First Thoughts on the Sea of Stars demo

 Sea of Stars (Demo)

    I'm a bit late on the draw for this one, as the demo for this has been out for a month or 2 now but this weekend I finally got around to checking out the demo for the upcoming RPG Sea of Stars. Developed by by Sabotage Studio, the same people behind The Messenger, is a prequel set in the same universe but centuries before hand. I didn't know any of this going into the demo and now that I'm finding this out I see why the game is like it is quality-wise. The thing that originally attracted me to the game like most indie games I find today was the art style. Most indie games are going for this "retro" pixel art style which I enjoy but I feel like can be a little overdone now. Sea of Stars hits that sweet spot for me where it doesn't try to mimic older hardware, but embraces newer techniques and hardware to make something unique. The more I looked into Sea of Stars, the more hyped I got for this game. Combat looked very similar to Chrono Trigger as well, where enemies were visible on the field, and when you run into them the battle takes place right there. Another concept carried over from Chrono Trigger was depending on how enemies were placed on the field, AOE attacks would strike targets differently if they're closer or further away from each other. So already I knew this would be a game that's officially on the Teeezy radar for cool games, but then they hit me with the real dinger. Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 fame was going to be a guest composer on the game! With all this in mind, why I didn't play the demo sooner I have no idea. I can confidently say now that come August, this will be my most hyped game of the year. Wow, this demo was perfect in giving just a taste of what's to come.

    Alright so let's start with the story. Not much overall has been revealed of the story thus far, as you're thrown into the middle of it. You won't have to worry much about spoilers either, because parts of the game have been [REDACTED] and areas cut off by some NPC's to make it a guided experience. They do let you however interact with characters from the local town and this gives a chance for the writers to flex their chops in this department. Some characters give that standard JRPG dialogue, where others are wittier and show much more personality. My favorite character so far is definitely Garl the Warrior-Cook, who is a ton of fun with lots of smiles and is light-hearted. Walking around the town also just confirmed how beautiful the game looks. Colors are vibrant and details sometimes are so minute that they make you appreciate them even more when you do notice them. The parts that got me the most excited were the music and the combat. Over the past few years I really started to appreciate video game soundtracks and music more and more, as a memorable track over a key moment really hammers home importance and emotion over scenes that make you remember them years after you've played the game. Mitsuda also being on the composer list also got me excited as he's composed some of my favorite tracks in games. The feelings I got when I first entered the overworld and this epic track starts playing have only been matched by the Wind Scene in Chrono Trigger after you first get sent back in time. I literally got chills and just sat on that screen for like 5 minutes. It's not just that one track either, the battle music is catchy too, and I didn't really get tired of it like I thought I would after the 10-15 battles I had. Nothing I heard I would consider bad or repetitive and I can't wait to hear every area of the game. Now for the part that I was the most skeptical on from watching trailers was the combat. In any JRPG combat should be one of the top priorities for the developer, as it's what you're going to be doing a majority of the time. Sea of Stars not only makes combat fun and engaging by bringing back older ideas, but also by incorporating new ones as well. Like I mentioned earlier, battle takes place on the field similar to Chrono Trigger, and placement of enemies can help determine your strategies. The battle system itself isn't an active time battle like most Final Fantasy games, it is strictly turn by turn. You can change what character you want to attack on which turn and you aren't limited to it being one characters turn per se as it gives you the freedom to choose. Another part of the combat that I was happy was there was timing your hits and defending against attacks. If you press the action button at specific times you'll either do more damage when you're attacking, or take less damage from incoming attacks. This concept is nothing new, the Mario RPGs have been doing that for years. However, they don't try to shove that down your throat and just have the timed hits as something that adds a little extra to combat which is always appreciated. When you do time hits however, they build up into a combo meter allowing you to do big attacks with multiple party members at one time so its well worth your time. Lastly, one of the coolest concepts I found was boosting your special moves or attacks. After attacking enemies on the field they drop little orbs that stay on the field during battle. During your turn, you have the option to boost your attack, and the orbs converge up to 3 larger orbs that will power up your next move. Its a clever way to power up your moves without having to spend a turn and use a power-up item or spell, and comes very naturally as you're always going to be attacking enemies. 

TL;DR

    Sea of Stars is shaping up to be one of the best traditional RPGs in recent memory. In almost every aspect Sea of Stars is hitting dingers in its presentation, combat, dialogue and characters. It combines old standard ideas with some fresh concepts for a mish-mash of excellence. The world looks diverse and I'm pumped to learn more about the lore and characters that live in it. Combat and music are the major highlights for me, with the music making me feel how I did playing some of my favorite games, and combat staying engaging and diverse letting me strategize how I want to go about things freely. My only regret was playing the demo so early, because now I have to wait 3 months for the game to come out! If Sea of Stars isn't on your radar, it needs to be as its shaping up to be one of the best games this year. I played the demo on my Switch, I'm unsure if the demo is out on all platforms, but the game is coming out August 29th, 2023 on Steam, Switch, Xbox and PlayStation, so keep your eye out for this one! 

Here is a link to their website for the game where you can Wishlist and view the store listings for the game. All artwork used in this post was sourced from this site. https://seaofstarsgame.co/

Magazine Spotlight: Nintendo Power Issue 279

Magazine Spotlight

Hey! Thanks for stopping by for another Magazine Spotlight, where I shout out a specific issue of a gaming publication. I've been getting more into some gaming magazines lately, they're a great snapshot as to what was coming out at a specific time and how hype was manufactored for new consoles and games. However as the information age has expanded, it's put magazines in a weird spot. Before they were people's primary source for gaming news and reviews, whereas now there are so many different options as to where you get your gaming information. Nintendo Power is one of those that unfortunately couldn't keep up with the ever changing landscape of gaming publications. It makes sense that Nintendo couldn't keep up with financing their official magazine, especially during this time where the 3DS wasn't doing the hottest and the Wii U was just about to come out and wasn't manufacturing a ton of hype. This is issue 279, which was from June of 2012, the last year of publication of the magazine. I had read Nintendo Power on and off since about 2008-2009 and had a subscription during this last year which I was thankful for. I remembered that some of my magazines never actually came like my October and December of 2012 issues which I still am a little salty over, but things happen lol. I really enjoyed Nintendo Power during this era, because they weren't afraid to give coverage to games that either weren't getting a lot of press or were harder to find. Today, we're going to take a peek at what Nintendo Power was covering in some of it's final days.

This issue is a little bit slow, coming out just before E3 2012 where Nintendo announced a ton of games for it's upcoming Wii U console like Pikmin 3 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Still, this issue is full of great games that would normally get overlooked from a magazine like EGM, especially during this time where they're more focused on the Microsoft and Sony market (rightfully so). One thing I really enjoyed about Nintendo Power was it's writers and editors. They always had Miis for their avatars which helped with putting a face to a name and just showed off some more personality. One such editor was Chris Hoffman, who had a column named "Don't Hassle the Hoff" where fans would send in letters asking Hoff questions. This issue has a letter from a "Shadow the Werehog" (lol) asking why Super Mario Galaxy did not get a 10/10 review score. Hoff responds by saying for one, he didn't review the game it was editor-in-chief Chris Slate that originally reviewed the game and that Hoff would've given the game a 10/10. The other thing he points out however as the only thing holding the game back is Lubba who he describes as "that portly, creepy, purple Grimace wannabe". Which to be completely fair, Lubba does kinda suck and is a major downgrade from Rosalina. 

Power Up was a standard in every issue of the magazine where they would go over news on game releases, what's been going on in Japan and some other smaller columns. This issue however actually has a 3-page interview with Masahiro Sakurai on his game Kid Icarus: Uprising. I always thought it was fitting that he was the lead director on that game, since SSBB was Pit's first appearance since the Gameboy, and had essentially created the basis of personality for modern Pit. Sakurai now has been pushing out game related content onto his Youtube channel for a while now so it's easy to understand his opinions and philosophies when it comes to games, but in 2012 it wasn't always the case and this interview is a great early look into what is important to him. For example, Nintendo Power asks him about DLC and the potential of updating a game with new content after it's already been released. Sakurai says "I welcome DLC that is developed separately as a way to deepen a game experience, like the added content in Fallout 3 that allows players to continue to enjoy the game's world after the ending. Conversely, I'm opposed to the sort of DLC where players have to buy the keys to unlock content that had already been developed. Of course, I understand that there can be a very fine line between the two." This was a pretty hot topic at the time, where companies like Capcom and Bioware were hiding content in a game that was already on the disc at it's retail launch and giving it a paywall to access. It could also be considered an early idea of how Sakurai would handle DLC for some future Smash titles and that he was open to the idea of new content.

This section of the magazine was always one of my favorites, were they would highlight upcoming releases on Nintendo's digital storefronts like the Wii Shop and DSI Shop. The 3DS Eshop was relatively new at this time as well, only being out for about a year at this point so some of it's major content hadn't come out yet. Like I said earlier, Nintendo Power wasn't afraid to give spotlights to games that didn't really have a platform to get their name out there to a wide audience. It's actually how I found out about one of my favorite franchises in Shantae, where they covered the originally DSI shop exclusive Shantae Risky's Revenge.  In this issue they have a nice preview of 1001 Spikes, which is a old-school platformer that had some real difficulty to it. I love some of the artwork here as well for the main characters, this was towards the beginning of the indie boom that's so prevalent in the market today.

On the next page they have reviews on some games that had come out on the digital storefronts. These reviews always tend to be pretty brief in nature and the scoring comes down to "grumble grumble" for a negative game, "hmmm..." for a middle of the road game, and "recommended" for games they enjoy. There weren't too many good games featured this month, but some spotlights include Colors 3D which was a fun art program for 3DS that was a big seller and a big part of Miiverse as well when that was still up and running. Ketzal's Corridors was a game that I didn't really know about until rereading this magazine, and I wish I could buy it now but unfortunately the Eshop on 3DS and Wii U has been shut down and I can't get it anymore. Lastly they give a virtual console shoutout to Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers on Genesis, with the only reason they give it a recommended is that it comes bundled in with online play. You thought fighting games coming out today without rollback netcode was bad, imagine playing against someone thru the Wii's wifi on a stripped down port of SF2. 

The cover article focuses on the upcoming Castlevania: Lords of Shadow-Mirror of Fate and gives a solid look at what the game is going to be like. Personally I'm not too big on the modern Castlevania games, they're not amazing but not bad either. The part of this section that I really enjoyed was where they look back at Castlevania's lineage and some staples of the franchise. They even have some fake awards like the best sub-weapon, and best protagonist that's not a Belmont. Nintendo Power loves doing sections on a game franchise's history, and I enjoyed reading about them growing up as it's how I learned about franchises like Dragon Quest and Zelda and their back catalog. I don't really agree with their choice for best enemy however, the Medusa heads could be not in the game and I would be fine with that. They also give a shout out to some embarrassing moments like the N64 Castlevania games, and the box art within a box art for Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. These sections were always a ton of fun to and were what I tended to look at more when rereading magazines.

 

As the editor-in-chief said in a column at the beginning of the magazine, the Wii's era was coming to a close at this point in time with the Wii U on the horizon. So Nintendo Power decided to make an awesome list on 30 essential games for the console. They separate the list up by 10 must-haves, should-haves and the nice-to-haves, and then have some separate sections for WiiWare essentials, Virtual Console games and possible future must-haves. Some of these games are no brainers when it comes to the list like Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime Trilogy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but they also shout out some more obscure games that might not be on everyone's radar like Little King's Story, and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom as must-haves. Personally I would have a few different games on the list, like the House of the Dead 2 and 3 collection over Overkill, the lack of Wii Sports anywhere on the list, and I probably wouldn't have the Goldeneye remake on here either, although I do enjoy that game. I also like how in their future essentials they have Skylanders Giants listed there, I still remember when the toys to life was a new thing that companies were trying to push. Overall though, a great list that highlights games and genres that cover the Wii well. 

There aren't too many games being reviewed in this issue, like I said earlier it's a slow season for the game industry just before E3. That doesn't mean however that the games they do review are nothing to slouch at with some decent titles like Pokémon Conquest and Rayman Origins for 3DS. I remember Pokémon Conquest coming out and not really knowing what or why this crossover was happening, but looking back at it now it's a blessing in disguise that it even happened in the first place. The game is a grid based strategy game that uses Pokémon as the units in battle, and the trainers are from the Nobunaga's Ambition series of games which is a long running strategy series. Nintendo Power goes in depth with this review covering 4 pages and gave the game a 9.0 score overall. They do a good job of setting some expectations with Pokémon fans that are used to the gameplay from the mainline series, where the gameplay is a bit slower pace overall as most strategy games tend to be, as well as explaining the history of the Nobunaga's Ambition series. I think they sum up the game pretty well at the end of the review where they say "This may not be the Pokémon adventure you expect, but it's definitely on worth playing". Rayman Origins also got a good score of an 8.5 which it definitely deserves, Origins and Rayman Legends are awesome platformers.

New Game Pickups as of 5/6/23

 New Game Pickups!

Here we are back again with a new game pickups. The rest of this month has been pretty good overall, found some decent games that I've known about for a while now, as well as some games I just picked up on a whim. Local game shops have been pretty good as of late, the one closest to my house had some uncommon games brought in. I mostly have been buying lower dollar games, I haven't found anything super interesting as of late that's higher dollar. Research has been slow as well finding those games that I'm SUPER interested in, mostly because I've been learning about my new job, but I've also been actually playing some of my games (crazy I know). With that being said, lets look at some of the new games!

Game #1

It finally came out! At this point I never thought it would with all of the delays from it being one of my most anticipated games of 2022, to one of my most of 2023. Originally developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Gameboy Advance, with this remake developed by Wayforward and published by Nintendo, Advance Wars is a strategy RPG where you control an army and it's units in order to defeat another army. I grew up playing the original Advance Wars and it's what got me into branching out into some other SRPG's. The charm of the units and character design, music and simple to understand yet difficult to master combat were things I was looking forward to in the remake. Something interesting that I saw (haven't confirmed yet) that because the game was delayed for about a year, if you got the physical version you aren't able to redeem the gold points for the game because you have to do so within a 12 month period of buying the game. Strange how this series has a history of delays due to real world events, with this game being delayed because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the original release being cancelled in Japan and not released until several years later in a combo pack because of 9/11. That being said, I'm glad the game is out now and I can't wait to sink my teeth into this game once I finish some other games.

Game #2

This I picked up on a whim, and because it said Sega on the cover lol. The DS was heavily marketed towards general audiences, so games like this with real world connections and just being simple to understand were prevalent. Sega Casino is another in a line from companies just capitalizing on the trend of the time. It's got 11 different games on the cart that originate from casinos like Blackjack, Texas Hold em' and Roulette. I'd be excited to see if Sega has any of their flair in the music or extra options, maybe see if I can customize my cards or something neat. If not, I got it for 5 bucks and its another piece of Sega to add to my collection.

Game #3

Similar to Sega Casino, this game is part of the Touch Generations series of games that Nintendo put out meant to appeal to a broad range of people. This game however, is a little bit more serious being a murder mystery visual novel. Nintendo has a history of visual novels, originally making a few for the Famicom and actually rereleasing some on the Switch as the Famicom Detective Club games. The game plays similarly to the investigation sections in a Phoenix Wright game where you play as a detective using the touch screen to find evidence, talk with people and try to solve the mystery. As of recently I've been gravitating towards the Visual Novel as a genre, its something that has become much bigger in the states but it wasn't always that way. 

Game #4 

This was another game I picked up on a whim. Growing up I played the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games quite a bit and was always wanting something more than that franchise. I'm hoping that this game will fill a little bit of that gap. Here you play as a Chocobo that ventures through randomly generated dungeons trying to get to the end of it, and maybe fight a boss, leveling up through battling other opponents in a mix of top down SRPG and JRPG combat. The Chocobo series has been prevalent since the PSX era with racing games, mystery dungeon games and other minigame collections. This game also got a remake on the Switch, known as Chocobo Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy!. I don't think this game will have it, but I'm looking for a mystery dungeon game that has some good multiplayer, maybe have 2 players explore each floor simultaneously. I don't have super high hopes for this game, but it's something that I don't see very often so I just had to pick it up. Most of the time when I do pick something up without any substantial research, it's because of a franchise or company that I know from prior experience, or because the cover art looks cool, which this game falls under both categories for me.

Game #5

Personally, I'm not huge on GameCube collecting at the moment. It's that perfect time for most people that grew up with the system to 1. be nostalgic for GameCube and 2. have the income to throw around on reliving that nostalgia. The cost along with me having most of the GameCube games I would already want means I'm not really on the look out. However, Wave Race caught my eye. I've been playing a little bit of the N64 original on my switch, and knew that the GameCube game was the only direct sequel to that. Picked it up for a decent price, and I'm excite to try it out!

Game #6

Similar to Sega Casino, picked this one up on a whim. I liked the specific branding of the New York Times, and I thought now that I'm a little bit older I would know more items to put on the crossword puzzle. I was wrong, still suck at them. Not horrible though.

Game #7

Here's a game that I had known about for a long time, but never really got into until the past few years. I had originally read about the game in Nintendo Power, and then saw Issac in Smash Bros. Brawl as an assist trophy, but I hadn't played the GBA original until about 3-4 years ago. Overall, I enjoyed my time with the game and have the direct sequel. This was the only time i've seen the DS game out in the wild, and so I just had to snatch it up while I had the chance. Probably not going to play in the near future but it's nice to know that I have it in good shape waiting for me to get around to it. 

Game #8

A few months ago I watched a video detailing by Sean Seanson on every Psygnosis game ever released/published by them on the PS1. There were quite a few games I knew that I had to pick up at some point or another, and Demolition Derby was on my list. Also released on the Sega Saturn, this is a racing/car demolition game from the very early era of the PS1. I found it for pretty cheap and it good shape, so another one off of the Psygnosis list.

Game #9

An all time classic. Ice Climber was one of those games I had seen around at a few stores, but never actually pulled the trigger on them because I knew what the game entailed. Not exactly the pinnacle of platforming, but influential on the early NES landscape as part of the Black Box series of games. I think that I enjoy the game a little bit more than most people do as I have a little bit more patience for it. That being said, don't ever spend more than like $20 on this game, it's just not worth it at that. 

Game #10 and #11

For me, these were just pure nostalgia purchases that I didn't have in my collection yet but did when I was a kid. Wii Play still holds up quite well, and it's collection of minigames were a great way to introduce the Wii to my brother and I along with Wii Sports. Wii Music I can't really say the same about. I didn't play it as much as a kid, but the novelty is still fun to just go in and try out some of the instruments. Maybe someday I'll get enough people to have a jam session with 3 other instruments. Probably not, I want to keep my friends not try to push them away lol. 

Game #12

Another old Nintendo Power recommendation, Zach and Wiki was a game that I had my eye on for a long time. Created by Capcom the game was a great showcase for motion controls early on in the Wii's lifespan. I don't really know too much about the game itself, but I had finally found it at a local game store, and I knew I had to grab it then and there.

Game #13

Here is probably the best game out of everything that I had bought in this batch of games. With the new remake out it brought a few people out to praise this game and how it improves upon the original without ignoring what made it fun in the first place. I do want to eventually play the remake and enjoy the RE series from the little that I have played, and I feel like I'll enjoy the remake even more once I play through the original and take note of all the improvements on the series thus far. 

Well I believe that's everything I bought since the last time I did one of these posts. I'm pretty pleased with the amount of games that I was able to find, and got to go to some game stores that I don't normally go to on a regular basis. With that being said I think I'm going to take some time out and focus on a few bigger games rather than just impulse buying games off of their cases/cover art. Probably will end up importing a game or 2 for my Saturn, and looking into some PS2 and PS3 games that I would really want. Thank you for reading and go get some new games yourself!