Sea of Stars, How to Reshape Classics

Sea of Stars, released by Sabotage Studios in August of last year has garnered a moderate sum of praise in the months following its release. However, that critical buzz never seemed to reach social corners I occupy in both the gaming and game dev worlds. Other than one passing recommendation a peer made, I think I'm the only person in my immediate circle to have heard of it even, and that's a crying shame. Sea of Stars, in many ways is following up on the work Sabotage already proved themselves capable of in The Messenger, a 2016 indie darling that subverts and expands upon Ninja Gaiden in such a way as to create a wholly unique ninja adventure game. With both games featuring distinct and fun level design, stellar scores and visual direction, and a witty writing style that while in the former's case was mainly espoused through its "meta" character of the shopkeeper, this time has turned attention to writing a well-realized cast of loveable adventurers. In leu of everything that could be said about the game however, I am here mainly to talk about the quality of life change that I think makes Sea of Stars stand out as well as it does from contemporaries in the "retro RPG" genre that seems to have formed in indie circles. Namely, its mana system. Whereas a standard RPG is very front-loaded in its power, with you always resting to full mana and having to preserve mana where possible in order to cast your spells and cool abilities, Sea of Stars takes a pre-existing idea of mana regeneration and makes it an active and dynamic system. Rather than a measly 1-2 points out of a 50 mana cap from hitting an enemy with an attack, or a passive 3 mana per turn regeneration rate, Sea of Stars makes attacking your primary way of keeping mana stocked up. Attacking without fail always gives you 3 mana in this game. With a different system this could be nothing, but with the low mana numbers the game sports, with a mid-level character hardly going above 20 mana, you are always going to appreciate that extra chunk of change. On top of this, while items exist that can restore mana, you have a maximum of 10 food items of any variety that can be carried at once. Meaning any mana items carried take away from your maximum healing, in a risk-reward not dissimilar to souls-like estus splits. Such a centering on attacks as your means to farm mana, means also that attacking while at full mana more often than not is a waste of resources. Mana rather than being saved and held close for safe keeping in Sea of Stars is always incentivized to be burned where it is needed. This combos well with systems in the battle system such as the weakness/resistances and "locks" which require you to use certain sorts of abilities before a deadline to deal with potentially devastating enemy powers. All this to say, the way mana is gained makes the player have to spend mana more actively than other RPGS have accustomed it to being used. Being at 0 mana isn't a burden any more than 1-2 turns worth of attacking is. On top of this, the core party is always strong enough attacking, that while spells may allow for elemental effects or AOE damage, the attacks needed to charge said powers are just as beneficial more often than not.