Video games have a nostalgia problem. The industry is constantly reliant on a cynical stream of remasters, remakes, and reboots to keep the money rꦍolling in. Such projects not only mitigate risk and guarantee profits, but alleviate the problems that arise from hoping to create a subversive sequel or entirely new universe where millions of fans aren’t signed up for the ride already. It’s a sad state of affairs, and who knows when we will break free of it.
We’ve already seen high profile failures like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Saints Row in recent years, while successes like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7 Remake, that understand the need to keep things fresh and exciting and still respect the source material, are few and far ꦺbetween. Developers and publishers will usually take the easy option when it comes to revisiting past successes, and chances are most of us will jump aboard the hype train because the human mind is conditioned to embrace what we find familiar. It’s a double-edged sword draining the creative life blood of the medium.
But sometimes, a game like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sea of Stars comes along and stops an argument like this in its tracks. From the studio who brought us The Messenger, this is an RPG homage taking place in the same universe that draws ample inspiration from genre classics like Breath of Fire and Chrono Trigger. It understands the nostalgic connection we have to those games while also recognising how the world of RPGs has moved on, and what modern interpretations of said classics would look like. It’s still challenging and imaginative where it counts, but introducing relics 🤪that offer additional stat bonuses or let you skip less approachable parts of the game allows it to be so much more than ꦆa pixel art collage of obnoxious fan service.
Last week I wrote about how Sea of Stars is the successor to Golden Sun we💙’ll never officiallyget, and I mean that in every sense of the world. It combines the cute mixture of platforms and puzzles that game pulled off so well, with a fictional world brimming with magical ideas alongside 🌜a history that began long before we picked up the controller. Its small cast of main characters is also refined yet likeable, but indulge in just enough anime nonsense to feel like they truly belong in the genre.
Sea of Stars is a love letter to dec🉐ades of games we grew up with, capitalising on nostalgia at every turn but seldom in ways that feel lazy or unearned. A new tune by Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda might transport yo🧔u back to a town or dungeon you conquered as a child, while its battle mechanics mimic the pace of similar greats but with countless modern twists that make it so much less mundane to actually play.
Having the ability to tap a button in time with attacks and dodges to mitigate or deal an extra load of damage might seem like a minute addition, but it shakes up a turn-based ecosystem which for decades now RPGs have seemed tempted to leave behind. Sabotage chooses to embrace this classic combat, but in doing so adds its own ideas which in retros❀pect would make all the games it draws from so much better.
The same can be said for its surprisingly adept stages that emphasise platforming and puzzle solving. I just completed a dungeon which constantly kept me on my toes with myriad grapple points and moving platforms, all before ending in a boss battle which made great use of a new party member and everyth🍰ing I’d learned up to that point.
All the nostalgia isn’t crowding ou𒉰t new ideas, it is instead used as a foundation to take the genre to places it has never been before. Sea of Stars learns from the past as much as it looks towards the future, and we’re in dire need of more games like this that are unwilling to do thing🦂s the easy way.
