[Switch, PS5, XSX, PS4] Sea of Stars (Switch) $44, (PS5, XSX, PS4) $34 + Delivery ($0 C&C/ In-Store) @ JB Hi-Fi

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SunsetCowboy on 20/11/2024 - 05:27 jbhifi.com.au (439 clicks)
Last edited 20/11/2024 - 10:13 by 1 other user

Been wanting this on Switch for a while. People seem to be hot or cold on it, but it's at a decent price for a physical copy IMO. Not sure if it will drop more when BF "officially" starts at JB, so maybe keep an eye on it.

PS5: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/playstation-5-sea-of-star…
XSX: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/xbox-series-x-sea-of-star… (Confirmed by @thespensa to still be on Game Pass)
PS4: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/playstation-4-sea-of-star…
Nintendo eShop @ $34: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/877079

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JB Hi-Fi

• 

  thespensa on 20/11/2024 - 06:19

  +4

  This game is still on game pass for those who have it

  • 

    SunsetCowboy on 20/11/2024 - 06:57

    Good to know, thanks for that!

• 

  maverickjohn on 20/11/2024 - 06:29

  +4

  Smashing game if anyone loves classic jrpg. Honestly it was much better than I expected

• 

  jssozb on 20/11/2024 - 07:20

  +6

  Love this game. The recent update adds up to three player co-op as well.

  • 

    mfu on 20/11/2024 - 09:49

    +2

    Oh nice to know. Time to get back to it.

  • 

    maverickjohn on 20/11/2024 - 16:01

    +1

    Whaaaat I finished it late last year ..
    This is an awesome add on

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  hunty mcgee on 20/11/2024 - 09:33

  +1

  Loved this game too.
  My only criticism was I found the first hour or so a little slow and tutorial heavy (fairly common for JRPGs).
  Supposedly that too has even been adjusted with the new update and there’s even free story DLC due out next year.

• 

  Alcaro on 20/11/2024 - 10:38

  +1

  Going against the grain and ready to make a lot of friends by being the cold of that hot and cold reception.
  Sea of Stars is far from a surefire hit, particularly if you have high expectations for writing and polished thoughtful delivery. Neither my wife nor I loved it—She found it "Meh - 6/10." and I hated it and tapped out - DNF.
  If you buy it make sure to play it within your return window to see if it is a keeper for you.

  • 

    hunty mcgee on 20/11/2024 - 11:24

    +1

    Definitely cool to have a differing opinion my guy.
    Some games just don’t land for whatever reason.
    Just curious, do you play comparable games or was this about playing something different?

    • 

      Alcaro on 20/11/2024 - 13:43

      +1

      I'm very particular about writing — for example I will never read Stephen King's fiction again because his prose and sensibilities toward fiction are loud, mercenary and don't gel with my tastes, but I think On Writing and to a lesser extent Danse Macabre are significant works regarding craft and genre and genuine love for each shines through. I don't need or even necessarily like games to have a narrative focus, but if they do it better be good and ideally leverage the medium well.
      My problems with Sea of Stars start in the strange lack of awareness the developers had of their strengths and weaknesses.
      Despite its art being its most obvious strength and them having created a bevy of incredible spritework for all sorts of cutscenes and traversal they didn't make enough dialogue attribution sprites for different emotional states for all the important characters. This exacerbated my main issue which was that dialogue is flat at best and more often glib tin-eared attempts at one-liners, "Oh dear, I appear to have lost an eye." immersion killing blasé reactions and "Hello, fellow 90s kids/you have the face of someone who got betrayed" irony barrages. The tone is perpetually goofy as the game's sole writer can't do gravitas. Worse still, he can't do silence. The Sun and Moon main character pair I can't even remember the names of I only remember Garl and Yolande for how unrealistic and insufferable they were respectively. The game desperately needed an editor/script doctor to remove pointless flab and connective tissue from the script and imbue more authentic and differentiated character voice and nuance and make it have coherent internal logic. The music was great to excellent. I found the initially promising combat fell away with little depth discovered in progression and encounters being undertuned making fights a simple chore by the time I stopped playing. Perhaps that slump corrects itself at some stage, but by that point I had been spiritually waterboarded to the brink of death by Yolande's quips and could no longer continue.
      Ultimately its great pros -visuals and music- didn't outweigh the cons for me because they're hair-trigger issues and while it's a love letter to SNES RPGs it simply doesn't express that love with much understanding of what made them tick instead leaning into the most tiresome meta-observations rather than embracing the campy over the top nature of the genre fully.
      As a general tastes qualifier:
      Some JRPGs I recommend anyone try (yohoho) are Radiant Historia, Final Fantasy Tactics (with a preference towards the War of the Roses script), Vagrant Story, Lost Odyssey, Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu, Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre, Terranigma, Suikoden, Grandia I&II and Final Fantasy 4 through 12 excepting 11, the Paper Mario series and Super Mario RPG.
      Some other RPGs I love and would recommend as more acquired tastes in descending order of vegemite are Hylics, Pathologic 2, Disco Elysium, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

      • 

        hunty mcgee on 20/11/2024 - 15:31

        Thanks for sharing.
        Overall a great list of games.

      • 

        maverickjohn on 20/11/2024 - 16:03

        +2

        While I agree the dialogue wasn't the best.. the story was pretty decent. And there were some hard hitting and impactful scenes.

  • 

    SunsetCowboy on 20/11/2024 - 11:31

    No worries, totally cool! If everyone liked the same games, it'd be a pretty boring place. :)

  • 

    cobknob on 20/11/2024 - 13:08

    How do you rate Octopath Traveler 1/2, Eastward, Terranigma, Secret of Mana? - if you played em..

    • 

      Alcaro on 20/11/2024 - 13:52

      Octopath 1 I didn't like much.
      I enjoyed Octopath 2 quite a bit though I think I took a more cohesive path in completing that one as I started with the Knight.
      Eastward was fun but my save corrupted 12 hours in and I wasn't quite invested enough to sink that time in again, but its atypical theme and art style mean I'll return if it ever gets adequately decached from my noggin.
      Terranigma is one of the greats.
      Secret of Mana is among the few games that play it straight with a generic story and can win you over entirely with charm and execution.

    • 

      maverickjohn on 20/11/2024 - 16:05

      Octopath 2 is GOAT… Well at least of this generation.. it's the only physical game along with Astro bot, that I kept with my ps5 pro (I don't have a disc drive)