Sea of Stars by Sabotage Studios, the creators of the metroidvania The Messenger, was released a few days ago for all consoles and PC and has already received rave reviews. As you can see in the pictures, its graphics are retro style - pixel art but that shouldn't discourage anyone from trying this little gem. A turn-based RPG that is suitable for every gamer, casual or not. It draws influences from Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Golden Sun and personally, I'd throw Octopath Traveler into the equation, always taking into account the aforementioned gameplay mechanics and how they play.
The case concerns two children, Zale who is a warrior of the Sun and Valere as a warrior of the moon who after an incident, the director of Zenith Academy prematurely takes them under his protection to subject them to a training that lasts for 10 years, in order to become Solstice Warriors. The purpose of the Solstice Warriors is to fight the Fleshmancer, an evil alchemist and his creations. They start with their best friend but then they will meet others (party members) who for their own reasons will help the two protagonists' venture. The player can choose at any time to navigate with either Zale or Valere.
Gameplay-wise, it has the open world part which is small and the locations. In the first one you simply move between the locations (which are close by) and in the second one includes cities, mountains, lakes, dungeons and the like that make up the essence. In the open world you can camp to save progress, cook food for battle and recover HP and MP ( rest ). On sites, only at campfires. There is no auto save, only manual.
The combat is simple but cool. You can choose any player among the 3 to attack. But the enemies have an indicator above them that tells you when to attack, so it matters who you use to attack first and who you use last. In addition to simple attacks, enemies prepare special skills that can be canceled if you hit them with various types of attacks. There are slashing,blunt,sun,moon,poison and possibly some other that I haven't found yet. Also important is that every attack, if you press A/X at an appropriate timing, the damage of the attack is increased or some effect is added. The same goes for defense, allowing you to cut off a small percentage of the attack. Per single attack, some orbs appear on the battlefield where any character can draw their power to power up any skill or combo, with a maximum of 3 orbs. Finally, each action in battle also fills the combo gauge accordingly where two characters join forces to unleash a stronger attack. There are also individual skills that waste mana and are replenished with basic attacks or items.
Visually beautiful game, the story is simple and doesn't bore you with information, it has an in-game game for anyone who wants to fool around a bit (how was Tetra Master in FF9?), sound and soundtrack are excellent, in general everything has gone VERY WELL! So try it and you won't miss it ;)