Sea of Stars — Retro Futures
Preview
Retro games are happy to live in the shadow of their forebears. Sea of Stars is not only directly inspired by Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, and Breath of Fire, but even the Chrono Trigger composer is directly involved in the soundtrack. Yasunori Mitsuda has contributed to numerous games since the early 90s, giving them a distinct feeling that is hard to emulate. The collaboration with Sabotage Studio, developers of acclaimed metroidvania The Messenger, will ensure that Sea of Stars is true to its ancestors.
This preview is based on the PC demo version available on Steam.
Pixel Aesthetics and Nostalgia
How does pixel art continue to endure in the age of ray tracing and beyond? As I said in another preview recently, it might have something to do with how it leaves something to the imagination, as opposed to photorealism. Sea of Stars leaves plenty to the imagination, even if the art style and the narrative design are clear about what it is trying to do: to make players feel like they are back in the 90s playing a game on their SNES, completely absorbed and immersed in the adventure.
Our sense of nostalgia for classic games can forgive a lot of flaws. A new IP or franchise has to live up to current standards in the industry; a retro-inspired game will always count on the good will of a long-standing community of fans and players. Whether those players will love the game as much as they loved the original titles is up to debate. The developers of Sea of Stars clearly put a lot of love in it as fans of the games that inspired them, and that shows in the demo.
The Legacy of Chrono Trigger
Several games have tried to capture the lightning-in-a-bottle that was Chrono Trigger in particular. Octopath Traveller may have been the most successful attempt in recent years, but most will agree that it was not quite on the same level, mostly because of the usual shenanigans by Squeenix. An indie game might be able to do away with corporate structures, though it certainly wasn’t the case with the ZA/UM takeover and expulsion of the creatives who made Disco Elysium.
Sea of Stars might be in a unique position to capture at least some of that lightning and harness it to give the classic JRPG community something more than carefully crafted pixel art and wistful midi tunes. What Chrono Trigger gave players was the feeling of possibility in a nonlinear temporal universe full of adventure and branched narratives, where no two games are the same, even if the main plot might be.
Sea of Stars will release on August 28 on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. More information is available on the official website.