What’s up Nerds!
I have another demo coming at you! This one is called Sea of Stars and I would say a little less cozy and little more RPG but there I think there could be some cozy elements.
To start off this was an longer demo with I appreciated. It was over an hour of playtime and I enjoyed it.
Here’s the synopsis taken straight from the Nintendo site:
Sea of Stars tells the story of two Children of the Solstice who combine the powers of the sun and moon to perform Eclipse Magic, the only force capable of fighting off the monstrous creations of an evil alchemist known as The Fleshmancer.
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/sea-of-stars-switch/
As soon as you start the demo you are kind of dropped into the story. You get to decide who will lead the group Zale of the summer solstice or Valere of the winter solstice. They along with their friend Garl are on a journey. We don’t really know what journey but you just kind of follow along with where they need to go. Once you get out of the initial starting place, you will head to a port town where you’ll meet a set of pirates. After a deal is set the entourage will travel to an ancient ruin that once was owned by a witch. The pirates have commissioned you to find something for them and it’s in that ancient ruin.
You’ll solve various puzzles that’ll lead you to the “boss” battle of the ruin. And then that’s the end. You don’t really get to revel in your win or go back to the pirates, you’ll just have to buy the game to see what happens next. It’s currently $34.99 on the Nintendo Switch. You can also play on PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, X Box One and the X Box Series X/S.
While not your traditional cozy game, I did find some coziness in the puzzle solving and just hanging out in the port town with the pirates. The puzzles in the demo were pretty easy and didn’t feel like it took away from the flow of the game. One complaint was that it did take me a long time to figure out how to enter into the ruin. There were different color crystals hanging everywhere and to me, it seemed this was the way in. I had to take a second to see what I had in my inventory that I needed to go through to the ruin. Another tiny complaint would be how the demo begins. Because you’re kind of dropped into the middle of a quest there is already dialog going that I didn’t really understand. I could put two and two together and I understood that I needed to leave the area, but it felt like there was already a conversation going between Garl, Zale and Valere that I was intruding upon.
The graphics were also nice as well and the game was very smooth on the Switch. I liked how there was no lag and the characters had fast reaction times to the controls. I also really liked the character designs of the main characters. They seem to fit very nicely with their respective solstice. I also enjoyed the pirates and their character designs. I liked the diversity and you can tell the time that was put in making all the characters and the various settings. The game mechanics were also great because in a lot of RPGs you can’t jump on ledges! So I appreciated being able to jump on a ledge to walk on it even if it was narrow like a tight-rope. The combat system was also pretty simple. It’s a turn-based system, but you get to decide who’s turn it is(out of the characters in your party.) and then which skill, attack or item you want to use.
Overall this was an enjoyable demo. This game gave me old school Final Fantasy with a lot less random combat or maybe even Chrono Trigger. I think this would be worth checking out even as a cozy gamer. While you may not always enjoy the combat aspect I think Sea of Stars could be a great introduction into RPGs if you’ve never tried them before. So I think I would give this demo a 3.5 out of 5 Nerd Light Stars, only because I didn’t like the way the demo ended. Y’all could have at least let me deliver the item back to the pirates haha.
That’s all I have for this demo review! We only have 2 more days left in the challenge lets finish strong! Keep Nerding Out!
