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.
I don’t play many video games to completion any more, or rather, the games I tend to play don’t have a proper ending. Slay the Spire, Enter the Gungeon, Rocket League, and Shotgun King are all examples of the games that I default to playing when I’m tired, or don’t feel like I can commit the time to really get into a video game. Generally I’m procrastinating writing a board game review, or I’m waiting for my toddler to wake up, so she can destroy the house I just spent the last hour cleaning. Situations where I don’t want to spend the time and effort to launch into a campaign, only to be forced to shut it down in a hurry.
The Fire Emblem series has always been broken into manageable chunks, with a chapter encompassing a bit of story, a single battle, some more story, and then some army management before repeating for the next chapger. It was easy to budget my time accordingly. Knowing what to expect in terms of session length encouraged me to launch the game more frequently than some of the other games that are still sitting half finished in my queue. Borderlands 3, Dragon Quest XI, and Ni No Kuni 2 are all games that I started that I don’t play because I feel like I don’t have enough time to really sit down and enjoy them.
What is a Fire Emblem?
Fire Emblem is a tactical RPG franchise developed by Intelligent Systems. The Franchise is known for it’s grid based tactical combat, hosting a large cast of colourful and varied characters, and featuring perma-death of said characters. Generally being set in a magical, medieval world, complete with kings, knights, mages, and dragons, the story usually revolves around a certain blue haired lord fighting back against an invading army.
The Titular object, the Fire Emblem, is different in each game. In the Sacred Stones, it was a magical gem, in Path of Radiance, it was a medallion, in Fates, it was a chainsaw sword. It fills whatever role the plot requires it to be.
Fire Emblem: Engage tells the story of Alear, the Divine Dragon, who has awoken from their 1,000 year slumber, only to be thrust into a conflict that could result in the destruction of not only Elyos, but of all worlds in the universe. To combat this ancient evil she embarks on a quest to collect all the Emblem Rings, because only with their power united, does our heroes stand a chance against the darkness.
My History with the Series
I’ve been a fan of the Fire Emblem series since I was 15 years old, when Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones made its way into my Game Boy Advance. It kicked off a decades long love for the tactical RPG genre of games, and taught me what a ROM was, and how to patch fan translations simply to access the 6 games that never made it over to North America. The turn based combat of units moving around a grid, all of their stats boiled down to a damage value and a hit chance. I’ve had my bacon saved more than once with a 5% critical hit chance pulling through, and I’ve had whole battles thrown down the drain at the very end becuase I got a hit when there was a 70% chance to miss. Luck swings both ways I suppose.
Etie has a 100% chance to do 64 damage, with a 5% chance to land a critical, which triples the damage of that attack
One of my favourite features of the Fire Emblem series has always been the relationships the characters can develop with each other. As characters fight alongside each other, they gain ‘support’ and can have support conversations with each other, developing each character’s backstory. I remember laying on my living room floor, pairing sets of characters, and just grinding out skirmish after skirmish, trying to unlock each of the character’s support conversations. It was a long process, but in the end I was successful. Then I discovered the internet, and I no longer had the need to grind out support conversations for myself.
I’ve played the majority of the Fire Emblem games that have been released in English, but I am by no means an expert, I generally play on the normal difficulty with the perma-death turned on, I loved Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, and Awakening. I liked Shadow Dragon, was luke-warm on Fates and Three Houses (too much army management downtime, the dating-sim aspect was too prevelent for my liking), and was actually angry at Radiant Dawn, just due to how bad the support conversations felt.
In Fire Emblem: Engage, the support conversations themselves aren’t that engaging, no one is going to pull these quotes and create inspirational wallpapers with them. But they’re great little vignettes that give colour and personality to the characters that you bond with. It’s kind of amazing how attached you can get to a character, after they’ve pulled through impossible situations for you, and bared their heart to the other characters. It’s that level of attachment that makes the perma-death mechanic so impactful. It physically hurts me when I make a mistake, and Jill, my wyvern knight, takes an arrow to the heart and falls. I restart my game every time, determined to make it to the end without losing a single character.
Weaponized Nostalgia
The gameplay keeps to traditions by including the tried and true weapon triangle, but turns it on it’s ear by including a ‘break’ mecahnic. If you smash into a sword user with a lance, you’ll ‘break’ them, rendering them unable to counter attack. This tweak really helps get the weaker, or less defensively capable units into the battle, as they can slip in, deal some damage without getting one-shotted by the opponent.
The new gameplay hook in Fire Emblem: Engage comes in the form of Emblem Rings. Artifacts that allow the wearer to engage with a spirit in the form of heroes from prior Fire Emblem games, such as Ike from Path of Radiance, or Byleth from Three Houses. Doing so can grant a myriad of benefits, such as new special attacks, enhanced stats, special legendary weapons, and more. Spending more time engaged also grants the unit special skills, and new weapon proficiencies, which in turn allows the unit to change into more classes.
By including a main character from every main line Fire Emblem game, I found myself with an overwhelming affinity towards some of the spirits. I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of some of my favourite characters, such and Lyn and Ike. Further to just their presence in the game, each emblem has their own paralogue, which recreates a pivotal moment from their game. For Lucina, it recreates the battle in Arena Ferox, where she first fought her father, Chrome. For Ike, you relive the chapter from Path of Radiance where Ike is cornered in a fortress with enemies flowing in from all sides. Each time I approached a paralogue, I felt a surge of nostalgia, and a strong urge to replay those older games. Having these nostalgic hooks in me kept me engaged, thirsting to play more. I couldn’t wait to find the next emblem, or tackle the next chapter, which is good, because one thing that didn’t keep be engaged, was the story.
Scantily Clad Children
Look, I’m not expecting artistic prose, or dialogue that makes me weep from a Fire Emblem game, but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the overly dramatic, anime-esqe, trope filled plot line. From multiple characters striken with convenient amnesia, characters being raised from the dead multiple times, and a dash of time travel left me rolling my eyes more than once. Some of the support conversations, which used to be my favourite part of a Fire Emblem game, left be sighing. I got annoyed when Etie’s entire personality was just “Work out, get buff”, and that same sentiment was repeated with every support partner she had.
It’s not as bad as Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but it’s nowhere near almost any other game since 2004, where the characters felt more real and fleshed out, less one dimensional. They formed different relationships with different characters that made reading all the different support conversations fun. In Fire Emblem: Engage, it feels like each character has one trait, and they just repeat that same trait in every support conversation. It wasn’t enough to drive me away from the game, but I wasn’t compelled to seek out more support conversations than what happened organically.
A much harsher criticism that I have has to do with the character costumes that I simply found problematic. Never have I ever been more aware of the scantily clad children, running into battle with midriffs and cleavage bare. Heaven forbid characters protect their organs or eschew constant fan service. I know this isn’t new, I’m sure I could find a busty, nearly bare chested character in every game, and my distaste for problematic costumes likely stems from the fact that since becoming a father, I’m much more aware of how women are portrayed in media. But man did it feel front and centre in Fire Emblem: Engage. Between Ivy and Zelestia’s chests, and the bare tummy and spandex shors of the Sage class, I felt awkward playing this in front of my wife and kid.
Lady, there is a war going on! Put on some pants!
Final Thoughts
What Fire Emblem: Engage does well, is gameplay. I had FUN playing this game! There’s freedom to grow your army however you want it. Jade comes to you as a knight, but with just a couple skirmishes with the right emblem attached, you can turn her into an archer. Or a Pegasus knight. You can mix and match emblem skills with class skills, and unique character powers to customize exactly how you want to fight each battle. Do you want defensive Framme to one-shot the boss? Have at it! Feel like turning the heavily armoured Diamont into a mage? Not recommended, but fill your boots! I never felt stuck or like my team was missing something, because I could so easily use any character I wanted to fill any role that needed filling. Turning the Thief Yunaka into a nimble Wolf Knight that no one could hit felt way better than I expected it to.
There’s a lot in Fire Emblem: Engage that I didn’t explore. I barely crafted weapons, I hardly cooked, or donated resources. I didn’t battle in a single skirmish, and I have over a dozen relay tickets that I didn’t touch. There’s a lot more game to explore here if you’re so inclined, and if you don’t want to engage with those systems, you don’t have to, which I love. One of my biggest problems in Fire Emblem: Three Houses was the full hour it took between every combat to run around and collect all the little items, talk to every character, play all the mini-games, over and over and over again. I like they dialed back the dating-sim elements here, and made it, so I could be competitive in a normal game while not sinking excess time in army management simulation.
There’s a very good chance that I’m going to replay Fire Emblem: Engage, which is probably the highest praise I could give it, given how limited my video game time is these days. I want to use another 12 characters that I immediately benched in my previous playthrough to see how different the game feels. Considering how popular Alcrest and Hortensia are, I should probably let them play at least a few battles.
I am so disappointed by Mario Strikers: Battle League. I’m so thankful that I borrowed this from the library and didn’t actually spend any of my hard earned money for this game.
This game starts with such promise. The training mode shows all kinds of cool skills that could theoretically raise the skill ceiling and make this such a great experience. There’s a limited number of characters in the game, but the gear they include allow you to tweak their stats to tailor to your game play style. The stat changes provided by gear is net-zero though, every point added to a stat takes away and equal number of points from another stat, so there isn’t a good reason to dive into it unless you specifically want to make a character over powered in a single stat at the cost of all the others. It’s not an interesting, exciting, or engaging aspect of the game.
No story or challenge mode?
The first round of cups are fairly easy, but fun. Each cup pits you against teams that specifically focuses on one of the 5 stats (strength, speed, shooting, passing, and technique), and the last cup is the “best all around teams”. I should mention, each game is 4 minutes long, and it’s a double elimination tournament with 4 teams. Assuming you don’t lose any games, you’ll finish a cup after only 12 minutes of game play. Of course, it takes a bit longer than 12 minutes with the Hyper Strike animations (which are gorgeous, but repetitive), and the highlight reels, if you choose to watch those.
After beating all the cup battles, you unlock ‘Galactic Mode’, which raises the difficulty significantly. Unfortunately this is where the game breaks down for me. All the opponent AIs are brutal and violent. They’re constantly tackling all of your characters, and are adept at intercepting passes. As a consolation prize for getting tackled when you don’t have the ball, you get an item, which is useful. However, because all four of the opponent AI are turned way up, it highlights how absolutely brain-dead your AI controlled team-mates are. It wasn’t uncommon after two passes for all four of my characters to be tackled, leaving the opposition with a clear shot on my goal. It’s also not uncommon for your teammates to just stand around when you have the ball, not getting clear from the opponents, giving you no opportunity to pass without just handing over the ball.
woo
Mario Strikers Battle League seemingly wants you to control all 4 of your characters together, but doesn’t give you options to do so. The change character button doesn’t cycle through all the characters, but swaps between the two characters that are closest to the ball. When I finally beat all 6 Galactic Cup tournaments, I wasn’t filled with pride. I felt hollow. Empty in my heart where my rage and frustration had been sitting for the last hour. Never did I feel like it was my skill that won the Galactic Cups, just luck. I got the right items at the right time, happened to get a break away, and the same charged shot that had been blocked before now just happens to go into the net.
I pine for the previous games. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of my youth, but I remember these games being properly difficult. Where when I lost I wasn’t mad at the AI, but knew that it was my own lack of skill that lost the game. That feeling pushes me to get better, and when I finally overcome the challenge, I’m elated. In Battle League, it’s just frustration and luck.
I’ve won, but I feel empty
What about unlocks? As I said above, once you beat the first 6 cups, you unlock the Galactic Mode, and you unlock the Bushido Armor for each character. Again, Gear is a weak unlock, as it’s a zero-sum benefit.
After you beat each Galactic Mode cup, your only reward is the palette swapped trophy. No new armor, no recognition, and no further game play to explore. Sure, there’s the online mode where you can play against people online, but that’s doesn’t count as content in my eyes. Mario Strikers: Battle League as it stands now, can be completed in 3 to 5 hours of game play. Banging your head against the wall of unfair difficulty can pad out the game time, but it still only took me a total of 5 hours to beat every cup twice cups and explore ALL that this game has to offer solo players, which frankly, is unacceptable.
Actually, doing the math, if I wanted to unlock all the gear for all the characters, I’d need 32,000 coins. So, I technically could keep grinding out matches until I earn enough currency to do so, but AGAIN, gear is nearly pointless. Why even bother?
I feel you, Yoshi
My recommendation: Rent or borrow if you’re really interested. There is not enough content to warrant paying full price, and after just a few hours I’m sure you’ll be hanging up your cleats to do anything else.
