Sea of Stars: Sunset Edition

Honestly I found the game to be very boring. Too strict and rigid in it's design. Every fight I'm just following the pre-determined script to win. So far the story is bad and I'm only 10 hours in. I keep trying to come back to the game, but I drop it shortly after the next dumb story event that doesn't make sense or matter. The two main characters are the worst about this.

Not gonna lie, I thought the game was all visuals but boring at the beginning. But I was wrong! The story's getting better and better. I love the features and mini games like Wheels. The puzzles are also so fun to solve. I never thought the map would be so complex. As I said before, the visuals are amazing. Gorgeous pixelated game. They sure are paying attention to detail: animations, shadows, coloring. Beautifully done. Such a fun game, the type that makes me get lost in the game.

já tinha zerado pelo gamepass anteriormente. mas eu tive que comprar novamente, as lutas são gostozinhas, a historia é divertida. e a Serai é muito fodaa!

chrono trigger vibes, very solid game, story debatable

[h1]A modern RPG with an old-school soul[/h1] This game is genuinely awesome - I absolutely love this kind of pixel art style. The combat system stays fun throughout thanks to the different abilities and attacks you gradually unlock, and the various characters all bring something unique to the party. I also liked that the battles constantly keep you paying attention instead of just mindlessly selecting attacks. The story is enjoyable, the achievements are actually worth chasing since many of them unlock meaningful gameplay elements, and the free DLC is a nice bonus that rounds out the whole package really well. I ended up spending 36 hours getting 100%, and honestly, I enjoyed the entire journey. Easy recommendation for anyone who loves classic-style RPGs ⚔️✨🎮!

В целом игра хорошая, но если бы была возможность вернуть время назад и если бы я знал, какая игра меня ожидает, то не стал бы покупать её. Плюсы: - Очень красивый пиксельный визуальный стиль. По большей части я из-за него и повёлся. Я не могу вспомнить ни одной такой же красивой пиксельной игры. Цвета, анимации, всё на высоте. - В качестве игры-приключения показывает себя отлично, постоянно бегаем по различным локациям, препятствиям, лазаем, прыгаем и решаем головоломки. - Катсцены анимационные клёвые, но они редкие. На этом для меня плюсы закончились. Нейтрально: - Сюжет. Он наивный, немного с детской подачей. С одной стороны простой, но есть свой лор. В основном всю игру скучал, местные шутки не зашли и местами даже раздражали. Единственный момент, когда сюжет меня заинтересовал - это после перехода через море звёзд. Но со временем остыл, а потом снова вернулось к старому. Минусы: - Боёвка. Она очень примитивная! От JRPG ждал совсем иного. Даже много лет назад на кнопочных телефонах играл в игры этого жанра с более глубокой боёвкой. По пунктам: 1) Тут нет вообще никаких билдов, повышение уровня персонажей - это только повышение случайной характеристики (атака, защита, мана, здоровье). 2) Нет интересных способностей. По сути все способности персонажей и врагов можно разделить на 5 типов: урон по 1 цели, урон по нескольким целям, лечение/щит, сбить "замок", призыв союзников. И всё! Нет никаких бафов, дебафов, периодического урона, каких-то хитрых пассивок. У каждого персонажа 3 способности и несколько комбо способностей, которые используют несколько персонажей вместе, по сути комбо - это усиленные версии обычных способностей. Ещё есть по 1 суперспособности у каждого персонажа с офигенными анимациями, но это просто очень мощный урон по всем противникам. Весь бой состоит в том, чтобы сбивать мощные касты противников (то есть надо бить определённым типом урона, а в некоторых случаях это невозможно), блокировать атаки (если вовремя нажать, снижает урон примерно на 20%), использовать способности за ману и атаковать обычными атаками для восстановления маны. 3) Нет интересных шмоток, опять же только повышение характеристик и ещё 3 уникальных кольца для персонажей, которые на бой не оказывают значительного влияния. Я прошел всю игру (не убил только последнего босса для идеальной концовки, влом искать 60 ракушек), но не было ни одной интересной шмотки. - Мини-игра "Колесо" - гавно рандомное и скучное. Это что-то типа местного гвинта, где крутишь колёса и надеешься, чтобы они собирались в комбинацию. - Головоломки скорее минус. Они несложные, но выполнять их приходится долго и муторно. Иногда попадаются головоломки, которые нельзя сбросить при ошибке, приходится загружать сохранение или выходить и заходить обратно в локацию. Саундтрек и звуки к минусам приписать не могу, т.к. вкусовщина. Мне не нравится музыка с закосом на старые восьмибитные треки, поэтому она мне не зашла. Но в тавернах играли инструментальные версии этих треков, они мне понравились, но в таверне находишься меньше 5% времени (в основном из-за Колеса). Если вы не требовательны к глубокой и сложной боёвке, вам нравится решать простые головоломки, смотреть на красивые пейзажи, вас не напрягает наивный и добрый сюжет, то игра для вас. Кто ищет продуманные и увлекательные бои, проходите мимо.

[h1]Stats[/h1] Time to beat the story: 38h Time for 100% achievements (total): 50.2h Time for 100% achievements (DLC): 8.2h Crashes: 0 [h1]Introduction[/h1] I played on the hardest (challenge) difficulty. I try to 100% most of the games I play, so some opinions might be influenced by the achievements in the game. [h1]Quick overview[/h1] [h2]Pros[/h2] [list] [*]Amazing visuals [*]Amazing OST [*]Fast paced and not a lot of downtime [*]Great level design [*]Free DLC [*]Ingame collectable tracker [*]No missable or annoying achievements [/list] [h2]Cons[/h2] [list] [*]You are stuck with the same 3 members with a limited moveset for a long time [*]No character builds [*]The 2 MCs are boring [*]The story is not too interesting [/list] [h1]More detailed overview[/h1] [h2]Narrative[/h2] The story is the standard JRPG save the world kind of deal. You play as Valere and Zale who are not that interesting as they are just generic hero characters. The other party members and side characters definitely have more interesting traits to them and are more likeable. One thing I did not like about the character interactions was that more "dark" themes were not reacted to accordingly. When some of the tragic events occured such as a character getting heavily injured, the story just kind of moved on without discussing it further, which made them not hit as hard as they could have. While the story is just servicable the worldbuilding however is great both visually and lore-wise. The world is a giant sea with a bunch of islands, and most of the main islands acts as its own chapter. There is a character, Teaks, who joins your party early on. You can find artifacts and give them to her, and then she will tell a story regarding that artifact making the world more immersive. [h2]Music[/h2] One of the main types of puzzles in this game revolve around switching between day and night. Due to this a lot of the soundtracks have a night version too. When changing the time of day the music transitions smoothly/dynamically between each version which is really cool. A big part of the character cast is the pirates who join you early on when you need a ship for traversing the world. These are musicians and each time you go to an inn they play the songs from the game which means that most songs also have a pirate version. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] [h3]Battles[/h3] This game uses an interactive turn-based combat style like the Mario and Luigi games with timed hits and blocks, which I especially like. One difference is that you cannot dodge attacks as blocking only reduces damage. I feel like this is a good compromise between taking guaranteed damage, and not completely negating damage - this also makes defensive stats more relevant. There is also the Lock System which requires you to hit enemies with specific damage types to break their spellcasting. I liked it a lot since it incentivised switching characters. Switching characters is seamless in battles as you do not spend a turn on the switch itself, so you can both switch to a new character and use a skill, which made the decision making in battles more fun. [h3]Character builds[/h3] Characters have 3 skills, 1 ultimate and a bunch of combo moves. The combo moves and ultimates use a special chargeable meter, so in reality you only have 3 moves per character until the meter is full. I would have liked to have 1 or 2 more skills per character for better progression. EXP is shared for the party like BG3, and every time your party levels up you get to select which stat each character should get an increase in. Of all the stats only HP and mana could really be felt, which made the levels feel a bit inconsequential. One thing worth noting is that each stat has a limited number of times you can increase it so you can't just only increase attack and have to vary it. Once you realise this it makes them seem even more inconsequential as it further decreases experimentation for character builds. For equipment each character can equip 2 rings that have some decent variety in effects, but this is the only real way you can kind of differentiate character builds. [h3]Difficulty[/h3] As said I played on the hardest difficulty, which meant no items allowed in battle and the enemies have more HP and deal more damage. I felt like this was the right choice but I can definitely see if some people feel like the bosses have too much HP. I beat most bosses on the first try so this was not a problem for me. I will say that the difficulty has some jumps here and there, especially around island 3 where I was suddenly one shot by some enemies, but overall it was fine. [h2]Pacing[/h2] The pacing of the story is fine throughout most of the game. When you think you are nearing the end of the game, it does the standard JRPG thing and increases the scope of the world, and you discover you are only 60% done with the game. While this was not unexpected it did make it feel like the main game was a bit too long, since I mentally was prepared for it to end sooner. One part of the game I would like to point out is around island 3 where the pacing especially feels too slow. You are 10h in and you still only have the same 3 starting members and skills. The members and skills are fun to use but at this point something new is desperately needed. This made it feel a lot more boring than the others as the lack of battle related progress started to impact my enjoyment of the game. ~18h in the 5th member joins the team and the game returns to being fun as you now have 5 different characters to switch around and use. The gameplay itself is really fast paced. Traversel throughout the world is very fast, getting in and out of battles is seamless, and most animations are quick and snappy. This is by far one of the best things about this game, as it feels like the game is always progressing forwards with not a lot of downtime. [h1]DLC[/h1] The DLC is a bit weird to me. Storywise the reason the DLC starts is because of the character Keenathan. The thing is, he only appears in the beginning and at the very end of the DLC even though the goal is to help him specifically. In actuality the DLC is about Valere and Zale and it explores their internal struggles akin to Persona 4. As I said earlier the MCs are not interesting at all in the base game, so for me this comes completely out of nowhere since now we have to empathize with characters who share names with the MCs but feel like completely different people since this was never explored in the main game. Gameplaywise the game is similar to the base game. You play as Valere and Zale with a new 3rd party member. The MCs have had their powers taken from them so they now have a whole new class with new skills all themed after the circus theme the DLC is centered around. The new skills are fun and it is a breath of fresh air. One problem with this is that when you have to fight the final boss of the DLC they regain their powers so they no longer use their circus classes, and while it makes sense storywise I was still dissapointed with this decision. Overall the DLC is just fine. For me it did not add too much interesting and it is not as good as the main game. It is also unlocked post game so at the time it became available to me I was already mentally done with the game. It is free though, so I think it is worth trying to see if you like it. [h1]Overall[/h1] Sea of Stars has charm and you can tell that the developers care. The music, art style and combat are the main drivers of the game. While the story is just serviceable and the MCs are bland the narrative still delivers some strong moments too. The exploration of the world is fastpaced and exciting which makes it worth playing. [h2]Score[/h2] Score: 8/10 100% Achievements difficulty: Low 100% Achievements annoyance: Low 100% Achievements grind: Low [h2]Recommendation[/h2] Yes. Especially if you like JRPGs.

Ребят, ну я поиграл всего 4 часа и... Не могу рекомендовать игру, ну ОООЧЕНЬ скучная прокачка. Ну вы серьезно, повышать уровень, чтобы вкачать одно очко в характеристики которые итак сами повышаются? Ни навыков, ни разветвлений, при повышении уровня. Я даже задался вопросом, не уж то и дальше такая прокачка останется, так и есть... Бред.

冷知识，看见弱智剧情不用绷住，直接差评伺候