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-
Oh wow, looks like this is a thing now.
Check out my review of Star Ocean The Divine Force by clicking this link
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
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.
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