Star Ocean The Divine Force (PC/PS5/XSX/PS4/XB1) - October 27, 2022

[6souls]

I second his comments minus the combat, I wasn't a fan waiting for the stamina bar to refill to do basic attacks. I understand that you're meant to switch between characters every time you use up your bar, but I am one of those players that likes to stick with one combatant in battle. Also, the protagonist yelling out excitedly every time they find an item in the field or open a chest is a bit much. Used to be the repeatable banter was in the battles only, now it's everywhere.

Performance - playing on PS5 in performance mode, the FPS drops and overall stuttering were really in the first big open area. I hope this is something they can still iron out before release, because sheesh, your game doesn't look good enough to have such problems on PS5

It's the same on PS4 (you can pick between FPS or Resolution). If this is a representation of the final product, this game runs bad.

[Koyangi]

I second his comments minus the combat, I wasn't a fan waiting for the stamina bar to refill to do basic attacks. I understand that you're meant to switch between characters every time you use up your bar, but I am one of those players that likes to stick with one combatant in battle. Also, the protagonist yelling out excitedly every time they find an item in the field or open a chest is a bit much. Used to be the repeatable banter was in the battles only, now it's everywhere.



It's the same on PS4 (you can pick between FPS or Resolution). If this is a representation of the final product, this game runs bad.

The bolded is essentially what Lightning Returns did with the 3 sets you could seamlessly switch between, it's a pseudo party in a way like this. So, it's actually the point, to switch between them.

[Insanecyclone]

Recent years have been hard on them

https://twitter.com/RPGSite/status/1577420614117511168

[Tyrath]

Tried out the demo. Wasn't a huge fan. The combat feels super clunky I guess is how I would describe it? The characters look awful. Will probably pass on this one unless I am really out of things to play

[6souls]

https://twitter.com/StarOcean/status...j9VGF0sdOS0njQ

[Karbuncle]

Tried out the demo. Wasn't a huge fan. The combat feels super clunky I guess is how I would describe it? The characters look awful. Will probably pass on this one unless I am really out of things to play

Star Ocean just needs to pull an Octopath and make a beautiful stylized 2.5D game in the same style as 1/2. I miss Star Ocean 1/2s aesthetic and combat :/.

That’s just me though. I find the art style of their recent games absolutely offputting and ugly

[Lucavi]

Its amazing how much money they lose with every game.

[Obsidian]

I dunno how they continue to fail so hard at the anime aesthetic they're going for when the Tales franchise completely nailed the transition.

[Lucavi]

Tales doesn't have the dead-eyes look that Star Ocean always goes for. The problem with their "anime" is that they have no textures on the face. Its "perfect" faces. No pores or detail, so its winds up looking uncanny as hell when you have these wide-eyed wax faces in highly-detailed suits of armor.

[Obsidian]

It's not just the faces though, the hair is fucked up too in these games after SO4. To say nothing of the stupid names and brutal dialogue.

It's just a shame that everything surrounding the usually-not-bad combat systems ends up being such a clusterfuck game after game.

[Lucavi]

Even their mobile attempts have failed. Its crazy how they continue to get to make games. Tales got a much-needed engine upgrade and the results show. Star Ocean gets a decent engine and the engine was never the problem.

Art direction, story direction, character direction. There's a lot to fix.

[Ayn]

It's a shame because the Mobile Game was actually pretty fun.

[Karbuncle]

I really did kinda like it too. Was sad to see it closing but also not terribly surprised with how quick they were dumping banners it was clear it wasnt making enough money for them.

[arus2001]

Mobile game lost me when it was very obviously a multiplayer waiting room sim. Clunkiness of action combat controls on a phone aside.

That said, SO has kinda feels like a victim of compromise within the RPG player demographic with the insinuation that shooting for a high bar in various factors of a game doesn't really matter. Perhaps an element of cheesy sci-fi schlock was always intended to remain, but implementation or sometimes translation (for us) doesn't go well.

[Lucavi]

Most other game franchises in the RPG space have either figured out a comfortable niche or gone exinct, like Breath of Fire (oh look, another shitty mobile cash-grab that died instantly!).

Why hasn't SO?

[AoE]

Most other game franchises in the RPG space have either figured out a comfortable niche or gone exinct, like Breath of Fire (oh look, another shitty mobile cash-grab that died instantly!).

Why hasn't SO?

I personally blame whoever their writers were past 2.

IMO they have a unique niche already as far as their story formula. Human from advanced civilization crash lands on developing planet. Gets involved in said conflict. Suddenly universal existential threat COINCIDENTALLY happens to be on that planet. ???. Anime tropes prevail.

I think the appeal doesn't really pull anyone that specifically doesn't already like it.

Their implementation of it is stupid. Their character models look stupid but their battle system is usually top notch once you're able to figure it out.

They have the world lore to pull out a badass series and they keep going the final fantasy route of making everything self contained. I think that's stupid as fuck personally. Let's not get into the world being a self-contained game in itself which was horrible.

[Ayn]

Agreed. It's like they didn't know what the heck to do after the hit that was SO2.

[Kirin]

Agreed. It's like they didn't know what the heck to do after the hit that was SO2.

Id also offer that they played SO3's twist too early on in the franchise. Probably because of them not knowing where to go after 2's success.

It just always seems to get the mid generation, once a generation, effort at a baseline budget to see if they can catch fire again or not. Boggles me that with how clean the hand drawn aesthetic of SO4 looked that it wasn't settled on as the base design elements for the franchise going forward.

[Ayn]

Agreed.

Kind of makes me wonder how we'd view the series if they'd just skipped 3 altogether (along with the twist) and went straight to 4.

[Obsidian]

Every time I go back to SO4, I end up just playing Eternal Sonata instead.