Sea of Stars is the first video game I’ve properly fallen in love with since Breath of the Wild

Hark at me with my zeitgeist blog posts, but I’m really enjoying 2023’s charismatic tribute to the golden age of Japanese RPGs, Sabotage Studio’s Sea of Stars.

I bought it for my quiet Christmas in suburban Luton, as part of what’s become a bit of a theme the past few months; an attempt to relearn how to relax, and to take pleasure in reading and video games again, without reaching for my phone every few minutes or feeling like I’m wasting time. [1]

Sea of Stars may take its pixellated aesthetic from 1990s SNES classics like Chrono Trigger or early Final Fantasy, but there’s more going on here than simple nostalgia. The world and character design, the storytelling, and the subtly complex but rewarding turn-based battles: all reveal themselves slowly at first, but before you know it, you’re meeting pirates and travelling historians, and you’re hooked, utterly hooked.

The map and level design is similarly well thought out, and beautiful to boot. Your main characters – the contrasting teenage solstice warriors, Zale and Valere, ably assisted by their impulsive and kind-hearted pal Garl – have complex and interesting relationships, the dialogue is well written and occasionally hilarious, and the landscapes, villages, and islands they explore are beautifully detailed and brilliantly realised.

Oh, and the music is joyous.

I am about ten hours in, having spent my Monday evening figuring out how to defeat my first big boss, a grumpy, children-hating necromancer called Romaya. This was achieved with the help of a mysterious assassin who looks suspiciously like the pirate captain who helped us to this doomed island in the first place.

Like I said, I’m hooked.

I have no idea how long the game is, and don’t want to know either. The exploring -> fighting -> puzzle solving -> plot development balance is beautifully calibrated, and I find myself playing it for half an hour, or an hour, now and then, when I’m in the mood. It’s easy and natural to stop playing, and it’s a joy to return to when the time is right.

I’ve been thinking a lot about relaxation recently, which you’re not supposed to do. But it’s unavoidable: work, hobbies, socialising, downtime – these all seem to have lost meaning in the post-pandemic world, when no one is truly offline and no-one is truly switched off.

Whenever I read about Gen Z returning to the cinema, in part because it’s the only time they’re freed from their phones, I feel slightly guilty, for being part of the generation that foisted this addiction upon them. But then, playing games like this, or sitting in the Prince Charles cinema enjoying some B-movie classic with glorious nerds more than half my age… maybe there’s some hope after all.

Now, please excuse me. I have some adorably animated legions of the undead to defeat.

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[1] When I’m meeting friends at a cafe, restaurant or bar, or at gigs, at folk choir, at the cinema, watching comedy, rehearsing, walking, or writing and recording songs: absolutely fine, my mobile device broadly left to its own devices.

As soon as I spend an evening in, alone: many hours wasted on doom scrolling and futility.

I’m trying to end that. video games, books, documentaries, drawing a picture of a dog: these are the pursuits that feel like time productively wasted.