[[Sea of Stars (2023)]] just because our opinions about the game are different doesn't make either less valid > it feels like one person pointed a few valid criticisms and this sub just opened the floodgates to vast exaggeration So **please** don't lump me in with this ad hominem crap. Clearly, there were some things that you were able to let slide and enjoy the game that were deal breakers for me. I'm going to try and use spoiler tags. Hopefully they work. > but the dialog is so cut-to-the-chase that it really doesn't matter. I'm not wasting hours reading through walls of text for boring characters, I'm getting quick one-liners and on-the-nose plot progression to keep things moving. **tl;dr: We came into this game wanting two very different things.** I'm going to try to not crit you with a wall of text (I failed). Let me start with some of what you said: > Especially Zale and Valere Yes, I'm a little brain-dead from work, but it's only been a two days since I put down Sea of Stars and it's REALLY saying something if I have to think this hard just to recall that these two are the "main" characters that are all over the promo art. They are just un-memorable. They don't even have the benefit of some kind of silent protagonist treatment where other characters have to carry them. Instead, these two just get shuffled around and do what they're told. There's no depth. There's no growth. And where was there a blown opportunity for growth? GARL. He's not the heroic optimist akin to Vyse from skies of arcadia. Instead, he's stupidly optimistic. Like, I just got possessed by a demon and stabbed by numbing poison but everything's okay. Just a moron. Nothing ever goes wrong in his mind, and he can do no wrong. It's like he's a puppy. Two (future) Gods' puppy. And what happens when he dies? There was an opportunity to show growth for the main two, but instead it's just shuffle on to the next point. At least until you can Chrono Trigger him back to life, completely wiping out any meaningfulness of his sacrifice. I'm big on character motivations and those forces driving characters to take actions, with conflict coming from the natural friction of those competing motivations. To that end, Zale, Valere, and Garl, as I've said, are incredibly shallow. I'll just interject and say that I don't have a problem with Garl's power being equal to two Gods -- this is a JRPG. That happens a lot in the genre. My concern with Garl specifically is that, as far as plot and decisions go, is that he falls under this trope: [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue) But at the same time, the game never seems to accept the fact that Garl is the true main character of the game as its written and perhaps a shift in focus could have made things far more interesting for everyone involved. After all, you have two blank slate Gods but it's a regular person's humanity that wins the day. It's a formula that's worked in plenty of stories and RPGs before. Quick run down on other characters: - Seraï is probably the most interesting and well done character, although that I hate that it takes FOREVER for her motivations to become clear. It's sloppily handled. Also, I'm fine with her crew, even with someone whose middle name is ever changing. It's a gag. It's not a capital offense. Keenathan and Valtraid help balance her out - Resh'an is probably a character whose backstory you found very interesting. Once again, I think he's both handled very poorly + the whole "thing" with the Flreshmancer just didn't work for me. It is VERY hard to write some kind of all-knowing oracle character in a game and make it work. But the game throws him into the main cast, so it's fair game. He doesn't really contribute much except for fleshing out the backstory and pushing the game towards the next plot beat And maybe just a sprinkling of Deus ex Machina. - Headmaster Moraine: OH MY GOD I wanted to slap this character the moment he quit. Like...you have a whole history. People have died. You have taken away so many childhoods just to sacrificed so much just to end up saying "I'm old and I'm done and you don't understand." And what do the kids say? "That's cool lead our town." NO. No no no. Clearly he's been through trauma. The game refuses to explore it. Terribly handled. See, he could have passed the torch. Instead, he dropped it like a damn crybaby. And nobody cares. What a waste. - The wondertwins. Erlina and Brugaves' betrayal is telegraphed enough in earlier scenes, but their motivations don't match up with what they do. Okay, cool. Your childhood was taken away. You don't know if the last dweller is gone. You want to break the cycle of whatever all this is.. But my problem is twofold. First, they don't stand on their own. Download the DLC or play The Messenger is not good enough for me. Second, their solution is to join the big bad is just throwing away any hope or relationship with Zale and Valere. And what do we get from those two newbies? Crickets...and a boss fight if you don't collect and do all the things.. Lots of missed opportunities for character growth. And honestly, if an element can't stand on its own without having to consult the source material, it's not well written (helloooooo World of Warcraft et. al.). - Teaks: I want to like her, but the mechanic for filling her journal turns into just a bunch of lazy lore dumps. I was really hoping for more mundane or rudimentary objects to just fill the journal with other stories to flesh out the world in neat and interesting ways. Instead, it's "here is this place you are at and this is how to understand it." No bueno. Another side issue: it just takes way too long to get to the meat of the game. I'm not just talking about the tutorial, or the attempt at a frame story that's really just a party member's very protracted introduction. But sub plots take so long to develop that they lose their impact. It's twitst after twist for the sake of twisting instead of everything building up to a greater whole. Unless, of course, you play a whole different game. Or the promised "flesh this out in post with DLC." There's more, but I'll stop. I've played plenty of games in translations and have been able to enjoy because there is a very interesting world and very interesting conflict to explore. I didn't get that here. But what I've told people about Sea of Stars, and even put in my Steam review, is that if you want a game where the plot is just a vehicle to move you from set piece to set piece then you're going to get a lot of enjoyment out of this game. I'm glad you found a treasure.