Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker review — An encore performance at the big top

Sea of Stars is a game I adored initially, as you can see in my review, but as time has passed I’ve begun to look on it a little less fondly. I remember the combat being a blast, but am more disappointed in the storytelling the more I think about it. In particular, I remember the characters feeling very flat, especially the two leads, which leaves the game with a very basic plotmostly pushed forward by the stellar combat system and some nice puzzles. This was my thought process going back in for Throes of the Watchmaker, a free DLC expansion for the game, but having now finished that expansion I remembered why I fell in love with the game in the first place. 

Here’s the basic rundown on the game for those unfamiliar: Sea of Stars is a turn-based RPG inspired by the classics, with a gorgeously detailed world rendered in sprites. The game follows Valere and Zale as they become Solstice Warriors and attempt to defeat the Fleshmancer, all while serving as a prequel to Sabotage’s previous game, The Messenger. It’s largely focused on exploration and combat, with light platforming and timed button presses for attacks and defense, while story basically took a backseat. 

If you don’t remember what happened in Sea of Stars (I can’t really blame you there, I didn’t either), picking the game back up does a fairly good job of reminding you who the important players in this expansion are. There’s no recap or anything and the expansion does require you to have reached the credits of the base game, but the opening scenes reintroduce you to characters and the premise with a light touch. At a certain point, the party needed to visit a mysterious watchmaker and… well that’s all you really need to know, as she’ll tell you the rest once you get there. Eons ago, she created a tiny clockwork world, which lived in peace. Upon creating a device to shrink herself down and visit the world, she finds that the device was mistakenly tainted by a cursed cog left by her former partner, Aephorul. This taint creates an evil doppelgänger of her, the Puppeteer, embodying all of her worst traits. Valere, Zale, Artie, and the pirates enter the clockwork, circus themed world to stop her, but will have to face the truth about themselves to succeed. Oh yeah, all of this is also prompted by Keenathan’s name not actually being Keenathan, apparently. (If you need a writer, Sabotage, I am available.)

Right off the bat, it feels like Sea of Stars is calling itself out for its flat characters, and attempts to give some depth to Zale and Valere through their duplicates. It’s still far from stellar writing, but the effort is certainly appreciated. Valere’s “arc” is the stronger of the two, with her stoicism holding back a deep seated rage being a bit more believable than Zale’s apparent vanity, but neither are really good. It’s passable, and I hope the team continues to grow their writing chops with whatever they want to do next. 

Once again, the star of this act is the world and the battle system. Early on in the adventure, your Solstice Warrior powers are stolen and Zale and Valare change their classes to Juggler and Acrobat respectively to fit the circus theme. Their general playstyles remain similar, with Zale being a healer and Valare the damage dealer, but they both learn how to dip a bit into each other's specialties here. In fact, I found myself somewhat preferring the variety they have here over the base game. Artie is a ton of fun as well, even if their focus on AoE skills does make them a bit detrimental in certain fights. 

Of course, every action comes with timed button presses, and they’re just as satisfying to pull off here as ever. While you are basically starting from scratch stat-wise, the difficulty and complexity picks up right where the base game left off. It took me some time to figure out when to hit A for each attack, but once I did there were still times where I would mess up. I only died once in the expansion, due to a certain boss being able to use his super basically on a whim even after breaking all the locks, (and yes, sometimes enemy locks are simply impossible to break) but other than that it feels tightly balanced. 

Annoyingly, however, the final boss does require you to know how the Wheels minigame works. I’m sure a lot of people enjoy it, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea, and having a boss revolve around it wasn’t very fun. Still, it’s not too bad, it just took me a bit longer than it should have. 

The world you’ll be exploring here has a ton of personality and some fun puzzles to solve. The main theme is the clockwork circus, but there’s some additional variety in the form of a magical castle or a dark cave system. I do find the latter to be the weakest area, as it’s not very fun to run around blindly trying to find what you need to interact with to progress or just a light source. It’s also the most combat heavy, where the other two dungeons found a nice balance between battles and puzzles. The castle in particular has some great ones, involving mirrors, paintings, and statues. It can feel a little tedious at times when you know the solution but it takes a while to put it into practice, but they’re small speedbumps on the overall experience. 

The music in those locations, as usual, is phenomenal. If there’s one thing Sabotage always gets right, it’s the music. Despite some tracks in Throes of the Watchmaker being remixes of tunes from the base game, I didn’t mind their reuse here much as it’s always fun to listen to.  I’m not sure I’d listen to the music outside of its context, but within the game it’s a treat. The DLC also features a surprising amount of animated cutscenes, which are all stunning to behold. 

Additionally, there have been a few additions since we last visited Sea of Stars, namely co-op and hidden locks. The latter will hide whatever element you need to prevent an enemy’s attack until you’ve hit them with it at least once. I didn’t mind this too much, though I don’t think it really added anything to the gameplay either other than getting hit a bit more often. Co-op is a neat addition, though it’s a bit strange in its execution. Up to three players can team up and explore together, but in battle they each take turns choosing a character and their action. It makes sense for how the game works, specifically with the locks system, but it just feels weird being able to play as someone else’s character temporarily in battle. In Throes of the Watchmaker, there’s a short section where there’s only one playable character, but multiple players can still participate through this system and with timed hits being tracked by everyone. 

If you enjoyed the base game, this is seven to eight hours of more Sea of Stars. Throes of the Watchmaker puts a new spin on things, but it still retains everything right and wrong with the rest of the game. It’s incredibly fun to play, but the story still feels like an afterthought, with credits rolling the moment you land the killing blow on the final boss.