****Edit* Due to stupidity. In my efforts to "Turn off automated moderation" for comments because I figured this would be controversial. I accidentally "Turned off comments". It should be fine now and feel free to flame me in the comments down below. Music in order of first use; ignoring duplicates for my selfish sanity: Timestamp - Name - Contributing Artists (Game if relevant) 0:00 - A Premonition - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 0:06 - Chrono Trigger - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 0:18 - Childlike - SAM Free Music (100% Orange Juice) 0:34 - Two Steps From Hell Trailer Music - Composed by Nick Phoenix (ua-cam.com/video/Lwr6nEo4Ql8/v-deo.htmlsi=4jSCvkVurh6R0xcq) 1:02 - Dance of 1000 Suns - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:22 - Title Screen - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:44 - Mooncradle (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 2:23 - Encounter Elite - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 3:05 - Serenade of Respite (Day) - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars) 3:45 - peace - SAM Free Music (100% Orange Juice) 3:50 - What Comes of Despair - Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV: Endwalker) 4:10 - Do you have any evidence? - watson (100% Orange Juice) 4:33 - Blight - Kou Otani 4:50 - Ending theme (Super Mario World) 5:01 - Robo Gang Johnny - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 5:58 - Bike Chase - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 6:02 - Guardia Millenial Fair - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 6:08 - Battle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 6:13 - Wind Scene - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 6:16 - It Has To Be This Way - Jamie Christopherson & Logan Mader, Akira Takizawa & Pete Crossman, Jimmy Gnecco (Metal Gear: Rising) 6:27 - Chrono and Marle ~Far Off Promise~ - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 6:40 - The Mountain Trail (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 7:15 - Peaceful Days - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 8:45 - A Strange Happening - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 9:18 - Guardia Castle (Pride) - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 9:24 - Questioning - Masakazu Sugimori??? I think (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) 9:37 - The Trial - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 10:25 - Memories of Green - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 11:05 - The Great Archives - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 11:26 - Mooncradle (Night) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 12:14 - The Forbidden Cavern - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 12:18 - Malevolent Confrontation - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 13:04 - Zenith Academy - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 13:44 - Devoted Warriors - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 14:05 - Ruins of Strife - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 14:27 - Devoted Warriors - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 14:36 - Prevolt/Zophiel - MONACA (Drakengard 3) 15:57 - Battle On - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 17:02 - Cheerful Mood - Murasato Shota (100% Orange Juice) 17:16 - Living With Determination - Shoji Meguro (Persona 3) 17:30 - A Shot of Crisis - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 19:08 - Ruined World - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 19:20 - Wyrd The Training Dummy - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 19:39 - Trials in the Mist - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 20:03 - Lavos’ Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 20:21 - Primitive Mountain - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 21:05 - Battle 2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger [unreleased]) 21:43 - Robo’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 22:02 - Dante’s Office - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3) 22:21 - Any Special Orders - Steven McNair (Devil May Cry 5) 22:35 - Nevan Defeated ~ Thunder Blade Nevan - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3) 22:40 - Axel F - Crazy Frog 23:14 - The Humble Boast - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 23:22 - The Dweller of Woe - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars) 23:31 - Storytime Interlude Chorus of Content - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 23:55 - Horizons Unbound - Eric W. Brown - (Sea of Stars) 24:10 - Port Town (Day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 24:32 - Path of Ascension - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 24:42 - Settler Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 25:47 - Delightful Spekkio - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 26:03 - The Clockwork Castle - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 26:43 - Descant of the Dweller - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 26:58 - Black Dream - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 27:05 - Zeal Palace - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 27:20 - Ayla’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 27:29 - People Without A Hope - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 28:34 - The Elder Mist - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 28:49 - Aephorul Returns - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 29:07 - The Final Day - Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV: Endwalker) 29:24 - Secret of the Forest - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 29:53 - Sealed Door - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 30:01 - The Hidden Truth - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 30:12 - Undersea Palace - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 30:15 - Remains of Factory - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 30:31 - The Oracle of Tides - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 30:39 - Sacred Secrets (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 32:14 - The Docks of Wraith Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 33:17 - The Mountain Trail (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 33:20 - A Woeful Lament - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars) 36:27 - Port Town (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 36:55 - Watcher Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 36:58 - The Mole Masons (day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 37:24 - Manoria Cathedral - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 38:27 - Imperial Will - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV) 38:52 - Dwellers Fury - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 39:13 - Magus’ Castle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 39:42 - The Acolytes - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 40:12 - At The Bottom of Night - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 42:31 - Panic At The Outpost - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 42:49 - Whispering Winds The Serpent's Lullaby - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 43:29 - The Town of Mirth (Day) - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars) 43:56 - Teaks The Travelling Historian - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 44:20 - Across The Moorlands (Day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars) 44:24 - The Storm Calls For You - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 44:29 - The Watchmaker - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 44:47 - Black Market - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 45:33 - Time Circuits - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 47:11 - Frog’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 47:14 - Army of Strife - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 47:37 - Lair of the Fleshmancer - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 47:55 - Meeting Outside Time - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 48:48 - Ascension - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 49:13 - The Skylands - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 49:30 - Lair of The Necromancer - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 49:51 - Schala’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 50:38 - The Day the World Revived - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 52:07 - Determination - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 52:11 - Last Battle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 52:20 - First Festival of Stars - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 53:07 - Tyran Castle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 54:17 - Duplicitous Wrath Pt.1 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 54:58 - Duplicitous Wrath Pt.2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 56:01 - Zephyr And Sky (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 56:48 - Beyond The Stars - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 57:03 - Elegy of the Hero - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 57:13 - The Frozen Peak (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 58:11 - Sinister Unknown - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 58:31 - The Brink of Time - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 59:30 - pearls are hopping in a cup - Takuya Matsumoto (100% Orange Juice) 1:02:36 - Dragon Quest XI Symphonic Overture - Koichi Sugiyama 1:07:53 - Watcher Island (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 1:08:12 - Dance of 1000 Suns (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 1:09:04 - Monuments To The Ancients - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:09:42 - Contention - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV: Heavensward) 1:09:58 - The Maker’s Ruin - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV) 1:10:24 - The Mole Masons (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars) 1:11:29 - Cael and the Kids - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:11:41 - Fanfare 1 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 1:12:45 - Sky Base - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:13:06 - Battle on v2.1 - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:14:17 - Sibling Showdown - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3) 1:15:18 - Encounter Elite v2.1 - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:17:02 - Boss Battle 2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 1:17:22 - Sophisticated Fight - Hayato Sonoda (Trails in the Sky) 1:18:56 - Shoppe - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:19:26 - Temple of Sacrosanct - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:19:50 - Hills Of Determination (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:20:28 - Zephyr And Sky (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars) 1:25:39 - Epilogue (To Good Friends) - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger) 1:26:31 - And The Story Begins - Yoshito Sekigawa, Yuka Tsukiyoko & Saki Kasuga (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door) 1:26:50 - A Cat Relaxing in the Sun - Hayato Sonoda (Trails in the Sky)
the fact you document all of the music used is actual insanity. u will never be featured in an hbomber guy video i guarantee u that. king shit as usual
@@LucyPyreDon't worry, he plagarized me by disliking Sea of Stars. I did that first. I'm callin the Harris. I'm the only one allowed to dislike this game. (I've not even watched the video yet his complaints probably are much more scathing than mine even)
Couldnt agree with you more, sea of stars was quite the dissapointment and all the praise it gets makes me dissapointed that generic games get absurd amounts of praise for "innovation". ANYWAYS... play chained echoes, its the most underrated rpg story of all time that will cleanse your soul with great gameplay and story, you will like it, just play the prologue and you'll see the start of something worth your time.
Plot twist: guy whose favorite game isn't even Chrono Trigger accidentally kinda makes one of the best video essays on its strengths I think I've ever seen.
chrono trigger is special because it's so fuckin goated even if you're not even a big fan of it, you still know and have to agree that it's amazing, there's so much shit i love waaaaay more than chrono trigger, but if anyone asks for a jrpg to start getting into jrpgs, my answer is always chrono trigger or ff7, because i think ff7 shares those characteristics with chrono trigger of being really really really good, fairly simple at the end of the day, shorter than most jrpgs (chrono trigger more so than ff7), easy to pick up with a pretty engaging story, etc.
I mean, I even bought one of the FF4/Chrono Trigger PlayStation double packs a couple weeks back before the price could skyrocket with Toriyama's death. It's kind of considered a staple to the point I'm surprised it hasn't recived a remaster.
@@flaynceleWhat would you say is your favorite JRPG? Chrono Trigger is the game I liked the most in the genre, but I haven’t played too many and would like to hear some recommendations.
@@Multienderguy37 my favorite is Xenoblade 3, I really recommend the Xenoblade trilogy if you have a switch or a PC that can run Ryujinx. what i would recommend next really depends on what you liked the most in chrono trigger, afaik some games like I Am Setsuna and Sea of Stars have a similar combat system but I haven't played them, but the ATB system that final fantasy 4 to 9 uses is almost the same. I never got super far into FF6 but if you liked Chrono trigger you'll probably like it as well, especially due to being in the same era and console etc. so it's got a lot of similar vibes. If you really want to dig into some really satisfying combat I recommend literally any shin megami tensei that peeks your interest, the press turn system that the mainline games use from 3 onwards is the best but the old style that the first person ones use is also really fun, and persona's 1 more is basically an altered press turn so also really fun. smt is great cause each one has a whole different vibe so just go with whichever one seems the coolest to you. story wise, when it comes to having a bunch of cool characters and lotsa world building, I don't think there's anything that tops the Trails series. preferably play in release order (so first should be trails in the sky). the time travel stuff I don't know any games that do it like Chrono Trigger did but Radiant Historia is cool, and 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim crazy with it and it's one of those games that you spend a lot of time being confused af and gradually understanding wtf is going on. Fire Emblem Awakening has time travel but it's kinda whatever, but I do recommend it (or any fire emblem game) because this series is really fun. Not really helpful that I'm giving a bazillion recommendations lol so i'm gonna be biased and say just play Xenogears lol other than that my heavy recommendations are: Xeno anything (gears, saga or blade) Shin Megami Tensei IV Crosscode Final Fantasy X Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door Earthbound
Play Chrono Cross too if you haven't. the Remaster is supposedly decent. don't expect the same game, but it's great in it's own way. and the music in both are top notch.
AS MUCH... as we want to throw shade on this game. Saying Sea of Stars is a RPG is actually wrong. Its a Chrono Trigger Styled Game - where you fight the enemies - with turn based combat - without entering a "Final Fantasy Battle Screen" . Try to look up how many pixel based games like this exist? I argue this is basically the second, or third one. For that reason - being the second CT styled game. I'm just hyper for it to exist and hopefully inspire someone who might have more "Story-driven" plot to create another CT styled game.
I feel like indie RPGs besides a rare small handful every 5-ish years tend to fall into a cargo cult curse. Being "Inspired" by the greats and classics while not actually implementing the lessons they were teaching or already mastered. It's all window dressing and aesthetic.
Feels like we see the same exact problem in Boomer Shooters lately, especially the recent 3D Realms titles. They nail the surface level vibes, but... Past that, there's nothing
It's like fanfiction writing: Someone loving something and trying to recreate it, but from a totally different starting point and focusing on something while neglecting so much other stuff.
@@ablationer A lot of those boomer shooters seems to be because of Slipgate Ironworks. Civvie really tore into them recently with their rather underwhelming titles.
Chained echoes. Same thing as sea of stars, being heavily inspired by Chrono Trigger, but I found it really good. Give it a try, you might also like it.
So someone once mentioned something to me that helped shape my understanding of Chrono Trigger and what a lot of RPGs fail at. And that is Chrono Trigger settles early on what the goal is. To stop Lavos. And the thing is no matter what you're doing or how far removed it seems. It always ladders back to stopping Lavos. Take when you go back in time to the Prehistoric Era to restore the Masamune Ultimate Goal: Defeat Lavos How: By defeating Magus before he can summon Lavos How Lv. 2: By recruiting Frog to fight Magus How Lv. 3: By restoring the Masamune for Frog to wield How Lv. 4: By getting dreamstone from the past to mend the Masamune Complication: In the past, Azala and the Reptites steal your Gate Key, stranding you there. Current Goal: Go after Azala and the Reptites. Your goal of going after Azala and the Reptites is, in theory, not related at all to defeating Lavos, but due to Chrono Trigger's story structure it and everything else in the game always returns to the Ultimate Goal. Everything becomes another rung connected to it. So many RPGs have Shit Happen but that shit is Just Happening. An example of this (which is where the comparison came from) is the original Golden Sun. A mere minute after you get your goal you're forced to get sidetracked and it isn't even remotely clear why. If you try to go ahead, you'll see the path blocked by ivy, but not only is this a poor obstacle logically (you really can't burn or cut it?), it doesn't give you any clue about what you're looking for. The only reason to go to Vault is because Camelot put it right in your path, but that's a terribly unsatisfying and incredibly artificial motive. If I were Crono, I would chase after Azala; if I were Isaac, I would borrow some hedge clippers and ignore Ivan and the thieves entirely. You do a thing only because the thing is there to do and it happens to line up with solving your current problem. Rather than your current problem leading to the situation that will resolve it.
I would say Sea of Stars is quite good in this regard. Everything is based around trying to liberate the world from the dwellers. Things are going somewhat to plan until some major setbacks appear, and every side task from that point is countering the setbacks and pressing on.
As much as I fucking adore Golden Sun, yeah that's actually a good assessment. Later into the game there's a bit more complex stuff involved in the writing but holy shit can some of it feel disjointed. Again, I absolutely adore the game (and while reading your comment I actually started thinking of Golden Sun BEFORE you mentioned it lmao), but some of the story is really Weird lmak
@@exist4046 Golden Sun is a game I love dearly, I played TLA for ages I even input the hyper long code multiple times. It inspired a love of writing and game design in me... and it kinda sucks. Now It's not bad, it's not the worst RPG I ever played... I've Lunar Dragon Song after all... But... It wasn't the bombastic classic I thought it was.
@@HavenKhaos I think most of my enjoyment of it is primarily the systems and combat tbh. I had a streak for nearly a week where I only played Golden Sun (via the GBA emulator for Switch, so it was on my damn TV of all things) and tbh, I think what I enjoy most are the puzzles and the battle systems. The Djinni are just too much fun to mix and switch and whatnot. It's really polished in that aspect, which kinda made me forget I was playing a game from like. The 90s? Early 2000s? But the story, now that I think through it, really isn't anything insane at all. The game feels like the story is meant to be for a younger age group than what the actual systems are meant for. It's not even an easy game imo, I consider myself pretty decent at turn based RPG games but some of the boss battles have gotten really tense, which I quite enjoy. But the writing sorta feels almost like.... A mix between what would be a decent RPGMaker indie game story made by a teenager, and also a kid's story book. They really try to tie shit together, but good god it really doesn't seem to know who it's meant to be marketed for. Though, fortunately, the game having such silly childish fantasy themes at times does help me destress, especially when a lotta the media I consume tends to be much darker, or at least has far more serious themes. If they ever were to remake the original, I think with story tweaking it would be all around really good, especially when so many fans of the game nowadays aren't kids and are nostalgic adult fans
The whole Lavos goal actually doesn't come into view until you are quite a ways into the game. Other games like Breath of Fire3 don't even have a singular goal untill almost the very end and most of the game is just mini-adventure after mini-adventure slowly guiding you towards the endgoal. It's all about execution and one problem indie games have is teams consisting of passionate people, but also people who have very little experience where the old games had teams of professionals who mostly had experience in their area and were overseen by veterans.
It's amazing the dude making this video genuinely seems to think the word "Cope" was invented for slang, because that CLEARLY wasn't said in its slang form. This is the kind of mistake I would expect a "14 year old on the interwebs" (as planescaped accurately points out) to make, and the creator of this video is clearly an adult so that's freaky that he would not know this.
In my day cope was the past, present and future tense of the word and you structured your sentence appropriately to fit. The words 'coping' and 'coped' were never used whether they existed or not. That you pointed out the word 'cope' and not 'coping', even though it is not what was said and shown in the video kind of shows you all misunderstood what the problem even was in the first place. Though I dont know if 'coping' was or was not always grammatically correct it doesnt really matter I think 'coping' is an improvement.
Garl's complete lack of reaction to losing an eye, vs Pokey Finch being the weird mean kid next door who joins you on your first mission, runs away, and ends up becoming.... whatever the hell he is
Earthbounds story is ridiculous so Pokey developing a business sense, getting adopted by a CEO, betraying said CEO for his money and spending it on inter-dimensional research just to team up with an extraterrestrial being with no clear form for the sole purpose of showing up Ness, who has all the makings of an actual protagonist unlike him isn't that weird...right?
@@timmyman9677 Goading friends into opening up forbidden cave? check. Childhood friend of protagonists? check. Missing an eye and/or sporting a goatee? check He seriously does have a bunch of the traits of your typical friend turned bad guy character, lol
Honestly, the most confusing bit for me in this game's total lack of consequence is how Zale and Valere react to Serai getting Garl killed. He is the one person they are even remotely shown to actually care about, and his death is treated like a huge dramatic moment. Serai disobeys the one thing they've been told to NOT DO out of hot-headed stupidity and their reaction isn't fury, or kicking her out of their group, or even just cursing her out for a moment. They just... don't care.
She may have disobeyed the only rule she should have followed, but Garl still jumped in to protect his friends on his own accord which is why I think they don't go to blaming her immediately. Honestly I think it could have been a great character developing moment for Valere and Zale to project their anguish and frustrations of losing their BEST FRIEND onto her because she was the catalyst leading to the event. I'd like to have seen her have some dialogue trying to defend her actions only to have V&Z fire back and shut her down, creating tension between them all.
@@kaizeroll3914 Even if her action didn't result in the death of Garl it would've gravely injured one of the party members, but with how Garl jumped in it looks like the attack would've wounded both Zale and Valere significantly. This literally would've likely resulted in the death of the entire world if it wasn't for Garl.
AS MUCH... as we want to throw shade on this game. Saying Sea of Stars is a RPG is actually wrong. Its a Chrono Trigger Styled Game - where you fight the enemies - with turn based combat - without entering a "Final Fantasy Battle Screen" . Try to look up how many pixel based games like this exist? I argue this is basically the second, or third one. For that reason - being the second CT styled game. I'm just hyper for it to exist and hopefully inspire someone who might have more "Story-driven" plot to create another CT styled game.
The thing is if Serai hadn't of done that they all would've died and the world would have been fucked. The person they should really be pissed at is Reshan.
This video is just... exactly what I felt. Listening to The Escapist's documentary on Sea of Stars, at 28 minutes the game's creative director talks about hitting all of their development milestones, and he says: "My personal nightmare is that because we've shown everything except for the script, right? So I'm just hoping it's not a weak link." And, unfortunately, I think his worst fear was realized. Sea of Stars has a lot of great things going for it, but its story really is baffling. I think you were a lot nicer on those prophecies than I would've been. Prophecies are a staple of any fantasy story, but good prophecies should reveal something about the characters. When the Elder Mist says Valere will need to "create paths on water," that should be a metaphor for something; it should be referring to some internal conflict within Valere. But no, it's just entirely literal. At some completely arbitrary point in the story, Valere needs to bridge two islands together with water... and that's it. What's even the point of that? Zale's prophecy is just as arbitrary. The thing about a Chekhov's Gun like this is that it's not enough for it to just come into play later in the story, it also has to *meaningfully* impact the story. But these prophecies could be removed entirely and literally nothing changes, about the plot or the characters. As you point out, that applies to a lot of elements in this game. Erlina and Brugraves are another mess. This is probably the game's most interesting conflict, but Sea of Stars just.... never does anything with it. They have a right to feel angry; they've essentially been conscripted into an endless war, an eternity of conflict that can never be won. They aren't allowed to make friends, they aren't allowed to have hobbies, they aren't allowed to have lives. A better story would show us how Moraine's training has severely impacted Zale and Valere. Maybe they're so socially blunted from being holed up in the Academy all of their lives, so indifferent to their own wills and desires they never stop to think about what they themselves want out of life. Erlina's perspective should give them a lot to evaluate, especially when they realize she is correct and there are more Dwellers than just the Dweller of Woe. But it doesn't. Zale and Valere don't care. Apparently they're fine living their entire existence in servitude. I can't remember a game this neglectful of its main characters. My feeling about Sea of Stars in the end is that it feels like it's trying to be a piece of a larger story rather than be an actually satisfying story itself. Consider the Acolytes and Erlina/Brugraves: both sets of characters don't have an actual resolution to their stories in Sea of Stars. Instead, they unceremoniously vanish. Of course, if you've played The Messenger, you have an idea as to what happened to these two. And the fact that the Fleshmancer can travel to alternate universes to wreak havoc screams "shared universe." It means they can set infinite games in this setting, with each one building up a grander narrative of the Fleshmancer, as they have already done with the The Messenger/Sea of Stars. But if this is the direction they go, they need to realize that a shared universe will only be as interesting as the individual stories which populate it.
I have a lot of thoughts about how the story could be improved overall, but I absolutely agree with the point of it trying to be a small part of a bigger whole. The problem that it creates is that the small piece isn’t that interesting because of its weak story, so why should I be invested in the bigger whole? And yeah I honestly feel really bad for the director because I know he worked very hard to make the story good, but it’s clear he’s not a seasoned writer. I think what would be good is to have other writers and editors help him with directing his vision into its best possible version, as I think he can make a solid skeleton/rough draft of how things go in the story, it just needs to be expanded upon.
Completely agree, specially that last paragraph, it seems that the story of the game itself was just an afterthought while the main idea was making the start of a larger universe, which is a horrible idea to start it like this, and the resolution to this game ment nothing, it's still a loop of infinite universes being destroyed and very few of them succeeding, they just saved their own
I really like Sea of Stars, mainly for the gameplay and music, but I completely agree that a shared universe needs each individual story within it to be satisfying. I mean, Sea of Stars is getting away with it because it worked as a game well enough to make up for the flaws in the story, and I thankfully cared ENOUGH about the characters, but this is the exact thing that has doomed every would-be cinematic universe that has tried to follow in the footsteps of the MCU. I’m still glad that Sea of Stars did well because I enjoyed it and I want to see Sabotage continue to make good games, but as a big narrative junkie, my biggest hope for their next game is that the story sees substantial improvements.
The prophecies too, I definitely agree there. Valere’s prophecy is also the thing I think about when it comes to my disappointment on that regard. I heard her prophecy about creating paths on water, and I wasn’t sure exactly what that could mean, but I was picturing Valere having this Moses parting the Red Sea moment where, as an important moment in her main arc, she has to escort a bunch of people to safety and in the midst of deep inner turmoil, she’s able to have some sort of revelation about herself or something else that lets her find the power in herself to “create paths on water”. I never thought it had to look even remotely like that, but point is I imagined something with much greater implications for her character than what we got.
@@boi3393I didn't make it to the first dweller, but up to that point, I just found the characters and dialogue entertaining? Not so much the main duo, but characters like Garl, Teake, and the pirate crew all amused me and I liked their dynamics and humor. Yeah, even Yolande's meta jokes. That said, now that I've seen the full video I definitely agree with the points made.
Same. I very much enjoyed the game. I loved the world and the gameplay and the music and the visuals. All that stuff did carry it for me. However, I also felt unsatisfied by the story and characters. I loved the worldbuilding, but the characters and overall story were just missing something. The "sauce" if you will. The protagonists were boring. Even after 100 percenting the game, I didn't really feel anything for them. And when stuff happened, the consequences and reactions weren't up to par. There may be little to no reaction, or the reaction does not do it justice and does not affect anything larger than feeling bad for 2 minutes. Ya... the more I thought about it, the less satisfied I am. Which is a real shame since so much of the game I loved
isn’t it a dedicated rpg classic to go “investigate strange anomaly, find out terrible shit happened, and person A was responsible, decide to merk person A”??????? like, is that not the typical formula? how do you fuck that up???
The part that really killed it for me was that the game's purpose seems to just be telling extra story for The Messenger. So you have plot threads that just get dropped, like the one through four, as well as Erlina and Brugaves who just kind of disappear for no reason after all of their buildup. It left everything feeling like I was missing a lot of info having not played the messenger.
@tbnwontpop8857 It's not a sequel. It's technically a prequel, but if you look through all of the press and marketing, it's not billed as such. This means that a large amount of people who play this game because it looks like a cool Chrono Trigger like RPG are going to be left scratching their heads when characters just dip out of the story for no discernable reason.
@tbnwontpop8857Yeah, but prequels can be ways to introduce a person to a story, like Devil May Cry 3. That game has a plot that is before Devil May Cry 1 and 2, yet you don't need to play both games before playing 3 due to the plot having the necessary info without having too much to spoil the next 2 games outside of extra goodies. This game doesn't do that and expects you to know everything about the original game it's a prequel to play it. Sure you may understand it, however to players who may play the prequel first, they will never get it.
The most terrifying thing about this video is that, as comprehensive and well-made as it is, the crippling writing problems in this game run so deep that there's probably still another hour and a half of stuff to cover, it's just so much that it's a superhuman task to process all of it. It don't know if it makes sense to feel this way, but it genuinely upsets me when the efforts of an entire team are ultimately put to waste because the CEO of the company (after shit talking the scenario writing in Final Fantasy 6) unilaterally decided he was good enough to be the sole writer of the game and singlehandedly blew the fourth leg out of the proverbial chair. This is a project that really excited me when I heard about it, like the spirit of a certain time wasn't fully extinguished by corporate fuckheads in the 2000s and managed to be passed on. Even the idea of this game still stirs something in me even after I know how poorly it turned out, because what it could have been is just that potent. What a missed opportunity.
This is one of those games that screams "wasted potential". Because the game manages to reach such a high level of excellence in certain aspects of the presentation that the fact that the story is bad becomes even more glaring. Because it is the biggest point of contrast between all the other things. The chair analogy makes perfect sense here, no doubt. I still think that despite all of this, the game is worth playing just for the overall experience. Admiring the impeccable pixel art and the extremely catchy music is an experience in itself, and I imagine that for many people, most of them even (given all the positive reviews), it is more than enough. But I can definitely understand the sense of disappointment and despair at seeing how bad the story turned out to be. It's such a pity.
The ubiquity of people who think "I'm a writer!" because they can come up with some vague concepts and *can write words* is *infuriating,* especially as a writer myself. There are tons of very talented people out there who would gladly coordinate their work with your ideas, blossom that nascent concept into something beautiful alongside you, but *nooooo.* We're considered irrelevant and meaningless because "anyone can write, it's easy." WHERE DID THIS IDEA THAT PERMEATES SOCIETY EVEN COME FROM?? How did writing as an artform become so utterly devalued to the point there are people who believe that anyone who can communicate a sentence and imagine any concept qualifies as a writer?? It deeply hurts my soul to see wasted potential like this, there's an infinite number of different ways you can take vague concepts and if the author had been willing to collaborate with them instead of being standoffish, prideful, and self-righteous he would have had *no* trouble finding people willing to help him write his story. But nooooooo.
@@Starfloofle I think people confuse "anyone can have interesting ideas" which is true, with "anyone can write" which is horribly false. Having an interesting idea doesn't mean you're able to actually translate that into something workable.
@@MetalHev Yes, this, precisely! Oftentimes many a great idea comes from someone who's not a writer (just look at the wacky nonsense kids come up with lol) but you need someone actually talented in the skill to translate it into something whole and complete.
For me a game's writing and character interaction / dialogue and chemistry makes or breaks a game for me. If the cast actively make me fall asleep, or I find them sterile, I stop playing. This game was one of them, and I never finished it. I'm glad someone else 100%'d it and still felt the exact same way. The more effort goes into everything else, the more frustrated I am because it feels like they let something good rot from the inside out just because they felt like they couldn't stand up and critique the writer or call them out.
That's kind of why I dropped this game after just 2 hours. Zale and Valere just go "Hehe, yeah, sewing, Garl" for a solid straight hour. I was calling Garl being a Villian from his introduction, but nope he's just as disgustingly plucky as everyone else. His entire dream is to see the Sleeper and then he doesn't even fucking notice it when it's right in front of him. I'm glad I dropped it before I got to the Pirate who calls out obvious tropes.
@@mopeybloke nah I’d disagree with that. After you lose a loved one, you may “cope” by seeing a therapist, spending more time with friends, or even unhealthily taking up drinking. In the online sense, “coping” is when you come up with delusions, excuses, IRL retconning, etc to help you maintain your feeling of being correct, when clearly everyone can see you’re in the wrong. I guess you can argue these two definitions may fall under a broad singular umbrella, but… I don’t think so.
I think it’s extremely telling that, of the acclaimed indie games from 2023, the game that sparked a huge fanbase that became enamored with the world and characters of the game, a fanbase that largely campaigned for the game to be recognized at The Game Awards even, wasn’t the huge Chrono Trigger-inspired RPG. It was Pizza Tower. The silly 2D platformer game where you can explain the plot in a single sentence. But it’s so much easier to get when you see that Peppino alone oozes personality out of every single animation and official art: He’s neurotic, anxiety-ridden, but can switch into bouts of pure unbridled rage or mania when the time calls for it. He revels in his victories and flips out at most setbacks. See? I didn’t mention what Pep LOOKS like at all. It’s just sad that he has an infinitely more defined, charming character while not having a speaking role meanwhile Zale and Valere don’t even have distinct personalities between each other.
And that can be said about every major PT character even though no one of them says even a word. Pepperman - Self-obssesed artist, which gets progressively more creative with his attacks (Shoulder Bash into wall didn't worked? Well now he fools you, by suddenly turning around), actually loses on third phase because of his selfish nature (Stops to appreciate the statue of himself lmao), and after you beat him, he makes a drawing of you on second floor, trying to make it look like he was trying to give a hopeless fight to insane italian man (despite being twice the size of him) Vigilante - The only one who takes stuff seriously, plays fair, and tries to overcome his weakness being a fragile cheese slime by using varities of strategies. Hell, his grudge is understandable, considering who's his boss, and how Pizza Face integrated Vigilante's home aesthetics into his corporation. Noise - Absolutely deranged PT mascot, oozing with "fuck it we ball" energy. Noise doesn't care about rules, Noise doesn't care about others, all he wants is utter destruction of everything for sake of looking cool. And when you play his campaign it shows itself even more, with him ignoring half of levels gimmicks, and using ranged attack on bosses. It works even better on contrast with Peppino, because unlike him, Noise is completely confident in himself, and takes all for given. Hell, if you get bad ranks, or low final percent, Noise just blames player/Noisette/Gerome, and if you succeed just takes all credits. And that's not considering how humane he is at times, with one of his idle pose being him being depressed and smoking, him being nervous as fuck when he gets reviews during ending, and being utterly baffled when Noisette kisses him. Fake Peppino - Creepy, yet very goofy Peppino clone, who both unsettles you and makes you adore him at the same time. Outside of his boss battle he really isn't that menacing, which makes him kinda unique in case of "doppleganger boss". I'm not a huge fan of him, but I know there are people who adore him. Pizza Face/Head - First, he is a constant treat for entirety of game, because if you're too slow on Pizza Time, he is going to totally obliterate you, and that works really well, considering otherwise you can't really die on regular levels. And even then he's both goofy and dangerous, just like the one who pilots him, being Pizza Head. If both Noise and Peppino were deranged, the Pizza Head is even beyond that. For the entirety of the fights he keeps cool, and just shrugs off everything. Basically madness incarnated, because even losing the whole PT doesn't really bothers him. And that's not considering some stuff like "Don't Make A Sound" level painting him similar to Peppino, with how his own restaurant got closed, or the methaphors for big companies, which no matter what aim to keep nice and smiley look on their faces. And that's all without a single word. That's why I've beaten Noise campaign around 10 times at this point, and dropped Sea of Stars hour in.
when you know the creator is a racist anti queer asshole and the entire fandom ADORES him without any question its not surprising that the almost 4chan esque fandom started a riot because their unfunny racism game didnt win
@@Elijah_Kujowhat are you talking about, most of the Pizza Tower fanbase is composed by gen z leftists and wholesome 100 reddit chonkers who either don't vibe with the creator or just don't know what he did. The edgelords of 4chan talk about the fucking rpg maker fairy tale r*pe simulator 2 that came out in 2018 more than Pizza Tower
36:52 I will never stop being fascinated by the fact that Calvin and Hobbes somehow existed as "a newspaper comic that is actually genuinely funny." Every time I see one of those comics as an adult I'm always amazed at how funny they are.
Honestly Calvin and hobbess is a weird oddity both in the regard it's still funny and the regard unlike some other comic strip creators at the time Bill Watterson never sold out
I think it's because the premise for a lot of great Calvin and Hobbes strips are a bit more in tune with life experiences than to execute a joke itself for the sake of it. A lot of the humor of the comic, especially a lot of the dialogue-heavy ones, went over my head as a kid. But I appreciate a lot of the humor more as an adult.
It's insane how long that character sticks around for. The moment she stopped showing up consistently is the moment the game became much more bearable If she became a full fledged party member the game would've dropped to a 4 automatically
@tbnwontpop8857 The problem is not that they are meta jokes, the problem is that she delivers them with the subtlety and grace of an Adam Sandler movie. Maybe the joke is that she is bad at comedy, but even if that is the case, there is no punchline, so regardless of the intent, the result is just crude and juvenile.
@tbnwontpop8857 As well as the points already mentioned above, Meta-jokes must be set up /offset by a believable made-up world. you can't keep making them in the same piece of media, they will start to fall flat.
you dont know how insanely VINDICATED I feel after being told over and over how great this game is only to put it down after 2 hours exactly because I felt the writing was absolutely horrid and that the intro portion was one of the worst written intros in an otherwise good game that I have ever seen
Same here buddy. I was so hyped walking into the game, and so disappointed roughly 2 hrs later when I caught myself asking myself, "I have limited time on this planet. Is this story worth wasting time?" and immediately uninstalled it as my answer. I'm positive there's so many more out there who felt the slap to the face from the bad story telling, which sucks so much.
Thank you to this little string of comments for helping me save money. I've been ruminating over whether I should buy for a very long time because something about it made me think it was going to only look the part of the classics I grew up with and I was worried about the story, writing and characters a lot. Maybe I'll try it out if it's ever very cheap, but I've seen multiple people who've stopped after about two hours like you three and I get the feeling it would be the same for me.
1:13:24 "I don't like it when games try to be topical with its slang." No but thats LITERALLY the correct usage of the word 'cope'. The towns people are _coping_ with their situation by being in total denial. LIKE THE GAME IS ACTUALLY USING THAT WORD CORRECTLY
you know coping is a real word and not just slang, right? The people of the island *are* coping with the situation, only coping, for too long one might say.
The extremely toxic nature of the slang version of "cope" has made it hard to take normally in any other context. Which kinda sucks, learning how to cope with things is pretty important, and much harder to do when the word "cope" itself has been warped into an equivalent to a certain acronym staring with k.
53:57 WAIT, you're telling me that the dude will then wake up in the future where a clone of him did HIS LIFE'S PURPOSE for him and he can't do it anymore. Is this ever explored? Does he ever talk about how reviving him robed him of his life's purpose or how maybe he now must go on some self discovery journey to figure out what he want's to do or talks to his friends at all? Someone who has played the game please tell me whether this happens at all I need to know
No. Nothing matters in this game. From start to finish, every major plot point is made completely moot, up to and including the conflict with the true final boss.
Yeah the writers really tried to have their cake and eat it too. They couldn't let their favourite character just die. They had to give him a big send off, where he saves the Dragon and fulfils the only prophecy that actually matters. And then they couldn't leave him dead and let the actual protagonists carry the climax. So he has the Chrono Trigger Style resurrection... Making it so all that stuff was actually done by B'st? Guess B'st is a great actor? Kinda takes the impact out of those heartfelt speeches. Really I think B'st only existed as a literal Garl replacement both filling his party role and serving as the Chrono Trigger doll which is rather sad.
Certified Time Paradox and Plot Hole moment! Garl's whole dream was really robbed now! This is why people need to be extra careful when they write Time Travel in their plot!
Yeah I dropped this game after 2 hours because I could see the literal bad writing on the wall. Every character has so much to say and are incredibly quirky/ plucky. But it amounts to nothing. Meanwhile in CT you leave Robo in the past for 400 years and he kinda has a bit of an existential crisis from it. He also has a few lines of doubt knowing he may not exist if the party succeeds in defeating Lavos. Also yeah Garls swap is absolutely trash, creates a massive plot hole and is hidden behind near 100% to get the shitty true ending/final boss which doesn't solve anything because it's a prequal and they just let him go...like whut. In Chrono Trigger the swap makes sense and keeps the timeline stable. Chrono, in a sense, never dies. It was always the doll being disintegrated and Chrono being pulled back into the future by his friends. The past characters still witness "Chrono" being obliterated. In Sea of Stars though. An unrelated lab grown character with their own personality becomes a Skin-walker and takes over Garls life and true purpose before past guy died for real. Also so Garl can live into the future and throw an apple at the Evil Space Wizards head. Which accomplishes nothing because you just let him go. The only thing that's changed is Garl is alive and Garl is not fucking worth it.
- Thank God someone else found Yolande incredibly grating and unnecessary as a character. I feel incredibly vindicated. They could replace every single one of her lines with "Good luck on your adventure" and it'd be an overall improvement. - Your critique on Garl's line about "coping" is understandable, but the word is actually being used correctly there, and Garl is appropriately expressing sympathy for the situation of the townsfolk. The term has become poisoned by irony, but its common definition used to be "dealing with existing inside a difficult situation". In the context Garl uses it in, it is a synonym for "suffering". - Garl's original fate was actually extremely impactful to me. I connected with the character, but you've pointed out that that was probably the emotional height of my gameplay experience because every other character in the game was lacking in charisma or consistency. - Overall, I think this game suffers from Golden Sun Syndrome. It's revered as a great success because its genuinely good visuals, audio and world building sufficiently cover up an absolute dogshit story to the undiscerning player. Good video! Subscribed.
It’s kind of funny to think of Garl saying it in the modern way thought. He’s all like: “What? You’re on an inescapable island where people are slowly but surely being lured by a siren to their deaths? lol! Skill issue!”
Just wanna say that I loved Golden Sun, but found Sea of Star hollow. I think it's because Golden Sun world-building is also reflected in its gameplay, with the Djinns, the Classes, and the Summons, that add a layer of narrative. With only 3 measly skills and one ultimate per character, Sea of Star's gameplay just cannot provide the same. Story is one thing, but more often that not, it's the narration that is important. Golden Sun may have a weak story, but it has a strong narration. Sea of Star is kinda the opposite, the story is interesting, but the narration is horrenduous.
Sea of Stars is the complete oposite of Crosscode While Sea of stars was receiving praise and sucess, even winning prizes with that bad writing Crosscode stood like a hidden gem waiting to be discovered, with awesome story, gameplay, design, everything It is REALLY a chrono trigger inspired game in its own way, and its beautiful
Crosscode is good but the history pacing is terrible, i leave the game for that and pick it up some time later, when i finally got hooked to the history, i ended up sayin something like "oh yeah, that happened" bcuz the last bit of history was presented TWO HOURS AGO AND LIKE 50 PUZZLES IN BETWEEN
I haven't played the game but I feel like the writing is suffering from the "cozy game syndrome" where creators are afraid to put any conflict or negative emotions to not ruin the aesthetic, but in effect making it all incredibly dull. Unfortunately I feel like there's a lot of this kind of slop with no substance in the indie scene
I've noticed the "cozy game syndrome" pop up more and more recently, and it's so fucking weird specially in cases like Sea of Stars, because these writers want to somehow create epic grand tales with twists and tragedies, while also making them "cozy" and "comfortable" even though they're inherently antithetical. There is no problem in a story having downtime with cozy moments, but trying to make the entire story confortable just ends up making it milquetoast shit. Characters are not allowed to be excessively emotive even when it makes sense because that would be too "intense" so they're all relegated to being flat happy blobs with 0 personality and relatability. Their happiness so constant and unwavaring it has no meaning. No one is allowed to truly die because that "kills the cozy mood" so danger is only ever alluded to, but never actually present. There aren't allowed to be any bold themes because they might make the viewer "uncomfortable" so they just go with the most obvious shit possible and ignore any of the pontentially interesting themes the story already has in it. It ends up being a flat line that's just prentending to be a rollercoaster and watching stories like these usually make me feel sick in my stomach with their sterile, manufactured "happiness"
@@agentep9979 The word you are trying to use is spelled "milquetoast", if you think it's a combination of 2 breakfast foods it is not a word you should be trying to use.
@@Milktube thanks, I had my suspicions that was the case, but then I googled it and the first result said it was "milk toast" English isn't my first language so I sometimes make mistakes like this, thanks for clarifying
@@natalimoina *Every* game has the potential to disappoint, indie or not. Games not released by a massive studio aren't immediately immune to making mistakes.
How can you leave us hanging like this? What happened to Stickdude420blazit? I want to know if the eye surgery worked! Was he able to fly and fulfill his brother's legacy?! Also, great video, spot on stuff.
So one bit about Garl's revival that bugs me... B'st taking Garl's place. ...Does that mean everyone had a tearful goodbye with a dude pretending to be Garl? For like... several in game hours? And everyone holds a sorrowful funeral all for a dude putting on an act? The fact that implication could be potentially true is morbid and just bad.
I had fun with Sea of Stars and I'd certainly recommend it as a good time but... man... the more I think about it the less sure I am that it's an overall good game. Before SoS I played through Fire Emblem Engage. Engage's story is pretty mid. Barely any of the characters are fleshed out. It's pretty goofy overall. But man I look forward to playing it again! I had a lot of fun playing that game. I'm looking forward to trying out different characters and builds! I'm not sure I'm ever gonna play Sea of Stars again. I'm more excited to play Bug Fables again. (I think Bug Fables is pretty neat)
Sea of Stars is an interesting case study on how important a good story is to an RPG That you can absolutely knock it outta the park in graphics and music and score fairly on gameplay but then end up being an extremely forgettable experience almost exclusively from bad story alone. I think Fire Emblem Engage is a great point of comparison here. Engage has a straight up bad story when compared to almost any other entry in Fire Emblem, yet for what Engage is trying to be, that ends up working just fine. A good story would have only helped, of course, but I don't find myself minding that much since what Engage is trying to be is a love letter to the series. We see a return to form in a lot of places, including the graphics that finally capture a lot of the over-the-top awesomeness of the GBA era. The gameplay is widely considered among the best in the series. And, for what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that Engage's story still has a lot of charm about it with lots to appreciate. It's not Fates, that's for sure.
as someone who backed this game on Kickstarter after going to their discord to participate in an ARG in which they revealed it, all that after having completed and loved their previous game (The Messenger), it's sad to see that they came so close but ended up so far from making their game great. hearing all the stuff they were doing for the game over the years, and how passionate they were about it, only to end up borking the balance of the game like this and unable to properly write the characters with the concepts they had so passionately talked about...it sucks. and that's from mostly second-hand accounts and playing some of the demo alone, not even touching my copy of the game (barely have had energy to try and play a big RPG for a while, haven't touched my copy of Like A Dragon either because of that). I fear the disappointment might overwhelm me at this point when I go and try to clear it, and it sucks after being so invested in it for a while as it was in development.
As you say at the start, I really dislike how "The Game Awards" have turned into New E3. It's so short-sighted because it delegitimizes games as an art-form. Imagine if the Oscars had like 3 Marvel trailers wedged into them because Disney paid for the venue?
I disagree. Not many people would watch the game awards if not for the trailers. IMO basically forcing everyone invested in gaming to watch the devs get the awards by putting them between reveals is the best way to give the recognition they deserve. Also it helps the games winning smaller categories get seen and is great marketing. I hate people virtue signaling and riding the high horse without actually thinking about what is the most beneficial for the people who actually make the games.
@@tinminator8905Both things can be true. It's unfortunate that something that is meant to celebrate and praise people in the industry and their work is mostly used to promote new products coming out. However, if the show did not have all those trailers it would not get nearly as many people to tune in. If they made it a two day event, or just an all day affair with the trailers in the afternoon and the awards at night it would probably be better. They don't need to get a fancy venue and expensive performances if it's resulting in large expenses.
@@tinminator8905 | You say that, but loads of people tune in to watch the Oscars, despite there being no trailers. I think you're not giving people enough credit. And while it's true the Oscars kinda suck, they DO have a great impact on the artistic credibility of the medium in the eyes of the mainstream.
for a game supposedly inspired on so many other games whose primary strength was amazing characterization, it's kinda amazing they totally dropped the ball on that aspect.
I feel like the Devs just saw Lavos from Crono Trigger and thought, "Know what would be cool? If there was a Space Wizard that made planet/time eating monsters." And yeah, that is pretty cool, but not here.
there's a major aspect of Sea of Stars that left a bitter taste in my mouth, like bad olives: it's a prequel that deposits some of its biggest possible payoff in a prior title that isn't even the same genre! several of the Fleshmancer's allies are finished off in a completely different game. they incubated them in SoS and then shipped them off before their stories were satisfied. that feels like a massive mistake for a genre that puts so much weight in fundamental storytelling!
It's a main reason why you can play any Final Fantasy games separately. Most of them are just cheeky little nods to each other so if you're a fan you'll point at similar references to each other. This also explains a lot. I too did not like Sea of Stars.
I had bad olives on a pizza that left a bitter taste in my mouth today. Holy shit, when I found out SoS is a prequel to The Messenger, I was flabbergasted: That game isn't even all that narrative-driven! It's insanity! I have a friend that played The Messenger and really loved it, I gifted him the game but haven't played it myself (my brother did, though...), and when I talk to him about this later, I can only _imagine_ how confused he'll be.
It’s even worse because the characters in The Messenger aren’t even the same. They have different personalities, memories and motives, and never mention the events of this game I think it’s cool when villains get reincarnated and games get tied together. But imagine if Ganon just fuckin left before Ocarina of Time’s ending and you find out from some wiki page that his actual fight was in Link to the Past
@@mredbadger I think the only character in the Messenger that stayed relatively the same to its SoS counterpart is the Demon King. And even then that's stretching it cus apparently the Demon King is 5 beings merged together.
I definitely started to realise the lack of drama as I was playing. It really did feel ‘off’ The plot constantly bends over backwards to justify Garl. He’s supposed to be the underdog character who succeeds against impossible odds, but he never has to grow stronger or learn any lessons because things always work out in his favour. He never has to prove anyone wrong, because everyone instantly loves him and never pushes back on his decisions Serai has the same issue. She’s this shady ‘ally’ who clearly has her own secrets and agenda, who keeps appearing and disappearing with no explanation, but it’s never a source of drama. Even when her actions cause Garl’s temporary death, her trustworthiness is never called into question And then there’s the old storytelling wizard guy, who considers himself an ally, but is bound to arbitrary limitations due to his history and ‘deal’ with the Fleshmancer. This ‘should’ put him at direct odds with the team, especially after he allows Garl to be killed and ESPECIALLY after we learn what happened to Serai. But he never gets criticized and never has to compromise on his rules. He just leaves the party and never rejoins, only seen again in the ending It feels like the game kept putting the characters in situations where they’d have to grow both as people and a team, but it would never happen
Its quality is so uniquely high and it's in such a specific niche that it leaves you with a void no other game can fill. What do you even call it, a flipping sci-fi point and click adventure jrpg visual novel real time strategy time travel game???
I just assumed she wasn’t in the picture for all the other disappearances. Unless there’s something I missed, I don’t think there was anything saying she even knew what was happening there until she ended up following the trio
She really didn't. She could stun them for a long time but what good would that do? The village would just get an influx of paralyzed, bedridden people, plus the Dweller would eventually take notice and do something about it.
@@NotaWalrus1In a weird way though, the thing was feeding on the souls of the people, right? So maybe it gets weaker if she just keeps paralyzing people. She mentions that some people can be protected from the power, so logically speaking, the whole town can take this approach to save people not just her. Anyone starts walking around weirdly, everyone carries around a paralytic to keep themselves safe. Is it difficult to realize this plan quickly, yes, would humans try to come up with a solution anyway, also yes.
@@Nodjia you're ignoring that the way to protect them is with an artifact belonging to a powerful necromancer that required legendary solstice warriors to subdue, and the necromancer can only be reached if you have a green flame that only the necromancer has. It's not a plot hole that Serai doesn't protect other victims. Thinking it is is just poor reading comprehension.
I'm happy I'm not the only one that disliked this game despite being squarely in the target audience. Just so unbelievably shallow, and all the plaudits make me feel like I'm watching Crash win Best Picture
Oh man, so much coverage for what's lacking about Sea of Stars but still doesn't touch on the thing I hated the most, the ending. I hated the ending sooooo much I went out of my way to get the "True ending" only for it to end the same way in some terrible Schmup that has no grounding in the rest of the game and does nothing to resolve anything about the characters or the world/dimensions around them.
It was strangely cathartic to watch this, and I feel like it helped bring my own feelings about the game more into focus. My experience and impression of Sea of Stars changed and developed a lot more than the characters did as I played it. I was pretty okay with it through most of my one playthrough. I was definitely impressed with the combat, music and art direction, letting those things carry me through the game while I just dreamily glided through the writing without feeling much. Then, I got to the ending, and was left thinking, "What? That's it?" It left me with questions, and the more I asked, and the more I discussed with a friend who had also played it, the more cracks I started to see in this game's writing. It's funny. At first, I really hated Garl, probably because of that "Author's Favorite" vibe he gave off, but after this video, I'm starting to see it a different way. He seems to be the only character who was given anything close to an honest attempt at characterization. So, perhaps the fact that he was the best they could come up with upset me, because it laid bare just how barren the character writing was overall. Maybe it was also a bit like the uncanny valley, carrying that cringe-factor of seeing someone try and fail, rather than failing to try at all. Overall, when I ended up bringing him back, my first thought was, "Oh great, it's you again." Either way, I'll guiltily admit, watching this felt like vicariously getting a huge weight of disappointment off my chest. And it's just like you said. What hurts the most is that the quality of the rest of the game highlights what it could have been with better writers at the helm. Also, I was a bit irritated when I hopped on forums and saw people explaining the ending with, "Oh, you'll only understand it if you 100%ed The Messenger." If that's true, it's a bit like what you said about the relics. That's pretty key information for someone to be hiding behind a whole other game. Anyway, appreciate the video.
Honestly, from what everyone in this comment section as well as the video it's self seem to come to a very similar conclusion (from my perspective) is that, Sea of Stars...is style over substance. I think it's even more gut renching to say it because it's not a triple A game. It's an indie game with clear passion, we know the people who made it, we know it's not a cash grab. But...is it popular by merits of it's own or is it popular because it's pretty version of Chrono Trigger with more "Meta" writing? Maby thats why I feel so dejected with my time with SOS, it's almost like it wants to stay in CT's shadow rather than being it's own light. The comparing point is just me being speculative at best, it really could be just the team just not being good writers if they were writers at all.
@@ohwell1547 I think that's somewhat true, but not entirely. I still think they deserve a fair bit of credit. While the story mostly belly-flopped for me, that was the only thing I really disliked. Everything outside of the story was pretty masterful. Combat, exploration, music, traversal, art direction, (writing aside of course). It's just that as an RPG, the story is pretty important to get right. Overall, it kind of makes sense. As the studio who made The Messenger, making a game like this was a first for them. They're definitely talented as game developers, and know how to make games that are fun and engaging to play. They're just not writers, or not the writers they may think they are. They have style, but I think the gameplay itself proves they've got substance too. So, I think its popularity is a mixture of what you mentioned (being stylish and reminding people of other RPGs), and just making a game that excels in most of its areas, enough to distract people - especially non-writers - from just how poor the writing was. Also, as much as I hate to admit it, some people really do just love meta writing. I often see it as an unserious and cowardly approach to writing, but thanks to meme culture, people seem to love things that reference other things or point and laugh at other things.
@@sageoftruth Yeah, the visuals, music, sounds effects, and gameplay was top notch. Monster designs especially, which is why I don't want to be mean or cynical about SOS. "Meta" writing itself also isn't bad. But can really derail tone or pacing when you arn't careful on when and how it's implemented, especially meta humor. I think my actual complaint is more on the recent trend of developers and consumers willing to hand wave glaring issuses simply because it's inspired by a classic game. It's almost like they want a replacement of the inpseration rather than giving the game it's own sence of identity. SOS is way less egregious compared to other games like Bugfables (as chair's mentions in the vid) where the game is honeslty dominated by it's influence. It's a shame because it's filled with a lot of cool ideas and charm but doesn't go farther than Paper Mario. It's gameplay is slow and way less customizable, the story is generic, and the setting is kinda boring. "But hey it's Paper Mario so who cares" My opinion of course. I think another root issue is that a lot of people just don't care about video games having stories. I get that not every game has to have a narratively gripping and detailed story, I don't think Cup head's plot is all that complex. But rpgs are known for their plots and characters, hence the roleplay aspect in rpgs. But that stigma is still there for some reason.
Though I think this is more a case of bad writing hindering the game and it's narrative from its full potential. Even Chrono Trigger had a few writers for specific aspects shuch as character, scenario, and script. Heck Sakgutchi has been active with fans so it's not a bad idea to get his two cents for future stories. Here's hoping that the team will hire proper writers for future projects. :p
The part with Garl and his not really excited self with seeing the sleeping serpent for the first time (or being literally in arms reach) bothered me. When a character has a goal, a dream to see certain things in the world I always expect them to be thrilled or show emotions. An example would be Justin from Grandia 1, when seeing the tall wall, the literally "end of the world" for these folks at the horizon, climbing it and standing on top... gives me the chills I was just as hyped as the characters themselves. This is entirely missing here and I hate the fact that the freaking writing of this game and mostly the robotic characters have killed my enjoyment I had for it.
When I first played this game, I thought, or rather I was hoping that "magic without using magic" was going to tie into some overall theme, where eventually the characters would have to use their wits, strength, and human spirit to overcome great challenges and bring about change when their magic powers fail them. It'd be cliche, but it'd at least be something. It'd at least give the composers something to work with. When I got to the Live Mana tutorial, I genuinely could not stop frowning. It proved to me that all of the dialogue up to that point really was as narratively empty as I was desperately hoping it wasn't. Jirard the Completionist said this game was going to "change the world" so it can't possibly be 'bad.' I stopped playing Sea of Stars 10 minutes after Yolande was introduced. A month or so later, Karl Jobst unveiled the charity scam.
Garl has to be one of the biggest examples of a creator's pet I've ever seen. He isn't even in the thumbnail, yet he goes on to constantly overshadow the main two's efforts through any means necessary. He's even given a bog-standard "chosen one" narrative.
This is an excellent critique of this game, and I want to add some thoughts. I like Sea of Stars. That said, I _can't_ love it. I think the central issue is that it has nothing to say. This is not a game about anything, it is a giving you a list of things that typically happen in a game. Chrono Trigger is about fate, about overcoming inevitability. Thus, it is about a human life, a person's impact, and other things. It asks questions about life and tries to answer them. Sea of Stars's central thesis is "I want to make a game like Chrono Trigger." You touch on the problem a bit in the section on meta jokes. However, I would argue a big problem is that today's creators' life experiences are the consumption of art rather (endlessly training to make their own art - another potential commentary this game _could_ have made). The game is commenting on the life experience of the creators: the game Chrono Trigger (and other games, too). And the message is, "That was a good game." Bringing no other life experience to the table, it is not interrogating Chrono Trigger in any way but attempting to re-live it. There is no conflict at the center of that, thus there is no conflict at the center of Sea of Stars. Yes, there is conflict in the narrative, but it is ultimately aesthetic conflict. There is no conflict at the meta-level, the communication between the player's awareness and the creator's message. So, while we are told there IS conflict, we experience no conflict. There is no tension at the meta-level of the story, so when we drape the correct components ("conflict") over this substrate, it is like putting a lightbulb in a lamp without plugging it in.
We live in a era that a literal generation of kids were de-incentivized to pursue the arts as a career, so this is a likely result, especially when it comes to generally lacking appreciation and value towards writing as an art. What's sadder is that this is not the first game whose message was also "We like Chrono Trigger". That game was also bad but I forgot the name of it though. Hell in the anime/manga world, this exists too. See: RWBY.
To me the entire game felt loosely like Chrono Trigger fan fiction, mostly in regards to it's villain. Here's a Space Wizard who makes Lavos type entities that devour planets so he can experiment on Alternate Timelines.
to me if the world is interesting enough and has landmarks that makes you wonder "what's the purpose of this area" and after you beat the game, you return to the area and it's still the same but it feels mysterious, so you finish up a bunch of sidecontent and suddenly a massive gate comes up from the sea where the two statues were at and you can now fight gilgamesh after tempering his genji equipment against summons. this is something that i love about final fantasy in general. if the writing sucks but has an interesting enough world with secrets such as the one i just mentioned. i'm happy.
Shame even FF doesn't do that anymore. I'm not sure what it was but as a Kid flying on the airship into unexplored areas with places not marked on the map freaked me out. It was cool, but damn if it didn't scare me a bit. Something about flying up to Memoria in 9 really put me on edge.
Thank you! This is pretty much how I felt playing the game. I was never particularly impressed with the writing, but MAN the worldbuilding and environmental storytelling were just so cool that I genuinely don’t really care that the plot isn’t particularly stellar.
I only made it maybe a third to halfway through Sea of Stars. I didn't really enjoy any of it aside from the presentation, but I kept pushing hoping it would expand or improve somehow. I felt nothing for the plot or the characters... I kept hearing Garl was the best of them, and I didn't even like him. The combat is what really killed it for me, I think. It's just so damn tedious. I got to a point where I just couldn't bring myself to sit through another moonerang animation.
@@timmyman9677 Yeah, it's similar to the bro attacks, except those involved more than one button and had multiple variations of differing complexity. Plus, they weren't the primary means of dealing damage in every encounter like the drawn-out attacks in Sea of Stars were.
Yeah, I was surprised by the praise Chair threw to the combat system here. I thought it was generally accepted that combat in this game is very bland and unfun.
@@russlic who are you talking to about that? The combat is one of the things is most praised about it with the exception being the low amount of skills
@@brandonsclips7741It’s because Moonerang and Serai’s turn stall kick are objectively the best moves in the game, and enemies never challenge that gameplay loop. Game could add 40 new combo moves or skills, and you would still be using Moonerang.
The absolute biggest flaw that completely crumbles this game to me is that characters only learn like 3 moves. THREE. Like jesus I can usually forgive a bad/uninteresting story if the combat/gameplay is good but come on using the same 3 skills for like 30 hours of gameplay is criminal. The combo skills might have been able to make up for the lack of individual character skills but as highlighted in the video you rarely ever get a chance to use it. I almost couldn't believe it when I was like half way through the game and realized I wasn't gonna learn another skill. That i've been using basic attacks and the same skill for like 20 hours.
i'm honestly surprised it got such glowing reviews when it has such a major flaw as this. the gameplay doesn't change all too much even with new characters. i was pretty bored and had to power through the end. how did those reviewers get through 30hrs of doing the same move over and over again when the story wasn't all that strong.
I probably could of trudged through a story that was medicore at best since the rest of the game ticked the boxes of just simply being a fun game to enjoy but holyshit I could not believe that I was still be using the same 3 moves. Like give me something new at least for variety goddamn
Don't forget to mention that all but 1 character have 2 attacking skills and 1 healing skill. Actuallty, lets look more into the skills: Combo skills aren't going to be used outside of boss battles Ultimate attacks also aren't going to be used outside boss battles Ultimate attacks are hella unbalanced anyways, you only have acess to Serai's and then Resh's for most of the game. You get Garl's so late that you're probably only gonna see it at the last boss. Not that it matters because Resh's is straight up better than everyone's ultimate except Garl's... which you'll rarely use anyways. Action commands with a limit amount of skills. Enjoy watching Valere's 10 min moonrang skill all the time. Like holy shit how do you make Yiik look more fun to play. This game is literally just putting a bunch of good games into a blender and then watering it down with sewer water.
oh my GOD, this. what you're given I found to be pretty fun for the first few hours, but eventually was thinking to myself "so when do I get new moves? surely it's gotta be coming soon" and then...nope. it just never came.
I didn't play the game myself, but I watched most of the important parts when a friend played it. The one thing that really stuck out to me, which I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about, is that, well..... Garl is kind of a creator's pet, and I disliked him _tremendously_ because of it. Not because of anything inherent to his character, but just - he's _too good_, he's always happy, everyone trusts him, everyone listens to him, he gets to do all this cool shit, he lost an eye so he looks cool but it hasn't negatively affected him in any way, nothing ever goes badly for him, and with Zale and Valere being ciphers everything just feels like it _revolves_ around him in a way that doesn't feel _earned_. For a good while, I was expecting something, _anything_ to go wrong for or with him, for him to turn out to have a Dark Secret or for his permanently happy demeanour to be a façade hiding his fears and insecurities, for him to get in over his head at some point..... but no, everything just always goes well for him, he becomes the focus of most of the scenes he's in, Zale and Valere seem to care more about him than about anything else, everyone loves and trusts him, he becomes a _dead man walking_ and it doesn't faze him in the slightest, he makes a cool heroic sacrifice, his friends move heaven and earth _just to get him back_ and then he gets to _chuck an apple at the Big Bad_ to get the True Final Ending. He's a narrative singularity, he gets an incredible amount of focus, other characters just seem to revolve around him, and he never really changes from beginning to end. I was _so_ fed up with Garl by the end because he's just _too damn perfect_ - the term is _wildly_ overused, but I genuinely consider him a Mary Sue. I know nobody's going to read or care about this but I just needed to get this off my chest.
I read everything! The term you are looking for would be 'Gary Stu' in Garl's case lmao. And I agree: it's better to give your audience the room to like a character themselves. With their strengths and weaknesses (and those weaknesses being treated as such in the story), it will come naturally. Flaws humanize characters as well. We all have them and not everyone will like us even for our best traits, *and that's okay.* That is why characters cannot be "perfect"; why should I care about a character when they will never face scrutiny or treat their conflict as, well, A CONFLICT? That makes them relatable! In my case, the moment I knew that I couldn't be invested into Garl was when I heard that he wasn't even upset over losing an EYE, and even still admired Zale and Valere after the incident. He's not written to react to situations like a normal human being, but rather as what the writer considers a "perfect saint". Funnily enough, there are a _ton_ of ways to write someone's reaction to losing a body part, so why the writer went with the most unbelievable way is anyone's guess. To me, it's like the writer was too much of a coward to give Garl anything resembling a flaw, even if it's understandable with context. And ironically, Garl having no "flaws" is a flaw in and of itself.
I started playing the game this weekend and Garl has CONSTANTLY thrown me off. Like throughout the entire prologue/flashback with my character's power being the reason why he lost an eye and being REPEATEDLY told he's not special unlike my character, I was envisioning him as the 2nd act antagonist: shunning my character and their cursed power that they wield over every one else. But no, he just pops out of a bush and goes "Hey guys! Been a kuh-raaaaazy decade, huh?"
I absolutely agree. Garl being such a center piece where he is simply a human being that cook and there are literal super humans and cyborg ninjas next to him? Dude... you can't be serious. I get that the point is how he is extremely charismatic and thus he manages to move the pieces of the board basically on demand... but no, that's not how it works.
THANK GOD SOMEONE ELSE SEES IT! I've always felt weird that everyone was praising this game so much, all I could think is "Wait, did you not play any RPGs in the last decade or so? Chained Echoes maybe???"
I think a lot of people, myself included, just really wanted to like this game. So we put up the blinders and just... ignored the bits that weren't that great. Sure, I noticed Zale and Valere were pretty flat characters, but I pushed the thought out of my mind so I could keep enjoying the game, and enjoy it I did. I didn't keep playing it long enough to get to some of the more serious problems, I stopped at the entrance to the water temple where all the skills I had access to were still engaging to use, and barring the super long intro the start of the game is actually quite enjoyable.
Having played Chained Echoes ahead of SoS, I could not for the life of me understand the hype around SoS. I acknowledge that SoS is a better looking game--mostly more refined--but CE is better by nearly every other metric, and by LEAPS AND BOUNDS.
Same thing here, I played Chained Echoes, then a few weeks later went to play Sea of Stars and had mostly only disappointments. Using the same few skills from the start to the end of the game made battles feel pointless and grindy. The only character who had a personality was Garl and it seemed the game was about him instead, and then, they kill him? Wtf. Then you are left with the boring characters for the remainder of the game. The only thing I truly enjoyed in playing this game, was the ClockMakers Minigame with the statues. Of course the graphics and music were very good, but it was like Plancton's Hamburguers in Sponge Bob, basically trash molded to look like hamburgers coated in very nice paint.
The thing is, Garl being a villain is something I 100% expected at some point It was way too obvious, he shared a similar body type to one of the clocked dudes, he could hold a grudge, him disappearing then stalking - before *suddenly* appearing I don't think Garl being a villain would be a good twist at all, because they would run themselves into another rut The ending was also really sour how do you fumble that much of an ending with that much build up, even the secret ending I expected us to have to fight the moon dude in a demon form and try to remind the girl that she wanted to protect him, and she's failing right in front of everyone by not even caring that he got demonised - ending in some climactic passing of the torch... but no. also went nowhere.
I called him being a Villian in the first minute. "Well hey friends, lets go open up the FORSAKEN GATE" Then he takes an injury and gets abandoned by his friends for a decade. I thought for sure they we're setting him up to be a bad guy. But nope he's just disgustingly plucky, like everyone else.
The awful ending was because it was trying to staple itself to The Messenger’s lore. Because being a prequel to a game in an entirely different genre is… a decision.
Why they didn't have something like Garl saying "I don't want to be left behind, please. I've grown stronger! I want to overcome this FEAR in my heart." Or something to give him a REASON to want to join.... would have been better Edit: one of my favourite books is called the sea of stars. And it's like... way better💀
It feels like for a lot of modern releases both indie and AAA that main and primary supporting characters are either the safest blandest personalities ever put on a page (See Sarah from Starfield), or obnoxious selfish self inserts who because of that self insert status aren't allowed to experience any character growth or have flaws that would make them actually interesting. Characters in between those two extremes of sleep medication and anger inducing seem to be getting rarer and rarer by the day. Prolly why FF7 is so popular. Cloud is a massive fucking dork, who tries to be cool and aloof but fails at it miserably, and also has interesting flaws in terms of his false memories and denial that have interesting origins and most importantly actually matter for the story.
It's not just a problem with the Heroes being bland and flawless, there's also the issue of every Villain needing to be constantly self-reflective or sympathetic. You can have that, but I still want to see bad people do bad things and enjoy it. As bad as Zale and Valere are, I have to give props to Aphoreal. Guys sympathic sure, but it doesn't change the fact he unleashes planet eating monsters onto various worlds.
@@matteste Which is a shame. The strength of most Tales of games is it's cast, both hero and Vilian. I don't think I liked anyone in Arise. People crap on Beseria but I think it had the strongest cast next to Symphonia and Abyss. And it may be a hot take but Vesperia and its cast is Mid. Yuri's not my favorite MC but I like him as a personality and Estelle is adorable. That's about it.
@@timmyman9677 Yea, even Arise's supposed main villain almost felt more like a footnote with how little character and importance they had. And the main cast wasn't much better. I have even seen some fanboys call Arise better written than both Symphonia and Abyss which is honestly laughable. From what I have seen for instance, people seem to only say that Abyss is bad cause they though Luke was an ass. That is quite telling on what they are actually after. They are not interested in good writing or strong characters, they just want stuff that fulfills their fantasies and make them feel good.
Beautiful looking game with a ton of style and atmosphere... and an utterly amateurish story. RPG's are hard, because they kinda _need_ good stories, or at least competent ones and kickass gameplay. Having a bad story though can ruin the whole pot.
You know what would have been an amazing plot-development? If Zale were the one who died instead of Garl. That would have actually been a shocking reversal of expectations - at the start, the game lets you choose which of Valere and Zale is the "main character." The decision is completely pointless (the game even assures you that the decision isn't plot-relevant), but it COULD have been the most brilliant bit of misdirection since at least Deltarune. After letting you "choose" the main character, setting up the idea that their role in the plot is interchangeable, it turns out that the only main character who SURVIVES is Valere, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's also just inherently more troubling for one of the two solstice warriors to die - Valere is losing her other half, and the world might be screwed. (Another variant I'd like to see is getting to choose a main character and then it turns out that one of them was secretly a villain.)
I really enjoyed listening to your perspective on the writing of this game. I thought I was pretty good at picking out bad writing but I never noticed how bad it was in Sea of Stars. As much as I loved playing it, it left me feeling a little hollow for the story and characters by the time it was over. I couldn't put my finger on it until now. Would you consider doing a critique like this for other JRPGs like Octopath Traveler?
I’m glad Zale and Valere feeling flat wasn’t just me. I thought at first they were going for the “sheltered zealots who have no concept of the world” approach with Garl being the “normal” one. But no, they’re just nothing.
Excellent video, so glad I clicked this expecting to watch 5 minutes of a rant I don't care about before switching it off, to instead find a breakdown of how to do good writing, and how not to do it. You perfectly explained every point you made with the comparisons between these two games. Thank you for letting your hatred of this indie game motivate you to spend the time contructing this essay; I could really tell you had a whole 'I feel very strongly and I just need to get it out and hope people agree I'm right', and you know what, you were damn right about everything.
I was kinda wondering why I dropped the game so fast. I was liking everything I was seeing and hearing but I never picked it up a second time. Oh and my first and only save file was right after grown up Garl joins the party without any consequences of losing an eye just before losing his two closest friends as a child. I'm sure its just coincidence...
It really is. I was expecting Garl to be evil as soon as he was introduced. But nope, he's just disgustingly plucky, like every other fucking character.
Yolande seems to be the epitome of the lampshading trope, a trope stemming from the insecurities of the wirter being masked by jokes about the problem the writer sees, effectively removing the immerdion.
I'm feeling so validated right now. There was a point where I really wondered if I was really playing the same game as everyone else. 😢 I'm so glad someone highlighted all its issues.
It was such an odd game. It was like every character was a robot only there to fill a role, walking through a plot synopsis the size of a book instead of a story of actual people.
I think it’s more likely that they saw Chrono Trigger’s simple and easy to understand characters and tried to recreate it, but instead of giving characters a small handful of memorable traits and skills, they made a main cast full of characters who just give simple-minded responses to everything that happens to them. Characters in Chrono Trigger do often have really simplistic responses to things that happen, but they’re simple with FLAVOR. Sea of Stars kept the simple but didn’t add the flavor, and it seems soulless and lacking in sincerity.
All of modern culture is afraid of sincerity because it makes you vulnerable. Everything is ironic and jokes. Especially the people claiming to make "important games with messages" for whatever political activism they fight for do this. Its always a story about a character with X traits, never just a character's story about themselves.
@@ImortalZeus13 Exactly. I think I dropped SoS after two hours because the dialogue was a repetitive bore that showed no signs of progressing anything. The entire time it was nothing but Zale and Valarre parroting each other back and forth. "Heheh, yeah! I hate sewing! Heheh yeah! Garl! Magic without Magic!" For...two...fucking...hours. What happens in one or two hours of CT? Boy meets Fun Girl at Fair. Fun Girl gets sent back in time by Nerd Girls science fair project, Boy goes after fun girl. Boy teams up with an Honorable Frog to save Fun Girls Great, great Grandma. The past and present are saved (for now), Nerd Girl makes a Key that opens Time Travel Gates, everyone returns to their own time. The end, for now.
I think a big problem with writing in indie games right now is that the writers are afraid to make characters that can be a bit of a bastard. If the protagonists and even the supporting characters are noble, polite, and easy-going 95% of the time, they're going to be extremely boring. This has been a really big problem in indie games these days, for me, and Sea of Stars kinda exemplifies this. Gimme characters that are jerks, dang it. Unfair comparisons maybe, but BG3 and God of War are loaded with interesting characters that are interesting precisely because they're jerks and/or have wildly differing opinions and viewpoints that conflict with others in many ways. Would you want to be friends with all of them? No, but they're interesting, and that's the key. I think that's what's missing from Sea of Stars, for me, and you don't need a AAA budget to make that happen.
I mean observe the indie scene overall... What's the bread and butter? Life sims and "comfy" games. Mostly stuff without a lot of grit or sharp teeth. Honestly best indie I've played is probably Katana Zero.
You can also say that there is a big problem with media literacy, and how a lot of member of the audience cant read between the lines or analyze stuff that is just beneath the surface of what is being presented. angel dust from hazbin hotel, whose arc is all about how he is being exploited as a sex worker and he makes a hyper sexualized persona in order for him too take control of the unsavory aspects of his life, his abuse is never shown as a good thing, his song ends with him breaking down after the illusion of his lies are dispelled, yet people still say the show is gloryfying his abuse Then you have Sparkle from honkai star rail, she is a joker/harley quinn type character, an agent of chaos that is explicitly stated to be an antagonist, she is a racist lying duplicitous person, constantly lying and manipulating people for her own "enjoyment" yet a big portion of the community sees her mere inclusion in the story to be an endorsement of her actions, even though she is never shown to be correct. I can see why some writers would just forego nuance so that some of the smooth brained people wont try to cancel them, but that is a coward move, we need more flawed characters in general, perfect characters are extremely hard to make interersting and relatable, we need more freaks, like the main character from delicious in dungeon
@qaztim11 This was most evident with Subaru and Rudy from ReZero and Mushoku Tensei respectively. People cannot comprehend the idea of a protagonist that starts out as a bad person and grows from their mistakes. They will say the show glorifies being an "incel" even though the character arc is a direct critique of it.
I think for me, beyond the video contents which basically are a list of my issues with the game, I was annoyed by Sea of Stars because Chained Echoes came out in the same year roughly (Nov.2022 vs. like March 2023 or so), and was just a completely superior game in just about every aspect, yet SoS won all the Indy GotY stuff while Chained Echoes wasn't even nominated because people forgot about it. And amongst most RPG heads, they've all said Chained Echoes >> Sea of Stars. Chained Echoes does have its flaws with storytelling, and, like SOS tries to be Chrono Trigger too much, SOS tries to be Xenogears too much at times with its storytelling. With combat, to add onto what you said, SoS characters get 4 moves to use. However, generally half of those moves are completely useless, either cause they don't do enough, or cause they aren't useful enough for breaking. Same thing with the Combos as you brought up (and even among those, most of the Combos suck), and on top of that there are the Ultimate abilities of each character where, when you try them out, only 1, maybe 2 of them are actually useful at all. It's amazing that, with so few actual skills in the game, they still managed to put in skills that just sucked and were of no use.
Yeah, Chained Echoes just threw Xenogears, Suikoden, and FFT into ChatGPT and the resulting story was a grotesque embarrassment, but in terms of combat and exploration it was immeasurably better than Sea of Stars
I feel like "aren't useful enough for breaking" has been going around lately. Magic is severely underpowered in Octopath Traveller 2 because all of the hard fights revolve around breaking an enemy's guard, and magic is vastly less efficient at doing that. It's so weird to me when games steal mechanics that aren't any good, even on paper.
Was just about to make a comment about how Chained Echoes kind of got lost in the shuffle which is a damn shame because I finished that game and didn’t finish Sea of Stars for a lot of the reasons mentioned in this video
I never really liked the concept of the Solstice Warriors, especially with how the game ends. Like, these kids are basically indoctrinated by fate to become demigods and never get to experience actual freedom and they're just... okay with that? Why did they become these eternally patrolling sentries post-game? Aren't all the Dwellers gone or am I missing something? What are they looking after in a time of peace? They try to make it a concern with the adult warriors before they go all anarchist, but then it's just brushed off and the two kids just roll with the punches. It's so weird.
Same here. I was really hoping that the game was building up to a point where the legitimacy of the Solstice Warrior thing was questioned, but I stopped playing when it became clear that wasn't the case. It was really disappointing.
Here I was actually feeling the inverse--I thought there could be a very compelling narrative in accepting a duty assigned from your birth, sacrificing your earthly desires and personal needs so that everyone else can still have that freedom. It seemed like it was going in that direction with the other warriors' treason, and then it didn't. They ruined two perfectly great plotlines in one move.
You have my respect for making a video so long about a game I’ve high praise about. Don’t agree with everything you’ve said, but I will replay it with a more critical eye. Also you’ve inspired me to play Chrono Trigger to get what you’re saying. Subbed 👊🏿
Hey Misshapen Chair, I’ve been watching your stuff for a while and wanted to give you a big props for this video and its style. You really managed to catch my attention, and I sat down and watched this entire video in one sitting. You moved from point to point well, and communicated your thoughts without spewing vitriol and without wasting my time or repeating yourself. Fantastic work, well worth the effort, keep it up! 💚
One of my favorite pieces of bad writing about this game is how they wake up the sleeper. Very early on as you mentioned they say that the sleeper will wake up if the lullaby goes away. 10-15 hours later when they have to wake up the sleeper what do they do? They COOK A GIANT LOAF OF BREAD THAT WAKES IT UP. They actively ignore the lore they set up to give Garl a moment, it’s awful. Great video overall! You pretty much hit the nail on the head about all of the issues I have with the writing (I have issues with everything else as well but good job on writing), stuff like Teaks giving you critical information to understand the world is just plain awful, it’s not good world building, if it’s important we should be told in the main story! I’m happy you touched on how barren Valere and Zale are, it’s insane how almost every character takes a major backseat to Garl, he gets way to much screen time and really ruins the characterization of others. It is incredibly obvious they wanted Garl to be the main character but just couldn’t figure out a way to do it, resulting in this mess. One of my biggest gripes with this game is what you brought up about fighting the fleshmancer. To even do it you have to beat the game once without all the collectibles, the place won’t unlock if you don’t. It is absurdly stupid that the ending most players will see has you not even fight the main villain, they just fuck off and you instead end with a shooting segment.
Foreshadowing isn't even like predictable. Sometimes it is, yes, if you consume a lot of media you usually will see that, but sometimes foreshadowing is something you realize after the even happens and its like :O and that is some fun foreshadowing when that happens.
i really enjoyed listening to you critique sea of stars despite not having played it myself. not sure if you need positive feedback to want to make more videos like this but i would absolutely watch more long video essays of you explaining your opinion on a game
The number of people and UA-camrs gushing all over this game before release is a damn shame. Just because it apes classics does not mean it will be a classic itself.
I get the feeling the writers were focused on where the party would go and what they would do, but not how their personalities and relationships with each other would be impacted along the way. I've played a few games that have that problem, but I think this is the first time where its so bad, the two main characters could have been switched with a single silent protagonist and nothing would have changed.
As someone who has Chrono Trigger as his favorite game of all time, I reeaaaaally wanted to like this game. I wanted so bad. But I stopped playing after about 5 to 10 hours. I thought I might have simply stopped enjoying JRPGs, but no. This video helped put in perspective that my apathy had validation. It's a bummer, really. The dev's previous game, The Messenger, is a banger.
I find it hard to understand people who play an RPG, admit it has bad writing, and still defend it. In my mind RPGs are not far behind Visual Novels in terms of how vital writing quality is to the experience.
There was a lot of frustration with the story of Sea of Stars for me as well. Like, the entire little training arc at the start of the game was just boring AF. Nothing happened during it. And they had this weird thing they'd do where the main characters would bond with one another off screen, so they'd come back into a shot after a time skip and they are joking around with one another, but then they just never do that any other time? So it's like, who are these people? Why are they so... nothing? Then there are weird things, like the few characters that get some characterization, like the history girl or the geomancer mole kid, just don't participate in the plot. So the only character that does anything proactive most of the time is Garl. Serai is also just kind of silent and Stoic. The 5th and 6th party members join pretty late, and the 5th leaves your party. The 6th joins too late to have a large impact, which is kind of the issue with having a party member join in the back 15% of the game. So then out of the principle cast, only Garl really feels like a character. Again, rather one note at times, but I get Garl. I understand him. He's like a human golden retriever. Sea of Stars also does the thing that a lot of old JRPGs did which really drags the game down: filler areas that do nothing ot meaningfully push the plot forward. When you consider how much of the plot of this title is back loaded, it's really hard to look at "lets save these people in the mines" and "lets get this magical trinket from these ancient ruins" as things we should actually have been doing. Also, I absolutely hated the way combo attacks worked here. I love the way they work in Chrono Trigger because they open up new moves and make you consider party composition. Your party selection literally determines what you are capable of doing. But here nah! On top of that, for most of the game, you only have 1 combo attack that uses 1 point, so their prevalence is reduced even further. To make matters even worse, Zale and Valere's group heal is kind of lowkey optimal. You can save it up and have it as a massive group heal whereas all the other heals in the game either use a lot of resources only heal 1 person, etc. Considering most of the bonus attacks don't do anything special for the most part (especially in the front half of the game) you might as well just save up points to use the group heal.
The biggest compliment I can give this video is that I was watching it the day your released it planning on playing sea of stars bc of the the game awards, heard you say to play chrono trigger before you spoil it in the video, beat the game front and back and then I came back to watch this video 2 months later. I also decided not to play sea of stars after playing chrono trigger. Those are the consequences of your actions just like you mentioned. Your choices do matter.
An important part of why the story falls flat in my opinion that isn't mentioned in this video is that Sea of Stars is a prequel game to "the Messenger." The whole of Mesa island is the game world of the Messenger and it actually recreated the level in painstaking detail. But a whole lot of the plot points feels forced and contrived to allow the Messenger to happen. For instance, the 4 acolytes becoming "the conciousness" of the Dweller of Strife is for the sole purpose of forming the Demon King from the Messenger, who has a form with 4 heads having 1, 2, 3, and 4 horns respectively and another form being the Dweller of Strife. You kill that by yourself as some ninja who isn't even a solstice warrior and it makes the whole plot point be so forced. Other connections include: the temple with the big window at the end of the game is visited in the Messenger where you gather the crystallised last power of Valere and Zale, there is a new necromancer who uses a staff implied to have been created by Romaya, the magic order in the Messenger used the same posing as the Solstice Warriors.
I feel I didn't give sea of stars a fair shake, because I was put off by the lack of character development, but it has been really frustrating to play through. I remember when Garl hops out of the bushes and basically forces himself into the party, and I was thinking about how uncomfortable of a conversation it was. Basically, you have two people with super-human abilities and magic, and then their _not special_ friend that they played with as kids. When Garl loses an eye to prevent Zale from being injured, the master basically treats him like trash and says he's lucky that's all he lost while disregarding the sacrifice he made. The writing comes off as "it's your own fault, but you don't deserve any praise for protecting your friend". Valere and Zale seem to entirely forget how serious that is within minutes of it happening because the prospect of "training" is so exciting, they don't feel responsibility or regret at all. When Garl tries to join them again, their responses are very vague; like the writer wasn't sure how they should respond and they don't really discuss the matter so much as just let things happen, avoiding any kind of responsibility again. I understand that mechanically, Garl is sort of there to show the point of view that "even if you aren't magical, you can contribute, you can help your friends succeed". But even that initial conversation by the fire can be interpreted in a more fundamentally disturbing way... that Garl is so obsessed with proving himself, despite not being "special", that he has focused his whole on being useful to his "friends". That scene put me in a very weird place mentally, I wasn't sure how to interpret it, and the 2 magical kids don't really express their feelings beyond a vague sense that "this is kind of _our thing_ that we were born for, so you really can't take on that role no matter how hard you try". Garl feels like that overly sincere kid, who doesn't realize he's out of his element and just wants to be helpful. Valere and Zale, by contrast feel like they are empty, with their job being the only thing they think about. They don't discuss their futures, because their future is a bleak certainty that they will spend their entire lives fighting monsters, because that was what they were born for. The issue is that they have "fate" / "prophecy" / "purpose" spelled out for them instead of created by them, and this is never challenged or changed through their own will. They have no drives, no goals, no personalities, just spritework for the player to vaguely "identify" with. By the end of the game, I felt like I was just being pandered to, honestly. Even the posture of the "gods" and such demonstrates that the player and main characters aren't worth the time and effort put into the colorful and pretty world they inhabit.
Even the prophecies they get from The Mist do nothing to add to their character despite being set up as a potential internal conflict for the characters. But nope the Prophecy are 100% literal, hell it's not even a prophecy it's a device, a hint. Valere needing to learning how to "create pathways of water" isn't some vague metaphor it's literally what she has to do.
i feel like this game is held back by the writers feeling like they needed to tie the plot into their other game, the messenger. sea of stars essentially acts as a prequal to that game. like as an example of what i mean, the end of the game essentially has valere and zale perpetuate the cycle that bugraves and erlina took such an issue with. the game seemed to be building up to the true ending being us killing the fleshmancer and stopping the endless conflict between dwellers and solstice warriors. but instead, valere and zale ascend to godhood or whatever to go fight dwellers and world eaters forever. because they made this game as a prequal, valere and zale *have* to end the story by ascending to godhood and perpetuating the cycle. because if they didnt, there would be no reason for them to show up in the messenger and give a magic macguffin to john messenger. similarly, at the point in the story where garl dies and bugraves and erlina go through those portals, bugraves randomly drops this line about how hes apparently been really slow his whole life, despite that never being brought up or demonstrated before now. and the fleshmancer promises him that he'll be the "fastest thing alive" or whatever, only for him to never show up in the game again (technically he shows up for like 5 seconds during the credits after the true ending but my point still stands). and the only reason they did this is cause they made the contrived decision to have bugraves become the demon general boss in the messenger, whos whole gimmick is being "the fastest thing alive". theres a ton of weird moments like this throughout the game where it feels like sea of stars is sabotaging its own story in order to tie itself into the messenger. and its just baffling to me because the messenger actually worked pretty well as its own stand alone game. and sea of stars is set so far in the past that all these links between the two games barely matter. i cant help but feel as though sea of star's narrative and writing would have turned out way better if they had just made the game its own stand alone story.
i guess that's why it felt like nothing ever got resolved, it was just a side story for another story. that's disappointing. i honestly thought the messenger had nothing to do with this game.
i didn't mind the bad writing at first, but what they did with garl in the end really bothered me. i'm keeping this vague as to not spoil anybody. garl was the only character i liked, and i felt betrayed when i became emotionally invested in him.
You have no idea how much this video made me feel vindicated. I felt like I was going mad at the praise it was getting. The characters were genuinely some of the most uncharismatic I'd ever experienced. The writing made me feel nothing but bored. I didn't at any point feel that burning need to see what would come next. And maybe I'm going too far with this, but did anyone see this "whimsical" world and not feel it's...whimsy? Like it felt like it was trying too hard to be charming and quirky? The only location that felt even close to that was the haunted mansion area. Same with the pirate characters. They just tried...too hard? In my eyes ofc. I will say I enjoyed the battle system, the music, the pixel art, and how smooth it ran. But overall, the game as a whole felt so forgettable somehow. This video finally put that feeling into words.
This is a big reason I’m not a fan of Sea of Stars or the Owl House. They feel like they are really trying to force this feeling of whimsy and wonder on you instead of letting it happen in more natural and subtle ways. The forced quirkiness also makes me go nuts! I think the reason we both didn’t like the game getting praise is because it felt incredibly undeserved, especially since there are games, ESPECIALLY in its own genre that are far better RPG’s than itself.
I think you (and I, for that matter) didn't like the game's praises because of just how fucking obnoxiously pretentious they were. "The new Chrono Trigger!" "Best story ever!" "Best Indie game award!", and then when you actually play the game, ylu realize just how weak and shallow the game and the narrative is. Yet no one admits to it. This video is the ONLY video with a signifocant number of views actually expressing criticism and distaste for the awful writing. Every other video either has only ~1000 views, or is just praising the game as a masterpiece. THAT'S what's annoying to me. The reluctancy to admit it's a shit narrative.
This is practically the same reason I disliked I am Setsuna, even though it was marketed as a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger as well. Bad writing ruined all that.
I watched an I am setsuna playthrough and it felt like nothing happened the entire time and also all the areas were the same. It barely felt like a game
With what I've heard being promised in the upcoming update/dlc, I'd be interested if you made a smaller follow-up video documenting changes and improvements from the version you based this video upon.
There's one part of the lore that I feel like I don't see people mention even though it should be able to be picked up from context clues (heck the characters do mention him 'by name' so they should realize it), but Resh'an (the purple guy in a turban) is a great alchemist who can turn into a bird. The characters do know him as "The Great Eagle" and call him such (if I remember the name right), and it makes sense that he is some super figure of myths in the world's setting. The thing that bugs me that the game never seems to fully acknowledge or do anything about? Zale+Valere are not biological twins or related, and are brought to the starting town as babies... by The Great Eagle. They never ask about where they came from, who their parents were, or what Resh'an did in order to get them to bring to the village. This isn't "necessary" and we do know why Resh'an wants Solstice Warriors, but it does basically mean one of the party members basically brought 'acquired' children to send to battle, and said children never dig into this. Do they want to know their parents? Are they orphans who's families were killed and Resh'an saved them? Did Resh'an buy them or negotiate with their parents in order to get them? Did Resh'an have to babysit the older one for like 6 months before getting the second character and then taking both to the starting area? None of that is explored. Also on a pettier note, why does Zale want to be a Blade Dancer? At the start of the game, both characters bring up their goals as Solstice Warriors as if they are speaking job/class titles, with Valere wanting to be a monk (her idol is a martial artist and the headmaster is elderly and... meant to be wise), while Zale... wants to dance with a sword? The only Sun warrior we see early on is a mage, and we learn later on that there were 3 Sun sisters who all seemingly were mages/scholars (unsure on previous headmaster regarding her power but still). So in keeping with this video's idea of "Zale struggles to control his powers"... why does Zale choose Blade Dancer as his goal if nobody uses swords and all Sun warriors being mages/scholars? It makes sense party comp wise sure, but we never see him really dance with the literal band that joins the party or see why he would want to be fleet footed/dexterous in particular as nobody else in the game, and I know "Blade Dancer" is not the same as "Dancer" but like... nobody else uses a sword at the order and we don't hear of any famous "Blade Dancers" in lore, so it seems like a missed opportunity in his character to not really do anything with that. I'm not even saying he shouldn't be a Blade Dancer, but his struggles with summoning his power was magic based, not dexterity, and during the training montage he doesn't really have a moment where it's clear that he wants to dance around his enemies.
thank you for making this video. It was really engaging and I'm surprised to say that you had me hooked throughout the whole damn thing. Like you said, it is really eye opening to see how low the bar has gotten for quality in games these days. i will now proceed to watch every video you have posted in the last year at least, and thereby absolutely pollute my youtube recommended feed(absolute sucker punch of a video). Thanks once again!
I only saw about two of your videos on XIV about limit cut and parsing in xiv, and youtube decided to chuck this in my reccommendations. I'm glad I clicked, didn't see the hour and a half pass. very competent stuff, definitely looking forward to more of that.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
****Edit* Due to stupidity. In my efforts to "Turn off automated moderation" for comments because I figured this would be controversial. I accidentally "Turned off comments". It should be fine now and feel free to flame me in the comments down below.
Music in order of first use; ignoring duplicates for my selfish sanity:
Timestamp - Name - Contributing Artists (Game if relevant)
0:00 - A Premonition - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
0:06 - Chrono Trigger - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
0:18 - Childlike - SAM Free Music (100% Orange Juice)
0:34 - Two Steps From Hell Trailer Music - Composed by Nick Phoenix (ua-cam.com/video/Lwr6nEo4Ql8/v-deo.htmlsi=4jSCvkVurh6R0xcq)
1:02 - Dance of 1000 Suns - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:22 - Title Screen - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:44 - Mooncradle (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
2:23 - Encounter Elite - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
3:05 - Serenade of Respite (Day) - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars)
3:45 - peace - SAM Free Music (100% Orange Juice)
3:50 - What Comes of Despair - Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV: Endwalker)
4:10 - Do you have any evidence? - watson (100% Orange Juice)
4:33 - Blight - Kou Otani
4:50 - Ending theme (Super Mario World)
5:01 - Robo Gang Johnny - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
5:58 - Bike Chase - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
6:02 - Guardia Millenial Fair - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
6:08 - Battle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
6:13 - Wind Scene - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
6:16 - It Has To Be This Way - Jamie Christopherson & Logan Mader, Akira Takizawa & Pete Crossman, Jimmy Gnecco (Metal Gear: Rising)
6:27 - Chrono and Marle ~Far Off Promise~ - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
6:40 - The Mountain Trail (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
7:15 - Peaceful Days - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
8:45 - A Strange Happening - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
9:18 - Guardia Castle (Pride) - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
9:24 - Questioning - Masakazu Sugimori??? I think (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney)
9:37 - The Trial - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
10:25 - Memories of Green - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
11:05 - The Great Archives - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
11:26 - Mooncradle (Night) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
12:14 - The Forbidden Cavern - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
12:18 - Malevolent Confrontation - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
13:04 - Zenith Academy - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
13:44 - Devoted Warriors - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
14:05 - Ruins of Strife - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
14:27 - Devoted Warriors - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
14:36 - Prevolt/Zophiel - MONACA (Drakengard 3)
15:57 - Battle On - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
17:02 - Cheerful Mood - Murasato Shota (100% Orange Juice)
17:16 - Living With Determination - Shoji Meguro (Persona 3)
17:30 - A Shot of Crisis - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
19:08 - Ruined World - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
19:20 - Wyrd The Training Dummy - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
19:39 - Trials in the Mist - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
20:03 - Lavos’ Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
20:21 - Primitive Mountain - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
21:05 - Battle 2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger [unreleased])
21:43 - Robo’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
22:02 - Dante’s Office - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3)
22:21 - Any Special Orders - Steven McNair (Devil May Cry 5)
22:35 - Nevan Defeated ~ Thunder Blade Nevan - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3)
22:40 - Axel F - Crazy Frog
23:14 - The Humble Boast - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
23:22 - The Dweller of Woe - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars)
23:31 - Storytime Interlude Chorus of Content - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
23:55 - Horizons Unbound - Eric W. Brown - (Sea of Stars)
24:10 - Port Town (Day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
24:32 - Path of Ascension - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
24:42 - Settler Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
25:47 - Delightful Spekkio - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
26:03 - The Clockwork Castle - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
26:43 - Descant of the Dweller - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
26:58 - Black Dream - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
27:05 - Zeal Palace - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
27:20 - Ayla’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
27:29 - People Without A Hope - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
28:34 - The Elder Mist - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
28:49 - Aephorul Returns - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
29:07 - The Final Day - Masayoshi Soken (FFXIV: Endwalker)
29:24 - Secret of the Forest - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
29:53 - Sealed Door - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
30:01 - The Hidden Truth - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
30:12 - Undersea Palace - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
30:15 - Remains of Factory - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
30:31 - The Oracle of Tides - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
30:39 - Sacred Secrets (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
32:14 - The Docks of Wraith Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
33:17 - The Mountain Trail (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
33:20 - A Woeful Lament - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars)
36:27 - Port Town (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
36:55 - Watcher Island - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
36:58 - The Mole Masons (day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
37:24 - Manoria Cathedral - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
38:27 - Imperial Will - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV)
38:52 - Dwellers Fury - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
39:13 - Magus’ Castle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
39:42 - The Acolytes - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
40:12 - At The Bottom of Night - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
42:31 - Panic At The Outpost - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
42:49 - Whispering Winds The Serpent's Lullaby - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
43:29 - The Town of Mirth (Day) - Yasunori Mitsuda (Sea of Stars)
43:56 - Teaks The Travelling Historian - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
44:20 - Across The Moorlands (Day) - Eric W. Brown, Vincent Jones (Sea of Stars)
44:24 - The Storm Calls For You - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
44:29 - The Watchmaker - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
44:47 - Black Market - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
45:33 - Time Circuits - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
47:11 - Frog’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
47:14 - Army of Strife - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
47:37 - Lair of the Fleshmancer - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
47:55 - Meeting Outside Time - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
48:48 - Ascension - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
49:13 - The Skylands - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
49:30 - Lair of The Necromancer - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
49:51 - Schala’s Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
50:38 - The Day the World Revived - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
52:07 - Determination - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
52:11 - Last Battle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
52:20 - First Festival of Stars - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
53:07 - Tyran Castle - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
54:17 - Duplicitous Wrath Pt.1 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
54:58 - Duplicitous Wrath Pt.2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
56:01 - Zephyr And Sky (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
56:48 - Beyond The Stars - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
57:03 - Elegy of the Hero - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
57:13 - The Frozen Peak (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
58:11 - Sinister Unknown - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
58:31 - The Brink of Time - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
59:30 - pearls are hopping in a cup - Takuya Matsumoto (100% Orange Juice)
1:02:36 - Dragon Quest XI Symphonic Overture - Koichi Sugiyama
1:07:53 - Watcher Island (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
1:08:12 - Dance of 1000 Suns (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
1:09:04 - Monuments To The Ancients - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:09:42 - Contention - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV: Heavensward)
1:09:58 - The Maker’s Ruin - Nobuo Uematsu (FFXIV)
1:10:24 - The Mole Masons (Pirate Version) - Celtic Metal Dude (Sea of Stars)
1:11:29 - Cael and the Kids - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:11:41 - Fanfare 1 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
1:12:45 - Sky Base - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:13:06 - Battle on v2.1 - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:14:17 - Sibling Showdown - Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3)
1:15:18 - Encounter Elite v2.1 - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:17:02 - Boss Battle 2 - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
1:17:22 - Sophisticated Fight - Hayato Sonoda (Trails in the Sky)
1:18:56 - Shoppe - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:19:26 - Temple of Sacrosanct - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:19:50 - Hills Of Determination (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:20:28 - Zephyr And Sky (Day) - Eric W. Brown (Sea of Stars)
1:25:39 - Epilogue (To Good Friends) - Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu (Chrono Trigger)
1:26:31 - And The Story Begins - Yoshito Sekigawa, Yuka Tsukiyoko & Saki Kasuga (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door)
1:26:50 - A Cat Relaxing in the Sun - Hayato Sonoda (Trails in the Sky)
the fact you document all of the music used is actual insanity. u will never be featured in an hbomber guy video i guarantee u that. king shit as usual
@@LucyPyre I still have time to screw up.
i kneel
@@LucyPyreDon't worry, he plagarized me by disliking Sea of Stars. I did that first. I'm callin the Harris. I'm the only one allowed to dislike this game.
(I've not even watched the video yet his complaints probably are much more scathing than mine even)
Couldnt agree with you more, sea of stars was quite the dissapointment and all the praise it gets makes me dissapointed that generic games get absurd amounts of praise for "innovation". ANYWAYS... play chained echoes, its the most underrated rpg story of all time that will cleanse your soul with great gameplay and story, you will like it, just play the prologue and you'll see the start of something worth your time.
Plot twist: guy whose favorite game isn't even Chrono Trigger accidentally kinda makes one of the best video essays on its strengths I think I've ever seen.
chrono trigger is special because it's so fuckin goated even if you're not even a big fan of it, you still know and have to agree that it's amazing, there's so much shit i love waaaaay more than chrono trigger, but if anyone asks for a jrpg to start getting into jrpgs, my answer is always chrono trigger or ff7, because i think ff7 shares those characteristics with chrono trigger of being really really really good, fairly simple at the end of the day, shorter than most jrpgs (chrono trigger more so than ff7), easy to pick up with a pretty engaging story, etc.
I mean, I even bought one of the FF4/Chrono Trigger PlayStation double packs a couple weeks back before the price could skyrocket with Toriyama's death.
It's kind of considered a staple to the point I'm surprised it hasn't recived a remaster.
@@flaynceleWhat would you say is your favorite JRPG? Chrono Trigger is the game I liked the most in the genre, but I haven’t played too many and would like to hear some recommendations.
@@Multienderguy37 my favorite is Xenoblade 3, I really recommend the Xenoblade trilogy if you have a switch or a PC that can run Ryujinx.
what i would recommend next really depends on what you liked the most in chrono trigger, afaik some games like I Am Setsuna and Sea of Stars have a similar combat system but I haven't played them, but the ATB system that final fantasy 4 to 9 uses is almost the same. I never got super far into FF6 but if you liked Chrono trigger you'll probably like it as well, especially due to being in the same era and console etc. so it's got a lot of similar vibes. If you really want to dig into some really satisfying combat I recommend literally any shin megami tensei that peeks your interest, the press turn system that the mainline games use from 3 onwards is the best but the old style that the first person ones use is also really fun, and persona's 1 more is basically an altered press turn so also really fun. smt is great cause each one has a whole different vibe so just go with whichever one seems the coolest to you.
story wise, when it comes to having a bunch of cool characters and lotsa world building, I don't think there's anything that tops the Trails series. preferably play in release order (so first should be trails in the sky). the time travel stuff I don't know any games that do it like Chrono Trigger did but Radiant Historia is cool, and 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim crazy with it and it's one of those games that you spend a lot of time being confused af and gradually understanding wtf is going on. Fire Emblem Awakening has time travel but it's kinda whatever, but I do recommend it (or any fire emblem game) because this series is really fun.
Not really helpful that I'm giving a bazillion recommendations lol so i'm gonna be biased and say just play Xenogears lol
other than that my heavy recommendations are:
Xeno anything (gears, saga or blade)
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Crosscode
Final Fantasy X
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door
Earthbound
@@Multienderguy37Not JRPG but a Korean RPG
Try Library of Ruina
My favorite JRPG is Phantasy Star 4 tho
you didn't have to make a 1h27min video just to tell me to play chrono trigger, but i'm glad you did
Play Chrono Cross too if you haven't. the Remaster is supposedly decent. don't expect the same game, but it's great in it's own way. and the music in both are top notch.
AS MUCH... as we want to throw shade on this game. Saying Sea of Stars is a RPG is actually wrong. Its a Chrono Trigger Styled Game - where you fight the enemies - with turn based combat - without entering a "Final Fantasy Battle Screen" . Try to look up how many pixel based games like this exist?
I argue this is basically the second, or third one. For that reason - being the second CT styled game.
I'm just hyper for it to exist and hopefully inspire someone who might have more "Story-driven" plot to create another CT styled game.
The other half of the video was to tell you to play Paper Mario.
then play Chained Echoes, which is if Sea of Stars understood why Chrono Trigger was good.
lol
One thing that I’ve seen a lot of people say is that Zale and Valere are “supposed” to be boring.
THAT’S NOT HOW WRITING WORKS, PEOPLE!
Just because they're supposed to be bad doesnt make them good.
Seeing them overuse ... Is what makes Valerie and Zale terrible. They should've given them more characterization.
Crono has more character than these two. You see his character through the emoting and his actions in cutscenes.
Kinda reminds me of Alex from the YiiK game.
@@KatrinaAmaxas Yiiking out RN.
I feel like indie RPGs besides a rare small handful every 5-ish years tend to fall into a cargo cult curse. Being "Inspired" by the greats and classics while not actually implementing the lessons they were teaching or already mastered. It's all window dressing and aesthetic.
Feels like we see the same exact problem in Boomer Shooters lately, especially the recent 3D Realms titles. They nail the surface level vibes, but... Past that, there's nothing
It's like fanfiction writing: Someone loving something and trying to recreate it, but from a totally different starting point and focusing on something while neglecting so much other stuff.
@@ablationer A lot of those boomer shooters seems to be because of Slipgate Ironworks. Civvie really tore into them recently with their rather underwhelming titles.
@@matteste yeah, exactly where I'm coming from
Chained echoes.
Same thing as sea of stars, being heavily inspired by Chrono Trigger, but I found it really good.
Give it a try, you might also like it.
So someone once mentioned something to me that helped shape my understanding of Chrono Trigger and what a lot of RPGs fail at. And that is Chrono Trigger settles early on what the goal is. To stop Lavos. And the thing is no matter what you're doing or how far removed it seems. It always ladders back to stopping Lavos. Take when you go back in time to the Prehistoric Era to restore the Masamune
Ultimate Goal: Defeat Lavos
How: By defeating Magus before he can summon Lavos
How Lv. 2: By recruiting Frog to fight Magus
How Lv. 3: By restoring the Masamune for Frog to wield
How Lv. 4: By getting dreamstone from the past to mend the Masamune
Complication: In the past, Azala and the Reptites steal your Gate Key, stranding you there.
Current Goal: Go after Azala and the Reptites.
Your goal of going after Azala and the Reptites is, in theory, not related at all to defeating Lavos, but due to Chrono Trigger's story structure it and everything else in the game always returns to the Ultimate Goal. Everything becomes another rung connected to it.
So many RPGs have Shit Happen but that shit is Just Happening. An example of this (which is where the comparison came from) is the original Golden Sun.
A mere minute after you get your goal you're forced to get sidetracked and it isn't even remotely clear why. If you try to go ahead, you'll see the path blocked by ivy, but not only is this a poor obstacle logically (you really can't burn or cut it?), it doesn't give you any clue about what you're looking for. The only reason to go to Vault is because Camelot put it right in your path, but that's a terribly unsatisfying and incredibly artificial motive. If I were Crono, I would chase after Azala; if I were Isaac, I would borrow some hedge clippers and ignore Ivan and the thieves entirely.
You do a thing only because the thing is there to do and it happens to line up with solving your current problem. Rather than your current problem leading to the situation that will resolve it.
I would say Sea of Stars is quite good in this regard. Everything is based around trying to liberate the world from the dwellers. Things are going somewhat to plan until some major setbacks appear, and every side task from that point is countering the setbacks and pressing on.
As much as I fucking adore Golden Sun, yeah that's actually a good assessment. Later into the game there's a bit more complex stuff involved in the writing but holy shit can some of it feel disjointed. Again, I absolutely adore the game (and while reading your comment I actually started thinking of Golden Sun BEFORE you mentioned it lmao), but some of the story is really Weird lmak
@@exist4046 Golden Sun is a game I love dearly, I played TLA for ages I even input the hyper long code multiple times. It inspired a love of writing and game design in me... and it kinda sucks. Now It's not bad, it's not the worst RPG I ever played... I've Lunar Dragon Song after all... But... It wasn't the bombastic classic I thought it was.
@@HavenKhaos I think most of my enjoyment of it is primarily the systems and combat tbh. I had a streak for nearly a week where I only played Golden Sun (via the GBA emulator for Switch, so it was on my damn TV of all things) and tbh, I think what I enjoy most are the puzzles and the battle systems. The Djinni are just too much fun to mix and switch and whatnot. It's really polished in that aspect, which kinda made me forget I was playing a game from like. The 90s? Early 2000s?
But the story, now that I think through it, really isn't anything insane at all. The game feels like the story is meant to be for a younger age group than what the actual systems are meant for. It's not even an easy game imo, I consider myself pretty decent at turn based RPG games but some of the boss battles have gotten really tense, which I quite enjoy.
But the writing sorta feels almost like.... A mix between what would be a decent RPGMaker indie game story made by a teenager, and also a kid's story book. They really try to tie shit together, but good god it really doesn't seem to know who it's meant to be marketed for.
Though, fortunately, the game having such silly childish fantasy themes at times does help me destress, especially when a lotta the media I consume tends to be much darker, or at least has far more serious themes.
If they ever were to remake the original, I think with story tweaking it would be all around really good, especially when so many fans of the game nowadays aren't kids and are nostalgic adult fans
The whole Lavos goal actually doesn't come into view until you are quite a ways into the game. Other games like Breath of Fire3 don't even have a singular goal untill almost the very end and most of the game is just mini-adventure after mini-adventure slowly guiding you towards the endgoal. It's all about execution and one problem indie games have is teams consisting of passionate people, but also people who have very little experience where the old games had teams of professionals who mostly had experience in their area and were overseen by veterans.
It's a shame that the internet destroyed the word "cope." Garl wasn't using slang or being meta there. That's how the word is meant to be used.
Yeah, cope, seethe and cringe are all actual words that have been ruined by 14 year olds on the interwebs.
Mald is slang though.
It's amazing the dude making this video genuinely seems to think the word "Cope" was invented for slang, because that CLEARLY wasn't said in its slang form. This is the kind of mistake I would expect a "14 year old on the interwebs" (as planescaped accurately points out) to make, and the creator of this video is clearly an adult so that's freaky that he would not know this.
@@Vaquix000lol others blind spots are indeed hilarious
In my day cope was the past, present and future tense of the word and you structured your sentence appropriately to fit. The words 'coping' and 'coped' were never used whether they existed or not.
That you pointed out the word 'cope' and not 'coping', even though it is not what was said and shown in the video kind of shows you all misunderstood what the problem even was in the first place. Though I dont know if 'coping' was or was not always grammatically correct it doesnt really matter I think 'coping' is an improvement.
"she is currently coping with the loss of her father". I hate when games shove in modern internet slang to try and be more relatable like this.
Garl's complete lack of reaction to losing an eye, vs Pokey Finch being the weird mean kid next door who joins you on your first mission, runs away, and ends up becoming.... whatever the hell he is
Earthbounds story is ridiculous so Pokey developing a business sense, getting adopted by a CEO, betraying said CEO for his money and spending it on inter-dimensional research just to team up with an extraterrestrial being with no clear form for the sole purpose of showing up Ness, who has all the makings of an actual protagonist unlike him isn't that weird...right?
I thought Garl was going to be evil. I mean his first line is "hey guys, let's go open up the FORSAKEN CAVE"
@@timmyman9677 Goading friends into opening up forbidden cave? check.
Childhood friend of protagonists? check.
Missing an eye and/or sporting a goatee? check
He seriously does have a bunch of the traits of your typical friend turned bad guy character, lol
@@planescaped but if he turned evil, how else would he become the Gary Stu?
its not everyday u see a tumblr mutual in the youtube comments :)
Honestly, the most confusing bit for me in this game's total lack of consequence is how Zale and Valere react to Serai getting Garl killed. He is the one person they are even remotely shown to actually care about, and his death is treated like a huge dramatic moment. Serai disobeys the one thing they've been told to NOT DO out of hot-headed stupidity and their reaction isn't fury, or kicking her out of their group, or even just cursing her out for a moment.
They just... don't care.
She may have disobeyed the only rule she should have followed, but Garl still jumped in to protect his friends on his own accord which is why I think they don't go to blaming her immediately. Honestly I think it could have been a great character developing moment for Valere and Zale to project their anguish and frustrations of losing their BEST FRIEND onto her because she was the catalyst leading to the event. I'd like to have seen her have some dialogue trying to defend her actions only to have V&Z fire back and shut her down, creating tension between them all.
Serai may be mechanical but Zale and Valere are the true robots
@@kaizeroll3914 Even if her action didn't result in the death of Garl it would've gravely injured one of the party members, but with how Garl jumped in it looks like the attack would've wounded both Zale and Valere significantly. This literally would've likely resulted in the death of the entire world if it wasn't for Garl.
AS MUCH... as we want to throw shade on this game. Saying Sea of Stars is a RPG is actually wrong. Its a Chrono Trigger Styled Game - where you fight the enemies - with turn based combat - without entering a "Final Fantasy Battle Screen" . Try to look up how many pixel based games like this exist?
I argue this is basically the second, or third one. For that reason - being the second CT styled game.
I'm just hyper for it to exist and hopefully inspire someone who might have more "Story-driven" plot to create another CT styled game.
The thing is if Serai hadn't of done that they all would've died and the world would have been fucked. The person they should really be pissed at is Reshan.
Plot edging is a hallmark of a bad writer, plots that shows stakes and risks but goes nowhere pisses me off so much.
i was reading a book that started promising but really stalled and dragged and i had to stop. thanks for clearly summarizing what was bothering me
@@heywhatup9657 What book?
american gods (the book) was like this for me and it pissed me off to no end :(
@@localinternetclown bruh thought i was the only one
I recently watched "long legs" and this perfectly summarizes the viewing experience.
"I don't want to goon to your plot: I want to COOM to your plot"
Thank you for this line, I will now use it when I can.
This video is just... exactly what I felt. Listening to The Escapist's documentary on Sea of Stars, at 28 minutes the game's creative director talks about hitting all of their development milestones, and he says: "My personal nightmare is that because we've shown everything except for the script, right? So I'm just hoping it's not a weak link." And, unfortunately, I think his worst fear was realized. Sea of Stars has a lot of great things going for it, but its story really is baffling.
I think you were a lot nicer on those prophecies than I would've been. Prophecies are a staple of any fantasy story, but good prophecies should reveal something about the characters. When the Elder Mist says Valere will need to "create paths on water," that should be a metaphor for something; it should be referring to some internal conflict within Valere. But no, it's just entirely literal. At some completely arbitrary point in the story, Valere needs to bridge two islands together with water... and that's it. What's even the point of that? Zale's prophecy is just as arbitrary. The thing about a Chekhov's Gun like this is that it's not enough for it to just come into play later in the story, it also has to *meaningfully* impact the story. But these prophecies could be removed entirely and literally nothing changes, about the plot or the characters. As you point out, that applies to a lot of elements in this game.
Erlina and Brugraves are another mess. This is probably the game's most interesting conflict, but Sea of Stars just.... never does anything with it. They have a right to feel angry; they've essentially been conscripted into an endless war, an eternity of conflict that can never be won. They aren't allowed to make friends, they aren't allowed to have hobbies, they aren't allowed to have lives. A better story would show us how Moraine's training has severely impacted Zale and Valere. Maybe they're so socially blunted from being holed up in the Academy all of their lives, so indifferent to their own wills and desires they never stop to think about what they themselves want out of life. Erlina's perspective should give them a lot to evaluate, especially when they realize she is correct and there are more Dwellers than just the Dweller of Woe. But it doesn't. Zale and Valere don't care. Apparently they're fine living their entire existence in servitude. I can't remember a game this neglectful of its main characters.
My feeling about Sea of Stars in the end is that it feels like it's trying to be a piece of a larger story rather than be an actually satisfying story itself. Consider the Acolytes and Erlina/Brugraves: both sets of characters don't have an actual resolution to their stories in Sea of Stars. Instead, they unceremoniously vanish. Of course, if you've played The Messenger, you have an idea as to what happened to these two. And the fact that the Fleshmancer can travel to alternate universes to wreak havoc screams "shared universe." It means they can set infinite games in this setting, with each one building up a grander narrative of the Fleshmancer, as they have already done with the The Messenger/Sea of Stars. But if this is the direction they go, they need to realize that a shared universe will only be as interesting as the individual stories which populate it.
I have a lot of thoughts about how the story could be improved overall, but I absolutely agree with the point of it trying to be a small part of a bigger whole. The problem that it creates is that the small piece isn’t that interesting because of its weak story, so why should I be invested in the bigger whole?
And yeah I honestly feel really bad for the director because I know he worked very hard to make the story good, but it’s clear he’s not a seasoned writer. I think what would be good is to have other writers and editors help him with directing his vision into its best possible version, as I think he can make a solid skeleton/rough draft of how things go in the story, it just needs to be expanded upon.
Completely agree, specially that last paragraph, it seems that the story of the game itself was just an afterthought while the main idea was making the start of a larger universe, which is a horrible idea to start it like this, and the resolution to this game ment nothing, it's still a loop of infinite universes being destroyed and very few of them succeeding, they just saved their own
I really like Sea of Stars, mainly for the gameplay and music, but I completely agree that a shared universe needs each individual story within it to be satisfying. I mean, Sea of Stars is getting away with it because it worked as a game well enough to make up for the flaws in the story, and I thankfully cared ENOUGH about the characters, but this is the exact thing that has doomed every would-be cinematic universe that has tried to follow in the footsteps of the MCU. I’m still glad that Sea of Stars did well because I enjoyed it and I want to see Sabotage continue to make good games, but as a big narrative junkie, my biggest hope for their next game is that the story sees substantial improvements.
The prophecies too, I definitely agree there. Valere’s prophecy is also the thing I think about when it comes to my disappointment on that regard. I heard her prophecy about creating paths on water, and I wasn’t sure exactly what that could mean, but I was picturing Valere having this Moses parting the Red Sea moment where, as an important moment in her main arc, she has to escort a bunch of people to safety and in the midst of deep inner turmoil, she’s able to have some sort of revelation about herself or something else that lets her find the power in herself to “create paths on water”. I never thought it had to look even remotely like that, but point is I imagined something with much greater implications for her character than what we got.
Yes. God, same. I was confused that the Steam page was gushing so much, when the game is so... Ugh, it's fine. Not great. Some bad.
I would have changed every instance of a "haha" or "!!" dialogue box with actually showing the character laughing or being surprised with their sprite
The Chrono Trigger style, weird how no one ever did it like that.
@@BillyKampIt was done in FF6. The weird thing is sprite based-games haven't done it much since.
FF6 is older then CT, So not again since both, @@seacliff217
Falcom still decades ahead of the curve when it comes to that.
@@seacliff217Crosscode is basically that x11
I didn't dislike my time with Sea of Stars, but I knew I was unsatisfied by the writing. This went a long way to helping me understand why.
I was totally the opposite. I found the gameplay boring and it eventually made me quit… but I did like the writing and characters.
@@zacharymacleod1146 hey man, do tell why do you like the writing and the characters. i like to see from opposite perspective too.
@@boi3393I didn't make it to the first dweller, but up to that point, I just found the characters and dialogue entertaining? Not so much the main duo, but characters like Garl, Teake, and the pirate crew all amused me and I liked their dynamics and humor. Yeah, even Yolande's meta jokes. That said, now that I've seen the full video I definitely agree with the points made.
Same.
I very much enjoyed the game.
I loved the world and the gameplay and the music and the visuals.
All that stuff did carry it for me.
However, I also felt unsatisfied by the story and characters.
I loved the worldbuilding, but the characters and overall story were just missing something. The "sauce" if you will.
The protagonists were boring. Even after 100 percenting the game, I didn't really feel anything for them.
And when stuff happened, the consequences and reactions weren't up to par. There may be little to no reaction, or the reaction does not do it justice and does not affect anything larger than feeling bad for 2 minutes.
Ya... the more I thought about it, the less satisfied I am.
Which is a real shame since so much of the game I loved
Yeah, same here
isn’t it a dedicated rpg classic to go “investigate strange anomaly, find out terrible shit happened, and person A was responsible, decide to merk person A”???????
like, is that not the typical formula? how do you fuck that up???
I don’t understand, what in the video are you referring to?
The part that really killed it for me was that the game's purpose seems to just be telling extra story for The Messenger. So you have plot threads that just get dropped, like the one through four, as well as Erlina and Brugaves who just kind of disappear for no reason after all of their buildup. It left everything feeling like I was missing a lot of info having not played the messenger.
Knowing the story of The Messenger makes this game even more pointless.
@tbnwontpop8857 It's not a sequel. It's technically a prequel, but if you look through all of the press and marketing, it's not billed as such. This means that a large amount of people who play this game because it looks like a cool Chrono Trigger like RPG are going to be left scratching their heads when characters just dip out of the story for no discernable reason.
@tbnwontpop8857Yeah, but prequels can be ways to introduce a person to a story, like Devil May Cry 3. That game has a plot that is before Devil May Cry 1 and 2, yet you don't need to play both games before playing 3 due to the plot having the necessary info without having too much to spoil the next 2 games outside of extra goodies.
This game doesn't do that and expects you to know everything about the original game it's a prequel to play it. Sure you may understand it, however to players who may play the prequel first, they will never get it.
The most terrifying thing about this video is that, as comprehensive and well-made as it is, the crippling writing problems in this game run so deep that there's probably still another hour and a half of stuff to cover, it's just so much that it's a superhuman task to process all of it. It don't know if it makes sense to feel this way, but it genuinely upsets me when the efforts of an entire team are ultimately put to waste because the CEO of the company (after shit talking the scenario writing in Final Fantasy 6) unilaterally decided he was good enough to be the sole writer of the game and singlehandedly blew the fourth leg out of the proverbial chair.
This is a project that really excited me when I heard about it, like the spirit of a certain time wasn't fully extinguished by corporate fuckheads in the 2000s and managed to be passed on. Even the idea of this game still stirs something in me even after I know how poorly it turned out, because what it could have been is just that potent. What a missed opportunity.
This is one of those games that screams "wasted potential". Because the game manages to reach such a high level of excellence in certain aspects of the presentation that the fact that the story is bad becomes even more glaring. Because it is the biggest point of contrast between all the other things. The chair analogy makes perfect sense here, no doubt.
I still think that despite all of this, the game is worth playing just for the overall experience. Admiring the impeccable pixel art and the extremely catchy music is an experience in itself, and I imagine that for many people, most of them even (given all the positive reviews), it is more than enough. But I can definitely understand the sense of disappointment and despair at seeing how bad the story turned out to be. It's such a pity.
Gosh do I feel that last part.
The ubiquity of people who think "I'm a writer!" because they can come up with some vague concepts and *can write words* is *infuriating,* especially as a writer myself. There are tons of very talented people out there who would gladly coordinate their work with your ideas, blossom that nascent concept into something beautiful alongside you, but *nooooo.* We're considered irrelevant and meaningless because "anyone can write, it's easy." WHERE DID THIS IDEA THAT PERMEATES SOCIETY EVEN COME FROM?? How did writing as an artform become so utterly devalued to the point there are people who believe that anyone who can communicate a sentence and imagine any concept qualifies as a writer??
It deeply hurts my soul to see wasted potential like this, there's an infinite number of different ways you can take vague concepts and if the author had been willing to collaborate with them instead of being standoffish, prideful, and self-righteous he would have had *no* trouble finding people willing to help him write his story. But nooooooo.
@@Starfloofle I think people confuse "anyone can have interesting ideas" which is true, with "anyone can write" which is horribly false. Having an interesting idea doesn't mean you're able to actually translate that into something workable.
@@MetalHev Yes, this, precisely! Oftentimes many a great idea comes from someone who's not a writer (just look at the wacky nonsense kids come up with lol) but you need someone actually talented in the skill to translate it into something whole and complete.
For me a game's writing and character interaction / dialogue and chemistry makes or breaks a game for me. If the cast actively make me fall asleep, or I find them sterile, I stop playing. This game was one of them, and I never finished it. I'm glad someone else 100%'d it and still felt the exact same way. The more effort goes into everything else, the more frustrated I am because it feels like they let something good rot from the inside out just because they felt like they couldn't stand up and critique the writer or call them out.
That's kind of why I dropped this game after just 2 hours. Zale and Valere just go "Hehe, yeah, sewing, Garl" for a solid straight hour. I was calling Garl being a Villian from his introduction, but nope he's just as disgustingly plucky as everyone else. His entire dream is to see the Sleeper and then he doesn't even fucking notice it when it's right in front of him. I'm glad I dropped it before I got to the Pirate who calls out obvious tropes.
I absolutely agree. Its borderline criminal how this freaking game looks if you compare it to it's story and dialogues.
Great video. One note: “coping” is a real word, with a definition outside its online slang version lol
I was thinking the same thing. It's understandable though. Real words get co-opted into brain-rot speak and are hard to ever look at the same way.
Yeah I don't know what he's thinking. What other word does he use to describe dealing with a loss, burden, or hardship?
Tbf I can't read the word 'cringe' without. Well. Cringing. I've used it before but now it means something completely different to me.
It isn't slang though? Online it's used with its intended meaning. Just meaner.
@@mopeybloke nah I’d disagree with that. After you lose a loved one, you may “cope” by seeing a therapist, spending more time with friends, or even unhealthily taking up drinking.
In the online sense, “coping” is when you come up with delusions, excuses, IRL retconning, etc to help you maintain your feeling of being correct, when clearly everyone can see you’re in the wrong. I guess you can argue these two definitions may fall under a broad singular umbrella, but… I don’t think so.
I think it’s extremely telling that, of the acclaimed indie games from 2023, the game that sparked a huge fanbase that became enamored with the world and characters of the game, a fanbase that largely campaigned for the game to be recognized at The Game Awards even, wasn’t the huge Chrono Trigger-inspired RPG.
It was Pizza Tower. The silly 2D platformer game where you can explain the plot in a single sentence. But it’s so much easier to get when you see that Peppino alone oozes personality out of every single animation and official art: He’s neurotic, anxiety-ridden, but can switch into bouts of pure unbridled rage or mania when the time calls for it. He revels in his victories and flips out at most setbacks. See? I didn’t mention what Pep LOOKS like at all. It’s just sad that he has an infinitely more defined, charming character while not having a speaking role meanwhile Zale and Valere don’t even have distinct personalities between each other.
And that can be said about every major PT character even though no one of them says even a word.
Pepperman - Self-obssesed artist, which gets progressively more creative with his attacks (Shoulder Bash into wall didn't worked? Well now he fools you, by suddenly turning around), actually loses on third phase because of his selfish nature (Stops to appreciate the statue of himself lmao), and after you beat him, he makes a drawing of you on second floor, trying to make it look like he was trying to give a hopeless fight to insane italian man (despite being twice the size of him)
Vigilante - The only one who takes stuff seriously, plays fair, and tries to overcome his weakness being a fragile cheese slime by using varities of strategies. Hell, his grudge is understandable, considering who's his boss, and how Pizza Face integrated Vigilante's home aesthetics into his corporation.
Noise - Absolutely deranged PT mascot, oozing with "fuck it we ball" energy. Noise doesn't care about rules, Noise doesn't care about others, all he wants is utter destruction of everything for sake of looking cool. And when you play his campaign it shows itself even more, with him ignoring half of levels gimmicks, and using ranged attack on bosses. It works even better on contrast with Peppino, because unlike him, Noise is completely confident in himself, and takes all for given. Hell, if you get bad ranks, or low final percent, Noise just blames player/Noisette/Gerome, and if you succeed just takes all credits. And that's not considering how humane he is at times, with one of his idle pose being him being depressed and smoking, him being nervous as fuck when he gets reviews during ending, and being utterly baffled when Noisette kisses him.
Fake Peppino - Creepy, yet very goofy Peppino clone, who both unsettles you and makes you adore him at the same time. Outside of his boss battle he really isn't that menacing, which makes him kinda unique in case of "doppleganger boss". I'm not a huge fan of him, but I know there are people who adore him.
Pizza Face/Head - First, he is a constant treat for entirety of game, because if you're too slow on Pizza Time, he is going to totally obliterate you, and that works really well, considering otherwise you can't really die on regular levels. And even then he's both goofy and dangerous, just like the one who pilots him, being Pizza Head. If both Noise and Peppino were deranged, the Pizza Head is even beyond that. For the entirety of the fights he keeps cool, and just shrugs off everything. Basically madness incarnated, because even losing the whole PT doesn't really bothers him. And that's not considering some stuff like "Don't Make A Sound" level painting him similar to Peppino, with how his own restaurant got closed, or the methaphors for big companies, which no matter what aim to keep nice and smiley look on their faces.
And that's all without a single word. That's why I've beaten Noise campaign around 10 times at this point, and dropped Sea of Stars hour in.
when you know the creator is a racist anti queer asshole and the entire fandom ADORES him without any question its not surprising that the almost 4chan esque fandom started a riot because their unfunny racism game didnt win
@@Elijah_Kujowhat are you talking about, most of the Pizza Tower fanbase is composed by gen z leftists and wholesome 100 reddit chonkers who either don't vibe with the creator or just don't know what he did.
The edgelords of 4chan talk about the fucking rpg maker fairy tale r*pe simulator 2 that came out in 2018 more than Pizza Tower
so you're saying the game that has barely ANY writing has better characters than the game that has writing ? Huh.
36:52 I will never stop being fascinated by the fact that Calvin and Hobbes somehow existed as "a newspaper comic that is actually genuinely funny." Every time I see one of those comics as an adult I'm always amazed at how funny they are.
Honestly Calvin and hobbess is a weird oddity both in the regard it's still funny and the regard unlike some other comic strip creators at the time Bill Watterson never sold out
I think it's because the premise for a lot of great Calvin and Hobbes strips are a bit more in tune with life experiences than to execute a joke itself for the sake of it. A lot of the humor of the comic, especially a lot of the dialogue-heavy ones, went over my head as a kid. But I appreciate a lot of the humor more as an adult.
Far side is pretty funny too...
Calvin & Hobbes my beloved
I'm so glad the meta-joke pirate was mentioned here because she was 100% the last straw for me when I stopped playing.
It's insane how long that character sticks around for. The moment she stopped showing up consistently is the moment the game became much more bearable
If she became a full fledged party member the game would've dropped to a 4 automatically
@tbnwontpop8857because this isn't the snes era.
there's this thing called change
@tbnwontpop8857you’re not sure why repeating the same joke for 30 years got old?
@tbnwontpop8857 The problem is not that they are meta jokes, the problem is that she delivers them with the subtlety and grace of an Adam Sandler movie. Maybe the joke is that she is bad at comedy, but even if that is the case, there is no punchline, so regardless of the intent, the result is just crude and juvenile.
@tbnwontpop8857 As well as the points already mentioned above, Meta-jokes must be set up /offset by a believable made-up world. you can't keep making them in the same piece of media, they will start to fall flat.
you dont know how insanely VINDICATED I feel after being told over and over how great this game is only to put it down after 2 hours exactly because I felt the writing was absolutely horrid and that the intro portion was one of the worst written intros in an otherwise good game that I have ever seen
Same here buddy. I was so hyped walking into the game, and so disappointed roughly 2 hrs later when I caught myself asking myself, "I have limited time on this planet. Is this story worth wasting time?" and immediately uninstalled it as my answer.
I'm positive there's so many more out there who felt the slap to the face from the bad story telling, which sucks so much.
Same, I quit after about the 2 hr mark.
Thank you to this little string of comments for helping me save money. I've been ruminating over whether I should buy for a very long time because something about it made me think it was going to only look the part of the classics I grew up with and I was worried about the story, writing and characters a lot.
Maybe I'll try it out if it's ever very cheap, but I've seen multiple people who've stopped after about two hours like you three and I get the feeling it would be the same for me.
@@Pineabbleor you can try in gamepass like i did
Vindicated?
Listen... Never forget that half the people out there are below average...
...And the average person is a tasteless moron.
24:53 marle's 3 frame jumping animation has more character than the entirety of sea of stars
1:13:24 "I don't like it when games try to be topical with its slang." No but thats LITERALLY the correct usage of the word 'cope'. The towns people are _coping_ with their situation by being in total denial. LIKE THE GAME IS ACTUALLY USING THAT WORD CORRECTLY
Thank you! That was extremely frustrating in an otherwise good video.
you know coping is a real word and not just slang, right? The people of the island *are* coping with the situation, only coping, for too long one might say.
The extremely toxic nature of the slang version of "cope" has made it hard to take normally in any other context. Which kinda sucks, learning how to cope with things is pretty important, and much harder to do when the word "cope" itself has been warped into an equivalent to a certain acronym staring with k.
53:57 WAIT, you're telling me that the dude will then wake up in the future where a clone of him did HIS LIFE'S PURPOSE for him and he can't do it anymore. Is this ever explored? Does he ever talk about how reviving him robed him of his life's purpose or how maybe he now must go on some self discovery journey to figure out what he want's to do or talks to his friends at all?
Someone who has played the game please tell me whether this happens at all I need to know
No. Nothing matters in this game. From start to finish, every major plot point is made completely moot, up to and including the conflict with the true final boss.
@@JhettJones Bruh
Yeah the writers really tried to have their cake and eat it too. They couldn't let their favourite character just die. They had to give him a big send off, where he saves the Dragon and fulfils the only prophecy that actually matters. And then they couldn't leave him dead and let the actual protagonists carry the climax. So he has the Chrono Trigger Style resurrection... Making it so all that stuff was actually done by B'st? Guess B'st is a great actor? Kinda takes the impact out of those heartfelt speeches.
Really I think B'st only existed as a literal Garl replacement both filling his party role and serving as the Chrono Trigger doll which is rather sad.
Certified Time Paradox and Plot Hole moment!
Garl's whole dream was really robbed now! This is why people need to be extra careful when they write Time Travel in their plot!
Yeah I dropped this game after 2 hours because I could see the literal bad writing on the wall. Every character has so much to say and are incredibly quirky/ plucky. But it amounts to nothing. Meanwhile in CT you leave Robo in the past for 400 years and he kinda has a bit of an existential crisis from it. He also has a few lines of doubt knowing he may not exist if the party succeeds in defeating Lavos.
Also yeah Garls swap is absolutely trash, creates a massive plot hole and is hidden behind near 100% to get the shitty true ending/final boss which doesn't solve anything because it's a prequal and they just let him go...like whut.
In Chrono Trigger the swap makes sense and keeps the timeline stable. Chrono, in a sense, never dies. It was always the doll being disintegrated and Chrono being pulled back into the future by his friends. The past characters still witness "Chrono" being obliterated.
In Sea of Stars though. An unrelated lab grown character with their own personality becomes a Skin-walker and takes over Garls life and true purpose before past guy died for real. Also so Garl can live into the future and throw an apple at the Evil Space Wizards head. Which accomplishes nothing because you just let him go. The only thing that's changed is Garl is alive and Garl is not fucking worth it.
- Thank God someone else found Yolande incredibly grating and unnecessary as a character. I feel incredibly vindicated. They could replace every single one of her lines with "Good luck on your adventure" and it'd be an overall improvement.
- Your critique on Garl's line about "coping" is understandable, but the word is actually being used correctly there, and Garl is appropriately expressing sympathy for the situation of the townsfolk. The term has become poisoned by irony, but its common definition used to be "dealing with existing inside a difficult situation". In the context Garl uses it in, it is a synonym for "suffering".
- Garl's original fate was actually extremely impactful to me. I connected with the character, but you've pointed out that that was probably the emotional height of my gameplay experience because every other character in the game was lacking in charisma or consistency.
- Overall, I think this game suffers from Golden Sun Syndrome. It's revered as a great success because its genuinely good visuals, audio and world building sufficiently cover up an absolute dogshit story to the undiscerning player.
Good video! Subscribed.
She actually was part of the reason I stopped playing early on lol. Her introduction drove me nuts xD
Yeah, the "coping" criticism was weird to me. That's the term being used in its traditional meaning!
It’s kind of funny to think of Garl saying it in the modern way thought.
He’s all like:
“What? You’re on an inescapable island where people are slowly but surely being lured by a siren to their deaths? lol! Skill issue!”
Just wanna say that I loved Golden Sun, but found Sea of Star hollow. I think it's because Golden Sun world-building is also reflected in its gameplay, with the Djinns, the Classes, and the Summons, that add a layer of narrative. With only 3 measly skills and one ultimate per character, Sea of Star's gameplay just cannot provide the same. Story is one thing, but more often that not, it's the narration that is important. Golden Sun may have a weak story, but it has a strong narration. Sea of Star is kinda the opposite, the story is interesting, but the narration is horrenduous.
You made me realize why I never liked Golden Sun even though I love JRPGs. Nothing really happens.
Sea of Stars is the complete oposite of Crosscode
While Sea of stars was receiving praise and sucess, even winning prizes with that bad writing
Crosscode stood like a hidden gem waiting to be discovered, with awesome story, gameplay, design, everything
It is REALLY a chrono trigger inspired game in its own way, and its beautiful
I was looking to make sure someone mentioned Crosscode
Average Crosscode W
Crosscode is good but the history pacing is terrible, i leave the game for that and pick it up some time later, when i finally got hooked to the history, i ended up sayin something like "oh yeah, that happened" bcuz the last bit of history was presented TWO HOURS AGO AND LIKE 50 PUZZLES IN BETWEEN
Nah, Crosscode got it's 5 minutes of fame from Shyguymask fans and went back to obscurity where it belongs.
@@benholland1140 Zena pfp spotted
I haven't played the game but I feel like the writing is suffering from the "cozy game syndrome" where creators are afraid to put any conflict or negative emotions to not ruin the aesthetic, but in effect making it all incredibly dull. Unfortunately I feel like there's a lot of this kind of slop with no substance in the indie scene
I've noticed the "cozy game syndrome" pop up more and more recently, and it's so fucking weird specially in cases like Sea of Stars, because these writers want to somehow create epic grand tales with twists and tragedies, while also making them "cozy" and "comfortable" even though they're inherently antithetical.
There is no problem in a story having downtime with cozy moments, but trying to make the entire story confortable just ends up making it milquetoast shit.
Characters are not allowed to be excessively emotive even when it makes sense because that would be too "intense" so they're all relegated to being flat happy blobs with 0 personality and relatability. Their happiness so constant and unwavaring it has no meaning.
No one is allowed to truly die because that "kills the cozy mood" so danger is only ever alluded to, but never actually present.
There aren't allowed to be any bold themes because they might make the viewer "uncomfortable" so they just go with the most obvious shit possible and ignore any of the pontentially interesting themes the story already has in it.
It ends up being a flat line that's just prentending to be a rollercoaster and watching stories like these usually make me feel sick in my stomach with their sterile, manufactured "happiness"
This doesn't happen. Indie scene does not disappoint, trust.
@@agentep9979 The word you are trying to use is spelled "milquetoast", if you think it's a combination of 2 breakfast foods it is not a word you should be trying to use.
@@Milktube thanks, I had my suspicions that was the case, but then I googled it and the first result said it was "milk toast"
English isn't my first language so I sometimes make mistakes like this, thanks for clarifying
@@natalimoina *Every* game has the potential to disappoint, indie or not. Games not released by a massive studio aren't immediately immune to making mistakes.
How can you leave us hanging like this? What happened to Stickdude420blazit? I want to know if the eye surgery worked! Was he able to fly and fulfill his brother's legacy?! Also, great video, spot on stuff.
Maybe you can make a fanfic with your own OC
He vecame Blaze from Ace Combat 5
So one bit about Garl's revival that bugs me... B'st taking Garl's place. ...Does that mean everyone had a tearful goodbye with a dude pretending to be Garl? For like... several in game hours? And everyone holds a sorrowful funeral all for a dude putting on an act? The fact that implication could be potentially true is morbid and just bad.
I had fun with Sea of Stars and I'd certainly recommend it as a good time but... man... the more I think about it the less sure I am that it's an overall good game. Before SoS I played through Fire Emblem Engage. Engage's story is pretty mid. Barely any of the characters are fleshed out. It's pretty goofy overall. But man I look forward to playing it again! I had a lot of fun playing that game. I'm looking forward to trying out different characters and builds! I'm not sure I'm ever gonna play Sea of Stars again. I'm more excited to play Bug Fables again. (I think Bug Fables is pretty neat)
Sea of Stars is an interesting case study on how important a good story is to an RPG
That you can absolutely knock it outta the park in graphics and music and score fairly on gameplay but then end up being an extremely forgettable experience almost exclusively from bad story alone.
I think Fire Emblem Engage is a great point of comparison here. Engage has a straight up bad story when compared to almost any other entry in Fire Emblem, yet for what Engage is trying to be, that ends up working just fine. A good story would have only helped, of course, but I don't find myself minding that much since what Engage is trying to be is a love letter to the series. We see a return to form in a lot of places, including the graphics that finally capture a lot of the over-the-top awesomeness of the GBA era. The gameplay is widely considered among the best in the series. And, for what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that Engage's story still has a lot of charm about it with lots to appreciate. It's not Fates, that's for sure.
@@21powah Bugfables is indeed pretty neat :3
Yes! It doesn't work at all. Garl didn't get the extra time, he didn't wake up the dragon thing.. That was glass dude. It makes no fucking sense
as someone who backed this game on Kickstarter after going to their discord to participate in an ARG in which they revealed it, all that after having completed and loved their previous game (The Messenger), it's sad to see that they came so close but ended up so far from making their game great. hearing all the stuff they were doing for the game over the years, and how passionate they were about it, only to end up borking the balance of the game like this and unable to properly write the characters with the concepts they had so passionately talked about...it sucks.
and that's from mostly second-hand accounts and playing some of the demo alone, not even touching my copy of the game (barely have had energy to try and play a big RPG for a while, haven't touched my copy of Like A Dragon either because of that). I fear the disappointment might overwhelm me at this point when I go and try to clear it, and it sucks after being so invested in it for a while as it was in development.
yup, also love The Messenger and regard it as one of my favorite games ever, it really sucks that Sea of Stars didn't deliver.
Wait, they made the messenger? It feels like a whole different game.
As you say at the start, I really dislike how "The Game Awards" have turned into New E3. It's so short-sighted because it delegitimizes games as an art-form. Imagine if the Oscars had like 3 Marvel trailers wedged into them because Disney paid for the venue?
I disagree. Not many people would watch the game awards if not for the trailers. IMO basically forcing everyone invested in gaming to watch the devs get the awards by putting them between reveals is the best way to give the recognition they deserve. Also it helps the games winning smaller categories get seen and is great marketing. I hate people virtue signaling and riding the high horse without actually thinking about what is the most beneficial for the people who actually make the games.
Also the oscars suck and you shouldn't ever list them as a positive example for how award shows should be.
@@tinminator8905Both things can be true. It's unfortunate that something that is meant to celebrate and praise people in the industry and their work is mostly used to promote new products coming out. However, if the show did not have all those trailers it would not get nearly as many people to tune in.
If they made it a two day event, or just an all day affair with the trailers in the afternoon and the awards at night it would probably be better. They don't need to get a fancy venue and expensive performances if it's resulting in large expenses.
@@tinminator8905 | You say that, but loads of people tune in to watch the Oscars, despite there being no trailers. I think you're not giving people enough credit.
And while it's true the Oscars kinda suck, they DO have a great impact on the artistic credibility of the medium in the eyes of the mainstream.
To be fair, I know I'd never watch those damn things without the allure of information for things I'm acrually interested in.
they turned lampshading into a character oh my god
for a game supposedly inspired on so many other games whose primary strength was amazing characterization, it's kinda amazing they totally dropped the ball on that aspect.
I feel like the Devs just saw Lavos from Crono Trigger and thought, "Know what would be cool? If there was a Space Wizard that made planet/time eating monsters." And yeah, that is pretty cool, but not here.
I was so mezmorized by Sea of Stars that i didnt even realize how hot trash the writing was until I 100%ed it. At least the trash was hot.
That's why it sold well and won awards. The packaging is dazzling. It's just the contents that are bad.
@@JhettJonesNot really considering it’s subjective.
“At least the trash was hot.” is a phenomenal sentence thank you for gracing my eyes with it
there's a major aspect of Sea of Stars that left a bitter taste in my mouth, like bad olives: it's a prequel that deposits some of its biggest possible payoff in a prior title that isn't even the same genre! several of the Fleshmancer's allies are finished off in a completely different game. they incubated them in SoS and then shipped them off before their stories were satisfied. that feels like a massive mistake for a genre that puts so much weight in fundamental storytelling!
It's a main reason why you can play any Final Fantasy games separately. Most of them are just cheeky little nods to each other so if you're a fan you'll point at similar references to each other.
This also explains a lot. I too did not like Sea of Stars.
I had bad olives on a pizza that left a bitter taste in my mouth today.
Holy shit, when I found out SoS is a prequel to The Messenger, I was flabbergasted: That game isn't even all that narrative-driven! It's insanity!
I have a friend that played The Messenger and really loved it, I gifted him the game but haven't played it myself (my brother did, though...), and when I talk to him about this later, I can only _imagine_ how confused he'll be.
It’s even worse because the characters in The Messenger aren’t even the same. They have different personalities, memories and motives, and never mention the events of this game
I think it’s cool when villains get reincarnated and games get tied together. But imagine if Ganon just fuckin left before Ocarina of Time’s ending and you find out from some wiki page that his actual fight was in Link to the Past
@@mredbadgerWell... That's kinda what happens lol
@@mredbadger I think the only character in the Messenger that stayed relatively the same to its SoS counterpart is the Demon King. And even then that's stretching it cus apparently the Demon King is 5 beings merged together.
In all my years of replaying Chrono Trigger I've never seen the Marle/King beef jerky interaction, I didn't know it existed, amazing
I definitely started to realise the lack of drama as I was playing. It really did feel ‘off’
The plot constantly bends over backwards to justify Garl. He’s supposed to be the underdog character who succeeds against impossible odds, but he never has to grow stronger or learn any lessons because things always work out in his favour. He never has to prove anyone wrong, because everyone instantly loves him and never pushes back on his decisions
Serai has the same issue. She’s this shady ‘ally’ who clearly has her own secrets and agenda, who keeps appearing and disappearing with no explanation, but it’s never a source of drama. Even when her actions cause Garl’s temporary death, her trustworthiness is never called into question
And then there’s the old storytelling wizard guy, who considers himself an ally, but is bound to arbitrary limitations due to his history and ‘deal’ with the Fleshmancer. This ‘should’ put him at direct odds with the team, especially after he allows Garl to be killed and ESPECIALLY after we learn what happened to Serai. But he never gets criticized and never has to compromise on his rules. He just leaves the party and never rejoins, only seen again in the ending
It feels like the game kept putting the characters in situations where they’d have to grow both as people and a team, but it would never happen
13 sentinels aegis rim mentioned (as a screenshot for like 1 second) lets goooooo
I wish I could play that game but I don't have a switch or Playstation :(
@@mr.b89 my only complaint with Aegis Rim, is that I can not play it for the first time again.
Its quality is so uniquely high and it's in such a specific niche that it leaves you with a void no other game can fill. What do you even call it, a flipping sci-fi point and click adventure jrpg visual novel real time strategy time travel game???
lessss goooooo
use yuzu :shrug @@mr.b89
Wait so the ninja lady had the ability to stop every single other person who the Dweller forced to walk to their deaths, but she just… didn’t?
You're not supposed to notice that.
I just assumed she wasn’t in the picture for all the other disappearances. Unless there’s something I missed, I don’t think there was anything saying she even knew what was happening there until she ended up following the trio
She really didn't. She could stun them for a long time but what good would that do? The village would just get an influx of paralyzed, bedridden people, plus the Dweller would eventually take notice and do something about it.
@@NotaWalrus1In a weird way though, the thing was feeding on the souls of the people, right? So maybe it gets weaker if she just keeps paralyzing people. She mentions that some people can be protected from the power, so logically speaking, the whole town can take this approach to save people not just her. Anyone starts walking around weirdly, everyone carries around a paralytic to keep themselves safe. Is it difficult to realize this plan quickly, yes, would humans try to come up with a solution anyway, also yes.
@@Nodjia you're ignoring that the way to protect them is with an artifact belonging to a powerful necromancer that required legendary solstice warriors to subdue, and the necromancer can only be reached if you have a green flame that only the necromancer has. It's not a plot hole that Serai doesn't protect other victims. Thinking it is is just poor reading comprehension.
Sometimes I lament that games always have to have some new quirky solution to the old game systems. I LIKE leveling up. Its not a bad system!
People are still playing runescape to this day, leveling up can't be so bad.
I'm happy I'm not the only one that disliked this game despite being squarely in the target audience. Just so unbelievably shallow, and all the plaudits make me feel like I'm watching Crash win Best Picture
Oh man, so much coverage for what's lacking about Sea of Stars but still doesn't touch on the thing I hated the most, the ending. I hated the ending sooooo much I went out of my way to get the "True ending" only for it to end the same way in some terrible Schmup that has no grounding in the rest of the game and does nothing to resolve anything about the characters or the world/dimensions around them.
It was strangely cathartic to watch this, and I feel like it helped bring my own feelings about the game more into focus. My experience and impression of Sea of Stars changed and developed a lot more than the characters did as I played it. I was pretty okay with it through most of my one playthrough. I was definitely impressed with the combat, music and art direction, letting those things carry me through the game while I just dreamily glided through the writing without feeling much.
Then, I got to the ending, and was left thinking, "What? That's it?" It left me with questions, and the more I asked, and the more I discussed with a friend who had also played it, the more cracks I started to see in this game's writing.
It's funny. At first, I really hated Garl, probably because of that "Author's Favorite" vibe he gave off, but after this video, I'm starting to see it a different way. He seems to be the only character who was given anything close to an honest attempt at characterization. So, perhaps the fact that he was the best they could come up with upset me, because it laid bare just how barren the character writing was overall. Maybe it was also a bit like the uncanny valley, carrying that cringe-factor of seeing someone try and fail, rather than failing to try at all. Overall, when I ended up bringing him back, my first thought was, "Oh great, it's you again."
Either way, I'll guiltily admit, watching this felt like vicariously getting a huge weight of disappointment off my chest. And it's just like you said. What hurts the most is that the quality of the rest of the game highlights what it could have been with better writers at the helm.
Also, I was a bit irritated when I hopped on forums and saw people explaining the ending with, "Oh, you'll only understand it if you 100%ed The Messenger." If that's true, it's a bit like what you said about the relics. That's pretty key information for someone to be hiding behind a whole other game.
Anyway, appreciate the video.
Honestly, from what everyone in this comment section as well as the video it's self seem to come to a very similar conclusion (from my perspective) is that, Sea of Stars...is style over substance. I think it's even more gut renching to say it because it's not a triple A game. It's an indie game with clear passion, we know the people who made it, we know it's not a cash grab. But...is it popular by merits of it's own or is it popular because it's pretty version of Chrono Trigger with more "Meta" writing? Maby thats why I feel so dejected with my time with SOS, it's almost like it wants to stay in CT's shadow rather than being it's own light. The comparing point is just me being speculative at best, it really could be just the team just not being good writers if they were writers at all.
@@ohwell1547 I think that's somewhat true, but not entirely. I still think they deserve a fair bit of credit. While the story mostly belly-flopped for me, that was the only thing I really disliked. Everything outside of the story was pretty masterful. Combat, exploration, music, traversal, art direction, (writing aside of course). It's just that as an RPG, the story is pretty important to get right.
Overall, it kind of makes sense. As the studio who made The Messenger, making a game like this was a first for them. They're definitely talented as game developers, and know how to make games that are fun and engaging to play. They're just not writers, or not the writers they may think they are. They have style, but I think the gameplay itself proves they've got substance too.
So, I think its popularity is a mixture of what you mentioned (being stylish and reminding people of other RPGs), and just making a game that excels in most of its areas, enough to distract people - especially non-writers - from just how poor the writing was. Also, as much as I hate to admit it, some people really do just love meta writing. I often see it as an unserious and cowardly approach to writing, but thanks to meme culture, people seem to love things that reference other things or point and laugh at other things.
@@sageoftruth Yeah, the visuals, music, sounds effects, and gameplay was top notch. Monster designs especially, which is why I don't want to be mean or cynical about SOS. "Meta" writing itself also isn't bad. But can really derail tone or pacing when you arn't careful on when and how it's implemented, especially meta humor.
I think my actual complaint is more on the recent trend of developers and consumers willing to hand wave glaring issuses simply because it's inspired by a classic game. It's almost like they want a replacement of the inpseration rather than giving the game it's own sence of identity. SOS is way less egregious compared to other games like Bugfables (as chair's mentions in the vid) where the game is honeslty dominated by it's influence. It's a shame because it's filled with a lot of cool ideas and charm but doesn't go farther than Paper Mario. It's gameplay is slow and way less customizable, the story is generic, and the setting is kinda boring. "But hey it's Paper Mario so who cares" My opinion of course.
I think another root issue is that a lot of people just don't care about video games having stories. I get that not every game has to have a narratively gripping and detailed story, I don't think Cup head's plot is all that complex. But rpgs are known for their plots and characters, hence the roleplay aspect in rpgs. But that stigma is still there for some reason.
Though I think this is more a case of bad writing hindering the game and it's narrative from its full potential. Even Chrono Trigger had a few writers for specific aspects shuch as character, scenario, and script. Heck Sakgutchi has been active with fans so it's not a bad idea to get his two cents for future stories. Here's hoping that the team will hire proper writers for future projects. :p
Garl felt like a Gary Sue to me.
The part with Garl and his not really excited self with seeing the sleeping serpent for the first time (or being literally in arms reach) bothered me. When a character has a goal, a dream to see certain things in the world I always expect them to be thrilled or show emotions.
An example would be Justin from Grandia 1, when seeing the tall wall, the literally "end of the world" for these folks at the horizon, climbing it and standing on top... gives me the chills I was just as hyped as the characters themselves. This is entirely missing here and I hate the fact that the freaking writing of this game and mostly the robotic characters have killed my enjoyment I had for it.
When I first played this game, I thought, or rather I was hoping that "magic without using magic" was going to tie into some overall theme, where eventually the characters would have to use their wits, strength, and human spirit to overcome great challenges and bring about change when their magic powers fail them. It'd be cliche, but it'd at least be something. It'd at least give the composers something to work with.
When I got to the Live Mana tutorial, I genuinely could not stop frowning. It proved to me that all of the dialogue up to that point really was as narratively empty as I was desperately hoping it wasn't. Jirard the Completionist said this game was going to "change the world" so it can't possibly be 'bad.'
I stopped playing Sea of Stars 10 minutes after Yolande was introduced. A month or so later, Karl Jobst unveiled the charity scam.
...scam?
Garl has to be one of the biggest examples of a creator's pet I've ever seen. He isn't even in the thumbnail, yet he goes on to constantly overshadow the main two's efforts through any means necessary. He's even given a bog-standard "chosen one" narrative.
This is an excellent critique of this game, and I want to add some thoughts.
I like Sea of Stars. That said, I _can't_ love it. I think the central issue is that it has nothing to say. This is not a game about anything, it is a giving you a list of things that typically happen in a game. Chrono Trigger is about fate, about overcoming inevitability. Thus, it is about a human life, a person's impact, and other things. It asks questions about life and tries to answer them.
Sea of Stars's central thesis is "I want to make a game like Chrono Trigger." You touch on the problem a bit in the section on meta jokes. However, I would argue a big problem is that today's creators' life experiences are the consumption of art rather (endlessly training to make their own art - another potential commentary this game _could_ have made). The game is commenting on the life experience of the creators: the game Chrono Trigger (and other games, too). And the message is, "That was a good game." Bringing no other life experience to the table, it is not interrogating Chrono Trigger in any way but attempting to re-live it. There is no conflict at the center of that, thus there is no conflict at the center of Sea of Stars. Yes, there is conflict in the narrative, but it is ultimately aesthetic conflict. There is no conflict at the meta-level, the communication between the player's awareness and the creator's message.
So, while we are told there IS conflict, we experience no conflict. There is no tension at the meta-level of the story, so when we drape the correct components ("conflict") over this substrate, it is like putting a lightbulb in a lamp without plugging it in.
We live in a era that a literal generation of kids were de-incentivized to pursue the arts as a career, so this is a likely result, especially when it comes to generally lacking appreciation and value towards writing as an art. What's sadder is that this is not the first game whose message was also "We like Chrono Trigger". That game was also bad but I forgot the name of it though. Hell in the anime/manga world, this exists too. See: RWBY.
To me the entire game felt loosely like Chrono Trigger fan fiction, mostly in regards to it's villain. Here's a Space Wizard who makes Lavos type entities that devour planets so he can experiment on Alternate Timelines.
to me if the world is interesting enough and has landmarks that makes you wonder "what's the purpose of this area" and after you beat the game, you return to the area and it's still the same but it feels mysterious, so you finish up a bunch of sidecontent and suddenly a massive gate comes up from the sea where the two statues were at and you can now fight gilgamesh after tempering his genji equipment against summons.
this is something that i love about final fantasy in general. if the writing sucks but has an interesting enough world with secrets such as the one i just mentioned. i'm happy.
Shame even FF doesn't do that anymore. I'm not sure what it was but as a Kid flying on the airship into unexplored areas with places not marked on the map freaked me out. It was cool, but damn if it didn't scare me a bit. Something about flying up to Memoria in 9 really put me on edge.
Thank you! This is pretty much how I felt playing the game. I was never particularly impressed with the writing, but MAN the worldbuilding and environmental storytelling were just so cool that I genuinely don’t really care that the plot isn’t particularly stellar.
I only made it maybe a third to halfway through Sea of Stars. I didn't really enjoy any of it aside from the presentation, but I kept pushing hoping it would expand or improve somehow. I felt nothing for the plot or the characters... I kept hearing Garl was the best of them, and I didn't even like him.
The combat is what really killed it for me, I think. It's just so damn tedious. I got to a point where I just couldn't bring myself to sit through another moonerang animation.
Kinda sad that it borrows heavily from the Mario and Luigi RPGS for it's combat, but somehow has less depth than those games.
@@timmyman9677 Yeah, it's similar to the bro attacks, except those involved more than one button and had multiple variations of differing complexity. Plus, they weren't the primary means of dealing damage in every encounter like the drawn-out attacks in Sea of Stars were.
Yeah, I was surprised by the praise Chair threw to the combat system here. I thought it was generally accepted that combat in this game is very bland and unfun.
@@russlic who are you talking to about that? The combat is one of the things is most praised about it with the exception being the low amount of skills
@@brandonsclips7741It’s because Moonerang and Serai’s turn stall kick are objectively the best moves in the game, and enemies never challenge that gameplay loop. Game could add 40 new combo moves or skills, and you would still be using Moonerang.
The absolute biggest flaw that completely crumbles this game to me is that characters only learn like 3 moves. THREE. Like jesus I can usually forgive a bad/uninteresting story if the combat/gameplay is good but come on using the same 3 skills for like 30 hours of gameplay is criminal. The combo skills might have been able to make up for the lack of individual character skills but as highlighted in the video you rarely ever get a chance to use it. I almost couldn't believe it when I was like half way through the game and realized I wasn't gonna learn another skill. That i've been using basic attacks and the same skill for like 20 hours.
i'm honestly surprised it got such glowing reviews when it has such a major flaw as this. the gameplay doesn't change all too much even with new characters. i was pretty bored and had to power through the end.
how did those reviewers get through 30hrs of doing the same move over and over again when the story wasn't all that strong.
I probably could of trudged through a story that was medicore at best since the rest of the game ticked the boxes of just simply being a fun game to enjoy but holyshit I could not believe that I was still be using the same 3 moves. Like give me something new at least for variety goddamn
Sea of Stars takes pretty heavily from the Mario and Luigi series combat, yet it somehow still lacks the depth of those games.
Don't forget to mention that all but 1 character have 2 attacking skills and 1 healing skill. Actuallty, lets look more into the skills:
Combo skills aren't going to be used outside of boss battles
Ultimate attacks also aren't going to be used outside boss battles
Ultimate attacks are hella unbalanced anyways, you only have acess to Serai's and then Resh's for most of the game. You get Garl's so late that you're probably only gonna see it at the last boss. Not that it matters because Resh's is straight up better than everyone's ultimate except Garl's... which you'll rarely use anyways.
Action commands with a limit amount of skills. Enjoy watching Valere's 10 min moonrang skill all the time.
Like holy shit how do you make Yiik look more fun to play. This game is literally just putting a bunch of good games into a blender and then watering it down with sewer water.
oh my GOD, this. what you're given I found to be pretty fun for the first few hours, but eventually was thinking to myself "so when do I get new moves? surely it's gotta be coming soon" and then...nope. it just never came.
I didn't play the game myself, but I watched most of the important parts when a friend played it. The one thing that really stuck out to me, which I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about, is that, well..... Garl is kind of a creator's pet, and I disliked him _tremendously_ because of it. Not because of anything inherent to his character, but just - he's _too good_, he's always happy, everyone trusts him, everyone listens to him, he gets to do all this cool shit, he lost an eye so he looks cool but it hasn't negatively affected him in any way, nothing ever goes badly for him, and with Zale and Valere being ciphers everything just feels like it _revolves_ around him in a way that doesn't feel _earned_. For a good while, I was expecting something, _anything_ to go wrong for or with him, for him to turn out to have a Dark Secret or for his permanently happy demeanour to be a façade hiding his fears and insecurities, for him to get in over his head at some point..... but no, everything just always goes well for him, he becomes the focus of most of the scenes he's in, Zale and Valere seem to care more about him than about anything else, everyone loves and trusts him, he becomes a _dead man walking_ and it doesn't faze him in the slightest, he makes a cool heroic sacrifice, his friends move heaven and earth _just to get him back_ and then he gets to _chuck an apple at the Big Bad_ to get the True Final Ending. He's a narrative singularity, he gets an incredible amount of focus, other characters just seem to revolve around him, and he never really changes from beginning to end. I was _so_ fed up with Garl by the end because he's just _too damn perfect_ - the term is _wildly_ overused, but I genuinely consider him a Mary Sue.
I know nobody's going to read or care about this but I just needed to get this off my chest.
I read everything! The term you are looking for would be 'Gary Stu' in Garl's case lmao.
And I agree: it's better to give your audience the room to like a character themselves. With their strengths and weaknesses (and those weaknesses being treated as such in the story), it will come naturally.
Flaws humanize characters as well. We all have them and not everyone will like us even for our best traits, *and that's okay.*
That is why characters cannot be "perfect"; why should I care about a character when they will never face scrutiny or treat their conflict as, well, A CONFLICT? That makes them relatable!
In my case, the moment I knew that I couldn't be invested into Garl was when I heard that he wasn't even upset over losing an EYE, and even still admired Zale and Valere after the incident. He's not written to react to situations like a normal human being, but rather as what the writer considers a "perfect saint". Funnily enough, there are a _ton_ of ways to write someone's reaction to losing a body part, so why the writer went with the most unbelievable way is anyone's guess. To me, it's like the writer was too much of a coward to give Garl anything resembling a flaw, even if it's understandable with context.
And ironically, Garl having no "flaws" is a flaw in and of itself.
I started playing the game this weekend and Garl has CONSTANTLY thrown me off. Like throughout the entire prologue/flashback with my character's power being the reason why he lost an eye and being REPEATEDLY told he's not special unlike my character, I was envisioning him as the 2nd act antagonist: shunning my character and their cursed power that they wield over every one else.
But no, he just pops out of a bush and goes "Hey guys! Been a kuh-raaaaazy decade, huh?"
Your over use of italics makes your writing unbearable
I absolutely agree. Garl being such a center piece where he is simply a human being that cook and there are literal super humans and cyborg ninjas next to him? Dude... you can't be serious.
I get that the point is how he is extremely charismatic and thus he manages to move the pieces of the board basically on demand... but no, that's not how it works.
THANK GOD SOMEONE ELSE SEES IT! I've always felt weird that everyone was praising this game so much, all I could think is "Wait, did you not play any RPGs in the last decade or so? Chained Echoes maybe???"
I think a lot of people, myself included, just really wanted to like this game. So we put up the blinders and just... ignored the bits that weren't that great. Sure, I noticed Zale and Valere were pretty flat characters, but I pushed the thought out of my mind so I could keep enjoying the game, and enjoy it I did. I didn't keep playing it long enough to get to some of the more serious problems, I stopped at the entrance to the water temple where all the skills I had access to were still engaging to use, and barring the super long intro the start of the game is actually quite enjoyable.
Having played Chained Echoes ahead of SoS, I could not for the life of me understand the hype around SoS. I acknowledge that SoS is a better looking game--mostly more refined--but CE is better by nearly every other metric, and by LEAPS AND BOUNDS.
This chained echoes got me hooked. Gameplay and explorarion were great and the story was good. Sea of Stars felt so generic and plain
Same thing here, I played Chained Echoes, then a few weeks later went to play Sea of Stars and had mostly only disappointments. Using the same few skills from the start to the end of the game made battles feel pointless and grindy. The only character who had a personality was Garl and it seemed the game was about him instead, and then, they kill him? Wtf. Then you are left with the boring characters for the remainder of the game. The only thing I truly enjoyed in playing this game, was the ClockMakers Minigame with the statues. Of course the graphics and music were very good, but it was like Plancton's Hamburguers in Sponge Bob, basically trash molded to look like hamburgers coated in very nice paint.
The thing is, Garl being a villain is something I 100% expected at some point
It was way too obvious, he shared a similar body type to one of the clocked dudes, he could hold a grudge, him disappearing then stalking - before *suddenly* appearing
I don't think Garl being a villain would be a good twist at all, because they would run themselves into another rut
The ending was also really sour
how do you fumble that much of an ending with that much build up, even the secret ending
I expected us to have to fight the moon dude in a demon form and try to remind the girl that she wanted to protect him, and she's failing right in front of everyone by not even caring that he got demonised - ending in some climactic passing of the torch... but no. also went nowhere.
I called him being a Villian in the first minute. "Well hey friends, lets go open up the FORSAKEN GATE" Then he takes an injury and gets abandoned by his friends for a decade. I thought for sure they we're setting him up to be a bad guy. But nope he's just disgustingly plucky, like everyone else.
The awful ending was because it was trying to staple itself to The Messenger’s lore. Because being a prequel to a game in an entirely different genre is… a decision.
@@thevioletbee5879 tf is The Messenger
Why they didn't have something like Garl saying "I don't want to be left behind, please. I've grown stronger! I want to overcome this FEAR in my heart." Or something to give him a REASON to want to join.... would have been better
Edit: one of my favourite books is called the sea of stars. And it's like... way better💀
It feels like for a lot of modern releases both indie and AAA that main and primary supporting characters are either the safest blandest personalities ever put on a page (See Sarah from Starfield), or obnoxious selfish self inserts who because of that self insert status aren't allowed to experience any character growth or have flaws that would make them actually interesting. Characters in between those two extremes of sleep medication and anger inducing seem to be getting rarer and rarer by the day.
Prolly why FF7 is so popular. Cloud is a massive fucking dork, who tries to be cool and aloof but fails at it miserably, and also has interesting flaws in terms of his false memories and denial that have interesting origins and most importantly actually matter for the story.
It's not just a problem with the Heroes being bland and flawless, there's also the issue of every Villain needing to be constantly self-reflective or sympathetic. You can have that, but I still want to see bad people do bad things and enjoy it. As bad as Zale and Valere are, I have to give props to Aphoreal. Guys sympathic sure, but it doesn't change the fact he unleashes planet eating monsters onto various worlds.
Even though I like Hi-Fi Rush, some of the characters in that game kinda suck
Yea, that was a thing I felt with Tales of Arise. It was just so wooden and I fail to understand why it gained so much praise.
@@matteste Which is a shame. The strength of most Tales of games is it's cast, both hero and Vilian. I don't think I liked anyone in Arise.
People crap on Beseria but I think it had the strongest cast next to Symphonia and Abyss.
And it may be a hot take but Vesperia and its cast is Mid. Yuri's not my favorite MC but I like him as a personality and Estelle is adorable. That's about it.
@@timmyman9677 Yea, even Arise's supposed main villain almost felt more like a footnote with how little character and importance they had. And the main cast wasn't much better. I have even seen some fanboys call Arise better written than both Symphonia and Abyss which is honestly laughable.
From what I have seen for instance, people seem to only say that Abyss is bad cause they though Luke was an ass. That is quite telling on what they are actually after. They are not interested in good writing or strong characters, they just want stuff that fulfills their fantasies and make them feel good.
Beautiful looking game with a ton of style and atmosphere... and an utterly amateurish story.
RPG's are hard, because they kinda _need_ good stories, or at least competent ones and kickass gameplay. Having a bad story though can ruin the whole pot.
You know what would have been an amazing plot-development? If Zale were the one who died instead of Garl.
That would have actually been a shocking reversal of expectations - at the start, the game lets you choose which of Valere and Zale is the "main character." The decision is completely pointless (the game even assures you that the decision isn't plot-relevant), but it COULD have been the most brilliant bit of misdirection since at least Deltarune. After letting you "choose" the main character, setting up the idea that their role in the plot is interchangeable, it turns out that the only main character who SURVIVES is Valere, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's also just inherently more troubling for one of the two solstice warriors to die - Valere is losing her other half, and the world might be screwed.
(Another variant I'd like to see is getting to choose a main character and then it turns out that one of them was secretly a villain.)
that wouldve been cool
100% orange juice mentioned 100% orange juice mentioned 100% orange juice mentioned
norma achieved
If nothing else was gonna keep me away from this game the irony poison pirate woman would've done it.
I really enjoyed listening to your perspective on the writing of this game. I thought I was pretty good at picking out bad writing but I never noticed how bad it was in Sea of Stars. As much as I loved playing it, it left me feeling a little hollow for the story and characters by the time it was over. I couldn't put my finger on it until now.
Would you consider doing a critique like this for other JRPGs like Octopath Traveler?
I’m glad Zale and Valere feeling flat wasn’t just me. I thought at first they were going for the “sheltered zealots who have no concept of the world” approach with Garl being the “normal” one. But no, they’re just nothing.
Excellent video, so glad I clicked this expecting to watch 5 minutes of a rant I don't care about before switching it off, to instead find a breakdown of how to do good writing, and how not to do it. You perfectly explained every point you made with the comparisons between these two games. Thank you for letting your hatred of this indie game motivate you to spend the time contructing this essay; I could really tell you had a whole 'I feel very strongly and I just need to get it out and hope people agree I'm right', and you know what, you were damn right about everything.
I was kinda wondering why I dropped the game so fast. I was liking everything I was seeing and hearing but I never picked it up a second time. Oh and my first and only save file was right after grown up Garl joins the party without any consequences of losing an eye just before losing his two closest friends as a child. I'm sure its just coincidence...
It really is. I was expecting Garl to be evil as soon as he was introduced. But nope, he's just disgustingly plucky, like every other fucking character.
Yolande seems to be the epitome of the lampshading trope, a trope stemming from the insecurities of the wirter being masked by jokes about the problem the writer sees, effectively removing the immerdion.
I'm feeling so validated right now. There was a point where I really wondered if I was really playing the same game as everyone else.
😢 I'm so glad someone highlighted all its issues.
It was such an odd game. It was like every character was a robot only there to fill a role, walking through a plot synopsis the size of a book instead of a story of actual people.
The writers for this game are AFRAID of sincerity
I think it’s more likely that they saw Chrono Trigger’s simple and easy to understand characters and tried to recreate it, but instead of giving characters a small handful of memorable traits and skills, they made a main cast full of characters who just give simple-minded responses to everything that happens to them.
Characters in Chrono Trigger do often have really simplistic responses to things that happen, but they’re simple with FLAVOR. Sea of Stars kept the simple but didn’t add the flavor, and it seems soulless and lacking in sincerity.
All of modern culture is afraid of sincerity because it makes you vulnerable. Everything is ironic and jokes. Especially the people claiming to make "important games with messages" for whatever political activism they fight for do this.
Its always a story about a character with X traits, never just a character's story about themselves.
@@ImortalZeus13 Exactly. I think I dropped SoS after two hours because the dialogue was a repetitive bore that showed no signs of progressing anything. The entire time it was nothing but Zale and Valarre parroting each other back and forth. "Heheh, yeah! I hate sewing! Heheh yeah! Garl! Magic without Magic!" For...two...fucking...hours.
What happens in one or two hours of CT? Boy meets Fun Girl at Fair. Fun Girl gets sent back in time by Nerd Girls science fair project, Boy goes after fun girl. Boy teams up with an Honorable Frog to save Fun Girls Great, great Grandma. The past and present are saved (for now), Nerd Girl makes a Key that opens Time Travel Gates, everyone returns to their own time. The end, for now.
I think a big problem with writing in indie games right now is that the writers are afraid to make characters that can be a bit of a bastard. If the protagonists and even the supporting characters are noble, polite, and easy-going 95% of the time, they're going to be extremely boring. This has been a really big problem in indie games these days, for me, and Sea of Stars kinda exemplifies this.
Gimme characters that are jerks, dang it. Unfair comparisons maybe, but BG3 and God of War are loaded with interesting characters that are interesting precisely because they're jerks and/or have wildly differing opinions and viewpoints that conflict with others in many ways. Would you want to be friends with all of them? No, but they're interesting, and that's the key. I think that's what's missing from Sea of Stars, for me, and you don't need a AAA budget to make that happen.
I mean observe the indie scene overall... What's the bread and butter? Life sims and "comfy" games.
Mostly stuff without a lot of grit or sharp teeth.
Honestly best indie I've played is probably Katana Zero.
You can also say that there is a big problem with media literacy, and how a lot of member of the audience cant read between the lines or analyze stuff that is just beneath the surface of what is being presented.
angel dust from hazbin hotel, whose arc is all about how he is being exploited as a sex worker and he makes a hyper sexualized persona in order for him too take control of the unsavory aspects of his life, his abuse is never shown as a good thing, his song ends with him breaking down after the illusion of his lies are dispelled, yet people still say the show is gloryfying his abuse
Then you have Sparkle from honkai star rail, she is a joker/harley quinn type character, an agent of chaos that is explicitly stated to be an antagonist, she is a racist lying duplicitous person, constantly lying and manipulating people for her own "enjoyment" yet a big portion of the community sees her mere inclusion in the story to be an endorsement of her actions, even though she is never shown to be correct.
I can see why some writers would just forego nuance so that some of the smooth brained people wont try to cancel them, but that is a coward move, we need more flawed characters in general, perfect characters are extremely hard to make interersting and relatable, we need more freaks, like the main character from delicious in dungeon
I'd say this is a problem everywhere, in every media and field. We've gotten soft.
Rance goes GAHAHAHAHA!
@qaztim11 This was most evident with Subaru and Rudy from ReZero and Mushoku Tensei respectively. People cannot comprehend the idea of a protagonist that starts out as a bad person and grows from their mistakes. They will say the show glorifies being an "incel" even though the character arc is a direct critique of it.
My Favorite K-Mart Sseth put out an hour long video? Count me blessed.
No this is white sseth from Alibaba
I think for me, beyond the video contents which basically are a list of my issues with the game, I was annoyed by Sea of Stars because Chained Echoes came out in the same year roughly (Nov.2022 vs. like March 2023 or so), and was just a completely superior game in just about every aspect, yet SoS won all the Indy GotY stuff while Chained Echoes wasn't even nominated because people forgot about it. And amongst most RPG heads, they've all said Chained Echoes >> Sea of Stars. Chained Echoes does have its flaws with storytelling, and, like SOS tries to be Chrono Trigger too much, SOS tries to be Xenogears too much at times with its storytelling.
With combat, to add onto what you said, SoS characters get 4 moves to use. However, generally half of those moves are completely useless, either cause they don't do enough, or cause they aren't useful enough for breaking. Same thing with the Combos as you brought up (and even among those, most of the Combos suck), and on top of that there are the Ultimate abilities of each character where, when you try them out, only 1, maybe 2 of them are actually useful at all. It's amazing that, with so few actual skills in the game, they still managed to put in skills that just sucked and were of no use.
Chained Echoes was such a better game.
Yeah, Chained Echoes just threw Xenogears, Suikoden, and FFT into ChatGPT and the resulting story was a grotesque embarrassment, but in terms of combat and exploration it was immeasurably better than Sea of Stars
I feel like "aren't useful enough for breaking" has been going around lately. Magic is severely underpowered in Octopath Traveller 2 because all of the hard fights revolve around breaking an enemy's guard, and magic is vastly less efficient at doing that. It's so weird to me when games steal mechanics that aren't any good, even on paper.
Just goes to show with gaming awards that it isn't about how good something is, it's how much publicity and hype something has.
Was just about to make a comment about how Chained Echoes kind of got lost in the shuffle which is a damn shame because I finished that game and didn’t finish Sea of Stars for a lot of the reasons mentioned in this video
I never really liked the concept of the Solstice Warriors, especially with how the game ends. Like, these kids are basically indoctrinated by fate to become demigods and never get to experience actual freedom and they're just... okay with that? Why did they become these eternally patrolling sentries post-game? Aren't all the Dwellers gone or am I missing something? What are they looking after in a time of peace? They try to make it a concern with the adult warriors before they go all anarchist, but then it's just brushed off and the two kids just roll with the punches. It's so weird.
Same here. I was really hoping that the game was building up to a point where the legitimacy of the Solstice Warrior thing was questioned, but I stopped playing when it became clear that wasn't the case. It was really disappointing.
Here I was actually feeling the inverse--I thought there could be a very compelling narrative in accepting a duty assigned from your birth, sacrificing your earthly desires and personal needs so that everyone else can still have that freedom. It seemed like it was going in that direction with the other warriors' treason, and then it didn't. They ruined two perfectly great plotlines in one move.
The real answer is because the story had to tie into The Messenger for some reason
Gotta check out the rest of you channel, not the least of all for acknowledging the existence if Radiant Historia.
You have my respect for making a video so long about a game I’ve high praise about. Don’t agree with everything you’ve said, but I will replay it with a more critical eye. Also you’ve inspired me to play Chrono Trigger to get what you’re saying. Subbed 👊🏿
Hey Misshapen Chair, I’ve been watching your stuff for a while and wanted to give you a big props for this video and its style. You really managed to catch my attention, and I sat down and watched this entire video in one sitting. You moved from point to point well, and communicated your thoughts without spewing vitriol and without wasting my time or repeating yourself. Fantastic work, well worth the effort, keep it up! 💚
One of my favorite pieces of bad writing about this game is how they wake up the sleeper. Very early on as you mentioned they say that the sleeper will wake up if the lullaby goes away. 10-15 hours later when they have to wake up the sleeper what do they do? They COOK A GIANT LOAF OF BREAD THAT WAKES IT UP. They actively ignore the lore they set up to give Garl a moment, it’s awful.
Great video overall! You pretty much hit the nail on the head about all of the issues I have with the writing (I have issues with everything else as well but good job on writing), stuff like Teaks giving you critical information to understand the world is just plain awful, it’s not good world building, if it’s important we should be told in the main story! I’m happy you touched on how barren Valere and Zale are, it’s insane how almost every character takes a major backseat to Garl, he gets way to much screen time and really ruins the characterization of others. It is incredibly obvious they wanted Garl to be the main character but just couldn’t figure out a way to do it, resulting in this mess.
One of my biggest gripes with this game is what you brought up about fighting the fleshmancer. To even do it you have to beat the game once without all the collectibles, the place won’t unlock if you don’t. It is absurdly stupid that the ending most players will see has you not even fight the main villain, they just fuck off and you instead end with a shooting segment.
Cope was a real word long before the modern lingo butchered it. It is not out of place, it is just internet ruins everything
Foreshadowing isn't even like predictable. Sometimes it is, yes, if you consume a lot of media you usually will see that, but sometimes foreshadowing is something you realize after the even happens and its like :O and that is some fun foreshadowing when that happens.
i really enjoyed listening to you critique sea of stars despite not having played it myself. not sure if you need positive feedback to want to make more videos like this but i would absolutely watch more long video essays of you explaining your opinion on a game
Amazing video, also gosh the timing of this- with chrono trigger and dragon quest- rip akira toriyama
The number of people and UA-camrs gushing all over this game before release is a damn shame. Just because it apes classics does not mean it will be a classic itself.
Oh man, seeing that Toriyama art in Chrono Trigger really takes me back...
Oh...
T_T
I get the feeling the writers were focused on where the party would go and what they would do, but not how their personalities and relationships with each other would be impacted along the way. I've played a few games that have that problem, but I think this is the first time where its so bad, the two main characters could have been switched with a single silent protagonist and nothing would have changed.
As someone who has Chrono Trigger as his favorite game of all time, I reeaaaaally wanted to like this game. I wanted so bad. But I stopped playing after about 5 to 10 hours. I thought I might have simply stopped enjoying JRPGs, but no. This video helped put in perspective that my apathy had validation. It's a bummer, really. The dev's previous game, The Messenger, is a banger.
I find it hard to understand people who play an RPG, admit it has bad writing, and still defend it.
In my mind RPGs are not far behind Visual Novels in terms of how vital writing quality is to the experience.
I play RPGs for the funny number go up experience because I know in my heart of hearts that the writing is on average going to be dogshit.
I'm the same way with most rpgs asides kingdom hearts I only play kingdom hearts for the questionable writing
writing plays a much bigger part in rpgs than most other genres, but the writing being bad doesnt mean theres nothing else worthwhile in a game.
There are a lot of games where you can get away with subpar writing, a story driven genre like RPG's is not one of them.
Consider: it is fun.
There was a lot of frustration with the story of Sea of Stars for me as well. Like, the entire little training arc at the start of the game was just boring AF. Nothing happened during it. And they had this weird thing they'd do where the main characters would bond with one another off screen, so they'd come back into a shot after a time skip and they are joking around with one another, but then they just never do that any other time? So it's like, who are these people? Why are they so... nothing? Then there are weird things, like the few characters that get some characterization, like the history girl or the geomancer mole kid, just don't participate in the plot. So the only character that does anything proactive most of the time is Garl. Serai is also just kind of silent and Stoic. The 5th and 6th party members join pretty late, and the 5th leaves your party. The 6th joins too late to have a large impact, which is kind of the issue with having a party member join in the back 15% of the game. So then out of the principle cast, only Garl really feels like a character. Again, rather one note at times, but I get Garl. I understand him. He's like a human golden retriever.
Sea of Stars also does the thing that a lot of old JRPGs did which really drags the game down: filler areas that do nothing ot meaningfully push the plot forward. When you consider how much of the plot of this title is back loaded, it's really hard to look at "lets save these people in the mines" and "lets get this magical trinket from these ancient ruins" as things we should actually have been doing.
Also, I absolutely hated the way combo attacks worked here. I love the way they work in Chrono Trigger because they open up new moves and make you consider party composition. Your party selection literally determines what you are capable of doing. But here nah! On top of that, for most of the game, you only have 1 combo attack that uses 1 point, so their prevalence is reduced even further. To make matters even worse, Zale and Valere's group heal is kind of lowkey optimal. You can save it up and have it as a massive group heal whereas all the other heals in the game either use a lot of resources only heal 1 person, etc. Considering most of the bonus attacks don't do anything special for the most part (especially in the front half of the game) you might as well just save up points to use the group heal.
The biggest compliment I can give this video is that I was watching it the day your released it planning on playing sea of stars bc of the the game awards, heard you say to play chrono trigger before you spoil it in the video, beat the game front and back and then I came back to watch this video 2 months later. I also decided not to play sea of stars after playing chrono trigger. Those are the consequences of your actions just like you mentioned. Your choices do matter.
An important part of why the story falls flat in my opinion that isn't mentioned in this video is that Sea of Stars is a prequel game to "the Messenger." The whole of Mesa island is the game world of the Messenger and it actually recreated the level in painstaking detail. But a whole lot of the plot points feels forced and contrived to allow the Messenger to happen. For instance, the 4 acolytes becoming "the conciousness" of the Dweller of Strife is for the sole purpose of forming the Demon King from the Messenger, who has a form with 4 heads having 1, 2, 3, and 4 horns respectively and another form being the Dweller of Strife. You kill that by yourself as some ninja who isn't even a solstice warrior and it makes the whole plot point be so forced.
Other connections include: the temple with the big window at the end of the game is visited in the Messenger where you gather the crystallised last power of Valere and Zale, there is a new necromancer who uses a staff implied to have been created by Romaya, the magic order in the Messenger used the same posing as the Solstice Warriors.
I feel I didn't give sea of stars a fair shake, because I was put off by the lack of character development, but it has been really frustrating to play through. I remember when Garl hops out of the bushes and basically forces himself into the party, and I was thinking about how uncomfortable of a conversation it was. Basically, you have two people with super-human abilities and magic, and then their _not special_ friend that they played with as kids. When Garl loses an eye to prevent Zale from being injured, the master basically treats him like trash and says he's lucky that's all he lost while disregarding the sacrifice he made. The writing comes off as "it's your own fault, but you don't deserve any praise for protecting your friend". Valere and Zale seem to entirely forget how serious that is within minutes of it happening because the prospect of "training" is so exciting, they don't feel responsibility or regret at all. When Garl tries to join them again, their responses are very vague; like the writer wasn't sure how they should respond and they don't really discuss the matter so much as just let things happen, avoiding any kind of responsibility again.
I understand that mechanically, Garl is sort of there to show the point of view that "even if you aren't magical, you can contribute, you can help your friends succeed". But even that initial conversation by the fire can be interpreted in a more fundamentally disturbing way... that Garl is so obsessed with proving himself, despite not being "special", that he has focused his whole on being useful to his "friends". That scene put me in a very weird place mentally, I wasn't sure how to interpret it, and the 2 magical kids don't really express their feelings beyond a vague sense that "this is kind of _our thing_ that we were born for, so you really can't take on that role no matter how hard you try". Garl feels like that overly sincere kid, who doesn't realize he's out of his element and just wants to be helpful.
Valere and Zale, by contrast feel like they are empty, with their job being the only thing they think about. They don't discuss their futures, because their future is a bleak certainty that they will spend their entire lives fighting monsters, because that was what they were born for. The issue is that they have "fate" / "prophecy" / "purpose" spelled out for them instead of created by them, and this is never challenged or changed through their own will. They have no drives, no goals, no personalities, just spritework for the player to vaguely "identify" with.
By the end of the game, I felt like I was just being pandered to, honestly. Even the posture of the "gods" and such demonstrates that the player and main characters aren't worth the time and effort put into the colorful and pretty world they inhabit.
Even the prophecies they get from The Mist do nothing to add to their character despite being set up as a potential internal conflict for the characters. But nope the Prophecy are 100% literal, hell it's not even a prophecy it's a device, a hint. Valere needing to learning how to "create pathways of water" isn't some vague metaphor it's literally what she has to do.
When I asked Santa for a weeb version of Mandalore Gaming, I never thought he would deliver
Maajuular has a similar structure to Mandy, and is quite funny. He's done Crono Cross, Legend of Dragoon and Tales of Symphonia. All great reviews.
@@timmyman9677 Good recommendation.
i feel like this game is held back by the writers feeling like they needed to tie the plot into their other game, the messenger. sea of stars essentially acts as a prequal to that game.
like as an example of what i mean, the end of the game essentially has valere and zale perpetuate the cycle that bugraves and erlina took such an issue with. the game seemed to be building up to the true ending being us killing the fleshmancer and stopping the endless conflict between dwellers and solstice warriors. but instead, valere and zale ascend to godhood or whatever to go fight dwellers and world eaters forever. because they made this game as a prequal, valere and zale *have* to end the story by ascending to godhood and perpetuating the cycle. because if they didnt, there would be no reason for them to show up in the messenger and give a magic macguffin to john messenger.
similarly, at the point in the story where garl dies and bugraves and erlina go through those portals, bugraves randomly drops this line about how hes apparently been really slow his whole life, despite that never being brought up or demonstrated before now. and the fleshmancer promises him that he'll be the "fastest thing alive" or whatever, only for him to never show up in the game again (technically he shows up for like 5 seconds during the credits after the true ending but my point still stands). and the only reason they did this is cause they made the contrived decision to have bugraves become the demon general boss in the messenger, whos whole gimmick is being "the fastest thing alive".
theres a ton of weird moments like this throughout the game where it feels like sea of stars is sabotaging its own story in order to tie itself into the messenger. and its just baffling to me because the messenger actually worked pretty well as its own stand alone game. and sea of stars is set so far in the past that all these links between the two games barely matter. i cant help but feel as though sea of star's narrative and writing would have turned out way better if they had just made the game its own stand alone story.
Wait, what? That ninja gaiden-like from five years ago?
@@manjackson2772 yeah, that one.
i guess that's why it felt like nothing ever got resolved, it was just a side story for another story. that's disappointing. i honestly thought the messenger had nothing to do with this game.
Honestly, they should have made sea of satars it own thing rather than connecting it with the messenger
i didn't mind the bad writing at first, but what they did with garl in the end really bothered me. i'm keeping this vague as to not spoil anybody. garl was the only character i liked, and i felt betrayed when i became emotionally invested in him.
You have no idea how much this video made me feel vindicated. I felt like I was going mad at the praise it was getting. The characters were genuinely some of the most uncharismatic I'd ever experienced. The writing made me feel nothing but bored. I didn't at any point feel that burning need to see what would come next.
And maybe I'm going too far with this, but did anyone see this "whimsical" world and not feel it's...whimsy? Like it felt like it was trying too hard to be charming and quirky? The only location that felt even close to that was the haunted mansion area. Same with the pirate characters. They just tried...too hard? In my eyes ofc.
I will say I enjoyed the battle system, the music, the pixel art, and how smooth it ran. But overall, the game as a whole felt so forgettable somehow. This video finally put that feeling into words.
This is a big reason I’m not a fan of Sea of Stars or the Owl House. They feel like they are really trying to force this feeling of whimsy and wonder on you instead of letting it happen in more natural and subtle ways. The forced quirkiness also makes me go nuts!
I think the reason we both didn’t like the game getting praise is because it felt incredibly undeserved, especially since there are games, ESPECIALLY in its own genre that are far better RPG’s than itself.
I think you (and I, for that matter) didn't like the game's praises because of just how fucking obnoxiously pretentious they were.
"The new Chrono Trigger!" "Best story ever!" "Best Indie game award!", and then when you actually play the game, ylu realize just how weak and shallow the game and the narrative is. Yet no one admits to it. This video is the ONLY video with a signifocant number of views actually expressing criticism and distaste for the awful writing. Every other video either has only ~1000 views, or is just praising the game as a masterpiece.
THAT'S what's annoying to me. The reluctancy to admit it's a shit narrative.
This is practically the same reason I disliked I am Setsuna, even though it was marketed as a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger as well. Bad writing ruined all that.
I was wondering if anyone else remembered that absolutely disappointing trash
@darthgamer9861 I spent money on it man I remember.
I watched an I am setsuna playthrough and it felt like nothing happened the entire time and also all the areas were the same. It barely felt like a game
Oh no, I bought this game for the Switch all the way back in 2018 and still haven't played it. Is it really that bad?
@@Akari_A_ it's not 'bad', just
... unremarkable and bland, even though it is trying to copy one of the best RPGs ever made.
With what I've heard being promised in the upcoming update/dlc, I'd be interested if you made a smaller follow-up video documenting changes and improvements from the version you based this video upon.
There's one part of the lore that I feel like I don't see people mention even though it should be able to be picked up from context clues (heck the characters do mention him 'by name' so they should realize it), but Resh'an (the purple guy in a turban) is a great alchemist who can turn into a bird. The characters do know him as "The Great Eagle" and call him such (if I remember the name right), and it makes sense that he is some super figure of myths in the world's setting. The thing that bugs me that the game never seems to fully acknowledge or do anything about? Zale+Valere are not biological twins or related, and are brought to the starting town as babies... by The Great Eagle. They never ask about where they came from, who their parents were, or what Resh'an did in order to get them to bring to the village. This isn't "necessary" and we do know why Resh'an wants Solstice Warriors, but it does basically mean one of the party members basically brought 'acquired' children to send to battle, and said children never dig into this. Do they want to know their parents? Are they orphans who's families were killed and Resh'an saved them? Did Resh'an buy them or negotiate with their parents in order to get them? Did Resh'an have to babysit the older one for like 6 months before getting the second character and then taking both to the starting area? None of that is explored.
Also on a pettier note, why does Zale want to be a Blade Dancer? At the start of the game, both characters bring up their goals as Solstice Warriors as if they are speaking job/class titles, with Valere wanting to be a monk (her idol is a martial artist and the headmaster is elderly and... meant to be wise), while Zale... wants to dance with a sword? The only Sun warrior we see early on is a mage, and we learn later on that there were 3 Sun sisters who all seemingly were mages/scholars (unsure on previous headmaster regarding her power but still). So in keeping with this video's idea of "Zale struggles to control his powers"... why does Zale choose Blade Dancer as his goal if nobody uses swords and all Sun warriors being mages/scholars? It makes sense party comp wise sure, but we never see him really dance with the literal band that joins the party or see why he would want to be fleet footed/dexterous in particular as nobody else in the game, and I know "Blade Dancer" is not the same as "Dancer" but like... nobody else uses a sword at the order and we don't hear of any famous "Blade Dancers" in lore, so it seems like a missed opportunity in his character to not really do anything with that. I'm not even saying he shouldn't be a Blade Dancer, but his struggles with summoning his power was magic based, not dexterity, and during the training montage he doesn't really have a moment where it's clear that he wants to dance around his enemies.
thank you for making this video. It was really engaging and I'm surprised to say that you had me hooked throughout the whole damn thing. Like you said, it is really eye opening to see how low the bar has gotten for quality in games these days. i will now proceed to watch every video you have posted in the last year at least, and thereby absolutely pollute my youtube recommended feed(absolute sucker punch of a video). Thanks once again!
I only saw about two of your videos on XIV about limit cut and parsing in xiv, and youtube decided to chuck this in my reccommendations. I'm glad I clicked, didn't see the hour and a half pass. very competent stuff, definitely looking forward to more of that.