---
title: sea of stars
draft: true
---

- chrono trigger
- mario rpg / mario and luigi / paper mario
- cooking
  - ingredient collection 
  - ingredient prices (different to eastward)
  - role of food is different because its turn based
  - cooking slideshow is DOPE
- animation (and its occasional bugs in dialogue)
- art 
  - saturated but not an eyesore a la stardew valley
  - occasionally goofy stuff that sort of breaks the jrpg vibe - elder mist
  - water and fog effects
    - 3d world
      - works stellar 99% of the time, mostly stands out with moving objects like bridges
      - must have made map building WAY fucking easier
  - full animation scenes
    - brief, but sort of feel unnecessary
    - like almost takes you out of it
- story
  - garl 
    - you definitely feel like somethings gonna go wrong here
  - playing rpgs as an adult sucks because you're always looking for the tropes and things that you've seen before
  - stupid little goofs like teaks teleporting around as she looks at valere and zale kind of work
- world
  - feels a little generic but i'm writing this early in
  - lots of weird arcane places, the purpose of which is not immediately obvious
- combat
  - timing doesnt always feel intuitive (for hits and blocks)
  - chosing the order of your team is really clever
  - changes from familiar systems dont feel gimmicky
  - level up bonus is similar to mario
  - innovative way of handling death / knockouts
- menus
  - (i think) intentional nod to final fantasy
- general interaction
  - picking up items has a minimal pause, and standing near two and mashing a makes you pick them all up at the same time with no delay
  - pushing the teal crystals also has no delay and goes quickly
  - animations after completing a puzzle dont lock up the game (if its on the same screen) and let you move to the area that's being revealed
- traversal
- the mechanicc of teaks appearing and then only showing up when it makes sense is interesting
  - it feels a bit inserty the same way that it did in indivisible, but i think making her a non-combat character 
