Sea Of Stars-Inspired RPG 'Forge Of The Fae' Looks And Sounds Stunning

Hopefully it has decent writing and a a compelling narrative. I adored how Sea of Stars looked and played and the music was great but the writing was just bad. Forgettable characters and story IMO which for an RPG is something you need to get right. I’m not asking for a masterpiece in storytelling but just something to keep it interesting. I didn’t end up seeing the game through to the end despite how close I was because I just didn’t really care about what was happening (and there were some brutal difficulty spikes to boot).

I have no doubt this will be better than Sea of Stars too. Game was visually stunning but the writing/characters/combat were abysmal

Sea of Stars has had a really mixed reception. I played a bit of the demo and wasn't sold. The screenshots for this game look good, but not getting too excited for now.

@gcunit ...has it? Sea of Stars sold well, and has an 87 Critic (80 user) review on Meta - which doesn't seem to classify the title for having a mixed reception to me.

That's fair enough if you weren't sold on everything, and I know there are a few which are vocal about their opinions on the story / combat (as it wasn't what they wanted), but overall the title exceeded for me and delivered everything pretty expertly.

@Sonicka Word-of-mouth from players has been much more variable. I've seen some who loved it, but you can take shardcart's comment above as an example of how it went down with others. I've picked up on quite a lot of that kind of player feedback. I've not written it off and am still open to getting it some day, but in the meantime I listen out to what others made of it. What specifically about it delivered for you?

@shardcart @larryisaman litrally one of the biggest reasons I dropped the game, it was just so bland. Though like you guys said the gameplay and visuals were great. im hoping the dlc fixes those issues and those portions are better in it, I will try to compleat the game by then if I can lol.

About this game though it looks great! I can’t wait to see the end result.

@larryisaman From AAA games to indie games, not many rpgs have gripped me story wise.

I struggle with JRPG's because either the plot is too convoluted for it's own good, or the character's are usually teens which I struggle to get behind.

On the flip side we have western RPG's where alot of AAA games mostly focus on the same medievil fantasy tropes a hundred times over.

I already praised it the other day, but the only RPG that me excited with it's story was "Yakuza: Like a dragon". Every part of the story had alot of love and humor put that made me grin. Plus it was different. It wasn't some medieval knight going off to fight a great evil, nor was it an edgy teen who kills without remorse but suddenly doesn't wanna kill the main villain because of plot reasons.

The whole story was about family and brotherhood. The main protagonist is perhaps the most lively and fun hero I ever spent time with in any RPG's.

I guess what works for me is I'd like more Western RPG's to really think outside the box and not be scared to tell an offbeat story. Something that isn't cliched and predictable like BioWare, or Bethesda which doesn't even try anymore with their stories.

@DripDropCop146 Yeah, I can’t say I can really point to a JRPG I’ve played that has a really fantastic story but I’ve played plenty that give just enough to make me want to see what happens. Off the top of my head Xenoblade/3, Dragon Quest XI and Chrono Trigger were all great and the characters were especially memorable in all of them.

Put it this way…I haven’t played Chrono Trigger in years and I still remember all the characters, their names and the main story beats. I played Sea of Stars less than a year ago and I couldn’t even tell you what the main characters were called!

@gcunit same thing happened to me with the SoS demo, looked and sounded awesome but the writing was pretty terrible. I remember checking the Steam discussions about the demo and apparently part of it was because a lot of that dialog was written just for the demo in an attempt to prevent full game spoilers, so it was pretty jank.

But yea, seems like poor writing/characters is still a huge issue in the full game too aye. This guy Misshapen Chair did a really good video on it for anyone interested (spoilers obvs):
https://youtu.be/ddlxA7gi-G4?si=Evx91LffZC3Va3rP

@DripDropCop146 OMG thank you, what you said about Japanese/western RPGs is so true!
Sea of Stars is a perfect example of a gorgeous-looking game with a completely forgettable (western fantasy trope) story - and way too much badly written dialogue (no, a „…“ textbox does NOT automatically create deep and memorable story moments). Also, that Paper Mario-Style fight system felt so antique, it just doesn’t carry me through a 8h+ game. I wonder why so few game devs try and refresh that Lttp/Mana/Terranigma fighting style a bit. Tunic and Hyper Light Drifter both tried and succeeded, but those examples are rare. That combined with SoS look would be an instant buy for me.
Sorry for the rant, I can still see what’s to like about that game, it just wasn’t for me.

Hopefully this game doesn’t make me want to drop it the longer I play.

Blimey, I've not come across much negativity on SOS until now, genuinely thought it was widely received very well - so that's pretty interesting.

@gcunit: The things I liked? Well, undoubtedly this is now going to be what others didn't I suppose, but that's ok

I'll start with the art-style and soundtrack which are stellar (this doesn't seem to be a contention point at least). But all the visual / audio callbacks to The Messenger were incredibly welcome and relevant also - including a certain area that was of a particular surprise (especially in how detailed the developers went with specifics).

All of the characters were interesting and slotted perfectly into the story beyond the main duo, in fact I would agree that the other playable characters beyond Valerie and Zale were actually more interesting. Garp is obviously the MVP though, he's precious and that can't be understated enough

It's also one of very few RPG's where I didn't tire of the battle system and this didn't feel like a grind. There's enough enemies to see you through the campaign, but you're also welcome to train and go back to prior locations. Every characters unique abilities and combos helped keep this engaging for me as well. Having an active input element (ala Mario RPG's) I've always found to be the best approach in these style of games so I've very little complaint in this department. There's also lots of opportunities to switch characters and attack patterns up mid battle, reviving from "KO's" are thankfully gracious, and there's even a puzzle element to some of the bosses in how you approach defeating them. Best of all, characters level up together regardless of who's being used. EXP share is forever a blessing IMO. Love it.

The story is what kept me positively engaged right through to the end (the real end, not the "first" ending) - and again, it's probably helped if you'd have played The Messenger (despite this technically being a prequel in-universe). But I really enjoyed the narrative twists and turns along the way, character in-jokes and humour... no theme or area of the story really outstayed its welcome IMO, if there is one criticism is that sometimes we didn't hang about certain locations for long enough.

Overall, SOS is one of very few titles I actually cared too 100%'d, which is probably why I value it quite highly. For me to want to come back and do everything, including getting the final ending then I have to be enjoying myself. And between the characters banter, the storyline, the secrets, the gameplay, the sun/moon shifting mechanic - this did it all for me. I was prepared to lay down more money to buy the upcoming DLC, so learning it's free now has me feeling like I'm stealing. ^^;

@larryisaman when characters are named after the title of the game, and we have such inspired names as "Frog" or "Robo", it's isn't too difficult for them to be memorable in comparison.

I'm playing of course ;P

Ugh… Kickstarter… so releasing in 2053?

Sea of Stars-inspired, really? Why not just say it's inspired by the same games Sea of Stars was...

You mean Chrono Trigger inspired, right?

The developers of Sea of Stars clearly stated they were inspired by CT, I don't understand why you're not referencing the real source of their inspiration.

Otherwise, looks great, I hope the gameplay is as good as the art style.

I echo the Sea of Stars opinions here.
The game looked stunning and it had really nice music but it’s writing was awful, it’s characters bland and it’s pacing was all over the place.
Not to mention it’s battles dragged on for so long I was starting to audibly sigh when I got into them.

The fact that Sea of Stars gets talked about and compared to so much means that it had some sort of impact on the turn-based RPG genre. It's managed to stay relevant among a "sea" of games out there.

@abbyhitter The game only came out last year and so far only NL is making the claim Sea of Stars is an inspiration for this.

A better way to gauge if SoS truly had any kind of impact would be to see how it holds up 5 to 10 years from now.

Gonna have to hold my hands up, as much as I absolutely adored SoS initially, the back half of the game was when I really started to feel the general repetitiveness and lack of depth to the combat. And while I didn't find the writing egregiously bad or anything, it's been a month or so since I finished and I'm really struggling to remember anything that really stood out to me. And the biggest slap in the face came at the very end when you're expected to pick up ALL the secret conches to get the "true" ending. Sod that noise.

I've been burned by too many indie RPGs to want to even give it a try. Sea of Stars was cool at first but ended up being as deep as a puddle

@DripDropCop146 There’s a ton of JRPGs that have adult casts with competent adults. NieR, Drakengard, Xenoblade, Xenogears, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, some Shin Megami Tensei games, and Mario and Luigi to name a few.

@abbyhitter Too bad the core of the game is paper thin. Relevance unearned for the most part.

Did the devs actually say this was inspired by Sea of Stars? Or has the author never seen an RPG from the mid 90s-early 2000s?

Wow, that video was a banger. :/

@VoidofLight Thanks, Ill take your word for it and removed that part from my post.

I imagine an approximation to SOS was made because it looks strikingly familiar in visuals and combat.

But I’d be highly surprised if this was inspired by that title as many have already said, it’s barely a year old.

@VoidofLight in your opinion of course. Objectively the game still stands out for a variety of merits. Subjectively though, it still earns relevance regardless of people enjoying the game or not, which is the point I think @abbyhitter was making. It made enough of a splash that this comment section is presently 80% SOS talk than the actual game in the article 🤣

Sea of stars inspired which was chrono trigger inspired? This is starting to get confusing.

@Sonicka I mean the game has extremely shallow combat which lacks in depth or customizability and a story that objectively is poorly written with characters who never grow or change. It isn’t really just my opinion. The only thing the game has going for it is the pixel art.

"Set in a world inspired by 1800s Ireland, Forge of the Fae plunges players into a beautifully crafted narrative where humans and fae are in conflict."

Nowhere does it say inspired by Sea of Stars, which is a game that is also inspired by many other games that have gone before... Art immitates art. Why can't we stop comparing everything to everything else and just report the news?

@Sonicka I mean you find it comical, but you aren't being fair. I'm willing to bet if the article in question didn't mention Sea of Stars, no one here would have even talked about it.

Yet, the article makes the claim and by nature people are going to mention Sea of Stars. That's how conversations work when you start off "x seems inspired by x"

What you are doing here is trying to make it sound like people have an obsession with that last line. It's simply people discussing a game they played because the article mentioned it. Not the commenters.

@VoidofLight I dunno, when it comes to things like story and narrative I'd suggest this is more subjective in nature, which is why I skirted around the terminology on posting for a few elements, since not everyone will find the same thing of taste. But genuinely that's fair enough if you feel that way about the game.

@Frailbay30 noooo, honestly I'm not - or at the very least that wasn't the intention. I was agreeing around the amount of discussion which brings relevance, and being flippant about it's oversteer in the comment section. Nothing malicious intended.

Reminds me more of Terra Memoria, or maybe the trailer for both games give the same vibes.

So many RPGs... So many RPGs that look impressive... My wallet is dying. Yet, I look forward to hearing more about this.

Looks good to me.

I enjoyed Sea of Stars for a while, maybe getting 1/2 to 2/3 the way through, but ultimately lost interest. Being an older gamer who used to enjoy JRPGs more back in the day, I have lost patience with the slog that too many JRPGs turn into. Interested to see how this turns out and reviews, though.

Definitely peaked my interest on this! I absolutely loved Sea of Stars. I thought the combat and visuals and music were wonderful. It wasn't a very gripping story though, so you definitely need to go ahead and finish it if you're playing it instead of putting it down to come back at a later time. Perfect fit on the Switch.

And there’s the misplaced sea of stars hate. Glowing reviews, but then as soon as it got popular, and all of a sudden everyone’s mad it’s not chrono trigger. If chrono trigger came out today I swear people would complain the writing is bad, the combat is stale, and there isn’t enough character development. “I can’t do the build I want wah!”

@Sonicka Over in Japan it got panned for many deemed as ugly art.

@Sonicka Don't dwell too much on the negativity. Its natural for it to gather and accumulate whereas positivity spreads thin and is too hard to mantain over time. I say all of this because I absolutely adored Sea of Stars. The game presentation, music and dungeon design is amazing and it beats the heck out of other similar RPGs.

The story was kinda lackluster but after playing so many games of the genre, its honestly an exception when that is the main draw for me. Serviceable (and not convoluted) is enough for me. But a game with bad music, boring gameplay or plain dungeons/maps is something that bothers me much more and all of that was done quite good in SoS.

Wow never knew so many people apparently hated Sea of Stars. The leads were pretty bland and the story wasn't as strong as I would've liked, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit and it's the most recent game to make me cry (IYKYK).

That said, it's kinda wild that a new game is being heralded as like Sea of Stars instead of like Chrono Trigger. Apparently I'm old AF 😅. Excited to see how Forge of the Fae turns out.

@jesse_dylan I'm actually super surprised at the complaints about the combat, because I and a good number of the early reviews felt like that was the most unique thing about it (with the music and visuals being the best things).

I hope it doesn't have level scaling, or that it's at least optional. That really hampered Sea of Stars for me. It isn't nearly as satisfying to level up when the rest of the world levels up with you. Let me grind!

@BlublacMH I really liked it too--but I even liked the story. People think they like retro games, but maybe they only like their memories of retro games. If Super Mario RPG came out today, people would say it sucks because Mario doesn't have enough hammer upgrades.

Bring on the Chrono Trigger clones. I mean it in the most flattering way as Sea of Stars is excellent and more games in this style are welcome.