Star Ocean The Divine Force is best described as being the best possible outcome for the series. As someone who has played all of the mainline Star Ocean games up to this point, I recognize that each game has its ups and downs. In the comparison article, I brought up the many criticisms I have with each individual game in the series but I managed to enjoy all of them despite their shortcomings and this is mainly due to the fact that I absolutely adore the Star Ocean formula. Star Ocean The Divine Force feels like an attempt to address many of the criticisms I had with the previous entries, while also bringing something new and fresh to the Star Ocean formula.
What makes the Star Ocean formula so appealing to me is how it manages to constantly excite you with its subsystems. Going into a Star Ocean game, I expect to experience a lot of character management and Star Ocean The Divine Force doesn’t disappoint in this regard. The skill books found in previous entries are no more and have been replaced with a skill grid for each character, allowing players to learn skills in any order they like as opposed to having to find skill books or visit skill shops to unlock new skills like in the previous games. This allows for considerably more freedom in regards to how one chooses to build their characters. On top of this, you still have the ability to level up skills with SP acquired from leveling up your character like you can in previous entries, so you still have the freedom to strengthen your character’s skills in any order you please without feeling gated off to anything. I didn’t find the skill grid to be all that restrictive either since each skill you learn connects to numerous other skills, giving you plenty of choice in regards to what skills you want to learn first, within reasonable boundaries of course. Honestly, this may quite possibly be the best skill system in the series as there are very few boundaries as opposed to previous entries and the system is easy enough for newcomers to understand, albeit a tad overwhelming but if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t be a Star Ocean game.
For the first time in 21 years, Star Ocean The Divine Force employs the original item creation system that was used in both the first two entries and Blue Sphere which is a real treat for fans who have sorely missed the simple, yet addictive process of discovering new items at the expense of raw materials. When Star Ocean Till The End Of Time released, this system would be replaced by the convoluted Invention system, which was so terrible that they ditched the system entirely in Star Ocean The Last Hope which instead used a more conventional crafting system that you see in so many games nowadays and while it was considerably less aggravating than Star Ocean 3’s invention, it felt rather generic and uninteresting by comparison to the item creation found in the earlier games. I feared that this system would return in The Divine Force and while the game kind of does bring back the concept of recipes used to craft certain items, it is no longer required of players to follow these recipes when partaking in item creation allowing them to freely make items without having to fulfil a strict criteria, which I strongly prefer over The Last Hope’s more restrictive system. On top of all this, there are a few changes made to item creation. Players can now choose to retry a failed item creation up to two times with each one, which helps to mitigate the need for save scumming when a valuable material fails to produce the desired item.
In previous entries, part of the fun of item creation was visiting all the different kinds of stores in towns to purchase materials and ingredients to create certain items. All but one town in Star Ocean The Divine Force has but a single merchant and while this does make shopping for items more convenient, it is a bit of a shame that there’s no reason to enter different buildings in towns save for story related purposes and finding a few items in people’s houses. The game more than makes up for this however by placing purple crystals around town for players to collect, these crystals can also be found outside of towns too, particularly in field areas which are considerably larger than the field areas in the previous entries, even Star Ocean The Last Hope’s field areas are dwarfed by the ones in Divine Force and that game had some pretty huge field areas for the time. These crystals can be used to level up DUMA, a robot companion which the entire game revolves around. DUMA can be used to get from A to B quickly but it also has an important functionality in battle. By upgrading DUMA, you can learn skills that relate to both field navigation and combat. Much like character progression, you are free to upgrade DUMA in any way you please, giving you even more to manage, as if the character management alone wasn’t good enough.
Mission Failed… We’ll get em next time…
Private actions return and this time upon entering a town you have already visited (so long as it is not connected to the story) the party will automatically disband, leaving you with only Raymond or Laeticia to control. During this time you can interact with your party members like in Integrity And Faithlessness without having to move to the whistle icon beforehand. While most private actions involve conversing with the other character like you would a generic NPC, there are a few that play cutscenes with background music of their own like in The Last Hope. It’s nice to see a good mix of both this time around. One issue I do have with the private actions in this game however is that there is no way to tell how many private actions are available in town. Back in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness, there was an indicator that showed how many private actions you had left to do before you had to stay at the inn to refresh them. This feature is completely absent from The Divine Force which is rather aggravating as you try talking to every single character after every story interval in towns to make sure you aren’t missing anything, only for most of them to repeat the same lines of dialog relevant to the plot at the time of interacting with them. Sometimes it’s easy to tell as they usually have their own spots but these spots tend to change as the plot moves on making it even more difficult to find them. Sometimes you will see characters stood together which makes things a little easier. Fortunately many of the game’s private actions are entertaining enough to make seeking them out worthwhile.
If private actions aren’t your thing, there’s yet another distraction for players looking to kill time in towns in the form of a new minigame titled E’sowa. This minigame has you collecting pawns that represent characters from previous games which is a nice callback. At first the game can seem a bit complicated but upon learning how it works, you realize that at the start of the game, many of the stats do not matter as you can abuse the smaller boards by surrounding as many empty spaces as you can to essentially place your opponent into submission, rendering it impossible for them to place a pawn. The same can happen to you however and it can feel a bit frustrating if it happens because you could have a ton of health but without the ability to place a sufficient amount of pawns, all you can do is sit there and wait till you are defeated as there isn’t usually an easy way to turn things around when things go sour unless you just happen to have assassin pawns, which can be difficult to acquire early on. I did find that later on, E’sowa did become a bit more challenging and fun. The desire to collect all the pawns and reach the highest rank is definitely alluring, so I found myself playing way more E’sowa than I had anticipated. The way this ties into the gameplay is that pawns can be equipped as accessories or be used through synthesis to extract its valuable factors. If you don’t like E’sowa for some reason then you do have the alternative option of crafting the pawns through item creation but I find that approach to be very difficult if you are looking to acquire a particular pawn that may otherwise be easier to obtain by winning an E’sowa match.
All your favorite Star Ocean characters return in E’sowa… but unfortunately so does Lymle.
So as you can see, there’s a lot to do in both towns and field areas, making visiting new locations just as exciting as it is to level up your character to invest skill points in whatever you choose. The feeling of excitement brought about by these two things is ultimately what sets Star Ocean apart from other Action RPG’s as it truly is the core of what makes these games enjoyable. Star Ocean The Divine Force not only maintains the standards set by previous entries in this department, it improves each and every one of them and for that alone, I’m greatly impressed with what this game brings to the table already. There is one thing however that Star Ocean often gets outshined by its competitors in the genre and that is the game’s combat system. While the combat in the series isn’t necessarily bad outside of the third entry, I find that tri-Ace seem to have been fighting an uphill battle against Tales with each and every game in this department and while a few games arguably match their Tales counterparts, most of them fail to reach the standards set by the Tales games released around the time they came out. Due to Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness having a rather archaic combat system for the time, being based on Till The End Of Time’s combat system and all, a major change was needed in order for future entries to stand the test of time. Star Ocean The Divine Force addresses this issue by completely reworking the entire combat system whilst adding something fresh to help it stand out from its competitors.
For starters you now have an AP gauge which governs how often you are able to take actions in battle. The AP gauge may feel similar to that of fury from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time but unlike that game, the AP gauge can be restored when moving, much like in Valkyrie Profile 2. Speaking of Valkyrie Profile 2, the attacks are mapped to the face buttons, much like that game. The only difference is that the X button is used to jump, every other face button allows you to input a sequence of up to 3 actions much like how Valkyrie Profile 2’s characters each have 3 moves of their own that trigger in a linear fashion. There is also the ability to hold down one of the buttons to perform a different action, which is kinda similar to how you could press a direction on the d pad mid combo to scramble attack in Valkyrie Profile 2, letting you mix between the linear combos to make more free flowing combos should you wish to do so. There is a lot of potential to be had with this system and it allows for much greater flexibility than previous entries in the series. The question is, is any of this flexibility meaningful? While I can’t say that the moves aren’t spammable, because they most certainly are, it is interesting to note that many of the attacks learned by each character comes with a unique factor that makes it specialize in certain situations. Some attacks have I-frames while others can deal extra damage to downed enemies to name a couple of examples. I find that this helps to make combat a little bit more interesting than just button mashing because you may be able to find an opportunity to utilize a different move for a better effect.
Sweet Chin Music!
The main draw of the game’s combat lies in your new robot companion, DUMA. With DUMA you are able to do numerous things both in and out of battle but in battle it serves as a means of closing in on enemies at high speeds with a VA attack. You can also use it to provide passive buffs by switching to estery cage mode but you will be unable to use the VA attack, nor will you be able to increase the VA gauge with attacks. This means that you will be unable to utilize blindsides which can be performed by initiating a VA attack and changing directions when facing an enemy that is readying an attack against you, making it very different from how blindsides worked in The Last Hope as instead of evading an attack, you are instead closing in on an enemy with a VA attack. This speeds up the pace of the combat considerably as you are no longer charging up your rage gauge waiting for the enemy to approach for an attack, instead you are approaching them, only to change course to take them off guard. Blindsides not only grant you bonus damage but they will also immobilize the enemy for a brief period of time. It is also possible to blindside multiple enemies at once in this game which can be even more rewarding as your allies can take care of the other immobilized enemies while you focus on the one you targeted. Blindsides also increase your maximum AP capacity in battle which allows you to perform more actions, making it a critical skill to utilize to maximize efficiency in regards to your actions. The estery cage is handy in situations where enemies cannot be blindsided like the worms you encounter in the mines area as it helps to protect the party by giving them a huge defense boost, among other things. It can also be useful when you are in a tight spot and the AI are having trouble staying alive, which will happen a lot in the later portions of the game as there are very few commands available to give to the AI. The only options you have are to split up or focus on a single target, that’s it. There’s no option to keep distance from enemies so if you want to do that, you’ll have to do this yourself by removing all of the chain combos and positioning the character away from the action, which is hardly ideal but sometimes it is necessary.
It is worth noting that there is no MP in this game unlike its predecessors, so you can’t just rely on MP regeneration and repeatedly use healing spells to keep your party alive, you will have to use items if you want a good chance of surviving. Those who choose to place Nina in the party will have the ability to heal and revive the other party members. The MP restoration items now serve to replenish AP instead, though I found that my AP replenished fast enough on its own anyway, plus without the quick usage skill, you will spend a considerable amount of time waiting for the item to trigger, it is highly recommended to equip that skill on your most used character as soon as possible. There is also an auto healing skill that really comes in handy when you’re running low on healing items, equip that skill as well if you have it and be sure to max it out when you can as it makes a huge difference. If you’re finding the pace of the combat to be overwhelming or you need to change targets, you can enter stop mode (which is the touch pad button on the PS4 controller) to stop what you are doing in the middle of battle to change targets, assess the situation, use items and change the AI behaviors without having to do so in real time. It’s a good thing that this feature exists because much like in Valkyrie Elysium, the lock on button is mapped to R3 but with stop mode this is hardly an issue.
If you use a VA Attack on an elevated target, you can reach great heights and can attack foes while airborne
The good news is that most of the inputs for actions in battle and on the field can be customized should you wish to use a more convenient layout. Personally I switched the dodge button to circle and the circle moves to L1 because I found it to be more convenient personally. Having the freedom to change the inputs is always a good thing and given the fact that many of the Star Ocean games use triggers for their special moves, should you wish to play the old fashioned way with the triggers instead of the face buttons, you can. Sadly though you are still unable to change the lock on inputs which is a tad disappointing. Nevertheless there are some other features worth noting such as the ability to break off enemy body parts like in Valkyrie Profile 2 and this often leads towards item drops. Certain larger enemies have different targeting points you can switch between and sometimes it is better to target a specific part for greater effect. It should also be noted that if your inventory of a certain item is full, any of those items that are dropped from enemies will be sold automatically which is a convenient way of dealing with excess items, the same also applies to items made in item creation too, so instead of these items simply not appearing in your inventory despite been shown as being acquired, you at least get some kind of reward for it.
There is a downside to inventory management though and that is the fact that at times certain characters will leave the party and upon doing so, the game will unequip their accessories constantly (Edit: Patch fix incoming for this issue). Now there are a crap ton of accessories in this game, many of which will likely be pawns acquired from the E’sowa minigame so it can be a pain having to navigate through all of them. While there ways to sort the inventory to make things a little easier, if you’re looking for a particular accessory, it can still be a pain trying to find it. I do understand why they did this though since it means that if the characters that left kept their accessories equipped, you would lose those accessories until they came back (Edit: Once again, Patch Fix), so in a way it’s kind of a double-edged sword. It should also be noted that the text size in this game is absurdly small which can make the tutorials an absolute pain in the ass to read. Considering how much different this game plays when compared to its predecessors, this can leave even long term fans confused if they struggle to read the tutorial text. There are also times where enemy encounters become glitched and won’t recognize you, though it’s more of a minor nuisance than anything. Other than that, I really don’t have much else to complain about in regards to the gameplay as pretty much everything else works about as well as any Star Ocean game should.
Now Star Ocean has never been known for having the greatest of narratives so with all that in mind, I was rather impressed with how the story was handled in The Divine Force. It starts off quite slow but in a good way as it introduces you to the world and the characters. Around the half way mark, things start to get a lot more plot heavy and while that’s great and all, it does disrupt the game’s pacing a little as you’ll find yourself in situations that involve constant back and forth between areas to watch cutscenes with very little going on in the gameplay department, which can feel like a slog, particularly for players who want to get back to the action. To make matters worse, during these sections party members will come and go and due to the way accessories are handled, this can get pretty infuriating (Edit: Once again, they’re patching this issue). I get that they were trying to build up to a huge story moment but I think they could have trimmed it down a little and still had the same effect.
The latter half of the game’s story is when things start to get a little complicated as it introduces some new concepts with a ton of exposition to explain them in greater detail which was pretty hard to follow. I did find the concept itself to be interesting however and the way it tied into the theme of the narrative was really well done. Ultimately, the story as a whole was gripping enough to keep my attention, which is all I really need in a Star Ocean game as the meat of the experience lies more in the gameplay rather than the story. It’s definitely more ambitious than the previous entry that’s for sure and is up there with Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s story in regards to how interesting it was to me. One thing that I did find lacking though were the game’s villains as while the story tries to give them interesting motives, they fall completely flat due to the fact that they present themselves in the most generic way possible, making them very hard to take seriously.
The game more than makes up for the villains shortcomings with its diverse selection of playable characters. They even brought in some new races to make things even more interesting. The characters truly are the main appeal of the game’s story if you ask me as while the plot itself is interesting, it’s the characters themselves that make it work because you genuinely care about them, unlike The Last Hope where the characters were so ridiculously absurd that I just couldn’t take the story seriously. It certainly helps that the male lead, Raymond is a lot more cool-headed and mature than many of the other male leads in the series, he can also be rather snarky at times which adds to his likability. After suffering through characters like Fayt Leingod and Edge Maverick, who are considerably more unlikable, playing as Raymond feels like a breath of fresh air, without a doubt the best male protagonist in the series hands down. My favorite character though would have to be Midas since I found him to be the most relatable character out of all of them. Not only is he dapper but he’s also surprisingly swole for a semiomancer in his older years. I greatly resonate with his bluntness, as well as his cynical attitude, even though it brings nothing but trouble for the party, his rebellious nature makes him stand out from the rest of the cast as he is pretty much an anti-hero, which is a very common trope for many younger characters but it’s nice to see an older character embody this trope for once. The rest of the characters are also likable in their own way and bounce off of each other’s personalities really well, which is especially important in a Star Ocean game, given the fact that they tend to have numerous private actions.
The characters not only have great personalities but they also look great aesthetically as well, Akiman definitely made some interesting looking characters this time round. It’s definitely an improvement over the previous entries, even though I did like the artwork for Integrity And Faithlessness as well. He is definitely my favorite of all the Star Ocean artists by far, though I know that not everyone will agree with me on that. What I really enjoyed about the visuals the most in Star Ocean The Divine Force is the environments. I have heard countless people complain about the graphics being outdated for the time but I don’t care what those people think, visually speaking, this game looks absolutely stunning and is without a doubt the best looking game in the series hands down. The level aesthetic absolutely nails the otherworldly feel in ways that other games failed, such as the existence of floating islands in the sky which can be reached by flying to them with DUMA for a better view of the landscape. In addition to this, there are some absolutely gorgeous skyboxes to build on that otherworldly feel with what appears to be two moons in the sky, definitely one of the best skyboxes I have seen in a videogame for sure.
Nice view, wish I had someone to throw…
The soundtrack is best described as being grandiose. I particularly enjoy the music that plays in the more futuristic locations the best as they kinda have this electronic rock hybrid to them which I really enjoyed a lot. While it may not be Motoi Sakuraba’s best work, it’s definitely a solid soundtrack nonetheless, though I wouldn’t say it is my favorite soundtrack in the series. Some songs stand out better than others but the ones that stand out the most are fantastic. Ultimately though, the music does an incredible job at bringing the game’s environments to life and that’s all that really matters.
Star Ocean The Divine Force has everything a Star Ocean fan could possibly ask for. While it may not be a perfect game, it does revitalize the Star Ocean formula and for that alone, regardless of its flaws I find it impossible to dislike this game. The question is however, how well does this game hold up with the other games in the series? In retrospect I kind of released my comparison article too early as I never expected this game to come out but after playing this game and seeing how well it holds up against all of the classics, I’m going to have to change my answer. As good as Star Ocean The Second Story is, I honestly feel that Star Ocean The Divine Force is the better game overall. Sure Star Ocean The Second Story has a lot more item creation specialties and character endings than The Divine Force and is still an outstanding game for its time but I honestly think that The Divine Force beats it as my all time favorite Star Ocean game for the simple fact that it successfully managed to do what no other game in the series could. It is the only game in the series so far that manages to have a great story, the best looking visuals in the series, my favorite cast of characters in the series to date and most of all, the best combat system in the series hands down. In other words, it succeeds in all four areas. If this is the last Star Ocean game we will ever get then I can at least say that the series ended in the best way possible.
Ok so I’ve just about had enough with this bullshit. Star Ocean The Divine Force releases in 8 days, 8 fucking days and Square-Enix still hasn’t listed the system requirements on the Steam Store page, on top of this, the game has denuvo DRM and apparently there will be in game purchases according to the ESRB which I only noticed on the Playstation Store page for the game which I decided to check because I wanted to see what Sony were charging for it because it’s common knowledge by now that the Playstation Store is a rip off and I’m going to get into that first because before I went to look up the price for the game on the Playstation Store, I was expecting it to be £54.99, which was still higher than the price on Steam but I knew Sony would inflate the price like the scum they are so I went in expecting it to be higher. Turns out that Sony exceeded my expectations as the price of a digital standard copy of Star Ocean The Divine Force on the Playstation Store is… *drum roll* £59.99!
I know, it caught me by surprise too, I never realized that Sony would stoop so low as to charge more than the physical copies on their store, which are only £54.99. Sure with postage in consideration it’s the same price but this is still daylight robbery and we all know that Sony has a monopoly, they’ve already been accused of it, it’s out there, go look it up Sony have a monopoly over their console’s digital market, I’ve known this for years and it’s the main reason why I refuse to buy from the Playstation Store. Thing is though, it is still an avenue of purchase to consider and for that reason, I had to bring it up. Hopefully this alone will tell you why this isn’t a viable option of purchase. Next up we have physical PS4 copies and I don’t even know where to begin with this. On Gamefaqs, people have mentioned that Amazon have delayed the game till November, only to bring it back to October 27th. Like I get it, there’s a lot of complications with postage right now, the Royal Mail are on strike, I get it. Thing is, this is just confusing to me, if I order a physical copy of the game (which cost the same as a digital Playstation Store copy when you include postage) then I will not have access to the game on release and this will greatly hinder the progress of my review of the game. Unlike most of these mass media outlets and popular content creators, I do not have the luxury of being able to apply for a review code. This is for two reasons, firstly I am a small content creator, secondly this is Cynical Gaming Blog, essentially making me the enemy of all videogame publishers, why would they send me a free review code when I trash these companies time and time again? So this means my only option is to get the game day 1… which is easier said than done.
Now obviously the best case scenario would be to get the game on Steam so that I can play it on PC, since it would be so much more convenient for me to do so as it means that not only is it easier for me to record footage it’s also easier for me to screencap too. On top of this, I’d be supporting more PC releases of Japanese games by buying from steam and showing Square-Enix that there is an audience for those games on PC. On top of this, it would mean that there would be 1 more physical copy available for physical game collectors who play on consoles as I would be buying digitally, which has limitless availability. In addition, the price for Star Ocean The Divine Force on PC is £49.99. I never thought that I’d be happy to see that price tag show up for a game since it used to be £39.99 for a brand new release, remember those days?
Sadly inflation is a thing now and well, they’ve coerced us into paying more… as per usual. I wish It was that simple for me to do that, I mean given the fact that I am a self-employed retailer (this blog doesn’t make me any money, let alone a living just thought I’d put that out there), I understand better than anyone how hard it is to inflate prices simply due to the fact that while inflation goes up, the disposable income of others does not and I always try my best to make prices fair and affordable, going as far as to avoid buying inflated stock to maintain a fixed price. Of course big corporations aren’t going to do this since they don’t give a shit about their customers, particularly game Publishers. They’re only good at one thing: taking and I’m getting fed up with it. None of this would be an issue if the games themselves were improving like they were back in the day but videogames have been going downhill since 2010 and continue to get worse and worse by the day (which is evident by my review of Valkyrie Elysium, a game I paid £54.99 for, more expensive than my copies of Valkyrie Profile 1 & 2 combined only to find out that it was inferior to both of those games), save for a few, yet they charge us more!? What the absolute fuck is wrong with this industry? Why do we eat up this bullshit time and time again? I swear there’s more to it than inflation, the Playstation Store prices greatly suggest this.
Regardless I will accept £49.99 for now as a reasonable price for the sake of this article, assuming that it’s merely inflation but it’s impossible to know that for certain. All I do know is that the way Square-Enix have handled the PC version of Star Ocean The Divine Force is absolutely abysmal. Not only do we have to deal with Denuvo DRM yet again but the system requirements for the game, which should be announced prior to release are still unconfirmed even though the game is releasing in 8 days, what the fuck Square-Enix!? Despite this however, they are more than happy to relieve us of our hard earned money in exchange for a game that we don’t even know will work on our hardware. Not everyone has the best, most up to date PC and because of this, it is important to list system requirements so that people know in advance whether or not they are able to run the game so that they can make necessary modifications to their system in advance prior to release or they purchase the game on console if they happen to have one. With the way things are right now, it is impossible to know whether or not the game will run and while some have speculated that the recommended requirements will be around the same recommended requirements that the PC’s being given away in a Japanese contest by Intel, it’s difficult to know what is in the thing unless you understand Japanese and even then, what are the minimum requirements? We don’t fucking know!!!
So as you can see, I am in a bit of a situation here. I don’t usually try to get reviews out early but I have noticed that doing so yields better results as people are more likely to read reviews of games if the games are new and relevant and considering the fact that two of my favorite franchises had releases back to back this year, I’ve wanted to cover both of them, despite the stressful situation I’ve been going through in real life. Thing is that Square-Enix are making this needlessly difficult for me. I want to support more Star Ocean games and with tri-Ace’s terrible financial situation under consideration, it is urgent that I purchase the game so that I can at least show to Square-Enix the value that tri-Ace brings to the table as well as getting them out of this mess. I don’t give two flying fucks about giving Square-Enix my money if it wasn’t for tri-Ace I’d just wait for a cheap review code to show up on G2A just to spite them for being greedy bastards. Thing is, this isn’t a matter of boycotting, it’s quite the opposite. Buying this game digitally on steam means that I am supporting Square-Enix’s bullshit but that is a necesarry evil to keep tri-Ace afloat and it is so unbelievably conflicting. Thing is though in this situation, I feel that I have to let Square-Enix win because tri-Ace is one of the last hopes this industry has to bring us quality games. While Valkyrie Elysium, was one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations in regards to buying it, Star Ocean The Divine Force is very similar in the sense that you either watch tri-Ace disappear from the industry or prevent it at the cost of allowing Square-Enix get away with their bullshit. I am so sick of the distain that this company has for its PC market, they didn’t even give PC users access to a Demo, it’s ridiculous. Is there any hope for this industry at all or are we all fucked?
With the success of Valkyrie Anatomia, one would think that this would be the perfect opportunity to bring back the Valkyrie Profile series. While many of us expected a tri-Ace developed Valkyrie Profile game, Square-Enix decided against the idea and instead handed the series over to a different developer. Soleil, a company known for making beat em up games was chosen to take over the development of the series in place of tri-Ace and as someone who considers themselves a fan of the Valkyrie Profile games, I found this decision to be completely asinine, given the fact that tri-Ace were the people who made the series so great to begin with, I knew going into this game that it was going to be a disaster. Now one might argue that tri-Ace was too busy working on Star Ocean The Divine Force to work on a new Valkyrie Profile but at the same time, Star Ocean The Divine Force is a Square-Enix game, much like Valkyrie Profile, so they could have worked on Valkyrie Profile 3 instead but Square-Enix being the blithering idiots they are, decided to release yet another Star Ocean game instead. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Star Ocean but the Valkyrie Profile series has always been the pinnacle of tri-Ace’s capabilities, so to see them not working on the latest entry is bitterly disappointing.
So with all that in mind, it’s important to expect something completely different with Valkyrie Elysium as it is a completely different game entirely from Valkyrie Profile. Valkyrie Elysium is not a JRPG like many would be led to believe, it is one of the most unapologetic 3D Beat Em Ups I’ve played in recent years, given the fact that the skill tree in this game is designed specifically to restrict the player’s growth, something that even Devil May Cry doesn’t do. The issue with the skill system ultimately comes down to the fact that to learn new skills, you not only need to learn previous skills but you also need a specific color of gem and those gems can only be acquired upon reaching certain points in the game’s story, therefore they are a barrier for players looking for growth.
The biggest let down with this is that one of the few things carried over from Valkyrie Profile is the crystals that rain from enemies when they are attacked. In the first game and Covenant Of The Plume, these crystals would be converted into bonus experience points as a reward for playing well. In Valkyrie Profile 2, these crystals would not only reward bonus experience but they were also a currency used to purchase sealstones which were very valuable items that players could use to turn battles in their favor. In Valkyrie Elysium however, the gems dropped from enemies can be found just about anywhere and are used as currency to learn new skills, as well as weapon upgrades. The issue is that when you acquire all the upgrades up to a certain point, many of these crystals become obsolete, requiring a different color of crystal and with limited upgrades to spend them on, as well as skills, they just kind of sit in your inventory collecting dust which is such a waste given the fact that the game clearly encourages you to play well to collect them, it completely eliminates any incentive to do so beyond a certain point. Sure, many other games have similar issues but given the fact that Valkyrie Elysium’s skills don’t take many crystals to learn, they’re easy enough to acquire to the point that there’s no reason to farm them, since you’ll have reached the cap… or at least near the cap by the end of the level regardless of how well you performed in battle. Restrictive skill systems is the most anti-tri-Ace thing you can do and this sickens me.
It’s obvious that the developers wanted to focus on the game’s combat above all else being a beat em up and all. The thing is though that while the combat looks visually appealing, I find it to be pretty mindless in execution. Now don’t get me wrong, there is value to be had in watching Valkyrie perform crazy attack strings and there’s quite a bit of flexibility to be had in regards to movesets. For one, you have the cancel combo system seen in the Dynasty Warriors games where you mash square and cancel into triangle for a finisher. Now you would think that you would use this a lot but I found myself using it very little late on in the game upon learning new skills. Once new skills become available, Valkyrie’s moveset becomes a lot bigger and with that you will unlock moves that are heavily abusable, one such move is the soul steal which guarantees that enemies will drop souls upon being hit by it. The lower the enemy’s health gauge, the more souls you will get. This allows players to abuse the einherjar system to rack up insane hit counts and restore the arts gauge faster.
It’s easy to rack up 999 hits with the help of your einherjar.
Speaking of einherjar, it appears that upon summoning them, you have absolutely no further control over them. Despite this however, you are able to learn new abilities for them, though the game never tells you how to actually use them. It turns out that upon summoning them, they will use whatever einherjar attack is set to them, then they follow up with their normal attack for the rest of the fight. I honestly find this to be a wasted mechanic as all you’re doing is summoning them, you’re not inputting commands like you can do in games like Chaos Legion, Castlevania Curse Of Darkness or Nights Of Azure. It would have been interesting to have the option to have them trigger their einherjar skills freely at the cost of soul gauge, similar to Chaos Legion’s assist moves but there’s nothing like that here. It just feels like a waste of an idea that accomplishes nothing besides making the game a hell of a lot easier. At first, prior to getting your second einherjar, the game can be rather tough and bosses will be quite challenging but all that disappears once you have a full roster of Einherjar with the soul steal skill, you’ll be watching your einherjar do all the work while you occasionally dive in and slash at them for souls to keep summoning einherjar to the field. It seems to me that the einherjar could have been removed entirely and the game would be more better off as a result, it’s tedious having to constantly summon them into battle, even though you can adjust the time they are out, you’ll still have to resummon them constantly in long fights, they might as well just remove the summoning mechanic entirely and have them all out on the battlefield by default like the original Valkyrie Profile games did.
Now the einherjar system might not seem like a huge issue at first as you could choose not to use them but the biggest problem with einherjar summoning is that it takes up one of the game’s vital buttons, R1. The problem with this is that R1 is the button commonly used to lock on to enemies in most beat em ups but in this game, players have to use R3 to lock on to enemies as well as reset the camera and this makes combat an absolute nightmare when you’re surrounded by multiple enemies. To make matters worse, there’s no minimap so you will often encounter stragglers somewhere off screen which you have to look for because the camera isn’t facing them. Of course this leads to you getting attacked from behind quite often as well. The problem with R3 is that in order to press it, you need to use your thumb, with R1 you can use your index finger, allowing you to change the camera angle without letting go of the face buttons. Anyone who has played a lot of beat em ups, particularly at a high skill level knows how crucial this is as having to constantly move the camera with the right analog stick just isn’t practical. Fortunately any frustrations brought about this issue tend to occur early on in the game as by the time you start accumulating einherjar, you become so powerful that you can heal yourself constantly by replenishing the arts gauge with einherjar attacks, though I imagine on higher difficulties that this would not be the case so it is still a problem throughout the entire game. Despite all this, the game heavily encourages you to use your einherjar as doing so leads to stat boosts after every mission, so even on higher difficulties, you’ll still want to abuse this mechanic as there really is no downside to doing so besides a brief downtime when summoning them into battle.
On top of Einherjar, you have divine arts which are essentially spells you can use at the expense of your arts gauge. Aside from the aformentioned heal spell, there are several other spells which each have different elemental properties, some of which are AOE spells, others are single target spells. The primary purpose of divine artes is to fill up a stagger gauge a significant amount, letting you freely combo enemies without them being able to move, though you can also increase the gauge slightly by having an einherjar summoned who has the same element as the spell that the enemy is weak to. Later on in the game, some of the spells can fill the screen and this can become somewhat of a visual impairment in the middle of a fight, especially when combined with the einherjar attacks, it can be hard to see what’s going on at times but fortunately all you need to worry about is soul steal spamming and so long as you keep soul chaining, you should be more-or-less fine on lower difficulties but on higher difficulties, this could be a real pain to deal with, as if the game’s lock on controls weren’t problematic enough.
In regards to defensive play, you have a guard and a evade button. Guarding allows you to parry enemy attacks and counter them, while evading gives you I frames during an enemy attack, very generous I frames I might add. Honestly I found little opportunity to make use of the guard or counter moves since so many fights have you fighting enemies that bombard you from all sides, with AOE attacks you have to avoid, it just feels easier to use the dodge since it gives you plenty of I frames and the pay off for guarding doesn’t seem to be worth the effort, at least on normal difficulty. Perhaps people will be able to find some use for it in the higher difficulties but it would be very tricky to pull off, especially when you consider how chaotic the fights are, props to anyone who can manage it though. Some skills allow you to automatically summon einherjar for free with no soul gauge cost by performing these maneuvers but why bother when soul steal makes souls so easy to come by? I suppose it removes the temporary downtime from summoning einherjar into battle but it didn’t really feel as if it was necessary for me to utilize any of the techniques required to automatically summon the einherjar. The one thing that does bother me though is the lack of an aerial dodge. While you do get a double dodge as an upgrade early on (which should be obtained immediately), the lack of an air dodge can make fighting in the air somewhat risky because it could mean landing into en enemy attack. Some enemies also like to grab you which can be really annoying as sometimes the game requires you to spin the left analog stick to escape.
Love at first fight…
There are numerous weapons to acquire throughout the game and each enemy has a weakness to a particular weapon, encouraging you to swap between them. I found myself using the Baleygr the most since it seemed to have great crowd control potential, particularly with its triangle move which was also great at harvesting gems. Each weapon has a proficiency rating which is tied to skill unlocks, you will have to use all of the weapons should you wish to unlock all the skills associated with them. Sadly though you cannot switch weapons mid combo which is a shame because that could have made combat a lot more interesting. You will also find potions from treasure chests to heal yourself but there is an inventory limit and using them decreases your score at the end of a stage, like in Devil May Cry. I found the heal spell to be good enough for the job personally but if you’re having a tough time, they can help. Ultimately if you’re looking for a fun challenge, Valkyrie Elysium will probably disappoint you greatly but if you don’t mind a mindless beat em up, the combat will deliver a moderately enjoyable experience.
Visually speaking, the landscapes look nice and all but I personally consider Valkyrie Elysium’s character design to be a huge downgrade from the character design in the Valkyrie Profile games. That being said however, I do think that the character designs are serviceable and aren’t terrible, I just think that they could be better and being a Valkyrie game, I’ve come to expect the visuals to be top of the line, so I can’t help but be disappointed in that regard, then again it’s all subjective really, some people may actually like the new character designs but they’re just not for me personally.
No shortage of trees and ruins in this game.
The music on the other hand doesn’t disappoint, if there’s one thing that this game does right, it’s the soundtrack, though I wouldn’t expect any less from Motoi Sakuraba at this point. While not his best work in my opinion, I do think that he does a fantastic job nonetheless. Interestingly enough, Valkyrie Elysium handles the battle music the same way that Nier Automata does, in the sense that the area music transitions into a combat variant of the same song and I think that this compliments the nature of the game’s more seamless combat well. I’d like to see more beat em up games do this in the future. It’s very different from the soundtracks that Motoi Sakuraba has done in the past but it does have a few similarities to his past work if you listen closely enough. Funnily enough, the game’s soundtrack probably the only thing that makes you feel like you’re playing a Valkyrie Profile game.
The story is without a doubt the worst part of this game as the characters are as bland as you can get. While it goes without saying that Valkyrie has the personality of a potato, the einherjar aren’t really all that better. I had a really hard time even remotely caring about any of the einherjar in this game, to me they were just sentient elemental attributes to attach to Valkyrie’s attacks. To be fair though, the game does have interactions between the einherjar and Valkyrie over the course of the journey but many of these conversations come across as awkward due to Valkyrie’s lack of personality. By the end, all the einherjar are pretty much singing from the same hymn sheet. The plot is pretty boring too, I mean all you’re told to do is purify souls and find these 4 gifts, that’s pretty much it, the plot doesn’t go anywhere else besides the obvious plot twist that harkens back to the first game which is executed in the most generic way possible. Just about everything in this game’s story feels generic and soulless to the point that there isn’t even a single soul to be engraved upon. Pretty much every location is a barren empty ruin with very few people residing in them and the few that are just happen to be in 1 place. The world feels so empty and mostly lifeless that I really don’t give a shit about saving it. Even Valkyrie Profile 2 had towns filled with plenty of NPC’s, this game has barely any of that. Also where are the rest of the Aesir? You’re not telling me that Odin and Valkyrie are the only gods on Valhalla surely. Where’s Freya? Where’s Thor? Where the fuck is Loki? None of these characters are here and this only serves to make the game feel even more lifeless.
Ok roll call, who the hell are you people again?
There are numerous side missions but pretty much all of them are forgettable and many amount to the same thing such as the einherjar quests which are more-or-less the same for each one. much like the story, they are criminally monotonous and only serve to extend what would otherwise be an extremely short game. Despite being a serviceable beat em up, Valkyrie Elysium is a half assed attempt to bring back the Valkyrie Profile series. Soleil were clearly given a mission that they weren’t prepared for and the only people to blame are Square-Enix for getting them to do it instead of tri-Ace. Square-Enix have essentially betrayed the entire Valkyrie Profile fanbase with this game and they should be ashamed of themselves for making this game a thing. As a Valkyrie game, Valkyrie Elysium is an abomination, as a standalone game however, would I recommend it? Well if you like mindless 3D beat em ups then it may be worth picking up for around twenty pounds but if you don’t care about mindless 3D beat em ups, give this game a pass.
Story/Plot: Bad
Visuals: Satisfactory
Gameplay: Satisfactory
Music: Great
Lifespan: Very Short
Difficulty: Easy – Medium (Medium at the start, Easy by the end)
Would You Replay? No
Overall: Satisfactory
My Message To Square-Enix after finishing Valkyrie Elysium:
Well today was certainly a shocker for sure, I didn’t expect to see a Star Ocean game so soon, kinda a shame that I did my comparison so early, I could have included it in there, don’t think you’re going to escape from my scrutiny Star Ocean 6, I will certainly take great pleasure in tearing you apart like I did with all the other games in the series. Regardless, with the announcement of Star Ocean 6 came a very depressing revelation, the fact that we have had 2 Star Ocean games in a row with no Valkyrie Profile games in between, even if we count mobile games, this is still true since Star Ocean also has a mobile game. This immediately hit me when I saw this announcement and I thought “this isn’t what I truly wanted, but it’s better than nothing”.
It honestly shocks me that they have gone this route with the game because I expected them to do a remake of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time because it would be a sure sell. Instead what they seem to be doing is taking a more modern approach to the Star Ocean series. What this means is that the entire Star Ocean series is going to have a completely new identity. Now this can go one of two ways. We could either get lucky and get the Pokemon Colosseum of the Star Ocean series, or we could get unlucky and get the Diablo 3 of the Star Ocean series, where everything that made the series special to begin with disappears and gets replaced with trash modern gameplay.
Now I know that a lot of people hated Star Ocean 5 but honestly this could actually get worse but at the same time it could get better. If there’s one thing 5 did right it’s the fact that it stayed true to the formula for the most part. Now I highly doubt that Star Ocean 6 will be the worst Star Ocean since it’s pretty damn hard to top Star Ocean 3 and Anamnesis in that regard. What I will say though is that this could and probably will change the Star Ocean series forever, its identity will change for the better or for worse and we should brace ourselves for this transition. I both fear and anticipate Star Ocean 6, it is the unknown, it is all or nothing, this is the last hope for the Star Ocean series… because the previous last hope was ruined by an emo loli, a cat girl and a winged demonic creature that overdosed on helium and has a crayon stuck in their brain, so we need another hope to save the series.
Here’s the reality people, many of the people who worked at tri-Ace in the past have sadly departed, Suguro is gone now and so many other people have left the company. They have hired new talent and because of this, we have to expect something completely different. I have a feeling that when I do get to play Star Ocean 6, I will hopefully enjoy it but at the same time, I will be one of those guys who misses the good ol’ days of the early games. Still I am always up for change because at least there’s a chance that change can bring good. The only problem is that I am a member of the 2000’s renaissance, I yearn for the good old days and the industry as it is today has a lot of problems. I fear that Star Ocean 6’s new approach may be a colossal failure due to the state of the industry. At the same time I feel like I may be alienated by the game due to the fact that the entire industry has alienated me for over a decade, yet only 1 Star Ocean game has been released in the previous decade, the one beforehand getting 2 releases, so forgive me for sounding like a grumpy old sod but I feel like gaming has left me behind.
The thing is though, I do really want to play this game at some point but at the same time, I have so many games to play right now as it is that I can honestly wait till 2024 to play my new Star Ocean game, then again I don’t want them to delay it for so long that it becomes another Duke Nukem Forever or Final Fantasy XV, we certainly don’t want that do we? I certainly can wait for it though and I will, I can’t say that I can’t wait because I have plenty to do in the meantime, so many 6th gen gems for me to play for the time being. Just means my backlog is gonna get bigger and bigger till I get buried under it, someone help me, I’m dying from lack of oxygen due to all the unfinished games piled on top of me, blocking the air flow!
I think my perception of gaming has changed a lot in the past few years, it went from being excited to new releases to being “Oh ok, this is a thing, I’ll try to pretend to be excited” hopefully I won’t miss the party when I’m busy playing No More Heroes as well as countless other games, most of which are 6th gen gems because I don’t want to miss this game as it is a tri-Ace game and tri-Ace games, no matter how flawed they may be, always speak to me in ways that few other games can. Let’s just hope that this tri-Ace game will maintain their streak, I might have enjoyed Star Ocean 5 but that could very well change, I could actually end up losing interest in the series as a whole.
Now I don’t want to leave this on a negative note because even though I am Cynical Gaming Blog, I will definitely say that what I have seen based on the trailer has all been good so far, the thing is that trailers have a habit of showcasing only the best parts of the game. Will that huge city I get to fly across be like one of like 6 places I get to visit in the entire game? It could be. Also when the game comes out, the combat might actually suck because we have barely seen anything on it. For all we know, they could be bringing back the dreaded MP Death mechanic, god forbid that ever happens. Ok, sorry I’m being negative again, it’s become a habit of mine, blame the industry. I’ll give the trailer a 10/10 for trying, just try to exceed my expectations for once instead of building up false hope like the cruel cruel industry you are.
Oh boy here we go, time for the comparison to end comparisons, which Star Ocean game is the best? Despite being a huge fan of the Star Ocean series, even I have to admit that it isn’t the most consistent series out there in terms of quality and quite frankly, just about every game in the series has its fair share of flaws, some of which can be extremely aggravating to deal with.
Thematically speaking, the Star Ocean series is supposed to be a hybrid of both science fiction and fantasy. Though I would argue that it’s more of a fantasy setting with a bit of science fiction sprinkled on top as opposed to a perfect blend of both science fiction and fantasy. So if you are expecting this game to be Xenosaga levels of science fiction then you may be disappointed but for me, this is the perfect setting as I’m pretty mixed on science fiction since as much as I love the idea of space travel and space ships but fighting with guns, not so much. I’ve always been more of a swords and sorcery kind of guy. Star Ocean essentially mixes the two together and that’s part of the reason why I love the series despite its flaws, granted it’s not the only series to do this as Chrono Trigger mixed science fiction and fantasy together before Star Ocean was even a thing. Final Fantasy IV also had space travel near the end of the game and Final Fantasy V had the multiple worlds idea before Star Ocean did.
While each game’s story is its own self-contained saga, they all take place in the same universe during different time periods. In a way it is kind of like the Devil May Cry/YS series in the sense that the order of release isn’t the order the story is told. While the order the games are played isn’t important, it is highly recommended to save Star Ocean Till The End Of Time for last since a certain event in that game will spoil the rest of the series for you to the point that it will change the way you perceive the other games if you play it first.
What truly stands out in the Star Ocean series besides its thematic setting is its emphasis on invested empowerment through the game’s many sub systems such as item creation and specialties. Leveling up in Star Ocean is always exciting as you are presented with a lot of choices when it comes to developing your characters and each level gives you skill points to invest freely in anything you choose. If you’re looking for a game which makes leveling up fun, the Star Ocean series is for you. In addition to this, there are also private actions which do a great job at breaking up the gameplay by letting you interact with the characters and these interactions tend to influence an affection variable which decides what ending you get when you finish the game. I thought this was a nice touch as it kinda allows you to personalize the ending you get so that everyone gets their own unique ending based on their interaction with the game’s private actions. On top of all that, each and every Star Ocean game has a fantastic soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba and features gorgeous visuals for the time. Every single mainline Star Ocean game has successfully delivered in all of these aspects and it is for this reason that I love the series.
With all of my lavish praise out of the way, it’s time for me to get critical. The Star Ocean series has its fair share of ups and downs as a whole but each game varies in overall quality so unlike my YS comparison where every game mentioned got its fair share of praise, this comparison will be brutal and I won’t hold back on my criticism, ultimately at the end of all this, a favorite will be chosen and my choice may or may not surprise you. So without further ado, let’s start with the very first Star Ocean game for the Super Famicom.
Star Ocean
Star Ocean 1
Original Super Famicom
Remake (First Departure) Playstation Portable, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch
Star Ocean came to be thanks to disagreements during Tales Of Phantasia’s development and if you have played Tales Of Phantasia, the first Star Ocean will feel strikingly familiar to you for that very reason. Star Ocean is essentially tri-Ace’s attempt to compete with the Tales series which was ironically their own creation originally, though due to Namco’s ownership of the series, almost everything was changed and tri-Ace abandoned the Tales series and formed their own company in opposition of Namco.
Because of this, at times you’ll feel like you’re playing a romhack of Tales Of Phantasia as it shares the same menu windows, the same art style and many of the abilities in the game are very similar. Both Star Ocean and Tales have the meteor swarm spell for example and two of the stat boosting herb items in Phantasia also return in Star Ocean, only this time they are a compounding ingredients, so are a lot easier to come by. So I can safely say that if you enjoyed Tales Of Phantasia, you’ll feel right at home with the first Star Ocean. Conversely if you couldn’t tolerate Tales Of Phantasia’s outdated mechanics, Star Ocean likely isn’t going to win you over.
I know I should be comparing Star Ocean with other Star Ocean games but Tales Of Phantasia is technically the step brother of Star Ocean, so I consider it a part of the series in spirit, even if it isn’t in name and since Star Ocean is the very first game in the series, it’s not really fair to compare certain aspects with the newer games so let’s talk about what Star Ocean does better than Tales Of Phantasia.
First of all the combat technically allows for the freedom to move your characters anywhere on the battlefield, the catch however is that you cannot simply move around with the d pad, instead you have to press the Y button on your controller to bring up a cursor, select where you want to go with A and your character will move there. Yeah it’s not exactly practical but it has its uses, mainly in one of the boss fights later on in the game where you want to get behind them to avoid a laser beam attack. Other than than however, I never found any use out of this feature so I don’t know whether I should count this as an improvement or not since it accomplishes basically nothing, on the plus side, the characters are no longer stacked in a horizontal line which is a lot less aggravating since you are able to move vertically now, which means that you no longer get trapped when your other party members are casting like you do in Phantasia so in a way it is kind of an improvement in a way.
The next thing that was changed is the attacks, in some cases, the attacks were dumbed down in Star Ocean but there were improvements made also. Star Ocean introduces the link combo which allows you to combine two attacks into each other seamlessly on the spot. This is an improvement in my opinion since in Tales Of Phantasia, I found my character moving backwards after every long range attack, sometimes even with short range attacks, making it difficult to chain attacks together. In Star Ocean, this never happens, characters always remain stationary after an attack and the link combo means that a single button press can continue the attack. Star Ocean also removes the slash and thrust system from Phantasia which meant that there is only one kind of attack as opposed to two. Some might argue that this is a negative but I personally never saw the point in this system anyways as it didn’t add anything to the experience which is probably why it was dropped in later Tales games. Put simply, the combat in Star Ocean is more simplified but not necessarily deeper than Phantasia’s combat. I see this as a good thing because complexity without depth is just a nuisance. It does show its age though, particularly when compared to the more modern Star Ocean games.
One aspect of the game that I did find interesting was how you acquire ougi moves. Ougi moves are special attacks that are learned at random during battles. Acquiring ougi’s requires leveling up each individual’s school skill, other than that you basically have to keep using certain special attacks until they show up. Some ougi’s can only be acquired after certain conditions have been met in the game so it can be tricky to get them all. Part of me likes this system as in concept it’s a really cool idea and since you learn them during battle, it’s kind of like the Tales series in a way. Unfortunately though due to the luck required to learn them, it can be quite annoying when you’re trying to learn a certain ougi. It sure feels good when you finally learn a new move in the middle of a battle though. Not all of your attacks are learned this way however as many of the moves in this game can be learned by simply leveling up and while ougi’s do reappear in a later entry, the first game is the only game in the series where you learn special moves both ways.
Star Ocean’s item creation isn’t like modern crafting systems where you have to gather specific items to make things. All you need is a single raw material to make something. The result often depends on the character making it, their item creation level and their talents.
Item creation’s debut in Star Ocean has aged rather well. It’s almost identical to Star Ocean The Second Story’s system in a way though considering the fact that it is the first game in the series, the item creation is a lot more primitive by comparison. Put simply, Star Ocean’s item creation set the foundation for Star Ocean The Second Story and has all the essentials like cooking, compounding, authoring etc. It’s a good start and is still fun to experiment with though nowhere near as expansive as Star Ocean The Second Story’s item creation. The skill learning system in Star Ocean is very much the same thing as it’s very similar to Star Ocean The Second Story, the only real difference being the school skills which are used to learn ougis, these were completely removed in Star Ocean The Second Story.
Private Actions debuted here too, though there aren’t nearly as many as there are in later games. There are still some good ones though, particularly in the remake, First Departure. While the Private Actions themselves work more-or-less the same way as they do in Star Ocean The Second Story, the endings do not as unlike Star Ocean The Second Story where you get a pairing at the end, in the first game there is a special ending which is very difficult to get and requires you to have certain characters in your party to acquire. There’s not much information as to how you’re supposed to get this ending but many assume that having a high affection value for every character helps. I cannot say how to get it myself though as I have never got it but I have seen the scene on Youtube before. There are still scenes for the characters individually though they aren’t necessarily “pairing” endings.
The story of Star Ocean is also somewhat similar to that of Tales Of Phantasia as it involves time travel, though this time, you’re accompanied by beings from another world with more advanced technology. Thankfully the macguffin plot is nowhere near as prominent in Star Ocean as the goal for most of the game is to reunite with your friends and obtain a serum to save your friend from petrification. Now there is a brief portion of the plot that does revolve around a macguffin hunt but it’s very brief, whereas Tales Of Phantasia revolves almost entirely around collecting macguffins in the form of summon spirits, which totally wasn’t inspired by Secret Of Mana which did the exact same thing. Ultimately though, Star Ocean’s story is very simplistic, though it does present some interesting ideas to the table.
Unlike Tales Of Phantasia which had only 5 playable characters on the Super Famicom version, Star Ocean would feature many party members, some of which require certain conditions in order for them to join you. You only have up to 8 slots for your party and some characters won’t join you if you have another character in the party which means you will have to play through the game multiple times to get them all. I personally find the cast of characters to be underrated in Star Ocean. While I can’t exactly consider them to be the greatest cast out there, I personally liked some of the characterization with some of the cast. Ronyx and Ilia in particular have an interesting dynamic, Cyuss is also a pretty likable character with some funny dialogue, especially in the dejap translation. I do think that the remake, First Departure did a better job at fleshing out the characters as it has a lot more private actions than the original game. I will say though that the main villain’s characterization is a lot more interesting in the super famicom version than it is in the PSP version.
You tell em Cius, you get em told!
Star Ocean’s soundtrack is very similar to Tales Of Phantasia and that’s due to the fact that both games were composed by Motoi Sakuraba. I have a hard time comparing the two soundtracks because they are both amazing in their own right. What I will say though is that the first Star Ocean has one of my favorite soundtracks in the series and is one of my favorite soundtracks on the super famicom. The track titled Ambition is absolutely stellar and there’s some really catchy tracks in here too like Ancient Ruin, Dancin’ Sword, Tense Atmosphere and of course the main battle theme, For Achieve. Those are but a few of the great songs this game has to offer. The PSP remake, First Departure didn’t really do the original soundtrack justice if you ask me, it’s just not the same without those old school snes sounds and while they could have modernized it the right way by finally making dancin’ sword a metal track, they didn’t. The First Departure remake lacks the energy the original game’s soundtrack had and quite frankly the worst soundtrack in the series. They should have just re-used the original soundtrack instead if you ask me.
Visually speaking, Star Ocean is a massive improvement from Tales Of Phantasia, there’s a lot more detail in the environments and the sprites look more detailed as well. Despite this, most of the artwork remains the same, everything from the buildings to the character’s hair appear so similar. Heck if you look at Cless and Ilia from behind, you can barely tell the difference since they both have very similar hair. One thing that is noticeable though is that the visuals no longer look as washed out as they do in Phantasia which makes the game a lot more appealing to look at if you ask me. Honestly Star Ocean may be one of the better looking games on the super famicom and if you ask me, I’d even go as far as to say that the game looks better than Suikoden does on the PS1, which begs the question as to why Suikoden wasn’t released on the super nintendo since it clearly wasn’t designed for a 5th gen system. Regardless, Star Ocean may be the most gorgeous sprite based JRPG without pre-rendered backgrounds I’ve ever seen and quite frankly I personally prefer Star Ocean’s entirely sprite based visuals to it’s sequel’s pre-rendered backgrounds, which kicks off the contest between Star Ocean and Star Ocean The Second Story.
Star Ocean doesn’t have a conventional overworld like most JRPG’s instead the world map is a maze of areas that connect the world together. I personally prefer this as it makes the world feel more detailed.
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Star Ocean 2
Original Playstation 1
Remake (Second Evolution) Playstation Portable, Playstation 4, Remake (Second Story R) Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Switch
Considered by many to be the series’ magnum opus, Star Ocean The Second Story was the first game in the series to be localized outside of Japan so it was many people’s first entry into the Star Ocean series. Star Ocean The Second Story is the first game in the series to allow free movement controls with the d pad, though there is also an option to move by holding the square button and using the d pad to change targets. I found the latter to be more useful personally. The free movement doesn’t really impact the early game sections though it does come in handy in certain fights, particularly against enemies with deadly melee attacks and just about any attack that can be avoided. Early on, your running speed is quite slow but once you get the bunny shoes, it’s a lot easier to avoid attacks. Unfortunately, magic is completely unavoidable in Star Ocean The Second Story so you can’t use it to avoid AOE magic which is a shame.
One thing that is interesting about Star Ocean The Second Story is that it combined shockwave swirl and air slash together so that performing a short range air slash will cause you to do a shockwave swirl instead and vice versa. This is also the only game in the series to do this for some reason which I find to be strange as it was a really good idea and I wish other games in the series would allow for more varied attacks based on their range since using most long range attacks tend to cause you to run towards the enemy since they do not have an alternate long range function. Honestly, I’d rather they did something with the distance system instead of the whole light/heavy attack thing they implemented later as it would have made the combat a lot more interesting if they did. What a shame.
What Star Ocean The Second Story lacks in terms of combat improvements, it more than makes up for it in other areas, namely the item creation and specialties. Unlike the first game where item creation is character specific, Star Ocean The Second Story introduces super specialties which can be acquired when a combined amount of item creation skills reach a certain level. Super specialties also have a level which is based on the combined levels of each character’s individual specialties. This means that you are actually encouraged to max every single character’s item creation levels out as opposed to having a dedicated cook or a dedicated artist like in the first game. On top of this, Star Ocean The Second Story added 4 new specialties which are: machinery, survival, pickpocketing and reproduction. Machinery and reproduction are both item creation specialties, one of which lets you create items to be used to make certain items ranging from equipment to battle items, the other allowing you to duplicate an item in your inventory which can be quite handy if you have rare items in your inventory that you want more of.
While the private action system works more-or-less the same as it does in the first game, the way endings work is very different as you get two different pairings, a friendship ending and a relationship ending. Private actions give you points for both friendship and relationship this time which influences what type of pairing you’re going to get. It should also be noted that the protagonists (Claude and Rena) are not necessarily going to be involved in this pairing, it can happen with any of your party members which means that there a lot of match making possibilities to be had. This was the game’s biggest selling point at the time and it is still impressive to this day how they managed to include an ending for each pairing.
Depending on choices made in Private Actions, you will gain or lose either friendship points or relationship points so you have to be really careful with your choices if you are looking for a particular ending.
Star Ocean The Second Story is also the first game in the series to have two different protagonists to choose from. While they both follow the same path for most of the game, there are a few differences between the two as certain story events only trigger depending on which protagonist you choose. In addition, there are two characters that will only join you if you are playing as a certain protagonist so you can’t obtain all the characters in a single playthrough, much like the first game. I found the character acquisition to be somewhat vague in this game and as a result, I found myself missing out on a lot of characters on my first playthrough which meant that I wasn’t able to experience some of the game’s private actions which was a shame. I found the cast of characters to be likable for the most part, particularly Ashton and Dias. The two characters that I wasn’t too fond of however were Leon and Noel. Noel was a pretty bland character that didn’t bring anything to the table, granted so were Tinek and Perrichi in the first game, though at least Tinek was actually useful in battle, Noel is absolute trash by comparison. Leon on the other hand is even worse, not only is he also trash in battle like Noel but his personality is so unbelievably obnoxious to the point that he really gets on my nerves every time he speaks.
The story is relatively hit or miss for the most part. While there are some great moments in the game’s story, the pacing leaves much to be desired. Disk 1 in particular consists of mostly filler and can feel like a slog to get through at times. Disk 2 on the other hand feels rushed as it introduces a ton of characters and lore but fails to properly flesh them out, something that disk 1 should have addressed but sadly failed to deliver. It’s a shame that the story turned out to be so poorly paced because there are a lot of interesting ideas presented to you in the later portion of the game that would have made for a pretty amazing story. Honestly I think that disk 1 should have been rewritten from scratch to give some foreshadowing and build up to the events of disk 2 because as it stands, it’s a complete waste of time if you ask me.
Star Ocean The Second Story introduced both pre-rendered backgrounds and a traditional overworld map. While I can certainly see the appeal of this, I personally have a soft spot for the original’s aesthetic, therefore I consider it to be better by comparison. Regardless, I still enjoyed the aesthetic of Star Ocean The Second Story a lot. The towns in particular look gorgeous and are extremely detailed. What did bother me though was the fact that many of the technologically advanced areas of the game look modern as opposed to actually looking futuristic. This was a huge problem for me as I expected a science fiction fantasy hybrid but the aesthetic felt more like a fantasy meets modern day look as opposed to a futuristic fantasy look that I came to expect from a Star Ocean game. This is without a doubt the most disappointing aspect of Star Ocean The Second Story and it is the one thing that holds it back from being my personal favorite in the series.
The music on the other hand doesn’t disappoint. There are quite a few standouts in Star Ocean The Second Story that I really enjoyed like Field Of Expel, Endlessly, KA.MI.KA.ZE and We Form In Crystals. Interestingly enough, many recurring tracks throughout tri-Ace’s legacy debuted here such as Mission To The Deep Space, Mighty Blow and of course The Incarnation Of The Devil which has played in every single Square-Enix published tri-Ace game since with the exception of Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean Blue Sphere. Some of the boss themes were later reused in Valkyrie Profile such as Beast Of Prey, Shiver and The Climax At The Tower. It goes without saying that Star Ocean The Second Story has one of Motoi Sakuraba’s most recognized soundtracks and it’s certainly deserving of praise for that alone as Motoi Sakuraba has put out a lot of great music over the years and this game’s soundtrack still stands out as being one of his better ones. It’s by no means his best soundtrack though, I do think that the first game’s soundtrack gives Star Ocean The Second Story a run for its money but it’s a solid soundtrack nonetheless.
So while Star Ocean The Second Story improves the formula that was pioneered by the first game, it isn’t without its flaws. Regardless, I do think that Star Ocean The Second Story is the definitive Star Ocean experience… despite the lack of a futuristic aesthetic for its technologically advanced areas. The combat system hasn’t aged the best but its item creation and character management are second to none. The story has its rough moments but it does pick up later on. I think that to truly enjoy Star Ocean The Second Story, you really have to set your expectations low but if you can deal with its flaws, it is a worthwhile experience. There’s so much attention to detail in this game compared to the other games in the series which is likely the biggest reason why it is hailed as being the best in the series.
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere
Star Ocean 2-2
Original Game Boy Colour
Remake Mobile
Taking place right after the events of Star Ocean The Second Story, Star Ocean Blue Sphere brings back the entire cast of characters for one more adventure, which is strange considering the fact that characters like Opera and Ashton are impossible to recruit together in the original game but are both available to play as in Blue Sphere. Sadly though, Star Ocean Blue Sphere would never get an official English release but thanks to fan translations, the game is now playable in English which means that I can finally cover it.
The combat in Blue Sphere operates in a similar fashion to that of a Tales game in the sense that it is purely side scrolling and primarily revolves around a timing mechanic similar to that of Legend Of Dragoon where tapping the button at the right time allows you to extend your combo. There are also special attacks you can perform by pressing the B button as well as the ability to manually guard against enemy attacks by pressing down on the d pad which reduces damage taken, sort of like the earlier Tales games. It’s a very simplistic combat system which isn’t surprising considering the fact that the game was released on a console with very few buttons but unlike previous games, the combo system and guarding make battles feel a lot more technical. One other thing to note about battles is that the game is paused whenever items are used in battle, this can be a lifesaver in certain situations as the effect is instantaneous unlike the previous games where the effects of items occur in real time and that can often make the difference between life and death, so the game is more forgiving in that regard than previous entries. What isn’t forgiving is the fact that there are times where an attack that you would usually survive can kill you instantly. This happened to me numerous times in the game and it can get quite irritating sometimes. Another thing to be aware of is that attacks consume stamina, there isn’t any indication as to how much stamina you have but if you attack too much, your character will become immobile for a brief period until they are hit. Certain moves drain stamina more than others so you may want to think twice about using attacks that drain all of your stamina in one go.
Unlike the previous two games, each enemy in Blue Sphere has multiple health bars, one for each body part, destroying a body part can yield different outcomes, sometimes immobilizing enemies or even killing them entirely.
On top of all this, Star Ocean Blue Sphere removes the random encounters present in the first two games, instead having enemies roam around each area, meaning that battles can be manually triggered simply by walking into them. One unique aspect about Blue Sphere is the ability to attack at any time on the field. You can attack roaming enemies to get an early advantage but that’s not all you can do, there are objects around each area that can be broken by attacking them and those objects may even have hidden items or monsters inside them. Speaking of which, Star Ocean Blue Sphere’s dungeons feel very different from other games in the series. In a way they’re kind of reminiscent of the early Zelda titles in the sense that you have rooms with all kinds of things to interact with, some requiring you to use certain actions to progress that may require certain party members to perform, kind of in a similar way to how Link uses many of his tools to progress. I personally find this to be a bit of a hassle myself as It can be difficult to figure out what to do at times. You kind of need to have a balanced party that can not only be effective in battle but can also navigate through the many obstacles presented to you with their unique abilities. I suppose it gives you a reason to try all the characters instead of sticking with the same party throughout the entire game.
Speaking of party members, Star Ocean Blue Sphere only allows you to pick 3 party members as opposed to the previous games which let you select 4, this can make it even more annoying when it comes to picking your party because every time you hit a roadblock, you have to backtrack to swap to a different character when you could have just put that character in as your 4th party member. The good news is that there’s a huge selection of characters right from the get go and you can choose any character to be your main character throughout the game. The game defaults to Precis as your lead character but after the intro, you can put whomever you want in your party and whichever character you control is the one doing the talking to the NPC’s. You can switch lead characters on the fly by pressing the select button which comes in handy when you need to perform a certain field action. It should also be noted that skill points obtained from battles aren’t distributed to party members individually so you will have to spread them out evenly if you want all of your party members to be of use in battle. Since you are unable to level up in the traditional sense, this means that most skills are acquired in the same way ougi skills were in the first game, though some of them can be learned through the new psychometry item creatiion skill. You may also notice that enemies in Star Ocean Blue Sphere do not drop fol and for this reason you need to be extra conservative with your items. The only way to get fol is by getting enemies to drop items you can sell at shops so you better hope to get some valuable drops from enemies if you’re a big spender.
Much like in Zelda, you can use bombs to blow up suspicious looking walls to reach new areas. So in the words of Peppy Hare always remember to “Use bombs wisely!”
Due to the fact that Star Ocean Blue Sphere is a direct sequel to Star Ocean The Second Story, private actions do not influence the game’s ending and there are considerably less of them than there were in the previous game but they are present. Unlike Second Story, you don’t have to enter private action mode when entering a town. Instead the characters the player isn’t using will appear in towns and other areas for you to interact with. Since you are no longer forced to use Claude or Rena in this game, you can interact with any character you want and you will need to pick certain characters to have these private actions appear. Additionally the character whom the player interacts with must not be in the party so it can be difficult to find them. While private actions don’t serve much of a purpose in this game, there are certain private actions that you can do to acquire certain items, so they aren’t entirely pointless to do.
Item Creation works a little differently this time around as while it still revolves around the same concept of the first two games, you now have to complete a minigame associated with the creation specialty. While many of these minigames are simple tasks, some can be excruciating such as the psychometry minigame which requires you to move a hand around to locate and learn special moves from a specific item, which is a pain in the neck as not only do you have no indication of where it is but at the same time, the hand is difficult to control. Most of these minigames aren’t bad thankfully and allow you to control what items you get which is so much better than the previous two entries in that regard, though on the flip side, it can be a bit of a pain to have to play a minigame every single time you want to make an item. That being said, the minigames do make the process feel more interactive which makes you feel as if you’re actually making the item as opposed to just pressing X on the menu and watching an item appear like in the previous two entries.
Various tasks such as crushing herbs and soldering electronics involve player interaction, some are simpler than others but the item you get is decided by the number of points the player accumulates in these activities.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere’s story starts off in a similar manner to that of the first game in the sense that the plot revolves around locating your missing comrades for the first half, whereas the second half has you dealing with the planet’s problems. There isn’t really much dialogue in the main story compared to that of previous games though this is mainly due to the fact that the character you control is the one doing all of the talking, therefore there isn’t much interaction amongst the cast themselves outside of private actions which is kind of disappointing in a way. Where Star Ocean Blue Sphere shines best is in its world. Edifice is a mostly an ocean planet, home to the aquatic race known as the Edifians who reside underwater. There are also humans here though it’s unknown whether they’re colonists from another world or have lived here since the start. What is interesting about exploring Edifice is that it features many ruins of what are presumably ancient, technologically advanced civilizations that became monster nests, despite being considered an underdeveloped planet. This blends in the sci-fi feel with the more primitive fantasy setting well as it is all in one place. There are plenty of interesting locations to visit in this game, so much so that a modern remake would be amazing to see (the mobile game doesn’t count, I want a proper remake in 3D like Trials Of Mana for PC). Sadly though we will have to make do with the visual limitations of the Game boy Colour which thankfully don’t look too bad all things considered.
Considering the fact that Blue Sphere is a Game Boy Colour game, the audio is entirely 8 bit, this means that the music is even more old school sounding than the first Star Ocean which is funny to think about. I can safely say though that Blue Sphere probably has the weakest soundtrack in the series, it’s not bad but even for 8 bit standards, I feel as if it could have been a lot better than it was. That being said there are a few songs that I did like such as Civilization Keeper, Forsaken Wastes and Legacy From The Past. After all, Motoi Sakuraba did compose the music so it goes without saying that there are some good tracks here, I just find that it struggles to keep up with the other games in this department. It certainly doesn’t help that many of the songs repeat a lot so you’ll be hearing a lot of the same stuff over and over again.
Anyone up for a game of Jenga?
The best way to describe Star Ocean Blue Sphere as a whole is that it tries to do the most it can with the limitations of the Game Boy Colour by being considerably different from other entries. Instead of being more of the same, it turns the Star Ocean formula in a new direction, staying faithful to its roots while presenting the ideas from the previous games in a completely new way, essentially creating an entirely new experience. I think that long time fans of the series will appreciate the similarities and differences found here, though I personally find that many of the changes do not fit my tastes as the puzzles and platforming could be quite troublesome at some points as well as the navigation of each of the game’s dungeons. The game even has a mapper skill to help with this but even then I would strongly recommend a guide for this one, particularly one that shows the maps for each dungeon because the dungeons in Blue Sphere feature a ton of rooms, treasure and hidden areas. If you’re patient enough to endure the personal gripes I had then Star Ocean Blue Sphere is definitely worth a shot if you are a fan of the series, particularly Star Ocean The Second Story.
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time
Star Ocean 3
Original – Playstation 2
Director’s Cut – Playstation 2, Playstation 4
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time may have been the most successful game in the series in terms of sales numbers but in retrospect, I’d argue that it brought about a turning point that would later cause the series’ downfall. This game is the biggest reason why the Star Ocean fanbase is so divisive as while some people consider Star Ocean Till The End Of Time to be the best in the series, other people hate the game with a passion. I myself stand somewhere in the middle, though as a fan of this series, I tend to be extremely critical of this game as I consider it to be the black sheep of the series. Despite this however, I do kind of have a soft spot for this game as I felt that out of all of the Star Ocean games, this one I felt had the biggest potential, so in a way I have a love/hate relationship with this game and quite frankly, I cannot bring myself to dislike it. This however does not prevent me from ranting about this game’s many issues.
When I said that Star Ocean Till The End Of Time was the black sheep of the series, I’m not saying that because it is objectively the worst, I say that because it is objectively the least faithful game in the series and for that reason, it deserves all the hate it gets. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time changed everything, the combat, the private actions, the spe… wait where’s the specialties? Where’s the item creation!? That’s right, Star Ocean Till The End Of Time thought that it would be a good idea to remove many of the systems that defined the series to begin with, which is enough of a reason to call it the black sheep of the series as it doesn’t feel like much of a Star Ocean game at all. The only thing that remains in tact is the sci-fi/fantasy concept that the series has always been known for.
Now of course change isn’t always bad and this is evident by the fact that many people enjoyed the game and consider it to be the best in the series, however I personally think that many of the changes made in this game leave a lot to be desired. Let’s start with the biggest issue with Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and the biggest reason why this game deserves so much hate, the infamous combat system. Now I totally understand the theory behind this system, I really do. The idea is to alleviate the stagger spam tactic that many players used to beat bosses in Star Ocean The Second Story, so that you can’t just spam the same attacks over and over again constantly so that they become locked in a bombardment of staggering, unable to perform an action through the use of the fury gauge which allows both the player and the enemy to auto guard light attacks once the gauge is filled (which requires standing and doing nothing to fill). The fury shield can only be broken by strong attacks which in theory would prevent people from spamming faster light attacks to stagger lock enemies. The issue is though that Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s fury system doesn’t really accomplish this at all and for one huge reason, the light/heavy system does not apply the same properties to special attacks as it does to normal attacks. This means that you can start by holding down the circle button to break the enemy’s fury shield, then begin alternating between holding down X then circle, rinse and repeat. That is the combat system of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time in a nutshell, heck the game even incentivizes you to break it by rewarding you with a damage multiplier for repeating this maneuver.
Now there is a catch, you see the problem with spamming special attacks is that by doing so, you consume hit points. Wait what? Hit Points!? Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re going to say that this makes no sense aren’t you? Well to be honest, as inconsistent as it is with the rest of the series, many games in the Shin Megami Tensei series do the exact same thing with some moves and the first Ar Tonelico game does it will all the special moves. Plus in a way, the concept makes sense if you consider your HP to be your character’s energy and to be honest, you might as well consider it so because HP is only consumed by using physical attacks, so in a way it is kind of a character’s physical energy. Once it is drained, your character becomes tired out and therefore vulnerable. Sounds kinda smart when you put it that way. The bad thing is that MP is treated the exact same way, what I mean by this is that you consume MP when using magic. Well then why not just spam magic? Well I have terrible news for you. Your MP gauge is actually your second HP gauge *gasp*! I know, it took me by surprise too, especially when I made it to the Urssa Lava Caves and enemies suddenly started dealing heavy MP damage to my characters out of nowhere and because I never thought to level up my MP (which I will get to later) I died in seconds. Talk about a massive difficulty spike… and an ordeal, which reminds me, we haven’t gotten to the other problem this game has, the dungeons.
You’ll be seeing this screen a lot once you reach the Urssa Lava Caves…
My god the dungeons of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time may quite possibly be some of the worst dungeons in JRPG history. The vast majorty of them are either forgettable or downright infuriating. Now sure there are a few decent dungeons in the game that aren’t that bad but those are very few and far between. One dungeon forces you to play an annoying mini game where you have to navigate a mineshaft via mine cart tracks on what it called a hauler. This minigame was an absolute nightmare, especially if you weren’t using a guide and have no idea where you’re meant to be going. I swear I spent hours trying to figure out where the hell I needed to go to get to the end of this awful place, sadly though, I would inevitably find an even worse dungeon, the Shrine Of Kaddan, full of annoying hazards and traps I had to navigate through, heck one of the treasure chests blows up in your face, just to rub it in. It’s almost as if it’s taking a page out of Valkyrie Profile’s book where all the treasure chests are satan’s minions who want to obliterate you in the most humiliating way possible. Of course it’s not over, by the end of disk 1, you will encounter what I consider to be the worst dungeon in JRPG history that I ever managed to beat, the Urssa Lava Caves. Now a lot of people say the penultimate dungeon of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time is the worst and honestly, I can’t blame them for thinking that but I personally think that the Urssa Lava Caves is far worse and I will explain to you why this is.
First of all, to get to the Urssa Lava Caves you first have to make your way to the Bequeral Mountain Path, which leads to the Barr Mountains, which takes you to the Barr Ruins, which finally takes you to the Urssa Lava Caves. That’s 3 dungeons in a row with no towns in between and these dungeons feel so much longer and so much more tedious than they need to be but when you get into the Urssa Lava Caves, you suddenly hear the most unnerving dungeon theme in the game and rightfully so, you are now in hell, there’s a reason why there’s lava everywhere after all. Now it could be argued that the boss just outside of the door to the Urssa Lava Caves is the first time you encounter heavy MP damage moves… but that’s just a boss fight, surely the regular enemies can’t possibly do the same thing… oh wait they do? Brilliant, now my entire party is wiped in seconds the moment I enter any fight in this godforsaken cave. Now the enemies aren’t the only obstacles you will have to deal with. Of course there’s lava everywhere which can hurt you if you step in it, there’s also an item that is hidden somewhere that you need to find, if you don’t use a walkthrough, you’ll spend hours looking for it but to get it you have to go behind a stone statue (if you just examine the front you just get some text and that’s it) and press the X button. The game gives you no hints or clues that you have to go behind the statue, it just wants you to buy the strategy guide and look it up. Thankfully I saved my money and used GameFAQ’s to figure it out.
That doesn’t look very friendly…
If you thought that was all, think again, the next part of the dungeon requires you to navigate through an infuriating maze, be sure to keep the guide with you because if you don’t you will become lost in this maze for hours like I was. I really wish I followed the guide the whole way through because this maze has forced enemy encounters which mean more chances for my party to get wiped by MP damage dealing monsters. The worst part about this maze is the camera, it is fixed right behind you at all times and the entire room is full of steam so you can barely see where you are going. It’s a very tight maze so enemies you encounter here are impossible to run past. Once you manage to get through this horrendous ordeal… or you just turned left at the start and went up like I should have done (damn you tri-Ace!!!) then you will end up in some kind of forge with this bunny man. It is at this point where the game requires you to backtrack all the way back to the entrance to the goddamn sealed cavern (the dungeon that leads to the Shrine Of Kaddan). This means you have to go all the way back through the maze (which is easy if you have a guide), back through the Barr Ruins, back down the Barr Mountains, back to the Bequeral Mountain Path, through all the towns and field areas leading up to Aquaria (there’s a lot), then you go through the palace till you reach the entrance to the Sealed Cavern where an NPC will give you hammers (edit: I found out that you can get the disintegration hammers earlier if you just happened to talk to the random NPC at the entrance to the sealed cavern before you went through the Shrine Of Kaddan. Now if I was closely reading a guide, I probably wouldn’t have missed this, though I am pretty sure that most people will not so my point still stands. The hammers are not essential to get through the Sealed Cavern/Shrine Of Kaddan but you will need them to get through the Urssa Lava Caves which is why I had to backtrack for miles. You could argue that this is my fault for not talking to that NPC earlier but you would think that if the hammers were so important to progress that they would just give them to you at the Urssa Lava Caves anyway instead of requiring me to backtrack and get what wasn’t an essential item at the time, but now is). Then you need to go all the way back through all the field areas and towns in order to reach the Airyglyph Aquaducts (though you can fast travel there at the bequeral mountains). There you have to use the disintegration hammers to get an item, then you need to go all the way back through the mountains, ruins and finally back to the goddamn Urssa Lava Caves so you can finally finish disk 1! Unfortunately before you can do so you have to fight one of the hardest bosses in the entire game who, like the enemies in the dungeon will wipe your party in seconds with MP damage unless you cheese it by picking Maria and spamming Scatter Beam at him from a safe distance like I did, which became my strategy for the rest of the game.
Now do you see why I hate Star Ocean Till The End Of Time so goddamn much!? I hope so, but I’m not finished yet, I have even more issues to rant about with this game, one of which is the godawful invention system. Invention is essentially the replacement of item creation and specialties. Instead of putting items into a pot and seeing what you get like in previous games, Invention has you consume not only items but also Fol. Basically it’s the same system sort of, just considerably more infuriating due to needless complexity and other bullshit. Where do I even start with this horrendous mess of a system? For starters your characters have pre-set item creation skill levels which are static throughout, you can’t level them up in this game (nor can you level up any skills with SP for that matter), so what do you do? Travel across the world in search of other people to do all the work for you. This defeats the entire point of creating items, it was there to show that the characters you play as aren’t just fighters, they have other skills that have their uses throughout the game and this was great. Now we are stuck with a main cast of characters who are absolutely bloody useless at item creation so it’s just pointless to have this feature in the game, heck it isn’t really a crafting system, it’s an invention system which means that you’re inventing new items to be sold in stores, sure you do get a free prototype item for yourself but in a way it’s just a needless ordeal you have to go through in order to unlock all the items sold in stores.
Quality dictates the fail rate, the longer you spend inventing, the higher the chance of failure making it pointless to keep going if you fail the first time.
Now lets actually talk about the invention process. First of all you assign multiple NPC’s (or playable characters if you don’t mind failing all the time) to a slot and then start a timer. Depending on the amount of fol randomly selected for you ultimately decides what item you get so you won’t have a clue until you get it. So if you want a certain item, you need to constantly change the fol cost in hopes that you get a different fol cost for a new item. Every single time you fail at creating an item, you lose that much fol and you will fail so many goddamn times it’s ridiculous unless you bothered to get the best NPC’s who can create stuff easier. Once you succeed then you will get an item that was invented and it can be just about anything though it is decided by the fol cost so it is possible to manipulate the RNG a little even though it clearly wasn’t intended for players to do so. Every item you create gets a rating from Welch and while this rating doesn’t matter in the slightest, it is dumb because there are many good items that you need in the game that have a very low rating for some reason. I actually have a video demonstrating the colossal losses you get when you fail constantly at making items to the point that save scumming is the only way if you want to get the items you want. So if you want to lose money fast then be sure to do a lot of invention, it will get rid of it faster than a lootbox/gatcha addiction. Put simply, Invention sucks, it only serves to alienate fans of the earlier games and the entire series for that matter. It’s the perfect example of how depth and complexity are not one and the same. Invention has no more depth to it than item creation but it has a considerable amount of complexity by comparison and that is a bad thing. They also introduced synthesis, allowing the ability to customize the properties of your equipment in a similar way to Final Fantasy X’s customize but as cool as that may be believe me, this does not make up for the catastrophe brought upon us by this shitty invention system.
Another thing I want to complain about is the absurd CP capacity that is available to you. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time is the first game in the series to implement the CP mechanic which is not to be confused with the CP in Valkyrie Profile but would later reappear in Valkyrie Profile 2 and Covenant Of The Plume. It can also be comparable to the magic stones used to set skills in Final Fantasy IX. While those games give you plenty of capacity for skills, Star Ocean Till The End Of Time does not. Now while it may offer more CP than Valkyrie Profile 2, the CP cost in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time applies not only to passive skills but also special attacks too and the cost of these attacks quickly add up to the point that you won’t have any room to add any skills should you use all 4 slots for your special attacks. To make matters worse, certain skills actually take up your special attack slots such as the MP damage skill on top of having an absurd CP cost. This usually means that players are encouraged to limit their attacks and spam the same move over and over instead of having a variety of moves in their arsenal which is pretty lame if you ask me. If you choose not to equip any special attacks then you will lose the ability to cancel attacks, therefore losing the insane 300% damage bonus that comes with it. So be sure to enjoy spamming the same attack over and over again because it is arguably the most effective strategy in this game. While the same can potentially be said for other games in the series, they do not actively try to prevent players from mixing up their moveset in the same way Star Ocean Till The End Of Time does. On top of all this, Star Ocean Till The End Of Time is the only game in the series where you can’t learn/level up skills with skill points gained from leveling, all you can do is level up your base stats which is kinda lame if you ask me, since it makes the personalization less fun. This is made all the more aggravating when you realize that MP death is a thing since if you didn’t know beforehand and never bothered to level up your MP, nice knowing you.
Get the hint? I hope so because if you don’t by now then you never will.
One thing that also bothers me is how the game handles private actions. Now in previous games you would be able to interact with your party members around town to trigger private action events and they were usually either interesting or silly distractions, here the private actions are so unbelievably bland for the most part to the point that it wonder why they even bothered adding them in. Many of the private actions involve you interacting with various NPC’s and making dialogue choices, you can barely tell if what you’re doing is a private action or not but if the player is presented with a dialogue choice then there’s a high chance that it is one. What bothers me the most is the lack of interaction with the party members themselves, it just feels pointless since you’re not actually getting to see another side to the characters nor are you getting any comic relief, you’re just talking to random people and making dialogue choices that have nothing to do with the characters in your party.
Now here’s the funny part, after doing a bit of research into this system, I found out that every time you make a choice, every single obtainable party member in the game’s affinity for Fayt is affected regardless of whether or not they are present in the party yet. So you can make a dialogue choice right at the start of the game and one of the party members you get later on in the game magically overheard that conversation and their opinion of you is magically affected by it. This really takes away from the believability that the characters are actually bonding which is what makes private actions a colossal disappointment in this game. Sure there are occasionally private actions you can do with your actual party members but they are very few and far between and still affect the relationship values for every single member of the party which is stupid. In a way, the private actions in this game feel more like an afterthought than an actual feature. Sure you could argue that Blue Sphere doesn’t have many private actions or any relationship values but that game is a direct sequel with the exact same cast as the previous game so those characters already have ending pairings, therefore they didn’t need to bother with the private actions at all but they somehow managed to have a better ratio of private actions with the actual party members (as opposed to random NPCs) than Star Ocean Till The End Of Time which is outrageously absurd.
But how else am I gonna get the best ending!?
By now you’re probably thinking that I hate this game with a passion, which I most certainly do. However that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to love about this game. For starters, I really enjoyed the scale of the game’s story, though I’d expect nothing less from the series’ finale. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s story may start out a little slow but around the game’s mid point is quickly starts to pick up steam. I’d argue they did a better job with the story overall compared to that of Second Story as it spends considerably less time getting sidetracked and does a better job at keeping the player’s attention. The half way point is where everything goes completely nuts and will completely change your perception of the rest of the series, it will either make or break the series for you. I personally enjoyed the direction they took with this game’s story as it actually had the balls to challenge the player’s perception on things. Plus I would argue that the major twist that the game throws at you was foreshadowed in previous entries. Now many have argued that it was not handled brilliantly and while I do agree that the story did feel a tad rushed by this point, I do think they explained it well enough to the point that it was an acceptable plot point. Personally I found it to fit the nature of the series really well and I enjoyed the interesting concept it introduced to the game’s universe in regards to how people live their day to day lives.
The cast of characters are a mixed bag though. While some of the characters are likeable enough, many of them are just along for the ride and feel out of place, I get that much like the first two games you have optional characters but those games had private actions to flesh them out. Many of the characters in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time join the party just before the plot goes nuts and by that point any opportunity to develop them is cast aside in favor of the plot. It’s a bit of a shame but at least some of the characters are decent. I found that Cliff and Maria were the two most interesting characters personally though the rest of the cast I was pretty mixed on. I found Sophia to be kinda pointless, almost as if they were trying to set her up as the lead heroine but she got forgotten about somewhere in development only for the devs to shove her in the second half of the game where she spends the entire time standing around wondering what is going on like some spare part. Adray is both worthless in battle and in the story which makes me wonder why they even bothered adding him in. Then there’s Roger who feels kinda out of place, he kinda reminds me of Jack Russell from Radiata Stories and would have probably fit in that game better.
One thing I did enjoy about this game was the fact that is delivers one hell of a soundtrack, not that I’d expect any less from Motoi Sakuraba but I personally consider this to be one of his better soundtracks. There’s a nice mixture of metal, jazz and electronic music on offer and I found that it did a fantastic job at accompanying the story to make the epic moments really stand out. Some of my favourite tracks would be: The Divine Spirit Of Language, Expiration, Moon Base, Twisted Base, The Virtual Image, The Desolate Smell Of Earth and of course Highbrow which is one of the most epic final boss themes ever composed. There is also another track called Fallen Leaves which I never actually heard in game but it does appear on the soundtrack and it’s an amazing song. If there’s one thing Star Ocean Till The End Of Time manages to do right it’s the presentation and the music is a huge part of that, though the visuals also help with this. The only gripe I have visually is the character’s faces as I found them to look a little weird personally, everything else is fine in the visual department. It’s certainly a colossal step up from the previous entries and holds up way better than Tales Of Symphonia which was released a year later. It’s not surprising that it just happens to be the best selling game in the series when you consider this fact since there were very few 3D Action RPG’s out there at the time that managed to offer visuals as good as this game’s.
Even with its flaws, It was worth suffering through the awful gameplay and combat just to see the story play out, explore its world and listen to the amazing music. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time is a game brimming with potential and I would really like to see this game remade with a much better combat system and an actual item creation system that doesn’t suck. This game could have been the best in the series but it sadly missed that opportunity due to the fact that the overall gameplay was such a disaster. The saddest part about the disastrous combat is the fact that the directors cut version of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time features an unlockable versus multiplayer mode but why would you want to play it? It’s such a shame that the only Star Ocean game to feature multiplayer is the one with the worst combat. In any case, I look at Star Ocean Till The End Of Time the exact same way I look at Devil May Cry 2, it’s a game that infuriates me with how flawed it is but somehow manage to still like it somehow. You could say that it’s a guilty pleasure of mine in a way and to be honest, I kind of get a kick out of ranting about it. I will never ever understand how anyone can possibly defend its systems though. I mean by all means enjoy this game but you will never convince me that MP death is justified because it’s not, it’s stupid as it only manages to bring about artificial difficulty spikes and exploits. Plus the invention system needs to be erased from existence.
I’d prefer to be unemployed, if that’s an option.
Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Star Ocean 4
Original Xbox 360
International Playstation 3, Playstation 4, PC
At a glimpse, Star Ocean The Last Hope appears to be the game every Star Ocean fan wanted from the start, an adventure that spans across numerous planets with your own space ship to take you anywhere you want, alongside a crew of space travelers to accompany you to the ends of the universe. Some might even say that Star Ocean The Last Hope is the Japanese equivalent of Mass Effect (if you replaced the third person shooting with hack & slash action that is) but when I say Japanese, I do not use that term lightly. This is one of those games that clearly caters to the otaku demographic and it does so in the most cringe worthy way possible, to the point that it makes what should be everyone’s dream Star Ocean experience into what may quite possibly be their worst nightmare.
The cast of characters are as ridiculous as one would expect from such a game, you get your typical anime hero, the bitchy childhood friend, two bland dudes that seemingly spew technobabble every 5 minutes, a cat girl loli wearing as little as a 12 rated game allows, some slag with huge ears, an edgelord, a ditzy angelic girl with the most obnoxiously high pitched voice of all time and the worst offender, the emo loli with the most monotone voice you could ever imagine to the point that it will haunt you in your sleep every night. You know you’re in for one hell of a crazy experience with this cast and you most certainly are. This game is absolutely nuts and will destroy your sanity, some of the private actions in this game are beyond ridiculous and may quite possibly involve some of the dumbest, cringeworthy shit I have ever witnessed in videogame history.
Did we forget to tell you that you’re not coming?
Now the formula of private actions is a little different here, unlike the previous game, your actions don’t affect party members that haven’t joined you and many of them involve interacting with the main cast like in previous games, only this time almost all of them take place during space travel on board the calnus. This is fitting since space travel takes a long time so why not throw some character bonding in there? Sounds great right? Well considering the fact that Star Ocean The Last Hope’s idea of character bonding is questionable, no it’s not great, it’s not great at all. Private actions are horrible in this game, just simply horrible. They’re the sort of thing that somebody walking in on you watching these scenes is going to judge you for and rightfully so, it’s like insanely otaku to the point that even I, a person who plays plenty of Japanese games feels uncomfortable watching. I’m sorry but if your idea of character bonding is watching the protagonist wake up next to a half naked cat girl loli and accidentally groping her then I don’t want any of it thanks, I have enough traumas as it is, let alone the ones this game put me through.
Now you are probably wondering if the main story itself is as cringeworthy as the private actions, well I can safely say that it’s a lot more tame by comparison and while it does have its good moments, I feel that the biggest issue with the story is how it connects together. While the games finale does connect a few events, certain sections of the game don’t really add much and many sections exist solely to pad the game out. Since the game has you exploring a multitude of planets this time around, each planet has its own self contained story which is a pretty cool concept but it does cause the issue of the story feeling disjointed. I suppose it’s a double edged sword in a way when you consider the fact that this is the first game in the series to heavily emphasize space travel between multiple worlds, there’s going to be a sacrifice made somewhere down the line. Plus Star Ocean The Last Hope isn’t the only game in the series that is guilty of this as Star Ocean Till The End Of Time also had its own moments like this but I found that it executed things far better than this game did and that’s mainly due to the fact that each planet doesn’t feel as if it revolves entirely around its own self-contained story since the story transitions more naturally in the sense that there is a greater sense of urgency present which I found The Last Hope severely lacked until the final section, making the story feel like a slog for 75% of the game. Add to that the fact that the characters are either annoying or uninteresting and you have a storyline that is very hard to get invested into, especially when things get serious as it is very hard to take this game seriously as it is due to its horrendous private action sequences.
Don’t worry, you’ll be joining them in hell soon enough
It doesn’t help that the voice work isn’t too brilliant either despite featuring big names like Matthew Mercer and Laura Bailey. A lot of people complain about the voice acting and honestly I find it to be a much lesser issue… save for perhaps Sarah’s voice. I think the writing is so horrendous that the voice cast likely had a difficult time delivering their lines in ways they were intended. Many say that this was a voice direction issue but honestly I think the material itself is what is at fault here, the characters are just so unlikable that the very thought of hearing them actually talk sends shivers down your spine no matter which way you look at it. Nobody wants to hear Lymle, Meracle and Sarah talk regardless of who is playing the role, they are just obnoxious characters period, that’s before we even start talking about the godawful Welch who also manages to have more screen time than necessary. So it’s easy to see why The Last Hope gets so much hate by fans of the series and while that hate has started to mellow over the years (mainly due to the game afterwards taking all of the negative attention from it), the issues in regards to the overall narrative are still damaging to the overall experience.
Those who aren’t bothered by the game’s narrative issues will be glad to know that The Last Hope offers arguably the best combat in the entire series and considering the fact that Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s combat was a huge disaster, this is a pretty big deal if you ask me. Star Ocean The Last Hope’s combat harkens back to the original game’s combat system, essentially being an evolution of Second Story’s combat but with considerably more depth and technicality. The biggest addition to the combat is the blindside system. Blindsides are essentially an evasive maneuver similar to that of the flip skill used in Second Story but it can now be triggered manually by evading an approaching enemy. Upon executing a blindside, the targeting enemy will be stunned temporarily allowing you do deal critical hits to them more easily. It isn’t always that easy however as some enemies can counter the player’s blindside which may be countered by a double blindside once you unlock it. I also find that if you blindside an enemy just before they hit you, you may be able to bypass their counter attack entirely. It’s a really cool system that is easy to utilize whilst also being extremely rewarding and satisfying to pull off.
Another new addition is the rush gauge which is the replacement of the previous game’s fury gauge. Instead of the gauge depleting with each attack, it instead increases with attacks and any damage you receive, once maxed out it can be activated to prevent staggering which can be a huge help when you want to maximize aggression. The enemies also have a rush gauge too and upon maxing it out they will become immune to staggering, this however doesn’t make them immune to blindsides so if faced with such a foe, a successful blindside can turn the tide and give you an opportunity to dish out damage during their rush phase. You can also use up all of your rush gauge to perform a rush combo by pressing any of the trigger buttons during the activation of your rush phase. This will allow you to perform a chained combo of moves with other characters without any interruption from other enemies, essentially allowing you to pile on tonnes of damage at once which can be extremely handy in boss fights.
As great as these new additions are, the game is far from perfect as there are a few downsides, the first being the fact that the controls are pretty awkward at times considering the fact that you have to press the start button to change targets. This could be performed by pressing the d pad left or right after selecting an attack in the first two games but in the original version of The Last Hope, changing targets manually was not possible and this was a huge problem at the time. While this issue has been fixed, the fact that I have to press the start button to cycle between targets isn’t really ideal. The mechanics as a whole while simple to perform for the most part (outside of rush combos) aren’t really all that difficult to master. Pulling off blindsides is easy to do most of the time and there’s barely any skill required in the process, put simply it’s nowhere near as demanding as Issen timings are in Onimusha. Rush combos can also be spammed should players hide in a corner and charge up their rush gauge safely which is sometimes the easiest way to win against tough adversaries. Put simply the game is far from being the most skill demanding game out there, it is easy to abuse the systems presented to you but does that mean that the combat is bad? Well that depends on the player’s perspective. While I wouldn’t say that the combat is entirely mindless, it is still very easy to play and quite frankly that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it can be quite satisfying to pull off cool maneuvers with ease. It helps that the controls do make for a much smoother experience than that of Till The End Of Time as all it takes is a single press of the trigger to perform a special move, you don’t need to hold the button down or anything making chaining combos so much easier to do by comparison. Sometimes a smooth, satisfying experience is all you need in a game’s combat, it doesn’t have to be Ninja Gaiden Black levels of difficult to be fun to play.
That’s not to say that The Last Hope isn’t punishing as it is still a tri-Ace game, therefore you are bound to expect some deadly status effects that can wipe your entire party if you aren’t careful. You will also have plenty of tough enemies to deal with and if you play too aggressively you may find yourself taking a boatload of damage quickly. The combat is built around passive aggressive gameplay, encouraging players to wait for the right moment to strike as opposed to diving straight in, while there’s still plenty of opportunity to be aggressive and the rush system helps with this. It all depends on the player’s playstyle. This is where the beat system comes into play. Those looking for a more technical experience will be able to change their beat to strike, whereas those who want to be as aggressive as possible will much prefer setting their beat to rush. I personally find that setting my beat to strike works best for my controlled character while putting everyone else on rush. This defines how your character grows in regards to blindside or rush maneuvers depending on which beat style you pick. There is also a neutral one which provides different stat boosts but has no growth effect which could be handy for some caster characters.
Star Ocean The Last Hope brought back the ability to level up skills with skill points which was missing in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time because of course it was, this is Star Ocean Till The End Of Time we’re talking about. This also involves the ability to level up special attacks as well, making them stronger. You will also be glad to know that while the CP capacity returns, it is nowhere near as infuriatingly restrictive as it was in the previous game, plus you are not given the luxury of being able to set up to 6 special attacks, that and passive abilities no longer take up special move slots so you don’t have to worry about that either. Not only are the special moves more flexible but they are also easier to chain together since you don’t have to hold down X first to start a cancel chain, you can instead alternate between the triggers in any order you please, just like the old games. So no longer do you have to worry about accidentally performing the wrong move because of how hard you pressed a face button which was a huge problem in the previous game. Ultimately the combat feels way more accessible and smoother than the previous game but is no less technical than any game in the series, in fact some would argue that it is the most technical and I would agree with them. Fuck Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s clusterfuck of a system, this is what it should have been from the very beginning because even with all of its flaws, Star Ocean The Last Hope’s combat system is fiercely competent by comparison and deserves way more credit than it gets for making such a colossal improvement.
You can launch enemies into the air by pressing the analogue stick towards them, you can also follow that up with an aerial attack. You will automatically perform aerial attacks on enemies that are above you.
Of course with the ability to level up skills with skill points comes the ability to level up your character’s item creation skill. Now unlike previous entries, you can no longer learn item creation skills with everyone as they are tied to specific characters this time round. This also means that super specialties haven’t made a return since they first appeared in Star Ocean The Second Story which is sad. What has returned however is the invention system from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and while this may sound bad at first, it’s actually not that bad in this game, nor is it all that great either. It’s basically a more simplified, streamlined alternative which uses SP instead of FOL with no possibility of failure. The SP cost is so minimal that you won’t even notice your SP go down so it’s likely that you will learn most of your recipes in one go, though sometimes you will need to rearrange your invention groups to unlock different items. Basically you just sit there and watch as they learn stuff then when they run out of ideas, you’ll get the recipes for that item.
The recipes gained from invention are used in item creation which has unfortunately devolved into a generic crafting system, you know… the ones you see in every RPG that has a crafting system. Now I can’t say that there’s anything wrong with it since it at least works well enough and isn’t a chore to do like Invention was in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. Plus the ability to synthesize also returns from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, which does make the item creation more interesting as a whole and in this game it makes all the difference since the item creation system as a whole is competent enough. This just adds another layer of fun to item creation and that is never a bad thing. On top of item creation, certain characters also have the ability to harvest from harvesting spots in order to find materials to use in item creation. The materials you harvest are dependent on the character’s harvesting skill level and the location, so if you want to harvest specific items then you will need to backtrack a lot until you find them.
You will be traversing through some huge, open landscapes in Star Ocean The Last Hope and they are a treat for the eyes. Now I have recently played the 4K HD version on PC and the visual improvements made to this game are astronomical and due to the fact that the Xbox 360 original looked fantastic for the time, the remaster’s visuals will make you think that you are playing an 8th gen game just because of how crisp and clean they look, while simultaneously having considerably more detail than the 360 version had. It is very hard to rank the visuals for this reason alone because while the 360 original still looks very nice, I wouldn’t personally consider it to be the best looking game in the series overall but the 4K HD version of this game definitely takes the top spot for me personally. The only thing holding this game back visuallly are the character facials as while they did improve the character models considerably, they still look very doll like. Lymle’s face still terrifies me to this day and while the international version added anime portraits, this does not make up for the awkward looking characters. However the improvements made in the 4K HD remaster more than make up for this single flaw making the game look absolutely breathtaking… not Valkyrie Profile 2 levels breathtaking but breathtaking nonetheless. If anything it still goes to show that tri-Ace still has artistic talent but their facial designs have always been hit or miss for me.
As for the music, while it is great and all, I found it to be just above average for Motoi Sakuraba’s standards. Now while it is certainly better than many of his Tales compositions and Resonance Of Fate tracks, I don’t think it holds a candle to the previous Star Ocean games, except maybe Blue Sphere but that’s not really fair since it’s a game boy game. I still think that there are some good tracks here though, namely Silk Road In The Sky II, Awakening and Night Of The Chase. There’s a lot of piano and synthesizer here so if you’ve heard anything from Motoi Sakuraba before, you won’t really be shocked to hear some familiar tracks. Speaking of which, I do like the remixed tracks from the first game that appear in this game, they’re pretty damn good. Overall, it’s a pretty solid soundtrack… but I expect better from Motoi Sakuraba, not that I was disappointed, certainly not, it’s far from being the worst he’s composed and if you’ve never heard any of his music before then I can easily recommend Star Ocean The Last Hope’s soundtrack as a good entry point as it is probably one of his more defining works, for better or for worse. If you like it then I can assure you that you will absolutely adore his other works for sure.
Star Ocean The Last Hope is a very divisive game in the series and considering the fact that it is basically the polar opposite of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time in almost every aspect of its design, this really isn’t all that surprising. I mean if you aren’t bothered by a game’s story and just want to sink your teeth into the gameplay then this is probably going to be your best bet, especially for those who enjoy games that feature tones of content because you are going to have to play this game a lot if you want to get all of its trophies. The story is not the worst I have seen but I don’t think it’s gripping enough for me to consider it a selling point. While the game does have its epic moments as well as some great ideas, the overall tone of the game’s Private Actions ruins any serious scene that this game presents to me. I simply cannot ignore the cringeworthy dialogue this game has, it is very hard to watch and for that reason I do not recommend this game as an entry point because I fear that it would scare people away from the series. I get that tri-Ace have a weird sense of humor but I think they took it way too far with this game.
For those who are curious, I made a compilation featuring several of the game’s private actions for your displeasure
You are not prepared.
Star Ocean: Integrity And Faithlessness
Star Ocean 5
Playstation 3, Playstation 4
So here we have the final Star Ocean game that isn’t a mobile gatcha game. Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness was dealt an unfair hand, not only was it released in what appears to be a rushed, low budget state but it was also the victim of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s success. Needless to say, the game sold poorly and is almost universally hated by the fans of the series. If you ask me, the fanbase brought this upon themselves for allowing it to follow in the footsteps of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, limiting its potential considerably.
Despite this I would argue that the combat system if Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness is in many ways an improvement from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s combat system as it fixed almost all of the issues that the game had. The problem is that they spent so much time fixing it that there wasn’t enough time to actually improve it. So essentially, the developers shot themselves in the foot by pandering to the fans of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. When the game released, both Star Ocean The Last Hope and Till The End Of Time fans were furious with the game’s combat system. Fans of The Last Hope hated the fact that the combat felt considerably downgraded when compared to The Last Hope’s combat system, whereas fans of Till The End Of Time complained about the lack of staggering against bosses. Considering the fact that stun locking has been an issue the series has had for a while, removing staggering did make a lot of sense, however I would argue that the rush system was a better idea overall as it did allow for some level of stun locking to be performed. Ultimately though it was the Star Ocean Till The End Of Time fans who got what they asked for, not The Last Hope fans and what they got was a fixed version of Till The End Of Time but what they wanted was the exact same battle system without the improvements.
Unlike previous entries, the maximum party size is 7, because of this there are no reserve party members and you can swap between 6 of them at any time in battle. Needless to say, battles can get pretty chaotic at times with so many characters performing their attacks at once.
There are a few notable additions to the combat including seamless transitions, the return of manual guarding and a new counter attack ability that you can perform after successfully guarding enemy attacks which was a cool addition to the game if you ask me. Much like the blindside ability in The Last Hope, manual guarding allows players to cancel the AI’s run up after switching, something that was really problematic in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. You can also move while guarding as well as cancel it into an evasion if you need to, though the evasion isn’t nearly as effective as the blindsides in The Last Hope. On top of that they also added a reserve rush attack which acts as some kind of finishing super attack which was yet another cool addition. Other than that though, it mostly plays the exact same as Star Ocean Till The End Of Time but without the MP Death, fury system, anti-attack shield (replaced with manual guarding) and the insane 300% cancel bonus. Plus you are also able to cancel anything into anything this time around so you don’t have to spam special attacks over and over again to maximize damage potential. Overall, it feels a lot more polished by comparison to Till The End Of Time though there’s no denying the fact that the combat isn’t without its flaws. Attacks can still be spammed over and over again without any repercussions and the light/heavy system still doesn’t work as there’s no punishment to using heavy special attacks whereas there is when using light attacks. Once again, this is the exact same issue that Star Ocean Till The End Of Time had so be sure to thank the Star Ocean Till The End Of Time fanbase for bringing it back to this game.
Thankfully there are also some notable improvements made in the game’s item creation as you are now able to perform item synthesis which is a new form of item creation that lets you transform items into new items. In a way it feels like a different approach to the item creation in the first two games. Of course the item creation from Star Ocean 4 returns too where you craft items that require specific items to make. Like I said before, I don’t have an issue with this system even though it’s used in countless other games, at least it works well enough unlike Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s invention system which is completely absent from this game which is a plus. The specialties also make a return too which a feature completely absent from Till The End Of Time though this time rather than developing specific character’s skills, you learn skills for your entire party which I find to be a more accessible approach to learning skills compared to that of the earlier games. In a way you could say that they found a good balance of accessibility and flexibility with both systems, though they could certainly be improved upon.
The biggest and best addition to Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness is the role system. What the role system does is allow you to fine tune the AI of your characters as well as giving them statistical bonuses in a fight, allowing you to make characters behave and specialize in whatever way you choose. The one caveat to this is that the roles system can be difficult to understand as it isn’t very well explained to the player, on top of this there is a certain role that can completely break the entire game. I think that the role system had a lot of potential and I really want to see it return if they ever do make another Star Ocean game but I do think that they need to work on it to make it work better. Ultimately though, I think that they should do what YS VIII did and allow the AI to automatically avoid enemy attacks so that you don’t have to babysit them all the time because there are still many times where the AI is in the wrong place at the wrong time and you need to rescue them. The lack of a taunt ability doesn’t help things either which was a feature that was in Star Ocean The Last Hope that sadly didn’t make it to Integrity And Faithlessness. Put simply, the gameplay department is a little rough but still enjoyable so long as you don’t expect too much from it. I myself enjoyed it despite its flaws.
The private action system is slightly different in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness as to trigger a private action, you first need to go to the whistle icon in each town to split the party. Unlike the first two games where you had to enter and re-enter a town to trigger a private action, in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness you can rest at the inn to reset the whistle icon and do more private actions without having to leave town. On top of this, unlike other games in the series, many of the game’s private actions take place in field areas too. I find that they tend to trigger in the same places most of the time but you never know which one you’re going to get. It’s pretty hard to keep track of how many private actions there are left to do in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness since there are a lot of them and you can probably spend hours doing them all at once if you like though I personally find it better to do them in between side quests, that way you can travel back and forth between towns and enjoy a private action after completing your errands.
The story as a whole is a lot more simplistic than the previous entries as it harkens back to the style of storytelling that the first game had in the sense that it’s not really large in scale and takes place on a single planet for the majority of the game. Some might even say that Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness is a reboot of the first game since it does feel very similar at times, especially when you consider the fact that you once again play as a character from an underdeveloped planet this time around. While the story may not be as exciting as the other games, it doesn’t overstay its welcome and it isn’t terrible. It has some interesting moments at certain parts but it’s definitely not the main attraction here.
Thankfully the characters are nowhere near as annoying as the previous game’s cast and I’d say they’re likeable enough for the most part, that being said however some characters are better than others. Emmerson and Victor are arguably the strongest of the cast if you ask me since their quirks stood out the most. The rest of the cast are just kind of just there, it’s almost as if they were trying to play it safe with this cast since they aren’t unlikeable in the slightest but there’s not really much I can say besides the fact that they are a colossal improvement from the previous game’s cast. I would say that on the surface, the cast is about on par with the cast of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, though given the fact that at least there are plenty of private action interactions in this game it provides more opportunities for the cast to flesh out a little, though the results vary greatly. Despite all of this, I found that the characters tied into the story really well as opposed to feeling like they don’t belong, which is a problem this series has had since the start.
Cutscenes in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness are few and far between and are reserved for important events. Most events are portrayed in a similar way to the field private actions in the sense that they occur while you are walking around. When a scene starts, a red boundary shows up and you can move anywhere in that boundary. I think that when I describe it this way, it sounds like a really stupid idea and while it’s debatable whether or not it is, I believe that developers were trying to alleviate the lack of player interaction in cutscenes, even going as far as to add emotes for Fidel to perform in cutscenes. Ultimately though, the result of this is that these scenes are not skippable and therefore you will have to wither move around aimlessly or sit around waiting for the boundary to disappear as the characters natter on about stuff and that’s hardly ideal when you are replaying the game a second time.
The visuals are certainly a strong point for this game, there’s a lot of detail in the character designs and aside from Miki, their facials are a significant improvement from the previous entries. The environments also look great too and there’s a lot of draw distance too. Ultimately though, when compared with the 4K/HD remaster of the previous game, it doesn’t really look like that much of an improvement though I do prefer the art style of this game a lot more since the characters look so much better and have some really interesting looking designs as opposed to being generic looking like in the previous game. Fiore might look sluttier than Myuria but at least her design is conceptually interesting as opposed to her just wearing a generic outfit which solely exists to emphasize her breast size. Victor’s armor looks absolutely stunning, heck his character design is arguably one of the best in the series from a visual standpoint. I also really like Fidel’s attire too, his jacket in particular looks pretty cool. The only character that I didn’t like design wise was Miki, it was almost as if they took Estelle from Tales Of Vesperia and just dyed her hair purple and said “This will do”. I suppose she doesn’t look as bad as some of the characters from previous entries like Meracle but that’s not saying much. Regardless, the characters as a whole look fantastic overall, honestly the only game in the series that rivals this game in terms of character artwork is the first Star Ocean.
Be sure to bring popcorn, because you can’t skip these sequences.
Now before I address the overall quality of the music, I need to address the fact that many of the songs that play in this game are taken from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and Star Ocean The Last Hope, therefore it is unfair to pass judgment on the soundtrack overall. This leaves the new tracks and sadly there aren’t really that many of them but thankfully the few that are there are pretty damn good. Some of my favorites include Beyond The Clear Sky, Decisive Warriors, Mortal Combat, Incursion and Absence Of Light. When you consider the fact that it also features great tracks from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time like The Divine Spirit Of Language and The Desolate Smell Of Earth then you could argue that it has one of the stronger soundtracks in the series but it would be unfair to say that so instead I will say that the soundtrack, while far from being the best is also far from being the worst.
Ultimately Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness is probably the most well rounded game in the series to a fault. It doesn’t stand out from other games in the series and I honestly think that might be its biggest issue. Then again, it is far from being the worst JRPG out there like some would claim it to be. Honestly this game is underrated and I think that it deserves more appreciation, though it is important to be aware of its faults and to keep your expectations low should you choose to dive into this entry. That being said, I would certainly recommend this game to people who are new to the series as it is not only one of the more accessible games but at the same time, you likely won’t have lofty expectations after having played the previous entries. Plus unlike Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, Integrity And Faithlessness is unapologetically faithful to the series formula so if you like what you see then the series is certainly worth investing in, plus it is very cheap considering the fact that it received so much hate from the masses so you can easily find yourself a copy. The only downside is that to play it you will need a PS4, which is satanic… I know, just get a second hand PS4 if you have to… or wait for the PS4 emulator to be released… you might need to wait a while though.
While the writing and voice direction is a colossal improvement from the previous game, they still managed to screw up some parts.
So we have finally finished covering all six Star Ocean games, now comes the hard part. It is finally time to see which Star Ocean game is the greatest. Here’s the thing though, unlike the previous comparison which had 3 solid titles, Star Ocean is nowhere near as consistent in its quality by comparison, therefore I will need a new system for judging the six titles. This system will reward points based on the position the game is on the ratings. The higher the rating, the more points are given to the game (5 points for 1st, 4 points for second, 3 points for third, 2 points for 4th, 1 point for 5th and no points for last place). This will keep Star Ocean Till The End Of Time from winning because spoiler alert, it has already lost because I said so. Ultimately I will be the judge of which game is better or not so screw the rules, I have the final say, even if logic dictates that I am wrong, my choice for the best Star Ocean game will be a personal one.
Combat
It goes without saying that Star Ocean The Last Hope has the superior combat system as not only is it the most technical but it’s also very flexible as well due to having 6 slots for special attacks. While Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness does come close, it is held back by Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s horrible framework. The rest are pretty archaic by today’s standards, though Star Ocean The Second Story’s combat is the better of the archaic ones. Star Ocean Blue Sphere barely edges out against the first game in terms of combat as I found it to have some more interesting quirks to it, of course the first game’s combat is going to be one of the least technical combat systems as it is the first game, therefore it is going to be primitive. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s combat however is dreadful, I would rather play the first game because as primitive as it is, at least it makes sense. MP death is such a stupid idea and the whole combat system is a mess, whereas the first game accomplished what it set out to do, which puts Star Ocean Till The End Of Time in last place, where it belongs.
Star Ocean The Last Hope: 1st – 5
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness: 2nd – 4
Star Ocean The Second Story: 3rd – 3
Star Ocean Blue Sphere: 4th – 2
Star Ocean: 5th – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: 6th – 0
Best Combat: Star Ocean The Last Hope
Item Creation
Item Creation was perfected in Star Ocean The Second Story with the addition of super specialties which allowed for even more possibilities. Blue Sphere’s minigames do a great job at spicing things up but not quite enough to compensate for the lack of super specialties. The first game pioneered the system that was later used in both Second Story and Blue Sphere so needless to say it is up there with the rest of the original item creation systems. Sadly Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness featured the inferior item creation system of The Last Hope but the inclusion of Item Synthesis gives it some bonus points. Unsurprisingly Star Ocean Till The End Of Time is the worst of the bunch as while Star Ocean The Last Hope’s item creation was generic, Star Ocean Till The End Of Time removed item creation entirely, replacing it with invention which is a convoluted chore.
Star Ocean The Second Story: 1st – 5
Star Ocean Blue Sphere: 2nd – 4
Star Ocean: 3rd – 3
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness: 4th – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope: 5th – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: 6th – 0
Best Item Creation: Star Ocean The Second Story
Story
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s story had that epic feeling that I found the other games were lacking, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that happens alongside many big reveals. The first game, while considerably more simplistic in its storytelling managed to be cohesive as well as having some interesting ideas presented closer to the end. Blue Sphere’s story while not as interesting as the first was very cohesive and I did like the concept of it a lot. The Second Story’s first half felt a bit padded out while the second half felt rushed. A lot of the story involved the player getting sidetracked a lot which is why I put it below Blue Sphere. Then we have Star Ocean The Last Hope, a story which takes you from one planet to the next, each with its own story, some being dull, others being a repeat of the previous planet but with a few nuanced differences, barely any of the events directly connect to the game’s finale. There are a few interesting moments closer to the end of the game which puts it ahead of Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness, a story that feels like a retelling of the first game at times but isn’t half as interesting. While it may not be a bad story, there really isn’t all that much to say about it, at least some interesting stuff does happen in The Last Hope, barely anything interesting happens in Integrity And Faithlessness’ story.
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 1st – 5
Star Ocean – 2nd – 4
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 3rd – 3
Star Ocean The Second Story – 4th – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 5th – 1
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 6th – 0
Best Story: Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
Characters
Now we move on to the characters and this is going to be extremely subjective given my tastes but I personally find the first game’s cast to be the strongest overall. Not only does it have Cyuss who is a pretty cool dude but I also liked Ilia and Ronyx a lot too. I really liked to see the interactions between the cast in this game a lot, particularly between Roddick, Cyuss, Ronyx and Ilia. The Second Story is a close second as Dias is equally as cool as Cyuss, plus you have Ashton who is a rather quirky character, the only thing that lets the cast down is Leon because he’s an annoying unlikable brat. Emmerson and Victor are interesting enough to put Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness in third place. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time has Cliff but that’s about it, Blue Sphere has the exact same cast as The Second Story but they barely even talk so they aren’t half as interesting as they were in The Second Story. Still, I’d rather have no talking than have to listen to Lymle, Sarah and Meracle, which puts The Last Hope at the bottom since it has the worst cast of characters in videogame history and they should all be crucified for existing.
Star Ocean – 1st – 5
Star Ocean The Second Story – 2nd – 4
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 3rd – 3
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 4th – 2
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 5th – 1
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 6th – 0
Best Characters: Star Ocean
Private Actions
Star Ocean First Departure’s private actions are hilarious, hands down the best in the series without a doubt, Star Ocean The Second Story is a close second as it also has some funny private actions but not as funny as First Departure in my opinion. Integrity And Faithlessness added private actions on the field and changed the way they work in towns, the private actions themselves are a mixed bag, some are pretty good, others are pretty bland. The Last Hope’s private actions also work very differently and the developers clearly put a lot of effort put into them, however I find them to be repugnant. Blue Sphere barely has any private actions at all and none of them even influence the ending but it makes sense given the fact that the characters already had their endings in the previous game. This puts Star Ocean Till The End Of Time at the very bottom because the Private Actions with the characters themselves are few and far between, you can barely tell whether or not you’re actually doing a private action considering the fact that many of them are just random scenes with NPC’s and not actual character interaction.
Star Ocean – 1st – 5
Star Ocean The Second Story – 2nd – 4
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 3rd – 3
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 4th – 2
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 5th – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 6th – 0
Best Private Actions: Star Ocean
Soundtrack
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s soundtrack is fantastic, some of Motoi Sakuraba’s best work. The first game on Super Famicom has a pretty banging soundtrack, I really like the battle music in this game a lot, it’s definitely the next best soundtrack after Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. Star Ocean The Second Story’s soundtrack is so good that many of its tracks were re-used in other tri-Ace games, I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot but it didn’t stick with me like the two I mentioned before. Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness features songs from both Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and Star Ocean The Last Hope, on top of its own tracks which I enjoyed a lot. The Last Hope’s soundtrack would have been the least impressive soundtrack if it wasn’t for Blue Sphere’s soundtrack which isn’t terrible but isn’t half as memorable as the other games in the series.
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 1st – 5
Star Ocean – 2nd – 4
Star Ocean The Second Story – 3rd – 3
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 4th – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 5th – 1
Star Ocean Blue Sphere 6th – 0
Best Soundtrack: Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
Visuals
In terms of visuals, considering the fact that Star Ocean, like most tri-Ace games offer visuals that are consistantly good with each installment it’s pretty easy to tell which games are going to be better than others in this department. Obviously The Last Hope is at the top due to the 4KHD Remaster elevating it above Integrity And Faithlessness while Blue Sphere is at the bottom due to the hardware limitations. Other than that, the older the game is, the worse it’s going to rank for obvious reasons. Nothing against sprites or pre-rendered backgrounds but I actually want to see as much detail as possible, particularly in a sci-fi game. I want to see all the metallic colours glimmering on screen, not just some grimy sprites to represent a futuristic setting.
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 1st – 5
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 2nd – 4
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 3rd – 3
Star Ocean The Second Story – 4th – 2
Star Ocean – 5th – 1
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 6th – 0
Best Visuals: Star Ocean The Last Hope
Total Scores:
Star Ocean: 23
Star Ocean The Second Story: 23
Star Ocean Blue Sphere: 11
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: 15
Star Ocean The Last Hope: 15
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness: 18
Winner: It’s A Tie!!!
But it’s not over…
So the first Star Ocean and The Second Story are tied for first place, well I can’t say that I’m surprised since I love them both equally. Still there can only be one winner and there’s only one way I can make that decision. The deciding factor ultimately comes down to Star Ocean First Departure. On one hand, Star Ocean First Departure has the same combat system as The Second Story, it also has some amazing private actions. The caveat however is that the music and visuals took a nosedive from the Super Famicom version and because of this, it is hard to recommend one version over the other. Whereas Star Ocean The Second Story on PS1 is the definitive version of the second game in my opinion. It took a while for Star Ocean The Second Story to grow on me. I first played Star Ocean Second Evolution and missed so much content since I didn’t read a guide. On my second playthrough, after figuring out how to get access to certain characters, I found myself enjoying the game a lot more than I did the first time around, so much so that I recently managed to beat the cave of trials, the survival arena and the final boss without the limiter. It was at that moment that I finally realized that Star Ocean The Second Story might actually be my favourite game in the series but at the same time I still have a fondness for the first game in the series that gets considerably less attention by comparison, so it pains me to say that the first game doesn’t win, even though it has every right to win. Star Ocean The Second Story takes the podium which isn’t really surprising since it’s the one and only game in the series that just about everyone agrees is good, while the rest are fiercely divisive.
Winner: Star Ocean The Second Story
Now here comes the fun part, the part that I have been waiting for this whole time. Which is the worst Star Ocean game? Well statistically speaking, Star Ocean Blue Sphere is at the bottom, however I’m willing to overlook that fact simply because Star Ocean Till The End Of Time exists. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like this game, I really do but that doesn’t stop me from hating it with a fiery passion. Star Ocean Till The End Of Time single handedly killed the series, had it not been for Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, Integrity And Faithlessness would have been a better game and would have sold better, it is because Star Ocean Till The End Of Time sold so well despite being in such a pathetic state that Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness’ combat system isn’t as good as it should be. As a Star Ocean fan, I cannot say that I didn’t find any enjoyment out of it, however it is clearly the worst game in the series for countless reasons so it goes without saying that it is the loser…. well it would have been if it wasn’t for Star Ocean Anamnesis, fuck that heap of dog shit, it should be deleted from earth, fucking gatcha trash games should be illegal.
Loser: Star Ocean Anamnesis
Sorry Edge, but your face perfectly represents my thoughts on Star Ocean Anamnesis
So now that you have all been blessed by my factual opinions, I hope you will be able to figure out which game is best for you. For those who have already played the games, I am certain you have your pitchforks ready, give me half an hour to build by fortifications before invading the comments, don’t worry, I won’t throw burning oil all over you when you enter, just don’t expect anything you say to change my mind on this matter. You can however state your disagreements and they will be recorded in the comments as a second opinion as a means of helping people understand that different people enjoy different things. Ultimately though, the future of this series isn’t looking too good. Here’s hoping tri-Ace will get another chance to make an amazing Star Ocean game that isn’t mobile trash. Though with the way things are going now, that isn’t li-
Edit 08/11/2022: Everything after this point was written after the original comparison, with the release of Star Ocean The Divine Force, I need to update the scores.
Star Ocean The Divine Force
Star Ocean 6
Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, PC
Timeline: S.D. 583: After Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – Before Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
So now that Star Ocean The Divine Force has been released, I naturally have to cover it here but I’ll be brief, though if you want to know more about the game, I highly recommend checking out my review. There are a lot of new features added to this game and it also brings back the dual protagonists from Second Story as well as bringing back its item creation system. The biggest new addition to the game is DUMA as it changes not only the way you move around but it also plays a major part in battles. With DUMA you can reach high places that would otherwise be unreachable in previous games such as the roof of a building or a floating island in the sky. DUMA also has such a huge influence over the game’s combat system that it’s hard to imagine playing it without it. Not only does it allow you to quickly fly towards an enemy at high speeds but if they are targeting you, you can blindside them by tilting the analog stick left or right, meaning that you no longer need to charge up an evasive maneuver to pull off a blindside like in The Last Hope, this greatly speeds up the pace of the game as triggering a blindside is near instantaneous as opposed to requiring players to wait around for the evasion charge to fill up. This may seem like a small difference in regards to cost of time but it is actually a colossal one in the grand scale of things. Put simply, DUMA truly is the most innovative addition to the series so far and is the most definitive aspect of Star Ocean The Divine Force as a whole.
There is also the addition of E’sowa, a minigame which you can play when talking to NPC’s in towns. It’s a cool distraction from the main story and rewards you with accessories. Previous entries had bunny racing as well as an arena. There was also runic chess in the third game which has a similar presentation to this game but it worked completely differently. Esowa replaces all of them which may be a good or bad thing depending on whether of not you enjoy the game itself. Personally I don’t mind it, though an arena would have been nice to see. Speaking of removed features, the cooking skill was completely removed from item creation, instead players have to stay at inn’s to eat a meal. This may seem like a downgrade at first but after having replayed Star Ocean The Second Story on Universe difficulty, I can safely say that the cooking skill was the one I found to be the most useless overall and even though they have tried to improve upon it in later installments, I think removing it entirely and making food an inn exclusive feature is for the better personally, that way it focuses on all the other IC skills which makes them equally as important to one another but I can also understand how people may be let down by this.
There is a new AP system that may appear to be similar to the fury system but it works slightly differently as you can move around to regenerate AP as well as increase your maximum AP capacity by performing blindsides or surprise attacks, it also replaces MP entirely. There is also a VA gauge that affects the properties of blindsides performed, altering the stun rate, which can allow players to stun both enemies and even bosses for longer in order to pile on heavy damage. Increasing the VA gauge can be accomplished by not only attacking but also by performing a well timed dodge. A full VA gauge can turn the tide in even the toughest of boss fights with a properly executed blindside. Normal attacks have been removed entirely for the first time in the series and now every single attack has a name associated with it, though this comes with the flip side of not having the characters scream their attack names in battle. While item creation works more-or-less the same as the first two games and Blue Sphere, there is a FOL cost like in Till The End Of Time’s invention but they also added the ability to try again up to two times without losing any materials but it will still cost FOL to try again.
Fast travel can now be performed anywhere, so you no longer need to use the transporter on the ship like in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness. Any dropped items that you can’t pick up due to having a full inventory are converted into FOL. A skill tree has been added which allows players to choose the order of which skills and abilities they learn as opposed to only being able to access the skills found from skill books, skill shops or in Blue Sphere’s case, leveling up other skills to a certain level, though I consider it to be more of a grid than a tree because it is presented on a grid which lets you learn any skill connected to any nodes you have unlocked as opposed to choosing between strict branches like in Valkyrie Elysium for example. Upgrading skills works the same way as previous games though, by spending SP to improve individual skills which can be done in any order you please. You can also do all of this stuff in the menu mid fight, including item creation. This may have been unintentional but it’s still a unique feature that greatly impacts the gameplay.
Despite its differences, the game remains somewhat faithful to the series. The question is, how does it compare with the other games? Well in terms of combat it is unrivaled thanks to the additions brought by both DUMA and the AP system which replaces MP entirely. It is very hard to compare it to the other game’s combat for this reason because it is so drastically different in this regard. The closest to it would have to be Star Ocean The Last Hope, which also has blindsides as well as chain combos that let you input a sequence of moves, similar to how you can perform up to 3 moves in a sequence in this game. Some might say that it has similarities to Star Ocean Till The End Of Time due to the AP system being similar to fury but they work so drastically differently and honestly The Divine Force’s AP system works so much better simply due to being able to move while regenerating it as opposed to standing still like fury. There are also no light/heavy attacks in The Divine Force which makes it feel very different from Till The End Of Time and Integrity And Faithlessness, I will place it at the top just above The Last Hope.
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 6
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 5
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 4
Star Ocean The Second Story – 3
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 2
Star Ocean – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 0
Best Combat: Star Ocean The Divine Force
Visually it’s a no brainer, I don’t care what people say, this game looks absolutely gorgeous, the locations are vast and the skyboxes are a sight to behold I also really like the art design for the characters. Once again, this beats Star Ocean The Last Hope for top position.
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 6
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 5
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 4
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 3
Star Ocean The Second Story – 2
Star Ocean – 1
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 0
Best Visuals: Star Ocean The Divine Force
Star Ocean The Divine Force uses the same item creation as the first three entries (and by that I mean up to Blue Sphere, not Till The End Of Time) and I consider this to be the best system. While it may lack the super specialties found in Star Ocean The Second Story, the ability to try again after a failed item creation is still a nice touch. I put it just beneath Second Story because while it is a very good item creation system, the lack of Super Specialties drops it down a notch.
Star Ocean The Second Story: 1st – 6
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 5
Star Ocean Blue Sphere: – 4
Star Ocean: – 3
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness: – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope: – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: – 0
Best Item Creation: Star Ocean The Second Story
Star Ocean The Divine Force has my favorite cast of characters in the series by far. Midas, JJ, Elena, Albaird and Raymond are the standouts for me, though the others are great too like Malkya. I really can’t fault any of the characters here and their interactions are all great.
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 6
Star Ocean – 5
Star Ocean The Second Story – 4
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 3
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 2
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 1
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 0
Best Characters: Star Ocean The Divine Force
The Private Actions of Star Ocean The Divine Force are great and all but the first two entries are still the best if you ask me as I found those games to have some better stand out ones, I do think that they are better than the other private actions though so I’ll give it third place.
Star Ocean – 6
Star Ocean The Second Story – 5
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 4
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 3
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 2
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 1
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 0
Best Private Actions: Star Ocean
Soundtrack is always going to be subjective, It’s hard to put The Divine Force at the top for this one since many of the earlier titles have some really fantastic tracks. Integrity And Faithlessness puts up a good fight with the music it has, but since many of its tracks are re-used from previous games, I put The Divine Force above it. That being said however, I’ll have to put The Divine Force in the middle position sadly, despite having some amazing tracks like the one that plays in Larcasse Weald, the ones that play in futuristic locations and in the Aucerius Plains. Still a fantastic soundtrack nonetheless, it just needed more catchy tunes like in previous entries for me to rate it higher.
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 6
Star Ocean – 5
Star Ocean The Second Story – 4
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 3
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 1
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 0
Best Soundtrack: Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
Finally we have the story, I have to say that Star Ocean The Divine Force has one of the more interesting stories in the series, I liked how they explored the new concepts and the scale was much larger than most of the games in the series, albeit not as large as Till The End Of Time. I definitely give it a close second personally, though I can understand why people would consider it their favorite if they didn’t enjoy the plot twist of Till The End Of Time.
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 6
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 5
Star Ocean – 4
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 3
Star Ocean The Second Story – 2
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 1
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 0
Best Story: Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
So let’s total them up again and see how many points they have:
Star Ocean – 25
Star Ocean The Second Story – 26
Star Ocean Blue Sphere – 11
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time – 17
Star Ocean The Last Hope – 15
Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness – 18
Star Ocean The Divine Force – 35
Final Results:
1st – Star Ocean The Divine Force
2nd – Star Ocean The Second Story
3rd – Star Ocean
4th – Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness
5th – Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
6th – Star Ocean The Last Hope
7th – Star Ocean Blue Sphere
It appears that The Divine Force’s inclusion broke the tie between the first and second games by one point and after close examination, it appears that this is due to its position in the Item Creation category, knocking Star Ocean down 1 extra point from Star Ocean The Second Story, not that it matters since Second Story won in the end anyway but who cares about that when Star Ocean The Divine Force wins by a whopping 35 points, talk about a land slide victory.
New Winner: Star Ocean The Divine Force
Let’s Celebrate With A Nice Warm Cuppa!
Now I want to talk about Star Ocean The Second Story a little as it was my favorite in the series prior to Star Ocean The Divine Force and given that it’s such a landslide victory over Second Story and the fact that Second Story got a remake recently, I feel that I need to address a few things about Star Ocean The Second Story. Now I did another article not long ago here which goes into more detail in regards to how Star Ocean The Second Story handled its story. If you notice, the rating I gave for story is rather low and given that it’s an old game now, its combat is pretty dated by today’s standards, even with the improvements made in the remake, I feel that it was a system that was acceptible back in the day sure but not now. I feel that the remake didn’t really do enough to truly modernize the game and ultimately felt like a cheap cash grab that only served to further highlight the game’s flaws.
I really want to go back to what I said about the story in Star Ocean The Second Story being hit or miss as this has a huge impact on my decision to put Divine Force above it. Now given that it was my favorite game in the series, it goes without saying that I am still very fond of it and still consider it one of the best in the series but even back when Star Ocean The Divine Force wasn’t a thing, I always felt that Star Ocean The Second Story recieved way more praise than it deserved. I think part of this has to do with the fact that it was a PS1 JRPG as those tend to get a lot more praise than PS2/SNES RPGs do for some reason, even though generally speaking, most PS1 JRPGs were unbelievably bloated and slow paced. Another reason why I feel that it geets so much praise is because it’s the first Star Ocean game to be released worldwide as the first game was only released in Japan and I feel that there’s a lot of bias towards the game as a result of that also. This is why it makes perfect sense for Square-Enix to remake Second Story because it’s an easy cash grab since it’s the game everybody seemingly worships.
Now I don’t want people to get the wrong idea and see me as a hater of the series as I love this series, even before Star Ocean The Divine Force I loved it. I love all of the games in this series (besides anamnesis), even 3, despite me also hating it with a passion. The feelings these games give me are insane, there’s no other franchise like it, a franchise that I can bitch and moan about as much as I can absolutely adore and indulge in. That’s what makes Star Ocean truly special and why I have so much passion for it, because these games are flawed and I love them for it. The thing is, Star Ocean The Second Story is far from perfect and few people call out its flaws so I want to make it clear right here and right now, Star Ocean The Second Story is unbelievably overrated. I swear to god the amount of people who go on and on about how amazing this game was and how they consider it a masterpiece is absolutely insane. People ride Second Story’s dick so much that it’s beginning to make me wonder if these people are actually fans or not. Now sure some of them might be but others I feel might actually be following the herd and singing its praises just because everyone else around them is. I ain’t about that shit, I’m all about challenging that mentality of following popular opinion and forming your own opinions.
Star Ocean The Second Story is a game I cherish but it is by no means a masterpiece of game design, nor is it the pinnacle of JRPGs and it could never be the pinnacle of JRPGs because its combat system is utter shit by todays standards. It’s not timeless like Valkyrie Profile 2’s masterpiece of a combat system, it’s an old, archaic combat system with an archaic isekai storyline. Now that’s not to say that the game is bad, if that was true, I wouldn’t cherish it as much as I do today. The things that make the games stand out are its sub systems and those are the things that keep me returning to it. The combat and the story are merely the sugar dusting, the meat is in the sub systems, which sounds weird to say but it’s absolutely true.
What made Star Ocean The Second Story such a good game to begin with is the fact that it was the most unapologetically Star Ocean game in the series… until Star Ocean The Divine Force came along. The fact that it took this long to bring back that pure, unfiltered Star Ocean experience is because of the trainwreck that was Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and that is why I hate it so much but even then, I still love it because Star Ocean Till The End Of Time absolutely peaked in terms of scope, no game in the series comes remotely close to being as ambitious as that game and that means that even with The Divine Force being my favorite game in the series, it has sort of given me a whole new appreication for Till The End Of Time that I didn’t know I had. Though disaster it may have been, the flames of hate that were brought about by Till The End Of Time’s terrible design have been put out by The Divine Force’s greatness. This series is absolutely insane, so insane that I wrote all this shit… and if you read all of it then you’re probably just as insane as I am for writing it but that’s what passion does to a person. It turns them into fucking maniacs.
After playing through Need For Speed 2015, I never thought I’d do another review of a modern Need For Speed game but here I am reviewing yet another Need For Speed game. The question is, will Need For Speed Heat manage to live up to the greatness of the PS2 era Need For Speed games or is it yet another cash grab by EA? Before I talk about the game itself in more detail, I need to address the elephant in the room and that’s EA and their anti consumer practices.
What bothered me the most about Need For Speed 2015 was the always online DRM and how you needed a constant internet connection to play the game. Need For Speed Heat on the other hand does not require a constant internet connection, however there have been issues where actually connecting to EA’s servers can cause a bug that can potentially delete your progress so I highly recommend not playing online should you care about your save data. Regardless of this, I have to give them credit for removing the DRM and letting us actually play the game after the servers shut down.
As for the microtransactions, it seems that Need For Speed Heat is doing DLC car packs and a useless map that reveals all of the collectibles. Why anybody would buy a map that shows all of the collectibles I have no idea, just look it up on the internet people… jeeze. In any case, the car packs are not a new concept, they have been done in many games. What bothered me the most about how they handled car packs in the series was how they were implemented into Need For Speed Most Wanted 2012 where you didn’t buy cars, rather you found cars by exploring the map. So imagine exploring the map only to find a Mclaren F1 parked up, sounds great huh? Only problem is that to actually drive it, you have to pay money to EA. So essentially the game got your hopes up only to be crushed by the fact that it was paid DLC.
Need For Speed Heat has added black market missions which appear as a marker on the map and they essentially reward you with a car but to unlock them, you have to buy the car pack DLC. The good news is however that most of the cars in Need For Speed Heat can be purchased with in game money from the car dealership so you don’t have to deal with the disappointment of finding a car on the map only to be presented with the store page, therefore I can tolerate them this time around.
Speaking of the cars, there are tonnes of them available to you early on. Unlike earlier games where you would have to drive around in your starter car for a while, in Heat you only need to do a couple of races and you’ll have enough to buy a new car early on and I highly recommend doing so because if you decide to drive around in your starter car, you’re going to have a really hard time with some of the early races and this is where I get into one of the game’s biggest problems, the AI difficulty.
Now while I will say that basing the AI’s difficulty on their cars and giving each AI their own individual difficulty level is a good thing, the game doesn’t really do a good job of informing you of how difficult each race is going to be. Before you start a race, there is a number which represents how high level the cars you will race are, the problem is that this number is kind of misleading as you can start a race with a recommended car level of 200 and be racing an AI with a level 275 car and it can seem impossible to pass them simply because your car isn’t fast enough. This was quite frustrating to me as I didn’t feel like I had a chance to catch up whatsoever because the enemy AI is just way too fast. The good news is that by the end of the game you’ll be racing level 400 cars and 400 is the highest car level, you won’t have to deal with the ridiculous spikes in difficulty due to having an inferior car to the AI. If the game told the player the highest level car in the race as opposed to a recommended level, this could alleviate this issue. Sadly this is not the case as you only find out after the race what each individual car level each racer’s car is.
With all this aside, the racing itself isn’t all that bad. When you do race against evenly matched AI racers, it can be quite fun. By default, you can release the accelerator and press it again while turning to perform a drift. This is quite handy early on since many of the cars are quite slow so you need all the speed you can get, later on though you’ll need to use the handbrake to make those corners. There is a break too for those who need it though I found myself relying mostly on the drifting/handbraking mechanic for most of the game and while I found it to be quite satisfying to play this way, I still prefer Need For Speed Carbon’s handling mechanics since I find myself utilizing the brakes more in that game. In Heat the brakes aren’t really all that useful by comparison. It is a more arcady approach to handling that is easier for players not used to playing racing games though people who are used to the controls of earlier Need For Speed games may feel a bit puzzled at first.
One thing that does bother me however is the cops. This is where the game fails in just about every aspect. Cop chases in Need for Speed Most Wanted and Carbon were adrenaline pumping and empowering, part of that was due to the physics. You could crash into a roadblock and send cops flying up in the air which made you feel as if you were some unstoppable god in a race car. At the same time however, the cops were challenging and there was a constant tension throughout the pursuit as the cops employ tactics to box you in and slow you down which kept players on their toes. In Need For Speed Heat this isn’t the case at all, cops are nothing more than a nuisance that the player has to deal with during night time races and they aren’t really any fun to escape from. Early on they can be very frustrating as your car isn’t very fast but later on they can be easy enough to outrun so long as you aren’t playing on heat level 5.
While Heat level 5 cops in heat are difficult to escape from, I find that a lot of it comes down to luck and this is due to the damage system that has been added to the game. If you just happen to have wrecked your car before going into a heat level 5 police chase, you are screwed, there is no chance to get away. On the other hand if you have plenty of repair kits and are in a location filled with jumps, you can get away pretty easily. It’s all situational and feels unfair at times since the cops can appear at any time. It all depends on your location and the damage on your car. You can repair your car at fuel stations but you have limited repairs so don’t expect to be in any long chases like in Most Wanted or Carbon, you either escape early or get busted, that’s it. The cop AI isn’t as aggressive as they are in Most Wanted and Carbon but they don’t need to be since the damage system makes it easy for them to take you out just by weakening your car over time. Ramming into cops is a terrible idea as it causes damage to both you and the cops. The only reliable way to escape cops is by taking jumps and you better be heading in the direction the ramp is facing or you’ll have to turn around which may cause you to get caught. There are no pursuit breakers and no speedbreaker so good luck escaping from high heat pursuits.
Vehicle customization is back and it’s more-or-less the same as it was in 2015 which I can’t complain about since the vehicle customization was the only good thing 2015 had to offer and without the always online DRM, you can keep your customized vehicle designs for as long as you want. Each vehicle has a customization rating which states how much the car can be customized. Some cars offer a lot of customization options while others not so much though I’d say that the vast majority of the car selection in this game offers plenty of customization options. Sadly autosculpt is still absent from Heat which isn’t really a big deal but it’s worth noting. Also like 2015 there are no full body vinyls, in fact you can only put vinyls on each part of the car’s body so you essentially have to create the full body vinyls from scratch yourself. While this may not be an issue for me, it may be for some people. The good news is that if you have an online connection, you can download other people’s vinyl wraps to put on your car if you just want to slap on something quick. Performance wise, you can not only upgrade the parts themselves but you can also replace the entire engine which is an interesting feature that is new to Need For Speed Heat as not only does it adjust a car’s performance potential but it also changes the engine sound too.
Need For Speed Heat is set in Palm City which is based on Miami. It has several different locations spread out across the map offering a nice variety of locations to race in. Thankfully unlike the older Need For Speed games, there’s actually quite a lot to do in free roam as there are collectibles to find along with many other challenges spread across the map and completing them unlocks new cars and cosmetic upgrades. It’s a great way to take a break between races and encourage players to explore the whole map. Palm city looks gorgeous in dry weather, the problem is that it tends to rain way too often and there’s no way to toggle it which is a shame. Also one problem with the world is that there’s a lot of open fields that you can drive through but there’s no way to reset your car to the track so you have to somehow find your way back up a hill if you fall off which can be really annoying.
While Need For Speed 2015’s story was laughably bad, Need For Speed Heat’s story is serviceable. I think the acting is vastly superior in Heat than it was in 2015 and there is a more interesting plot this time around, revolving around the police as opposed to a rivalry between racers. I personally think that a rivalry would have been more engaging but sadly there really isn’t any tension between the racers themselves which is the biggest let down with the game’s story. The game needs a heel racer like Razor or Darius to make the player feel more driven to win against all odds. The issue with having the police as the sole antagonist is that the racing kinda takes a back seat in the story and just feels pointless as a result. Still, I do think that what they tried to do with the story worked and it was decent enough, though it was rather short.
There are a few side stories you can participate in, one of which revolves around legal racing, another revolves around drifting and there’s also a story that revolves around off road racing. I do like the fact that Heat encourages players to race off road as opposed to racing in road cars all the time. Even Need For Speed Underground 2’s SUV races didn’t really compel me to tune up a Hummer, it just felt like a minor diversion in that game whereas Need For Speed Heat makes it feel more meaningful to tune up and drive a SUV.
One of the few letdowns is the soundtrack, though I may be a little biased here since the music is all modern licensed music. I turned the music off when playing the game since it just isn’t my cup of tea. I could cope with some of the edgy punk rock/metal tracks from Most Wanted but this game’s music really wasn’t my thing. I think having licensed music in games isn’t really the best idea personally as I find that music made specifically for a game tends to be built more around enhancing the experience of the game whereas licensed music doesn’t really serve this purpose as it was made solely to be listened to.
This car was painful to make, I think I might have cut myself in the process
Need For Speed Heat was what I expected out of a good modern Need For Speed game, it’s nowhere near as good as the originals but is it worth playing? Well that depends on how thirsty you are for more arcade street racing games since this is pretty much the only one left and even then, there are signs that the “underground racing” setting has moved on but at least Need For Speed Heat manages to deliver a competent arcade racing experience. Chances are, this will be the last Need For Speed game to impress me for a very long time but at least it exists and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I’d say if you can find a cheap second hand copy, it’s worth a try. If you’re not interested in playing another arcade street racing game though then you may want to pass on it.
Story/Plot: Satisfactory
Visuals: Great
Music: Forgettable
Gameplay: Satisfactory
Customization: Great
Licensed Cars? Yes
Lifespan: Quite Short
Difficulty: Varies from easy to hard depending on your vehicles level
It pains me to admit that I never really got into the YS series back in the day. The whole idea of playing as a single character in an action RPG with overly simplified combat seemed a bit too archaic for me. Now I realize that the YS series is one of the pioneers of the action RPG genre and truth be told, I did want to give the series a chance but I just never knew where to start. It wasn’t until the release of YS VIII Lacrimosa Of Dana, that I decided to give the series a try.
It appears that YS VIII opted to follow in the footsteps of more modern action RPG’s such as the Tales and Star Ocean series as it features 3D camera controls as opposed to its top down/side view predecessors. It is also worth noting that recent YS entries have started incorporating a party system into the games and YS VIII is no exception. I personally appreciate these changes to the series as I believe having a more modern 3D look does wonders for the aesthetics and the party system offers multiple play styles to keep the gameplay fresh.
What makes YS VIII stand out from other RPGs of its kind is its premise. The story starts off with the protagonist Adol, who gets shipwrecked on an uncharted island filled with dangerous monsters. Along the way he is reunited with some of the ship’s passengers and crew but many of them have gone missing and it’s up to Adol to track them all down. As simple as it may appear on paper, the simplicity of this premise is quite refreshing as rather than throwing you into a deep and intricate save the world story right from the get go like most games do, YS VIII tells you to go out and explore the world in search of other castaways… and that’s pretty much it really, at least early on in the game.
While this might sound off-putting to those who seek a deeper, more intricate storyline in their games, the game moves at a very quick pace and you will soon realize that there is more to the island than meets the eye. Put simply, the story does get deeper and more intricate later on. That being said however, YS VIII feeds the story slowly to you and doesn’t exactly present its more intricate details particularly well in the game’s early sections but you’ll probably end up ignoring it anyways as the game’s premise is exciting enough for you to keep playing regardless.
God forbid I ever get stranded on an Island then…
I really find that playing the role of a castaway in the search of other castaways on an uncharted really gives off a feeling of adventure that not many modern JRPGs seem to offer nowadays. Back on the SNES, this was common as many JRPGs were lacking in the writing department and the characters you played as were simple and the plot usually revolved around hunting down macguffins in order to pan out game time. For this reason, it was important for developers to create a world that players would want to explore by designing interesting levels in order to keep the games from stagnating. I feel that most modern games focus way too much on their storytelling that they forget how important it is to design intricate dungeons.
The dungeons in YS VIII are some of the best I have seen in a long time, as are the locations themselves. I find that many of the dungeons put a heavy emphasis on verticality which makes them way more interesting to navigate compared to most JRPG dungeons these days. It is also worth noting that YS VIII doesn’t try to throw too many annoying gimmicks at the player, sure there are a few puzzles and there are sections which cannot be accessed until you acquire a certain item, but there isn’t too much of it to the point that it bogs the game down.
The YS games are also known to have had environmental hazards in the past but they are mostly absent in YS VIII. I personally see this as a good thing since I find that environmental hazards often get in the way during combat and serve no practical purpose. All they seem to do is annoy the player. I find that the verticality and the aesthetic design of YS VIII’s levels as well as the abundance of items to find more than makes up for the lack of gimmicks present in previous YS games.
Speaking of the aesthetics, generally speaking I’d say that they are pretty solid for a vita port. While the graphics may appear to be somewhat dated for PS4/PC standards, I’d say that the vibrant usage of color masks this really well. I’d also like to point out that while the visuals themselves may not be as detailed as they are in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness, the field of view in this game is equally as impressive as that game which does wonders for the game’s exploration value which is a big deal considering how important exploring is in this game.
Check out that view…
The character designs appear to be very similar to that of the Legend Of Heroes Trails series and Tokyo Xanadu. So if you like the art style of those games, you’re probably going to enjoy YS VIII’s art style as it pretty much inherits the same style. YS VIII’s character models are celshaded, much like Tales Of Berseria/Zesteria, however the environments have a very vivid vibrancy compared to that of the Tales series and I find that this greatly contrasts with the celshaded design of the character models. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is for you to decide.
Ultimately, the main appeal to the YS series isn’t so much the story/visuals, rather it’s the fast paced gameplay that the series is known for. YS VIII takes the Action RPG genre to the next level, proving that Falcom’s long running series isn’t just a relic of the past. What makes the gameplay of YS so enjoyable is its simplicity and YS VIII does not stray away from this. That being said however, YS VIII improves the mechanics of the combat considerably, allowing for more flexibility in the combat system, giving other ARPG’s a run for their money.
Those who are looking for a more technical, combo-centric battle system may be disappointed by YS VIII as the combat doesn’t really offer any of that, in fact you can spam the same moves over and over again to get through pretty much every single battle, though this is nothing out of the ordinary for an ARPG. YS VIII chooses to instead focus on the defensive aspect of gameplay, rewarding players for avoiding enemy attacks and severely punishing players for getting hit. Sure you can spam the same moves over and over but it won’t save you from getting hit.
Dodging attacks with perfect timing rewards players with flash move. This makes the player invincible for a short period of time allowing them to freely attack without worrying about getting hit. You can also parry attacks with a flash guard but it requires perfect timing to pull off, doing so makes all your attacks stronger for a short period of time. These features allow players to approach battles differently and rewards players for their dexterity in defensive play.
As far as aggressive play goes, players are able to map up to 4 special skills to each of the face buttons and they can be triggered by holding the R1 button and the corresponding face button, while regular attacks, dodges and jumping can all be performed by pressing their corresponding face buttons without R1. This allows for the game to have that little extra flexibility which is important as without it, the game would be pretty bare bones.
By attacking enemies, a skill gauge is accumulated, using special skills consumes the skill gauge requiring you to manage your usage of special skills carefully. On top of all this you have the extra gauge which is filled by using special skills, therefore it is recommended not to conserve your skill gauge unless you need to. Once your extra gauge is full, you can perform a finishing blow which can deal devastating damage to enemies.
It is important to remember that Adol is not on his own in this game, now he has AI partners to help him out. You can switch control of characters at any time with the press of a button and unlike Star Ocean, they will instantly swap to manual control and vice versa once they are switched. This alleviates one of the biggest issues of the Star Ocean series, switching characters could get you killed fast if the AI uses an attack during a switch.
Speaking of AI, the AI in YS VIII is hands down the most competent AI I have ever seen in an ARPG. You rarely ever have to worry about the AI taking damage in a fight as they will avoid attacks automatically and will receive considerably less damage than the player if they are attacked. Of course the player controlled character cannot do this but they are ultimately going to be stronger in terms of damage dealing to the point that you cannot really rely on the AI to fight for you as the AI tends to respond to the player’s actions, acting accordingly so if you pull out of a fight, so will they.
“YS VIII takes the Action RPG genre to the next level, proving that Falcom’s long running series isn’t just a relic of the past”
Put simply, if you lose a fight in YS VIII it is never the fault of the AI, it is always the player’s fault, as the AI never holds the player back, nor does it do all the player’s work for them. This is what I love the most about YS VIII, the fact that the game doesn’t force you to babysit a bunch of incompetent party members by constantly spamming healing items. For this reason, I think more ARPG’s should adopt this style of AI controlled characters.
All in all, YS VIII has a very simple, straightforward combat system and with no battle transitions to worry about, battles can end in a matter of seconds. This is very much a run and kill kind of game much like its predecessors, you never feel at a standstill and this does wonders for the game’s pacing as you are constantly on the move, quickly progressing through the game. This is what YS VIII excels at the most, therefore if you’re the type of person who wants to get from a to b as fast as possible, then this is definitely a game that is worth your time.
For the most part you’ll spend your time traversing the world in search of refugees. Some refugees grant you access to certain facilities while others just act as NPC’s to talk to in town. There is also a gift giving mechanic similar to that of Onimusha 2 which allows you to improve Adol’s relations with the other refugees. Doing so rewards the player with stat boosts for each character involved in the gift giving process. While it may not be as open ended as the gift giving mechanic of Onimusha 2, it’s still a nice enough distraction that can give you access to some extra scenes should you choose to partake in it.
There are also side quests to do which allow you to improve your relation with refugees and usually come with a reward. There’s a great variety of tasks on offer to keep the sidequests fresh and they never become bothersome for completionists. The only issue is that sidequests are missable so they must be done as soon as they are available should you need to complete everything the game has to offer. The game doesn’t feature too many of them though, therefore it’s never a slog to get through them.
YS VIII also offers a couple of combat related minigames in the form of raids and beast hunts. This is where the refugees you have gathered over the course of the game are put to good use as they provide various buffs to assist you in battle. In raids, players must defend the refuge from monster attacks, while beast hunts require players to lure out and hunt certain monsters. Both of these minigames can get pretty chaotic as there are usually tonnes of enemies on screen making for some pretty exciting battles. If you’re a fan of musou games, you’ll probably love these missions and if you’re a completionist then you better enjoy these diversions because it makes up the bulk of the game’s end game content.
Personally I’d argue that while raids are a lot of fun, beast hunts are a bit too chaotic and can kind of feel a bit too overwhelming at times due to having so many needless features such as having to take over territories, destroy nests etc. I think beast hunts could have been simplified a little to make them a bit more fun. Raids on the other hand are a lot of fun and are really exhilarating to experience. The goal of raids is to defend your fortifications and bait by pushing enemy groups away from them. The more fortifications you protect and the better your battle performance, the better your rewards. As for beast hunts, there are a lot more factors to be aware of and this can make getting high ratings pretty complicated. Also unlike raids, in beast hunts you have a limited amount of time to finish them and this can be somewhat irritating at times.
On top of all the other side content, there’s also the obligatory fishing minigame that every game has to have these days. It’s surprisingly pretty decent though.
Needless to say, the refugees you’ve gathered are essentially the only other characters besides the playable cast that you ever get to talk to for the most part. On top of all this there is only one settlement in the entire game which basically acts as the main hub. This could be a turn off for people looking for a more traditional JRPG experience where you visit multiple towns and cities to buy items and interact with NPC’s. That being said, many of the refugees are surprisingly interesting characters that you want to get to know and connect with.
Speaking of characters, the story of YS VIII revolves around two characters, Adol and Dana. Adol is pretty much the player’s persona in this game in the sense that he is more-or-less a silent protagonist, occasionally saying something after the player makes a choice. Based on his choices, he appears to be somewhat confident and well mannered. You could say that he is a typical heroic character, which makes sense considering the fact that this isn’t Adol’s first adventure and as a result, he shows a level of competence that is respected by the rest of the group. Despite all this, he still fits the protagonist trope of being a bright-eyed do gooder but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Dana on the other hand embodies pretty much every single issue I have with the game’s story, not to say that the story is bad or anything, rather the flaws in the narrative all tie in with Dana and how the role she plays affects the entire course of the game’s story. I don’t want to go too much into detail for the sake of spoilers but the game’s story takes a crazy turn during the second half where players may have to willingly suspend their disbelief should they wish to continue investing themselves in the game’s narrative. Put simply, the second half of the game leaves itself vulnerable to many potential plot holes due to the complications of what happens and as a result it can be difficult to accept how things play out as a result.
The second half of the game’s story plays out somewhat similarly to Richard Knaak’s War Of The Ancients trilogy in the sense that it focuses on events of the past but also ties in with events in the present. If you have read any of those books, you know exactly what I’m talking about, if you haven’t then I’ll let you all find out for yourself as I wouldn’t want to give too much away. I will say however that if you’ve been finding the story up to this point to be bland and uninteresting, the second half of the game might change your mind. With all of its flaws considered, the story does start to get more interesting in the second half and in some cases it gets better even.
As for Dana herself, I honestly cannot find anything to say about her character other than the fact that she is a mary sue who is gifted with powers that are vaguely explained. She also has a strange connection with Adol which is explained later on in the game. That’s about all I can say about her character. She’s pretty much a walking talking plot device. The problem with this is that the game clearly wants to make the player care about her character despite her not having any distinguishable traits. Sure she isn’t a completely unlikable character but even Adol manages to express more personality than she does and he is mostly a silent protagonist.
This made me feel a bit turned off from the latter half of the game but despite all of its shortcomings, I would say that the narrative is still enjoyable for what it is. I think it handles some interesting themes and aside from Dana, the cast of characters do their job well enough to maintain the player’s investment. Laxia develops surprisingly well, Hummel’s unpredictability keeps him interesting and while Ricotta isn’t the greatest of characters, at least she has a distinguished personality. None of them can hold a candle to Sahad though, Sahad’s personality is simply magnificent. It’s great to see such a cheerful, yet crude character with such a modest composure. Why can’t more games have characters like Sahad? He’s such a refreshing character. I do dislike how many of his lines were censored due to people whining about the so-called bad translation but it didn’t bother me enough to make me like the character any less though.
Regardless of your own personal take on the game’s story, one thing that will stick with you throughout the game is its soundtrack. Falcom are renowned for having great music in their games and YS VIII’s soundtrack doesn’t disappoint. There are a lot of high energy tracks here as is expected from a YS game but at the same time there are also some calmer tracks that offer a nice contrast. The music adds a lot of flavor to the game, particularly in its dungeons but that’s not all, I’d argue that the music is the main driving force of YS VIII as it synchronizes with the game’s pacing, helping to enhance the player’s adrenaline to provide a thrill factor.
Ultimately, while people expecting YS VIII to offer a strong narrative may be disappointed, those who do not may find themselves to be pleasantly surprised by the game’s story. Regardless of how you feel about the story, it’s important to remember that the crux of what ultimately makes YS VIII so enjoyable is the game’s combat. If you do not enjoy fast paced, simple and somewhat mindless action, then this game may not be your cup of tea. Those that do however are going to love YS VIII regardless of its flaws as it is one of the few modern action RPG’s to succeed at doing away with battle transitions, essentially perfecting what Star Ocean 5 and Tales Of Zesteria attempted to do.
Story/Plot: Good
Visuals: Great
Gameplay: Excellent
Music: Excellent
Length: Decent Length
Difficulty: Medium
Would You Replay? Maybe
Overall: Excellent
Value: £40.00
Note for PC players: For those misfortunate enough to own a copy of YS VIII on PC who are intent on playing with a gamepad, I have bad news for you. You’re going to be fighting to toughest boss in the game right from the get go:
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