Board 8 > Sea of Stars Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

Eastward played like Zelda but it's seriously 80% dialogue and 20% gameplay. I gave up after 10 hours because I would spend 2 hours just reading dialogue and doing nothing in the game.

Crosscode is fantastic though. The story is a little stupid but the combat is fun and the puzzles are great.

Eastward is RIDICULOUSLY slow. I couldn't play more than 30 mins. I played Chained Echoes right after cuz it was on gamepass the same time and it was shocking.

CrossCode is absolutely awesome imo. Not perfect but it really tries something new and succeeds in a lot of ways. The dungeons and bosses are serious and the gameplay is very refined. The setting is really fun, and the art is very obviously de-furried furry art which is kinda hilarious.

I dunno if it aged super well though. There's been a lot of competition in the retro-future-snes-jrpg genre since then. But it's definitely worth a shot.

Crosscode's story is the best part!

Wheels is Really Good Actually

I want to finish the game just to beat it

But after the 1st dungeon the game did start getting more interesting

i get the complaints about 'only three skills'

but i think trying to do the math on enemy HP vs my MP continues to be fun as the numbers go up

i wish there were more 2-cost combos, because all normal battles are over before you get to 2

(got the 5th party member then took a few days off but came back to it and it's still fun!)

foolm0r0n posted...

Wheels is Really Good Actually

also this... i play more than once every time i see a table, even if i've seen that table before...

Wasn't a huge fan of Wheels

Wheels is an interesting foundation for something that could be good. But in it's current state it's too simple to be any fun.

I have not played Sea of Stars so I don't know why I came in this topic, but CrossCode is great! Some people think it's too puzzle-heavy but I really like that. (I still haven't played the DLC that actually gives it an ending tho)

andylt posted...

(I still haven't played the DLC that actually gives it an ending tho)

I totally missed this (I think it wasn't out yet when I beat it and it just fell out of my mindshare) but I thought the original ending was nice enough

I might pick it up again for that though

I thought CrossCode's original ending was good enough. Was still going to play the extended DLC but Game Pass lost my save file. :(

I think I'm done for real this time. Played to the first climax and it was a little too bland.

i thought you'd for sure be the person to be like "what are you guys complaining about, this game is great, you're all overthinking it"

I just got to Brisk and am slow as hell, but still liking it. Brisk is so big it feels like it takes forever to wander around and find all the treasures and stuff.

brisk is such a mindfuck

i just assumed i'd found enough stuff after a while

My problem with Brisk is that they let you fully explore it before taking away the signs/blockades that would make doing so much easier.

Brisk is too big. I always got lost there. Wish I had a map...

Dels posted...

i thought you'd for sure be the person to be like "what are you guys complaining about, this game is great, you're all overthinking it"

Could've easily gone that way but the story isn't risky enough and the puzzles are bad. Those are usually the things that get me to forgive all other faults.

Brisk was awesome. Didn't think it was too big. You can see most all the platforms while running around so it's easy to tell if you've reached all the places or not.

honestly, the story has hit a 'second spike' in terms of interestingness for me

spoilers for after 5th character

is the implication that brugaves and what's her face are going to basically get transported to an alternate world/timeline and have their memories wiped and get to live out more pleasant lives, but they destroy this world for that to happen? and they think they'll be able to convince the kids to come with them even though the plan is obviously evil and too extreme?

Yeah the 5th character is when the story starts to get going but it never really hits a peak IMO. Could have been better.

skullbone posted...

Yeah the 5th character is when the story starts to get going but it never really hits a peak IMO. Could have been better.

The Swan Song chapter is the peak imo.

andylt posted...

I have not played Sea of Stars so I don't know why I came in this topic, but CrossCode is great! Some people think it's too puzzle-heavy but I really like that. (I still haven't played the DLC that actually gives it an ending tho)

I picked up crosscode twice and absolutely adored it until it became way too much.

my breaking point was spending 20 minutes on a puzzle in what I assume was the final dungeon. Breathed a sigh of relief and in the next room

was a bigger puzzle

The puzzle often wasnt even the hard part. The hard part was getting the timing right to flip all the switches at the exact same time

That shit is great

I think there's a slow timers mode too to make those easier

The story in this finally got interesting. Big story spoilers: Garl just died and Serai just revealed herself as a robot

If we had only gotten to this like... ten hours sooner. Battle system is still bland as can be but I'm invested in the story for the first time ever.

About how far am I through the game once the fifth character joins the party? Halfway-ish?

colliding posted...

The story in this finally got interesting. Big story spoilers: Garl just died and Serai just revealed herself as a robot

If we had only gotten to this like... ten hours sooner. Battle system is still bland as can be but I'm invested in the story for the first time ever.

That's when I got really into the story

NBIceman posted...

About how far am I through the game once the fifth character joins the party? Halfway-ish?

yeah basically

Played a couple more hours tonight after that fifth character join point. The music is starting to get really, really good.

I both simultaneously like and am completely ambivalent toward this game. I've only gotten as far as the town where you meet the pirates in the demo, but I had an incident in the mines where I felt the game was actively steering me away from what to do, and as a result I got lost horribly and had to look up a guide just to discover that all I had to do was jump down the damn elevator shaft a second time. Probably irrational, but I felt very cheated by that moment and walked away from the game for a day and haven't had the same enthusiasm toward it since.

Hmm, I didn't have any issues there for whatever reason. Like, I didn't know what I was supposed to do ahead of time, but it felt like the game just pointed me right at it. I do find the dungeons can be oddly difficult to navigate sometimes though.

I thought that dungeon was confusing until I turned off my brain and just kept moving and it's really quite linear

Yeah the elevator lifting was the only new place to go really so I jumped in there immediately.

i can see that part being unintuitive. it took me a moment as well to realize that was a thing i could (and should) do.

In case you were curious about the whole saga:

Before peacing out, the elder said the guy I was going after was "below" me and there's stuff below me on the screen, including a large inaccessible region. There's also this green pillar that looks like it should slot into a pit at the very bottom of that area and you can even hop down onto that ledge which overlooks a pit. I had every reason to believe I could do something there, and I just couldn't figure out how.

And adding to that, in the tunnel, there's a treasure puzzle that requires an item I don't have and presumably have to bring back later. But I thought maybe I had to solve that to get something that lets me move the pillar, so I retraced my steps through the first loop of the dungeon like 4 times, trying to find something I missed. I was so convinced I had to move that jade pillar.

Well, I was right, but at the same time not, because of course it does move later. The irony is that the elevator leaving actually frustrated me because I wanted to be able to go back to town and now I couldn't. So it wasn't like I didn't even look at the elevator shaft. But the second sign about not jumping down -- which is what's supposed to steer the player in the right direction -- looked like it was just flavor for book-ending the one at the top.

So yeah, shame on me for not jumping down the shaft. As I said, my annoyance is probably irrational. But the irony is that if I hadn't been told to look for somewhere "below" me, I would have just jumped down the shaft because I wouldn't have felt like I was being steered to the other part of the screen.

I actually like the "dungeons" in this game; they actually feel a lot like Zelda dungeons with a turn-based battle system, which was a dream game I concocted back when I was 12 for sure. There's more exploration and experimentation required than in a typical JRPG.

And yeah, now I'm wrapping up side quests before the end and I'm like "where the hell has THIS game been?" It's so much better now. Just took way too long to get here.

colliding posted...

I actually like the "dungeons" in this game; they actually feel a lot like Zelda dungeons with a turn-based battle system, which was a dream game I concocted back when I was 12 for sure. There's more exploration and experimentation required than in a typical JRPG.

You gotta play CrossCode then

Crosscode isn't turn based battle though so don't go in expecting that.

Just got my 5th party member. Very enjoyable game so far. The battle system is totally fine with me and "not having a ton of options" is a little refreshing. I do wish I could quick travel as I've spent a lot of time walking through already traversed "dungeons" to get to places with side quests and rainbow conches.

junk_funk posted...

I do wish I could quick travel as I've spent a lot of time walking through already traversed "dungeons" to get to places with side quests and rainbow conches.

Agreed this is my biggest gripe. Personally I'd suggest just waiting until the very end of the game to get all of the conches because you can't get some of them until then anyway. I mean I guess if you see one try to get it but otherwise you're going to be doing a lot of backtracking later anyway.

Beat the game last night, including all the bonus stuff

The ending was a pretty big letdown

Honestly yeah I agree but I think Reshan and the Fleshmancer will appear in more games from them.

Yeah, I think so too.

I think this game got too caught up in its worldbuilding and forgot to craft a good story arc

Yeah if they were always going to let Fleshmancer escape then they really needed a better ending for the 2 characters who betray you. I know Brugaves ends up as a Messenger character but the other girl got nothing, even in the original ending.

I was happy with the ending, personally. The true ending is quite a bit worse than the normal ending though.

I have been a lot slower than the rest of you, but Ive also been sick the past two weeks. I just beat the Dweller of Woe and Im still enjoying it so far. Think I might officially have a 4th party member now. Fighting groups of 4 enemies has felt a little rough so far even when blocking because theres a lot of AoE or just high damage in general while the spoiler above was easy enough to sleep through.

True ending complete!

Good: Exploration, visuals, music,
Bad: Writing, pacing, battle system.
Ugly: The most boring non-silent protagonists in rpg history? You be the judge!

I have to say the music is legit great

Maybe even the best part of the game

Would agree

Been thinking about this some more now it'd been a bit since I beat the game.

The major issue with the game that I have is that it feels like the world was put together from a jumble of "cool ideas", with the story following along a path to get you from one idea to the next. The cast almost feels like an afterthought in a weird way.

I thought it was cool that there were various stories about the world that Teaks could tell you, but I found it a little silly how you are shoved into all of them over the course of the story. Part of me longs for something like Planescape: Torment, where you hear about other places but never actually visit those places. It made the world feel so much larger rather than the theme park approach of seeing everything.

The cast left a lot to be desired. Obviously everyone talks about the protagonists having no distinguishing personality traits, but Resh'an and B'st felt like they had similar issues. The former is very detached from everything and the latter comes so late that he almost feels like a bonus character rather than part of the main cast. It felt like Garl and Serai are the only characters I was interested in, and the game doesn't even tell you anything meaningful about Serai until 2/3 of the way through the game.

Minor gripe: I hate how the game decided to write out "Hahahaha!" whenever someone laughed. I could be wrong, but I feel like Chrono Trigger just used the sprite animations to get this across, and that felt so much more natural.

I think the battle system was fine, but it really did need more skills. When I'm still using Moonerang against the last boss it feels kinda...eh. as someone else mentioned, delay is broken as fuck though. Once you figure that out, some of the late game bosses become jokes.

I'm a little miffed that the game locked me out of selecting only offensive stat boosts for the entirety of the game. If you're gonna give me a choice, let me commit to it!