starcrunch061's PS+ Extra-ordinary journey

[starcrunch061]

Well, after a bit of a lull, we are truly on an Extra-vaganza. On to the next title!

 

 

ODIN SPHERE

 

I'll be straight with you: I've never liked VanillaWare. Like, ever. I've played three of their games, and for the life of me, I have never understood the praise. But for whatever reason, my dislike of Odin Sphere always bothered me. The game's presentation is top notch. The gameplay, while basic, should be satisfying. But on the PS2, it just felt like a grind fest. So, for years, I've tried to understand the love this game has received from fans. I saw that it was re-released on PS4 some time ago, but I was too trepid to take the plunge again.  Enter PS+ Extra. Recently, many VanillaWare titles have made their way to the service, which finally gave me a chance to replay this game. And while I still don't love it, I can at least comprehend some of its fulsome praise.

 

Odin Sphere follows the tale of five characters, as they weave the threads of the history of their world. As the game title suggests, Odin plays a role, and many of the other characters seem like weird, Shogun-like name changes (the queen of the underworld, Odette, is a thinly disguised Hel, the lord of flame Onyx sure seems a lot like Surt from the myths, Wagner seems a lot like Fafnir, and the valkyrie and warrior are remarkably like Brunhilde and Siegfried). But their stories also differ a bit (or, in some instances, substantially), so maybe not.

 

In any case, the tale is a pretty good one. A cauldron has been at the center of conflict on a world for many years, with various parties fighting for its control (or lack thereof). You take on the role of five of these characters, each of whom wields a particularly powerful weapon known as a Psypher. These characters interact, and even battle or team up, ultimately leading to the end of the world, Ragna...uhhh, Armageddon. The final battle is unavoidable, but by reading ancient texts, you can learn how to achieve the best outcome. 

 

Presentation is solid, and borders on fantastic. The graphics are to die for, the music is quite good (though there are few tunes overall). Voice work (English) is a mixed bag, but it never falls below "serviceable", and is often quite strong. My main gripe was the weird pauses in delivery, which almost seemed coached to follow text as it appears on the screen. I have to dock the game a bit for not allowing me to rush cutscenes. I can read faster than they speak, and while I was interested in the tale, I would have preferred skipping some of the voice work.

 

But where this falls is gameplay. That's odd, because the gameplay itself is pretty satisfying. You have five characters, each of whom fight quite differently from one another. One character might use a standard long sword, while another uses a sphere, etc. One character even has a machine gun...err, bow. I had characters I liked and disliked, but none felt unplayable. 

 

The problem here is that there just isn't enough variety to justify playing through the game five times. This has been one of my gripes with VanillaWare since...forever. For all the work they put into a decent combat experience, couldn't they have a few more differing screens on which to battle? You will fight exactly the same enemies, in exactly the same places, for each of the five characters. The only difference is the order in which you take the dungeons (which is preset for story reasons).

 

Characters level via experience, which can be earned in battle. However, a far more efficient means of leveling is...by eating at a restaurant. Yeah. As you travel, you will find recipes, and these recipes can then be selected from a traveling chef. All he requires are the ingredients (he prepares them for free!). This is very annoying, but the rewards are too great to ignore. Sometimes, you grow ingredients, which uses "phozons" as currency. Phozons are an important element in the story, but your treatment of them suggests they aren't so important after all. Some ingredients are given as rewards in battle, but often, you'll need to purchase ingredients. If the merchants in a dungeon don't have the particular ingredient you need, you can leave the dungeon for a spell and purchase it elsewhere. I found this to be a poor design element - was it that hard for a single merchant to sell all the food items I've encountered to this point? But man - that restaurant levels you quickly. You can't really do without it.

 

Phozons are also used to improve your weapon, or your skills. Skills are learned by picking up crystals in dungeons. Most of them are story-based, but a few are hidden. I found hunting these to be pretty fun. Skills can be active or passive, and you can use them immediately upon learning them. For the ones you like, you can further improve them via phozons. Some skills are ridiculously overpowered - one character can form a wall of electricity which circles him, deflecting enemy shots and even dizzying the enemies themselves. Good stuff.

 

The end sequence is fantastic, and while I generally don't enjoy boss rushes, I found the one in this game to be quite solid. Trophies require some grinding, but you also are rewarded within the game for doing this.

 

All in all, I give this game a solid B. The presentation almost convinces me to give a higher score, but there simply isn't enough gameplay to justify it. Enjoy!

Edited December 17, 2023 by starcrunch061

[starcrunch061]

We are back with a new entry in the Extra file! In fact, we have three of them to discuss! They'll each get their own post. 

 

First, I give you:

 

 

SEA OF STARS

 

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In addition, I like to think that expectations gird the street itself. I have, for the most part, eschewed such expectations when considering video games, as I am often disappointed. 

 

However, when I heard about the new indie entry Sea of Stars, I questioned that rule. When I saw scenes prior to release, I forsook it altogether. Sea of Stars looked like the game I had wanted to play for years, and I let expectations creep in. What a shame.

 

To start, Sea of Stars truly is beautiful to behold. The graphics on this game are top-notch. I often get annoyed at the "pixel" look of games, because back in my CRT television days, I didn't see such pixels often (the curved screen does cool things to pixels). Sea of Stars is one of the first games I've played that tries to recreate that old console look, and it is absolutely gorgeous. Add to that a fantastic scheme of bold, bright colors, and a delightful aesthetic, and Sea of Stars might be the best of the bunch (at least among those I've seen on PS4/PS5). 

 

Gameplay is ostensibly turn-based, and the game itself is very Chrono-Trigger inspired. It begins as a linear game to introduce characters and plot devices, though later, it opens up (a bit). However, you never feel lost. There are some extra tidbits along the way, some of which will lead to a "true" ending. Combat is turn-based, as mentioned, with characters using standard attacks and skills, However, characters also learn team-based attacks, not unlike dual-techs in Chrono Trigger.  In addition, there are rhythm components of the game; by performing certain button-press actions during attacks (either yours or the enemy's), you can increase the power of (your) attacks, and decrease the power of (enemy) attacks. As far as I can tell, there is no penalty for missing these; whether you try and fail, or don't try at all, the same thing occurs. Plenty of past games have done this with varying degrees of success (SMBRPG might have been one of the first, and Legend of Dragoon is definitely one of the worst).

 

Unfortunately, this gets annoying fast. While you're not inundated with encounters, there are enough of them to remember, and you can't escape battle. Thus, you're pretty much forced to play these rhythm games, if only to hurry along combat. Encounters are not designed to be random; you can avoid combat by avoiding the on-screen enemy. However, I found doing this to be very difficult, if not impossible, most of the time. Enemies are often in bottlenecked corridors, and they move fast. Battle itself can be very taxing if you don't use the "accessibility" options. Unfortunately, these options are poorly balanced. Either you get no healing after battle, or...you get fully healed, AND your HP is doubled. Why are both of these put into the same option? 

 

The lack of an escape option in combat is a real drag when you have to backtrack for trophies and the true ending, by the way. Just throwing that out there.

 

But whatever; I've never been a fan of difficulty in turn-based games, anyway (after all, there's nothing a little grinding won't fix). So this takes us to another issue with the game. A common complaint with JRPGs is that their characters are wooden, one-dimensional robots. Well, Sea of Stars sees this, and even raises it. Even counting games like Neptunia, I don't think I've seen a more staid, boring group of people than our party. Our two main characters are...twins dropped off with an important destiny. They hone their powers, overcome betrayal, and ultimately save the world, never once questioning their part in the grand scheme. Yet another character is a cyborg that apparently waited (in stasis?) hundreds of years for a chance...to beat a single boss. There are a couple of other offenders, but you get the point. Our characters have thin backgrounds, even thinner motives, and are completely uninteresting.

 

However, one character deserves particular scorn, and that is the best friend of our main characters, Garl. A slight spolier (of probably the first 30 minutes of the game); Garl loses his eye on an expedition with our friends. As a child. Gone forever. Afterwards, our heroes are taken for special training for their destiny, while Garl is sent packing to...wherever the hell he lives. We get a special montage of the training of our heroes (which takes a substantial amount of time - maybe 10 years). By comparison, we hear of Garl one time; he sends cookies. 

 

And all these years later, Garl joins up! Exactly the same, happy-go-lucky guy he was in his youth (sans eye), perfectly optimistic about life, and apparently, making cookies for our heroes is his duty in life. After all, that seems to be the sum of his years behind the scenes. We never learn a thing about Garl, other than the fact that he's also important to our heroes' destiny, and that he cooks.

 

And this is how the whole story plays out. Every character you meet is important for the five minutes s/he is on screen, and never again. Our traitors. Our master. They have no more importance to this tale than that dude who was ultimately removed in a patch because he's been cheating charities for years.

 

I know, I know - is this any different from a Kemco game, many of which I have played? Nope...and that's where the expectation come in. The fault was mine. Reading glowing reviews, hearing fulsome praise...I expected more. 

 

There are a couple of minigames. They range from perfunctory (the fishing game) to boringly awful (the Wheels game).

 

With that being said, I give this game a B. I typically give Kemco games anywhere from F to B+, and this game certainly ranks among the better ones there (though, sadly, it doesn't rank above all of them). The real problem is that there is no “hook” to this game. The rhythm-based combat gets old fast, and the story and characters certainly don't rise above the standard dreck in JRPGs.

 

Edited January 11 by starcrunch061

[starcrunch061]

Now, for our second Extra entry:

 

 

SALT AND SACRIFICE

 

Remember what I said about expectation in the Sea of Stars review? Turns out, it works both ways!

 

In the PS4 generation, Salt and Sanctuary rose as one of my top 10 favorite titles of the generation. I platted it three times, and enjoyed each one to the fullest. When I heard about a sequel, once again, expectations were not tempered. However, upon release, I was playing other things, so I didn't get the game early. And man - did it get bad word of mouth! Tepid professional reviews, coupled with vilification from online posters kept me away from this one for quite a while. 

 

However, when it appeared on Extra, I said, "What the hell?" and gave it a whirl. And it turns out, it's a perfectly functional game with some high points. Artistically, it looks a great deal like Salt and Sanctuary, though with more color. I like the extra color, personally. Your character controls, and overall battle, function similarly to that in Salt and Sanctuary. There are numerous builds you can create, and the dodge roll remains your best friend. Boss battles are generally fun, the story is bare bones, but this means there are no cutscenes to interrupt gameplay, and all in all, the game performs well.

 

In fact, I can put most criticism in two categories:

1. It's not Salt and Sanctuary
2. The devs focused on the wrong parts of the game

The first criticism can, and should, be put to bed immediately. Of course it's not Salt and Sanctuary, but it certainly takes its cues from there, as any sequel would. However, the second one deserves some scrutiny.

 

Let's begin with boss battles. Bosses come in two flavors: traditional, and mages. Traditional bosses are what you would expect from a sequel of Salt and Sanctuary. They are various and sundry characters, each with one or two hooks to watch out for. My favorite, for example, was a monster carrying a cauldron. After dealing enough damage to the monster, she puts down the cauldron, at which point another creature rises up and heals her of her wounds. To win the battle, you must first destroy that cauldron (I suppose you could grind up enough power to kill off the monster before she's healed, but that feels lame). The damage on the cauldron is permanent and cannot be healed. However, after putting down the cauldron, the monster becomes more aggressive, and can rip you to pieces when she returns to collect the cauldron again.

 

It's a good fight, and a clever set-up. There is another where spirits (who can damage you directly) will possess an inanimate corpse, bringing it to life and bringing down punishment on you. You can only damage the corpse, but as the battle proceeds, more spirits appear. Yet another fight has an enemy who calls puppets to attack you, and even turns invisible itself. Of course, there's another flying dragon. These are good fights. 

 

However, there is a second boss, called a "mage". Mages come in many flavors: fire (pyromancer), water (hydromancer), death (necromancer), etc. All told, there are 21 of these mages which are "named". There are also "nameless" and "fated" variants as well (the devs really leaned into this mage idea; more on this later). The problem? These battles are boring. Every mage fights exactly the same way. Sure - the pyromancer has a fire element, and the hydromancer has a water element, but they do exactly the same thing. Battles progress as follows: you'll first accept a mage hunt (found as an item in the word), and then you'll meet the mage. However, you cannot kill it yet; as you do damage, the mage will call minions to attack you. Deal enough damage to the mage, and it will flee to another location. Continue following the mage around, killing (ever more powerful) minions and dealing damage, and finally, you'll corner it. Some of the damage you deal seems to be sticky, so you might meet a mage at 3/4 HP by the time it decides to fight you. Then, fight the mage, and you're done. You'll get a bounty of items to raise your weapon and armor power. And...that's it. 

 

Unfortunately, progress is often gated by these mage hunts. Without killing the requisite number of named mages, you simply cannot open certain doors. On the plus side, if while chasing a mage, you get tired, that's OK. You can just take a break at one of the waypoints (similar to bonfires in Dark Souls) and recover ALL of your health - the mage will wait for you. Further, at time, you'll also meet roaming mages, which are not named, nameless, or fated. These mages will actually fight against the mages you're hunting, which can be bizarre. However, sometimes the game gets confused about which mage you're tracking, and will send you after a roaming mage, rather than a named/nameless/fated mage. But really, the big problem is that all of the mage battles feel identical. There's not a whole lot of difference between fireballs and lightning bolts, after all.

 

Another issue is the multiplayer aspect. Salt and Sacrifice again leans in a bit too much on this. There are multiple ways to fight MP. You don't actually need to join covenants (thank goodness); you just need to find the covenant leader, and he'll conveniently return to your hideaway. From your portal, you can then choose MP play. I found that MP was decently populated, at least with my short time with it. In one instance, I helped another player defeat a boss while fighting off two invaders, while yet another "sheriff" character appeared. That's 5 people in one session, so that's pretty good. Another time, I was just drawn into an MP game for some reason, but I traveled a bit with the main player, and then it said I had succeeded, so...yea me! 

 

These MP missions offer tokens for their respective guilds, which can be used to purchase new armor and weapons. I ended up getting my favorite weapon from one of the PvP guilds, so it might be worth your time. But again, it's kind of confusing. Those two invaders? They appeared right in front of me, and I was able to stunlock both of them into oblivion. Great for me, I guess, but pretty lousy for them. All in all, I didn't use it much.

 

So, the final verdict? It's a fun game. It's not Salt and Sanctuary, and mage battles are boring. I give it a B as well.

Edited January 10 by starcrunch061

[starcrunch061]

Finally, one last Extra game:

 

 

DARKSIDERS II

 

Back to the Darksiders franchise. Earlier, I reviewed Darksiders: Genesis, and that gives you a bit of insight into my feeling on this series. But to be honest, back in the day, I was pretty high on Darksiders. The first game had its problems, but it also had tons of potential. A fun, Zelda-inspired apocalypse fantasy, it had great voice work, competent (at the time) combat, decent puzzle-solving, and was in general a pretty fun game. I looked forward to this one back on the PS3. But as is often the case with me, other things took hold, and I didn't get a chance to play this one until it was given as a "free" game on PS+. I started it, and it was OK, but I put it on the back burner again.

 

However, after seeing it on Extra last year, I decided to give it the fabled "college try", and I managed to finish it, as well as get all collectibles (a real chore). I was a bit tired of it, and put it away again, but finally came back and platted it.

 

So, what's the deal? Well, this is a hard one to rate. Darksiders II has the same frenetic combat and puzzle-solving as its predecessor. Combat feels worse to me, but I think that's because gameplay has evolved since the days this was originally released. Still, I found combat to be very clunky overall. The puzzles in this game, however, are quite clever. I should love them...

...

...but I don't, because THERE ARE TOO MANY PUZZLES! My God - there's a puzzle around every corner. This game is significantly larger than its predecessor already, and the added puzzle mechanics slow it to a crawl. It's not that they're the boring, easy stuff in GoW:R; they are indeed very clever. But how many times are you going to force me to split my soul into two halves in order to proceed? Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't split myself in the right place, so I have to do it all over again? <sigh>

 

Darksiders II decided to move to an open-world. (sort of - it's more four open worlds connected by a hub). Again, at the time, this probably was very novel. But man - does this make the game even more grindy. There are many treasures out in the world, but given the loot structure of the game, the chests are mostly unnecessary; you likely picked up better stuff from the last group of enemies you faced. Each open world has numerous dungeons to traverse (many of which are optional). Sometimes, you need a gadget from later in the game to move through a dungeon from earlier, and if you want the plat, you'll need to move through all of them. It feels like a chore.

 

Bosses come in the "mini" and "big" variety. The minibosses feel like pretty standard combat encounters. They might have a new hook, but most of the time, they'll actually be regular enemies later on. Big bosses are almost always gimmicky. There's some pretty decent music in the background of some of these encounters, but the default setting of the music is very low, and I was too lazy to change it (or maybe I did, and it made no different). You might not notice the tunes yourself.

 

The most annoying part of the platinum is the collectibles. They are, for the most part, optional, though they can be useful if you decide to play on the highest difficulty on a first playthrough. One particular collectible requires you to see differently colored rocks in the background, and shoot them with your gun. Given the size of the open world, and the fact that some of the rocks are in completely mundane places, you'll likely need a guide (certainly, there's no collectible map in the game that I saw). The rewards for these collectibles are actually pretty good - the stat boosts are very solid, and higher critical percentage is incredibly useful for a NG+ playthrough.

 

And yes - you will need to do no less than a sizable portion of NG+. For some strange reason, your level is capped in your first playthrough at 23 (in your second, it's capped at 30, though I think you may be able to raise it even higher in a third playthrough). Those final levels take forever. In NG+, enemies get a massive stat boost (particularly for health), so keep it in mind.

 

This game is buggy, with a design flaw or two. I had a crash fest during my second playthrough; thankfully, this seems to be cured by turning off damage indicators. At one point, I fell into a pit in a dungeon. I need to do some things on the bottom floor, but when I finished, it was impossible to get back to the upper floors.  Thankfully (again), there is a nice fast-travel option in this game, but I hate when fast-travel is used as a way to cure bad design.

 

I mentioned it before, but let me say it again: the voice work is stellar. I particularly like the voice of Death (voiced by Michael Wincott, who older folks might remember as the baddie from The Crow). This series has never disappointed on that front.

 

All in all, I don't hate Darksiders II. But it could have benefited from being about 20 hours shorter. Given that it took me about 5.5 years to finish the game, and 6 to get the plat, I give it a B-. You can bump that up to a B+ if you're a big fan. Also, as you would expect, this is the PS4 version of the game. There is also a PS3 version; I have read that the plat is now unobtainable for that one.

Edited January 10 by starcrunch061

[starcrunch061]

Bit of a break, as I've been playing some longer games, and some non-Extra games, but today we're back with a vengeance!

 

So, I finally got the treasure chest trophy in Star Ocean 6, which leaves only the annoying item creation trophy (the weapon trophy will come for the ride). Since Squeenix has dumped all of its Star Ocean games on Extra (except for the remake of 2, of course), I decided that today would be STAR OCEAN day! Since I've done the annoying part of platting these monstrosities (except 6, which should be forthcoming in the next week), I thought I would share my thoughts on each of them:

 

Let us begin!

 

 

Star Ocean: First Departure

 

Did you know the Star Ocean series goes all the way back to the SNES/Super Famicom? Well, it does. The first game released all the way back in 1996...but only in Japan. Much of the development team for Tales of Phantasia left to form Tri-Ace, who then developed this game. It was pretty novel for the time, or so I've read. I never actually played it.

 

Much later, a version of this game was released for the PSP under the title "Star Ocean: First Departure", and from this, a port to the PS4 was created. The game was re-created a bit in the vein of the later Star Ocean 2. In fact, it feels just like that title, but...lesser. It's a fun enough game to play, though. Combat follows the same beats as in Star Ocean 2. You gain EXP from battle, but also SP which allows you to improve various traits and stats for your characters with differing effects. Depending on your actions, different party members will join - the platinum requires multiple playthroughs. There is a clear plot advancement, and a postgame for those who are interested. The postgame is lacking compared to later Star Ocean titles, though. The platinum itself is pretty simple (much simpler than any of the other Star Oceans I'll list here).

 

All in all, First Departure hits the high notes just fine, but I can't lie; the entire time I played it, I said, "I wish I was playing Star Ocean 2". More to the point, I wish we could have gotten the original release of this game. Still, if you're a fan of the series, or of JRPGs in general, it's a solid title. I grade it overall as a B.

 

 

 

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

 

This is the third Star Ocean title. After the success of Star Ocean 2, we had to wait for what seemed like an eternity for its follow-up. It ultimately popped up in NA near the middle-end of 2004, 5.5 years after Star Ocean 2 (which, back in the day, was a long time between games). Star Ocean 3 often gets unfair criticism, mostly directed at its ending, though some people actually bitch that parties only have three characters, instead of 4 (even though, like in earlier titles, you can only control one of them).

 

For me, Star Ocean 3 is top-of-the-line, and honestly, it holds up pretty well today. Combat is fast and fluid. You know pretty quickly whether you are outgunned and need to level, or find better equipment. Bosses can be difficult (post-game bosses are absolutely brutal). There is a lot of area to explore, and a lot of content overall. The arena from Star Ocean 2 is expanded and improved. Item creation is significantly enhanced, and although it can be taxing, it is very rewarding to create a full set of great post-game gear (as opposed, say, to 2, where you grabbed a material, said "create!" and hoped for the best). Transferable weapon factors really allowed for individual characters (particularly on higher difficulties). And speaking of characters, they fought quite differently from one another. The post-game here is great - you get to climb a 210-floor tower, finding incredible stuff and fighting incredible foes, including ringers from other Tri-Ace games such as Lenneth and Freya.

 

The platinum trophy is a nightmare (this is a theme for most Star Ocean games). You are forced into hours of a pointless bunny race betting minigame, and battle trophies make their appearance here. These are in-game achievements for doing certain things in battle. Many of them are very solid ("defeat this boss in X minutes" "Defeat this boss without taking damage", "defeat the final boss at level 1", etc.). But some of them are rotten. There is a battle trophy for fighting 50,000 battles, e.g., which would likely take you hundreds of hours of nothing but the quickest battles. Happily, you don't need to obtain every battle trophy, but you need enough to require some of the annoying ones. You do get some in-game rewards, in the form of palette swaps, and even the ability to have full control over your character, swinging you weapon at air if you so choose.

 

I would give this game my highest rating were it not for one thing: it crashes. And for me, it crashed a lot. This too is a problem in Star Ocean games. And given that there is no auto-save, a crash at an inopportune time will not only result in frustration, but time lost. Still, it's a great title. I would give it a solid A.

 

 

 

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

 

Here we have the fourth Star Ocean title. It was another long wait for this one (and even longer for Sony owners, as it was initially on XBox exclusively). Star Ocean 4 builds even more on the foundation of Star Ocean 3. Combat is more extensive still, with many equippable combat skills which can, in turn, be leveled. New mechanics such as blindsides are introduced. Party members are even more diverse in their abilities than before, and all in all, I found it very fun to play. On the exploration side, side quests are introduced which offer various rewards. Item Creation is even more extensive than in Star Ocean 3, but also much more intuitive. The post-game is once again very extensive, with the final postgame dungeon requiring various tasks to be completed before you can exit each floor. The final postgame boss is quite difficult, though not as brutal as those found in Star Ocean 3.

 

The platinum is legendary for its annoyance. While there are a few difficult moments, it's never super hard, but man - it's easy to screw up. Side quests can disappear, and if you miss even one, you will require another playthrough. Treasure chests can be missed, requiring more playthroughs. The bunny races aren't nearly as annoying as in Star Ocean 3, since you control the bunny yourself, but you'll run the same race, with the same tactics, for at least 100 rounds (likely more, since the game seems to say, "screw you" often and you just lose).  You have to create every possible item in the game, with nothing in the game to tell you what you have, or have not, created.

 

And of course, battle trophies make their inglorious return. However, unlike Star Ocean 3, where many battle trophies were worthwhile accomplishments, the ones here are all pointless. Kill 30,000 enemies. Kill 55 Grigori (for context, there are only 6 Grigori in the entirety of the main game, with 3 additional optional Grigori in a postgame dungeon which you'll need to repeat 17 more times). Get 255 rare drops (for each character, mind you). And this only scratches the surface. There are 900 total battle trophies, and if you want the plat, you'll be getting all 900 of them.

 

Still, this game would get a high score were it not, again, for the crashing issue. This game is notorious for crashing, and crashes really ruin your day, particularly in the post-game, since one dungeon requires you to start from floor one (out of 20) every time you run it. So, if you crash on floor 19, you've likely blown 3-5 hours of gameplay, and will need to start it again. Since you'll need to run that dungeon at least 5 times to create all items, this can be very, very annoying. Does it crash often? Not really, but you'll notice it, due to the long stretches without saves. 

 

All in all, though, it's still a fun title. I would give it a B+ overall.

 

 

 

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

 

And here we have the fifth Star Ocean title. Integrity and Faithlessness tries to mix it up a little bit. Sure, you have the same game beats as before (item creation, side quests), but a few choices were made in regards to aesthetics. Graphically, the game looks great. It's a major step up from Star Ocean 4. Rather than having a portion of your party participate in battle, every single one of them will be duking it out. It makes battle chaotic and hard to follow. Battle skills are grossly unbalanced: one skill makes you functionally invulnerable, provided you never run out of MP (and there are plenty of items to restore MP). Bosses (and especially post-game bosses) are tuned to this; often, they feel terribly unfair. But on the bright side, this ability makes the game much shorter to finish (and to plat) than its predecessors. I used autoplay functions a lot, honestly.

 

I haven't much commented on story in these reviews. For the most part, I've enjoyed the tomfoolery of the stories in the Star Ocean games. It is reminiscent to "pew pew" scifi of yesteryear (even though you rarely have "pew pew" laser guns - swords are the most powerful weapon in the universe!). Star Ocean 5 annoys me. The game tries to make story connections with previous, more successful titles, and it falls flat. I get tired of hearing people say things like, "You're a Kenny all right!" If that reads as a meaningless statement, it should, even if you know what a Kenny is. Your final foe is a pro wrestler as far as I can tell. He even talks like one. The post-game foes are familiar, and I found them to be worse here than in any other Star Ocean game. Gabriel Celeste, in particular, is absolutely brutal. 

 

BTs make their return yet again. They're better than in Star Ocean 4, but only because they're easier, and there are less of them (100). They're still as trite and mundane as ever, though. Unlike Star Ocean 4, achieving character endings requires multiple finishes, and it's not always obvious exactly what to do. Thankfully, you can create items to make people like you more (seems manipulative, but whatever). All in all, the plat is still annoying, but considerably simpler than Star Ocean 3 or Star Ocean 4.

 

Thus, I give this one a C. 

 

 

 

Star Ocean: The Divine Force

 

And finally, the sixth Star Ocean title. I will admit that I had no real interest in playing Star Ocean 6 after the disappointment of Star Ocean 5, but with its entry on Extra, I decided to give it a whirl. 

 

In many ways, Star Ocean 6 hopes to play on nostalgia for older, more successful titles. In particular, this game has a lot of Star Ocean 2 in it (for both good and bad). You are given the option of dual protagonists, one who travels through space, and one who lives on a backwater planet that fights with swords, yet has invented flying cars. The games for the two characters play out the same way, but there are different scenes depending on the protagonist. Each character has multiple endings to obtain, though I was sad that none of the special endings of Star Ocean 2 appeared here (in particular, there is no ending which couples, say, Midas and Malkiya, or Laeticia and Gerard). The story is decent, and the voice acting is...well, Star Ocean voice acting. It has its charm, but I wouldn't call it "good" in any sense.

 

Battle is decent. Like previous titles, you control one character, while AI controls the remaining party. Star Ocean 6 returns to a party of 4, which is nice; as I said above, the 8-person battles of Star Ocean 5 were too chaotic and confused for my liking. Battles are initiated by running into the enemies on the world map, and there is no transition from overworld to battle. Escape is as simple as running away from enemies as fast as you can. The hook here is the ability to fly using a robot called a DUMA. The DUMA plays an important role in the story, but an even more important one in battle - you can use it to surprise enemies, or blindside them in battle. You can use it to fly out of trouble (though only one party member has a DUMA). Later, you can develop a very good shield by giving up your ability to fly, and this can be toggled. All in all, I enjoyed battle in this one, though I was disappointed in the overall rewards (which consist of experience, a pittance of money, and some mostly useless items). 

 

Item Creation is available, and it kind of sucks. Much like Star Ocean 2, you take an item, using an IC ability like crafting, or smithery, and hope for the best. There are no real recipes - better ore will make better items, but it can also make terrible items. You fail often, even with the best IC abilities. You'll get a healthy dose of this RNG, since you need to create at least 90% of the available items in the game for the platinum trophy.

 

In addition to creating items, you can also synthesize them. This allows you to transfer added abilities such as "ATK +X%" from one item to another. Just like the items themselves, these added abilities (called "factors") are completely RNG. You can absolutely blow up the game with them if you're willing to fight through the madness, but it's annoying. I much prefer the creation in Star Ocean 4, or even Star Ocean 3. Honestly, it's not even that necessary to blow up the game - the post-game is very tame by Star Ocean standards. I did the heavy lifting of creating a great main character, with best weapon, armor, accessories, and factors, and beat the Ethereal Queen's final form (the game's toughest boss) in about 15 seconds on the easiest difficulty. 

 

There are many endings to the game (each character has a solo ending, as well as an ending with each available party member, for a total of 18 ending sequences). With the exception of the solo ending (which isn't required for the platinum), these are easily manipulated through item use (yes - it is perfectly fine to give that special girl a love potion or ten so she ends up with you). Graphics are decent, though I like them less than those in Star Ocean 5. The game ran well enough on PS5, with relatively short load times (which is useful, since you'll likely re-load the game a LOT as you strive for the platinum). The platinum itself is not terribly taxing, but when it's annoying, it's annoying. Still, you'll likely finish in about 60-80 hours (I finished in 75, with a blind first playthrough).

 

The game looks like it was on a pretty tight budget, but all of that budget seems to be in the game. All in all, it's pretty solid. I rate this a B+.  It's neck and neck with Star Ocean 4 as my 3rd favorite of the series (Star Oceans 2 and 3 vie for the top spot). Star Ocean 6 does some things better, and Star Ocean 4 does other things better. However, Star Ocean 6 doesn't crash often (or at all).

Spoiler

I don't know how to delete a spoiler tag.

Edited March 8 by starcrunch061