Personal review of Sea of Stars after rolling credits.
Time to beat: ~35 hours
Story: 6.5/10. A very basic, by-the-numbers story. Not very ambitious, but not terrible. Decently executed but felt flat at times. Struggled to care about it, and it took way too long to really set in. Also, the main-game ending is not the real ending, need to beat NG+ (I assume) for the true ending.
Music: 8/10. Ranges from just okay to pretty good. While playing through the first half I was thinking about giving it a 7, but thankfully some of the later areas have some music that triggers the nostalgia of good jrpgs of years past.
Characters: 7/10. Hurt tremendously by the lack of voice acting - it was a struggle to give a shit about the characters, especially in the first 10-15 hours. I think the writing is a little too plain for the two MCs, they didn't really stand out as having great personalities. If it was just the two MCs it'd be a 5/10, but thankfully the side characters and party members are quite well done and have really unique animations to flesh out their characterizations.
Art/Visuals: 10/10. Clearly the strongest point of the game, even though the hand-drawn cutscenes can be a little uneven, the artwork is top-notch and enjoyable. This is probably as close to "blown away" by visuals and artwork on a 2D game.
Combat/Gameplay: 9/10. Wheels is a pretty decent minigame, there's plenty of exploration and hidden treasure. Combat starts off by being a bit basic but by the end of the game it's pretty enjoyable. I do think there should have been a slightly bigger move list per character (and have you gain more abilities quicker because the first 10 hours are a slog), but it does the job well. Difficulty is well-tuned but potentially a bit on the easy side but not so easy as to become boring - the timing elements of combat keep it engaging.
Level Design: 8/10. Pretty good, most puzzles were pretty enjoyable, but nothing exceptionally fancy. Room setups were intuitive and I never got lost, which is both a plus and a minus as some people might prefer less linearity.
Final score: 8.2/10, will return to platinum it
