Sea of Stars

[JBear]

I mean, the middle ground is just spending your MP conservatively and weaving in normal attacks when convenient to recover it. Of course you're going to have a bad time if you just blow through everyone's MP to make the first fight you come across go fast. Also, the idea of walking back to the campfire between fights is absolutely unfathomable to me. The game is very generous with campfires (perhaps excessively so, if I'm being honest) or shortcuts back to previous campfires, so I found that I was basically back at full after every few fights anyway. And even then, there's also food, since the game basically gives you enough ingredients to shove infinite MP down your gullet (that said, I think I only ate like a half-dozen foods all game, and most of those were just to make room for a meal found in a chest).

 

[Becksworth]

I guess my alternatives would have been:

1) Use food more and let frugal/hoarding part of my brain rage away that I'm not using the available free option, which I don't think would make me happier.

2) Take more turns in combat recovering through normal attacks, tanking the hits, and heal more when necessary, which I'm not sure would have any been faster in the long run.

3) Use that one relic that recovers hp/mp after combat, except that also doubles your hp doesn't it? The former is more convenience, whereas the latter is making the game actually easier.

Also reminder I'm just nitpicking because this isn't Chrono Trigger.

 

[jpfriction]

Gamify it a bit, maybe. Have a fair amount of encounters always open with lock attacks. If you can pick the right set of attacks to break them all, instant win for the fight and get an MP refill. Throw a few standard encounters in each area for good measure. I just felt like I wanted a skip button for a lot of the regular fights.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Overall this is just soooooo slow. I knew it was going to be very different from The Messenger but that just felt so much better designed, this is really dragging. Seen a couple odd typos and odd phrasing that isn't necessarily bad but just makes it all feel like it needed a bit more polish. Going to put a little more time in as I just got to the mole village and am curious if things change up a bit.

It is a little slow to start, but it picks up the pace a bit. Overall it's kinda leisurely, low urgency despite the various threats. It does all come together in the end imo. For me it was a nice kinda low-key break from most of what I'd been playing this year (TOTK, Final Fantasy XVI, FF7R, Jedi Survivor, etc.), all big games with lots of complicated systems and stuff.

Definitely agreed on the polish though, my red pen was getting itchy.

 

[4-So]

I think there's a certain appeal to not trivializing regular fights by doing MP refills or what-have-you. It just feels like one more thing that needs to be managed but the combat is relatively breezy. I didn't find it any more annoying than stockpiling ethers or whatever.

 

[Violentvixen]

It is a little slow to start, but it picks up the pace a bit. Overall it's kinda leisurely, low urgency despite the various threats. It does all come together in the end imo. For me it was a nice kinda low-key break from most of what I'd been playing this year (TOTK, Final Fantasy XVI, FF7R, Jedi Survivor, etc.), all big games with lots of complicated systems and stuff.

Actually, reading this I think I'd feel differently about the game if I had it on Switch and could stop and start more easily. I'm playing on Gamepass now so I need to take over the TV and have to get to save points to save and shut down. It may just not be a game that works as well when I have to block out time and focus on it like that. The last time I played I was trying to rush through so we could watch something, maybe I'll be a little more careful about finding a time to play.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Yeah I played it on PS5 myself (had the physical copy coming for Switch so figured I didn't need to double up on the code) and that surely made the flow feel a little different.

Personally I liked the Timed Hits™ but my rhythm potential is pretty limited so I could easily see it going a different way. The game is also a bit light on indicators of when to hit the button (even with the associated dealie, which only tells you when you did it right), so you kinda gotta feel it out for every attack and technique, both yours and the enemies'.

 

[YangusKhan]

This game does auto save doesn't it? I wanna say it's after every screen? But I'm not sure exactly.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Frequently yes

 

[Issun]

Personally I liked the Timed Hits™ but my rhythm potential is pretty limited so I could easily see it going a different way. The game is also a bit light on indicators of when to hit the button (even with the associated dealie, which only tells you when you did it right), so you kinda gotta feel it out for every attack and technique, both yours and the enemies'.

I found the regular attacks for 5 out of 6 of the party members to be pretty easy to time. I figure the one outlier is obvious to anyone who's played long enough.

I'm using a walkthrough for the endgame sidequests because I want to do my annual fall replay of Okami before the season is over.

 

[Lokii]

His timed hit is interesting because it varies depending on the distance to the enemy. It was fun to gain mastery over it. It kinda became intuitive, almost like a muscle-memory sense, to know the timing based on the encounter design.

One thing I was never able to nail was the timing on his healing move though. But I never was clear if any healing move had a timed bonus (other than Garl’s good sandy of course).

 

[Violentvixen]

This game does auto save doesn't it? I wanna say it's after every screen? But I'm not sure exactly.

I should test that out. When I've gotten a Game Over I've restarted from those autosave points but I don't know if shutting off the console will do the same.

 

[Issun]

His timed hit is interesting because it varies depending on the distance to the enemy. It was fun to gain mastery over it. It kinda became intuitive, almost like a muscle-memory sense, to know the timing based on the encounter design.

One thing I was never able to nail was the timing on his healing move though. But I never was clear if any healing move had a timed bonus (other than Garl’s good sandy of course).

I was actually talking about Serai.

 

[Lokii]

Oh wild! Isn't the timing on their hit the same as everyone else? Press button on contact?

 

[Issun]

Yeah, but the rhythm is a little different from everyone else, at least for me.

Anyways, the second fight against the Elder Mist is one of the best boss battles I've ever experienced. So good.

 

[Lokii]

I get what you're saying. Their hit is a little delayed compared to the main three. It def threw me off more than a few times. I thought for sure you were talking about the other guy though because his timed hit is a totally different type of interaction than everyone else.

 

[Issun]

I get what you're saying. Their hit is a little delayed compared to the main three. It def threw me off more than a few times. I thought for sure you were talking about the other guy though because his timed hit is a totally different type of interaction than everyone else.

If you mean Resh'an I found them to be the easiest of all because it's so forgiving.

 

[gorha]

I had to get used to the timing for Seraï's attack being a little different, but once I did it was no problem. Resh'an's was the only one I wasn't hitting consistently by the end.

I've never seen Garl's sandwich in action. I only knew it existed because one of the trivia questions references it. Never found a timed hit on Resh'an's heal either. Zale's healing spell does have a timed hit, though - it's right as the sparkle reaches the top of the little cone it's making. Works for the combo heal with Valere, too.

 

[JBear]

I'm pretty sure that every single move in the game (including combos) other than ultimates has a timed hit, although there are definitely a couple that I never quite got consistently, and Petrichor is certainly one of them. I was an ace at pulling sammiches out of Garl's bag, though, and I'm not sure I ever missed Zale's heal.

As for basic attack timing, I found Zale, Valere, and Garl all trivial, but found everyone else's a bit trickier. Serai wants you to wait a beat, while REDACTED wants you to hit it early. As for the other, though...

If you mean Resh'an I found them to be the easiest of all because it's so forgiving.

So, I think you probably don't actually have his timing down? I was operating under a similar misapprehension myself for an embarrassingly long time (I only realized something was up when I was watching my SO play with the auto-attack relic on and saw her hitting everyone with his basic attack every single time), which is why it's looks likely to me that you're in the same boat:

Spoiler: I Know About Timed Hits

Getting him to throw the second bottle isn't his timed hit; that's just the set-up. The window is so generous because that's not the tricky bit. You'll know you've gotten the timed hit when every other enemy also takes damage. This makes his basic attack the best in the game, which is why it's a bit trickier to execute. If you want the actual timing spoiled:

You need to try and time it so that both bottles collide on the enemy at the same time.

 

[JBear]

I should test that out. When I've gotten a Game Over I've restarted from those autosave points but I don't know if shutting off the console will do the same.

Sorry to double-post, but I forgot to reply to this. On PC at least, I can confirm that you can exit the game as soon as you see the little book go away, and when you go to load that save the next time you play, it'll let you choose between the hard save and the most recent autosave.

 

[Violentvixen]

I was an ace at pulling sammiches out of Garl's bag, though, and I'm not sure I ever missed Zale's heal.

The healing does have timed hits?! Okay, now I feel less bad for using the easy mode/autoheal relic. I was tapping like crazy for both of their healing and even with the spark relic on to see if I got it the sparks never triggered it so I assumed it wasn't there.

On PC at least, I can confirm that you can exit the game as soon as you see the little book go away, and when you go to load that save the next time you play, it'll let you choose between the hard save and the most recent autosave.

Oh nice, thank you! This'll help me a lot.

 

[JBear]

So, I think you probably don't actually have his timing down? I was operating under a similar misapprehension myself for an embarrassingly long time

This reminds me of something else stupid that I was doing: I don't know why, but both my SO and I thought that in order to trigger a surprise attack, you had to press a button to swing your weapon at an enemy's back, and we kept screwing up the timing. Loki finally set me straight and let me know that you just have to plow into them like an Ys character.

(That's all pretty obsolete once you get the very fun graplou, of course.)

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I found the regular attacks for 5 out of 6 of the party members to be pretty easy to time. I figure the one outlier is obvious to anyone who's played long enough.

I'm using a walkthrough for the endgame sidequests because I want to do my annual fall replay of Okami before the season is over.

Regular attacks are fine. Some of the specials I never really got the timing down, but I think everything has a spot where you can boost it except maybe the ultimates. I figured out the timing for some of the healing stuff but not the others (never figured out Garl's sandwich or, uh, IED ones).

 

[Issun]

Finished it. I turned on some extra relics for Aephorul because that fight is kind of bullshit (should have had diminishing HP for the turned based sections to be a fair fight) Overall this is my game of the decade so far though.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I've made it to the point where I'm getting the Vespertine ship, and while the game hasn't really grabbed me it hasn't turned me off yet either. It's... OK, I guess! I've turned on a few relics to make things a little easier because I can't seem to be arsed with more difficulty than that. Take less damage and party sometimes auto-times blocks, but not the story-mode one.

I find myself wishing, as with most RPGs, that I could have 4 party members instead of 3. But I think that in most games with smaller parties. At least you can swap at any time, which is neat.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Yeah I like 4-person parties but the FFX-style hotswap system is almost as good.

"OK" was about how I was feeling at about the spot you're at, but I ended up liking it quite a bit more than that.

 

[Rascally Badger]

I finally came back and finished this game off. I still think it is oddly paced and just weirdly tight or closed. Every step in the game is a battle, which means it feels like it takes a long time to get anywhere that matters. Then it introduces kind of a big twist at about the 3/4 mark, but doesn't really fully explore that. The length of the game is about right (I think my clock was around 25 hrs), but I feel like that game spent a lot of time on sections that didn't matter narratively or mechanically, but then kind of skimped on the parts that would better flesh out its larger story.

Still, I enjoyed it. It looks great.

 

[JBear]

Every step in the game is a battle, which means it feels like it takes a long time to get anywhere that matters.

I genuinely don't understand what you mean. The battles are all symbol encounters? You can avoid most of them.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I didn't find most battles avoidable, but I didn't avoid pretty much any of them because I wanted that sweet sweet exp. But since battles aren't random nor are they repeatable, the whole experience "curve" felt a little artificial. I guess skipping battles would be the one way you could change that, or going back to areas just to grind (for whatever good that would do). I never got the feeling that I was under- or over-leveled, and I have the distinct impression that it would take a LOT of grinding or a LOT of avoidance to ever actually reach such a point. It almost calls into question the entire idea of levels and a leveling curve. With the game being so linear, and the experience curve so set, there almost isn't a point to having the system there at all. Is this any different from other RPGs? I honestly don't know, I'm going to have to sit with this observation for a bit, ruminate about other games. But this isn't something I think I've ever felt with other RPGs before.

Anyway, I'm at the endgame now, just got the message "OK go explore now, final boss is that-a-way whenever you want." Still enjoying it overall but it hasn't really reached the level of feeling special. Just "pretty good." Although I did almost tear up at a certain scene.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

You can't really overlevel, I don't think. There's a hard level cap eventually (50, I think?). There's no reason to grind, basically ever. I only really found myself avoiding fights if I was going back through an area in search of shells or treasure.

Re: the final boss: the real ending requires you to beat the game, finish the various sidequests, and then beat the game again (new boss).