CodeWalrus

I wonder if anyone will get this game? Star Ocean series is similar to Tales series in the way that there are random battles, but battles are real-time action like in Zelda. In SOV, however, your party can have up to 7 characters at a time O.O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxqMqqifia0

http://www.staroceangame.com/us/


I personally have Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP), the Second Story (PS1), Til the End of Time (PS2), The Last Hope (Xbox 360 and PS3) and am planning to get the 5th one. I hope that they did away with the cinematics abuse, though. In The Last Hope near the end of the game there were just way too many.

It's supposed to come out this Summer for the PS3 and PS4, but I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 version was cancelled. No Xbox One version are planned.

not enough hentai, won't buy the game.

QuoteIt's supposed to come out this Summer for the PS3 and PS4, but I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 version was cancelled. No Xbox One version are planned.

I don't think the PS3 version will be cancelled because that version released this year in japan.
I might buy the PS3 version though even though i don't own it, it might become a rarity.
(just like my copy of Rodea : The sky soldier with the wii version)

Yeah my concern is that RPGs are a niche genre and usually have a limited print run outside Japan, and since fewer and fewer people play PS3 games then I worried that if they think PS3 SOV sales will be too poor they could cancel it. But if it's already out in Japan then I guess it doesn't matter as much.

Or perhaps they'll do like Rodea and package both versions together? Btw I think Rodea is the last Wii game ever in North America. And yeah I might buy the PS3 version of SOV for the same reason (see what happened with Twilight Princess for the Gamecube and FIFA 14 for the PS2).

So I was finally right about the PS3 version: Release outside Japan has been canceled D:. So I guess I'll have to go with the PS4 version.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 25, 2016, 01:28:06 AM
So I was finally right about the PS3 version: Release outside Japan has been canceled D:. So I guess I'll have to go with the PS4 version.

f*** !
Well, guess i won't buy it then, they censored the panties anyway.

I wonder, though... could there be a way to uncensor the stuff? I know for example that Ys VI for the PS2 came with an absolutely horrible set of CG animations as replacement for the anime ones to cater to North American audience, but the original voice acting, animations and lots of other stuff were still present on the disc, so you could enter various cheat codes on one of the screen to switch to them.

But yeah, personally I don't mind getting the PS4 version instead of PS3, but I would have liked the PS3 one because of the collectible value. Besides, the PS4 version is apparently a port of the PS3 version anyway.


Also yeah I don't know if I'll buy it as soon as it comes out. I might just wait until used copies are available or if the price drops, because I just spent $75 on Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii (which is very cheap considering that game used to be $150 a few years ago). <_< In any case, I will play it, because I love Star Ocean and its music (not as much as the first two games, since SNES/PS1 music had some charm that newer games sometimes lack).

GUYS, I HAVE FOUND THE REASON WHY STAR OCEAN 5 GOT CENSORED !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J42Z0BJukg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J42Z0BJukg)

THE TERRORISTS WERE BEHIND IT ALL

Link to valid source, or it didn't happen. :P

But I wouldn't be surprised if this was true. Terrorists ruin things for everyone else all the time (for example it used to be possible to cross the US border from Canada without a passport, but then 9/11 happened). And terrorists are not the only problems: Remember when PETA protested against the racoon suit in New Super Mario Bros 2?

If the Japanese PS3 version has English, you could always import it. Personally, I've never played this series. I only know it because of the music. I think you used one of the tracks from The Last Hope in one of your videos. That's how I found out about it. Great soundtrack imo. :D

Yeah I am curious as well. I know that Ys VI PS2 had both English and Japanese cutscenes, so maybe that's the case with some PS3 RPGs too. It's also nice that the PS3 is not region-locked like other consoles.

And yeah if you like JRPGs like Tales of Symphonia, you should try Star Ocean series out. Some great music but also fun games (although hard).

(https://img.ourl.ca/IMG_20160703_164739.jpg)

I had those older games for a while but I thought I would share the collection since they look nice together. I now have all SO games, although for the first game I got the remake rather than the Super Famicom game. Also I am curious if the Xbox 360 version is rare, since JRPGs weren't very common on the 360? EDIT: Apparently it's the cheapest of all, but is selling less often than the PS3 version. I guess most people are unaware that there's a 360 version, since JRPGs are normally the last thing you expect on Xbox.


On a side note SO5 has the same battle system, but unlike previous games where battle encounters triggers a transition that puts you into a totally different map, this time the action takes place directly in the map you are in, just like in Final Fantasy 12, Zelda, etc. Also apparently you can move around during cutscenes, which could be a good thing considering how often they happened and how long they were in SO4.

Cool that you got SO5.
So... Is it any good ? I heard people online (mainly japanese people) complaining about the short lengh of the game : 20 hours.
Seeing how i found my 30 hours in GC Fire Emblem pretty short, they must have cut down the story a lot...
But i don't have the ga(y)me so i have no idea but the fact they censored panties killed the game, the story, the gameplay, EVERYTHING.
I still believe ISIS is behind the PS3 version cancellation in the West and the censorship.

Also, great photo, you are only missing the SNES cartridge.
Surprisingly, Star Ocean for Super Famicom is not that expensive (15$ to 40$) so it's definitively up your reach.

QuoteAlso apparently you can move around during cutscenes

Move during a cutscene ???
You mean that I could like teabag Miki while she's talking ?
I must see this in action.

20 hours is a little short but tolerable for me, plus this game most likely have those extra 20 hours of side quests anyway. Chrono Trigger was about the same lenght on the PS1. I can't play yet though since my bro owns the PS4 at home and I need to ask him permission before installing the game and stuff. I dont even know if he bothered making an account on PSN because I never used the console before. Either way I'm playing soon. It's just that he's rarely home when I am home+awake :P

I am surprised that SO for the SFC is that cheap. I thought it was like $300. That said I tend to not ppay Japanese language RPGs.

On a side note, I finally had time to install the game yesterday and I have some comments to make:

-For some reasons, it seems like either I did not need to install it or it installed in less than a few minutes. On Xbox One and PS3 lots of games took close to an hour >.<. I could probably have played sooner lol

-Those who want this game just for the graphics will be disappointed. Yes, they're great, especially compared to the PS3 version, but they're definitively not pushing the PS4 to its limits. I think that's a common problem with JRPGs, though, so those who wants hardcore realistic graphics might prefer to stick to western RPGs instead. Anyway, they'll do the job I guess, plus the frame rate was very smooth compared to SO4.

-The OST has the exact same style as SO4. It's nice, although I still kinda miss the style from SO2 and SO3 (but again maybe SO2 was due to PS1 limitations)

Bump, commenting on the game now:

-So @gameblabla I finally spent a few hours playing it so fat and it's nice, but some annoyances makes me like it a little less than SO4. The main issue is that while real time convos are fun, text boxes disappear too fast when you walk around, are hard to read since they move all over the place and you have to be pixel-perfectly placed in order to talk to someone that requires pressing X.

-The French translation is a nice addition over the previous English-only copies of past iterations of SO that they sold elsewhere, but the translation was a little weird so I switched my PS4 to English.

-Real time battle encounters are amazing and speed up the game considerably.

-There is no :walrii: in the game, but that's expected. :P

yo dj,
that sounds great to me ! (except the crazy dialogue boxes, seriously wtf ?)
Not sure how to interpret your comment on the graphics... i thought they looked great.
(I must mention however i do not own a PS4 nor the Xbone and i have not played any AAA game for a while...)

Seems that you enjoyed the game, i might pick up the PS3 version, even thought it's fully in Japanese.

Also... they censored Miki's panties, right ? I thought it would kill your enjoyment for this game !

Still, it makes me wonder how they can c up something as trivial as a dialogue box....

YEah, the real-time dialogue idea was poorly executed IMHO. It's a nice idea and the game won't get interrupted every minute (although there are so many tutorial boxes that stops gameplay at the beginning that it kinds of defeat the point of real-time), but I wish it was polished more. I'm sure people would be ok if the dialog boxes became slightly misaligned when the character gets out of the screen and remained at the bottom for a while before disappearing.

This can be a serious issue if a character has an important clue or item to give, but won't ever say it again a second time. But I guess that was their first attempt and that the 6th game (if it happens one day) will fix it. I hope they make an update, though.


I could care less about the censorship, although I wish they left the game intact for more entertainment. Censorship was rampant back in the SNES days too and they often removed too many important or funny things. Also auto-censorship is not how you fight terrorism. You stand up against it by not restricting yourself.

On a side note, I wonder if this game shouldn't be the 6th? Because I just realized there is a Game Boy color game called Star Ocean: Blue Sphere, that is a direct sequel to The Second Story. I'll edit the topic title and remove V from it in case the new game is really SO6. :P EDIT According to Wikipedia, The Last Hope is 4 and it was even called Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope in Japan.

QuoteI could care less about the censorship, although I wish they left the game intact for more entertainment. Censorship was rampant back in the SNES days too and they often removed too many important or funny things.

I guess it's not as bad as Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE where they censored swimsuits and more...
Thankfully, fan made patches for that game (https://gbatemp.net/threads/tokyo-mirage-sessions-fe-restoration.429651/) but i wished they did not censored the game so it could be preserved better in the future...

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on July 23, 2016, 04:25:36 AM
Because I just realized there is a Game Boy color game called Star Ocean: Blue Sphere, that is a direct sequel to The Second Story. I'll edit the topic title and remove V from it in case the new game is really SO6. :P

I thought the Game boy color game was a spinoff ?

I will see a playthrough of that game just to see how awful the dialogue boxes are.

Yeah the GB game is a sequel to The Second Story apparently. But for whatever reasons it doesn't seem to count as a 3rd game. Perhaps they did like Final Fantasy X-2, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns.


EDIT: By the way, I just checked graphics from SO4 and SO5 PS3 graphics definitively looks like they're a downgrade from SO4. I think SO5 PS4 has superior graphics, but they are not a very big improvement over SO4 if we don't take 4K resolution support into account. The main improvement is the frame rate, but then if we compare SO4 with SO5 on the PS3 then some textures look more blurry in SO5.

So I just played  over 6 hours straight. I need to figure out the pattern to learn new specialities. I wonder if there is one that lowers skills pts requirements like in SO2...

Also battles with 7 chars are epic.

EDIT: Several hours after making this post, I realize that sometimes, the controls or AI is crap in this game, at least compared to SO4. For example, in narrow or complex dungeon rooms the character will sometimes get stuck attacking from behind a wall and miss every target, and when you need to use a lot of items or cast spell, requiring switching characters non-stop, things go haywire fast because auto-targeting always targets the worst possible enemy.

Also that battle against Der Suul was freaking hard x.x and on top of that, when you save your game before the fight there is another fight plus about 10 minutes of cutscenes, so if you die, you need to watch all cutscenes and do both fights all over again.



As for the story, I kinda like it, but some plot twists are really repetitive. Basically, Remia gets captured every 15 minute during the first 15 hours of gameplay or so then you have to rescue her, with someone sacrifying his life in the process. Meanwhile, Victor quits the party every 15 minute as well, so after a few hours of gameplay, you kind of see it coming really.

So yeah @gameblabla if you haven't purchased this game yet, I would advise that you don't. Instead, pick games between the first four (avoiding The Last Hope if you hate long unskippable cutscenes). That's unless you don't mind an RPG with broken battle controls, rigged enemy AI, broken NPC interaction, broken speciality system, lack of any clue about where to get quest items and a considerable amount of backtracking.

The game isn't that bad at the beginning and the broken NPC interaction gets a pass since almost all NPC's give no clues anyway, but once you get halfway into the game and realize that you still can't do alchemy and that only 1 option in the creation section is available, you realize that something is really wrong with the game. And the problem is that Tri-Ace and Square-Enix seems to have made the difficulty as cheap as possible in order to artificially extend the game length, and the poor battle controls when selecting targets or characters makes the difficulty even harder than it actually should be, getting you in for a very frustrating experience.


Let me give you examples of how cheap this game can be:

-Late game, certain bosses and enemies will almost only target or go after Miki, your only healing/reviving spellcaster. This can't be a coincidence, considering this even happens when she is set to avoid getting close to enemies.

-Lots of instant kill (or multi-hit attacks that kills you instantly), often as soon as the battle starts. Oh and often on Miki too. It also seems that enemies there always target anyone that tries to use revival items, so reviving someone in those battles is impossible.

-Lots of backtracking. You always have to go all the way back from the east of the world to the west, or north to south, and back and forth, repeatedly, with no teleportation available until the end of the game. I guess that can be a good occasion to grind, since old maps usually gets populated by stronger enemies over time, but it sucks that they chose that way to extend the game length.

-In most RPGs, finding special items or skills requires talking to NPCs to get clues. In SO5, you have to buy the official strategy guide or Google it (and it's not like a lot of info is available yet on Google). Oh, and finding them will require doing even more backtracking unless you wait until the end where you get a teleporting device.

-Unlike previous Star Ocean games, most specialities such as alchemy will not be unlocked by leveling up other specialities or your characters. Instead, you have to complete side-quests by finding special items and bringing them back to a specific quest board. So you might very well find yourself unable to unlock those special chests nor use alchemy even after beating the final boss.

-In a few occasions, the game will trick you into saving your game inside a dungeon that cannot be exited until you beat it. If you're underleveled or miss a very important item/skill, then your save file is screwed and you have to restart the entire game from the beginning. At least, the final dungeon warns you about that, but some enemies are so strong (even more than the first boss) that this still most likely managed to trap unsuspecting players.

-Half of the storyline is Relia getting captured every 30 minutes and to a lesser extent Victor leaving your party every 15 minute out of the blue. It kinds of get repetitive after a while, although at least this improves late-game.

-In some occasions, you're about to reach a save point, expecting to safely preserve your game progress. But noooooo, sometimes a cutscene will happen right before, with a mini-boss warping in. Often, those are not very hard to beat, but it's still fscking cheap. That said, I had this happen once in The Second Story too.


And don't get me started on the game flaws:

-Camera often goes haywire during battles

-If a character dies he cannot be selected in battles anymore. This is a serious issue when you try to revive him then need to manually move him elsewhere on the field. Often you'll end up selecting the wrong character afterward. Oh and when you die you are very prone to make the automatically selected character do an action by accident, putting him in danger as well.

-Selecting a different enemy target is incredibly hard. Not only the camera is an issue, but also it's pretty much trial and error, not to mention the controls are impossible to memorize.

-Talking to moving NPCs is even harder than beating Storm Dragon. After a few hours you'll just give up and never interact with them again (it's not like they give much clues anyway, except maybe a few quests)

-When you're game over, it takes a long while to load the game back, but that probably doesn't count since most modern games have the same problem. But in this game it's even more frustrating when the game over happens as a result of an aforementioned flaw.


On the plus side, at least now item creation has a 100% success rate, so it's no longer luck-based, and you don't have to backtrack all the way back to a spaceship in order to create items either. Graphics are not perfect but they're still nice and it doesn't abuse unskippable cutscenes as much The Last Hope did. But I would say the game deserves a 55-65% score at most.


So in summary, my opinion about SO games are this:

-SO1 original: 95/100

-SO1 PSP: 95/100

-SO2 PS1: 90/100 (lower score only due to game freezing bugs)

-SO2 PSP: 95/100 (it would get 100 if it had preserved the original game difficulty)

-SO3: Never played it

-SO4: 80/100 (too many unskippable cutscenes, else it would get 95)

-SO5: 60/100 (cheap difficulty and too many problems). It's a shame because this game felt more like SO than SO4 did.


I hope that Square-Enix eventually does like they did with Final Fantasy XIV and re-release an improved version.

Well, thanks for the review DJ.
This sounds like the kind of game i would absolutely hate.
I hate games that rely on cheap difficulty for their lackluster content and lengh.
The worst offender of this kind in my opinion, although not an rpg, is Tails Sky Patrol : extreme difficulty with only 4 short levels.
I guess i will pass on this one.

I just played Baten Kaitos for 29 hours and it is basically the complete opposite of SO5. (according to you, that is)
The clever battle card system, though at first annoying, makes each battle unique and the story is pretty interesting with some twists.
Most of all, it does not depend solely on a damsel being in distress. (or some other c like that)

Seems that you are recommending me either SO1 or SO2 PSP :
Too bad SO2 for either platforms is expensive, even more so then SO3 !

Guess you should have spent that money on SO3, not SO5.
I'm sorry you bought a less than stellar game.

To be fair, though, I was kind guilty of artificially increasing difficulty in my past calc RPGs. :P But again, back then I was still learning to program and used no ASM libs, plus my games were generally much easier than the average calculator RPG (other people's games made the first battle nearly impossible). But I made many RPGs in which half of the game was grinding. :P

As for SO5, it's now easier with relying on online walkthroughs to find items. I had no choice (I beat SO4 without using any external help), but it's still a nightmare to find items. Also I can teleport between locations now but it's still kinda tedious with the long load times and it sucks they had to wait until the very end of the game before giving us such ability.

Right now I threw away my alternate save file that was in one of the final areas and restarted before heading there. Instead I'm not raising my skills, doing quests and finding as many enemies as I can. Also yeah I am now relying on a cheap trick to win that is identical to bloody armors in SO2: Have Miki equipped with Dead Man Walking. This role drains her HP very fast during battle, but makes her invincible against every attack (I think it even blocks status aliments). With the role that speeds up spell casting and the healer role equipped, she's now pretty much invincible.


Regarding SO3 I already have a copy. I just never happened to play it myself yet. I heard some people who don't like it, but many others say they like it. Go figure.

As for SO2 it's not that expensive over here considering how rare it is. You can get a copy for $50, which is high, but we would expect having to pay $100 for such game. The PSP version was cheaper here, though.

If you play SO2, make sure to save often, though, because a game bug causes the game to freeze (black screen) after battles, even though it's rare. It's more common in the Cave of Trial, which has 13 floors and no save point.

So I finally beat one of the Storm Dragons (the LV 96 one in Northern Territory of Sohma). I got my ass kicked last time because my equipment and skills sucked, but I racked up my skill points in the last two days to try maxing out some of them. I think I'm around LV 60 so the fight took several minutes (he has over 3 millions HP and I hit between 1500 and 10000) but Miki had Dead Man Walking, healer and that other role that speeds up spellcasting equipped, meaning she was invincible and kept spamming healing spells just fast enough to keep my entire party alive. I got a quite powerful weapon for Victor. I'm gonna try to find the other Cathedrals of Oblivion later to fight the other Storm Dragons.

I wonder if the weapon rewards there are the best in the game?

I just beat every Storm Dragon as well as the game. I'm curious about what gets unlocked now. Final boss was quite challenging but not as bad as the first mini boss enemy in the last area

So now I am doing the bonus dungeon. I wonder what's the max level in this game, because I beat three bosses there so far and the guy with the Spicule attack was friggin annoying.

Just curious, how much time you spent playing on it ?
Sounds like you spent more than twenty hours. (or maybe the game was short but difficult)

Yes I spent more than 20 hours. I don't remember the exact play time, but it was more around 26-30 hours, just like Chrono Trigger.

You could theoretically finish the game in 20 hours in easy mode by not doing any private action nor side-quest, but then beating most mid to end game bosses would be as hard as lasting 1 hour without dying at Hong Kong 97. The problem is that in this SO game, finding specialities for item creation and even more rudimentary stuff requires doing side quests, some of which are very difficult or tedious. Even after completing the game I still don't have all specialities and it took me until 70% into completition before I finally unlock alchemy.

By the way, like in SO4, once you beat the game there is an extra dungeon that gets unlocked. I think it's in almost every SO game (in SO2, there is a way to come back on a virtual reproduction of Expel planet and use an airship there to reach the bonus dungeon)

So, I really liked the soundtrack in The Last Hope (as mentioned previously) and I'm really thinking about getting into this series. Which game do you recommend I play first? I see you did a mini review, but I was wondering which you thought would be the best introduction to the series. Kind of leaning towards lLast Hope. The music really was fantastic. :D Are the cutscenes really overdone though? Do you think another would be a better first choice? Note that I don't have a PSP or PS4.

I would recommend Star Ocean The Second Story on the Playstation. The Last Hope is not bad but the cutscenes are overdone.