using any of them, it's extremely generous. I died a few times, but it was only due to foolishly battling without aiming for weaknesses and breaking enemy attacks. If you pay attention, use your skills accordingly and cook food often, you'll be absolutely fine, with the odd death to a boss here or there. There's also an extraordinarily generous amount of campfires around, which allow you to cook healing items and rest to heal your party. You can backtrack to these at any point after a battle, and the enemies don't respawn, so it's very forgiving if not a little bit too much as it can definitely be taken advantage of. But at the same time, who cares!
I really liked the minigame, Wheels, that you can play in taverns/inns, that was really fun to get the hang of, kind of like Yahtzee meets War with little figurines. Cool stuff!
Sea of Stars is really really cool and well worth your time, some of the characters I really liked and even if the story is just okay, I was still curious as to what's gonna happen next. And the "ending" just opens up more to do, which results in the true ending, and is absolutely worth playing more to witness. Just be prepared to explore a lot of the world for a certain type of collectible (thankfully there's only 60, and most of them you'll find without even trying, but expect to look up a guide for some specific hidden ones). I can't wait to see what Sabotage do next, they're killing it
Paper Mario for N64 and Persona 5 are some of the only turn-based RPG's I've played to the end and loved to death (Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door is also very high on that list). But they've never been my fave genre. All it took for me was knowing and trusting in Sabotage to deliver a top notch title and I was hooked pretty instantly from the start. The combat has timed attacks/blocks similar to Paper Mario, and lots of elemental special attacks/targeting weaknesses like Persona 5. I also loved that there's no random encounters like some JRPG's have where you're walking randomly and the screen flashes and you get sucked into a battle. Like the above games, Sea of Stars shows you enemies on the screen and you can run around them if you want, but it's best to fight 'em anyways for the XP.
The world, islands and towns are varied and interesting, with some standout areas (and some familiar for The Messenger fans), ultimately it's nothing you haven't seen in a fantasy RPG before... until it actually goes to some cool and unexpected places. I will admit, there's a moment in the story where I thought they were gonna suddenly pull a bait-and-switch like The Messenger famously does, but it's something different.
The story is fine, and the 2 main characters are unfortunately the least interesting of the bunch. All of your other party members, side characters and even the villains and bosses are more engaging. The plot constantly has you going from region to region, hopping from area to area without much of a suspenseful and engaging story to engage you with; honestly I didn't even know why I was going to a lot of these places other than the game just either telling me to go there or just placing me there automatically. It's mainly typical quest stuff, go to this dungeon, fight this boss and get this doodad, etc. and it was also a lot more linear than I was expecting (which isn't a bad thing!). There's some puzzles thrown in as well of course, but other than the endgame side quests, none of it was challenging in the slightest.
And speaking of that... this might be the easiest RPG of all time? The game lets you use these essentially cheat code items if you want which makes the game easier than easy mode, and I think it's mainly for accessibility, but even without using any of them, it's extremely generous. I died a few times, but it was only due to foolishly battling without aiming for weaknesses and breaking enemy attacks. If you pay attention, use your skills accordingly and cook food often, you'll be absolutely fine, with the odd death to a boss here or there. There's also an extraordinarily generous amount of campfires around, which allow you to cook healing items and rest to heal your party. You can backtrack to these at any point after a battle, and the enemies don't respawn, so it's very forgiving if not a little bit too much as it can definitely be taken advantage of. But at the same time, who cares!
I really liked the minigame, Wheels, that you can play in taverns/inns, that was really fun to get the hang of, kind of like Yahtzee meets War with little figurines. Cool stuff!
Sea of Stars is really really cool and well worth your time, some of the characters I really liked and even if the story is just okay, I was still curious as to what's gonna happen next. And the "ending" just opens up more to do, which results in the true ending, and is absolutely worth playing more to witness. Just be prepared to explore a lot of the world for a certain type of collectible (thankfully there's only 60, and most of them you'll find without even trying, but expect to look up a guide for some specific hidden ones). I can't wait to see what Sabotage do next, they're killing it