Star Ocean 4

[Kaylia]

Well technically SO3 already has fox-, cat-, dolphin-, bunny-, monkey- (sort of) and three eyed people, they just got hardly any screen time at all except for a couple player characters in each game that all played just like the humans anyway. Star Ocean is a good example of how a gigantic and semi-detailed universe can be rendered largely irrelevant. Does anyone else who read about it even remember how creation energy works?

Creation energy was pretty important in SO3 I thought. It refers to any type of energy created by OPAs and symbols around the universe. Basically, it represents the interaction from the 4D universe over the Eternal Sphere. Understanding this give a lot of dept to the magic system, and what happen near the end.


Anyway, I disagree it's largely irrelevant. Many people (including myself) enjoy the details they put in everything, because it add a lot of depth to the story and events. It doesn't always concern the main quest directly, but you can usually use that information to draw link between stuff and fill the gap between every games.

[Julian]

Felpool <3

[Mikayla]

They should bring back Indalecio Limiter Off as a bonus boss battle. Would love to see atleast one of the Ten Wise Men in these graphics.

Backstory on some of the history of the Ten Wise Men and how they came to be would be pretty spiff too, but that's hoping for too much, I'm sure. I wasn't as big of a fan of SO3 as I was SO2, so I'm hoping I end up liking this more than SO3.

This is coming to the PS3 eventually too, right? This would probably be one of the few things I'd feel kind of blah about giving up my 360 for.

[AoE]

Backstory on some of the history of the Ten Wise Men and how they came to be would be pretty spiff too, but that's hoping for too much, I'm sure. I wasn't as big of a fan of SO3 as I was SO2, so I'm hoping I end up liking this more than SO3.

This is coming to the PS3 eventually too, right? This would probably be one of the few things I'd feel kind of blah about giving up my 360 for.

Yeah I feel like the story really didn't come together the way in SO3 the way it did in SO2 as far as reading the database and learning about the universe in the game. I felt the plot twist in SO3 was poorly done, not even so much because it pretty much made everything up to that point irrelevant but because they didn't touch on whether it affects the past games too which kinda takes away from some of the emotional parts that happened in the previous games.

At this point I'm ready to just treat SO3 as a side-story. Spent hundreds of hours getting trophies though that's for sure.

[Rokku]

At this point I'm ready to just treat SO3 as a side-story. Spent hundreds of hours getting trophies though that's for sure.

I don't even want to recall how long I spent on trophies on SO3. I'll agree though, it would've made an awesome side story. As is, it just kind of feels like it was forced into the continuity of the series, instead of being part of the natural flow of it. The game was better before the plot twist, imho.

[Kaylia]

They broke their link with the 4D universe at the end of SO3. We don't know exactly what the new universe look like, but we can assume they made a roll back to the point where it's about to get destroyed (Fayt was talking about saving his parent).

I don't think SO3 break the continuity or anything. It's similar to what happened at the end of SO2, except for more than 1 planet this time.

[Kaylia]

SO3 spoilers I guess

Spoiler: show

And yes, the "plot twist" was poorly handled. I think the developer got carried away and broke from the original idea when they slapped the "online game" aspect to the final town. It was probably done late in the development (to add minigame and sidequest), and wasn't intended to be like this. It would explain the contradiction between npc text, database and the story.

Anyway, creating an universe within another universe is something that could happen, and controlling it with super computer could works. The whole concept isn't farfetched from a physics standpoint when you looks at it this way.

If you want to ignore something about SO3, ignore the "gaming" part, and just consider the Eternal Sphere as an artificial universe built using advanced physics.

[Not Kuno]

Backstory on some of the history of the Ten Wise Men and how they came to be would be pretty spiff too, but that's hoping for too much, I'm sure. I wasn't as big of a fan of SO3 as I was SO2, so I'm hoping I end up liking this more than SO3.

There are tons of secret files to read in SO2 that explains the Ten Wise Men, what each ones purpose was, and the back story on all of them as the bad guys. I love huge games like that, and the tons of optional shit hidden in there as well. Also limiter off gets kinda easy when you played the game a bajillion times. <_<

[Charla]

Unless I was doing it wrong, in order to see most of the wise men backstory you have to not only know about the sidequest and start it as soon as you can reach that snow city, but you then have to go back there between two specific consecutive dungeons (after getting the password from the abandoned lab and before going to the energy crystal cave).

@Kaylia, that is more or less how I interpreted the situation.

[Elcura]

SO3 spoilers I guess

Spoiler: show

And yes, the "plot twist" was poorly handled. I think the developer got carried away and broke from the original idea when they slapped the "online game" aspect to the final town. It was probably done late in the development (to add minigame and sidequest), and wasn't intended to be like this. It would explain the contradiction between npc text, database and the story.

Anyway, creating an universe within another universe is something that could happen, and controlling it with super computer could works. The whole concept isn't farfetched from a physics standpoint when you looks at it this way.

If you want to ignore something about SO3, ignore the "gaming" part, and just consider the Eternal Sphere as an artificial universe built using advanced physics.

Yeah, that is a way to look at it. But the plot twist just broke the awesome flow SO3 had going. The pacing was completely stopped and reversed. It was like two steps backwards one step forward.

Well, now that SO3 is over, it's easier to look at the SO universe on it's own.

[Kaylia]

Yeah. The first scene was totally anticlimatic. It was probably the worst way to do it.
That said, I don't think it break the plot or destroy the game. I can easily ignore this part and appreciate the good idea (in my opinion) behind it.

[Not Kuno]

Unless I was doing it wrong, in order to see most of the wise men backstory you have to not only know about the sidequest and start it as soon as you can reach that snow city, but you then have to go back there between two specific consecutive dungeons (after getting the password from the abandoned lab and before going to the energy crystal cave).

@Kaylia, that is more or less how I interpreted the situation.

Pretty sure you can do it at the end of the game. It's just the limiter stuff that requires you knowing about it. But shit like that is the best, I remember my first playthrough of SO2 like 6 years ago or w/e I only had like 5 people recruited or whatever. <.<;;

[Rokku]

Pretty sure you can do it at the end of the game. It's just the limiter stuff that requires you knowing about it. But shit like that is the best, I remember my first playthrough of SO2 like 6 years ago or w/e I only had like 5 people recruited or whatever. <.<;;

Only 5? That's weaksauce. D:

[Not Kuno]

Only 5? That's weaksauce. D:

Well it was my first time though. D: I didn't know anything about the game. Especially the most important part that you can miss a ton of awesome stuff if you don't get it the first time.

[Rokku]

Well it was my first time though. D: I didn't know anything about the game. Especially the most important part that you can miss a ton of awesome stuff if you don't get it the first time.

This is true. I had a full party by the end the first time I played through, although I got all the earlier world characters, and missed the two you couldn't get unless you left those spots open until late in the game (the reporter chick and the animal lover dude, their names escape me.).

[godsentdeath]

I keep getting annoyed that this is a 360 only game at the moment. Hopefully they will port it over to the PS3 eventually. Ill get a 360 eventually but I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

[Kenai]

This is true. I had a full party by the end the first time I played through, although I got all the earlier world characters, and missed the two you couldn't get unless you left those spots open until late in the game (the reporter chick and the animal lover dude, their names escape me.).

Noel and I think Chisao? (sp?)

This game was one of my favorite on the system, was my first time playing a game with such an in-depth item synthesis system. All the extra details, from favorite foods and backstory to skill leveling, really made me enjoy the game. The characters were all pretty good with interesting attacks (took me forever to figure out how to get Opera and Edmund though since I always invited Ashton until I found out inviting some characters replaces others). The comabt system was also pretty fun even if I usually played the caster so I could make sure they stayed alive.

I usually picked the guy who attacks with drugs (Boe?) for all of my runs since the brainy girl's voice annoyed me, but everyone else I rotated around during my various runs.

[Rokku]

Noel and I think Chisao? (sp?)

This game was one of my favorite on the system, was my first time playing a game with such an in-depth item synthesis system. All the extra details, from favorite foods and backstory to skill leveling, really made me enjoy the game. The characters were all pretty good with interesting attacks (took me forever to figure out how to get Opera and Edmund though since I always invited Ashton until I found out inviting some characters replaces others). The comabt system was also pretty fun even if I usually played the caster so I could make sure they stayed alive.

I usually picked the guy who attacks with drugs (Boe?) for all of my runs since the brainy girl's voice annoyed me, but everyone else I rotated around during my various runs.

Chisato and Noel, that's right. Thanks. And the doctor's name was Bowman. Getting Opera and Ed was pretty spiffy, but I really never found either of them to be more useful than Ashton.

[AoE]

CRESCENT MOON FLASH!

[Krandor]

Opera was the best character in the game along with Chisato (unless you were playing the original JP version), what crack are you smoking?