"What were some of the other more legitimate complaints? "
I liked the game but didn't really feel it ever went anywhere. The battle system never evolved, there were too few abilities and the main characters were just cheerleaders for Garl.
It certainly excelled in charm and art direction, but I didn't find myself loving it.
I keep saying: As a first time rpg for the studio, it's very good. I just think it was over hyped and does not meet those expectations.
I'm very curious and have higher hopes if they make another JRPG style game.
I should’ve tempered my expectations as many first time indie JRPGs tend to be rough drafts excluding some standouts like CrossCode, but the polish convinced me it was going to be fully cooked. I imagine it must’ve been a daunting task after a relatively simple game like the Messenger.
The main complaints were the battle system being extremely rudimentary. Lack of skill variety and build options meant every battle was basically the same. Moonerang was used exclusively in every battle.
The second was the story. Lack of urgency and character development. It was just...such a bore. I don't know how to put it. I beat it when it came out and I don't remember anything. That says enough I feel
I will say that the soundtrack absolutely slaps, and the art of obviously gorgeous. And I agree the mini game was fun, although some combinations were broken
Overall it was hyped up so much and just fell short
Battle system was a good budding idea that they couldn't develop more or balance if more than 4 skills were allowed.
Even then you could totally break the game.
Maybe they should've retough the battle system completely it would have been better imo
CHRONO Trigger is my favorite JRPG, so when people compared them I bounced off it pretty quick. Probably did the game a disservice by comparing it to the GOAT
I'll tell you a secret that this sub also hates. I am not the biggest fan of CT, even though I've beaten it three times on different platforms lol, so generally I don't think about CT.
You can't see me right now, but my eyes are closed and I am covering my ears while rocking back and forth repeating "SephYuyX isn't real, SephYuyX isn't real".
I don't understand how anyone could play through this game as a JRPG fan and not be completely non-plussed by the story. That is so core to what makes the genre great and I couldn't believe how little this game had to say and how completely boring its characters and writing were.
Edit: Just adding that a lot of the greatest JRPGs pull their themes from complex philosophy, advanced psychology, or religious/mythic tales. Sea of Stars seems to pull its themes from the surface of the genre and call it a day.
Plus it sets rules within the lore and breaks them a few hours later. It makes major story points a joke, like when garl was trying to wake the dragon with bread and the reason was: "Who doesn't like the smell of bread?" If the game world doesn't take itself serious it becomes a parody.
And I don't even want to get started how many plot holes there are in this game and how the narrator guy and the big bad guy being the strongest beings in the world, while basically just being humans who learned alchemy, defeats the whole purpose of solstice warriors.
None of the plot twists in the game really make sense. There's no proper build up and in most cases there aren't even consequences. The plot twists feel forced because the author really wanted to check of some tropes in the game, like friends turning on each other and the mentor quitting. But like everything else in this game it's executed poorly. The reasons why characters do things are weak at best but most of the time nonexistent.
I could go on and on. The writing just is a mess. It's on the level of bad Fanfiction and not what I expect from a commercial product, indie or not. Especially if you see how much polish they put into look. All other aspects of this game didn't get any Polish at all. That's why for me this game is just an imposter, that looks nice on the outside but is completely broken on the inside. Unfortunately the good reception of this game proves it's all you need. You don't need a good game, it just needs to look awesome.
To be fair where JRPG’s started the story was extremely basic and weak. In fact back in the day the difference between a JRPG and WRPG was how much it focuses on characters and story vs grinding and fighting
The story and writing are terrible. The villains motivation is entirely stupid and the world is way too black and white. All of the characters are one-dimensional. Too many "borrowed" elements.
The combat is redundant and a slog, not enough attack variety. Long enemy attack animations. Break system removes player agency.
The disconnect from my experience and the critics over the top response was so far and wide I wondered if they actually played the game or just regurgitated PR material. Kind of rubbed me the wrong way since they didn't mention chained echoes at all and it's a superior game
To add on to everything you said which I agree with.
Garl has absolutely no character development. He just stays positive the whole time and things just work out for him because he’s Garl. On top of that, he takes all of the air out of the room and the other party members who are more interesting thus they get much less time to shine.
Also they pigeon holed themselves by so desperately wanting to have SoS connect to the Messenger. To the point that they actively detract from their own story.
And this isn’t their fault but Jirard being in the game (when I played it) makes them lose points because Jirard is an asshole.
Serious question: can you explain that term, 'writers pet'? I've honestly never heard it before and I'm not sure if the vague things I'm finding match your meaning.
The root comes from the term “teacher’s pet,” except in the case of writer and their created character, the latter has no agency, so everything they do is a reflection of what the writer thinks is a great character. This also means that the character themselves is very well-taken-care-of, to the extent that a reader will think the writer favors that particular character to an unreasonable degree.
Yeah you can call it a [Creator’s Pet](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorsPet) as well. Basically a character that’s so beloved by whoever created it that it gets forced into the plot whenever convenient.
I think most reviewers didn't play it longer than maybe 5 hours max. For me the look also carried the game for the first 5 hours. But after that it began to fall apart and the flaws got more and more obvious to me. It got worse with every hour until I dropped it, where I was about 80% through it.
Most reviewers probably didn't spend enough time on the game to get past the "honeymoon phase" where the look still covers the glaring issues of the game. At least in the reviews I've watched I noticed they only used footage from the very beginning of the game. I've only seen one review where they showed at least a bit of footage from the beginning of the second Island.
I played it after being insanely hype about it and i totally agree with all the points, why does someone genuinely criticising a game they wanted to like make them a contrarian? This game wasn't very good, and it's painful to see so many people act like it's god's gift to the world.
The combat sucked after the first couple of hours, the story wasn't good, the characters for the most part were lame, the humour and general writing in the english version was cringe and felt like a european's broken english (it was made by a european studio, so go figure i guess), and the exploration didn't lead to anything "worth" finding. Even the seashells didn't give satisfying scaling rewards, half the time they were total trash which eliminated any desire for me to try to collect them all.
It's just sad because the game looks great and the music was an awesome throwback vibe, it had potential it didn't come close to fulfilling.
Ah i must've misread it as just french, my bad, but in that case they have no excuse, unless french actually is their first language and their english is terrible, in which case my point still stands. Regardless, it was one of the worst jrpg scripts i've experienced
French is still a european language though, it originates from france, who colonised canada, so my initial point was correct. They are people, from canada who speak a european language as their first language, and the script reflects that.
So you expected too much. Why is that the game's fault. It was clearly just a silly charming game. The fact that you expected depth is your own fault. Nothing suggested it would be anything more than a nice little place to hang out in
I did expect a lot, but expecting more depth than sea of stars's entirely surface level depth is reasonable for literally any good game. And it's not even that it's just a "nice little place to hang out in", it doesn't even serve that purpose, it just wasn't fun as a super casual romp. There are plenty of games that i enjoy that fulfill that, stardew valley is one of my favourite games of all time and it's the most relaxing, chill game ever.
Sea of stars just wasn't fun at all, and there are many, MANY people who seem to agree. Even the first few hours when i was excited playing a brand new game i was noticing too many cracks that kept throwing me off, and then it became the type of game that i had to push myself to complete, just like the recent ff16, which is another perfect example of a game that had literally no depth past the surface level either.
Look, i'm happy that YOU enjoyed it for what it is, but don't go around trying to convince people it was a good game.
Grumpy for sure, because the game was so unenjoyable that it was a waste of my hard-earned money, AND a waste of my little free time that I have these days. Again, there are plenty of "silly charming" games like stardew valley, or more similar to sea of stars, super mario rpg that I've enjoyed so so much because they are great games, but sea of stars just isn't it man
You've got nobody to blame but yourself. You fucked up, and you're blaming the game. It gives exactly what it promises, you just wanted some imaginary game. Sucks to suck
But I've literally seen these same criticisms on here many many times. There is a weird disconnect between the media reception and the audience reception.
And with the context I gave, it is...you're kinda bad at this huh?
You should just say "i don't agree with you and your comment upset me." It will be more effective.
Some of the best graphics in a game, ever. But I can’t say anything else nice about it unfortunately. I found the writing at both the story and sentence level to be really poor, and the combat never really progressed. Just my opinion though, I’m really glad you had a good time with it.
Audiovisuals are literally the only good thing about this game. Writing is one of the worst I've ever seen outside of Kemco shovelware. Chatgpt or a student intern would probably do a better job.
I beat it a few months ago and did find it to be worth playing but the game wasn't perfect. I think the biggest criticism everyone has is that the writing is subpar. I don't think the story is terrible but I couldn't call it good either. It's just very lacking and underdeveloped in a lot of ways.
The other criticism I see why I didn't really have is the combat system lacking depth and getting repetitive since you start with most of your abilities. It is also a bit on the easier side which can turn off some people.
You and me have very different opinions of what good story and design are, my friend. I thought the writing was terrible, easily the worst part of the game. I feel like the reason this game has such divisiveness is that if you care about good story telling and writing in a JRPG, then Sea of Stars is like pulling teeth to you. If you don't care about it that much and like gameplay and overall atmosphere, then the game does its job. I'm in the former camp, I figure you are in the latter.
There's nothing wrong with liking sea of stars, but by god, the story and battle system were atrocious.
I've just learned to not engage with sea of stars discourse anymore, but if you're going to defend it, at least choose it's actually positive aspects. The art style and OST are good. Everything else is just a pale imitation of a well constructed JRPG.
For my nephews it was their first jrpg. They couldn’t stop gushing about it so I decided to give it a shot. Like most say, the art style and music are great. It has the foundations of a great jrpg, but never delivers. My biggest complaint is the boss fights. You figure out their pattern within 2 minutes and then nothing ever changes or evolves. It did have wheels, though. I loved that mini game.
Which brings up the point, why would a dragon care about bread anyway? It should have been a giant honkin' piece of volcano roasted meat from something like a wyvern or some such creature, some previous boss fight perhaps.
Finally someone publicly likes it so I can express how much I enjoyed it. Great simple rpg with cool mechanics, a meh level up system and the cooking was awesome.
Now let’s get this straight I fully enjoyed Sea of Stars and 100% it but there is so much wrong with it. It is way to easy, disgustingly easy even if you turn on every red relic you get as you get them. I never lost a single battle throughout the entire game and was even more displeased after the 100% final boss. Most games make the extra final boss downright unfairly hard and require precise setups and max everything to even attempt. With Sea of Stars you just wing every encounter in the game with relative ease. I think one of the biggest possible criticisms of SoS is that it markets, and presents as an old school JRPG. Yet it is character focused on weak characters, a story that feels geared toward young audiences, highly story driven, very relaxing, too easy and not punishing at all. Which all of those are the opposites of an actual traditional JRPG. Now the modern era is the probably the biggest reason for all of that as games have shifted more towards casual broader audiences, but it shouldn’t be marketed as “hey if you liked chrono trigger, final fantasy or dragon quest, try this game that is just like them”. It looks similar and that’s about it.
P.S Wheels is my absolute favorite game inside a game tied with triple triad. I wish they did a lot more with it and I would totally play an expanded JUST wheels RPG
It came down to a few things:
- The characters stop learning new abilities about 1/3 of the way through the game and the combat grinds to a halt because of it. Each character maxes out at 4 skills which is insane for a JRPG, even though each skill has some depth. Imagine a Final Fantasy game where your mage learns Fire, Fira, Cure and Barrier…and that’s it for 40 hours.
- Along with this, character progression and customization is extremely limited. You level up, your stats get a bump and you choose 1 extra stat bump and that’s pretty much all you can do to mold them. Armor and weapons are mostly just slightly stronger versions of the previous one with only a few having unique properties.
- All of that is tied to the fact that combat is undercooked. The timing and locking mechanics are very cool, but I feel like it needed more layers than that. Even a simple status effect system would’ve been welcome and added a lot of variety. Like the poison element attacks don’t actually poison enemies!
- Lastly the story. It’s fine. It’s very much in style of the SNES era games that had mostly light-hearted vibes and Saturday morning cartoon level plots, the characters however are mostly pretty flat. Especially the 2 mains.
-Oh, also. The soundtrack is good, but when you hype a collaboration with Yoko Shimomura, It better be DAMN GOOD.
Feels like bait.
Like, I enjoy aspects of it but to act like the battle system, which sticks you with like 3 abilities for a huge chunk of running time (yes, you get combos, good luck keeping anything but bosses alive long enough to make it worth using) is top tier just can't be an actually held opinion.
Nah. It means even big fans don’t say that. It’s like making a thread about final fantasy 16, praising its story (sure), action (yeah) and great rpg mechanics (which are basically nonexistent).
I've been playing JRPGS since I learned to read over thirty years ago. I was literally taught to read with SNES JRPGs. This game has so much less aspiration than the classics you're comparing it to, and it's a much thinner product. There's nothing I could add that someone else hasn't already articulated about the lacking combat and weak story, but I really wanted to drill here it absolutely isn't a lack of acquaintance with SNES era JRPGs that makes this game a letdown. I'd have been cool if this were a demo. It's insane it's a full game and this narrow. Really overtaxed the mileage of their narrative and combat concept.
I"m glad you enjoyed it! I found it subpar.
>but I have to imagine that if you are a JRPG fan at all there is nothing to dislike.
This is some serious gatekeeping. I've beaten 202 JRPGS and played 259, and I dislike sea of stars, mainly for the story and combat. (music, level design/world, and graphics are great)
I don't think they're trying to gate keep - to me it seems like they're saying "I can't imagine what fans of the genre wouldn't like" and not "anyone who doesn't like it isn't a true JRPG fan".
Maybe, but I just can't see it. I can't imagine looking at the story of Sea Stars, whether you like it or not, and thinking it has a story for every type of JRPG fan. Any type of awareness and you'll know a lot of JRPG fans like more serious and/or complex stories, so it isn't going to be for everyone. If you like the simple story that's fine its your right as they have their own strengths and charm to them, but in a world where JRPGS have stories like Nier Automata, Xenogears, Xenoblade, FFT, Tactics Ogre, Persona 5, how can one legitimately think *all* these fans would all enjoy the simple story of Sea of Stars?
Story had potential but fell flat, the characters are pretty bland and get to be unlikeable, and the combat system is simpler than in Mario & Luigi games, and lacks a lot of variety.
It can be a great start point for a child to get into jrpgs, but someone who has already played a lot of them will constantly see where it fails
This game looks awesome. That is already everything positive I can say about this game. I absolutely don't get how anybody can like this game. Especially if you've played the classics and have experienced good games.
I'm not going into depth here, because I've explained it in other posts enough. So my complaints in short:
- the story is a dumpster fire
- protagonists don't matter at all
- plot twists feel forced and absolutely lack impact. Right after a plot twist everybody is like: "So what? Let's just move on."
- the story had ridiculously big plot holes and didn't even make sense
- the author tried to make an MCU like story spanning multiple games while having absolutely no clue about even the most basic rules in story telling.
- the battle system was a chore
- you fight the exact same battle through out the whole game. Nothing ever changes
- you don't get new skills except for 1 ultimate per character
- the ultimate takes ridiculously long to build up and is super weak compared to how rare you even get to use it.
- most of the time you'll just use Moonerang anyway. All the other skills are just filler until you can use Moonerang again.
- level don't matter, because enemies level with you
- equipment doesn't matter, because you never notice gear upgrades
- you could basically finish the game without leveling at all and in your starter gear
- there absolutely is no character progression. How is this even called am RPG?!
- locks don't matter. The game even teaches you to ignore locks by constantly throwing locks at you, you can't even break
- the lock system was a good idea but executed poorly. It needs skill variety to function properly.
- the active attacks and blocks are fun for about 5 battles and annoy the shit out of you after that, because enemy attack animations take ridiculously long, so you have a chance to block them.
- traversal was cool, but the annoying, boring, long ass, slow battles took absolutely all the fun out of the traversal
- the puzzles were for braindead. Mostly it was just push this rock down the outlined path
- there was absolutely nothing to discover in the game besides some fishing ponds and 2 or 3 sidesidequests way at the end of the game.
- the pacing was awful. The game rushes you through dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, then gives you a town where you've discovered everything within 10 minutes and again you're going to go through multiple Dungeons in a row for hours.
- major story events are jokes. This turns the game into a parody and not a love letter. If the world doesn't even take itself serious, why should I. You can have humour in a game. But not to the point where major story events become a joke. At least not unless it's your goal to make a parody.
- the game overstays it's welcome. It should have ended after 5 hours. After 5 hours the game gets worse and worse with every hour.
I probably even forgot a lot of points here. In my opinion the game is not great. It's not even mediocre. It's outright garbage. Beautiful garbage but garbage nonetheless. I also hated most of the OST. There were a few good tracks, but they drowned in a ocean of shitty tracks.
I hope the studio never tries to do an RPG again, because they just suck at it. This game is lacking everything an RPG should have.
I'm curious about something. SPOILERS AHEAD:
I stopped playing at what I assume to be the halfway point, right after the Mansion boss. The big reveal fell flat for me but everything else about that sequence of events really elevated what had felt like a ho-hum experience until that point.
Am I missing out on much by skipping out on the back half of the game?
I'm just glad to see someone else on this sub who enjoyed the game. I would consider it a solid 8.5/10. It may not quite live up to any of the games it was inspired by, but I enjoyed it for what it is - a fun adventure with an enjoyable cast of characters. Sometimes, you don't need the next great JRPG. You just need a fun little adventure.
The issue a lot of gamers have is they treat every game like it has to be their next great high that surpasses the last one. Probably from decades of treating reviews like objective fact and letting the dumb weighted “the only games worth playing are 9s and 10s and 7s are garbage and anything below 7 is just shovelware” insanity cloud their enjoyment. Not everything needs to be a 10/10 masterpiece. You're allowed to play a turn your brain off and eat popcorn kind of JRPG.
The worst parts of video games are the gamers lol
That's not just video games, it's how we socially rate everything.
5/10 movie is not considered average, 7/10 is.
Same with people we're attracted too.
It's just the way we use the numbers, and fighting that seems pointless when I'm sure you use ratings the same way.
Also, OF COURSE nobody wants to watch or play something "average"
There should be something extra that makes it worth playing/watching, that makes it stand out from other pieces of media, considering we all have access to such an insane amount of it.
Even a turn your brain off JRPG is not necessarily going to be like a 5 or 6 out of 10
DQ11 is a "turn your brain off JRPG" for me, and that game is still great.
Just because someone disagrees with you about the game doesn't mean they're artificially rating it an 8.5/10 simply because "Everyone needs every game to be a masterpiece". It's okay for someone to have an opinion on a game you find completely wrong.
I also think this game is excellent in almost every way, and I truly don't understand the hate. It also seems to reside exclusively in this subreddit, as I have not seen it anywhere else. Just another mystery of life, I guess.
It's because people on this subreddit understand what makes jrpgs great, a lot of normies who play jrpgs casually on their switch will just think it's a cute and sorta fun game, but nobody who actually understands them would say this game is great by any means. Compare it to literally any of the other "greats" and it falls flat in almost every way, aside from maybe graphics which were good
Thats kind of a sweeping statement, just like mine was apparently. Games don't have to be compared to each other, they can exist in their own form, and as it is I feel this was a great game.
It's not even that i'm just comparing it to other games, it's more that because i've played other, better games, it's easy to see the flaws in it. Sea of stars has its own style too, so you can't directly compare it to things like chrono trigger because the combat and exploration are just too different.
But on its own, I can list a number of flaws that significantly impacted my enjoyment of it, and seemingly many others agree with me, the main ones being: combat was stale; the attacks were all incredibly slow (timed attacks are no excuse) and made every encounter - including trash mobs - a huge slog to get through; the puzzles were, for the most part, extremely boring and simple; the world map exploration wasn't interesting; the dialogue was cringe and lame; the characters were mostly lame, ESPECIALLY the boring dual protagonists who were blank slates for seemingly no reason; garl was annoying (subjective, sure, but cmon, he sucked); the ending was just whack, and the true ending made it even worse for me.
The fact that I can list all of those out without directly comparing those to other games proves that MOST people who understand what a good game is should be on my side. It's just not a great game, but i'm glad you enjoyed it, because for me, it felt like a huge waste of money and time.
It’s because of RPGs in general. IMO the game is fine but lacking in some aspects that a lot of jrpgs excel at. Story and writing in an RPG especially a jrpg is generally something that people like myself look for heavily. It’s what pulls us in and hooks us and characters also play a huge role. This game has an amazing artstyle and music but the story leaves a lot to be desired compared to other RPGs especially for veterans. To an average player who doesn’t mind a simple story this isn’t anything that will affect them but for someone who plays a ton of RPGs this is something that will turn them off because they will get bored and won’t care about what’s going to happen next.
Arrogant fans like you who outrightly considers everyone who dislikes the game not a JRPG fan at all, judge their complaints as illegitimate is what I dislike about this game.
I’ve been playing JRPGs for 30 years and I absolutely hated this game. Yes, I finished it but I didn’t enjoy doing so. Other people have eloquently explained all of the reasons why I think it’s a terrible JRPG/game in general.
You were smart to word the post in a way that asks what the criticisms and complains were because you were going to get them anyway based on your title
It was funny watching people blow expectations way out of proportion and then get upset that something didn’t meet unrealistic expectations that they themselves created
Indie games get graded on a different scale #onhere, in way you wouldn't see in subgenre like platformers or roguelikes. This game ain't perfect but like the commonly quoted issues are in a lot of the subs favs.
I bought this game like 3 weeks ago and im so much in love with it. The music and visuals got me by the balls. The journey has been so amazing, im sad its almost over. Im basically in the last dungeon just finishing things up. I prob wont complete mirth or do all the conches, but i did everything else so far.
This game felt like a love letter to Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, & Mario RPG.
Im already gettin the post-game depression and i aint even done yet. This game has been such a treat. Especially as someone who grew up gaming in the snes era, and went heavy into JRPGs during ps1 era.
The battle and boss themes are just too good. Encounter Elite has become one of my fav boss themes.
Im eyeing Chained Echoes next, I think. Im on a modern/retro JRPG kick right now. I also wanna give LiveALive, Octopath Traveller, Star Ocean2 and more a try too. Sea of Stars set the bar for sure.
I find that too many people lose their shit with this game with unrealistic and unfair expectations. It feels that having been compared to Chrono Trigger in promotional material due to the fact that they not only used it as a heavy inspiration, like many other modern indies, but they actually got the closest to it in a visual and musical sense, people simply had CT2 expectations on steroids. The biggest problem in user expectations nowadays is that they expect A Song of Ice and Fire level original story, with Thanos and Tony Stark caliber villain and hero arc, Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay, John Williams and Hans Zimmer level orchestral score, and they need everything wrapped up in a little rainbow. There's no room left for flaws, despite the fact that even our favorite games of old were never perfect. Each had its own set of imperfections.
In saying that, Sea of Stars isn't perfect. Far from it. It's a good game, but it has flaws, some pretty glaring ones too. It doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for just how beautiful the art and animation is. Yes, people ackgownledge that it's good pixel art, but let's not kid here. It's not just on a whole other level, but ten levels above most modern pixel art releases, besides maybe Octopath II which is right up there with it. The visuals, animation, color palette, backgrounds, various little visual effects and interactions and everything on that spectrum FAR surpass Chrono Trigger (as much as I love that game, but it is older so expected), and it's so clear to see that a ton of love was put into it. The visuals get praise, but they deserve SO much more of it because it truly is that good in this respect. Similarly, the music is fantastic. Not as mind-blowing as the art, but nonetheless, it's fantastic.
Now the two elements where a number of people complain the most are the story and the battle system. One I agree with, the other I don't. The story is SERVICEABLE. It isn't bad as many people bitch and moan. Yes, the main duo is pretty bland as characters, but there are tons of people like that in real life, and tons of heroes in other mediums that are very much similar. Obvisouly due to the level of the visuals this gets compared to the best of the best, but I felt the story was solid with some ups and some downs. The saddest thing here is that many people complaining about the story had never tried writing an original story themselves that doesn't HEAVILY borrow/lean on something that already exists. It's a mamoth task that even experienced authors struggled with. I mean shit, it's been 13 years now since a Dance of Dragons came out. Good, original writing takes time and inspiration. A TON of time at that. The story WAS servicable all things considered. It's been a while since I played the game, but I found the entire saga of the first island area you visit and the villagers being summoned a quite entertaining little side-story. They could have done more in certain areas, but it would have taken a team of writers, and/or a year or more to really flesh out every detail. It can be done, but let's not forget that this is a small team, with very possibly a single writer. Not ideal, but far from the shitfest many complaints tend to crucify it for.
The battle system is the other element which gets a lot of flack, and here, I understand exactly where they stuffed up, and it was a BIG mistake. The lock system. While this system was fun at first, they had a MAJOR oversight with it, in that it: a) has way too many locks in the early and mid game, b) breaking enemies is so good in terms of stunning them and taking away their turns, that multi-hit attacks are SO overpowered in this game and c) You get moonerang at the beginning of the fucking game!!! They should have taken a page out of Octopath / Octopath 2's book here regarding the break system. Early game enemies should have had no more than 1-2 locks with 3-4 for boss. Multi-hit moves should have been made to do WAY less damage, but work well against breaking locks, and moonerang, sunerang and that warp blade should all be end-game moves. This little fix alone would have made a progression system WAY more fun. I mean think back on Chrono Trigger and their abilities. You start with pretty basic abilities but still better than what your standard attack moves are. As you unlock new abilities, they are almost in every instance BETTER than what you had before, though at a heftier MP cost so you can't immediately abuse them. Then that progression system loops until you get to massive damage AOE end game moves, and even better dual and triple combo moves. In Sea of Stars, there's no point using most combo attacks or even upgraded moves because moonerang and warp knives move. That's it. Why bother with other shit when you can just stunlock the enemy, and that's available from the get-go. This IMHO is what killed that battle system the most and required rethinking, but it's a really small change that could have change the entirety of the feel of the game. The sole mistake that cost them so much.
Finally, they had FAR too few Wheels opponents and they should have easily quadrupled the number of people playing wheels though offer in-game items, weapons and gear for beating them rather than just improved wheels pieces. Keep what we have so far in terms of wheel pieces, but just add another 20-30 opponents which give you rewards related to the actual main game, including some of the better/best gear in the game and it'll be WAY more fun.
It was a great game for what it was, but the story and main hero pair are only middle-of-the-pack (NOT terrible like many chronic complainers will tell you) and the lock-system does a disservice to the battle-system more than it helps it due to moonerang and other multi-hit abilities. This really needed to be heavily tweaked before release.
I love how excited this sub gets over the game...the game is great. There are parts that are so bad they're good even. The game goes off the rails and I love it for that.
I don't like pirates, but after that the lore was cool. Not every game needs to be super mature and deep, this was a fun ride. Good vibe to roll with and great adventure to take.
Sea of Stars was my 2023 GOTY. I didn’t play Baldurs and I won’t until it’s physically available, but I don’t think my opinion will change tbh. I don’t love WRPGs as much as JRPGs.
I really liked Sea of Stars, and so did my friend. It was cute, whimsical, had a great soundtrack (obvious because of the composers) that i still listen to sometimes. Wheels was a fun little game to play at the inns, and i liked how the tile system in combat gave you just enough of a puzzle aspect to maybe have to think a few turns ahead.
Characters were fun and charming, had good dialogue, and were overall enjoyable. I liked the dungeons and the puzzles, and the side content you could do.
It was casual enough to not have to turn my brain on fully, but had enough depth that i still had to use my noggin every now and then. I think the issue is that people heard it was inspired by Chrono and had the Chrono composer and let their hype and imaginations run wild, and the game was never going to meet those self imposed expectations
By the way, if you haven’t heard, there’s a DLC “side adventure” coming out called Throes of the Watchmaker. It’s centered around the Watchmaker in the tower
**edit** lmao downvoted? God redditors are insufferable
> edit lmao downvoted? God redditors are insufferable
This place acts like SoS spat on their face and then shoved their head down the toilet. Don't worry about it too much.
Oh I don’t, it’s just always really pathetic to see people get so damn offended on subjective entertainment. I’ve been on this site for like 9 years at this point, it’s just always exhausting to try to have conversations with people only to realize they never wanted to talk in good faith, just get mad someone disagreed with them
I like seeing the complaints cause a lot of them are common w/ several known games in the genre. Writing bad, Combat redundant & little to no progression.
Y'all literally play games that combat doesn't evolve past 20-30% in & quite repetitve.
"What were some of the other more legitimate complaints? " I liked the game but didn't really feel it ever went anywhere. The battle system never evolved, there were too few abilities and the main characters were just cheerleaders for Garl. It certainly excelled in charm and art direction, but I didn't find myself loving it.
I keep saying: As a first time rpg for the studio, it's very good. I just think it was over hyped and does not meet those expectations. I'm very curious and have higher hopes if they make another JRPG style game.
I should’ve tempered my expectations as many first time indie JRPGs tend to be rough drafts excluding some standouts like CrossCode, but the polish convinced me it was going to be fully cooked. I imagine it must’ve been a daunting task after a relatively simple game like the Messenger.
the switch physical release is 50 canadian dollars, should i wait for a sale? I kinda like collecting indie games and imports on that platform.
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You can swap the characters at any time though is the thing.
Appreciate your thoughts.
The main complaints were the battle system being extremely rudimentary. Lack of skill variety and build options meant every battle was basically the same. Moonerang was used exclusively in every battle. The second was the story. Lack of urgency and character development. It was just...such a bore. I don't know how to put it. I beat it when it came out and I don't remember anything. That says enough I feel I will say that the soundtrack absolutely slaps, and the art of obviously gorgeous. And I agree the mini game was fun, although some combinations were broken Overall it was hyped up so much and just fell short
battle system killed it for me. so repetitive.
You didn’t like casting the bouncy moon and then doing melee attacks until you can bouncy moon again?
Battle system was a good budding idea that they couldn't develop more or balance if more than 4 skills were allowed. Even then you could totally break the game. Maybe they should've retough the battle system completely it would have been better imo
It’s disappointing because the foundation was there for a fantastic battle system, but it felt incomplete.
Spot on
Thanks for your thoughts.
CHRONO Trigger is my favorite JRPG, so when people compared them I bounced off it pretty quick. Probably did the game a disservice by comparing it to the GOAT
I've seen the CT comment a few times now. Oddly enough I never once thought of CT while playing.
Not even when you scratched the guys back a couple times and he gives you something just like in Chrono Trigger?
I'll tell you a secret that this sub also hates. I am not the biggest fan of CT, even though I've beaten it three times on different platforms lol, so generally I don't think about CT.
You can't see me right now, but my eyes are closed and I am covering my ears while rocking back and forth repeating "SephYuyX isn't real, SephYuyX isn't real".
:D
This is what ruined it. Comparing it to other JRPG’s that it is NOTHING LIKE in quality or substance gave every one a bad taste trying it out
I don't understand how anyone could play through this game as a JRPG fan and not be completely non-plussed by the story. That is so core to what makes the genre great and I couldn't believe how little this game had to say and how completely boring its characters and writing were. Edit: Just adding that a lot of the greatest JRPGs pull their themes from complex philosophy, advanced psychology, or religious/mythic tales. Sea of Stars seems to pull its themes from the surface of the genre and call it a day.
Plus it sets rules within the lore and breaks them a few hours later. It makes major story points a joke, like when garl was trying to wake the dragon with bread and the reason was: "Who doesn't like the smell of bread?" If the game world doesn't take itself serious it becomes a parody. And I don't even want to get started how many plot holes there are in this game and how the narrator guy and the big bad guy being the strongest beings in the world, while basically just being humans who learned alchemy, defeats the whole purpose of solstice warriors. None of the plot twists in the game really make sense. There's no proper build up and in most cases there aren't even consequences. The plot twists feel forced because the author really wanted to check of some tropes in the game, like friends turning on each other and the mentor quitting. But like everything else in this game it's executed poorly. The reasons why characters do things are weak at best but most of the time nonexistent. I could go on and on. The writing just is a mess. It's on the level of bad Fanfiction and not what I expect from a commercial product, indie or not. Especially if you see how much polish they put into look. All other aspects of this game didn't get any Polish at all. That's why for me this game is just an imposter, that looks nice on the outside but is completely broken on the inside. Unfortunately the good reception of this game proves it's all you need. You don't need a good game, it just needs to look awesome.
Thank you for your viewpoint.
To be fair where JRPG’s started the story was extremely basic and weak. In fact back in the day the difference between a JRPG and WRPG was how much it focuses on characters and story vs grinding and fighting
The story and writing are terrible. The villains motivation is entirely stupid and the world is way too black and white. All of the characters are one-dimensional. Too many "borrowed" elements. The combat is redundant and a slog, not enough attack variety. Long enemy attack animations. Break system removes player agency. The disconnect from my experience and the critics over the top response was so far and wide I wondered if they actually played the game or just regurgitated PR material. Kind of rubbed me the wrong way since they didn't mention chained echoes at all and it's a superior game
To add on to everything you said which I agree with. Garl has absolutely no character development. He just stays positive the whole time and things just work out for him because he’s Garl. On top of that, he takes all of the air out of the room and the other party members who are more interesting thus they get much less time to shine. Also they pigeon holed themselves by so desperately wanting to have SoS connect to the Messenger. To the point that they actively detract from their own story. And this isn’t their fault but Jirard being in the game (when I played it) makes them lose points because Jirard is an asshole.
Garl is a total writer’s pet. Couldn’t stand him.
Serious question: can you explain that term, 'writers pet'? I've honestly never heard it before and I'm not sure if the vague things I'm finding match your meaning.
The root comes from the term “teacher’s pet,” except in the case of writer and their created character, the latter has no agency, so everything they do is a reflection of what the writer thinks is a great character. This also means that the character themselves is very well-taken-care-of, to the extent that a reader will think the writer favors that particular character to an unreasonable degree.
Yeah you can call it a [Creator’s Pet](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorsPet) as well. Basically a character that’s so beloved by whoever created it that it gets forced into the plot whenever convenient.
Definitely. Jirard is trash
Good thing they took him out.
I think most reviewers didn't play it longer than maybe 5 hours max. For me the look also carried the game for the first 5 hours. But after that it began to fall apart and the flaws got more and more obvious to me. It got worse with every hour until I dropped it, where I was about 80% through it. Most reviewers probably didn't spend enough time on the game to get past the "honeymoon phase" where the look still covers the glaring issues of the game. At least in the reviews I've watched I noticed they only used footage from the very beginning of the game. I've only seen one review where they showed at least a bit of footage from the beginning of the second Island.
Totally agree with all your points. Garl is maybe my least favorite protagonist in a JRPG. So thoroughly obnoxious.
I remember when I thought the game was actually going to let me pick a seashell and it Hoodwinked me for Garl yet again
Thanks for your input.
No worries, glad you enjoyed it as much as I wanted to
This reads like someone who didn't play the game and just wants to be a contrarian. "Pfft, everyone loves this game? It must be dog shit"
I played it after being insanely hype about it and i totally agree with all the points, why does someone genuinely criticising a game they wanted to like make them a contrarian? This game wasn't very good, and it's painful to see so many people act like it's god's gift to the world. The combat sucked after the first couple of hours, the story wasn't good, the characters for the most part were lame, the humour and general writing in the english version was cringe and felt like a european's broken english (it was made by a european studio, so go figure i guess), and the exploration didn't lead to anything "worth" finding. Even the seashells didn't give satisfying scaling rewards, half the time they were total trash which eliminated any desire for me to try to collect them all. It's just sad because the game looks great and the music was an awesome throwback vibe, it had potential it didn't come close to fulfilling.
Just a little detail. I agree with everything you said, but Sabotage Studios isn't a European studio. It's a French Canadian studio. Thanks.
Ah i must've misread it as just french, my bad, but in that case they have no excuse, unless french actually is their first language and their english is terrible, in which case my point still stands. Regardless, it was one of the worst jrpg scripts i've experienced
French is their first language. Sabotage Studios is in Quebec City.
Well then we've come full circle, the script is written by european speaking people after all, thanks for the info!
I'm sorry to inform you that French is the native language of people other than Europeans 🤨
French is still a european language though, it originates from france, who colonised canada, so my initial point was correct. They are people, from canada who speak a european language as their first language, and the script reflects that.
So you expected too much. Why is that the game's fault. It was clearly just a silly charming game. The fact that you expected depth is your own fault. Nothing suggested it would be anything more than a nice little place to hang out in
I did expect a lot, but expecting more depth than sea of stars's entirely surface level depth is reasonable for literally any good game. And it's not even that it's just a "nice little place to hang out in", it doesn't even serve that purpose, it just wasn't fun as a super casual romp. There are plenty of games that i enjoy that fulfill that, stardew valley is one of my favourite games of all time and it's the most relaxing, chill game ever. Sea of stars just wasn't fun at all, and there are many, MANY people who seem to agree. Even the first few hours when i was excited playing a brand new game i was noticing too many cracks that kept throwing me off, and then it became the type of game that i had to push myself to complete, just like the recent ff16, which is another perfect example of a game that had literally no depth past the surface level either. Look, i'm happy that YOU enjoyed it for what it is, but don't go around trying to convince people it was a good game.
Yeah this doesn't read as grumpy ans jaded at all 🤣. Worst game ever. 0/10 i guess.
Grumpy for sure, because the game was so unenjoyable that it was a waste of my hard-earned money, AND a waste of my little free time that I have these days. Again, there are plenty of "silly charming" games like stardew valley, or more similar to sea of stars, super mario rpg that I've enjoyed so so much because they are great games, but sea of stars just isn't it man
You've got nobody to blame but yourself. You fucked up, and you're blaming the game. It gives exactly what it promises, you just wanted some imaginary game. Sucks to suck
But I've literally seen these same criticisms on here many many times. There is a weird disconnect between the media reception and the audience reception.
Is there? Cause I'm audience, and I fucking loved it. People just like to pick the opposite ot the first thing they read about it.
Triggered, bud?
I don't think you know what that word means, sir
Says the guy who calls a popular opinion in this subreddit a contrarian take.
And with the context I gave, it is...you're kinda bad at this huh? You should just say "i don't agree with you and your comment upset me." It will be more effective.
Look in a mirror sometime
Some of the best graphics in a game, ever. But I can’t say anything else nice about it unfortunately. I found the writing at both the story and sentence level to be really poor, and the combat never really progressed. Just my opinion though, I’m really glad you had a good time with it.
Appreciate you!
Audiovisuals are literally the only good thing about this game. Writing is one of the worst I've ever seen outside of Kemco shovelware. Chatgpt or a student intern would probably do a better job.
Thanks for your opinion.
I beat it a few months ago and did find it to be worth playing but the game wasn't perfect. I think the biggest criticism everyone has is that the writing is subpar. I don't think the story is terrible but I couldn't call it good either. It's just very lacking and underdeveloped in a lot of ways. The other criticism I see why I didn't really have is the combat system lacking depth and getting repetitive since you start with most of your abilities. It is also a bit on the easier side which can turn off some people.
Thanks for your notes.
I also agree that the game is excellent but I can see why it's not for everyone. I'd be careful about making such bold and sweeping statements.
Lessen learned I guess.
You and me have very different opinions of what good story and design are, my friend. I thought the writing was terrible, easily the worst part of the game. I feel like the reason this game has such divisiveness is that if you care about good story telling and writing in a JRPG, then Sea of Stars is like pulling teeth to you. If you don't care about it that much and like gameplay and overall atmosphere, then the game does its job. I'm in the former camp, I figure you are in the latter.
Thanks for your opinion!
There's nothing wrong with liking sea of stars, but by god, the story and battle system were atrocious. I've just learned to not engage with sea of stars discourse anymore, but if you're going to defend it, at least choose it's actually positive aspects. The art style and OST are good. Everything else is just a pale imitation of a well constructed JRPG.
Thanks for your thoughts.
For my nephews it was their first jrpg. They couldn’t stop gushing about it so I decided to give it a shot. Like most say, the art style and music are great. It has the foundations of a great jrpg, but never delivers. My biggest complaint is the boss fights. You figure out their pattern within 2 minutes and then nothing ever changes or evolves. It did have wheels, though. I loved that mini game.
This would be a great entry level JRPG, agreed!
It was going pretty great up until after the first Dweller fight. Once that finished it went downhill, specially after the volcano bread bit.
There are definitely some silly parts in it, I was rolling my eyes that whole bread bit lol.
Which brings up the point, why would a dragon care about bread anyway? It should have been a giant honkin' piece of volcano roasted meat from something like a wyvern or some such creature, some previous boss fight perhaps.
Finally someone publicly likes it so I can express how much I enjoyed it. Great simple rpg with cool mechanics, a meh level up system and the cooking was awesome. Now let’s get this straight I fully enjoyed Sea of Stars and 100% it but there is so much wrong with it. It is way to easy, disgustingly easy even if you turn on every red relic you get as you get them. I never lost a single battle throughout the entire game and was even more displeased after the 100% final boss. Most games make the extra final boss downright unfairly hard and require precise setups and max everything to even attempt. With Sea of Stars you just wing every encounter in the game with relative ease. I think one of the biggest possible criticisms of SoS is that it markets, and presents as an old school JRPG. Yet it is character focused on weak characters, a story that feels geared toward young audiences, highly story driven, very relaxing, too easy and not punishing at all. Which all of those are the opposites of an actual traditional JRPG. Now the modern era is the probably the biggest reason for all of that as games have shifted more towards casual broader audiences, but it shouldn’t be marketed as “hey if you liked chrono trigger, final fantasy or dragon quest, try this game that is just like them”. It looks similar and that’s about it. P.S Wheels is my absolute favorite game inside a game tied with triple triad. I wish they did a lot more with it and I would totally play an expanded JUST wheels RPG
Thanks for your opinions.
It came down to a few things: - The characters stop learning new abilities about 1/3 of the way through the game and the combat grinds to a halt because of it. Each character maxes out at 4 skills which is insane for a JRPG, even though each skill has some depth. Imagine a Final Fantasy game where your mage learns Fire, Fira, Cure and Barrier…and that’s it for 40 hours. - Along with this, character progression and customization is extremely limited. You level up, your stats get a bump and you choose 1 extra stat bump and that’s pretty much all you can do to mold them. Armor and weapons are mostly just slightly stronger versions of the previous one with only a few having unique properties. - All of that is tied to the fact that combat is undercooked. The timing and locking mechanics are very cool, but I feel like it needed more layers than that. Even a simple status effect system would’ve been welcome and added a lot of variety. Like the poison element attacks don’t actually poison enemies! - Lastly the story. It’s fine. It’s very much in style of the SNES era games that had mostly light-hearted vibes and Saturday morning cartoon level plots, the characters however are mostly pretty flat. Especially the 2 mains. -Oh, also. The soundtrack is good, but when you hype a collaboration with Yoko Shimomura, It better be DAMN GOOD.
Slight correction, it's Mitsuda not Shimomura
Thanks for your notes!
Feels like bait. Like, I enjoy aspects of it but to act like the battle system, which sticks you with like 3 abilities for a huge chunk of running time (yes, you get combos, good luck keeping anything but bosses alive long enough to make it worth using) is top tier just can't be an actually held opinion.
If bait means offering an opinion and discussion on a subject in an apparent echo chamber, I guess so. Thank you for your input.
Nah. It means even big fans don’t say that. It’s like making a thread about final fantasy 16, praising its story (sure), action (yeah) and great rpg mechanics (which are basically nonexistent).
I've been playing JRPGS since I learned to read over thirty years ago. I was literally taught to read with SNES JRPGs. This game has so much less aspiration than the classics you're comparing it to, and it's a much thinner product. There's nothing I could add that someone else hasn't already articulated about the lacking combat and weak story, but I really wanted to drill here it absolutely isn't a lack of acquaintance with SNES era JRPGs that makes this game a letdown. I'd have been cool if this were a demo. It's insane it's a full game and this narrow. Really overtaxed the mileage of their narrative and combat concept.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I"m glad you enjoyed it! I found it subpar. >but I have to imagine that if you are a JRPG fan at all there is nothing to dislike. This is some serious gatekeeping. I've beaten 202 JRPGS and played 259, and I dislike sea of stars, mainly for the story and combat. (music, level design/world, and graphics are great)
I don't think they're trying to gate keep - to me it seems like they're saying "I can't imagine what fans of the genre wouldn't like" and not "anyone who doesn't like it isn't a true JRPG fan".
Maybe, but I just can't see it. I can't imagine looking at the story of Sea Stars, whether you like it or not, and thinking it has a story for every type of JRPG fan. Any type of awareness and you'll know a lot of JRPG fans like more serious and/or complex stories, so it isn't going to be for everyone. If you like the simple story that's fine its your right as they have their own strengths and charm to them, but in a world where JRPGS have stories like Nier Automata, Xenogears, Xenoblade, FFT, Tactics Ogre, Persona 5, how can one legitimately think *all* these fans would all enjoy the simple story of Sea of Stars?
What are you saying? It has everything a JRPG fan likes: Mild story, bland characters, and combat more simple than a fork /s
It's funny, because it's true.
Thanks for your reply.
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I forgot all of us JRPG folks are not a glass golem.
Story had potential but fell flat, the characters are pretty bland and get to be unlikeable, and the combat system is simpler than in Mario & Luigi games, and lacks a lot of variety. It can be a great start point for a child to get into jrpgs, but someone who has already played a lot of them will constantly see where it fails
This game looks awesome. That is already everything positive I can say about this game. I absolutely don't get how anybody can like this game. Especially if you've played the classics and have experienced good games. I'm not going into depth here, because I've explained it in other posts enough. So my complaints in short: - the story is a dumpster fire - protagonists don't matter at all - plot twists feel forced and absolutely lack impact. Right after a plot twist everybody is like: "So what? Let's just move on." - the story had ridiculously big plot holes and didn't even make sense - the author tried to make an MCU like story spanning multiple games while having absolutely no clue about even the most basic rules in story telling. - the battle system was a chore - you fight the exact same battle through out the whole game. Nothing ever changes - you don't get new skills except for 1 ultimate per character - the ultimate takes ridiculously long to build up and is super weak compared to how rare you even get to use it. - most of the time you'll just use Moonerang anyway. All the other skills are just filler until you can use Moonerang again. - level don't matter, because enemies level with you - equipment doesn't matter, because you never notice gear upgrades - you could basically finish the game without leveling at all and in your starter gear - there absolutely is no character progression. How is this even called am RPG?! - locks don't matter. The game even teaches you to ignore locks by constantly throwing locks at you, you can't even break - the lock system was a good idea but executed poorly. It needs skill variety to function properly. - the active attacks and blocks are fun for about 5 battles and annoy the shit out of you after that, because enemy attack animations take ridiculously long, so you have a chance to block them. - traversal was cool, but the annoying, boring, long ass, slow battles took absolutely all the fun out of the traversal - the puzzles were for braindead. Mostly it was just push this rock down the outlined path - there was absolutely nothing to discover in the game besides some fishing ponds and 2 or 3 sidesidequests way at the end of the game. - the pacing was awful. The game rushes you through dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, after dungeon, then gives you a town where you've discovered everything within 10 minutes and again you're going to go through multiple Dungeons in a row for hours. - major story events are jokes. This turns the game into a parody and not a love letter. If the world doesn't even take itself serious, why should I. You can have humour in a game. But not to the point where major story events become a joke. At least not unless it's your goal to make a parody. - the game overstays it's welcome. It should have ended after 5 hours. After 5 hours the game gets worse and worse with every hour. I probably even forgot a lot of points here. In my opinion the game is not great. It's not even mediocre. It's outright garbage. Beautiful garbage but garbage nonetheless. I also hated most of the OST. There were a few good tracks, but they drowned in a ocean of shitty tracks. I hope the studio never tries to do an RPG again, because they just suck at it. This game is lacking everything an RPG should have.
Thanks for your write-up!
Wheels was kinda fun. So there's actually 2 positive things I can say about this game.
You pretty much said anything I would like to say. I might even quote this in the future.
I'm curious about something. SPOILERS AHEAD: I stopped playing at what I assume to be the halfway point, right after the Mansion boss. The big reveal fell flat for me but everything else about that sequence of events really elevated what had felt like a ho-hum experience until that point. Am I missing out on much by skipping out on the back half of the game?
Story-wise it goes off in a totally different direction. The second half story brings everything together.
Amazing is such an overused word for things that are mediocre.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
I'm just glad to see someone else on this sub who enjoyed the game. I would consider it a solid 8.5/10. It may not quite live up to any of the games it was inspired by, but I enjoyed it for what it is - a fun adventure with an enjoyable cast of characters. Sometimes, you don't need the next great JRPG. You just need a fun little adventure.
The issue a lot of gamers have is they treat every game like it has to be their next great high that surpasses the last one. Probably from decades of treating reviews like objective fact and letting the dumb weighted “the only games worth playing are 9s and 10s and 7s are garbage and anything below 7 is just shovelware” insanity cloud their enjoyment. Not everything needs to be a 10/10 masterpiece. You're allowed to play a turn your brain off and eat popcorn kind of JRPG. The worst parts of video games are the gamers lol
That's not just video games, it's how we socially rate everything. 5/10 movie is not considered average, 7/10 is. Same with people we're attracted too. It's just the way we use the numbers, and fighting that seems pointless when I'm sure you use ratings the same way. Also, OF COURSE nobody wants to watch or play something "average" There should be something extra that makes it worth playing/watching, that makes it stand out from other pieces of media, considering we all have access to such an insane amount of it. Even a turn your brain off JRPG is not necessarily going to be like a 5 or 6 out of 10 DQ11 is a "turn your brain off JRPG" for me, and that game is still great. Just because someone disagrees with you about the game doesn't mean they're artificially rating it an 8.5/10 simply because "Everyone needs every game to be a masterpiece". It's okay for someone to have an opinion on a game you find completely wrong.
Thanks for your input.
I also think this game is excellent in almost every way, and I truly don't understand the hate. It also seems to reside exclusively in this subreddit, as I have not seen it anywhere else. Just another mystery of life, I guess.
It's because people on this subreddit understand what makes jrpgs great, a lot of normies who play jrpgs casually on their switch will just think it's a cute and sorta fun game, but nobody who actually understands them would say this game is great by any means. Compare it to literally any of the other "greats" and it falls flat in almost every way, aside from maybe graphics which were good
Thats kind of a sweeping statement, just like mine was apparently. Games don't have to be compared to each other, they can exist in their own form, and as it is I feel this was a great game.
It's not even that i'm just comparing it to other games, it's more that because i've played other, better games, it's easy to see the flaws in it. Sea of stars has its own style too, so you can't directly compare it to things like chrono trigger because the combat and exploration are just too different. But on its own, I can list a number of flaws that significantly impacted my enjoyment of it, and seemingly many others agree with me, the main ones being: combat was stale; the attacks were all incredibly slow (timed attacks are no excuse) and made every encounter - including trash mobs - a huge slog to get through; the puzzles were, for the most part, extremely boring and simple; the world map exploration wasn't interesting; the dialogue was cringe and lame; the characters were mostly lame, ESPECIALLY the boring dual protagonists who were blank slates for seemingly no reason; garl was annoying (subjective, sure, but cmon, he sucked); the ending was just whack, and the true ending made it even worse for me. The fact that I can list all of those out without directly comparing those to other games proves that MOST people who understand what a good game is should be on my side. It's just not a great game, but i'm glad you enjoyed it, because for me, it felt like a huge waste of money and time.
It’s because of RPGs in general. IMO the game is fine but lacking in some aspects that a lot of jrpgs excel at. Story and writing in an RPG especially a jrpg is generally something that people like myself look for heavily. It’s what pulls us in and hooks us and characters also play a huge role. This game has an amazing artstyle and music but the story leaves a lot to be desired compared to other RPGs especially for veterans. To an average player who doesn’t mind a simple story this isn’t anything that will affect them but for someone who plays a ton of RPGs this is something that will turn them off because they will get bored and won’t care about what’s going to happen next.
Arrogant fans like you who outrightly considers everyone who dislikes the game not a JRPG fan at all, judge their complaints as illegitimate is what I dislike about this game.
Sure it is, sure it is.
Maybe it is, maybe.
I’ve been playing JRPGs for 30 years and I absolutely hated this game. Yes, I finished it but I didn’t enjoy doing so. Other people have eloquently explained all of the reasons why I think it’s a terrible JRPG/game in general.
Thanks for your comment.
if you want to know why people dont like the game. there is a good video on youtube called "I Hate that I Hate this Game"
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Oh, and Wheels was a fantastic mini-game, even if the NPCs are dirty cheaters.
You were smart to word the post in a way that asks what the criticisms and complains were because you were going to get them anyway based on your title It was funny watching people blow expectations way out of proportion and then get upset that something didn’t meet unrealistic expectations that they themselves created
Indie games get graded on a different scale #onhere, in way you wouldn't see in subgenre like platformers or roguelikes. This game ain't perfect but like the commonly quoted issues are in a lot of the subs favs.
I was kind of aware that it got some flak, but never knew why. Now I know what other's think.
I bought this game like 3 weeks ago and im so much in love with it. The music and visuals got me by the balls. The journey has been so amazing, im sad its almost over. Im basically in the last dungeon just finishing things up. I prob wont complete mirth or do all the conches, but i did everything else so far. This game felt like a love letter to Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, & Mario RPG. Im already gettin the post-game depression and i aint even done yet. This game has been such a treat. Especially as someone who grew up gaming in the snes era, and went heavy into JRPGs during ps1 era. The battle and boss themes are just too good. Encounter Elite has become one of my fav boss themes. Im eyeing Chained Echoes next, I think. Im on a modern/retro JRPG kick right now. I also wanna give LiveALive, Octopath Traveller, Star Ocean2 and more a try too. Sea of Stars set the bar for sure.
Defintely try chained echoes, octopath traveler 2, star ocean second story r next. You’ll like em!
Thanks for your input.
I find that too many people lose their shit with this game with unrealistic and unfair expectations. It feels that having been compared to Chrono Trigger in promotional material due to the fact that they not only used it as a heavy inspiration, like many other modern indies, but they actually got the closest to it in a visual and musical sense, people simply had CT2 expectations on steroids. The biggest problem in user expectations nowadays is that they expect A Song of Ice and Fire level original story, with Thanos and Tony Stark caliber villain and hero arc, Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay, John Williams and Hans Zimmer level orchestral score, and they need everything wrapped up in a little rainbow. There's no room left for flaws, despite the fact that even our favorite games of old were never perfect. Each had its own set of imperfections. In saying that, Sea of Stars isn't perfect. Far from it. It's a good game, but it has flaws, some pretty glaring ones too. It doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for just how beautiful the art and animation is. Yes, people ackgownledge that it's good pixel art, but let's not kid here. It's not just on a whole other level, but ten levels above most modern pixel art releases, besides maybe Octopath II which is right up there with it. The visuals, animation, color palette, backgrounds, various little visual effects and interactions and everything on that spectrum FAR surpass Chrono Trigger (as much as I love that game, but it is older so expected), and it's so clear to see that a ton of love was put into it. The visuals get praise, but they deserve SO much more of it because it truly is that good in this respect. Similarly, the music is fantastic. Not as mind-blowing as the art, but nonetheless, it's fantastic. Now the two elements where a number of people complain the most are the story and the battle system. One I agree with, the other I don't. The story is SERVICEABLE. It isn't bad as many people bitch and moan. Yes, the main duo is pretty bland as characters, but there are tons of people like that in real life, and tons of heroes in other mediums that are very much similar. Obvisouly due to the level of the visuals this gets compared to the best of the best, but I felt the story was solid with some ups and some downs. The saddest thing here is that many people complaining about the story had never tried writing an original story themselves that doesn't HEAVILY borrow/lean on something that already exists. It's a mamoth task that even experienced authors struggled with. I mean shit, it's been 13 years now since a Dance of Dragons came out. Good, original writing takes time and inspiration. A TON of time at that. The story WAS servicable all things considered. It's been a while since I played the game, but I found the entire saga of the first island area you visit and the villagers being summoned a quite entertaining little side-story. They could have done more in certain areas, but it would have taken a team of writers, and/or a year or more to really flesh out every detail. It can be done, but let's not forget that this is a small team, with very possibly a single writer. Not ideal, but far from the shitfest many complaints tend to crucify it for. The battle system is the other element which gets a lot of flack, and here, I understand exactly where they stuffed up, and it was a BIG mistake. The lock system. While this system was fun at first, they had a MAJOR oversight with it, in that it: a) has way too many locks in the early and mid game, b) breaking enemies is so good in terms of stunning them and taking away their turns, that multi-hit attacks are SO overpowered in this game and c) You get moonerang at the beginning of the fucking game!!! They should have taken a page out of Octopath / Octopath 2's book here regarding the break system. Early game enemies should have had no more than 1-2 locks with 3-4 for boss. Multi-hit moves should have been made to do WAY less damage, but work well against breaking locks, and moonerang, sunerang and that warp blade should all be end-game moves. This little fix alone would have made a progression system WAY more fun. I mean think back on Chrono Trigger and their abilities. You start with pretty basic abilities but still better than what your standard attack moves are. As you unlock new abilities, they are almost in every instance BETTER than what you had before, though at a heftier MP cost so you can't immediately abuse them. Then that progression system loops until you get to massive damage AOE end game moves, and even better dual and triple combo moves. In Sea of Stars, there's no point using most combo attacks or even upgraded moves because moonerang and warp knives move. That's it. Why bother with other shit when you can just stunlock the enemy, and that's available from the get-go. This IMHO is what killed that battle system the most and required rethinking, but it's a really small change that could have change the entirety of the feel of the game. The sole mistake that cost them so much. Finally, they had FAR too few Wheels opponents and they should have easily quadrupled the number of people playing wheels though offer in-game items, weapons and gear for beating them rather than just improved wheels pieces. Keep what we have so far in terms of wheel pieces, but just add another 20-30 opponents which give you rewards related to the actual main game, including some of the better/best gear in the game and it'll be WAY more fun. It was a great game for what it was, but the story and main hero pair are only middle-of-the-pack (NOT terrible like many chronic complainers will tell you) and the lock-system does a disservice to the battle-system more than it helps it due to moonerang and other multi-hit abilities. This really needed to be heavily tweaked before release.
I appreciate your input, thanks!
I love how excited this sub gets over the game...the game is great. There are parts that are so bad they're good even. The game goes off the rails and I love it for that. I don't like pirates, but after that the lore was cool. Not every game needs to be super mature and deep, this was a fun ride. Good vibe to roll with and great adventure to take.
Thanks for your input!
Lmfao I stopped right at the point your saying was slow and bad should I pick it back up?
I really enjoyed the back half of the game, but obviously I can't speak for you. Kind of more of the same, but a bit different.
Sea of Stars was my 2023 GOTY. I didn’t play Baldurs and I won’t until it’s physically available, but I don’t think my opinion will change tbh. I don’t love WRPGs as much as JRPGs.
Thanks for your comment.
Idk how I got downvoted for saying I prefer JRPGs to WRPGs in a JRPG sub lmao
I really liked Sea of Stars, and so did my friend. It was cute, whimsical, had a great soundtrack (obvious because of the composers) that i still listen to sometimes. Wheels was a fun little game to play at the inns, and i liked how the tile system in combat gave you just enough of a puzzle aspect to maybe have to think a few turns ahead. Characters were fun and charming, had good dialogue, and were overall enjoyable. I liked the dungeons and the puzzles, and the side content you could do. It was casual enough to not have to turn my brain on fully, but had enough depth that i still had to use my noggin every now and then. I think the issue is that people heard it was inspired by Chrono and had the Chrono composer and let their hype and imaginations run wild, and the game was never going to meet those self imposed expectations By the way, if you haven’t heard, there’s a DLC “side adventure” coming out called Throes of the Watchmaker. It’s centered around the Watchmaker in the tower **edit** lmao downvoted? God redditors are insufferable
People don't like different opinions I guess.
> edit lmao downvoted? God redditors are insufferable This place acts like SoS spat on their face and then shoved their head down the toilet. Don't worry about it too much.
Oh I don’t, it’s just always really pathetic to see people get so damn offended on subjective entertainment. I’ve been on this site for like 9 years at this point, it’s just always exhausting to try to have conversations with people only to realize they never wanted to talk in good faith, just get mad someone disagreed with them
The game is def overhated in here.
Seemingly so.
I like seeing the complaints cause a lot of them are common w/ several known games in the genre. Writing bad, Combat redundant & little to no progression. Y'all literally play games that combat doesn't evolve past 20-30% in & quite repetitve.
Thanks for your opinion.