{"id":23963,"date":"2023-11-10T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T00:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=23963"},"modified":"2023-10-14T13:10:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-14T13:10:05","slug":"sea-of-stars-ps4-ps5-switch-xbox-one-x-s-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/10\/sea-of-stars-ps4-ps5-switch-xbox-one-x-s-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea of Stars (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, X\/S, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When I was a teenager in the early to mid 90s, I loved 16-bit RPGs.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t get enough of them.\u00a0 I poured over Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Lufia 2, and many more.\u00a0 But once I started college and the 32-bit era came about, I started to fall out of the RPG loop for whatever reason.\u00a0 And now I don\u2019t play near as many RPGs as I used to as a teen.\u00a0 Many times since then, a game maker has tried to capture the magic of those 16-bit RPGs with a new title, but they almost always miss the mark.\u00a0 Until now.\u00a0 Sea of Stars is a new RPG by the same folks who did The Messenger.\u00a0 The Messenger was a 2-D platformer starring a ninja, and I reviewed it way back when<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Sea of Stars is actually meant to be a prequel to that game, but luckily you don\u2019t have to have played it to understand what\u2019s going on here.\u00a0 Which is good since I don\u2019t remember a whole lot about what went on in The Messenger!\u00a0 Anyway, in Sea of Stars, you\u2019ll play as one of two Solstice Warriors as they are charged with defeating evil Dwellers.\u00a0 Along the way they\u2019ll meet friends, encounter twists and turns, betrayals, and much more.\u00a0 Sea of Stars plays most like Chrono Trigger and is available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

As said earlier, this game plays most like Chrono Trigger.\u00a0 Your world map is viewed exactly the same, where your characters are tiny and walk around to major locations to visit.\u00a0 And battles take place in the same areas where you walk around, so it\u2019s very seamless.\u00a0 Like other RPGs, you\u2019ll gather clues and items in towns, and venture forth into dungeons to battle enemies and take on bosses.\u00a0 The dungeons are fun to explore, too, with lots of neat puzzles to solve and interesting set pieces.\u00a0 There are tons of secrets to find and food to cook and mini-games like fishing, too.\u00a0 Graphics are great and a lot of the music is pretty good, too.\u00a0 Especially that battle theme!<\/p>\n

For me, an RPG is only as good as its battle system, and here it\u2019s great!\u00a0 Battles are turned based, but they add a few wrinkles to keep you on your toes.\u00a0 You can refill your magic points by attacking, and that also makes the enemies drop these glowing white dots.\u00a0 When it\u2019s the next character\u2019s turn, they can collect those dots to power up their attacks, so there\u2019s a bit of strategy involved.\u00a0 And when enemies are about to unleash a strong attack or move, they\u2019ll show you what types of attacks and magics you can use to cancel out that if you are quick enough to do so.\u00a0 These additions to the battles keep you on your toes without making things too overwhelming or difficult.<\/p>\n

My only problems with this game are extremely minor.\u00a0 The game starts out a little slow as they explain all the rules to you.\u00a0 And sometimes it\u2019s kind of hard to tell where you can go and things you can climb on, since many of the areas are a bit dark.\u00a0 I also wish you could save at any time instead of only at certain spots.\u00a0 Luckily there\u2019s a lot of those spots you can save, so that\u2019s good.\u00a0 One last really nitpicky thing is that the game looks TOO good for 16-bit, with fancy shadows and lighting effects, and a bit of animated cutscenes here and there.\u00a0 Just kind of cuts down on the 16-bit authenticity.\u00a0 But otherwise, this game is great.\u00a0 One of the best games I\u2019ve played this year so far and probably the best RPG I\u2019ve played in a long time.\u00a0 If you have good memories playing classic RPGs like I have, you\u2019ll definitely want to check this one out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sea of Stars is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Mild Blood, Mild Language, and Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 I really didn\u2019t notice any blood or bad language in the text, so it must be used sparingly.\u00a0 You attack enemies with weapons and magic, and baddies just disappear when defeated.\u00a0 When your characters run out of hit points, they just fall over with dizzy stars above their heads, but they can come back after a few turns.\u00a0 I grew up playing games like this and I turned out OK, but I\u2019d say this one\u2019s best for older kid gamers because of the high level of reading involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a teenager in the early to mid 90s, I loved 16-bit RPGs.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t get enough of them.\u00a0 I poured over Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Lufia 2, and many more.\u00a0 But once I started college and the 32-bit era came about, I started to fall out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23965,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23963\/revisions\/23965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}