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The Sea of Stars title screen. The game's name glows in cyan pixel-art lettering over a moonlit ocean at night, with a large full moon hanging in a starry sky to the right. In the lower left, a campfire crackles on a rocky, plant-covered outcrop with a small blue butterfly resting nearby, and a 'Press' prompt sits centered beneath the title.
Games

Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars didn't end up on my Mount Rushmore of JRPGs but the art direction and the story makes it worth the playthrough.

Mar 28, 20264 min readSteam Deck
  • Steam Deck

I hadn’t really had this game on my radar at all until there was a video shared by one of the members in The Gamer’s Tavern. It seemed right up my alley given that it had strong JRPG vibes to it so I chucked it on the wishlist. It ended up getting gifted to me by the secret santa for 2025 so I knew I was going to be giving it a whirl.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward in terms of combat but one of the game’s mechanics is that some attacks need to be timed in order to chain them together. It kind of glosses over this fact early on and makes it seem like it’s not all THAT big of a deal, but honestly it can make a pretty large difference so it’s worth getting it right.

Three party members scale a sheer, root-covered cliff face on the right side of the screen, lit by a warm glow. In the background, a full moon rises over jagged mountains and a towering red-brick temple with a clock set into its facade, all rendered in rich pixel art beneath a starry night sky dotted with pink-leafed trees and mushrooms.

The art design of Sea of Stars is actually quite good on two fronts. Not only does it scratch the itch of being an old school style JRPG in the veins of Chrono Trigger, but it also leverages illustrative cutscenes at times as well. The juxtaposition between the two give it a nice balance between keeping with the old school feel but blended with newer techniques. It was used just enough to be an effective transition without being so overused that it became kitschy.

An illustrative, hand-drawn cutscene in which the party stands braced on a tiled floor with weapons drawn, facing a massive writhing red creature that fills the right side of the frame. The group includes a blonde spear-wielder at the center, a masked rogue crouched with a dagger, a pale-haired warrior holding a spear, a robed figure, and a glowing cloud-like companion.

The story has some ebbs and flows to it with some really strong parts, especially the relationship between Valere, Zale, and Garl, but there were some parts of the story where it fell a little flat and contrived. But overall, the story was engaging and had some nice twists and turns to keep you engaged.

I likely left a lot on the table as while the game was good, I didn’t get the drive to try and go searching once free travel was available to me. If it is like any other real JRPG, there’s probably some super sweet weapons/armor out there I’ll never know about.

The game is worth a play through as the story is engaging and its genuinely fun to play. It’s not going to blow you away if you’re a fan of these types of games as it doesn’t do anything mind blowingly new to establish itself as a clear leader in the pack, but I’d be willing to play a second iteration of the series.