Coming off the fan-favorite retro-style 2D action game The Messenger, Sabotage Studio's follow-up Sea of Stars was another game that paid homage to the 2D era, this time focusing on JRPGs. At the recent Golden Joystick Awards 2024, GamesRadar+ sat down with game director Thierry Boulanger to catch up on the game and his references for creating an original 2D-style JRPG.
In a nutshell, Boulanger stated that Nintendo was one of his biggest influences on his retro throwbacks and how the team learns something from “every game.”
“I mean, in a word, I think it's probably Nintendo, and pretty much everything they did in the '80s and '90s, and to this day, to be fair,” Boulanger said of Sabotage Studio's main influences. “As we grew, developed and understood, [we realized that] “That's going to be what we want to do for a living.”
It's very common for indie developers to cite Nintendo as a central influence, as many creatives grew up with classic consoles like the NES, SNES, and N64, an era of gaming that effectively shaped the aesthetic and formula of Nintendo's core games. However, Sabotage Studio's games are not only an homage to a particular era of gaming, they also add modern touches to them.
For example, The Messenger is a Ninja Gaiden-style action game with elements of a Metroidvania experience, but its biggest twist is that it allows players to seamlessly switch between 8-bit and 16-bit realms, drawing on the best of the different eras. . gaming. As for Seas of Stars, which is a direct prequel to its previous game, it is a game that pays homage to classic JRPGs like Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, but allows players to engage in combat and adventure with cooperative play.
“[For Nintendo]It is simply the mother lode of everything you can learn and all the teachings you [come with it]”said the director. “For example, you can replay Super Mario Brothers 3, and you can still draw conclusions about the controls, the level design, the pacing and even the difficulty, the music, the sound design, the features Tracking shapes and the way enemies are presented. . And that still applies to this day. [Nintendo] It really nails all the core principles that make a game resonate and sing. But yes, and apart from that, all the games too, because we played a lot of them.”
If you want to play other games like Sea of Stars that are deeply rooted in the optimism of a JRPG, check out our list of the best games to play right now.