The award-winning retro-inspired turn-based adventure RPG, Sea of Stars, is now available on both Android and iOS for $10. Originally developed by Sabotage Studios, Sea of Stars delivers a very retro RPG feel similar to other classic turn-based games made by Square Enix. After spending 30 hours with Sea of Stars on my Samsung M55, let me tell you why this game feels like a masterpiece to me in this review.
Thanks to Playdigious, we can now experience this masterpiece port on mobile!
If you have ever played any old Chrono Trigger games, Octopath Traveler, or Dragon Quest games, this is one of those types of games, but with clever and very thoughtful additions. They even got the original composer of the Chrono game series, Yasunori Mitsuda.
The gameplay is old school, but for modern kids
So let me give the base picture of what Sea of Stars is about. It is set on a set of islands in a fantasy world, where the player controls either Valere or Zale, Solstice Warriors who use the power of the sun and moon. You go on an adventure throughout the world on a quest to destroy powerful monsters called Dwellers and to stop the immortal alchemist who created them.
When I talk about old-school gameplay, the closest mobile game right now is Sword of Convallaria if you remove all the gacha elements. The gameplay is very simple and easy to understand. You control a party of 3 members. Fight enemies with bosses, solve puzzles, and do a little bit of platforming here and there.
On the screen, you can freely move around with the side joystick, and when an enemy triggers a fight, or you trigger a fight. The game enters turn-based fighting mode with your party members, whom you selected before the fight.
The options when your turn is up are very flexible. You can do a direct Attack, use a skill, or initiate a combo power attack (if you have the requirements fulfilled), use items, or swap a party member. The biggest and most useful feature here is your ability to swap a teammate mid-fight.
This feature is something almost all other turn-based gacha and non-gacha games don’t have. If you need a different class member, you can swap them up. I won’t spoil who is who, but I will say you will be thrilled to get new teammates on your team.
The Combat is fluid and has depths
The gameplay is mainly you and your team fighting enemies on turn basis. With the game’s simple UI, it’s easy to choose your target and initiate your skills and attacks on screen. The world is dynamic, meaning your actions have consequences, and NPCs will react to your actions. You get to choose between Zale and Valere. Don’t worry, both have the same set of dialogues, so you will not miss anything on the story side.
At the start, you will have only Zale and Valere on your team. Both have different skills and elements. And enemies are susceptible to different elements, so keep that in mind when engaging elemental-based enemies so that you don’t waste your turn and end up losing your teammates in the battle. I chose to go with Zale, and he is a blade dancer with fire as his element, while Valere has the Ice element.
The deeper you go into the story, the more you learn and see that there’s a bigger and very in-depth gameplay system in place, with staggers and enemy stance breaking with certain attacks. You can interrupt a lot of bosses’ powerful attacks by doing a certain elemental damage using a certain skill. But you need to go through the story and the game to find out by trial and error.
The visuals, the optimisation, and the artistry work well
The game, on the surface, is a classy 16-bit game with not much visual fidelity to offer. You can fully ignore it as a low-budget game. But once you look further into the game’s world and the art style, you will notice some very neat and great details. This game respects your time by treating you with gorgeous and often wow-esque quality scenery.
People like me who enjoy old 16-bit era games will certainly find it charming. The game’s world and character designs will remind you of Sword of Cornavallaria and Revived Witch (RIP goated ost). There are not many good single-player pixel-style turn-based RPG games that are made with soul and passion, and don’t want to rip you off with cheap quality work.
The game’s simple graphics help it to run on almost every entry-level device in the market. Thanks to that, I had a very pleasant and healthy game experience. Especially coming from the messy game optimisation experience that was the Seven Deadly Sins: Origins.
This game has zero bugs or faults that I can hold it accountable for. It is a rare gem to see. A game with zero bugs or problems launches on a mobile. You know a game’s optimisation is great when it says, “This app is available for all of your devices”.
There is nothing repetitive with the visuals, as you keep visiting new islands and new areas, you can see the devs crafted all these with ideas and themes in mind. They are varied and look great with the pixel art style. None of them looks out of place. The best thing is, when you visit an island, the OST changes with it. There’s also a neat detail that when you change the time, you can see shadows change in real time.
The classy UI brings all relevant info in one space
Just like other turn-based RPG games with Pixel graphics. Sea of Stars offers a clear and concise UI to help you read the story and all the things on the screen very easily and neatly without any problems. The UI is clear when you fight and offers all the necessary information needed for fighting enemies. The game also has navigation made easy to follow, thanks to its nicely packed map system.
The game gives you all the options in the settings menu you need to have proper gameplay. When fights with bosses happen, you can easily see if they are getting damaged or if your attacks are working or not. The words on screen are properly sized so that they are easy to read on small-screen devices like the phone. As an RPG, you really have to pay attention and read a lot. So don’t skip through dialogues.
A complete single-player experience after a one-time purchase
The game is a buy once, enjoy forever deal. At its current 10$ pricing (regional prices may vary), the game offers a massive 30 to 40 hours of gameplay and content. And there are no microtransactions or any in-game purchases required to do anything. It’s a fully offline single-player game experience, start to finish.
If you ask whether or not if its worth buying a premium game worth this much, I will only write this for people planning on paying to get this game. If you enjoy pixel-style story-rich games, then it’s absolutely worth it to get the game.
The game’s length and all the content are fully worth the price. Compared to every other game out there trying to nickel and dime you into paying for characters, this one gives everything for free to use and run around with. Don’t worry about this game having an EOS.
Story and OST: We need more games like this on mobile
Sea of Stars proves that it is absolutely possible to have a great story game in a pixel world. Similar to other JRPG classics, Sea of Stars proves that it has all the story beats in the game to be cemented as a great story-rich game.
The game offers a lot of humor, emotions, and twists to keep you engaged in its 30-hour main story campaign. There are side quests with great NPC stories and interactions.
And the OSTs, and man, are they a great listen. When you have a legend (Yasunori Mitsuda) for OST in your game, you know they did a great job. You can see the music change with biomes, and nothing feels repetitive.
And the animation of the story with the music and sound design goes like milk and Muesli. You can’t get higher than this, and bam, the game gives a peak moment with the story and its animation again.
The world reacting to your deeds and powerful adventure really shows that it is not a dead world with static NPCs. There are so many hidden quests and lore behind the art and world locations. Not everything is spoon-fed, and this is what makes it a great experience.
Final Verdict
Sea of Stars is a master crafted, fine piece of a game in the market filled with meh or gacha games. We need more games like this to truly show that mobile gaming is not always about cash grab and microtransactions only. There are good games that are worth your time and money. This game is one of them.
Gameplay Mechanics – 8
Storyline Content – 9.5
Graphics and Music – 9
Controls and UI – 8.5
Value for Money – 10
9
Good
Sea of Stars successfully captures the magic of old-school turn based RPGs while stripping away the clunky tropes of the past. The graphics are vibrant, the combat is engaging, and the story is genuinely moving. For a $10 one time purchase, it’s easily one of the best values on the mobile market today.
Did you find my Sea of Stars review helpful? Do let us know in the comments!
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