Definitely a substantial improvement from the earlier games. Decent pacing for the most part and some strong moments. Kevin is a really good protagonist. Can't believe star door 15 was even allowed to be put in. That shit was crazy.

However, while still better than the earlier games, it still has things holding it back dramatically for me. My main issue with the game is that it's fairly underwhelming for most of it as everything that it does is done better in other games or stories I've experienced. 3rd is a standard execution of its ideas that brings nothing new to the table nor does it in a way that feels very impactful for me.

Another problem I have with it is that while the pacing is decent and for sure better than the earlier games, it's still not very good for me. Not much actually happens for most of the game as it mostly just repeats a similar formula, barely deviating until the very end, which by then the story is immediately about to end. The combat and dungeon crawling do not really circumvent this issue as they're fairly unimpressive for me overall, and by this point in the series, I'm burnt out and want to see a major shake up to the combat. I'm also fully burnt out on the setting and cast of Liberl, which further accentuates this problem for me. Hopefully the crossbell games deliver on these fronts.

For a series I have spent more than 150 hours at this point to be this underwhelming, it's such a shame and also a bit annoying. Especially when it is a hyped up entry such as this one.

Probably my biggest disappointment of 2023

While Sea of Stars looks great and walking around the levels was fun due to its excellent soundtrack which accompany us across this adventure, that's all there is to it. It felt like one of the most hollow game I've ever played and that's such a shame because on the other hand it's also of the most spectacular pixel art out there.

There's just nothing interesting to find in Sea of Stars in my opinion, the story and characters never clicked at any point with me. The gameplay is empty and tries to keep you engaged with timed inputs during attack and defense but it felt more like something they added to hide the boring combat while it should have been here to add complexity to an already interesting one.

Talking about complexity, if it isn't present during combat maybe atleast we can customize our characters to a certain degree and have fun with it ? Well, not either, you get 2 accessory which adds almost nothing and that's it. Going off the beaten path if there is one (which rarely occurs) will almost never rewards you anything to be happy about and the overall difficulty of the game won't make it necessary to find such items anyway. I played Final Fantasy V a few months before and it's surprisingly sad how that game felt more recent than Sea of Stars on all points. The game was full of hidden items, there are dozens of hours to spend in customizing your characters and the game's difficulty ask you to think about it, if not you'll not be able to progress. I understand that not every game needs to be deep for players to enjoy it but I think they still need to have some spice to stand out among others.

I think that's the actual problem with Sea of Stars, that it tried to emulate the magic of old JRPGs but ultimately failed and more than that, it forsook all the cool things JRPGs has added to spice up the genre.

That's a damn shame because what could have been a great game and homage ended up being a very hollow experience.

innocent sin is very conscious of its context portraying the personal growth of teenagers within the lost decade of japan. we have a cast that finds themselves swept up in countless rumors, prophecies, and comfortable lies that struggle to find a grasp on who they are as people and how they can make their own mark on the world. while eternal punishment presents the harsh reality of adulthood, innocent sin is invested in addressing the aimlessness of japanese youth in its time period.

the PSP release of IS has some frustrating UI that moves a little too slow for my taste, but the dub in this version is iconic, with pretty much everyone being a perfect fit.

hoyoverse have one and only one thing they ever want to be doing: the epic shounen anime dramatic showdown scene. all the other writing building up to the big moment is frustrating -- characters launch into excessive monologues, overshare their life stories, do not react to critical new information or ask followup questions; the main character has an unusually high proportion of weird asshole dialogue lines in minor sidequests; there are problems with the lorebooks that would take a longer writeup to explain. this all looks like a bunch of scattershot complaints, but i really do think there is a deep and singular issue here with what the writing team think they're doing as opposed to what's actually happening on screen; i just haven't fully formulated the exact description of the problem yet.

on top of all this, it's a gacha single player game, and the wretchedly slow character progression systems that come with this are widely known. i'm used to these by now, but that doesn't mean it's good.

the dramatic moments are cool though! i'll have a good time with this for a bit -- at least the turn based poor-man's-smt battle system is something i enjoy, and it's fun to beat up goons in space sometimes -- but, especially after some experience with genshin, it's clear that this stuff is just not really for me.

EDIT: you know what, i'm bumping this up half a star cos some of the writing is winning me over. the text chats in particular are high level.

Genshin Impact if it was turn based, before finishing the tutorial I knew that the game already showed me almost every mechanic.
As always with this company the worst thing about this game is the gambling mechanic attached to it, the best and most interesting characters are tied to the gacha and if you are an unlucky person you are fucked. The best equipment is also tied to the gacha, the upgrades that are noticeable are also tied to the gacha, even if the game is very easy this is still a problem as the best way to be powerful it's not by playing but paying. The characters have 1 basic attack that it works almost always the same for every character, a special ability, a passive and an ultimate, and they don't combo in fancy or interesting ways, they do their own thing and that's it. Having this problem with how small your options when fighting are, the game really starts to feel to samey at the beggining, and as you know that the character will never learn a new skill, ability or similar it feels even worse, if the game is gonna be so slacking with the character drops then every character should have like 5 or 6 abilities at minimum.
The enemy variety it's also not the biggest forte of the game, taking me almost to just before you fight the important boss to find a new one, but before that you are fighting the same enemies for like 8 hours.
The game also picks the worst parts of Genshin an borrows them like they are good things like the artifact system, the Energy (Resin I believe it's called) system, daily quest that no one likes, locking the progress behing a account level system, etc.

I will not talk about the story as I skipped it as I finded it uninteresting by the end of the tutorial, maybe it's good later who knows, but I have to complain that I can't skip it if I don't find it interesting, so far Mihoyo is one of the few companies that does that.

And even if I didn't reach it I can say for sure that the endgame will be log in, do the daily quests, empty energy, exit, with a little of weekly progress.

Oh and BTW Taiwan it's a forbidden word in the game, just saying!.