Let's Play & Review "Sea of Stars" Demo - First Impression Playthrough *(1:20 Hour)

Sea of Stars is a super-polished, turn-based indie RPG inspired by 16-bit classics like Chrono Trigger. It's one of the games I'd love to play through completion this year! I'm just waiting for a sale. Sea of Stars boasts a breathtaking artstyle, and a compelling battle system!

The game is availble on all modern consoles, but the version I played is the PC version via Steam. (Store Page's Link!)

In this Let's Play video, I play through the Demo. From You'll see me explore the Mountain Area that provides a taste for the gameplay, walk around the Port Town and talk to most NPCs, and try to solve the puzzles of the Demo's Dungeon. The video ends after my one-sided fight against the Boss. (I lost.)

The sprites and backgrounds are beautiful in Sea of Stars. The characters animations are very smooth and let their personalities pop out. Zale, Valere, Garl and even a lot of NPCs feel like living people in that world.

Navigating through the game's map is a delight. It made me not mind backtracking multiple times to find where the next area I should go to was.

There's also a fishing Mini-game, which is required for one of the later puzzles in the demo

The Battle System is what I enjoyed the most. The way enemies walk around the are, and battles happening on the same screen reminds me of the best parts of Chrono Trigger. The turn-based system is easy to understand. You get to choose which of your characters act while the enemies have their turns in between.

Player Characters have various Skills that add a subtle difference to the gameplay. Zale's Sunball requires holding the action button to gather power. Valere's Crescent Arc requires timing the action button right to bounce to other enemies. Opting to not use a Skill recovers MP, which is a necessary mechanic considering most skills use more than half of the MP bar.

When a character falls in battle, I was pleasantly surprised to know they're just knocked out and go back to the fight if I managed to fend off enemies by the other characters. That's mechanic I abused to my most enjoyment.

Other than the battle, I enjoed the campfire bit. The party joins around the campfire and you could talk to other characters. Teaks joins the party there and tells stories. There's only one story in the demo, though.

Another thing I liked in the demo was the Relics section. Equipping these relics changes the game, as one of the items makes the game very easy for those who just want to enjoy the story.

I only played an hour and a half of the demo, and despite losing against (what I persume to be) the final boss, I don't feel bad about the loss, and I really want to play the full game next.

What do you think?

• Played On: AMD Ryzen 3450u, 16GB RAM (Laptop)
• Sea of Stars' Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244090/Sea_of_Stars/
• Demo's Size: 1.17GB