I finished Sea of Stars recently, and its a game that's been tumbling around in my head for months at this point. I'm a huge fan of it, and really enjoyed my time with it, but it's not without its flaws. Quick Summary: It's a beautiful game, great music, strong gameplay, and some really uneven character/scenario writing.
First with the strengths, the game is extremely fun to play. Part of that is obviously the combat, which has a lot of different moving parts that all sync up to give you a lot of options. (Even if Turn Delaying is just the best thing to be doing at any time) Timed Hits, Combo Points, Boosts, Lock Breaking, and balancing small MP pools give you a good puzzle and options in a fight. However, the other gameplay strength I enjoyed was Dungeon Design. Hobbling and clamoring over ledges, adjusting puzzles and levers, dodging enemies for first strikes, or just finding hidden treasure, the world traversal felt fun, a far cry from something like a Bravely Default dungeon layout.
One of my biggest grips with this game, the character/scenario writing. Specifically here, the opening of the game is the biggest hurdle. The first 6-8 hours gives us so little to latch onto, our main pair have the most paper thin of characters and the quest we're on is extremely ill-defined, basically being "get a boat to get to where the game starts in earnest." This stumbling out of the gate takes some time to correct, and while we do finally get an understanding of what any of the Solstice Warriors Duties are and we do come to have a driving plot we can follow, in other ways (Valere and Zale as characters) it never really corrects. Thank goodness for Garl.
A lot of what I want to touch on involves plot details, so Full Spoilers below the cut here.
Firstly, Resh'an and Aephorul are the most compelling part of this game's writing by a mile. The scene in the frozen time specifically speaks volumes about these ancient characters who are so far above and beyond everything happening in this game. Aephorul has no idea what's happening here, and doesn't care in the slightest about things the party outside of the rules of their game. Resh'an still isn't willing to directly confront Aephorul, and honestly never is because their history runs so deep (This game really isn't concerned with relationships, but our main trio and this pair are the two that have any meat on the bones). I'm glad it's not super lingered on, because us filling in those gaps ourselves works better with the strength of the few scenes we do get, and it's enough that we don't have the Fleshmancer as Ultimate Evil and Resh'an as Ultimate Good, because these two have just wildly out of understanding moralities.
Secondly, there's The Messenger. This one's got some good and not so good attached to it. Mesa Island is a blast, getting remixes of Messenger Themes, Enemies, Locations. It's the kind of references that feel great as you get to enjoy the tunes and locations if you recognize them or not. The final scene is a nice nod to the Sunken Shrine. The Flimsy Hammer Zone also was great. Our group of kids jumping into a Robot to Do The Thing, good. The part that I didn't like was at the end of the Clockwork Castle, before our scene with Resh'an and Aephorul, we have this bit where Brugaves and the Cultists all just have to leave for a different game. If you don't know what's happening, it's very confusing and unfulfilling endings for those characters. If you do, it doesn't connect as well as you'd like, and just feels like square pegs in a round hole.
Third, is Garl. I love Garl. Garl is the soul of this game, in so many ways. Garl's so important in this story for being the character who's willing to talk things out, and who's just an ordinary dude. By the end of the game, your party consists of one of the oldest immortal alchemists, a soul in living glass, who's been around for ages, an effectively immortal robot who's traveled between worlds, two ascended gods (reminds me, I wish they did more with this immortality point, there's some good seeds that just never sprout), and Garl our grounding force. Many conflicts end up solved after a short fight by Garl going "wait we can just ask about this or talk about this", but also who's willing to throw down against anything for his friends, Dweller with a Pressure Cooker or God with an Apple.
The biggest point here is obviously his death two thirds through the game, which plays a bit melodramatic and loose to setup, but by god does it earn how sad you feel for everyone's loss. The entire setup making the Biggest Bread, into our scene on Wentworth's back, into the funeral, which has some of the best artistic shots in the game. Then we pull the rug out from under that and I'm left torn. The obvious comparison is Reviving Crono, but we aren't playing on the same axis as Chrono Trigger, where Time Travel is the entire point of the game, as well as how we go into reviving Crono pretty quickly after the confrontation in 12,000. It tears me because on one hand, I love seeing exactly how Garl changes the outcome of the ending. Garl's able to get Aephorul to break the rules of the game he and Resh'an are playing and step in himself because the only Mortal in the party is able to correctly taunt him for his failures. I'm happy for Zale and Valere to have their closest companion back! I don't feel much for Zale and Valere as distinct characters, but them and Garl as a group is great, he pulls out both the best in them and some actual character! God, that they first link with their god forms then is great, less so us just getting them in full later. But on the other hand we undercut such a strong moment. We have a couple points that foreshadow it, but that doesn't make it fulfilling. I'm happy Garl's back, I'm happy for our final shot in the ending, I don't think I'm happy how we got there.
Lastly, there's just some smaller plot beats throughout the game that I think summarize my issues with the character/scenario writing. The Elder Mist's Prophecies both operate as a narrative convenience for Garl, and almost nothings for Zale and Valere. I had to look up Zale's here and I still don't know what it was supposed to be about. Inner Darkness? Valere's is just as nothing with "Raise a Bridge".
Yolande has a lot of jokes, and while her middle name one lands perfectly, all the jabs and pokes at RPG Conventions really feel out of place? I think this one's just me, but it was a bridge too far of a 4th wall break to have her make like, four jokes about it in a row?
Teaks acts both as an Exposition Dump that feels not great, but also is just underused as a character. For someone who's effectively an extra party member, it's really inconsistent if she's in the party or not, and she doesn't get to interact with the party in most circumstances, which leaves he at like, half a character. What was there for her was good, it just made me want her to be like, real.
There's a point late in the game where you free a Bird, who feels like a character from another game? You find a obstacle in the final dungeon that has never come up before, doesn't need to be there for the party to move on, and is only solved by this Bird showing up, fixing the problem, and then leaving forever.
No Teaks or Serai portraits at the Golden Pelican is a travesty. Maybe they exist in the game files.
That's a lot of words for Sea of Stars. In closing, super strong music/visuals/gameplay hold up inconsistent scenarios and characters, the last conversation behind the flimsy hammers was raw andtouching, and I'm looking forward to the added DLC for the Watchmaker. And some more Wheels. Maybe a tad of balance changes to that. I really enjoyed the heck out of this game.