Zale, Valere, and their Plural Frog Mech Friend go to The Circus
Today at Sen's Juice Bar we're serving up a review of a DLC I just finished for one of my favorite games that came out in August of 2023, Sea of Stars!
>Keenathan(pirate wind mage guy. Did I mention you have a gang of pirates and the captain is a ghost?) finds out that his name is not his true name(lore stuff I don't really remember but there's a council of giants that like. Judge people and their true name and purpose or something idk)
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R u kidding me that is so sick!!! What a rad boss design!!!
Necromancer is a fighter that I just. Didn't use at all. The DLC forces you to use him and I just ignored him completely lmfao. This fighter saps 2 hit points from your own base and then fires THREE FIREBALLS at the enemy. It's kinda hard to avoid but honestly the assassin and some bulwark and you're golden. They basically just kill themselves if they get to act lol
Your fighters also gain experience and can go from bronze to silver to gold. The higher the level the more damage they do. And also if you "level up" while at gold you just throw a bomb at the enemy base that's unavoidable for 2 damage lol
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The Throes of the Watchmaker DLC came out in May of 2025 and I finally got around to playing it after watching AGDQ and yearning for some good ole RPG gameplay.
But first, a recap! (spoilers abound)
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Sea of Stars is an RPG with gorgeous high-saturation graphics and whimsical music. The gameplay is pretty similar to Super Mario RPG. It also has one of my very favorite unique mini-games that I've played in a game in a very long time - Wheels. If you've played Sea of Stars and you loved Wheels like I did, this DLC is gonna get you so hype just sayin'. (I legitimately just want to play wheels all the time)
I'm going to give an incredibly limited and quick summary of the Sea of Stars story. I'm not very good at remembering stories (also I played this almost 3 years ago lol) but I'm not a videogame lore youtuber so there's nothing you can hold against me :)
You have two main characters, Zale and Valere who are Solstice Warriors. Essentially beings who are born on the Solstice and are thus granted special powers used to fight beings known as Dwellers that are trying to destroy the world because some alchemists got in an argument. Classic RPG stuff. There's a lot of time travel and world hopping and betrayal and dragons and...bread.
You have two main characters, Zale and Valere who are Solstice Warriors. Essentially beings who are born on the Solstice and are thus granted special powers used to fight beings known as Dwellers that are trying to destroy the world because some alchemists got in an argument. Classic RPG stuff. There's a lot of time travel and world hopping and betrayal and dragons and...bread.
I didn't remember a lot of the deeper lore. Things get complicated fast with time travel and multiple timelines and whatnot, so if you're going into the DLC with the same vague memory that I have you really just need to remember like. Four things from the base game.
1. Who Zale and Valere are
1. Who Zale and Valere are
2. That the Artificer is just the souls of the 5 smartest immortal children you know put into a frog mech
3. That the Watchmaker is the best Wheels player there is
4. What Wheels is (if you do not know this part we'll get into it later)
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Okay so the story of the DLC is as followed:
>Keenathan(pirate wind mage guy. Did I mention you have a gang of pirates and the captain is a ghost?) finds out that his name is not his true name(lore stuff I don't really remember but there's a council of giants that like. Judge people and their true name and purpose or something idk)
>Keenathan is very sad. :(
>Teaks, a historian who is also part of your crew, comes up with a plan to help Keenathan
>Teaks, a historian who is also part of your crew, comes up with a plan to help Keenathan
>The plan involves getting The Watchmaker to create a pocket watch with Keenathan's name engraved on it
>The Watchmaker is an Ovate, which is essentially someone so dang good at their craft that they get fancy powers and can bend reality. So since she is an Ovate, she can bend reality to make Keenathan's name...Keenathan!
>The Watchmaker makes a deal with the Solstice Warriors
>Lore dump occurs and you're reminded that back in the day, The Watchmaker and The Big Evil were homies and built a big ole Clocktower together
>The Big Evil had full intentions of fucking over the Watchmaker, and made an ~evil cog~that he tossed into her cog pile because he knew the Watchmaker would EVENTUALLY use it for some kind of project
>The Watchmaker creates a lil tiny world within a clock called Horloge which is basically home to a big cogwork circus. She unknowingly uses the cog in it, and notices something is wrong.
>The Watchmaker is an Ovate, which is essentially someone so dang good at their craft that they get fancy powers and can bend reality. So since she is an Ovate, she can bend reality to make Keenathan's name...Keenathan!
>The Watchmaker makes a deal with the Solstice Warriors
>Lore dump occurs and you're reminded that back in the day, The Watchmaker and The Big Evil were homies and built a big ole Clocktower together
>The Big Evil had full intentions of fucking over the Watchmaker, and made an ~evil cog~that he tossed into her cog pile because he knew the Watchmaker would EVENTUALLY use it for some kind of project
>The Watchmaker creates a lil tiny world within a clock called Horloge which is basically home to a big cogwork circus. She unknowingly uses the cog in it, and notices something is wrong.
>She shrinks down and goes into the clock to figure out what's wrong (and to visit her lil cogwork villagers that are very very cute) and the cog activated and sapped her energy and made her an evil twin
>The Evil Twin is named The Puppeteer and proceeds to wreak havoc in the tiny clock world
>The Watchmaker escapes and seals the clock. Apparently, if left unchecked, the clock world will give birth to a new Dweller called The Dweller of Scourge
So basically your fellas need to go beat up The Puppeteer to prevent the end of the world (and Horloge!) and in exchange will receive the pocket watch for Keenathan.
So basically your fellas need to go beat up The Puppeteer to prevent the end of the world (and Horloge!) and in exchange will receive the pocket watch for Keenathan.
So cute :')
Okay so with that recap let me get something off my chest real quick
I hate DLCs
This is perhaps a controversial opinion, but I really just don't care for them! There's so many games out there and when I'm done with a game I kinda just wanna be DONE with it and move on. I actively hate the idea of having to relearn an entire game because a DLC came out 6 months or so after I beat it. This disdain I have is actually a big reason I put off playing the SoS DLC for so long. I just wanted to be done with the game and move on. I didn't wanna relearn my how to play or read up on the lore again. And let me remind you, I LOVED THIS GAME. But we are who we are. And I'm a guy that just doesn't like DLC very much.
With that out of the way, let me tell you why Sabotage Studios absolutely NAILED this DLC and made it enjoyable for haters like me.
With that out of the way, let me tell you why Sabotage Studios absolutely NAILED this DLC and made it enjoyable for haters like me.
First of all, The amount of lore you need to know/remember to fully enjoy the DLC is negligible. Except for maybe the secret cutscene you can get, but we'll touch on that later. They really just throw you into an entire new world with an entire new story separate from the main one. You just kinda get to be like oh yeah! Look it's my little guys! Sun, Moon, and Plural Frog Mech! Let's see what they get up to this time :)
Second, you completely start over at level one. The reason for this is that when you get into the tiny cogwork world, the Puppeteer saps you of your solstice warrior powers and uses the power to create evil twins of Zale and Valere. Then, while lamenting (in jail), a lil cogwork conductor named Fardush is like, well have you tried just being a little silly? So the Solstice Warriors get new circus-themed classes! Zale becomes a Juggler and Valere becomes an Acrobat. New movesets to learn from the bottom up. And instead of the traditional level system, you have what's called "Renown" which functions exactly the same but you cap at 6. They also give you fresh starter gear and money (it would be overpowered if you could just buy all the vendor items right off the bat with your base game money lmao) so it feels incredibly accessible and less daunting to pick the game back up for this DLC. Oh! And due to lore reasons, you only have 3 playable characters so it's not like you have to juggle (lol) between the 6 playable characters in the base game.
Third is that it's FUCKING FREE! Apparently Sabotage Studios sold around 7x more copies of Sea of Stars than they anticipated, so they just threw in this DLC for free as a thank you! Now I'm not saying that all DLC should be free and that's a reason I don't like to play them. Artists should be paid for their work always! BUT it did make me, a hater, more likely to play it lol
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Now onto just some cool stuff that I got really excited about in this DLC. One is that I fucking LOVE CLOWNS so the circus theme was very rad for me. I mean just look at this killer boss that these lil evil jesters made with a gunpla kit
They also took my favorite minigame and turned it into a boss mechanic. So let's talk about the best minigame ever invented that I invested way too much time into and wish that there was a game JUST FOR THIS
Let's talk about MOTHER FUCKING WHEELS
Wheels is a board game in Sea of Stars where you pick two fighters to defend your base. You will then roll the slots a maximum of 3 times per turn to determine your move. You want at LEAST 3 of a kind for something to occur. You have Squares, which will make your fighter on the left side of your board perform an action or level up, and Diamonds for your right side fighter. The other tile you can roll is the hammer. Hammers build up your Bulwark to a maximum of 6 levels high. The Bulwark will block certain attacks from your enemy, but will decrease in size with each hit. Here are the available fighters:
Warrior which can attack quickly but cannot go past even the lowest level Bulwark
Mage which attacks twice; one of the attacks goes over the Bulwark
Archer does extra damage to the base and can fly over a level 2 or lower Bulwark. Takes a while to charge the attack tho
Engineer which is a support style fighter that does extra damage to the enemies Bulwark AND upon taking an action also raises the player's Bulwark by 2! I love this guy
Assassin this guy is my GOAT. The Assassin completely ignores the Bulwark. He doesn't do a lot of damage, but it is completely unavoidable damage. He also will target whichever one of the enemy's fighters is closest to making a move and delay them by 2. I use this guy 100% of the time he has never failed me
Priest this guy is a priest you get the idea. Heals the base and speeds up your other fighter each time he acts.
Assassin this guy is my GOAT. The Assassin completely ignores the Bulwark. He doesn't do a lot of damage, but it is completely unavoidable damage. He also will target whichever one of the enemy's fighters is closest to making a move and delay them by 2. I use this guy 100% of the time he has never failed me
Priest this guy is a priest you get the idea. Heals the base and speeds up your other fighter each time he acts.
AND in the DLC you get a new one:
Necromancer is a fighter that I just. Didn't use at all. The DLC forces you to use him and I just ignored him completely lmfao. This fighter saps 2 hit points from your own base and then fires THREE FIREBALLS at the enemy. It's kinda hard to avoid but honestly the assassin and some bulwark and you're golden. They basically just kill themselves if they get to act lol
Your fighters also gain experience and can go from bronze to silver to gold. The higher the level the more damage they do. And also if you "level up" while at gold you just throw a bomb at the enemy base that's unavoidable for 2 damage lol
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So canonically in the base game, the Watchmaker created Wheels and is the ultimate champion. So it makes sense that her evil counterpart, the Puppeteer, has a boss fight that looks like this
Anything look familiar?
This boss fight is so rad. She has two fighters that she swaps out randomly that act similarly to classes in Wheels. Also you can only use 2 of your 3 party members at a time, as they act as YOUR fighters! They swap out now and again as well with whoever your reserve character is at the time.
This boss fight is so rad. She has two fighters that she swaps out randomly that act similarly to classes in Wheels. Also you can only use 2 of your 3 party members at a time, as they act as YOUR fighters! They swap out now and again as well with whoever your reserve character is at the time.
The Puppeteer will spin the wheel and you have to hit it to change the outcome to try to prevent her fighters from acting. It is so fun and clever that they full-circled this. I literally gasped when this boss fight came up because I was so excited. My spouse was watching me play and understood nothing but I assured them it was cool don't worry.
Once you beat all 6 of her rotating fighters you win the battle and come to the final boss, the Dweller of Scourge. You can't really do anything to it because you don't have your Solstice Powers. But you re-unlock them after telling your evil twins to go fuck themselves and beating them up.
Oh yeah I guess we didn't talk much about the twins. They're basically the inner demons of the Solstice Warriors magnified into an entity and throughout the DLC the twins try to convince the SWs that they would be happier and more powerful if they gave into said inner demons. That's really it. I mean the base game touches a lot on the concept of prophecy and forced responsibility and what that does to a person, so it makes sense that they would do more soul-searching for the main characters in the DLC.
Oh yeah I guess we didn't talk much about the twins. They're basically the inner demons of the Solstice Warriors magnified into an entity and throughout the DLC the twins try to convince the SWs that they would be happier and more powerful if they gave into said inner demons. That's really it. I mean the base game touches a lot on the concept of prophecy and forced responsibility and what that does to a person, so it makes sense that they would do more soul-searching for the main characters in the DLC.
Anyway back to the Dweller of Scourge.
Okay so you got your powers back! Cool! You kinda beat him up for a bit and then your Plural Frog Mech guy is like hey check this out and they built a big ole robot out of clown parts and other junk and you just fist fight the Dweller
Okay so you got your powers back! Cool! You kinda beat him up for a bit and then your Plural Frog Mech guy is like hey check this out and they built a big ole robot out of clown parts and other junk and you just fist fight the Dweller
It's not a difficult fight, but it's sick as shit.
Afterwards you get a nice lil cutscene where the gang and the Watchmaker all have a festival with the Cogwork villagers to celebrate and Keenathan is gifted his pocket watch.
THE END
Well except for the little secret part.
Throughout the DLC there are various puzzles and activities for you to do where your prize will be one of twelve time runes. Once you get them all you can insert them into a big clock in the plaza of Horloge. Once down there, if you have completed the True Ending in the base game, you get a cool cutscene. I'm not going to try and decipher it because I am not very smart but my understanding, after doing some reading, is that it ties in some world building from Sabotage's other game The Messenger and the game they're currently working on named Project Sparrow. All of Sabotage's games share a universe, so it's kind of a little cutscene treat for the super invested. I haven't played The Messenger yet, but I did understand some of the stuff that was being talked about. Mostly that Garl is a fucking Ovate now so hell yeah to our little Warrior Cook!
Okay I love this game I love you I hope you check it out catch ya later have a firework!
THE END
Well except for the little secret part.
Throughout the DLC there are various puzzles and activities for you to do where your prize will be one of twelve time runes. Once you get them all you can insert them into a big clock in the plaza of Horloge. Once down there, if you have completed the True Ending in the base game, you get a cool cutscene. I'm not going to try and decipher it because I am not very smart but my understanding, after doing some reading, is that it ties in some world building from Sabotage's other game The Messenger and the game they're currently working on named Project Sparrow. All of Sabotage's games share a universe, so it's kind of a little cutscene treat for the super invested. I haven't played The Messenger yet, but I did understand some of the stuff that was being talked about. Mostly that Garl is a fucking Ovate now so hell yeah to our little Warrior Cook!
Okay I love this game I love you I hope you check it out catch ya later have a firework!
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