Sea Horizon is a charming, fantasy roguelite turn-based RPG from developer 45 Studio. In it, players take control of several characters and guide them through their unique journeys across the shattered archipelago of Myrihin. Despite being another entry into a densely populated cross-genre, Sea Horizon is able to establish its own identity thanks to its art direction, quest design, and gameplay decisions.

One such decision is the choice to use dice rolling and deck building as the foundation for its turn-based combat. As players progress through each level, they will unlock new cards, equipment, and bonuses that dramatically affect combat in a variety of ways. Sea Horizon also utilizes some roguelite and survival mechanics, but it struggles to balance them with the rest of the experience. Even so, Sea Horizon's genre-blending style, distinct aesthetic, bite-sized journeys, and addictive gameplay makes it a joy to play through.

Navigating The Board

After completing the tutorial, players are presented with a list of characters, though it's more accurate to describe them as archetypes since they are named as such. For example, players will begin their journey by playing through the Adventurer's story and once completed, they unlock the Wanderer, then the Explorer, and so on. When chosen, a text scroll provides context to their story and objective before dropping them in to Myrihin.

Once in the world, it's clear that this game is heavily influenced by board games and TTRPGs. The map is made of individual hexagons and the player is represented as a miniature. The map areas are small, and each journey is comprised of about three to four areas. As players navigate the hexagons, they will reveal fights, treasures, blessings, and the occasional merchant. Engaging in all of these is a risk/reward decision, as players may be gifted strong abilities and items like enchanted armor and weapons, or they will be given negative status affects that are difficult to remove.

Sea Horizon does add some challenges to navigation that work to varying degrees.The first and main mechanic is also the most annoying, which is the hunger system. Any kind of movement across the map requires food to be used and if the player runs out of food, every step causes damage unless more food can be purchased. This is made better or worse by the secondary challenges, which are the weather conditions that are established at the start of each journey. These conditions are either helpful or harmful, with the most common being a condition that either reduces or increases food consumption by half when traveling on land or water.

May The Best Deck Win

Unlike popular deck-builders like Slay the Spire or Inscryption, the combat system in Sea Horizon works similarly to Lost in Random, using chance and dice rolls to determine what cards can be used during a turn. Cards typically fall into one of three categories: attack, defend, and heal, though some cards may combine two categories. The dice aren't depicted as regular dice, but are instead depicted as symbols: sword, shield, spiral, or leaf. Each card will require a certain amount of each to use, but the amount of dice a player has is limited. To get more dice, players must engage in more battles and explore in order to get stronger cards and equipment.

Equipment makes up the RPG part of the game and affects the amount of dice players can roll, what symbols will be on the dice, and may provide buffs that stack on each other. The equipment available is a primary weapon, secondary weapon/shield, armor, and an attachment like a pendant or amulet. Their buffs range from providing block, which is a defensive bar that must be depleted before direct damage can be done, increased healing, additional ways to deal damage, and other similarly impactful modifications.

The first few hours of Sea Horizon are played with a single character, making the hunt for the right loadout crucial for success. Eventually, characters will come together to form parties to take on stronger enemies, and that's where combat synergy shines. Each archetype has cards and equipment that are specific to their strengths. and the right combination can be nigh unstoppable. As interesting and addictive as this gameplay is, the roguelite elements sometimes create situations that feel nearly impossible to overcome.

RNG And Navigation Issues

There are differences between the roguelikes and roguelites, and it's more accurate to call Sea Horizon a roguelite, despite marketing itself as the former. Unlike a roguelike, dying doesn't end a run. Instead, players are able to retry the fight until they win and if the player does restart, they're allowed to carry a piece of equipment with them into the new run. The main roguelike mechanic it uses in RNG, which just means the game places map elements and items in random places; unfortunately, Sea Horizon doesn't use it effectively.

To refill the hunger meter, players can purchase food from a vendor, but the chance of one spawning is determined by chance. So if the weather condition is harmful to travel and no vendors appear, players will eventually be stuck taking damage when traveling no matter what they do. Since combat encounters are crucial to getting stronger, players can't skip to the end because the fights will be too difficult to win. This applies to card RNG, as one run provided only defensive cards, making it impossible to deal damage and forcing a restart.

Navigation has issues as well, specifically with plot selection and auto-interaction with special tiles. These tiles include combat encounters, shrines, and entrances to the next stage. The issue comes when players want to go from an encounter to a vendor, for example, but the entrance to the next portal is in the travel area. If the player doesn't choose a specific line to avoid it and instead clicks on the vendor, the game will likely take the player right through the entrance, which takes priority and unintentionally forces the player into the next area. While that's annoying enough, Sea Horizon doesn't allow the player to return to the previous area. So if hunger is low and the only food vendor was in the previous area, the player is out of luck and is forced to either keep going or restart.

Final Thoughts and Review Score

While it's roguelite elements aren't balanced well and navigation is often an annoyance, the actual gameplay, story, and mechanics of Sea Horizon are polished and a joy to engage with. Each archetype's journey is short and scales well regarding power and abilities, which feels even better when a party can be assembled. Overall, Sea Horizon is a wonderful game that would benefit from a few tweaks, but those are by no means necessary to have a great time.

Source: Sea Horizon/YouTube

Sea Horizon is available now for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a digital download for the Xbox Series S for the purpose of this review.