There will be story spoilers near the end of the review. You have been warned
I identify as a “JRPG fan”. While I don’t play them very often any more, during my formative years, I yearned for the story driven adventure. The rag-tag crew of warriors, travelling across the land, building their might and magic to return peace and tranquility to the land. Among some of my favourite games on the SNES were Final Fantasy IV (which was called Final Fantasy II in North America), and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.
Back in June, Sea of Stars appeared on my radar after its tremendous Steam Next Fest demo. It was gorgeous, polished, and I couldn’t wait to dive deeper into the world. Sabotage Studio had previously created The Messenger, which was an obvious labour of love from a dedicated team of folks who first and foremost loved games. I had fully missed the crowdfunding campaign, but I was beyond hyped when I was the release for the game was only a few months away.
Drawing on inspirations like Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, Sea of Stars is a turn based RPG that features an active combat mechanic where you can deal extra damage, or defend damage by pressing a button at just the right time. Instantly I was engaged, getting the two hit strikes in one the early enemies gave a rush, and kept me from just mashing the A button the whole time, like I do in some other RPGs (cough Pokemon cough).
Adding another wrinkle of complexity, attacks have various attributes, like blunt or blade, lunar or solar power, and poison or arcane. Monsters across the world will charge their special attacks, but in doing so, leave themselves vulnerable to a specific combination of elements. If you can manage to hit all their vulnerabilities, you’ll interrupt their attack! Sometimes fully staggering an enemy is impossible, but breaking even just some of the locks will reduce the amount of damage they deal to your party.
While engaging, the combat system isn’t particularly deep. There’s no status effects, buffs or debuffs to worry about. Battle is about hitting hard and fast and exploiting your enemies weaknesses. There are combo attacks that you can build up to, but by the time your team is fully realized, you’ll have a handful of strategies that you’ll deploy over and over again, with the only changes being to hit those locks as they pop up. And when all else fails, Moonarang everyone to death.
Further to the combat, Sea of Stars features a lush and vibrant world. The colour is bold and bright, the lighting is dynamic and breathtaking. I couldn’t stop myself from taking screenshot after screenshot of the gorgeous vistas. There are so many moments in Sea of Stars that are just a visual delight. The environments are a joy to flow through, with a ton of different ledges and cliffs to grapple and climb. Most dungeons may be fairly linear, but they feel interesting. It’s also easy to move through, instead of trying to find the exact right pixel to press “jump” at. Sea of Stars also is very generous in that it never makes you backtrack. You either exit at the back of a dungeon, or, a shortcut is unlocked that enables you to get back to the entrance easily. Of course, as the game progresses and you explore more of the world, the options for travel get better and better.
The only thing that tops how this game looks, is how it sounds. Composer Eric W. Brown has done a phenomenal job in creating beautiful sounds for every biome Sea of Stars has to throw at you. The battle music keeps you pumped and energized, while the overworld music calms you down. The music lends to the world building as well, making each local memorable
The characters and dialogue was charming right from the get-go. From Garl’s unceasing optimism to Yolande’s fourth wall breaking jokes, I relished the characters and the stories they told to and with each other. Now, perhaps it’s just me, but in reading the promotional material for Sea of Stars, there was a fair amount of emphasis on the fact that you’ll have a ship to act as your home base. Much ado was made about this fact, but in my normal play through, I only really entered the “ship mode” and interacted with the characters like… twice. I used the ship a ton, it’s necessary to traverse the waterlogged world, but interacting with the characters took place at campsites and cities.
Story spoilers begin here
So, great visuals, great sound, great characters, great locales, what’s not to love about Sea of Stars? Well, the story is one of duty, loss, betrayal, but all underpinned with a sense of optimism. When childhood heroes betray you, or when the very best of us is the one to pay the ultimate price, it plays on some very emotional moments. The heroes never give up, even when things seem bleak. Ultimately, I got the feeling that the heroes struggles were somewhat meaningless. The solstice warriors are the only ones who can save the world from these terrible monsters, and only during a solstice, but when your order is betrayed and your mentor just gives up, the heroes are left to fight on their own. And while they do ultimately kind of succeed, the larger conflict feels so much more grand than the journey we go on. While we toil against our little villains, there is a much larger conflict that we’re just a small part of, and it made me feel like our sacrifices and pain was ultimately for naught.
In the same vein of Van Hohenheim and Father from Full Metal Alchemist, a pair of immortal beings (the Alchemist and the Fleshmancer) are waging a centuries long conflict. Once the best of friends and confidants, they grew apart as one descended into ‘forbidden’ arts, while the other, taking the high road, ultimately faded into obscurity. This conflict lies above our heroes in Sea of Stars, and I actually got Tales of Symphonia vibes from the story here. The solutions the heroes sought out were considered impossible by anyone who had experience, but they were too ignorant or dumb to know that. This is highlighted when one of the heroes grabs a flask and hurls it at an abomination, shattering an ancient covenant between the two immortal beings and ultimately causing the death of a party member.
Approaching the end of the story the first time, it feels like some of the characters just got bored and left of their own volition. The Alchemist who seemed so invested in you just, snaps his fingers, leaves you with a puppet, and walks away. The Fleshmancer who was so intent on growing world eating abominations, likewise just, disappears after you defeat his final champion. The Alchemist says “Time to go” and they just leave together. The heroes ascend into godhood, and the credits roll.
There is a true ended, locked behind completing several tasks that will scatter you to the corners of the world again. This time, when you confront The Fleshmancer, you actually take them on directly instead of their champion. A little more satisfying, for sure, but again, the end of the fight just has The Alchemist pull them up off the ground by their hand, and gently nudge them into a portal. The solstice warriors ascend to Godhood and fly off to deal with the world eaters. No real resolution to the conflict of the Alchemist and Fleshmancer, just… an end. The only real difference is a single life saved, which doesn’t really matter in the scope of centuries. I’d expect a true ending to be quite a bit different, with an actual resolution. I enjoyed that the true ending boss was different, but the broad strokes of the story remained the same.
One more criticism comes in the form of Teaks. Not her character specifically, but just the fact that she has a magic book. Heaven forbid she be knowledgeable from her years of dedication and study. Nope, she just has a magic book that spells out the history of certain objects for her. I did enjoy the lore she injected into the story, but I wanted her to be so much more, and actually be competent because of her skills and knowledge, not just the holder of a magic book. She was treated as cargo, and I feel like her character could have been so much more.
Story qualms aside, I still really enjoyed Sea of Stars. Like their previous game The Messenger, it’s obvious that Sabotage Studio is a group of talented and dedicated video games lovers. I still had a blast playing Sea of Stars, to the point where I actually sought out the true ending. While the ending disappointed me, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Sea of Stars looked and sounded great, and I still really enjoyed the adventure. It’s one that I would recommend to anyone who professes a nostalgic love for JRPGs, especially the ones that served as inspiration for this game. There’s plenty of room in the story for a sequel, so I’ll keep my eyes on Sabotage to see what they come up with next.
There’s something special about the indie scene. In a world where media content is seen as products and the priority for many people is to make a return on their investments, the indie scene stands out as a place for passionate people to create the games they want to play, and to showcase their love for the medium.
Sabotage Studio embraces that ethos. Created by just 12 people, The Messenger is a celebration of classic retro-platforming in the same vein as Ninja Gaiden or Metroid, or Castlevania. The inspirations are clear and their reverence for the past is obvious.
Looks can be deceiving. I fear that the 8-bit graphical style will immediately turn players away, especially considering it’s up against hundreds of games that use full 3D models, cel-shaded characters that pop off the screen, and fantastic dynamic lighting effects. Thankfully, The Messenger gets you into the action right away. You move, you jump, and you swing your sword. The key hook of the game is the cloudstep manoeuvre, which allows you to make another jump if you manage to smack something with your sword while in midair. Those mechanics will take you through most of the game, with only your skill and timing being the barrier to progressing. Movement is satisfying, and when you’re fully kitted up, The Messenger can flow through the level in a way that just makes you feel like you’re a ninja.
The Messenger‘s story is simple and fast. A foretold demon appears to destroy humanity, but a hero from the west appears to stop it. He hands you the scroll and tells you to deliver the scroll to the mountain, all the way to the right. And with that, you’re off, racing along various biomes, slashing and jumping over any obstacle that gets in your way. The soundtrack by Eric W. Brown (or Rainbowdragoneyes on Spotify) is absolutely brilliant. It’s fast, frenetic, and feels nostalgic while being entirely new. Every new biome and encounter has thematic music, and every new track becomes a fast favourite of mine.
As you make your way through each of the biomes, you’ll see ledges you can’t reach, and goodies that seem impossible to access. Like any metroidvania game, you’ll obtain a few upgrades to improve your manoeuvrability as the game progresses. A rope dart (it’s a grappling hook, come on) that lets you grab ledges that are out of reach, a wingsuit that slows your fall, and climbing claws that let you cling to walls. There’s a great feeling of discovery as you enter each biome. What upgrade will you unlock? What new enemies or boss will you need to overcome? What story will the shopkeeper tell? All of it kept me engaged and pushing forward.
The dialogue in The Messenger is consistently high quality and hilarious. From the shopkeeper’s long-winded diatribes, to the stories she tells, to the death screen quotes negging you, all the text feels like it’s coming from a group of passionate individuals. Every interaction with the shopkeeper felt like its own reward, and the dialogue with the bosses often subverted my expectations.
At first, The Messenger is incredibly linear. Just keep running right. If you haven’t seen the gameplay trailer, you may not see the big twist coming, but a few hours into the game you unlock the ability to travel to the 16-bit future. Complete with new soundtracks, new art styles, and a sweet new hat, The Messenger opens up. Now you can backtrack to all the places you couldn’t reach before, and the feeling of freedom comes in strong.
Unfortunately, with the feeling of freedom, the feeling of discovery goes away. The biomes are changed, especially with the new aspect of time travel, opening new paths that were previously unavailable to you, and there are a few wholly new areas, but the pacing slows way down. You’re now tasked to collect 6 music notes, and they’re spread all over the world. With only cryptic messages to lead you, it can be a frustrating slog revisiting old biomes, searching for the fork in the path that will lead you to the item that the game wants you to get.
Even worse, the shopkeepers dialogue dries up. It’s hard to overstate how much of a reward getting new quips and stories from the shopkeeper was for me. After you’ve unlocked the ability to time travel, the dialogue becomes few and far between. It’s a dramatic shift in pacing that was jarring and disappointing, but in no way prevents me from recommending continuing on with the adventure. After the 16-bit era is unlocked, the characters you blazed by in the first half of the game come back, and their characters are developed. Going from single line villain’s to having tragic backstories and even helping you on your adventure, making it to the end of each plot line feels satisfying.
I died a lot while playing The Messenger. The little demon assigned to keep you alive would periodically let me know that my deaths were nearing triple digits. I never felt like The Messenger was being unfair. The gameplay and controls are so tight that when I died, I knew it was my own faults, and with enough practice and skill I could overcome whatever trial was keeping me down. The checkpoints are fairly generous, without making me replay long sections of a level over and over again.
Unlike many games releasing today, The Messenger felt like a product of passion. Sabotage Studios wanted to create a fun game that paid homage to the games that made us who we are today. Many games released today make me feel like I’m playing a product, one that’s designed to suck money out of my wallet, or just another game in a franchise. I’ve always despised the games as a service model, and The Messenger is a breath of fresh air. It’s just a good, fun video game.
Right from the get-go, Wandering Towers sets a joyous tone. The Tall box art depicts a witch on a hill, holding her wand aloft, causing a stack of towers to rise from the earth below, as a woodland animals flee in bug-eyed horror.
In Wandering Towers, you play as procrastinated wizards. The goal is to fill your potion bottles and get all the wizards of your house into castle Ravenskeep. Players can either move their wizards, or move the towers on the board, which may stack up and trap wizards on the lower levels. Trapping wizards under towers allows you to bottle their magical essence and fill your potions, which furthers your victory conditions. Players can expend full potions to activate some magic spells to tip the scales to their favour.
The titular towers are made of cardboard, and must be assembled prior to the first play. These are thick cardboard pieces that fit very snugly together, but the box easily accommodates them in their assembled state, removing the need to disassemble them between plays. Thank goodness!
The wizards are custom meeples in 6 different colours, but not all wizard clans are equal. There’s 5 yellow and blue wizards for 2 player games, 4 red and green for the 3 and 4 player game, and 3 orange and purple for the 5 and 6 player game. I dislike that I can’t choose to be purple when I want to play a two player game, it feels really cheap to skimp on the number of wizards for each colour.
Designers Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer have a long a storied history of creating excellent games, both as a collaborative duo, and as solo designers. From 6 Nimmt! to Azul, to Vikings, to Downforce and El Grande, these two designers have proven time and again that they know how to make great games. And Wandering Towers is perhaps a bit of a departure in terms of theme, but in the quality of the gameplay, their polish and experience shines through.
The board is a circular track on which all the towers sit, some towers and board spaces have an eagle crest that dictates where castle Ravenskeep will move to, but other than that, the board is just spaces to move on. Each player is given 3 cards, and on any given turn, a player plays two of their cards, carrying out the depicted moves, then draws back up to 3 cards. Everything moves in a clockwise direction, and the first player to fill all their potion bottles and drop all their wizards into the tower is the winner.
The artwork and aesthetic of Wandering Towers is light, breezy, and whimsical, kind of like a Studio Ghibli movie. It’s childlike in the joy that comes from clamping a tower down on your opponents. Very quickly, Wandering Towers turns into a shell game. You’ll think you have a bead on where all of your wizards are, but then two tower shuffles later, and you’ll be left wondering where all your friends have gone off to.
The core gameplay and strategy of Wandering Towers is fairly simple. But the fun isn’t in peeling back layers of depth, it’s found in dropping towers on your friends heads. Round and round you’ll go moving your wizards or clamping down a pile of picks, trapping your friends. Because you need to trap wizards 6 times before you can attempt to win the game, everyone will get caught several times. It’s take-that, but it ends up feeling evenly distributed. And yes, you do need to move that tower off your head before your wizard can continue on their journey to Ravenskeep, it doesn’t feel horrible, because you can remember where they are. Right? And no matter how many towers are stacked on your head, it only takes one action to move the tower along the path, so you’re never buried in a way that makes you feel like it’s impossible to catch up.
There was one game where my partner boldly declared “my wizard is right there”, and pointed halfway up a small spire of cardboard. I nodded, believing her as I was focusing on remembering where two of my other wizards were, and we continued to play. A few turns later, she played her a card to move towers and said “I’ll reveal my last wizard here, and then I’ll move it into the keep for the win!” as she lifted the tower, she was greeted not with the friendly blue wizard she was looking for, but with my yellow wizard instead. We were both shocked. We were both positive that her wizard was indeed in that tower, the final blue pawn was now lost, potentially under any tower on the board.
It’s those lapses in judgment that bring a smile to my face. The unexpected shock of discovering your memory is fallible. The frantic shuffling of towers, making all the other hidden wizards revealed, or hopelessly lost.
At the end of the day, Wandering Towers is a quick and light game. It’s fun, it’s interactive and combative without feeling like you’re being directly attacked, and never makes you feel like you’re out of the running. The tactile nature of stacking towers is satisfying, and the attempts at distracting your opponents in the hopes that they’ll forget which level their wizard is on brings a smile to my face. The production is lovely, and it’s just a fun toy to play with.
As a child, my sister and I would sometimes visit my aunt and uncle. They lived about 4 hours away, so it wasn’t every weekend, but twice a year or more we’d make the trip over and spend a week there. We were about 10 years younger than my cousins, so there wasn’t much in the way of age appropriate toys and games for us to play with. By the time I was 6, all the kids toys seemed to move on from the household.
What was left behind was a smattering of board games. While I have memories of hours long games of Risk at the table, my sister and I ended played a lot of Guess Who together. It was a great toy for us, the snappy plastic tray, flipping down faces as we deduced who each other’s secret identity was, then just a quick flip of the tray to reset the game.
Dinosaur Tea Party by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Justin D. Jacobson, published by Restoration Games in 2018 seeks to re-imagine the deductive reasoning game from my youth, but puts a charming coat of paint onto the formula. Instead of cartoonish floating heads for me to pick out the features, players are tasked with remembering the name of the dinosaurs that have come to the tea party. Every guest has a set of attributes that the players can ask about, like if they have a hat, or are currently snacking, or if they’ve brought their pet along to the party.
Players each take a card depicting one of the 20 possible dino guests, then ask questions of the other players to try and narrow down who they have on their card. The game culminates with a guess of who they think their opponents are, and the first player to guess correctly 3 times is the winner. Some dinosaurs will have quirks to throw you off, like one will always lie, while another will alternate their answers. There are plenty of little chits that you can use to keep track of who has been asked what.
Making things even more exciting, artists Matijos Gebreselassie and Jason Taylor have imagined each of these dinosaurs as the Victorian gentry. With genteel demeanour, large stuffy hats, and dainty pinkies up while sipping their tea. To add an extra layer of charm, the rulebook demands that everyone embodies the attitude and conduct of a Victorian Nobel. “Gerald, lovely of you to join us! Come hang your hat and have a spot of tea” “Gertrude, what lovely spots you have, I can’t imagine the effort it takes to maintain that complexion” “Amelia, you’re looking rather handsome these days!” “Not handsome enough if you can’t remember my name!” If you’ve been submerged in media such as Jane Austin’s novels, or Downton Abby, it’s great fun speaking in a hoity-toity manner.
Dinosaur Tea Party is a simple game, it’s not strategic, or fair by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a catalyst for imagination, it’s whimsical and hilarious with the right group. For me, the right group always includes my 6-year-old niece. With a cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches, she loves playing make believe and falls right into her role. The purpose of Dinosaur Tea Party isn’t to scratch the deductive reasoning centres of my brain, but it’s to build a relationship with my family. It excels and creating memories and bonds, and for that, I am thankful.
Sea Salt & Paper is a card game that’s about as clear as a foggy day on the open sea. It’s brought to us by Bruno Cathala and Theo Riviere, and let me tell you, it’s a game that’s had me flip-flopping all over the place.
Bruno Cathala should be a household name at this point. From 7 Wonders Duel to Five Tribes to Kingdomino to Mr. Jack Pocket and so much more, he’s produced many games that I’ve enjoyed, to the point where when his name is on a box, I take notice. Theo Riviere on the other hand, while having dozens of titles to his name, I’ve not experienced a single one.
Sea Salt & Paper is a bit like rummy, but it’s got a few tricks and twists up its sleeve. You draw cards, build a hand, meld cards, and aim to “go out,” all in the name of scoring points. Sounds simple, right? Sea Salt & Paper starts deviating from the norm by having two discard piles, one card in each at the start. On your turn, you can draw the top card from either pile or take a gamble and draw two cards from the deck, keeping one and discarding the other into either trash pile.
Once the cards are in your hand, they’re all searching for their partners. You can play a meld if you’ve got the appropriate pair, and you’re in the mood for a little special power. These special powers can change the tide of the game. Pairs of boats give you an extra turn, two crabs will let you fish around in the discard pile and sneak an extra card into your hand, fish will just pull the top card from the deck into your hand. The sharks and swimmers on the other hand will let you steal a card from your opponent’s hand, like a dastardly pirate.
But it’s not just about pairs and special powers; there are other cards in the game that’ll push you to collecting whole sets of cards. Sailors are worth squat on their own, but can make a pretty penny if you collect both of them. Shells and octopuses? Worthless on their own, but they get more valuable the more you collect. Penguins? Same story. And then there are these multiplier cards that offer extra points for these sets, pushing you even harder to ignoring the power cards and gathering the appropriate sets. Lastly, there are mermaids that score based on the number of cards in your most abundant colour. Oh, and they have this push your luck mind-boggling “shoot-the-moon, win-the-entire-game” effect that’s about as rare as a unicorn sighting.
So, what’s the name of the game? Score the most points, of course. When someone has at least 7 points on the board and in their hand, they can trigger the end of the round. They’ve got two choices. You can call STOP and end the round right then and there, and everyone scores the points in their hand. Or, you can shout LAST CALL and bet that your opponents can’t beat your score in one turn. If you win the bet, you score your cards and a colour bonus, while your opponents score only their colour bonus. If you lose the bet, your opponents score their card points, while you only score your colour bonus. After the round ends, all the cards are gathered, reshuffled, then you play again. First player to 40 points takes the crown.
Now, if all of these rules sounds like quite a mouthful for what should be a simple card game, that’s because it is! Sea Salt & Paper feels unnecessarily obtuse with it’s 9 different card types, 4 different powers, and 4 multiplier cards, all interacting with each other in different ways. The rules are as clear as a stormy night at sea, and the game doesn’t hold your hand.
My first play of Sea Salt & Paper felt dismal. It felt like I had no agency, the cards I got never seemed to work, and by the time I managed to get a single meld, someone ended the round. It felt like a random, muddy mess to me. Thankfully, I kept at it, and subsequent games revealed quite a bit of nuance that I completely missed on my first play. I realized just how much of a push-your-luck game Sea Salt & Paper really is. It gives you a dozen different paths and tries to lure you down each one of them. Holding melds in your hand is powerful, allowing you to capitalize on its full power, but you risk someone else calling a sudden end of the round.
One thing I haven’t touched on yet is the charming and gorgeous card art. Nearly every card features a unique origami vignette. It’s so utterly cute and calming that I can’t help but be relaxed and enjoy Sea Salt & Paper. I’ve said before, but pretty games bring people to the table. Even if someone is frustrated by the obtuse rules, gorgeous card art will keep players engaged, even if only to discover all the variety of fish that exist. And by the time the discovery has worn off, the rules feel much less obtuse.
Sea Salt & Paper is a beautiful game for calm moments. This is the deck of cards you should bring with you on vacation, or at the beach. It takes no table space, it’s attractive, and the nuance of all the card interactions allow you to play again and again, discovering new strategies every time. It’s worth summiting the learning curve, and makes for a great afternoon game with friends and family.
