It’s the timing that’s sticking with me. There’s a lot to dig in Sabotage Studio’s gorgeous turn-based RPG Sea of Stars. Its cast, while archetypal, is lovable. Its environments — from a well-maintained but mostly deserted school in the sky to a town cursed by endless night and the wrath of a banshee — are beautifully crafted. Its score, composed by Eric W. Brown and the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda, is catchy and varied. Its combat balance is consistently strong. Its traversal mechanics — one of several echoes of Sabotage’s 2018 game The Messenger present in Sea of Stars — are clever, particularly when used in puzzle-solving. But above all else, it’s the timing. Structurally and narratively, Sea of Stars is a game about time — and its best moments spring from this.
Time and its inexorable passage are key to Sea of Stars’ story. On an immediate level, its core heroic trio (Zale, Valere, and their childhood friend Garl) are trying to make up for lost time. Zale and Valere left to train as world-defending Solstice Warriors when they were very young. Garl dedicated himself to becoming the best adventurer he could be. He might lack his friends’ magical powers, but that doesn’t mean he cannot step up and fight the good fight alongside them as a self-described Warrior Cook. Their reunion early in the game is a happy one. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve missed years.
So Valere and Zale’s quest is as much a matter of making up for lost time with Garl as it is tracking down and defeating the wicked Dweller of Woe. And as their party expands, their new mates bring histories of their own. The mysterious ninja Seraï, for instance, has a great deal she wants to do with her life as her past made such opportunities rare.
On a larger level, the conflict in Sea of Stars’ story is generational. Zale and Valere aren’t the first Solstice Warriors, nor will they be the last. Moreover, Sea of Stars shares a setting with The Messenger, making that game’s conflict part of the big-picture narrative as well. The world only spins forward, but the past does not die just because it is no longer the present. More than once, Sea of Stars sees Valere, Zale, and company either arrive as the tides are turning and the world is changing or they intervene in a long-standing status quo. (The most prominent example of this in the early game comes in the form of their adventure on the cursed Wraith Island, whose castaway community has been stranded on the island for so long they’ve resigned themselves to a horrible phantom killing them at random for fun.)
Sea of Stars is a solidly written tale, and it shines brightest when capturing feeling. Zale, Valere, and company are not as dimensional as, say, Final Fantasy XVI‘s Clive Rosfield or Xenoblade Chronicles 3‘s Ouroboros. They’re still well-crafted, particularly when it comes to their bond. A flashback introducing Garl, Valere, and Zale as children, for instance, establishes the depth of their connection and sets up a contrast between the goofy, rambunctious kids they were and the goofy, dutiful young adults they grew into. It’s effective, affecting work — and Sea of Stars‘ strongest story moments operate in a similar mode.
Timing also plays an essential part in Sea of Stars’ environmental puzzles. They’re a well-put-together pack: lightly challenging without feeling tossed off, and offering a welcome bit of variety to its dungeons. Timing manifests in everything from a very direct tool (protagonists Zale and Valere have the power to manipulate the time of day) to a key construction block in general puzzle creation.
But battle is where time is most critical. By design, Sea of Stars’ combat is not a matter of whaling on your opponents with the strongest attacks you have every single time. Instead, it turns on balancing regular attacks (which build the energy needed for special attacks), attacks boosted by the stray magic regular attacks release (offering an opportunity to exploit a foe’s weakness at the cost of not releasing stray magic or building special attack energy), and special attacks (powerful, but costly to use). Rely too much on special attacks, and you’ll burn through them fast. Stick strictly to normal attacks and there will be only so much damage you can do.
Knowing when and how to use each attack is critical to victory, and that extends to the particulars of individual attacks. Every move can be enhanced with the proper timing, and every enemy attack can be guarded at the right moment for reduced damage. Enemies telegraph particularly dangerous attacks and skills with what Sea of Stars calls its “lock system”: a timer and a series of “locks” that can be broken by the corresponding attack type. Break the locks before the timer runs down, and the attack is outright canceled, giving the party an opportunity to whale on the enemy unopposed. Break a few locks, and potentially devastating blows become recoverable. It’s a fun system, and, on the whole, turn-based combat in Sea of Stars is a ton of fun. It’s balanced so that, as long as you’re managing the party’s abilities well and have a solid grasp on timing, it will always be enjoyably challenging. For example, a last enemy mob placed in between a save point and a heavy combat and puzzle gauntlet proved to be quite frustrating.
The bosses in particular are satisfying, especially later on, when an expanded party necessitates their having the tools to match the player’s strength. Sea of Stars’ bosses require players to bring their A-game while simultaneously teaching the game through patterns, experimentation, and, above all else, timing. Beating one feels good.
And indeed, “it feels good” is a solid descriptor for Sea of Stars as a whole. The combat is smooth and enjoyably challenging. The audio-visual presentation is impeccable. The story and character work is not as intense or in-depth as, say, those in Perfect Tides or Nier: Automata, but it is not trying to be. It’s charming, evocative, and in places genuinely powerful. All told it’s a darn good time.
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