Sea of Stars Review (UmcaraAí)
First impressions, since I've only played 6 hours of it on PC and a few more hours of the Demo on Switch, I'll gladly change my review in the future if those strong impressions change.
If you want a "spiritual successor" for Chrono Trigger that's not it. And it'll be hard not to compare Sea of Stars with Chrono Trigger since we all know everyone claims this should be heavily inspired by it (I'm not sure now if the devs themselves claimed such a thing).
One of the main problems of this game is its pacing and the way the story is told, during those 6 hours I'd have to say that at least half of it were dedicated to the intro. The storytelling is just so expository and slow that it becomes just bad, it's like it is trying too hard to make you feel attached to these characters and make you understand this world in such a short period of time... It takes so long for you to be in control even though things are completely linear and sadly shallow. Take CT for example:
In Chrono Trigger, at the first minute of the game you are in complete control, you wake up, you're told you live in this marvelous kingdom and a festival celebrating its 1000th year is happening, you are in this different world that quickly shows itself to be somewhat fantastic with monsters and robots and marvelous things, you have only one directive: meet your childhood friend, she is waiting for you in the Millenial Fair. Do you want to go straight to there? Sure! Do you want explore your neighbors' houses? Fine! You want to even go to another town or visit the dangerous forest? Go ahead! Learn about your surroundings, learn about the lore, learn about who you are in this new universe.
Instead of doing something similar, Sea of Stars baits you at the first minute making you think you have control, and then put you through an extremely tiring and boring linear introduction where you don't really play as your "normal" characters and you just go through the expository story as if someone is reading a script to you. You don't really have much to investigate or learn because things are just told to you through janky dialogue, NPCs other than the "main" ones don't add anything to the atmosphere or lore, objects are mostly not interactive and when they are they don't add anything to the game or the story. When you finally reach the world map you can't really go anywhere other than the "next checkpoint", it's completely linear, there's no wonder to be found, no exploration to be done. To add to all the boring introduction, during cutscenes, which is most of the intro's first part, it's like the game feels the need to explain itself to you every second of the way (and that keeps going even after the introduction). Show, don't tell. Let the players experience the world you crafted!
Some other considerations:
Maybe that will change in the future, but so far the characters are just.. lacking a lot of charisma? I don't really like any of them and they don't really feel unique at all. So far the story and its characters are so silly while trying to be somewhat deep at the same time, and it doesn't really work for me. I'm quite past the pirates part and no character got my heart yet, and it's like Garl is trying too hard at all times, it's a bit artificial and annoying. Sad.
Another thing that sadly didn't have me by the feels yet is the soundtrack, quite bland. The fact that there is no music for combat contributes to the pacing issue, it's like fighting is not eventful. You're walking, then you find a monster and start fighting but nothing changes in the atmosphere of it all, you just stop moving and start pressing a few more buttons, there's no rythm to this transition, no excitement. It's like the devs haven't played a RPG at all, and I'm not talking only about J-RPGs. Most RPGs, if not all of them have combat music because fighting should be different, should be engaging, actually, I believe MOST games in general have some sort of combat music. That's not the case here. Weird.
Platforming. Why have fake platforming if it doesn't requires actual... platforming? Why make the characters jump and climb, or walk on ropes at all times if doesn't require actual skill or gameplay? It's just disruptive! It's like I am required to stop my normal speed or flow of movement constantly because the devs thought it would look nice and only that. For those who didn't play it yet: all the jumping and non-walking movement is automatic, you can't miss the platform you're jumping to, you do not require any sort of skill to reach your destination, it's not fun or engaging, it just slows you down. All the gaps and verticality of the map serves the only purpose of turning the map into some sort of maze and sometimes a puzzle. We got a good example that will have a remake pretty soon, one that combined J-RPG with platforming and that required the player to do actual gameplay: Super Mario RPG (and the first two Paper Mario, or all the Mario & Luigi series). Sea of Stars did not do it well though, the jumping and climbing is just "whatever" at best and annoying at worst.
The game does not have difficulty modes, or does it? Sea of Stars introduce things called relics that you can activate to somewhat reduce the difficulty of the game by decreasing the amount of damage you receive, making you automatically hit harder, showing you when you scored a perfect block, etc. But it's kind of weird? Because you gotta BUY those relics, and you gotta activate them, so they just feel like another piece of equipment, and I feel like (according to the game itself) that was not the developers' intention. It's just weird, to play the game in "easy" mode you gotta buy that option with the gold you were supposed to use for equipment and items, and you can activate/deactivate them whenever you want. Just a weird design decision, mainly because you gotta buy those options like you buy any other piece of equipment, so... The relics are just equipment? I mean, equipment is supposed to make the game easier because it makes your character stronger, right? Anyway, just adds a bit to the whole "they didn't know what they were doing" box to me.
The combat is fun but nothing new, the pixel art is pretty. Expository storytelling, characters and world that lacks charisma, weird or bad game/sound design choices... That's what Sea of Stars is to me right now. But I'll finish the game and come back here to give my conclusion. If you want to get an okay J-inspired RPG, go for it! There are much better options though, like Chained Echoes for example. If you want an amazing J-RPG or the spiritual successor of Chrono Trigger, Sea of Stars is NOT it.
I'll be back after I'm finished with the game.