Sea of Stars PROVES Turn-Based RPGs are Alive and Kicking

I’ll admit it: games have made me cry. But few have made me cry tears of joy. Sea of Stars is one of those extremely special few.

Hi, my name is Michaela.

And I love turn-based RPGs.

To this day, they’re my favorite genre. I love all sorts of games, from indies to AAA, from turn-based to action to even just story-driven, narrative adventures that lack any combat at all.

But still – I really, really love turn-based RPGs. Even in this modern day and age when turn-based isn’t “necessary” as a way for devs to overcome the limits of a system, I find something at once nostalgic and magical about them as well as engaging, thought-provoking and addicting.

Some people will try to tell you that turn-based games are dead. That they’re artifacts of a bygone era with a dwindling audience and no potential left for growth or innovation. But 2023 seems bound and determined to clap back against that sentiment – just look at some of the most successful recent releases in the industry.

For example, Baldur’s Gate III launched out of a long early access period and shattered expectations by rapidly becoming a frontrunner in the race for Game of the Year alongside the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

And just a few weeks later, making yet another massive splash in the indie scene with their sophomore title, Sabotage Studio released Sea of Stars to overwhelmingly positive critical and popular reception – garnering over 250,000 sales in the first week alongside a historic day-one drop on both Xbox GamePass and PlayStation Plus Extra.

Sea of Stars is a self-proclaimed retro-inspired turn-based RPG that wears its inspirations on its face. It pulls from the classics, including the likes of Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG. Heck, it even got THE Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono fame to contribute to its stellar soundtrack.

And while Sea of Stars’ gorgeous pixel art aesthetics and modern-meets-classic music are likely the initial factors that draw people’s attention, I want to stop and talk about the core turn-based gameplay system (but believe me, I’m gonna gush about the rest of the game too so stay tuned for that).

Beyond just the obvious “turn-based,” the way I would describe the battle system in Sea of Stars is “strategic, skill-based combat.” But besides sounding incredibly sexy (to me, at least), what does that mean exactly? Let me explain:

In Sea of Stars, you can’t just spam X to win. You can’t just mindlessly menu to select the same basic attack over and over again. Yes, the game is turn-based and yes, it has a finite number of actions that you can select during each of your characters’ turns BUT Sea of Stars features some almost brilliantly simple mechanics that require real-time inputs and strategic decision-making from the player, creating a sense of always-on engagement even within the confines of a turn-based system.

Here's an overview of how combat works in Sea of Stars:

You have up to three active characters on the field at any given time. Each turn, characters can use standard attacks, unique skills, and healing items. In order to use their special skills, characters must spend MP (no duh). But by using standard attacks, characters can restore a small amount of that MP.

Additionally, using standard attacks generates what the game calls “live mana.” This live mana takes the form of sparkly bits that pop out of enemies when you hit them, and you can have up to three pools of live mana on the field. By absorbing one or more of these, characters can infuse their next move with added strength and even their elemental affinity – thereby letting you “use magic without using magic” (aka buff yourself and/or deal elemental damage without spending precious MP).

On top of that, Sea of Stars also has combo skills that you can unlock as you explore the world. These skills have two characters join forces to execute even stronger abilities. Instead of consuming MP, you’ll need to build up a combo meter that can hold up to three charges.

But how do you build up this combo meter?

Well, the most basic way is with timed inputs. In Sea of Stars, characters can increase their damage output or, conversely, decrease the amount of damage they receive from enemy attacks via well-timed button presses. This is the first and most obvious way that Sea of Stars creates a sense of always-on engagement in its combat system and invites skill-based gameplay.

Even within turn-based battles, the use of timed inputs encourages players to engage in real time to maximize both their attack and their defense. Even when it’s the enemy’s turn, you aren’t just passively waiting for battles to play out, and different attacks will have different timings that can be tricky to master.

But an even faster way to charge your combo meter is by breaking locks – another core feature of Sea of Stars’ combat system. Just like your own party members, enemies aren’t limited to basic attacks. They can use special abilities too – and during turns when they’re “casting,” a series of locks will appear over their head.

These locks can be broken by hitting the enemy with an attack type that corresponds to the icons over their head. Break sword locks by hitting them with swords or knives, break moon locks by hitting them with moon elemental damage and so on. Break all the locks before their turn timer reaches 0 and you’ll interrupt them – preventing them from using the ability and negating their turn.

But these locks can grow increasingly complex to break, especially in later fights. Multiple enemies can be casting at the same time with anywhere from two to eight locks apiece, spanning a variety of different attack types and elements.

This means that you’ll have to manage your party wisely – attacking the right enemies in the right order with the right abilities to interrupt them as effectively as possible. You’ll have to manage your resources across MP, live mana, and combo charges by balancing your use of standard attacks, skills, and combos – planning your moves to strike enemy weaknesses, interrupt enemy attacks, heal your party as needed, and ultimately, kick pixel bad guy ass.

One key feature I haven’t mentioned yet is that your party can act in any order you choose and switching characters in or out of your active party doesn’t cost you a turn. Characters aren’t bound by a speed stat or a scripted turn order so you’re free to choose who acts when, adding another layer to how you’ll want to strategize when figuring out the most efficient way to negate enemy turns, manage your party’s health, and deal maximum damage.

There are additional layers to Sea of Stars’ combat especially in the second half of the game with even stronger abilities like each character’s ultimate attack (which uses yet another a gauge, this time fueled by executing combos) but I don’t want to go too far into spoiler territory so I’ll stop there.

On the surface, Sea of Stars doesn’t necessarily do anything special that no other turn-based RPG has ever done before. For example, the timed inputs influence can be traced back to games like Super Mario RPG. And of course, the combo system smacks of Chrono Trigger, a game that is always top of mind when looking at Sea of Stars due to the obvious aesthetic influences in both its art style and music.

You can readily draw comparisons to even more modern RPGs too – for instance, I am Setsuna is another retro-inspired game that implements both timed inputs and combo techs. You can even compare the live mana and lock systems to the boosting and breaking mechanics in the Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler games.

But what Sea of Stars does do effectively is layer together these engaging systems so that one mechanic feeds into the next in a satisfying and rewarding loop. Standard attacks fuel MP for skills which help you break locks and power up your combos, which then in turn charge your ultimate gauge and so on.

Add on top of that the timed inputs for both attacking and defending, and you’ve got a turn-based system where you can’t safely put down the controller or mindlessly mash X through the battle menu. Plus, you’ll always need to think a few moves ahead to make sure you’re setting yourself up to respond to enemy attacks and interrupt their abilities.

Meanwhile, all this mechanical synergy is housed within one extremely attractive package. As I’ve mentioned already, Sea of Stars draws people in with its aesthetics. The pixel art isn’t quite the “HD-2D” style that Square Enix and others have used to dominate the pixel art and 2.5D space of late, but it does affect a similar sense of depth with its use of dynamic lighting and shadows. The pixels are densely packed and bursting with color and the sprites are some of the most expressive I have ever seen.

The story is also approachable with a touch of mystery, enough to hook you and garner that initial investment in wanting to know what’s really going on. The world is immediately believable and the different areas you visit are visually diverse. Environments are packed with hidden secrets to discover and the game gives you fun exploration tools for simple but engaging puzzles.

The denizens of this world are sassy and humorous, in many ways helping to solidify the personality and identity that Sabotage Studio first established in their debut title, The Messenger. Fans of that game will recognize various settings and references, including in some of the musical themes.

And my god, again I have to say – the MUSICCCCCC. Eric W. Brown aka Rainbowdragoneyes returns to helm the soundtrack with contributions from the aforementioned Mitsuda, providing Sea of Stars with a score that blends genres and eras seamlessly in a way that I can only describe as *chef’s kiss*.  

Not only does the music suit every story beat and battle scenario perfectly, it even changes from day to night and from indoor to outdoor, with the sound design matching your perspective and relative position to the source of the music that’s playing. (Oh yeah, I didn’t even mention – as a part of its lore and puzzle mechanics, Sea of Stars has become the second RPG after Octopath Traveler II to put the power of the day/night cycle in my greedy little gamer hands this year…)

Sea of Stars also has every side content gimmick we love to poke fun at in the genre, from fishing and cooking to an optional but oddly addicting mini game. And as if that isn’t enough, there’s almost a shocking number of secrets to find in the late game and beyond. It even takes a completion-friendly approach with in-game mechanics that let the player know what they still have left to find and where but again, I’m going to stop myself short for the sake of not spoiling too much.  

All in all, is Sea of Stars perfect? No – no game ever is. I’ll even pause here to cite a few minor critiques. For instance, while it pushes the boundaries of most quality of life features that the RPGs of old had yet to master (like letting you swap active party members without expending turns, sharing XP across your entire party, or even including accessories that let players implement a sort of modular or customized difficulty), there are some things it could still improve on.

For example, I would love to have a text log that lets you re-read dialogue that you didn’t quite catch or just accidentally clicked past with one button press too many. Some players might also appreciate a quest log for keeping track of open quest lines, and I’ve heard a couple people say they would like a map for the individual areas.

(Quick note on the idea of area maps though: Personally, I understand why they wouldn’t want to do this given the way Sea of Stars hides stuff in its environments – but even still, maybe there could be an optional mini map in the style of Octopath Traveler where it’s more of a vague compass that doesn’t give away too much with secret passageways, etc.)

Also, the game seems to be missing some tutorials for various mechanics that get added after the initial hours of your adventure. For example, tutorials for the game’s grappling mechanic and even the ultimate attacks don’t seem to get added to the menu.

Aside from the quality-of-life stuff, there’s one other critique that I want to address since I’ve seen it popping up in some reviews. Some people have said that Sea of Stars lacks some mechanical depth in its combat and progression systems.

To that end, what I’ll say is this: Sea of Stars is not an RPG by the numbers. Yes, the party levels up over time but it goes back to the emphasis on skill-based, strategic combat that I waxed poetic about earlier.

By design, it’s not a game where you’ll get super intricate with your build for each character’s stats or equipment, and you have a finite pool of skills per character even in the late game (although if you find all of the combos and use them in tandem with ultimate abilities you can really make this battle system sing for you).

While that may not appeal to some players, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a mistake on the part of the developers – I think it’s a choice they made to make you use what finite abilities you have on hand to puzzle your way as efficiently as possible through breaking locks and defeating tough foes.

That said, I can see how the lack of variety could start to wear on some players in the later hours of the game and maybe in a future iteration of this system they could have players unlock higher forms of characters’ starting skills so that while your number of available moves doesn’t expand, it does still have room to evolve with new animations and inputs (for example, evolving Valere’s crescent moon into a double lunar scythe attack that replaces it or something like that).

Minor gripes aside, Sea of Stars nails almost every single aspect of what it means to be a high-quality, turn-based RPG that not only takes inspiration from the classics of the 80s and 90s, but honors them by embodying their spirit and iterating on the formula that they created.

Sea of Stars truly stands as a testament of how turn-based combat stays viable in 2023 and beyond. It proves that “turn-based” isn’t some technological limitation to overcome as it was in the past, but rather an expectation to subvert. It walks the extremely fine line of nostalgic but new. Familiar but surprising. Appealing to long-time RPG fans but welcoming to newcomers as well.

But what makes Sea of Stars so special isn’t just the satisfying gameplay loop.

It’s love (no seriously, I meant it).

You can tell from every facet of this game that it was made by people who love RPGs, for people who love RPGs.

All the tongue in cheek references, the heroes’ journey, the turn-based battles, the hidden items and abilities, the optional mini games, the colorful NPCs, the seamlessly blended eras of music, the sheer attention to detail in the pixel art for the environments and character sprites – a game like this simply doesn’t get made unless it’s by a team of truly talented people who are as deeply in love with the genre as are the core audience that they’re trying to speak to with it.

It’s a game that wears the fact that it’s a passion project and true labor of love right on its face for all to see. It’s one of those indie games that hits a level of quality that’s almost unbelievable. And while it’s not alone in that regard (RPGs like Chained Echoes, Ara Fell, I am Setsuna, and even Crosscode come to mind for me), it certainly stands near the apex.

So, to those people who try to say that turn-based games are dead, I have this to say: they may not be for you, but that doesn’t mean they no longer have a place in the industry. Just like it’s okay not to like FPS or roguelike or RTS or MMO or (insert genre here) games, it’s okay if you don’t like turn-based games.

But they are absolutely still alive and kicking. Not only that, they’re still evolving and capable of creating truly unique, amazing, standout experiences that stay with you even after you roll credits and put the controller down.

Sea of Stars is an incredible RPG – and personally speaking, it has instantly become one of my favorite indies of all time. Thank you, Sabotage Studio, for sharing your passion through this game, and giving me yet another reminder of why I love this medium so much. This is an experience I will never forget.