Let’s get the positives out of the way first: Sea of Stars has killer presentation. The pixel art (and charming Lunar-esque animated cutscenes) is some of the best in the genre and the soundtrack, while not exceptional, at least hits a solid tonal approximation of the games it’s emulating.

And that’s about it. A cup of Chrono Trigger, a scoop of Mario RPG, and a dash of Lunar, but with little idea of what makes those games classics, Sea of Stars ends up much less than the sum of its parts.

The battle system seems impressive at first glance, but after maybe an hour of play you’ve seen just about everything it has to offer. With a stunningly low number of skills per character and a nearly nonexistent sense of progression, the battles quickly become stagnant and more tedious than engaging. Hope you enjoy Moonerang!

That isn’t a dealbreaker though. After all, Lunar has repetitive combat too. Where Sea of Stars really falters is its awful pacing and flat, cardboard characters. Leads Zale and Valere are essentially worse than a silent protagonist in that there are two of them and they talk once every few hours of gameplay, and third banana Garl is one of the most irritating sidekicks in recent memory. Don’t worry though, the entire story REVOLVES around him.

Excelling at nothing but admittedly excellent pixel art, there’s no reason to play this over any of the games it’s imitating, which is the most damning thing I can say for a game made in 2023.

(Abandoned around 15 hours in at the titular location)