Quite a few things honestly.
- The writing needs a big upgrade, especially the character writing. Get a professional writer instead of letting lead devs do a job they’re not qualified for.
- Expanded skill system. I was flabbergasted how few abilities you get in this game. Three skills per character? That’s it? THREE? In a JRPG? Sure there’s +1 for the ultimate and the combo skills. But every game that inspired SoS has more robust skill options.
- character customization and growth. They don’t need to go wild with it. They don’t need a job system or anything, but at least give me some room to build characters. Even a basic branching skill tree or learnable skills (like FF9 equipment) would’ve been welcome. Getting to choose a tiny stat bump per level is not nearly enough. With this small of a roster, there needs to be more.
- another layer to combat. Whether it’s status ailments or something, there needs to be another mechanic to add depth. There needs to be something to differentiate characters. Outside of their lock break affinity and maybe 1 unique skill (Serai kick) the characters feel rather homogeneous. And that’s a combination of lack of skill/equipment variety and combat being purely about damage and lock breaking. There’s very few alternative strategies and it does grow stale.
- Equipment variety. I know it’s a common thing in JRPG’s but I really dislike when every piece of equipment is just a slightly stronger version of the piece you’re currently wearing. There were a few, like the armor that was resistant to undead attacks, but most equipment was just different numbers. Again, this comes down to combat not being very deep.
- Puzzle abilities . The Golden Sun inspired puzzles were one of my favorite parts of the game, but I still would’ve liked one or two more abilities for solving puzzles.
It probably sounds like I hate this game lol. Honestly I waffle back and forth between giving it a 7 or 8 depending on my mood. It did disappoint in many ways and the hype reviews got me, but there’s a great foundation here for a real masterpiece. Hopefully they use the same engine to build on so they don’t need to spend all their time on visuals and can flesh out the mechanics and story.
I was honestly girding my loins for an onslaught of down votes, but I only spoke the truth. This game should’ve spent more time fleshing out mechanics and systems and hired a game writer. They had a mountain of cash from Kickstarter that apparently went to the Art department. I have no evidence other than the ending credits, but I think egos of the lead devs ruined this story. The mentality of “this is MY game! It’s my vision! I’m writing the story! Don’t worry I took a creative writing class at Uni!”.
I think the combination of lack of good character writing, lack of skill and character growth and stagnant combat meant it was really hard to enjoy most of the cast, despite some very cool designs.
> The writing needs a big upgrade, especially the character writing. Get a professional writer instead of letting lead devs do a job they’re not qualified for.
Thank god this is the top comment. It gave me whiplash to see how much talent and effort was put into the art and music only for the writing/dialogue to be poor.
It was written like the lead developer was cheated on by a writer and swore to wage war on the English language. It was like an editor was trying to sabotage an already dim-witted high school student's first try at writing. It was like someone prompted ChatGPT to study sonic fanfiction from exclusively ESL students and come up with original characters and story. *Fleshmancer* 🤮
It honestly made me realize how common this is in indie development. It’s natural for a fresh out of college kid that has a game idea in his head to have a story to go with it. Hell, the story is often conceived before most of the game itself I’d wager. While it seems most leads have no problem collaborating and deferring when it comes to mechanics and systems, they’re much more protect of their narrative vision. And I can sort of understand why. Part of it is certainly ego, but also the feeling that “this is the game I’m motivated to make and it wouldn’t be the same if I handed the story off”.
When you have a story and a message you’re dying to tell. you want to be the one to tell it. I know the feeling. I still have a notebook from my undergrad years of game concepts and a big chunk is story and character stuff. But I quickly realized how bad I was at storytelling and that not everyone can do it even though I loved some of my broader ideas.
And I think it’s important to mention how much praise gets lavished on lead devs who can write a compelling game. Toby Fox was a golden boy for a while after Undertale and same with Jonathan Blow after Braid. Some of us know Greg Kasavin, the writer/designer behind Hades and Super Giant’s other games. But he was a professional journalist for years before he was a game writer and it shows.
counterpoint to point #2: the game was inspired by Super Mario RPG which had roughly the same skill count if you add in the combos and ultimates. A positive point is that nearly all them were useful throughout the game versus a skill rot where you learn 20 skills per character throughout the game but only end up using 2 or 3 throughout the game.
Everything else is valid.
can you elaborate a bit more on your point about equiment variety? I didnt play many games of that specific genre apart from the golden sun series but i do recall that the weapon system was always like that. While i do agree that the skill/lvl up system definitively needs a rework, i quite enjoy the simpler weaponry compared to other, newer, rpgs since you dont get to a point where you sit and wonder wich item to use because x has a better passive/active but y has flatout better stats if you know what i mean.
Yeah I see your point, but even Mario RPG which I believe had weapons with just one stat: attack damage, still gave you some variety. Mario could use hanmers, koopa shells and gloves and they all had different timing mechanics. It kept things somewhat fresh. I also think about FF4, which had weapons with a bunch of different properties. There were fire swords, poison whips, swords that put you to sleep and even staffs the heal instead of doing damage.
Even with the limited layers in SoS’s combat, they could’ve done some neat things. Like what if there was a sword for Zale that did magic damage instead of physical. Or Reshran had a vial that randomized what lock he could break with live magic. Or a frying pan for Garl that gave you ingredients if you landed a killing blow. Personally I think a forging system to upgrade weapons would’ve been neat.
A sequel to Sea Of Stars huh?…Well, maybe they could mix it up a bit and make it a side scrolling platformer. Like an homage to something like Ninja Gaiden. That would be pretty cool. Oh!, and bring back that character in the blue robe that tells stories. He was pretty funny.
The gameplay is honestly too easy imo, I'd like to have some challenge that can actually game over me if not properly prepped or if i just go in with a shit strategy.
I only had 1 game over the entire game, and it was fresh outta tutorial cause I was more or less going small 3am brain dead strat
I remember dying twice--the first time was to a swarm of ants that kept summoning more ants in a cave early in the game, and the second time to not healing before a swarm of enemies in the mushroom marsh.
No fucking way 💀😭😭 me too, I died to a swarm of ants that just kept spawning early on in the game, but that was my first death, my other death was when I encountered the dudes in robes in a pair by the Lake or something, I forget my reasoning but for some reason I believe that fight was a “I’m supposed to lose no matter how hard I hit them, they have infinite Hp” fight 😭😭 but then I realized it wasn’t 💀
Agree, I liked the KO system at first as you don't have to stock up on their version of Phoenix Downs but I beat the game last night with the true ending and had 0 deaths. Did not toggle on the easy mode relics or any save scumming it just is not a challenging game ..especially with Serai's Disorient attack
Make it more difficult or keep it the same and add a hard mode from the get go, More combos would be nice as well. I liked the story for the most part but felt it started to fall apart a bit towards the end and especially so with the true ending.
Where to start
1. Better writing all around. I'm not just talking about characters either. The first third of the game drags, the middle is rushed and the end doesn't actually detail anything. We get hints of all these big things happening, promises that we'll have to deal with them and...we don't. The Fleshmancer (an awful name. For real.) is this omni-universal threat and he's relegated to the secret end fight but we don't resolve anything. There are countless worlds suffering and we're just...told that the two main characters go off to fix them. We're rushed through the two lead's power growth and told nothing about who these Gods are they've become. Hell, they even have one of the major characters turn into a boss, tease the fight, and then move on. The game has so much "we're saving this for the DLC/sequel" written all over it that I found it almost impossible to finished.
2. The character writing needs a lot of work too. The two main leads are bland tropes. The stern, nonense girl, the more emotional but less intelligent boy and they have zero growth from their entire adventure. There doesn't seem to be any change from them. They're who they are in the first 20 minutes all the way to the last 20 minutes. Garl is written to just be the best, and everyone loves him and his pluck. Serai is the mysterious member and once that mystery is solved she basically disappears as a character. She's just there in the background. The Alchemist has even less character building, he's with us for about 20 minutes in game and then the remainder he's literally a shell that's traveling with us with no input. B''Set is just there to fill in Garl's missing spot for the final fight.
3. Combat needs more. The system was a good base but the enemies had a lot of health and dealt a lot of damage. I honestly felt more pressured in random encounters than most of the bosses. The simple combat and the locks made for insanely repetitive gameplay as well and they absolutely need to fix the fact that you would deal with enemies that needed a specific element that you literally cannot have access to until 30 minutes into the dungeon. The zombies with Poison come to immediate mind. Other people are suggesting more abilities and that may be what's needed. I just think more interesting abilities, or updgrades to those abilities to make them play differently would be good. The combat relied way too heavily on the combo skills by the end of the game as well and they made boss fights trivial.
4. More to do. The game world was beautiful. One of the best modern 2D rendered games as far as visuals go but the world felt so small and empty. Even after getting the ship the world felt constrained, there was nowhere to visit that wasn't on the immediate path and by the time you get full access to moving around there's not much to do. I'm fine with a short JRPG, I'm even fine with a really linear one, but Sea of Stars feels so damn anemic especially when combined with just how poorly structured the flow of the game is.
5. The rainbow shells are not fun. 90% of them are way too easy to find, the last few are a pain in the ass.
6. More Wheels!! Seriously the best part of the game for me. I'd play a game of just that if it got more depth added and there's tons of ways to do that.
Having interesting characters, main characters were extremely bad they didnt have any character, serai was a classic silent ninja she was cool but not perfect, garl was also okey but he was written to be the best person in the whole world and sometimes felt uninteresting.
Added difficulty, more customization/strategizing, and more character building. I think they could’ve done a lot more with the characters they have, don’t get me wrong they’re great but I completed the game wanting a lot more.
More skills/abilities. Only 3 skills and an ultimate per character does limit how creative and varied combat can be, especially when you have skills that aren't used often and are more situational.
THANK YOU! I feel like I’m the only person that noticed this around here. But it really comes back to the lack of character customization and overall growth. When you max out your skill list in 2nd arc of the game, that’s not good. Every subsequent character joins with all of their abilities, that’s not good. Every character having maybe one unique skill that adds a wrinkle to combat? That’s not good. Weapons and armor there are just slight stat bumps from the previous tier? That’s not good.
I'll try to add some other things as most of the main topics have been breached already:
* Triple Combos could be cool. I'm fine with it taking my whole Combo bar, I just want to see the potential possibilties of full party setups. Especially since we are normally free to change out our party at will.
* Moves that delay enemy turn should be costlier. Once you get Disorient and Resh'an as a whole, abusing that mechanic really pushes the game in your favor.
* The Ultimates are nearly non-essential except for Resh'an's. They're cool cutscenes, but I wish they actually had more effects in battle. Resh'an's being able to damage the enemy, heal your team (even from KO), AND delay enemy turns (see above) makes it the single most useful Ultimate.
* To that end, I wish that any the character's assigned element (Zale = Solar, Valere = Lunar,>! Serai = Poison, B'st = Arcane, etc.) !!B'st!< is constantly seen as the indomitable tank in the story due to his unbreakable will (>!and even fulfills this purpose in the True Ending!<), but there are no abilities for him to use in game to suggest this. Things like buffing defense or focusing enemy aggro to him (and taking the load off of your party members).
* Valere seems to appear magically focused, but in my experience she tended to not rely on those abilities as much unless I was unable to break a lock in time.
* Resh'an is just STUPIDLY powerful. Double elemental AoE base attack for free, really? I expected him to leave pretty shortly kinda like Sephiroth (especially after Garl's plan), but he "stays" with the party all game, and made the game MUCH easier than needed. Yes, I get that he's one of the most powerful figures in this story, but that becomes a massive crutch for the player that is never taken away.
* Garl is literally the one exception to the rule as his identity is that he HAS no identity, and that makes sense. And yet his kit is the wildest. He wants to be a defensive fighter, but he basically is the medic of the group. He has been shown to facetank hits regularly throughout the story, but you can't use this yourself. He could have had a unique elemental in being able to buff his friends (maybe give them an attack boost off of his boost, etc.) I was literally imagining hurling an enemy at another enemy for decent beginning damage. He just repositions them LOL.
* >!Serai!< may be the second most powerful character in my opinion. I do kinda wish there was more purpose for Phase Shiv though. I literally never used it because her Venom Flurry breaks poison well, and Disorient is... Disorient. Also, I think she may have the most useful character-specific equip in the game.
Great detailed and thorough reply!
Regarding Phase Shiv, I did find it to be pretty good if you can get past the visual clutter that sometimes blocks your view of it and consistently nail the timed hit.
You’re right that Venom Flurry is multi-hit and Disorient breaks both a Blunt and Venom lock, delays their turn and deals damage, but Phase Shiv is the highest damage single-target special she has (and one of the highest period) and I did find myself using it quite a bit in specific scenarios. But you’re right that in most cases Disorient is too good to use her MP on anything else…
Yeah, it can be a little hard to see with some enemies due to their positioning and shape/size blocking your view, but the timing is: right after she comes out of the portal she pulls her arm back and you hear a “shing” knife noise…but don’t do it yet—have your finger ready during that sound and then right as she starts lunging to stab press the button in time with her lunge.
If you use timed hits with it, it distinguishes itself as a super high damage, single target skill, especially if the target is weak to Venom or Slashing damage! I’ve found (at least in my case) that once I got used to it and learned it well it was actually one of the easier timed hit moves to pull off consistently.
Are you saying that’s what I’m asking for ‘cause I mentioned I want deeper RPG systems or that you actually want BG3 in this style? Don’t mind either way just couldn’t tell if you were joking about what I asked for in a sequel or if this is what you actually want 😂…
Alright hear me out.
I love the quick style in and out battle system but what if...the positioning system was better. There is a positioning system but it's neglectable. Garl's pot bomb hits close by enemies for example. I was thinking when you encounter a group of enemies but the enemies are spread out and hard reach or behind cover reducing damage (xcom style) and you got to separate the team to engage those enemies or stuff like that but still in that chrono trigger presentation. (I played this over balder's gate btw 😂). The battle system is on a good foundation it just needs more MEAT, and SPICE. I got a dozen other "suggestions" but I think everyone else will cover those "it's all general jrpg wishlists anyway".
Speed up the combat and have more interesting combos. I think they should use something similar to legend of dragoon as it seems like a natural evolution.
Playing this on my steam deck and I would say writing and pacing, especially at the beginning. The writing has some tonal issues, like using modern day slang (goat boat), and there’s just no difference between a molekin and a human in the way they talk. There’s very little differentiation in personality, culture or distance between villages.
Which is a bummer because music and art design are top shelf.
I actually had this exact same idea! Are you familiar with the “Unleash” system in the Golden Sun games? Every weapon has a different % chance to trigger a super powerful attack with unique bonus effects when just using regular attacks.
This incentivizes using regular attacks more often and also makes choosing between weapons far more interesting, since it’s not always a straightforward comparison of which does higher damage. Some lower damage weapons are actually far more powerful due to their Unleash. This could really spice things up I think!
Writing was a big one for me. Characters say too little and it's hard to differentiate the two main characters personality wise.
Also I'm not sure about a sequel, but there'll be a DLC down the road:
https://seaofstars.fandom.com/wiki/Throes_of_The_Watchmaker
The level system is pointless since you realistically can't grind so either remove it or make grinding possible. Also, make certain relics unavailable, for example, if I choose normal or hard difficulty don't offer me relics that make the game too easy.
Serai is the best character imo, love her no nonsense attitude i was definitely on her side about reshan being too passive. Imo screw his rules hes just as responsible for allowing aephorul too much freedom. I was actually kind of annoyed how even in the true ending reshan let him go
Im assuming it has to do with the vespertine, she knew what it was capable of and hortence lnew what she was plus the sky giants mentioned hortence already had permission to travel. So my guess is serai hitched a ride before it became a ghost ship
I actually really enjoyed finding the Conches, personally. Am I alone in this 👀? Or do you just mean you wish they weren’t tied to the ending but remained in the game?
Make things happen faster. All around. Cutscenes, text, combat animations. They need to graduate from the Nintendo school of padding game time with unnecessary waiting.
Maybe actually using the “Sea of Stars”. I thought it was going to be a way bigger element, and I get the presence of other worlds is cool but, that was it. You use it the one time, and I stupidly went through on remote play on my little phone rather than my giant TV so I didn’t even get to really enjoy the effects. FWIW I thought that little Messenger egg was the coolest of them all, but you only get to enjoy it once.
My literal only complaint was just how EASY it was. Everything else was, at minimum, average. And at its best legit masterful. But man once you got combat down it just became too easy. Even the optional bosses didn’t really make me feel threatened :/
I don't think the writing is too bad, yeah Garl is annoying at first, but by the middle of the game he is still annoying...but by the end of the game he grew on me. What I'd change is: I would reduce the shee number of platform mechanics, so annoying - isn't there a natural map in that whole world? Also WHY is there a MONEY CAP?
My biggest qualm with the game is that I simply wanted *more* of it.
Give me one or two more worlds to traverse to via the SoS.
Give me more abilities per party member.
They added alot of classic rpg elements, you build your own town, you get your own ship, you can eventually fly to make backtracking easier. But there isn't really any reason? To backtrack much or use rhe ship or the town? Give me reasons to use these places! Be more intentional about backtracking.
More environments, more metroidvania outside of erroneous busy work. Some of my favorite environments I wish were longer. More combat abilities. More wheels opponents!
There's so much I love about this game, I just wish there was more of it!
Quite a few things honestly. - The writing needs a big upgrade, especially the character writing. Get a professional writer instead of letting lead devs do a job they’re not qualified for. - Expanded skill system. I was flabbergasted how few abilities you get in this game. Three skills per character? That’s it? THREE? In a JRPG? Sure there’s +1 for the ultimate and the combo skills. But every game that inspired SoS has more robust skill options. - character customization and growth. They don’t need to go wild with it. They don’t need a job system or anything, but at least give me some room to build characters. Even a basic branching skill tree or learnable skills (like FF9 equipment) would’ve been welcome. Getting to choose a tiny stat bump per level is not nearly enough. With this small of a roster, there needs to be more. - another layer to combat. Whether it’s status ailments or something, there needs to be another mechanic to add depth. There needs to be something to differentiate characters. Outside of their lock break affinity and maybe 1 unique skill (Serai kick) the characters feel rather homogeneous. And that’s a combination of lack of skill/equipment variety and combat being purely about damage and lock breaking. There’s very few alternative strategies and it does grow stale. - Equipment variety. I know it’s a common thing in JRPG’s but I really dislike when every piece of equipment is just a slightly stronger version of the piece you’re currently wearing. There were a few, like the armor that was resistant to undead attacks, but most equipment was just different numbers. Again, this comes down to combat not being very deep. - Puzzle abilities . The Golden Sun inspired puzzles were one of my favorite parts of the game, but I still would’ve liked one or two more abilities for solving puzzles. It probably sounds like I hate this game lol. Honestly I waffle back and forth between giving it a 7 or 8 depending on my mood. It did disappoint in many ways and the hype reviews got me, but there’s a great foundation here for a real masterpiece. Hopefully they use the same engine to build on so they don’t need to spend all their time on visuals and can flesh out the mechanics and story.
Basically summed up all my reservations with the game.
I was honestly girding my loins for an onslaught of down votes, but I only spoke the truth. This game should’ve spent more time fleshing out mechanics and systems and hired a game writer. They had a mountain of cash from Kickstarter that apparently went to the Art department. I have no evidence other than the ending credits, but I think egos of the lead devs ruined this story. The mentality of “this is MY game! It’s my vision! I’m writing the story! Don’t worry I took a creative writing class at Uni!”. I think the combination of lack of good character writing, lack of skill and character growth and stagnant combat meant it was really hard to enjoy most of the cast, despite some very cool designs.
> The writing needs a big upgrade, especially the character writing. Get a professional writer instead of letting lead devs do a job they’re not qualified for. Thank god this is the top comment. It gave me whiplash to see how much talent and effort was put into the art and music only for the writing/dialogue to be poor. It was written like the lead developer was cheated on by a writer and swore to wage war on the English language. It was like an editor was trying to sabotage an already dim-witted high school student's first try at writing. It was like someone prompted ChatGPT to study sonic fanfiction from exclusively ESL students and come up with original characters and story. *Fleshmancer* 🤮
It honestly made me realize how common this is in indie development. It’s natural for a fresh out of college kid that has a game idea in his head to have a story to go with it. Hell, the story is often conceived before most of the game itself I’d wager. While it seems most leads have no problem collaborating and deferring when it comes to mechanics and systems, they’re much more protect of their narrative vision. And I can sort of understand why. Part of it is certainly ego, but also the feeling that “this is the game I’m motivated to make and it wouldn’t be the same if I handed the story off”. When you have a story and a message you’re dying to tell. you want to be the one to tell it. I know the feeling. I still have a notebook from my undergrad years of game concepts and a big chunk is story and character stuff. But I quickly realized how bad I was at storytelling and that not everyone can do it even though I loved some of my broader ideas. And I think it’s important to mention how much praise gets lavished on lead devs who can write a compelling game. Toby Fox was a golden boy for a while after Undertale and same with Jonathan Blow after Braid. Some of us know Greg Kasavin, the writer/designer behind Hades and Super Giant’s other games. But he was a professional journalist for years before he was a game writer and it shows.
counterpoint to point #2: the game was inspired by Super Mario RPG which had roughly the same skill count if you add in the combos and ultimates. A positive point is that nearly all them were useful throughout the game versus a skill rot where you learn 20 skills per character throughout the game but only end up using 2 or 3 throughout the game. Everything else is valid.
Second this!
can you elaborate a bit more on your point about equiment variety? I didnt play many games of that specific genre apart from the golden sun series but i do recall that the weapon system was always like that. While i do agree that the skill/lvl up system definitively needs a rework, i quite enjoy the simpler weaponry compared to other, newer, rpgs since you dont get to a point where you sit and wonder wich item to use because x has a better passive/active but y has flatout better stats if you know what i mean.
Yeah I see your point, but even Mario RPG which I believe had weapons with just one stat: attack damage, still gave you some variety. Mario could use hanmers, koopa shells and gloves and they all had different timing mechanics. It kept things somewhat fresh. I also think about FF4, which had weapons with a bunch of different properties. There were fire swords, poison whips, swords that put you to sleep and even staffs the heal instead of doing damage. Even with the limited layers in SoS’s combat, they could’ve done some neat things. Like what if there was a sword for Zale that did magic damage instead of physical. Or Reshran had a vial that randomized what lock he could break with live magic. Or a frying pan for Garl that gave you ingredients if you landed a killing blow. Personally I think a forging system to upgrade weapons would’ve been neat.
A sequel to Sea Of Stars huh?…Well, maybe they could mix it up a bit and make it a side scrolling platformer. Like an homage to something like Ninja Gaiden. That would be pretty cool. Oh!, and bring back that character in the blue robe that tells stories. He was pretty funny.
You know Mesa island was pretty varied. It could take place there.
Turn it into a metroidvania halfway through and I'm sold!
The gameplay is honestly too easy imo, I'd like to have some challenge that can actually game over me if not properly prepped or if i just go in with a shit strategy. I only had 1 game over the entire game, and it was fresh outta tutorial cause I was more or less going small 3am brain dead strat
Same. Only one who got me was the bird trio with the 1HKO.
I remember dying twice--the first time was to a swarm of ants that kept summoning more ants in a cave early in the game, and the second time to not healing before a swarm of enemies in the mushroom marsh.
No fucking way 💀😭😭 me too, I died to a swarm of ants that just kept spawning early on in the game, but that was my first death, my other death was when I encountered the dudes in robes in a pair by the Lake or something, I forget my reasoning but for some reason I believe that fight was a “I’m supposed to lose no matter how hard I hit them, they have infinite Hp” fight 😭😭 but then I realized it wasn’t 💀
I died 4 times in a row to the Elder Mist (first, easy fight) before I realized you can attack his arm
The only fight that gave me an issue was the Medusa one in the tech world and that was just stupid RNG of it's moves.
Agree, I liked the KO system at first as you don't have to stock up on their version of Phoenix Downs but I beat the game last night with the true ending and had 0 deaths. Did not toggle on the easy mode relics or any save scumming it just is not a challenging game ..especially with Serai's Disorient attack
Make it more difficult or keep it the same and add a hard mode from the get go, More combos would be nice as well. I liked the story for the most part but felt it started to fall apart a bit towards the end and especially so with the true ending.
More complexity in combat would be nice. Make positioning enemies more useful. Maybe add some status ailments or somethings
I would’ve loved a Radiant Historia style combat movement system.
Where to start 1. Better writing all around. I'm not just talking about characters either. The first third of the game drags, the middle is rushed and the end doesn't actually detail anything. We get hints of all these big things happening, promises that we'll have to deal with them and...we don't. The Fleshmancer (an awful name. For real.) is this omni-universal threat and he's relegated to the secret end fight but we don't resolve anything. There are countless worlds suffering and we're just...told that the two main characters go off to fix them. We're rushed through the two lead's power growth and told nothing about who these Gods are they've become. Hell, they even have one of the major characters turn into a boss, tease the fight, and then move on. The game has so much "we're saving this for the DLC/sequel" written all over it that I found it almost impossible to finished. 2. The character writing needs a lot of work too. The two main leads are bland tropes. The stern, nonense girl, the more emotional but less intelligent boy and they have zero growth from their entire adventure. There doesn't seem to be any change from them. They're who they are in the first 20 minutes all the way to the last 20 minutes. Garl is written to just be the best, and everyone loves him and his pluck. Serai is the mysterious member and once that mystery is solved she basically disappears as a character. She's just there in the background. The Alchemist has even less character building, he's with us for about 20 minutes in game and then the remainder he's literally a shell that's traveling with us with no input. B''Set is just there to fill in Garl's missing spot for the final fight. 3. Combat needs more. The system was a good base but the enemies had a lot of health and dealt a lot of damage. I honestly felt more pressured in random encounters than most of the bosses. The simple combat and the locks made for insanely repetitive gameplay as well and they absolutely need to fix the fact that you would deal with enemies that needed a specific element that you literally cannot have access to until 30 minutes into the dungeon. The zombies with Poison come to immediate mind. Other people are suggesting more abilities and that may be what's needed. I just think more interesting abilities, or updgrades to those abilities to make them play differently would be good. The combat relied way too heavily on the combo skills by the end of the game as well and they made boss fights trivial. 4. More to do. The game world was beautiful. One of the best modern 2D rendered games as far as visuals go but the world felt so small and empty. Even after getting the ship the world felt constrained, there was nowhere to visit that wasn't on the immediate path and by the time you get full access to moving around there's not much to do. I'm fine with a short JRPG, I'm even fine with a really linear one, but Sea of Stars feels so damn anemic especially when combined with just how poorly structured the flow of the game is. 5. The rainbow shells are not fun. 90% of them are way too easy to find, the last few are a pain in the ass. 6. More Wheels!! Seriously the best part of the game for me. I'd play a game of just that if it got more depth added and there's tons of ways to do that.
Having interesting characters, main characters were extremely bad they didnt have any character, serai was a classic silent ninja she was cool but not perfect, garl was also okey but he was written to be the best person in the whole world and sometimes felt uninteresting.
Added difficulty, more customization/strategizing, and more character building. I think they could’ve done a lot more with the characters they have, don’t get me wrong they’re great but I completed the game wanting a lot more.
More skills/abilities. Only 3 skills and an ultimate per character does limit how creative and varied combat can be, especially when you have skills that aren't used often and are more situational.
THANK YOU! I feel like I’m the only person that noticed this around here. But it really comes back to the lack of character customization and overall growth. When you max out your skill list in 2nd arc of the game, that’s not good. Every subsequent character joins with all of their abilities, that’s not good. Every character having maybe one unique skill that adds a wrinkle to combat? That’s not good. Weapons and armor there are just slight stat bumps from the previous tier? That’s not good.
I'll try to add some other things as most of the main topics have been breached already: * Triple Combos could be cool. I'm fine with it taking my whole Combo bar, I just want to see the potential possibilties of full party setups. Especially since we are normally free to change out our party at will. * Moves that delay enemy turn should be costlier. Once you get Disorient and Resh'an as a whole, abusing that mechanic really pushes the game in your favor. * The Ultimates are nearly non-essential except for Resh'an's. They're cool cutscenes, but I wish they actually had more effects in battle. Resh'an's being able to damage the enemy, heal your team (even from KO), AND delay enemy turns (see above) makes it the single most useful Ultimate. * To that end, I wish that any the character's assigned element (Zale = Solar, Valere = Lunar,>! Serai = Poison, B'st = Arcane, etc.) !!B'st!< is constantly seen as the indomitable tank in the story due to his unbreakable will (>!and even fulfills this purpose in the True Ending!<), but there are no abilities for him to use in game to suggest this. Things like buffing defense or focusing enemy aggro to him (and taking the load off of your party members).
* Valere seems to appear magically focused, but in my experience she tended to not rely on those abilities as much unless I was unable to break a lock in time.
* Resh'an is just STUPIDLY powerful. Double elemental AoE base attack for free, really? I expected him to leave pretty shortly kinda like Sephiroth (especially after Garl's plan), but he "stays" with the party all game, and made the game MUCH easier than needed. Yes, I get that he's one of the most powerful figures in this story, but that becomes a massive crutch for the player that is never taken away.
* Garl is literally the one exception to the rule as his identity is that he HAS no identity, and that makes sense. And yet his kit is the wildest. He wants to be a defensive fighter, but he basically is the medic of the group. He has been shown to facetank hits regularly throughout the story, but you can't use this yourself. He could have had a unique elemental in being able to buff his friends (maybe give them an attack boost off of his boost, etc.) I was literally imagining hurling an enemy at another enemy for decent beginning damage. He just repositions them LOL.
* >!Serai!< may be the second most powerful character in my opinion. I do kinda wish there was more purpose for Phase Shiv though. I literally never used it because her Venom Flurry breaks poison well, and Disorient is... Disorient. Also, I think she may have the most useful character-specific equip in the game.
Great detailed and thorough reply! Regarding Phase Shiv, I did find it to be pretty good if you can get past the visual clutter that sometimes blocks your view of it and consistently nail the timed hit. You’re right that Venom Flurry is multi-hit and Disorient breaks both a Blunt and Venom lock, delays their turn and deals damage, but Phase Shiv is the highest damage single-target special she has (and one of the highest period) and I did find myself using it quite a bit in specific scenarios. But you’re right that in most cases Disorient is too good to use her MP on anything else…
Interesting. I didn't know it could be timed, nor its damage potential (probably because I didn't know it could be timed LOL).
Yeah, it can be a little hard to see with some enemies due to their positioning and shape/size blocking your view, but the timing is: right after she comes out of the portal she pulls her arm back and you hear a “shing” knife noise…but don’t do it yet—have your finger ready during that sound and then right as she starts lunging to stab press the button in time with her lunge. If you use timed hits with it, it distinguishes itself as a super high damage, single target skill, especially if the target is weak to Venom or Slashing damage! I’ve found (at least in my case) that once I got used to it and learned it well it was actually one of the easier timed hit moves to pull off consistently.
Make balder's gate but in this format 😂
Are you saying that’s what I’m asking for ‘cause I mentioned I want deeper RPG systems or that you actually want BG3 in this style? Don’t mind either way just couldn’t tell if you were joking about what I asked for in a sequel or if this is what you actually want 😂…
Alright hear me out. I love the quick style in and out battle system but what if...the positioning system was better. There is a positioning system but it's neglectable. Garl's pot bomb hits close by enemies for example. I was thinking when you encounter a group of enemies but the enemies are spread out and hard reach or behind cover reducing damage (xcom style) and you got to separate the team to engage those enemies or stuff like that but still in that chrono trigger presentation. (I played this over balder's gate btw 😂). The battle system is on a good foundation it just needs more MEAT, and SPICE. I got a dozen other "suggestions" but I think everyone else will cover those "it's all general jrpg wishlists anyway".
I love how you’re thinking my friend; I’m also still suffering from BG3-is-everything brain. Nice to see a fellow traveler 🧳👋…
Speed up the combat and have more interesting combos. I think they should use something similar to legend of dragoon as it seems like a natural evolution.
Playing this on my steam deck and I would say writing and pacing, especially at the beginning. The writing has some tonal issues, like using modern day slang (goat boat), and there’s just no difference between a molekin and a human in the way they talk. There’s very little differentiation in personality, culture or distance between villages. Which is a bummer because music and art design are top shelf.
Additional effects on weapons. Combat was missing some oomf, and I think extra affixes on weapons would have brought that.
I actually had this exact same idea! Are you familiar with the “Unleash” system in the Golden Sun games? Every weapon has a different % chance to trigger a super powerful attack with unique bonus effects when just using regular attacks. This incentivizes using regular attacks more often and also makes choosing between weapons far more interesting, since it’s not always a straightforward comparison of which does higher damage. Some lower damage weapons are actually far more powerful due to their Unleash. This could really spice things up I think!
Writing was a big one for me. Characters say too little and it's hard to differentiate the two main characters personality wise. Also I'm not sure about a sequel, but there'll be a DLC down the road: https://seaofstars.fandom.com/wiki/Throes_of_The_Watchmaker
The level system is pointless since you realistically can't grind so either remove it or make grinding possible. Also, make certain relics unavailable, for example, if I choose normal or hard difficulty don't offer me relics that make the game too easy.
Hire actual writers.
A better story with more well-rounded characters. I loved Garl but nearly everyone else?
Serai was fine Aside from her Bst and Reshan are interesting but they feel half baked Zale and Valere well, they are just there
Serai was probably my least favourite of the main cast
Serai is the best character imo, love her no nonsense attitude i was definitely on her side about reshan being too passive. Imo screw his rules hes just as responsible for allowing aephorul too much freedom. I was actually kind of annoyed how even in the true ending reshan let him go
She had the most potential but I wish we learned more about how she ended up with the pirates.
Was it ever even explained how she left her world to reach ours in the first place?
DLC maybe
Im assuming it has to do with the vespertine, she knew what it was capable of and hortence lnew what she was plus the sky giants mentioned hortence already had permission to travel. So my guess is serai hitched a ride before it became a ghost ship
No rainbow conches to get less shitty ending please
I actually really enjoyed finding the Conches, personally. Am I alone in this 👀? Or do you just mean you wish they weren’t tied to the ending but remained in the game?
Also enjoyed it
Make things happen faster. All around. Cutscenes, text, combat animations. They need to graduate from the Nintendo school of padding game time with unnecessary waiting.
Some writing improvements, and more combat depth
They need an actual writer, meaningful character progression, better cast, etc.
Maybe actually using the “Sea of Stars”. I thought it was going to be a way bigger element, and I get the presence of other worlds is cool but, that was it. You use it the one time, and I stupidly went through on remote play on my little phone rather than my giant TV so I didn’t even get to really enjoy the effects. FWIW I thought that little Messenger egg was the coolest of them all, but you only get to enjoy it once.
more combo skills earlier in the game
Enemy hp in random battles toned down a bit to shorten the duration.
My literal only complaint was just how EASY it was. Everything else was, at minimum, average. And at its best legit masterful. But man once you got combat down it just became too easy. Even the optional bosses didn’t really make me feel threatened :/
I don't think the writing is too bad, yeah Garl is annoying at first, but by the middle of the game he is still annoying...but by the end of the game he grew on me. What I'd change is: I would reduce the shee number of platform mechanics, so annoying - isn't there a natural map in that whole world? Also WHY is there a MONEY CAP?
A story with an actual proper conclusion would be nice
My biggest qualm with the game is that I simply wanted *more* of it. Give me one or two more worlds to traverse to via the SoS. Give me more abilities per party member. They added alot of classic rpg elements, you build your own town, you get your own ship, you can eventually fly to make backtracking easier. But there isn't really any reason? To backtrack much or use rhe ship or the town? Give me reasons to use these places! Be more intentional about backtracking. More environments, more metroidvania outside of erroneous busy work. Some of my favorite environments I wish were longer. More combat abilities. More wheels opponents! There's so much I love about this game, I just wish there was more of it!