General Gaming Sea of Stars - Turn based RPG from the makers of The Messenger, update: 250K+ units sold in first week of release

[thedarkstark]

A little surprised to see how well this is doing based on the (imo) uninspired demo we got a few months ago. 

 

That said I'm happy to see an old school RPG do well. Also hyped for Sabotage Studio with the success of the Messenger & now this hopefully they'll have a big budget available for their next project.

[Dodger]

Don’t know why I started it because I won’t touch it for awhile once Starfield hits but so far so good.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

[Phaseknox]

3 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

It’s actually 100,001 copies sold on day one now. 

[Biggie]

Played the demo. Its very mid. I would give it a solid meh. 5/10

[Mr.Vic20]

Purchased! Just going to keep this one in the back pocket for January 2024. For the rest of 2023 I have:

 

* Starfield

* 2nd play through of BG3

* AC VI

* Alan Wake II

 

[TheLeon]

Don’t know what’s in the demo, but I played a couple hours of the full game. It starts kinda slow (the flashback sequence is too long for what it is) but it shows promise. I like the basic combat mechanics, how it encourages use of abilities and combos. 

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Don’t know what’s in the demo, but I played a couple hours of the full game.

 

From what I understand the demo is around the middle of the game.

[eventide11]

2 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Don’t know what’s in the demo, but I played a couple hours of the full game. It starts kinda slow (the flashback sequence is too long for what it is) but it shows promise. I like the basic combat mechanics, how it encourages use of abilities and combos. 

Same. But once it gets going you can feel the claws start to sink in so to speak. Definitely wanted to play more last night but responsibilities 

[gamer.tv]

I downloaded it last night as it’s on PS+ - to then see it’s a 30 hour game. For some reason I was expecting something in the 10-12 hour range…

[thedarkstark]

5 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

I downloaded it last night as it’s on PS+ - to then see it’s a 30 hour game. For some reason I was expecting something in the 10-12 hour range…

A 10 hour turn-based rpg would be absolute trash

[Phaseknox]

On 8/31/2023 at 2:23 AM, gamer.tv said:

I downloaded it last night as it’s on PS+ - to then see it’s a 30 hour game. For some reason I was expecting something in the 10-12 hour range…

It’s a turn-based RPG inspired by classic JRPGs, so I’m not really sure why you were expecting it to be 10-12 hours since RPGs in general are known to be long. It’s rare to find any RPG that’s less than 15 hours, and that’s considered somewhat short for the genre.

[TheLeon]

My playthrough of the early Final Fantasy pixel remasters didn’t take much more than 10-12 hours. There have been some indie JRPGs that do a throwback thing and were that length. If you take the average old school JRPG and streamline it (remove random encounters/grinding, reduce the amount of time aimlessly searching for your next destination) a lot of them probably boil down to sub-20 hour experiences.

 

It’s not completely crazy to think this one might have been on the shorter side. 

[gamer.tv]

Who knew that me thinking an indie RPG might be shorter would be my hottest take yet! 

[thedarkstark]

8 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

My playthrough of the early Final Fantasy pixel remasters didn’t take much more than 10-12 hours. There have been some indie JRPGs that do a throwback thing and were that length. If you take the average old school JRPG and streamline it (remove random encounters/grinding, reduce the amount of time aimlessly searching for your next destination) a lot of them probably boil down to sub-20 hour experiences.

 

It’s not completely crazy to think this one might have been on the shorter side. 

Those games are 30+ years old. And the good ones (4 & 6) are definitely way longer than 10 hours.

[EternallDarkness]

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, EternallDarkness said:

Well worth it. Im near the end, and so far it’s had some great moments 

[eventide11]

16 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

Well worth it. Im near the end, and so far it’s had some great moments 

I'm probably 10-12 hrs in and beat the first major story boss and I really, really like it. Excellent pacing, music, level design and characters. These guys definitely get the genre 

[GameDadGrant]

Just downloaded this a day or two ago. Pretty good stuff. Great music. Very fun battle system. Kinda long-ish intro (that’s a bit verbose). Cool retro-inspired graphics.

 

Chrono Trigger, Lufia II and Golden Sun vibes out the wazoo.

[EternallDarkness]

do wish there was a map/diary-quest log 

[eventide11]

1 hour ago, EternallDarkness said:

do wish there was a map/diary-quest log 

Yeah, the lack of a map so far has been disappointing. I mean, every JRPG I've ever played had a friggin map. But whatevs. The good out weighs the bad 

[Xbob42]

On 8/31/2023 at 6:05 AM, thedarkstark said:

Those games are 30+ years old. And the good ones (4 & 6) are definitely way longer than 10 hours.

The Pixel Remasters were also massively streamlined to flow better and require less grinding. Also no one knew what the fuck they were doing in games 30 years ago so they just took longer by virtue of you wandering around like an asshole for half the game!

Also, this game is great. Starts out a bit slow (slow, not boring), picks up pretty quickly, and then picks up again after a few hours once the stakes get raised. Also Garl fucking rules.

[EternallDarkness]

20 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Also Garl fucking rules.

Agreed, my first thought was he's the games version of Sam from LoTR

[eventide11]

56 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

The Pixel Remasters were also massively streamlined to flow better and require less grinding. Also no one knew what the fuck they were doing in games 30 years ago so they just took longer by virtue of you wandering around like an asshole for half the game!

Also, this game is great. Starts out a bit slow (slow, not boring), picks up pretty quickly, and then picks up again after a few hours once the stakes get raised. Also Garl fucking rules.

Took me a while to warm to him but once I did I never looked back. Very well developed and written character 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

One final update to the reviews post.

[BloodyHell]

I beat this today. I thought it was a little over rated. Certainly it’s not as good as Chained Echoes, which has similar inspirations, but it’s still a good game I had a lot of fun with.

 

it does some things really well. A single party level. KO’s waking with half hp after a set amount of turns, simple stuff. 
 

I beat both of the major side bosses, both harder versions of previous bosses. They were challenging, but nothing insane. Both used every item I had (max 10). 
 

I love the character swaps in combat. Haven’t seen that in a while. 
 

Definitely worth your time if you like classic jrpg styled games.

[BloodyHell]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:08 PM, eventide11 said:

Took me a while to warm to him but once I did I never looked back. Very well developed and written character 

I really didn’t like him at first. By the end of his journey, he was one of my favorite characters. 
 

this game has the perfect amount of cheese for a jrpg. 
 

(late game spoilers)

Spoiler

Garl baking a huge bun of bread for a mean old sleeping dragon is incredible.

 

if anything, I would say there was a lot of superfluous information in the game. Erlin and her partner are greatly under-used in the last half of the story. The Aephorul/Alchemist resolution answers very little, zale and Valere just become super lights and endlessly fly around because we made it to the end?

 

I really don’t quite understand some of the later narrative choices, especially after Garls death, but it’s still good overall.

 

[Phaseknox]

On 8/28/2023 at 3:44 PM, eventide11 said:

I lost interest in Chained Echos. The writing and layout of the areas, just wasn't doing it for me after 15 hrs or so.

On 9/13/2023 at 3:42 PM, BloodyHell said:

I beat this today. I thought it was a little over rated. Certainly it’s not as good as Chained Echoes

[BloodyHell]

18 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

Im correct. Chained Echoes is an instant classic.

[Brian]

I lost interest in Chained Echoes as well.  It is average at best. 

[eventide11]

20 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

Trust me @PhaseknoxSea of Stars is right up your alley. I've known your gaming tastes since the IGN board days. Chained Echos is trying too hard and it shows and isn't anywhere near the polish and quality of Sea of Stars 

[SaysWho?]

I might start it on ps+ after I’m with my current crop of shorter games. 30 hours seems perfect.

[Xbob42]

I've yet to be either, so I obviously can't say for certain yet, but while Chained Echoes hooked me from the get go, I feel like Sea of Stars is more thoughtfully designed and satisfying to play, at least compared to where I'm at in Chained Echoes. The animations, the flow of battle, the combat interactions, it all seems so much better produced.

 

I plan to beat both either way, but to me they're definitely different subgenres at the very least. To me, Sea of Stars is like this fun mix of Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, which really hits the spot.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[AshsToAshs]

Frankly I'm a little surprised they are adding this, as the game already had 2-player co-op which I saw very few people play. 

Can't imagine there was a huge demand for 3-player.

 

But, then again, since a "party" in this game is 3 characters I guess it makes sense.