Star Ocean
- Thread starter Pindar
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It's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion /pedantmode
I assume you mean Star Ocean: The Last Hope on 360? Short review: Lovely combat system, vapid story, terrible voice acting. Oh, and it looks nice most of the time. Lots of game for your money, but it can be quite arduous and grindy.
It's not really much like Final Fantasy though to be honest, outside of the usual jRPG trimmings. The combat is real-time and not menu driven for starters.
Star Ocean is similar to Final Fantasy on the surface in that it's a Japanese Role Playing Game, but under the hood they're two completely different animals.
It was created by Gotanda Yoshiharu who was also the started the Tales series. Tales of Phantasia was radically different than the Tales games of today. It still had the same basic real-time action style, but was much more simplistic.
After some disagreements with Namco as to the direction of the series, he left and took some of his team with him and founded Tri-Ace. Soon after, TA was gobbled up Enix and became another on of its gazillion subsidiaries.
That's when he and his team started work on the Star Ocean game.
From there, the game play evolved quite differently. Where the Tales games have become almost fighteresque in their control, speed, action, and mayhem, the Star Ocean games have stayed closer to their roots. The games still have an action feel to them, but it's slim lined, less complex, and a bit "slowed down." They are also a bit more turn-based.
Story wise, Gotanda is a self-proclaimed hardcore Trekkie--especially of TNG. A lot of the terminology and philosophies are similar. For instance, his "UP3" is almost the Prime Directive verbatim.
That's actually the core of the game. For instance, most of the stories take place on Medieval/Feudal like planets, so a lot of the focus/theme of the stories is how much the main characters should/have to "get involved."
There's also some sound effects "borrowed." One glaring example is the LCARS PADD "beep."
The first Star Ocean game was a very late Super Famicom (SNES) game. It was never released outside of Japan.
It may have come out late in the system's life, but it was technological marvel. So much so, it was significantly better than a lot of early Playstation games.
The down side, however, is that, since they tried to pack so much into the cart, it had bugs galore. I'd even go out on a limb and say it's the buggiest video game ever made. A lot of it was memory related. The problems got so bad that it was uncommon for people to completely loose their saved games--a real downer for those who were at the final dungeon.
Another revolutionary aspect of it were the "Private Actions." When entering a town you could choose to "split up" and thus interact with the other characters independently. This resulted in various different scenes, romances, and friendships.
There was also the item creation. Each character has a set of innate "talents" that relate to his or her ability to cook, paint, write, etc. They then can become more proficient in various skill sets that worked in correlation with these talents. Through this, you could create various healing items, weapons, food (For mass healing.), and other miscellaneous items for combat use.
There has since been an excellent fan translation made for ROM use, however the bugs are exacerbated with emulator use. I've completed the game several times, but excessive and multiple saves were pretty much necessary.
Star Ocean: The Second Story was released for Playstation and carried outside of Japan. It's been hailed as of the best JRPGS of the PSOne era. It supported beautifully colored graphics, branching story lines (Two separate "main" stories that took different directions.), and many different characters to collect.
The Private Actions were spruced up. Character relations would now even have an impact in battle. For instance, if character A (who was a healer) didn't like character B, th AI might wait until he's near death before healing him. The effect of the spell would also be lessened.
Item Creation was also improved. There were more skills added, and the number of different items that could be created was literally in the thousands. The tediously addictive Pick Pocket skill was also added.
The hero could now run throw towns and try to rip-off the NPCs. You could collect a whole slew of different items--so of which could only be obtained through pick pocketing. Some of the reactions you would get if you failed was hilarious.
Both games have since been given remakes/updated ports on the PSP. I haven't played either yet (as I don't have a PSP) but I hear they are both excellent.
Star Ocean 3 was a PS2 game. The Directors Cut of the game was hailed as the game of the year. And considered to be the best of the series.
Because of the Square/Enix merger, the game now sported the classic Square uber-graphics with FMV eye-candy galore.
Both combat and item creation were derastically changed. Combat was now more involved and at times overly complex. Item creation was now done, instead of by the party members, by various NPCs you could find and "contract."
To recruit them often meant meeting various requirements. They could also be signed by "others" so you'd have to wait for their contracts to run out. The become more cumbersome than anything, because in many cases you'd have to excessively backtrack through long, tedious dungeons just to find them.
While the game is still a lot of fun and certainly a great game, for a lot of us it was void of the charm and "Fun" that made SO:TSS so great. Many a flame war has been ignited over which is better.
Star Ocean 4 was launched for the XBox 360 earlier this year. I haven't played it yet, but it's been panned by a lot of long time SO fans. Of course, there is a small fraction who think it's the best yet. But, I really don't know too much about it.
My recommendation would be, if you have a PSP is to start with the two remakes. They should be pretty to find and fairly inexpensive.
SO3 is also a great buy for the PS2. But, at this time, you might have to look for it a bit.
If you're looking at SO4, I really can't say one way or the other. I haven't played it, and, while most reviews have been less than good, I want to reserve my opinion for when I give it a fair shake.
If you're worried about story connectivity, don't be. Other than the first two, there isn't any. And, even in that case, the only real connection is the protagonist is the son of one of the characters of the first game. The stories are completely independent.
It was created by Gotanda Yoshiharu who was also the started the Tales series. Tales of Phantasia was radically different than the Tales games of today. It still had the same basic real-time action style, but was much more simplistic.
After some disagreements with Namco as to the direction of the series, he left and took some of his team with him and founded Tri-Ace. Soon after, TA was gobbled up Enix and became another on of its gazillion subsidiaries.
That's when he and his team started work on the Star Ocean game.
From there, the game play evolved quite differently. Where the Tales games have become almost fighteresque in their control, speed, action, and mayhem, the Star Ocean games have stayed closer to their roots. The games still have an action feel to them, but it's slim lined, less complex, and a bit "slowed down." They are also a bit more turn-based.
Story wise, Gotanda is a self-proclaimed hardcore Trekkie--especially of TNG. A lot of the terminology and philosophies are similar. For instance, his "UP3" is almost the Prime Directive verbatim.
That's actually the core of the game. For instance, most of the stories take place on Medieval/Feudal like planets, so a lot of the focus/theme of the stories is how much the main characters should/have to "get involved."
There's also some sound effects "borrowed." One glaring example is the LCARS PADD "beep."
The first Star Ocean game was a very late Super Famicom (SNES) game. It was never released outside of Japan.
It may have come out late in the system's life, but it was technological marvel. So much so, it was significantly better than a lot of early Playstation games.
The down side, however, is that, since they tried to pack so much into the cart, it had bugs galore. I'd even go out on a limb and say it's the buggiest video game ever made. A lot of it was memory related. The problems got so bad that it was uncommon for people to completely loose their saved games--a real downer for those who were at the final dungeon.
Another revolutionary aspect of it were the "Private Actions." When entering a town you could choose to "split up" and thus interact with the other characters independently. This resulted in various different scenes, romances, and friendships.
There was also the item creation. Each character has a set of innate "talents" that relate to his or her ability to cook, paint, write, etc. They then can become more proficient in various skill sets that worked in correlation with these talents. Through this, you could create various healing items, weapons, food (For mass healing.), and other miscellaneous items for combat use.
There has since been an excellent fan translation made for ROM use, however the bugs are exacerbated with emulator use. I've completed the game several times, but excessive and multiple saves were pretty much necessary.
Star Ocean: The Second Story was released for Playstation and carried outside of Japan. It's been hailed as of the best JRPGS of the PSOne era. It supported beautifully colored graphics, branching story lines (Two separate "main" stories that took different directions.), and many different characters to collect.
The Private Actions were spruced up. Character relations would now even have an impact in battle. For instance, if character A (who was a healer) didn't like character B, th AI might wait until he's near death before healing him. The effect of the spell would also be lessened.
Item Creation was also improved. There were more skills added, and the number of different items that could be created was literally in the thousands. The tediously addictive Pick Pocket skill was also added.
The hero could now run throw towns and try to rip-off the NPCs. You could collect a whole slew of different items--so of which could only be obtained through pick pocketing. Some of the reactions you would get if you failed was hilarious.
Both games have since been given remakes/updated ports on the PSP. I haven't played either yet (as I don't have a PSP) but I hear they are both excellent.
Star Ocean 3 was a PS2 game. The Directors Cut of the game was hailed as the game of the year. And considered to be the best of the series.
Because of the Square/Enix merger, the game now sported the classic Square uber-graphics with FMV eye-candy galore.
Both combat and item creation were derastically changed. Combat was now more involved and at times overly complex. Item creation was now done, instead of by the party members, by various NPCs you could find and "contract."
To recruit them often meant meeting various requirements. They could also be signed by "others" so you'd have to wait for their contracts to run out. The become more cumbersome than anything, because in many cases you'd have to excessively backtrack through long, tedious dungeons just to find them.
While the game is still a lot of fun and certainly a great game, for a lot of us it was void of the charm and "Fun" that made SO:TSS so great. Many a flame war has been ignited over which is better.
Star Ocean 4 was launched for the XBox 360 earlier this year. I haven't played it yet, but it's been panned by a lot of long time SO fans. Of course, there is a small fraction who think it's the best yet. But, I really don't know too much about it.
My recommendation would be, if you have a PSP is to start with the two remakes. They should be pretty to find and fairly inexpensive.
SO3 is also a great buy for the PS2. But, at this time, you might have to look for it a bit.
If you're looking at SO4, I really can't say one way or the other. I haven't played it, and, while most reviews have been less than good, I want to reserve my opinion for when I give it a fair shake.
If you're worried about story connectivity, don't be. Other than the first two, there isn't any. And, even in that case, the only real connection is the protagonist is the son of one of the characters of the first game. The stories are completely independent.
That's my opinion, Till The End of Time was an amazing game and one of the reasons I bought a new PS2 slim, so I could play it again. Along with a special stack of games.
Got tired of taking apart my fat PS2 to fix disc read errors, (first batch with the plastic laser gear that falls)
Definitely snag Star Ocean: Till the end of Time (SO3), one of the best RPGs I think I've ever played. The story line is brilliant, the graphics engine is awesome, and the battle system is a blend of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, although skewed more towards the KH side of things (real-time action), and fits the game like a glove, IMO. The characters are all interesting, and you have the option of recruiting a ton of them over the course of your journey, which is pretty expansive.
completely agree with this review from Eurogamer on SO: 4
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/star-ocean-the-last-hope-review
it should be quite cheap now but I found it disappointing to play and the level design gets worse more towards to the end of the game you get
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/star-ocean-the-last-hope-review
it should be quite cheap now but I found it disappointing to play and the level design gets worse more towards to the end of the game you get
Don't worry about it. I had next to nothing to do yesterday--or today, for that matter.
Did you start with newer ones? They are really a love/hate thing.
You being a Tales fan (something I can relate to), I can see where they piss you off--the same way the piss me off.
The early games were simple and fun. But, it was as if they had to do something new to keep up with Tales and maid them more complex.
Tales games are complex the way fantasy baseball is complex; the last two Star Ocean games are like advanced calculus.
Also, the freaking dungeons were just way too long--especially since most of them you had to back track through several times to collect everything.
It's as if a bunch of people who don't know anything about making a dungeon crawler tried to take a game that wasn't meant to be a dungeon crawler and turn it in to a dungeon crawler ... and failed.
Don't worry about it. I had next to nothing to do yesterday--or today, for that matter.
Did you start with newer ones? They are really a love/hate thing.
You being a Tales fan (something I can relate to), I can see where they piss you off--the same way the piss me off.
The early games were simple and fun. But, it was as if they had to do something new to keep up with Tales and maid them more complex.
Tales games are complex the way fantasy baseball is complex; the last two Star Ocean games are like advanced calculus.
Also, the freaking dungeons were just way too long--especially since most of them you had to back track through several times to collect everything.
It's as if a bunch of people who don't know anything about making a dungeon crawler tried to take a game that wasn't meant to be a dungeon crawler and turn it in to a dungeon crawler ... and failed.
I actually started with the third one and it just frustrated me how there were so many elements I liked and yet at the same time so many elements that made me want to pull my hair out. Like collecting god damn battle trophies or that stupid bonus board that would break at the worst time or boss fights where you needed to hit a tiny specific part of the boss. BLARGH. Like you said, it feels as if they had to keep up with its cousin, the Tales franchise and in the process they were just trying to hard. The thing that really pisses me off the most though is that games with character interaction systems like tales, persona 3 and 4, and Star Ocean are almost a surefire hit for me. I absolutely love taking the time building up character relations with each other.
And yet, Star Ocean just throws things in there to trip me up and frustrate me to the point where even that isn't worth it. Like I said, I really wanted to love the game. I love anime, I love JRPGs, I love sci-fi. But even with all those things, I still can't get into the recent Star Ocean entries. maybe someday I'll try the PSP ports of 1 and 2.
I thoroughly enjoyed SO2... I just don't think I'll ever be able to watch all 200 or so endings.
That said, it was very grindy back on the PS1. I haven't played the PSP remake though.
That said, it was very grindy back on the PS1. I haven't played the PSP remake though.
Turn on Japanese voices?
Although, I remember hearing that you could skip cutscenes and that the game would just summarize them for you in a text box...
Although, I remember hearing that you could skip cutscenes and that the game would just summarize them for you in a text box...
Well, one or two might get on the nerves at times sure.
But thats a different question. The voice acting itself in my opinion is technically fine, I have no problem with the quality of it, in and of itself.
It's like in Infinite Undiscovery, hardly any of the voices are synched to the lip movements, which makes it look horrible, but the actual quality of the voice acting is fine.
Really?
I've finished the game several times and never had to grind--even with the limiter off.
I suppose a little might be necessary on Universe mode, but that's a valid exception.
Of course, this was nearly 10 years ago... I just remember doing a lot of fighting. Although, that might be because the random encounter rate was really high.
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