Read User Reviews and Submit your own for Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness on PlayStation 4

blakfayt

Jun 29, 2016

9

The first question you have to ask yourself before buying SO: I&F is, "Do I like old school RPGs?" And when I say old school I mean unskippable cut scenes, areas that exist specifically for encounters and fights, standard progression, and limited save points. Because those are the biggest things people are complaining about.

Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness is a classic wrapperThe first question you have to ask yourself before buying SO: I&F is, "Do I like old school RPGs?" And when I say old school I mean unskippable cut scenes, areas that exist specifically for encounters and fights, standard progression, and limited save points. Because those are the biggest things people are complaining about.

Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness is a classic wrapper that has a new food inside it. Things look very similar to previous games, but there's been a lot of gameplay tweaks since the last good Star Ocean game. Combat and cut scenes are now integrated into the game. When you bump into enemies on the map your characters pull out their weapons and the fight begins with no transitions. The same for a lot of the story, people simply start speaking. It doesn't cut to dialogue boxes or a scene, in most cases. Naturally there are going to be some scenes that aren't in game at some points.

On top of removing transitions, SO has changed up how the mechanics of the gameplay. The rock paper scissors of previous titles is very prominent and easy to understand and works probably the best I have ever seen. I did an entire boss fight with counter attacks, which would have been difficult to judge in previous entries. Atop that skills have an upgrade system and a mastery system, as well as the game having a new system for learning skills instead of simply leveling up. They have also introduced AI altering "roles" which can be purchased with SP (which is used for buying skills of various types). Roles not only affect how the AI acts but give bonuses relating to the role, like increased damage to certain enemy types or extra stats.

The crafting system is back and it's more fine tuned than SO3. You see the materials you need, and when you gather them up you can make the item. However, what items you can make are limited by your specialties, sort of passive skills that let you craft items or gather materials for crafting (in the early parts).

Of course in an RPG we can't neglect the story and characters. Which, I'll admit, are rather dry. Around an hour in I had already predicted the big twist of the game (It's Star Ocean, of course it had something to do with space invaders.) But naturally the characters had to go through the phase of "OH WOW! WE WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED!" which is pretty annoying. As for the characters themselves, I feel like I've become jaded by college courses on how to write because none of them are particularly interesting. None of them are horribly offensive and annoying (Like half the cast in a Tales of series game, or completely lacking any depth like most Western RPG characters) but the game does feel kind of sped up.

What does help in both of those regards is the PA system, which has returned. Private Actions are chats with your party where you often get to make a choice that raises or lowers their affections, and in previous games altered the ending for your protagonist. PA's are usually short scenes that add more depth to a character or situation and they're welcome as the main plot focuses less on the characters you're adventuring with and more on the action (a faux pas of professional writing. The characters and their reactions should be what's interesting, not wondering what the next set piece of the game is. I should care about the characters)

Overall, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness gets a 9/10 from me. It's a classic shell with new content and I've been craving an RPG since Fallout 4 let me down. The writing could have been better, but the combat is sweet and rewarding, the exploration is simple but the areas are visually stimulating and lovely. I think if Square had made this a PS4 exclusive (the game came out on PS3 in Japan) then it could have been a 10/10 easily with better textures and more development time. Unfortunately it's held back by the previous generation of consoles in some regards, but it's still a blast to play. The people who say they cleared it in under 30 hours are either playing on easy mode or ignored the side quests and are lying about that. I spent over a half an hour in the first exploration zone after spending fifteen minutes in the tutorial town. These are people trying to make it look bad by speeding through so they can **** out day one reviews.… Expand

hibiscus

Jun 28, 2016

5

I imported this game from Japan when it came out because I like Star Ocean. I was disappointed by this game.

The main scenario took me around 20 hours due to my slow reading speed. I also did side quests (around 70% of them) and the Cathedrals. I think someone who is fluent in Japanese could take around 15 hours. For reference, SO2/SO3/SO4 were all 30 hour games for me, without doingI imported this game from Japan when it came out because I like Star Ocean. I was disappointed by this game.

The main scenario took me around 20 hours due to my slow reading speed. I also did side quests (around 70% of them) and the Cathedrals. I think someone who is fluent in Japanese could take around 15 hours. For reference, SO2/SO3/SO4 were all 30 hour games for me, without doing many side quests.

For an action RPG, the camera is pretty important. The camera in this game is just wonky... When you walk around on the field, the camera is focused relative to how far from the ground Fidel is walking around at. During cutscenes, you have to move the camera around yourself (on the amusing side, you can emote during "cutscenes" and make silly faces during important parts) but you can't do something like first person mode or re-focus the camera so the back of Fidel's head isn't the center of the frame.

In battle, the camera will sometimes get snagged on the terrain/environment. You now seamlessly transition into battle from the overworld (in previous SO games, you'd load into battle and have a square battle field with no environment / terrain). The boundaries and objects in these environments aren't very well defined, resulting in characters sometimes getting stuck behind walls/etc. Like if a character was behind a wall when you approached an enemy and started a battle, they can still be behind the wall (and their AI will run around in circles trying to get out of the wall until you manually move them - it's pretty amusing).

The battle system itself is good, combining elements of SO3 and SO4. It feels a bit like SO3 ("cancel" combos and such) but you can build up a Rush gauge like SO4. There is an artificial difficulty spike in combat once you reach a segment where you have to protect a character in battle multiple battles in a row. You use every single character you get in your party, but battles are seemingly balanced around all participants being alive at all times. In reality, people die pretty quickly.

The new role system augments the SO3/SO4 battle system pretty well. You can level the roles and set bonuses and such and influence how the characters AI works. But there is a particular set of roles that can make combat a complete joke, well into the post game dungeon. (I'm not going to spoil what they are.)

Despite you now being able to use every single character in battle, the new battle skill system means you have to pick and choose who to give skill books to. You don't get battle skills by leveling up. You have to find a book that lets them learn level 1 of the skill, but 2 characters will share each book. I think this would've been better suited to a previous SO game where you didn't have every single party member in your party at once.

The story and characters aren't anything particular to write home about. The story is basically "protect this little girl because she is a little girl". The majority of the characterization takes place in optional Private Actions. As mentioned before, you now control the camera during cutscenes, so unlike Star Ocean 4 where you had more cinematic cutscenes for all of the Private Actions, Star Ocean 5's private actions are you standing there talking to the other character, and you can still emote as you control Fidel. Welch's Private Actions (which unlock Item Creation) were all pretty enjoyable. The rest were mostly anime tropes.

The world itself is not very big. You only travel to one planet, and there are 4-5 proper cities/towns (YMMV on whether the 5th one counts as a town or not) on this planet. There aren't many overworld maps or zones either.

For those of you looking for new music by Sakuraba, you won't find much of it because 1/2 of this games OST was taken from other tri-Ace games. Not even remixed like Stab the Sword of Justice was remixed for SO4, but straight up copy/pasted. The shrine uses the same shrine music from SO3. The battle vs Del Sol uses The Divine Spirit of Language. Etc.

Overall, I can't recommend the game unless you absolutely must play every Star Ocean game.… Expand

Prrgangsta

Jun 28, 2016

4

This game is a hazard buy even if you are a fan of the series it was as if the creators are slowly turning this game into an mmo from the lack of narrative and cutscenes to the insane battle system. The story is uninteresting and the maps are big but lifeless and empty. Enemy placement is predictable and missions are mostly fetch quests that are tedious and boring. The only good i couldThis game is a hazard buy even if you are a fan of the series it was as if the creators are slowly turning this game into an mmo from the lack of narrative and cutscenes to the insane battle system. The story is uninteresting and the maps are big but lifeless and empty. Enemy placement is predictable and missions are mostly fetch quests that are tedious and boring. The only good i could see was building up my characters skills and abilities my own way.… Expand

DeLeon

Jun 28, 2016

4

The game is actually good. Yes it may not be the kind of RPG everyone could enjoy like FF VII, the Witcher or Xenoblade but it's worth it. Critics have been too harsh

Azeriel

Jun 28, 2016

3

Let me preface this as a long time fan of the Star Ocean series and JRPG in general - which means I'm used to whatever spectacle any JRPG titles is going to throw my way, grinding, impossible boss fight, you name it).

You know you messed up this series when you introduce space travel in the last 30% of your game, when the game itself was about space travel in the first place. 8Let me preface this as a long time fan of the Star Ocean series and JRPG in general - which means I'm used to whatever spectacle any JRPG titles is going to throw my way, grinding, impossible boss fight, you name it).

You know you messed up this series when you introduce space travel in the last 30% of your game, when the game itself was about space travel in the first place.

8 hours in, and the first thing I have to say is this: Activate the Japanese voice actors right away because whoever is doing the North American VA apparently has lost their souls. This does not help the fact that the first two heroes in the game (Miki and Fidel) are as bland as a sack of potato. Previous gen graphic, mediocre combat, soulless acting, average story, empty map and a lot of pointless travelling that falsely pushed this game for 20 hours+ of game play.

This game feels like they had a lot of experimental ideas but felt rushed to completion without properly fulfilling those ideas. What a shame because it could have been great.

As a fan of previous Star Ocean series, I had high hopes for this. But this is a swing and a miss, wait for a sale.… Expand

peropify

Mar 15, 2017

4

The most disappointing game of 2016. As a lover of JRPGs, and a fan of "The Last Hope", I was keen to pick this up day one. Unfortunately, the game reeks of poor effort on the dev side, with an empty game world that did not match the character models, and bleak story. The battle system had great potential, but was mired with skill exploitations, The game feels like it was unfinished to beThe most disappointing game of 2016. As a lover of JRPGs, and a fan of "The Last Hope", I was keen to pick this up day one. Unfortunately, the game reeks of poor effort on the dev side, with an empty game world that did not match the character models, and bleak story. The battle system had great potential, but was mired with skill exploitations, The game feels like it was unfinished to be honest - a beta game. Wondering if something happened. But there is no doubt the polish was lacking, and you should not waste your time picking this one up at all.… Expand

consolfreak1982

Sep 29, 2016

9

I apologize for having ignored this game so long - it was one of my most wanteds this year and the negative/mediocre Reviews and user comments drove me away ...
Im a huge Fan of the Series (well, not SO4 lol), and since it was on Sale I just thought what the hell lets just buy it - mediocre or not.
And guys - I regret for having missed out on this amazing game just because some opinionsI apologize for having ignored this game so long - it was one of my most wanteds this year and the negative/mediocre Reviews and user comments drove me away ...
Im a huge Fan of the Series (well, not SO4 lol), and since it was on Sale I just thought what the hell lets just buy it - mediocre or not.
And guys - I regret for having missed out on this amazing game just because some opinions on the Internet changed my mind.
Yes, its "old shool" and has its flaws - the graphics are good, especially the character art, design and models. The fighting may be "buton mashy", but its fast, flashy and fun! The seamless gameplay and very fast gameplay is a huge improvement over .. well .. most other JRPGs out there! No slow start, no interruptions between exploration and combat, less cutscenes ... the flow of the game is incredibly high for a JRPG.
Yes,
the graphics could be way more detailed - environments are samey, almost empty/same sized/same shaped/lackin Detail
the Soundtrack is always "epic" - which can be exhausting sometimes
the battle System is mostly button mashing and way too flashy and shallow (lol just try highest difficulty new game plus haha good luck on emphemeral queen lv 255)
the overal lack of love for the Detail
the short lenght of the main Story (about 20-30 hrs)

BUT:
None of them really matter when youre playin the game - trust me.
If you like JRPGs and StarOcean you wont be disappointed - its way better than SO4 in any regard, its a great JRPG with likeable characters, very fast gameplay and very fast game flow in General.
The only Thing I regret is that I have not bought it until it was on sale - at least I saved some Money too and got an awesome game as well - win win Situation :)… Expand

hungryparrot

Jul 8, 2016

9

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is, for all intents and purposes, a very old-school Japanese role playing game. Because of this, it gets lost in market that is so driven by opinion (which this review also is), it's hard for anything to stand on it's on two feet that doesn't follow the current AAA model. Conversely, because of this, it truly scratches that deep itch for someone looking to rekindle the spark with jrpg love. Based on time constraints that 'professional' reviewers are under, they tend to miss what's most important in gaming, pure enjoyability. And to my fellow cursory readers, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness has that in spades.

**POTENTIAL BEGINNING SPOILERS** Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness tells a very compelling story, albeit one that has been told before. If you're akin to the SO lore, you already know that this entry falls between Second Story and Till The End of Time (SO II and III respectively). Fidel Camuze lives a peaceful if uneventful life on the planet, dubbed by the Pangalactic Federation, Faykreed IV with his childhood friend Miki Sauvester. Living directly in the long-reaching shadow of his father Darill, Fidel struggles to be his own person while educating the town's hopeful at his family's training hall for swordsmanship in their seaside town of Stahl. When war breaks out over resources (sound familiar?) and the small town is caught in the crossfire, Fidel sets out to seek the crown's assistance in protecting the small hamlet. From there, Fidel and Miki find themselves caught up in a conflict that just may be out of their world.

If the above sounds like boilerplate jrpg framework, it's because it is. What sets it apart however, and frankly what most reviewers are missing, is the way in which the narrative is weaved. From the eyes of Faykreedians, the world they know is just that. Nothing more and nothing less. But when a rival nation shows up to a sword fight with 'gleaming sticks,' the Medieval land of Resulia is left polarized. How could they possibly hope to defend themselves against such technology?

Now, that's all well and good but what about gameplay? As I stated before, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is brimming with fun.

BATTLE SYSTEM:

What's a good jrpg without a good battle system right? Tri-ace has nailed their battle system here. I've seen many complaints about the AI being less than standard, and the fighting being too 'button-mashy'. I can't speak for anyone other than myself but I have to assume that other reviewers didn't give the 'Role System' any real thought. Yes, it's true that in the beginning it feels a bit one sided, especially if the player plays solely as Fidel (of course you would), but as you progress the roles start to unlock at a brisk and satisfying pace (assuming, of course, that you're tackling side quests along the way. More on that later). As soon as Fidel's party started to round out, I was amazed to see the AI reacting appropriately and smartly. Nothing is more satisfying than going up against a high level Cathedral of Oblivion (random dungeon spawn to test your mettle) boss and watching your team wreck. The short advice here is to play and use the systems that you are given! They aren't there for show, they're incredibly useful and necessary for full-party usage and potential! Trust me, when all seven (actively six fighting) are in the mix, you're going to want everyone locked in. And when it clicks, it feels fantastic.

The rock, paper, scissors paradigm also works like a dream. Please do me (and yourself) a favor and avoid holding circle for that strong attack spam. 'X' attacks are mapped as weak, while 'O' attacks are mapped as strong. Each of these buttons can also be assigned 2 battle skills, two for LONG range and two for SHORT. The cancel system works as such: Weak attacks interrupt strong, Strong attacks break guard, and Guard counters Weak (press '[]' twice after a successful block, it took me way to long to figure that out). You also get what's called a 'Cancel Bonus' if you continuously vary your weak and strong attacks, to a max of 5 times for a 200% damage output bonus. It really works when you work it.

SIDE QUESTS, PA's, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and CRAFTING:

Yes, there is backtracking. Yes, those side quests involve a lot of it. But it is highly recommend to pursue them if nothing more than to unlock specialties that are attached to them! The PA's. These are perhaps the biggest missed elements from everyone that seems to be playing. For everyone saying that they feel no attachment to the characters it's because they are not pursuing these beautiful moments. The amount of character development that is attached to these is paramount to understand the stakes for everyone involved. If you want immersion, chase these. Crafting is back and it's sublime.

In short, SO:IaF is a highly enjoyable reminder of yesteryear. Compelling, highly competent, and incredibly fun.… Expand

Super_Cloud

Feb 14, 2018

5

What a huge disappointment Star Ocean 5 is, no space exploration is what kill it for me. They also got lazy recycling music, this is not a bad thing since they are good but i wish i could have discovered brand new music. This was also the shortest Star Ocean i played. The difficulty was unbalanced sometime from very easy to hard to very easy again. The battle system was enjoyable for mostWhat a huge disappointment Star Ocean 5 is, no space exploration is what kill it for me. They also got lazy recycling music, this is not a bad thing since they are good but i wish i could have discovered brand new music. This was also the shortest Star Ocean i played. The difficulty was unbalanced sometime from very easy to hard to very easy again. The battle system was enjoyable for most part except i wish the skill were better, the basic double slash was more over power than the one you get later. I would lie if i said i did not enjoy this game but it was still disappointing.… Expand

vahn

Mar 7, 2019

4

Another disappointment from SE: I'm not even surprised at this point and if anything I have myself to blame for this. I KNEW this was going to suck and I didn't try to listen. And here I am, with a game that I CANNOT continue due to being so bad, so boring, I can't even get past hour 13 - in a game supposedly 20 hours long.

And this is truly a shame because I believe that with moreAnother disappointment from SE: I'm not even surprised at this point and if anything I have myself to blame for this. I KNEW this was going to suck and I didn't try to listen. And here I am, with a game that I CANNOT continue due to being so bad, so boring, I can't even get past hour 13 - in a game supposedly 20 hours long.

And this is truly a shame because I believe that with more polish this game could've been even better than SO4, which was considered one of the worse installment. Sure SO4 had crappy plots - which SO doesn't have crappy plots? - but it had a charming kind of crappy and the combat was simply wonderful and fun: I definitely enjoyed that game far more than I imagined.

But before we get to the bad stuff, what's good in it?
Well, the characters are decently good, even better than SO4: Fidel is not a terrible MC, Miki is annoying but okay, Relia is mysterious but not annoying, and Fiore is surprisingly less **** than she makes it appear, Emerson is more skilled than he makes it look, Anne is okay and Victor is too. I mean it's not Oscar worthy but it's not "Lymle" or "Phaze" levels of bad either. And the story isn't that bad too - at least to the point I was in I got interested - and I could try to go further once I get beyond the suckiness.

Other good things are the large amounts of good voice acting, interactions with your companions, smooth but barebone graphics that at least remain at a stable 60 fps, combat with 7 people which is a nice difference and the usual mix of sci-fi and fantasy where we can play the fantasy side first - I think only star ocean 1 and 2 made you play from the part of the fantasy dwellers first, and in 2 you could choose which characters to go with first.

Anyway, that's the good stuff so let's talk about bad because there are plenty!

Star Ocean has always been fast-paced action combat by using 2 buttons in different ranges and that's it: there wasn't much else to learn and it worked pretty fun. It's still the same now but with a difference: skills take a century and a half to cast or perform and this makes combat less fluid than you might think. Even the first skill you use, Double Slash, is extremely slow at performing and it's a 2hit combo!

There are 7 people in combat, which is nice, but one will never fight so you actually have 6 people fighting and one buffing all the time. I feel that if they looked at Suikoden they would've learned a lot more in making passive fighters but instead, Relia is a character you'll be pumping with passive roles.

Oh right, the roles: instead of giving your characters orders now you can only give them roles, which are actual buffs and passives that you level up...I fail to see the point of this: why not just give them actual orders? Why square does have to overcomplicate everything?!

Speaking of overcomplicated: quests are needed if you want to learn new abilities and skills. Yes, you heard it right: abilities (like compounding, smithing, gathering, emoting, etc) and skills (the ones you use in combat) are learned from books and said books can come from quests or chests. I wouldn't complain if quests weren't a pain to complete...but of course they are sucky and requires a lot of backtracking and they knew nobody would do them. So they ended up locking important stuff behind it. I can't say it's not brilliant manipulation at least!

Also, at least to the point, I'm in (13 hours) I could NOT teleport or move anywhere freely which means backtracking on foot and let me tell you that you run so slow you NEED to hold the sprint button to make it more bearable. Problem with sprint? It's on the circle button which means you cannot reposition your camera while you sprint - in SO4 the sprint was a dash that you couldn't control, which made sense. Again, more chores to a game full of chores.

Another issue with combat is that you can switch control to anyone you desire but outside of combat you will always return to Fidel, which is not the problem: the problem is that you enter combat without loading and this means that whenever you start a fight the camera will jerk around from Fidel to X then X to Fidel: this is really stressing on your eyes as you can feel motion sick and even eye strain!
In addition, since I like using long ranged fighters, I ALWAYS have to move because as soon as I get into combat I'm beyond the edge and an escape meter appears as if I want to escape.
They didn't even properly test this game.

I just can't even...seriously just forget this game: it's clear as day they cut the funds and made it barely work just for the sake of it. Square only cares for Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest, and it shows - actually not really because FF15 and KH3 are also rushed but whatever.

If anything this means SO4 is no longer the worst one so go ahead and pick that one up: I'll take Lymle's M'kay and Phaze bootlicking every day if it means to play a better game.… Expand

moonman1994

Feb 5, 2017

6

Star Ocean 5 invotates some in terms of gameplay but lacks in most of the other places that the Star Ocean series usually excels. Over all it's an alright game but certainly the weakest entry in the series. Overall score: 6.5/10

Battle System: 8/10 The battle system in Star Ocean 5 is mostly innovative. It allows you to control each individual character as well as take your entire teamStar Ocean 5 invotates some in terms of gameplay but lacks in most of the other places that the Star Ocean series usually excels. Over all it's an alright game but certainly the weakest entry in the series. Overall score: 6.5/10

Battle System: 8/10 The battle system in Star Ocean 5 is mostly innovative. It allows you to control each individual character as well as take your entire team into battle. Your team also runs around the map with you and the transition from map to battle is pretty fluid. As far as criticisms of the battle system go: there are a lot of battle skills but manually you're limited to four which kind of sucks. Also you don't many normal attacks that you can string together unlike in the other star oceans which makes the individual (non skill) attacks seem kind of slow. The largest criticisms I have of the battle system are during certain boss battles or story events. During some battles there is important dialogue that is near impossible to hear which is frustrating. There are also these protect Anne events that are simply infuriating. That being said these are luckily few and far between. Some reviewers mentioned the battle camera which I personally never had a problem with so I don't really understand where their issues came from.

Graphics/World Design: 8/10 The graphics are a major step up from Star Ocean 5 and the manage to maintain the Star Ocean design. The world is absolutely beautiful (possible aesthetically the best of the star ocean games). Unfortunately the world is small and because of this the awe of beauty that you had looking at each new location ends up wearing off by about 15 hours into the story since you've seen almost every location and you've seen all of them many times.

Soundtrack: 5/10 The soundtrack relies on songs from previous Star Ocean games far to much and the new songs are nothing special. The unfortunate reality is that every tune that stuck out tended to be a song from Star Ocean 3 that was reused. The new music wasn't bad but was completely unmemorable and the Maze of Tribulations music wasn't even a new rendition which was simply disappointing.

Story: 6/10 The story is just enough to keep you engaged. It's short (around 20 or so hours), you also are stuck on one planet (minus several spaceships) the entire time, and it just felt like large portions of it were cut. The villains were not fleshed out and they were pretty much cookie cutter villains. It feels too like there were times where another planet could easily have been added, or lore could have been added but it seems simply that that too was cut.

Characters: 6.5/10 The characters are all at face value interesting enough and they're designed well enough but they're not fleshed out at all. Their motivations are hard to make sense of because (minus the two from earth) the motivations they have for their actions seem to come completely from the fact that "they're good people" which is kind of ridiculous. The game also brings back the PA system which would be great if every PA wasn't 30 seconds at max length and if these were actually used to develop the characters. Unfortunately the characters seem like outlines of what could have been great characters with nothing filled in.

Side Quests/Bonus Material: 7/10 There are a lot of side quests, PAs come back, you have many unlockable roles and specialties, and everything seems collectable (items, enemy encounters you name it). This all makes the completionist gamer happy but as many extra things as there are to do they end up getting derivative after a while so I find it highly unlikely that many people did or would even want to complete all the lists in the game (battle trophies, items etc.) Also the game features the good old Maze of Tribulations so you do at least get a solid bonus dungeon.

Misc: There are certain other slightly annoying aspects of Star Ocean 5. The (english) voice acting for some of the minor characters and minor villains is bad and in some cases really bad however the voice acting for the main cast is pretty solid. The minor villains in particular are not well developed and on of them is a direct rip of of Star Ocean 3's Albel (minus the redemption).

Summary: Overall Star Ocean 5 was just disappointing. Star Ocean 3 is my all time favorite game and I throughly enjoyed the other three star oceans. It felt like the production was rushed and it felt like they turned the outline of a game into a full game with out adding anything past the outline. This won't stop me from hoping for a Star Ocean 6 but I certainly hope that they return more to their roots. Overall: 6.5/10… Expand

pypes

Jul 30, 2017

2

This isn't my first star ocean game but it may well be my last.

An attempt to "update" what has always been the poor relation in the Squenix RPG stable, which has left behind all of the bugbears of RPGs past and added nothing of worth. The combat attempts to blend seamlessly with general running around, except it is still more than a little jarring, and while it can occasionally beThis isn't my first star ocean game but it may well be my last.

An attempt to "update" what has always been the poor relation in the Squenix RPG stable, which has left behind all of the bugbears of RPGs past and added nothing of worth.

The combat attempts to blend seamlessly with general running around, except it is still more than a little jarring, and while it can occasionally be fun for the most part it's mindless and a far cry from what a real action RPG has to offer.

The overarching story isn't terrible, but with cookie cutter characters, weird pacing, a certain someone being kidnapped every 5 minutes, and a whole daddy issues subplot being foisted in and then resolved in the space of 20 minutes it's far from good.

My main gripe however is with some fundamentally broken mechanics. All cutscenes are un-skippable, especially the long ones before boss fights. Saves take place at save points, which are frequently blocked and you'll often be expected to complete 2 consecutive boss (or otherwise instant fail) fights between saves. There's a role system that lets you create some extremely broken (in a good way) builds, but it's never properly explained, and certain bosses will resort to spamming massive AoE attacks every 5 seconds if the AI decides this is a good idea.

I honestly can;t bring myself to finish it at this point. It's the old sunk time / cost trap, a platinum will cost you 3 play-throughs and 100 hours +, very little of it is fun.

I can honestly say the thing I enjoyed the most was the costume design, the rest is somewhere between passable and infuriating. Don't kids yourself that this is just a "hard" game, or that I'm whinging about JRPG staples, this is honestly a really really bad game.… Expand

accessaccess

Jul 16, 2016

2

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game deserves a 2.

I'll grant it 2 points for it's battle system which is seamlessly tied into the world and was refreshing because you didn't have to stow or manage character participants. Everyone participated 100% of the time which means that there were no "wasted builds" or situational regrets for not having someone in the party due to simply being a first-time player. The SP system allowed for adequate grinding and the option to trade exp. for other elements was a good move plus the title system felt intuitive and it made sense to build certain roles and gave expected results.

I'll deduct 2 points for the story which was rushed and the pacing was poor. The beginning of the game was fine, very standard pacing, but the middle of the game really felt dry regarding the whole "daddy" element and going ten minutes in game play between the beginning of that conflict and the end including the revenge which felt awkward at best. Same with the whole final dungeon; it just never felt like a final dungeon and when I played it I felt let down to say the least.

I'll deduct 2 points for the music. Some of it was in previous games for the dungeons and obviously so. It felt lazy to me and the original tracks were just not good to begin with. Unacceptable.

I'll deduct 2 points for the Characterization. They characters had awkward depths and massive inconsistencies. It never panned out correctly. Fidel and daddy for instance was just not good for an In Media Res type relationship and nothing really came of the whole system of individuals. Nothing felt too terribly compelling.

I'll deduct 2 points for the environments. Again, beginning of the game, it was standard and semi-interesting but soon it becomes clear there are no maps. The number of areas in the game is fewer than any of the previous games and even if "larger" that size difference doesn't make up for the diversity problem. You went from field to field. You had four or so legitimate dungeons on Faykreed: Signescila, Slaughtery, Kronos 1 and 2. That's it. There are actually no other dungeons in the game. All other areas are throughports including W. Dekaav Tunnel.

Overall there was no glue to the game to make it an RPG. I still love the game's seamless battle system and I almost rated it higher because of the weight it has in my enjoyment but being fair and keeping things even I realized rather swiftly that I wish I had just Gamefly'd it and sent it back.… Expand

Jamesshen

Nov 16, 2016

1

This is one of the worst RPG i ever played. The gaming system was very bad and the same thing goes to the characters. The only points that i give to this game is the beautiful scenery that it gives. Wont even bother to complete it. Completely waste of money

Gaudy

Jan 7, 2021

2

Muy aburrido. De lo peor de la Saga Star Ocean, decepcionante para los seguidores. Graficamente obsoleto, parece de PS2. El diseño de los personajes es mediocre y son puros estereotipos. El mundo a investigar, muy aburrido y sin encanto ninguno, vacio. No apetece explorar, se hace pesado. El sistema de combate se hace repetitivo, totalmente roto y mal nivelado. Enemigos randon muyMuy aburrido. De lo peor de la Saga Star Ocean, decepcionante para los seguidores. Graficamente obsoleto, parece de PS2. El diseño de los personajes es mediocre y son puros estereotipos. El mundo a investigar, muy aburrido y sin encanto ninguno, vacio. No apetece explorar, se hace pesado. El sistema de combate se hace repetitivo, totalmente roto y mal nivelado. Enemigos randon muy faciles y jefes de repente imposibles, totalmente descompensado. Traduccion en ingles, sin español. De los peores J-RPJs que he jugado.… Expand

Darky1600

Apr 7, 2020

0

Bland and boring no soul what so ever. I paid 49.99 for this on release and will never forget how disappointed i was and still am. Played all the SO games and loved them, unfortunately this one didn't meet up to any sort of 'good' standards at all.

Vachekiri

Mar 5, 2021

4

Ce jeu est une purge. Tu passes 95% du temps à spammer une touche comme un idiot. La plus part des combats sont bidons puis d'un coup tu tombes sur des mobs surpuissants qui te démontent en 30sec. Et l'IA autant pas en parler c'est pas mieux. Bref les bons rpg deviennent de plus en plus rares... Ah oui aussi, aucune carte du monde. Pour un rpg c'est le top du top

Juliosouza1988

Oct 26, 2022

4

Decepção é a palavra chave nesse jogo. Cheio de bugs , história ridícula de chata e uma campanha de um pouco mais de 20 horas. Pontos possitivos ? O gráfico.

FaytesEnd

Jul 7, 2016

8

If you enjoyed past star ocean games or like older school RPGs this game is pretty good. I'm more than 40 hours in and looking forward to finishing the story, playing the post game content and even trying again at a higher difficulty.

Graphics are good. Some slowdowns in towns, battles are pretty solid. Camera can be a bit wonky. It hasn't given me motion sickness like Bloodbourne (dangIf you enjoyed past star ocean games or like older school RPGs this game is pretty good. I'm more than 40 hours in and looking forward to finishing the story, playing the post game content and even trying again at a higher difficulty.

Graphics are good. Some slowdowns in towns, battles are pretty solid. Camera can be a bit wonky. It hasn't given me motion sickness like Bloodbourne (dang stutters in BB... such a good game though).

Sound is good. I enjoy a lot of the music and the effects are done well.

Combat is fun and fast. It is a bit simple, but rewards planning and button mashing.

Story - not terrible, but not great either. The characters are fun though and I enjoy them. They're the normal Japanese tropes, but the voice acting is done well.

Crafting - is where its at. Very fun, lots to do.

I go with an 8/10 because there are some pretty big flaws. No space battles, no even in cut scenes. Camera. Some people like to walk as other party members, that doesn't bother me though. Some cheesy story parts that make you shake your head. Small world and lots of back tracking, but at least the enemies change as the story progresses (they get stronger versions of the same enemies, but with more attacks).

Worth a buy if your an RPG junky, worth a rent if your not.… Expand

nubsauce

Jul 3, 2016

8

Played 37 hours in 4 days...this game is my life right now. If you want to get addicted, this is your game...

Btw, the game is peppered with nice slice of life humour, and Fiore's ass is so beautiful I could stare at it for days. :P

LucianoBAKA

Jul 4, 2016

1

I've just created an account here because I am too pissed off with this game...

This is nothing like an Old School RPG, nor like a current gen RPG. It tries to mix those two styles but dies in the middle. I just can't see anything memorable nor enjoyable in this tittle. Story is not existent, graphics are meh, camera is clunky, acting has no soul, characters are generic, lot ofI've just created an account here because I am too pissed off with this game...

This is nothing like an Old School RPG, nor like a current gen RPG.
It tries to mix those two styles but dies in the middle.
I just can't see anything memorable nor enjoyable in this tittle.
Story is not existent, graphics are meh, camera is clunky, acting has no soul, characters are generic, lot of loading screens... and I could go on forever...
The developers didn't even try.
Even they used the PS4 system save to save the progress.
This game is a pile of crap...sorry...
And don't say the "IT'S AND OLD SCHOOL" bulls***.

I have to learn to not preorder anymore...… Expand

PauloRaz3n

Jul 2, 2016

8

No New Game+ ruined the game... I Like the system Battle, the difficultyt, but i dont want start a new game without my progress in a new dificulty...no DLCs, i think games like this, need DLc to extend the game, Dlcs Like, New area, new boss, new super boss.

Sai1

Mar 12, 2018

6

This game was extremely disappointing as it wasn't really that 'rpg.' Just because something has a story, doesn't mean it's rpg, regardless of the sea of fraudulent companies (looking at you FF 13). Exploration, bond with characters (think star ocean til the end of time or ff10), soul instead of genericism all matter. I don't think star ocean I&F is the worst 'rpg' but it's definitely notThis game was extremely disappointing as it wasn't really that 'rpg.' Just because something has a story, doesn't mean it's rpg, regardless of the sea of fraudulent companies (looking at you FF 13). Exploration, bond with characters (think star ocean til the end of time or ff10), soul instead of genericism all matter. I don't think star ocean I&F is the worst 'rpg' but it's definitely not true to the original series or it's fans or any rpg fans tbh. A larger scaled platformer (by that I mean more explore room than mario, but not enough to be REALLY considered explorative. Quests gotten from billboards makes me not care about quests. Not enough individual character story or scenes to make me care about characters. I know you are trying to appeal to autistic, lazy, instant gratification, illiterate casual gamers, but ppl that buy rpgs are the opposite of them, they don't want generic, easy win, souless crap k? Learn who your target market is please!… Expand

Huntaku

Jun 30, 2016

4

Oh boy, where should I start. As someone who really loved the last hope on the 360 I had very mixed feelings with this one. Aside from the combat and anything that is linked to it (character building, AI, etc.) everything else is wrong in this game.

Story: Story is laughable, its soo basic that even the developers couldnt stretch it out to last more than 25 hours. None of theOh boy, where should I start. As someone who really loved the last hope on the 360 I had very mixed feelings with this one. Aside from the combat and anything that is linked to it (character building, AI, etc.) everything else is wrong in this game.

Story: Story is laughable, its soo basic that even the developers couldnt stretch it out to last more than 25 hours. None of the characters are memorable, they all have a single trait. Worse is the actual main character who doesnt even have 1. He rarely speaks and if he does its just bare bone generic reactions to another character or an event. You barely have any cutscenes because its replaced with in game active cutscenes where you can move around, while the other characters going blah blah blah. Also since you are in control, in order to see some bare bone facial reactions, you have to pose and move the camera so you can see that one character, buy you dont want to do that because the lipsinching is horrible no matter if you roll with the english or the japanese language.

Graphics: I usually dont really care much about the graphics. It's a mix bagged to be honest. When its battle time and you have more than 6 characters in your party the game looks awesome, with all the magic effects and other effects going on. Outside of combat however, the game looks nowhere near as good.

Gameplay: Now with all that bad out of the way, as I mentioned at the beginning, the combat it self is pretty awesome, especially when you go up against a boss fight in the RAID like Cathedral missions. Your partner AI is pretty good over all, depending on the roles you give them, which you have a TON to choose from btw so building a good DPS, or a deceant healer can make the fights much easier. For example Mage DPS characters will keep their distances from the enemy and not just mindlessly cast spells till they die, healers prioritize characters under attack or ones with the lowest hp. If you give your characters a descent set up, than they can even handle the battle alone without even you doing anything. Really the only complain I have is that holding aggro is impossible because when a character hits a blocking enemy with a light attack, the enemy automatically starts attacking that character no matter if he/she only attacked that one time (or is a mile away), and tanks have no way to hold aggro they have to follow and deal enough damage to that enemy again to get aggro off of the other character. Also while battles are fun, they can be pretty easy unless you handicap your self.

Overall, with the horrible story, generic stereotipical characters, and mediocre graphics its really hard to recommend at full price. The only reason why it gets a 4 out of 10 is the enjoyable battles you can have which is surprisingly enough to keep you playing while you torture yourself with the abysmally short and horribly written 20-25 hour "story"… Expand

Zero_Kyrael

Jun 29, 2016

7

This game has a bit more to offer than I believe most reviews are giving it credit for. It has flaws Hands down, but there is enough here to make it a good JRPG. It is not great, but I have no regrets about my time spent with it. Why well....
1. The music is pretty great. I had the game come with Valkyrie profile music, but did not use it much as I was really enjoying the music on itsThis game has a bit more to offer than I believe most reviews are giving it credit for. It has flaws Hands down, but there is enough here to make it a good JRPG. It is not great, but I have no regrets about my time spent with it. Why well....
1. The music is pretty great. I had the game come with Valkyrie profile music, but did not use it much as I was really enjoying the music on its own. It is used very well and fits the tone while also being memorable.
2. Game runs smooth at 60 FPS no issues has a few bits of great scenery to enjoy!
3. The characters are solid. While the story has issues (I'll address below) I really enjoyed everyone from the Fidel to Fiore.
4. I had a lot of fun with the combat. There can be a lot of micromanaging, but with a party of seven you really get a brawl feel that works out FAR better than most people say it does. There is ONE glaring issue that really sours the combat experience and I feel is focused on too much which again I'll address below.

Downsides however...
1. Really short and not very imaginative Story. Star Ocean fans will know it for its fun mix of Sci-fi and Fantasy along with long story that gives everyone time to grow. This game clocked me in at 22 hours and it felt a bit rushed. Story itself is good, but nothing you have not encountered before really using a lot of cliches.
2. Okay the combat problem! ESCORT MISSIONS! While the AI is not amazing you won't have to much of an issue until you hit one of these. With 7 members fights are a bit crazy and the enemies will rush your escorted target making it really hard to keep them up without a lot of micromanagement. Having to watch an intro scene before each of these fights coupled with that issues will piss anyone off. However, I still feel that these are only a few fights and the rest of the combat is solid.
3. Camera issues. These are not game breaking, but they might break your immersion. The game tries for a seamless mix between game world and story telling so you will just be kept in an area not able to leave while everyone talks and does whatever. This can be annoying and hard to get camera in place to watch/listen in an immersive manner. Sometimes you may miss things cause you are fighting to get things into place.

Overall I think that Star Ocean 5 is a Average JRPG. It has good and it has bad. I don't have any regrets about playing it, but it is definitely not the most memorable or genre defining entry in the star ocean series. If you are a Star Ocean fan you will enjoy the game. If you are a RPG fan and looking for something to spend time on then they're far worse games to choose, but also better ones out there! I hope this helps someone with their choice! Cheers!… Expand

Vanillabear

Jul 5, 2016

4

First of all this game is nowhere near a 10 and this is coming from a big fan of the series.

Nothing about this game is very special, the world is actually tiny (maybe 10 zones if i'm being generous) and the games length for me was 16 hours with 70% of side quests complete. There is little to no character development, Story is very rushed, Combat is extremely easy when you unlockFirst of all this game is nowhere near a 10 and this is coming from a big fan of the series.

Nothing about this game is very special, the world is actually tiny (maybe 10 zones if i'm being generous) and the games length for me was 16 hours with 70% of side quests complete.

There is little to no character development, Story is very rushed, Combat is extremely easy when you unlock something called "berserker" as all you have to do on hard is spam circle and the side quests are VERY uninspired.

Music is not memorable and the camera is your biggest enemy in the entire game with it's constant jolting and random zooming in and out, You can't do anything to stop this so be warned.

If you do take this bullet to the heart then i warn you to save often as it does crash when you use a certain item (Communicator)

Grab the game second hand and it will probably be worth it, Don't buy it at full price as it does NOT deliver as a jrpg.… Expand

Teddycrunsh3d

Jul 4, 2016

9

I am going to make it short, i will only list the good and bad parts of the game (spoiler free), so here we go:

+ very good and enjoyable combat(that`s totally addicting, at leats for me) + The PA`s are very funny at times, I enjoyed them very much + The Char. designe is superb (At least for my standards) + The Grafics are good, dispite it being realesed one year ago on the PS3 inI am going to make it short, i will only list the good and bad parts of the game (spoiler free), so here we go:

+ very good and enjoyable combat(that`s totally addicting, at leats for me)
+ The PA`s are very funny at times, I enjoyed them very much
+ The Char. designe is superb (At least for my standards)
+ The Grafics are good, dispite it being realesed one year ago on the PS3 in Japan
+ The role system gives you the oppertunity to costumise the behavior of your PM, ecsactly like you want it
+ The music is well written, and underlines the atmosphere of the current sinario and fits perfectly with the world, like in all the previous installlments
+ The oldschool leveling system where you gain exp, sp, and have to find/buy and use skill tomes to unlock skills is very rewarding and fun
+ Emotes!
+ Welch`s Laboratory/The creation system, easy to access and develop items
and last but not least
+the VO (Japanese/English) is allways on point, fits the Char. and gives the Char. live and makes them spritefull
and now the negative ons:
- The story could use some work, it`s not totally bad but very predictable/ boring at some points(It`s a SO game afterall)
- Some things that you have to do, like guarding a fellow Partymember while your attacked and some other annoyibg stuff
- Some repetativ Sideguests
- Some unfair area attack spaming, allmost to powerfull Bosses
Now onto the coclusion:
If you like oldschool JRPG`s like Final Fantasy, Tales of... and SO 1,2 and 3 this game is for you, because it takes old RPG Elements and mixes them with newschool stuff like real time combat, without transition between traversing and fighting. The game is not innovativ by any means, but not all games have to do that. It`s a fun and awesome experience. So give the game a chance besides what all the critics say.… Expand

AvantGuardian

Jul 10, 2016

7

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithfulness, "Faithfully" gives fans of the Star Ocean series the things they loved about the previous games while drastically improving upon the combat and leveling system. Star Ocean boasts an extremely original and phenomenally crafted leveling system, by which, in addition to gaining experience after battle, you gain "SP" which you use to spend on roles thatStar Ocean: Integrity and Faithfulness, "Faithfully" gives fans of the Star Ocean series the things they loved about the previous games while drastically improving upon the combat and leveling system. Star Ocean boasts an extremely original and phenomenally crafted leveling system, by which, in addition to gaining experience after battle, you gain "SP" which you use to spend on roles that you can upgrade and assign to each character. The roles, of which each character can have 4, determine what they do in battle as AI when not controlling them, and gives them stat boosts as you upgrade the roles. So technically, with this system, there is no limit to the customization and how strong you can get. You can also Min-Max, and become and incredibly powerful glass cannon, which is rare, and cool for an JRPG.

Pros:
•Fun and colorful cast of characters including a perfect girly, a gorgeous girly, and a super cutie who has a huge crush on the protagonist.
•Amazingly fluid and innovative combat and leveling system
•Classic Star Ocean Planet/Space story with a combination of fantastical magic and super advanced space technology
•A unique style of cutscene more retro than new, but allows for some really well-written dialogue. It feels sort of Star-Trek-esque the way the space ship cutscenes are handled. It's rather neat.

Cons:
Very short - about 18-24 hours playthrough, depending on how much side questing you do, which you really needn't bother as all they offer is items to make you stronger and you can get plenty strong without them.
Unoriginal Story, and rather lame one at that - Plot revolves around a very young girl with incredible lab-created powers and a long game of cat and mouse protecting and rescuing her over and over again.
I feel this game would have much better reviews if they had a better storyline. That being said, almost every other aspect of the game was certainly up to par with both Star Ocean, and other JRPG series.
•Minor annoyances such as inability to skip cutscenes, a worthless crafting system compared to The end of Time, 3 protect-based battles which were absurdly difficult to the point of calling Square Enix and complaining, and instant game over screens that leave you wondering WTF happened.

Overall:
Worth playing for sure. Why not?… Expand

thaesino

Nov 16, 2016

9

I'm not going to get involved in the petty arguments that come with social media these days, so I'll say this:

If you really love the Star Ocean series but aren't a fan, disregard this game. If you are a huge fan of the Star Ocean series, play this game but wait until its price drops to $39.99 If you love the Tales series, you may actually find that this is the first Star Ocean to beI'm not going to get involved in the petty arguments that come with social media these days, so I'll say this:

If you really love the Star Ocean series but aren't a fan, disregard this game.
If you are a huge fan of the Star Ocean series, play this game but wait until its price drops to $39.99
If you love the Tales series, you may actually find that this is the first Star Ocean to be more like Tales than Star Ocean... the art style won't look it, but the battle system is similar (sort of), and the humor of the conversations is right up there with Tales of Vesperia's funnier moments.

What can I say? I'm not a big fan of the majority of JRPGs heavy on fan service, so I'm quite surprised by this one and do not believe, as some say, that this is the "nail in the coffin" for the SO series.… Expand

mikehettfield

Mar 11, 2017

7

I'm not fan of space plots, but this game is so beautiful, a little too anime for my taste but the music is so epic that made me bought this game and i dont regret it, combat is so fluid, and its a real rpg in every sense. great value if you used to like golden era of JRPGs on ps1.

Rpgwalker

Jul 1, 2016

8

It is a good rpg but it could be better. It reminds me so much of SO Last Hope so im pleased with its familiar type of gameplay but suffer technical issues during cut scenes, i hope it get fixed.

Tenoko1

Jul 17, 2016

10

Was so glad when this game came out, and in playing it, immediately saw where they had fixed things that were such a problem in the last game, like Item Creation is so much easier and available to do anywhere, like in the first two games of the series. Battle is fun, and you can switch seamlessly between characters mid-fight. Lots of side quests and things to do aside from the mainWas so glad when this game came out, and in playing it, immediately saw where they had fixed things that were such a problem in the last game, like Item Creation is so much easier and available to do anywhere, like in the first two games of the series. Battle is fun, and you can switch seamlessly between characters mid-fight. Lots of side quests and things to do aside from the main storyline, but all of it is optional, yet adds to the experience. Really enjoyed this game.… Expand

Dubeau

Apr 6, 2018

4

SOIF is a cheap rpg game. I say cheap because it is truffle with bad decisions and lower production value everywhere. The overall UI is good. The crafting is average and almost useless. The fighting is rather decent when it is done in sufficient spaces. There is a flagrant problem with the vertical shaky camera when exploring. The save point are just so badly place. The story does theSOIF is a cheap rpg game. I say cheap because it is truffle with bad decisions and lower production value everywhere. The overall UI is good. The crafting is average and almost useless. The fighting is rather decent when it is done in sufficient spaces. There is a flagrant problem with the vertical shaky camera when exploring. The save point are just so badly place. The story does the space scenes with tactical jargon and conversations. they are long and horrible to watch. So forget any planets exploration, space scenes. All the villains are ridiculous in appearance and dubbed with atrocious voice overs. The missions where you have to protect Anne or anyone, don't work well. Most of the time you have to fight the camera position in fights. It swings widely and you loose the view on your character. The story itself is devoid of emotions because of the robotic facial animations. There is very little positive to go on about this RPG. The main characters have good voice, the mechanics behind the game is present and working. But is it worth the frustrations ? I give it a 45%...and I feel generous because I am in denial of having payed 40$ for this cr...… Expand

Ikshot

Aug 24, 2016

0

Return me my money for this alpha-5 "game" with absense of checkpoints (thats ok for StarOcean thou), with sparsely placed SavePoints which are blocked at times when they are needed the most, absense of balance, impossible difficulty spikes (like soldiers dying from 2 hits and then boss 100 times stronger who wipe the floors with you in 10 seconds and have incredibly long life), the needReturn me my money for this alpha-5 "game" with absense of checkpoints (thats ok for StarOcean thou), with sparsely placed SavePoints which are blocked at times when they are needed the most, absense of balance, impossible difficulty spikes (like soldiers dying from 2 hits and then boss 100 times stronger who wipe the floors with you in 10 seconds and have incredibly long life), the need to protect particular character, absolutely dumb story and characters for which you don't care at all. Previous StarOcean was good as much as this one is bad.… Expand

ndub317

Jun 30, 2016

0

Oh dear god I want to like this game I spent the full 60 dollars but I don't. Don't give a **** about the characters. the environment is pointless dead hollow world. music is lame. battle is lame. I'm 5 hours in game I'll try to make it but I might not care what happens at the end. SE is no longer the big boy in rpg. SE I hope you don't fail Final fantasy 15. If you do then ill wait tillOh dear god I want to like this game I spent the full 60 dollars but I don't. Don't give a **** about the characters. the environment is pointless dead hollow world. music is lame. battle is lame. I'm 5 hours in game I'll try to make it but I might not care what happens at the end. SE is no longer the big boy in rpg. SE I hope you don't fail Final fantasy 15. If you do then ill wait till P5 because I know that game would be good. never played a bad Atlas game and I don't want to wait till Feb 2017 to play a good jrpg.… Expand

super_dude_m

Jun 28, 2016

8

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. So far has been pretty great, though I have been playing the game like a Star Ocean game. That means back tracking, seeking battles and resources, grinding, and those PA's that make the game (Victor doesn't like spinach). Really at this point I have really only mover the story forward to get characters so I can go back to each town and environment to find the PA's. I can't tell if the "Star Ocean fans" here forgot how to play the game or what but this game is meant to be taken slow. Npcs change how they talk after events, PA's appear in places they weren't before after events as well. If that doesn't interest you, maybe skip? Either way I am loving this game so far.… Expand

TatankaSamoyed

Jun 29, 2016

0

First, I want to preface this review by pointing out that some BS 5 star reviews on Amazon have inflated the ranking. In the past developers/publishers have been caught doing this,recently and famously Harmonix employees doing this on Rock Band. When a 5-star review says "Great products [sic]," it makes you wonder if someone from the Asian office wrote that. Another 5-star reviewFirst, I want to preface this review by pointing out that some BS 5 star reviews on Amazon have inflated the ranking. In the past developers/publishers have been caught doing this,recently and famously Harmonix employees doing this on Rock Band. When a 5-star review says "Great products [sic]," it makes you wonder if someone from the Asian office wrote that. Another 5-star review claimed that it was great and skipped over boring tutorials. The game starts with a tutorial. Let me proceed to my review.

This entry marks a big step backwards. Star Ocean IV wanted you to understand its story as well as the motivations of the characters in it. By contrast this "reboot" throws you in the game and does very little to introduce the characters or make you like them. The totally pathetic voice-acting would undermine the story, but that's not really possible. That's because the story seems as if it was written for an audience in the range of 6-10 year old kids. So there's not much to undermine. Speaking of voice-acting, Star Ocean IV was often criticized for having cheesy English voiceovers. I played both versions (360 and PS3), and the Japanese voiceovers were just as cheesy as the English. The voice-acting was definitely superior in Star Ocean IV, where the actors (English and Japanese) had good voice-direction and clearly gave their readings the gravitas or frivolity where required. Star Ocean, by contrast, does a very poor job in voice-acting. The lines are either delivered flat or over-the-top cartoony. Not all cheese is created equally, but Star Ocean serve up bad, bad cheese in voice-acting.

In place of the long cut-scenes of the previous entry, the new Star Ocean has the characters deliver a lot of dialogue on the field. This also would undermine the story since it becomes very uncinematic and hard to follow. It all ends up being drivel so there's no real need to pay attention anyway. Nothing of interest is said by the main characters. Towns are oddly silent since the routine NPCs only speak in cartoon bubbles. This is part of the genre that needs improvement. Star Ocean clearly has no ambitions in improving anything.

Save points are annoying. They are few and far-between. This is another feature that needs to be removed from the genre. Some games already have like some of the recent Tales games. But Star Ocean somehow manages to take a huge step backward. Sometimes an in-game(!) cutscene will trigger right in front of a save point. But you have to wait for the cutscene to end before you can save. That's not only lame, but almost disrespectful of gamers' time.

Graphically, the game does not really deliver. Yes, it is prettier than Star Ocean IV, but only because it is using higher resolution textures. That's it. Meshes of characters and environments don't seem to be remarkably improved. It gave me the impression that the game started off in production for the PS3, then switched to PS4. Animation isn't great. Movement on the field is jerky for some reason. When it switches to prerendered cut-scenes, short as some are, there is noticeable difference in rendering. They don't quite match up.
Additionally, beyond the aforementioned annoying and apparently for some nausea-inducing movement, all characters in the game are apparently ghosts. There's no collision-detection for characters, meaning you run right through them. This will occur frequently, and every time it happens, Fidel goes "Pardon me." This kind of shoddy programming and production values seems to be the hallmark of Star Ocean.

There's nothing in combat that's remarkably better than Star Ocean IV. If anything, I miss the traditional splash screen with a summary and characters saying something silly. I keep hearing the same two lines after combat, and it's get old and annoying really fast.

I am left with the impression that the developers of Star Ocean had a vastly smaller budget than Star Ocean IV. The game is not a step forwards, but a tremendous step backwards. Wait for the price to shrink. It shouldn't take long for this one to hit the bargain bin pricing. This game is priced at launch as if it were a triple A title. Past entries certainly were. The present entry is not. It plays like a budget JPRG slapped with the Star Ocean brand and using, as another reviewer pointed out, assets from past games.… Expand

Sopheriah

Jul 3, 2016

6

Ok so far I loved the previous star ocean , but this one is horrible you dont get any feelings for the characters whatsoever , and then one moment your plowing trough mobs and bosses easy mode and then they imply a mechanic where either your healer is gone and/or you gotta protect someone who seems to have the defense of a piece of paper , causing you to have to grind mobs and then youOk so far I loved the previous star ocean , but this one is horrible you dont get any feelings for the characters whatsoever , and then one moment your plowing trough mobs and bosses easy mode and then they imply a mechanic where either your healer is gone and/or you gotta protect someone who seems to have the defense of a piece of paper , causing you to have to grind mobs and then you still need luck on your side to make it trough.I really wish they hadnt put that in the game , sometimes all your toons will just stack together and then the boss will hit you with a half field wide aoe attack which causes everyone to die.Story wise its not really anything that hasnt been done before I really think they could have made alot more out of those game cause the battle system is pretty good and in some ways reminds me off tales of games in the way off executing a huge damage attack but to be honest half the time I was pretty bored moving from the cabin to the wall and back again.… Expand

Elnidfse

Jul 5, 2016

9

I'm going to make this as short as possible. If there is any review you read in reference to buying this game, let it be this one.
To start let me put this out there, this game has been criminally underrated as editors harp on each other based on the first review. It's criminal that this game isn't as acclaimed as it should be. Now let's get to it.
+ Graphics If people can praiseI'm going to make this as short as possible. If there is any review you read in reference to buying this game, let it be this one.
To start let me put this out there, this game has been criminally underrated as editors harp on each other based on the first review. It's criminal that this game isn't as acclaimed as it should be. Now let's get to it.

+ Graphics
If people can praise Zesteria, they can praise this game for appearance. The spell animations are convincingly impactful, the super attacks each character can use are suitably flashy, and they don't break the visual representation of the rest of the games in the series. From a visual point of view, this is down. It looks well and it feels well

+ Sound
Overall it sounds great. It uses the same sound effects that have become the tri-ace standard. It sounds nice and fits well with the series. Attacks are noticeably impactful and no expense was spared from the things like a sword being unsheathed to the sounds of footsteps across the various types of lands you traverse all of these sounds are using the established standard.

+ Voice acting.
While there may be a miss with casting, the english Dub of the game is exceptional, to the point that I find myself preferring this. Reviewers who call this a miss clearly are taken aback that everybody doesn't speak with an english accent.

+ Gameplay
Combat is decided in a rock, paper, scissors sort of deal with you deciding which attacks out of light and strong (or guarding) you need to do which can be adjusted on reaction. On the standard difficulty you can play as you will knowing that you won't be at the mercy of certain doom if you don't adhere too strongly to it. Switching between members can happen on the fly so it's never hard to swap up tactics in the middle of the fray to suit your playstyle or needs

+AI
The AI system is far less cryptic than it was in 3 and less nonexistent as it was in 4 (as in the AI played itself). 5 uses a system sort of like gambits in Final Fantasy 12 which can achieve specific functionality as you could adjust in the AI of Star Ocean 2. That said, configuring uses roles, of which there is both too many and not enough, so it will take some playtime to tune your party just how you like it, whether it's having a more strategic set of partners that reserve their skills for when you need them most, or berserkers, who forgo defense and won't stop attacking until the enemy dies or they do.

+ Characters
They respond well together. Most of the characters never stray from their defining traits and the typical angst seen in playing as young adult protagonists is never exemplified. That is to say, characters aren't nonsensically ditzy while fighting (and even have melancholic revelations about the atrocities of war) and instead have strong grounded personalities. They behave rather natural to who they are, and that's something I can appreciate in a game today when the market is oversaturated with protagonists playing catch with the idiot ball, you know the sort who's own stubbornness and belief in the "power of friendship" go against their own self preservation.

= Story
This is where we get to the crux of the issue. The story isn't standard to the point that it's always completely predictable, and indeed outside of a certain event, you will generally never quite figure out how things are going, it doesn't take nonsensical twists. If you play the "x is going to betray or die" game you will be sorely mistaken. This is a strength however it could be seen as a negative. As the story is rather straightforward the closer you get to the end players used to a more "choose your own adventure" style of gaming that's popular these days may feel constrained when they play a traditional RPG experience.

- Quests
There is a lot of backtracking. If you played Star Ocean 1 (and maybe a little bit of 2) you have an idea of the backtracking you have ahead of you. However you have no clue the sheer magnitude the amount of backtracking you'll be suffering through. While this is a vehicle for the combat, as enemies periodically as you progress get stronger in previous areas, it does at some points feel a chore as you do side quests to unlock specialties for crafting and item drop rate and the like. That said, as many of these quests overlap in zones you visit anyways, hanging on to them and doing them as they come by is as strategy to mitigate the tedium and the players frustration. Still a solid minus

Ah and lastly:
+ Fan service
To avoid giving spoilers I'll make this brief. Familiarity with the series will pay off, mostly with 3 than the rest of the series. If you remember how the games sounded and what moves bosses used, you'll be able to appreciate all this game offers as you play it

And that's all there is to say about the game. A really solid entry to the series and an example of what JRPGs could be in reference to presentation. A really good game, made for it's fans.… Expand

Ryskim

Jul 1, 2016

7

I will give SO5 a 7. It its pretty low considering it comes from an all-time Star Ocean fan. The game pretty much fails at character design. Camera movement is quite frustrating at times but other than that I don't see any other problem with it. It's kinda short, not may hours of gameplay and considering there will be no DLC we could basically say this is all we'll get. Weapons and armorsI will give SO5 a 7. It its pretty low considering it comes from an all-time Star Ocean fan. The game pretty much fails at character design. Camera movement is quite frustrating at times but other than that I don't see any other problem with it. It's kinda short, not may hours of gameplay and considering there will be no DLC we could basically say this is all we'll get. Weapons and armors are not visually shown, you only see them in the menus, that's a nother big fail. Personally would've liked a more adult-looking game. Can't control other characters outside battle. And last but not least, transitions could be better (entering houses, etc...). I spent 60 hours in Star Ocean 2. They say Star Ocean 3 is the best one so far. I guess it will stay that way.… Expand

g8mrecon59

Jan 10, 2020

0

The game at first is really nice but then you get to the part where you have to protect Anne. This is the most retarded **** in the game. The programmers are dumb as **** on this part and the reason I get pissed is because I bought the piece of **** So now to pass the desert part protecting her as hordes of soldiers the programmers configured to only attack her because they're totalThe game at first is really nice but then you get to the part where you have to protect Anne. This is the most retarded **** in the game. The programmers are dumb as **** on this part and the reason I get pissed is because I bought the piece of **** So now to pass the desert part protecting her as hordes of soldiers the programmers configured to only attack her because they're total ****ing morons is grind it out. You will not beat this part unless you are seriously ovet leveled. This alone makes this game a total ****ing failure. My team is already super over leveled. I've followed the tips and only one person was honest saying they over leveled. I'm not going to waste any more of my time on this piece of **** with amazing graphics.… Expand

XiolaJin73

Jul 1, 2016

7

This game had a real old school feel to it...it's like an updated Star Ocean 3. (Just not a real hard creation system) I would give it a 70. Battle system is good, even though its a downgrade from previous SO's I like the creation systems and I like that they didn't over-do the graphics. Now I know that sounds weird in a time where games are being made to look as real as possible, but youThis game had a real old school feel to it...it's like an updated Star Ocean 3. (Just not a real hard creation system) I would give it a 70. Battle system is good, even though its a downgrade from previous SO's I like the creation systems and I like that they didn't over-do the graphics. Now I know that sounds weird in a time where games are being made to look as real as possible, but you need graphics like this for a Star Ocean game. This game is a real grinder, the good thing is you make a lot of Fol and rake up the items. Not a surprise that the mighty Game Informer gave it a 5, they just LOOOOOOOVE JRPG's, then again, it's the same magazine that gave Fallout 4 a 9! Again, I give this game a 7/10. I'm really enjoying this game. Not the hardest or most interesting game on the block, but there is enough here to make me smile while playing it!!… Expand

EdBaker

Jul 3, 2016

3

I am a huge fan of the star ocean franchise, while slightly disappointed in the last entry I still enjoyed it and hoped this newest title would be a return to form. Unfortunately this half assed production is the final nail in the coffin for me.

Lets go down the list. From the very beginning you'll notice star ocean's lack of traditional cutscenes, instead opting for a system whereI am a huge fan of the star ocean franchise, while slightly disappointed in the last entry I still enjoyed it and hoped this newest title would be a return to form. Unfortunately this half assed production is the final nail in the coffin for me.

Lets go down the list.

From the very beginning you'll notice star ocean's lack of traditional cutscenes, instead opting for a system where the player can still move around while characters talk around him. While I understand the need to try to innovate here, all this does is create problems. The worst problem by far is that you cannot skip any dialogue, which you will want to do rather quickly after subjecting yourself to the poor english voice acting, thankfully the game includes japanese voiceovers to help mitigate this.

The second problem is this third person perspective during "cutscenes" makes it impossible to see any details on anyone's face, which kills any sense of immersion. Often times your protagonist will be facing the wrong direction while people talk to him, and the animations become disjointed during the dialogue. I assume the traditional camera cutscenes were removed in order to hide the ugly character models, as the squinty gnome like faces are a stark contrast to the bright wide eyed traditional anime style.

Next the combat system, in the very first tutorial battle this combat system shows some promise. The rock paper scissors design of light attacks, heavy attacks and counter attacks seems flawless on paper, and in this tutorial battle seems to work very well giving this that simple but difficult to master feel. However it takes very few battles to realize that in the chaos of combat you can hardly see what the hell is going on with all the spell effects monsters and party members flying around. The camera flies around zooming in and out, often obscuring vision of the character you're controlling, and attack animations all feel sluggish and unresponsive.

The combat in this game eventually devolves into a situation where you spam your heavy attack assigned combat skill until the battles end, since you only ever get punished for when they block light attacks. There is no challenge whatsoever to encounters as the enemies eventually just feel like damage sponges. While this system is similar to the mechanics of older star ocean titles, it presents no challenge whatsoever nor any motivation to master the system in place. While other JRPG franchises have expanded their combat systems, this step backwards in design is a huge failing. In the older generation of JRPG's dominated with turn based combat it worked, but in a world with incredible fighting mechanics like the "Tales of " series this combat is brain-dead and lifeless in comparison.

Finally even the story cannot save this game. Classic star ocean titles have always mixed the sci fi and fantasy genre, some more successful than others. Star Ocean 5 puts a spin on the classic formula of having the protagonist stranded on a unknown fantasy world, and instead puts you in the shoes of an inhabitant of these fantasy worlds being manipulated by unknown enemies with advanced technology. While an interesting set up the story is muddied by it's fast pace, which has you backtracking between a handful of locations. For example when i was told to head to the front lines of the war i expected this to be the beginning of a journey as most fantasy rpg's do where you get to learn about the world and your companions, as you visit the different locations and meet people, but here you just walk west for 10 seconds of a map you've explored three times already.

The game takes no risks with its character and game elements either. It has a protagonist swordsman, childhood friend magic user, little girl who's attached to the protagonist, busty witch magic user, and more uninteresting archetypes who try to capture your nostalgia. It even has the "free time" mechanic in which you and your party members split up in town allowing you to interact with them individually to learn more about them. However these interactions take the form of dialogue bubbles over their heads with no emotional impact, from a third person view, no facial expressions, nothing just blurbs of text over their heads. The nostalgic elements of this game only serve to remind me that Tri Ace can do better.

The best thing i can say about this game is that it is playable, unless the third person camera's constant stuttering makes you motion sick. How they have the gall to charge $60 for their 20-30 hour campaign when other titles in this space generally run about 40-60 is a testament to the kind of game this is, one focused on taxing fans of the franchise while putting in as little work as possible.

Compared to other games in the genre Star Ocean V is well below average and completely shatters any faith i had for the studio to create a premium JRPG experience. At it's very best it simply exists to help you scratch an itch, a true bargain bin title.… Expand

Werchiel

Jul 11, 2016

5

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I can't really call myself a fan of the series but I did play my share of it - I really liked the third one - Star Ocean Till The End Of Time despite it's flaws. On the other hand I absolutely hated Star Ocean Last Hope with a seething passion - the characters the voice acting - they just ruined the game for me despite the fact that I wasn't blind to some things that the game did correct - altough it didn't matter faced with my constant anger towards most of the cast.

Now that we have this out of the way I am happy to inform - this game is better that Star Ocean 4 in most regards but still not as enjoyable as Star Ocean 3.
I did like the characters - most of the cast even if not written perfectly are enjoyable to watch and if there is anything that really hurts them is the fact that there was not enough time for them to develop. They don't really change throughout the course of the game and some scenes that SHOULD have that effect on them - just don't. And while we're at it - they don't have an effect on the player as well.

Now what we need is an example - examples are good. And here's where we go into the spoiler territory. So let's roll with the character of our protagonist's father. He is being build up from the very beginning as the typical badass character - he is strong, he is smug and he is the one last thing that can defend the kingdom - training the royal army and leading them to battle... well - the usual stuff you know. But quite literally the only thing that this character in the course of the story is get himself killed randomly. I'm not even overstating this - he did not draw his sword even a single time throughout the game. Okay now game developers - here is a free tip. If you want to establish that character A is badass - show us character A in action. Show us like he's cleaving through enemies or maybe his tactical prowess or even at least how he's training soldiers. But no - we get nothing, he just gives a few words of advice, issues a couple orders and shares a single "bonding" moment with his son before dying.
It might seem like I'm harping on this one thing but not too long ago I played a game that also established a character in a simmilar fashion - that was Trails of Cold Steel and the Radiant Blademaster - only Trails did this thing exactly as it should be done. I won't tell you how since some may consider it spoilers but trust me - it was awesome there.

Now we have to talk about combat. Oh boy the combat. It looks great - skills are very cool loking and flashy and you can feel the power behind them. There is just one issue I have with this game and it's all the more irritating since I believe it could have been easily fixed with more time since it stems from the lack of balance. Our protagonist's starting skill is called Double Slash. And you use double slash for 5 hours. For 10 hours. For 15 hours. And then you beat the final boss with it. I'm pretty sure I got all the skills in the game (last one was from the last dungeon called Air Raid and again even though it looks really cool - it's weaker than double slash) and none would even compare. Even if a skill would do more damage total - it's animation was way too long and Double Slash simply provides higher DPS. So very early in the game I figured the master strategy is co chain Double Slash indefinetly (well until 200% charge and then just repeat) IN EVERY FIGHT. Bosses included. I was playing on medium difficulty and it was just ridiculous. Especially since like in every other Star Ocean game crafting is just silly. If you just spend some time (not even that much really) putting a little effort into your crafter items they will quickly get just straight up OP. With a combination of craft/berserker and some other stuff I could easily one-shot regular mobs. Even minibosses would die and I would only notice this later on after checking inventory. Our damage output is just insane and you can achieve it with around 1 hour worth of crafting and simply spamming one button in combat. It is quite cool to have all the characters participate however.

The game is also painfuly short - 20 hours for me and I had spent time on crafting and had around 50% sidequests done. I say sidequests but they are simple fetch quests and they are just annoying since you run back and forth between the same locations. And there aren't even that many locations - the number of locations is just pathethic when you compare it to any other jRPG and filling the world with nonsense fetch quests is the most lazy way of trying to add game time.

Since I play a lot of old games all the time I am usually very lenient when it comes to graphics but even I could say that watching the water made me think even world of warcraft has better water effects. Character models however are pretty good and so is the music - maybe not my favourite soundtrack of all-time but it gets the job done.

All in all I am really dissapointed in this game but I still had some fun playing it.… Expand

TsukasaHiiragi

Jun 28, 2016

4

Strictly for SO fans only, even the fans will have to try really hard to like Integrity and Faithlessness, the entire game feels rushed, and feels like Squeenix axed a huge chunk of the game because its short, really short- overall, its disappointing.

Darkbond007

Jun 29, 2016

10

It's really a fun game with lots of fun aspects and really good graphics. It's a tad on the short side but that encouraged me to play through the story multiple times for different character endings. I liked the crafting in this game and the learning curve was just about right. I really wish they would just port SO3 and 4 to the ps4 also but this will keep me going for quite sometime.

KimCheeWarrior

Jul 3, 2016

9

first of all, get over the lack of capitilization and other nuisances. im not writing an essay so if you seriously cant read this review because of this then go elsewhere, fair warning. ive read many reviews here and have to agree that this game hails back to a simpler time of jrpg. no im not talking about western rpgs, im talking about rpgs that have the heart of the land of the risingfirst of all, get over the lack of capitilization and other nuisances. im not writing an essay so if you seriously cant read this review because of this then go elsewhere, fair warning. ive read many reviews here and have to agree that this game hails back to a simpler time of jrpg. no im not talking about western rpgs, im talking about rpgs that have the heart of the land of the rising sun. this is a different star ocean but at the same time the same. many presentation factors have been changed as well as pace and character development. as for predictability, most 80's movies i watched as a kid entertained me thoroughly despite the story being predictable. just because a story might be predictable doesnt mean its bad if its done right. theres just something about this game that just draws you in and never lets go. no, its not the best star ocean but id say its around the second best but one thing is for sure, its the best jrpg that ive played in years, final fantasy and other various tales games included. its easy on the eyes, a good enough story, well enough pacing and a proper wow factor for the star trekie geek out that is starships and space travel. dont understand all the hate there is for this game unless youre a youngin that never played old school. it doesnt try to cater to the mainstream and it does so with its unapologetically "love it or leave it" presentation. i scoured various reviews before buying this but then so did i with star ocean 4 (the 360 version) and still love d it as well as 5. even with the previous gen aspect of the game's production looming overhead, the game still feels like the first true next gen jrpg. dont get me wrong, jrpgs like neptunia vii and zestiria were good enough, just not great like this. maybe me being older and more patient than most younger gamers has something to do with my score but this game is "a-okay" in my book. well worth the $60 price tag. i stopped reading too much into game review scores for games in this genre long ago because at some point i realized that my tastes are a bit different than most modern day professional game reviewers.… Expand

fallouts

Jul 1, 2016

2

This is a very low grade JRPG from an industry that has failed to innovate. The writing and character development is juvenile and lacking when compared to games like Witcher 3 and Dragon Age. The game play is a complete joke compared to games that offer tons of choices and open ended approach to situations like Divinity the original sin. The graphics are nice so it gets a 2 in that area.This is a very low grade JRPG from an industry that has failed to innovate. The writing and character development is juvenile and lacking when compared to games like Witcher 3 and Dragon Age. The game play is a complete joke compared to games that offer tons of choices and open ended approach to situations like Divinity the original sin. The graphics are nice so it gets a 2 in that area. Skip this and save your 60 bucks.

Note: Please hit my username and see my other reviews and like if you find them useful.… Expand

Brandon_Harris

Jul 3, 2016

2

I played through this game and simply asked myself, "Why did they do this?" There's just too many poor decisions from the developers of this title that really made me shake my head in disgust.

I've played through Star Ocean since its second game. This game runs well on my PS4. I didn't observe any dips in my framerate. Cut scenes in this game mostly occur while you're in control of yourI played through this game and simply asked myself, "Why did they do this?" There's just too many poor decisions from the developers of this title that really made me shake my head in disgust.

I've played through Star Ocean since its second game. This game runs well on my PS4. I didn't observe any dips in my framerate. Cut scenes in this game mostly occur while you're in control of your character, kind of like a third-person version of Half-Life 2.

One shortcoming is that the game is just too short. It's not like a typical JRPG. Sometimes, I'd have my characters level up 10 times within a single dungeon. The storyline is very short, being only 20 hours. It's approximate to the length of The Last Story for the Wii, if you've played that title.

Due to all battles occurring in the open world, the camera does have issues in certain places, somewhat like in Tales of Zestiria. The save points are acceptable in number, but they become locked during cut scenes. This is bad because there are instances where there's a boss, then a lengthy cut scene, then another boss, and you won't be able to save your game even though you see the save point.

Compared to the previous title, this world is extremely linear. There is a fast travel system, but it's unlocked near the ending of the game. It's sad because there are plenty of side quests with optional mini-boss enemies, but it becomes annoying to run through the areas you previously visited to get there. Before you unlock fast travel, it's annoying because you may need to go through 4 or 5 maps to get from one city to another. There is an item creation system, but if the town you're in doesn't have the item you need, you'll need to spend a while going across the world to get to the city selling that item.

There are "private actions", which are optional cut scenes where you can observe the protagonists interacting with each other. They're handled abysmally, with most of them not even being relevant to the story. There are about 300 - 400 private actions, and you need to run in and out of a building to unlock them because only one or two will show up at a time. Can you imagine running in and out of a building hundreds of times? One of the private actions had one character, standing alone, simply uttering the word, "kitty". Compared to the previous title, private actions are handled horribly. The previous title had only a dozen private actions, but each one there was actually a complete 5 - 10 minute cut scene that would be extremely relevant to the plot.

People were very disappointed by this title, myself included. Often I see on message boards, "How far am I? I'm on the first planet," to which people would sadly respond, "There's only one planet", which is disappointing for a science fiction series of this calibre.

The new game plus feature also could've been better. There are lore entries that are interesting to read, and the game records all enemies and items into the menus for you. But, although those records are kept when you make a new game, you need to pretty much collect everything else again. This title would've benefitted if they borrowed ideas on how the Tales series implemented the new game plus feature. Since most cut scenes are done while in control of your character, you'll have to spend hours waiting on scenes you've already seen if you want to replay the game. I would've liked to play the game on the hardest difficulty immediately, rather than having to go through two complete playthroughs just to unlock the hardest difficulty.

There are several escort missions in the game, where you'll instantly lose and be forced to reload your save if one particular character dies. It becomes very frustrating because all of the enemies will instantly only target that one particular character and you'll be forced to find ways to "break" the game. Often you'll find minibosses during these escort sequences. This game actually has difficult/long boss battles, but very easy regular battles, somewhat like in the game Arc Rise Fantasia. It's just poor game design. You'll see random difficulty spikes throughout the game because of it and often you'll need to look up information online to find a way to beat the game.

If you're a fan of JRPGs and the Star Ocean franchise, buy it when it goes down in price. At first I thought all the hate was unwarranted, but even as I played through the game I felt bored, to the point where I'd bring my laptop and watch a show while running through an old dungeon again to get to the city due to no fast travel for the majority of the game.

Looking ahead, it seems this title confirmed that both the Star Ocean and the Valkyrie Profile series are dead. To be fair, Star Ocean was pretty much dead from its fourth game's poor reception anyways. It's an utter shame, since the majority of the JRPG IP's from my youth have been laid to rest. Another one bites the dust.… Expand

SNESStarter

Jul 1, 2016

0

This game is without a doubt this most disappointing effort in 2016. The environments are absolutely terrible with no soul. the music sounds like it was made with budget composers, the characters are lifeless and the battle system is a travesty.

This once great franchise is great no more.

sjc1279

Jun 28, 2016

10

I just bought this game from GAmestop. It has great graphics, Battle System, Characters and Voice Acting. I"m not too far in so I can't say about the story.

Okamisen

Jul 1, 2016

7

Получил код немного заранее и уже достаточно сильно игру попробовал.

Для начала - это явно не шедевр т.к. игру делал весьма молодой директор хоть и при поддержке весьма и весьма уважаемого разработчика. Многое у них явно не получилось многое пришлось выкинуть, однако для опытного геймера это не является проблемой - все же главной вещью в любой игре является атмосфера. Арт и персонажиПолучил код немного заранее и уже достаточно сильно игру попробовал.

Для начала - это явно не шедевр т.к. игру делал весьма молодой директор хоть и при поддержке весьма и весьма уважаемого разработчика. Многое у них явно не получилось многое пришлось выкинуть, однако для опытного геймера это не является проблемой - все же главной вещью в любой игре является атмосфера.

Арт и персонажи на отлично - все выполнено прекрасно и персонажи выглядят с одной стороны не так уж далеко от своих старых вариаций но при этом количество деталей костюма сильно по прибавилось. Средне можно сказать о окружении - много всяких зон но мало заполнения. Монстры разнообразны но вот третий раз один и тот же босс в соборе - расстроил.

Боевая система заслуживает высокую оценку - все тото же баланс на уровне "держать все в руках и управлять оркестром в одно лицо", только теперь ещё и вфигачили систему взаимного разрушения блока, сильной атаки и слабой атаки + вернули систему отмена анимаций. Камера разве что не много шалит но это так же не особенно беда.

Наибольшая инновация - отсутствие большого количества кат сцен - вместо этого имеем разговоры на ходу + быстрые ивенты.

История пока для меня не раскрылась но судя по тому что видно - стандарт с небольшим плюсом в сторону взросления. Все же даже главному герою тут 23, а не обычные 18.

В общем игра стоит своей небольшой суммы но придется закрыть глаза на ряд недостатков. Если хотите олдскульную JRPG под новым соусом - обязательно зацените.… Expand

Melopahn

Jul 2, 2016

1

Do Not purchase this game for more than $20.

Easily the shortest JRPG I've ever encountered, if you count the revisitable screens its 11, towns is 3, there are like 2 or 3 dungeons that you only get to be in while you are in that part of the story. The majority of the main story could be accomplished in 10 hours less if you could skip the boring cutscenes. They do an entire spaceDo Not purchase this game for more than $20.

Easily the shortest JRPG I've ever encountered, if you count the revisitable screens its 11, towns is 3, there are like 2 or 3 dungeons that you only get to be in while you are in that part of the story. The majority of the main story could be accomplished in 10 hours less if you could skip the boring cutscenes. They do an entire space battle through the cunning use of dialogue.
"Fire torpedoes, we've taken down the enemy." I hope you enjoyed your amazing space battle that visually was a wall of a ship."

This alone makes it the worst star ocean game ive ever played, the worst JRPG ive ever played, and the worst PS4 game. You couldn't **** animate a space battle for us to watch... really? **** REALLY? why do i sit in a **** room doing nothing, where is my space battle this is star **** ocean.

The game never gets any better, ever. Honestly they should be hung for making and releasing this game.… Expand

tensa2341

Jul 6, 2016

6

It's a very substantial game. With its varied characters, atmosphere, graphics, and it's real-time hack/slash gameplay. The problem with the game though is that it's a very underwhelming experience as the world that Fidel, Miki, or whoever lives in it feels dull in comparison to some other games like the Tales of series.

Pros: -Gameplay is fluid and fast -Enough content to be distractIt's a very substantial game. With its varied characters, atmosphere, graphics, and it's real-time hack/slash gameplay. The problem with the game though is that it's a very underwhelming experience as the world that Fidel, Miki, or whoever lives in it feels dull in comparison to some other games like the Tales of series.

Pros:
-Gameplay is fluid and fast
-Enough content to be distract from
-Characters and voice acting is great
Cons:
-The world is so dull
-Pretty short for a JRPG (20-30 Hours)
-After a few hours, you are getting pretty much what the game offers

Now the question is " How can I keep playing this game if it doesn't have much to offer?". There are two answers for that. Either you play for its story ( Which is actually pretty interesting ) or you play for just the enjoyment ( Which it also is ). I'd say wait till the game drops in price like 20-30 bucks. It'll be worth that much after.… Expand

SexyTractorDsco

Nov 20, 2018

9

Way better than people make it out to be. I'd argue it surpasses a lot of recent 'Tales Of' games in terms of quality too. very much worth checking out. Especially now considering you can pick it up for cheap almost anywhere.

megamega

Sep 27, 2016

10

SHUT UP. This game is amazing graphics, gameplay, characters and story wow 6.5 it doesnt deserve these crabby scores. i cant believe that people want to pick apart such a beautiful masterpiece. go play this game for your self amazing marvelous great and whats most important is fun i had fun playing this game. all rpg games are repetitive to some degree even final fantasy or skyrim.WHOSHUT UP. This game is amazing graphics, gameplay, characters and story wow 6.5 it doesnt deserve these crabby scores. i cant believe that people want to pick apart such a beautiful masterpiece. go play this game for your self amazing marvelous great and whats most important is fun i had fun playing this game. all rpg games are repetitive to some degree even final fantasy or skyrim.WHO IS OUT THERE MEASURING FRAME RATE. GET A LIFE... SHUT UP AND PLAY OR TURN IN YOUR GAME SYSTEM FOR A CANE AND FALSE TEETH ALL OF YOU GAME CRONIES GREAT GAME JUDGE FOR YOURSELVES DONT BE A LEMMING… Expand

rhansonn

Jul 10, 2016

1

Maybe TriAce set the bar high with Star Ocean: The Last Hope (which was absolutely phenomenal), but this game seems like just a quick-n-dirty installment to what is normally a great series.

The majority of your time will be running back-and-fourth between the same handful of cities doing mindless fetch-quests and listening to what seems like meaningless chit-chat between yourMaybe TriAce set the bar high with Star Ocean: The Last Hope (which was absolutely phenomenal), but this game seems like just a quick-n-dirty installment to what is normally a great series.

The majority of your time will be running back-and-fourth between the same handful of cities doing mindless fetch-quests and listening to what seems like meaningless chit-chat between your characters; from a game mechanic perspective, it felt like it was they're way of portraying your teammates back-story (which was rather weak considering the previous Star Ocean).

Considering this is the first of the installment for the new game console generation, the game engine itself was majorly lacking. In fact the graphical quality seems pretty much the same as The Last Hope; maybe it's just being a graphics and front-end enthusiast, but I for one was hoping for better with the latest processing power of the new consoles. Also, the game's camera work can seriously use refinement, most of the time I found myself fussing with the bouncy unreasonable-re-setting camera so much that I found the game easier to play while staring at the small mini-map the whole time instead (UX team, hello!?).

The battle mechanics was also a degradation from The Last Hope - having spent hours doing nothing but focusing on counter-attacks for the SP-boost, then seeing it all lost at the next boss fight was just depressing. Since the camera is unreasonably tough to control during a battle, and their Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic relies on you concentrating on your opponents (through the random flashes of color and effects taking up the whole screen); I seemed better off forgetting about the battle mechanics all together and just hitting my strongest moves over and over. (At this point I gave up thinking this might be a good game - all game mechanics have proved either un-usable or just plain and simple time-wasters, being there only to extend the duration of the game [aka: Boring!]).

When I finally came to the end of the game and reflected what just happened to one of my favorite RPG series, it saddens me to see such a beautiful series succumb to the mindless ethics of the AAA game industry; This one was really nothing more than a quick buck.… Expand

NihiRagnarK

Nov 18, 2016

6

You can actually feel how bad it is when you only play it for an hour or two. The story is so tedious and the game doesn't seem like fully completed. I thought it would be a shame for the famous star ocean series and a failure in the JPRG world.

HOWEVER, I pretty much enjoy it !!! I don't know why, maybe because the lack of JPRG in this generation or the memory of oldYou can actually feel how bad it is when you only play it for an hour or two. The story is so tedious and the game doesn't seem like fully completed. I thought it would be a shame for the famous star ocean series and a failure in the JPRG world.

HOWEVER, I pretty much enjoy it !!! I don't know why, maybe because the lack of JPRG in this generation or the memory of old task-level-strategy-combat like RPGs. But I do complete the game once with almost all side missions finished.

I won't recommend to try a second or a third walkthrough for the trophies or level up 255 to beat the Secret maze though.… Expand

Avorax

Aug 27, 2016

9

Gran juego que se ve lastrado por falta de presupuesto, gran sistema de combate y desarrollo de personajes, así como un gran diseño de personajes.Pese a todo hay cosas que lastran la experiencia de juego, una cámara de combate incomoda y molesta, ritmo de la historia irregular, se echan de menos más escenas cinemáticas o conversaciones más profundas entre personajes que hagan que losGran juego que se ve lastrado por falta de presupuesto, gran sistema de combate y desarrollo de personajes, así como un gran diseño de personajes.Pese a todo hay cosas que lastran la experiencia de juego, una cámara de combate incomoda y molesta, ritmo de la historia irregular, se echan de menos más escenas cinemáticas o conversaciones más profundas entre personajes que hagan que los protagonistas ganen un hueco en nuestro corazón.Si te gusta la saga o los JRPG, es tu juego, si por lo contrario no te gusta ni la estética anime ni los JRPG, pasa de largo.… Expand

Hououin_Kyouma

Sep 10, 2016

5

B4 reviewing, please note i played all the other star Ocean games and this review takes into account my experience with the other 4 games.

Star Ocean Integrity and Faithessness and Star Ocen last hope simply do not live up to the original 3. Creating unique characters that can trigger emotional responses from players is something that the entire star ocean series had difficulty with.B4 reviewing, please note i played all the other star Ocean games and this review takes into account my experience with the other 4 games.

Star Ocean Integrity and Faithessness and Star Ocen last hope simply do not live up to the original 3. Creating unique characters that can trigger emotional responses from players is something that the entire star ocean series had difficulty with. However, Star Ocean the last hope and now this latest installment have really sunk to an all time low regarding characters. There is no emotion attachment to characters with nothing setting the characters apart.

I am a big fan of the first 2 games. The stories of First Departure and Second Evolution seamlessly combined fantasy and sci-fi. Both series they include a well-constructed narrative that all players need to go through however at a deeper level they have provided ways who are interested in the story , to learn more about the universe of star ocean. Some of these events can affect gameplay as well. For example in star ocean second evolution players can explore the area and towns to learn about how the final boss was created and in doing so you can unlock his limiter and make him more powerful. This goes for characters as well you can conduct private actions to learn more about characters and create bonds that will change the ending. none of this is included in star ocean 4 or 5. to be fair there are private actions but they dont work the same.

Ok sound wasnt bad. Star Ocean series usually have good sound.

While i prefer the battle system of the first and 2 star ocean games ( biased perspective), The combat system wasnt the worst. the environments look nice, battles are fluid and there are some unique mechanics.

Personally, I don't like the 3D much. As a design student, I know that going 3D isnt the always the best choice especially when the 3d stuff inst polished.With better and more powerful graphics I cant fight the 3D trend but here are a couple of things star ocean4 & 5 lost when it went 3D : character expressions, emotional states, and fluidity of the camera . you can't properly see the reactions and emotions of the characters or they are not well enough animated. Star ocean 1&2 had poor graphics but they compensated by haveing good art on the foreground and used many icons to represent characters emotional states. this part of the reason why u cant invest in the characters in the newer Star Ocean games. I know most games on the Ps4 are 3D but what im trying to say is that the first 2 games did 90% of what this game does but better. the only thing this game has over the first 2 are graphics. These faults can be fixed in the future ( hopefully).

Overall i would give it a 6-7 for combat sound and art but ( biased opinion coming) I need to have relatable or likable characters with a good story to fully enjoy games. you can have minimalistic stories hence the phrase "gameplay is king". However, you can't have bad stories and hope your game mechanics will come save you. so I'm rating this as 5.… Expand

ReneW

Apr 11, 2017

10

Are you serious? If you played "Till the End of Time" you HAVE to love Integrity and Faithlessness! Ok the story and sync isn't that good and a few bugs (walk through people) are annoying but the whole system is awesome! Big plus point is the Battle, Ability, Equipment and Crafting-System. Its all known from the PS2 Game and so freaky improved. This makes Star Ocean so unique. If youAre you serious? If you played "Till the End of Time" you HAVE to love Integrity and Faithlessness! Ok the story and sync isn't that good and a few bugs (walk through people) are annoying but the whole system is awesome! Big plus point is the Battle, Ability, Equipment and Crafting-System. Its all known from the PS2 Game and so freaky improved. This makes Star Ocean so unique. If you really hardcore played the other Star Ocean games you will love this game.… Expand

Taryl

Dec 28, 2020

10

Very underrated game! Fun combat, great graphic, characters are fantastic, hope in a new chapter!

MrAftershock

Aug 28, 2017

10

Absolutely worth your money. Great Characters and music. The story is really good and the action flows at a good pace not to much waiting around. I like jrpg's a lot. It certainly beats out SKYRIM (I did play Skyrim and got 99% of trophies a bronze one is glitches for me) but its a very dark and boring game.

VendonJura

Sep 27, 2018

10

I love Star Ocean from 1-5. I do not like some things about SO5.

Per: 1: The graphics, the sound, the story just about all this is just awesome. You can really lean back and look at the beautiful world of Star Ocean. 2: There are many side missions. Fortunately, in SO5 you have no way to screw up these missions if you miss something on a quest then you'll just be able to do itI love Star Ocean from 1-5. I do not like some things about SO5.

Per:

1: The graphics, the sound, the story just about all this is just awesome. You can really lean back and look at the beautiful world of Star Ocean.

2: There are many side missions. Fortunately, in SO5 you have no way to screw up these missions if you miss something on a quest then you'll just be able to do it later but I could be wrong so I did them as soon as I could. I finished 100% of the quests and have to say, great all of them do work but I would like to have more information about the locations of the monsters you need to look for or the items. They are not listed on many quests.

3: You have a relaxed 50 hours of gameplay, trophy system, abundant achievements and natural levels of difficulty that you can unlock.

4: For all RPG fans, Star Ocean 5 is just a must have in their collection.

Cons:

1: The combat fields, the battle area is most of the time too small even for 3 people. But you have 7 characters in the group, which is often the problem when a fight starts and you are too close the lines, depending on which character you are playing with, you are automatically escaping from the battle because you are touching the outer line. To avoid this is often not possible.

2: There was an arena in almost every part of Star Ocean. A coliseum. Unfortunately, this part does not exist

3. At the end, if you have finished the game then you'll unlock the special dungeon, unfortunately, you have no mini-map at all so you will find yourself lost very often. Since my sense of orientation is so bad, this flaw is unfortunately very unpleasant. So I had to use the book to this game. Even with the book it was hard to figure out where to go.

4: Unfortunately there are no mini-games in SO5 either

5: What I also miss is that the look of the skills change the more you use them like in SO2.

Conclusion: All in all, I give the game of course max points because the series of Star Ocean is one of my favorites.

PS: Sry for my bad english knowledge.… Expand

Jedman

Dec 30, 2019

8

This is nice light hearted JRPG, nothing particularly epic but enjoyable nonetheless. Graphics and music are nice and combat is fun, party management is great especially when you get more in depth into the customisation of roles and equipment later on.
The story isn't anything groundbreaking but is interesting enough to make you want to progress with the game. Where the game is good isThis is nice light hearted JRPG, nothing particularly epic but enjoyable nonetheless. Graphics and music are nice and combat is fun, party management is great especially when you get more in depth into the customisation of roles and equipment later on.
The story isn't anything groundbreaking but is interesting enough to make you want to progress with the game. Where the game is good is more in the characters and the characters relationships. The voice acting is generally very good and there is fun banter between the characters in cut scenes and in the private action scenes. The game features a cute loli, and the sexiest video game character I have ever come across so it gets strong marks for fan service. Fiore makes the game alone and was enough to make me want to continue with the game.

I enjoyed my time with this game and while it is evidently old school and flawed in some areas, too much backtracking, difficulty spikes, I feel that the games charms are enough to make up for its shortcomings. Thank you Fiore.… Expand

Tiziown

May 22, 2021

8

It wasn't even close to SO IV budget but in the end it is way better imho, so good work

Chipzahoy

Mar 31, 2017

5

Hmph. Well...beat the game, because I paid for it. After beating it, I remained silent, contemplating my thoughts on this game. It's not good...but it's not bad...so 5.

Juras

Aug 15, 2018

5

Quite disappointment, game look like unfinished, or very limited budget, only one planet to explore, much less content even if content is mostly copy pasted from previous games (music, monsters, equipment design, items), post game is practically one random dungeon and some rare mats farming/crafting (no mini games, races, arena, nothing), weapons models do not change visuals (it does evenQuite disappointment, game look like unfinished, or very limited budget, only one planet to explore, much less content even if content is mostly copy pasted from previous games (music, monsters, equipment design, items), post game is practically one random dungeon and some rare mats farming/crafting (no mini games, races, arena, nothing), weapons models do not change visuals (it does even in SO3 on PS2), no additional outfits, no directed cutscenes (only little few)-most of them are boring dialogues with free camera and limited movement. It's not what i expected.… Expand

Friendzie

Jul 6, 2018

7

I'm going to try and keep this short and focus on what I liked rather than dwell on the negatives. Star Ocean was a dead IP, and the devs did what they could with almost no budget. The graphics suffer, but they did some cool things with the game seeing as it's not very taxing on the PS4 hardware. In particular, you can bring all 7 main characters into battle at once. You don't worry aboutI'm going to try and keep this short and focus on what I liked rather than dwell on the negatives. Star Ocean was a dead IP, and the devs did what they could with almost no budget. The graphics suffer, but they did some cool things with the game seeing as it's not very taxing on the PS4 hardware. In particular, you can bring all 7 main characters into battle at once. You don't worry about whether you should buy equipment or power up characters you don't want to use. You just use all of them. The game has a highly customizable tactics system to help each AI understand what you want them to do. There are hundreds of character development skits. The battles take place right on the map and there's no loading screen before you fight. All your companions actually walk with you on the field! Optional quests are not that exciting, but give you reason to go back out into the world, where you'll discover that encounters are constantly changing. When you backtrack later on you will find a new set of monsters along the way. Character development skits happen as you travel to break up the tedium. Skits and quests give meaningful rewards sometimes. The combat system is pretty much like any other Star Ocean or Tales game. Later on you may be able to exploit some mechanics to become very difficult to kill, but so what? Same thing in previous entries in the series that garnered praise.

The game has very few bugs, never crashed on me, has no loot boxes or microtransactions, and is plenty long enough. Give it a chance and you might like it. I'd rate it a 7.5, but I'm rounding up to 8 for purposes of this site.… Expand

JossCard

Oct 4, 2016

7

TL;DR: The game is okay; lacks polish.

I'm not a long-time fan of the Star Ocean series. I've only played the first one all the way through. I mention this as a warning that this review comes from someone without a lot of stake in the series so far. Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is a pseudo-action RPG. This means that battles aren't turn based, but they're not free-roamingTL;DR: The game is okay; lacks polish.

I'm not a long-time fan of the Star Ocean series. I've only played the first one all the way through. I mention this as a warning that this review comes from someone without a lot of stake in the series so far.

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is a pseudo-action RPG. This means that battles aren't turn based, but they're not free-roaming affairs like other action-RPGs either. Instead, encountering a group of enemies on the overworld will initiate combat in a small area on that overworld. The battle system seems simple enough, with a basic ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS kind of attack set-up, with strong attacks breaking defense, defending breaking weak attacks, and weak attacks breaking strong attack wind-ups.
The issues with the battle system are that they lack polish and conveyance to the player of what to do. Beyond a few tutorial slides (ugh, the WORST way of teaching a player), there isn't much to teach the player advanced strategies, what different roles can do, or even how to prioritize the special attacks. Whats more, for a game that relies heavily on their rock-paper-scissors fighting mechanic, they do very little to demonstrate what's happening in battle. With 6 active fighters in battle at a time, it's hard to see enemies winding up strong attacks, defending, or simply telegraphing weak attacks. As such, I've played about 30 hours, gotten 50% of the side-quests done, and I've yet to utilize the defense button at all. Instead I've simply alternated between weak attack and heavy attack (and the special attacks linked to both) and have had no problems. The battle can get chaotic and frantic, which would be great, if not for how easy it is to lose focus on what's actually happening in battle. I had issues with a boss fight where the enemy would disappear only to reappear with a devastating AoE attack, and more often than not, I wouldn't even notice that the enemy had disappeared until it was too late.

The boss fights are also unrelentingly hard (played on normal difficulty) when compared to your average encounters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on how you feel about it, but it can kick your ass unexpectedly when you've been level grinding for so long.

As far as the plot goes, it's fairly generic RPG affair, with a sword-wielding hero going on a quest to save and protect a little girl. The characters are fairly bland, and even though the writing is pretty fun in character interactions, those are so disassociated with gameplay and the story both, that they can be easy to miss. The main selling point of the Star Ocean series, as I've understood it, is the strange "worlds collide" set up of fantasy meeting harshly with science fiction. As such, one would expect more emphasis to be placed on the interaction between the future space-technology and the characters from the technologically unsophisticated planet. On this point, Integrity and Faithlessness disappoints, treating a futuristic space station like just another town. Even the interactions between the space-faring characters and the planet-side characters is bland on that point, with very few questions about life among the stars, their technology, or even the more basic "why are you here?" being passed over almost completely. On this point, I&F drops the ball completely, leaving the one, most interesting point of the story, alone in the dark.

The character animations are beautiful in combat, but outside of combat run the gamut of Japanesey over-acting more akin to a cheap anime than a game that tries to take itself seriously more often than not. Many of the cutscenes aren't skippable, and in some cases, break the flow of the gameplay worse than cutting away to a cinematic, by suddenly slowing the player down mid-exploration and enclosing them in a small circle while the rest of the party stops walking to discuss plot. Conversely, character building interactions aren't considered cutscenes, so it's very likely to run into combat or exit an area in the middle of an entertaining conversation, cutting it short. The writing and it's implementation are all over the place, leading to an inconsistent experience throughout the game.

I can't say much about the sound. The voice acting is pretty good, and the background music does its job of being entertaining, while not standing out too much. Everything seems appropriate here, if not something to write home about.

If you're a fan of a grindy action RPG, this might just work for you. If you're looking for something with more depth, keep on looking. As for me, I've found that a majority of my time, I played the game while watching something on Netflix.… Expand

Manjisan13

Jul 25, 2016

7

Cries..... Where is my 100+ hours experience.

Altou they they did good jobs with improvements but lacks replay abilities :(

Pours wine on the game. Shame, It could have been much more.....2months till FF15 xD, woopwoop

The_BlueRose

Oct 14, 2016

7

A classic japanese JRPG, simple story, a stone-paper-scissors combat system and simple side quests.

Graphicaly mediocre buy with nice character design.

The most interesting feature are the Roles, the are a lot and helps you the build a better structured characters.

stevRaJah

Jul 12, 2020

4

It’s just not nothing going for it. Bland locales, an endless supply of ‘kill this’ or ‘collect this’ side missions, bland characters, a bad story, etc etc. Worst of all however: it’s good enough to introduce seamless battles, but still dumb enough to allow six party members on screen at one time. The endless parade of grind kills are annoying enough, but this game will throw endlessIt’s just not nothing going for it. Bland locales, an endless supply of ‘kill this’ or ‘collect this’ side missions, bland characters, a bad story, etc etc. Worst of all however: it’s good enough to introduce seamless battles, but still dumb enough to allow six party members on screen at one time. The endless parade of grind kills are annoying enough, but this game will throw endless spawning enemy sections, and ‘protect this person’ sections at you whenever justifiable. You’ll have zero clue as to what’s happening for the majority of the scripted battles as all 5 of you’re party members will be spamming special moves and yelling over each other while you either stomp the baddies into dust, or slowly die one at a time from one supremely overpowered enemy.… Expand

OxyKun

Nov 17, 2016

6

This game is fun. But it's lacking in many areas.

I'll start of with the pro's and con's and will go more in depth after. Pro's: - Great graphics. Probably one of the most gorgeous JRPG's on the ps4 yet. - Great music. - Easy to pick up and play battle system. - The game isn't done when you've finished the story. - Likable and diverse playable characters. - Over the top skillsThis game is fun. But it's lacking in many areas.

I'll start of with the pro's and con's and will go more in depth after.

Pro's:
- Great graphics. Probably one of the most gorgeous JRPG's on the ps4 yet.
- Great music.
- Easy to pick up and play battle system.
- The game isn't done when you've finished the story.
- Likable and diverse playable characters.
- Over the top skills and spells.
- Multiple endings
- Multiple difficulties

Con's:
- Short story for a RPG.
- Game is very linear. There is almost no room for exploration.
- Many unskippable cutscenes
- Lots of backtracking.
- Shaky camera at times
- You won't go out to explore other planet's like older star ocean games.

Story:
The game is about the 2 main character's finding a young girl, who is being chased around by some people after saving the girl they decide to go out and find her parents for her. On the way they meet people who are willing to help and join them in their quest. Not knowing there is much more to this girl than they think. I won't go in any more details because of spoilers. But the story does its part in keeping you entertained and not beeing to difficult to follow. It's a typical story which JRPG and anime fans alike will like. With characters taking on the anime stereotypes. Such as: The tough guy, the cute girl, the pervert and the sexy lady. To name a few.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is very simple it has a strong/weak attack and a button for blocking. And you can use skills and spells. Which you unlock more of the further you get in the game. The skills and spells are over the top and flashy. All party members are playable and fullfill the typcal classes of rpg's. Like the fighter/tank/mage/healer and ranger.

Post-game content:
After you finish the story, the game isn't done yet. You can do a lot of side quests and there is a post game dungeon for the truly hardcore jrpg fans. With bosses who are almost impossible to beat. It needs to be said though, that there is a difficulty spike here and lots of grinding needed do you want to finish of the final boss of the dungeon.

Difficulty:
When you start the game there are 2 options the games "easy" mode and "normal" mode. I have played the game on normal mode and the game felt like a breeze untill you finish the game. When you finish the story you'll unlock the games "hard" and "expert" mode. Which require some grinding at points in order to beat some bosses.

Time to beat:
To finish the story takes about 20 hours depending on your skill level.

To finish the games post content and sidequest takes about 60 hours.

To get al trophies is a grind and walkthroughs and guides are needed, and you need to beat the game 3 times as the difficulty trophies dont stack. This will take well over 100 hours to complete and feels like it was put in to compromise for the games short story.… Expand

tomvs123

Feb 27, 2019

3

Yeah, it's bad, but it's a different sort of bad than I'm used to, which at least makes it interesting.

I'll get to the good first: - The character models and overall graphical fidelity is great, compared to other JRPGs. - The story only has small plot holes and a low amount of unbelievability, compared to some recent high-profile JRPGs (Persona) that have huge plot holes andYeah, it's bad, but it's a different sort of bad than I'm used to, which at least makes it interesting.

I'll get to the good first:

- The character models and overall graphical fidelity is great, compared to other JRPGs.
- The story only has small plot holes and a low amount of unbelievability, compared to some recent high-profile JRPGs (Persona) that have huge plot holes and completely unbelievable character motivations.
- You only have to put up with the generic story and bad combat for ~20 hours before it's over.

I play JRPGs for their stories and this is one of the lowest effort stories I've experienced. Most SNES JRPGs have more interesting and involved stories than this one. Character backgrounds are nearly nonexistent. Worldbuilding (through gameplay and cut scenes) is thread-bare and seems to assume that you know how generic JRPG worlds are supposed to work.

Your main goal in the game is to rescue a magical girl, that you just happened to stumble upon, and who subsequently got kidnapped. The magical girl is of course being used by the big bad guy who wants to rule the universe and you eventually have to kill him. That's really it and you're fast-tracked along this path and given great authority within the universe, even though you're a country bumpkin from a planet that doesn't even know that other planets exist.

Your dealings with the people and governments on your planet and on other planets is limited, so you never get a full sense of the scale of your world or the universe. The aliens you meet are essentially humans with the same societal structure and moral guidelines as you, which is strange. You also spend 90% of the game exploring your own planet. The other 10% is spent on a spaceship and an asteroid. There's no other planets to explore.

The story isn't bad. It's just incredibly basic, and might only be interesting if you've never played a JRPG before.

The combat, on normal difficulty, is a mess. At 5 hours in, I realized that the combat is geared towards leveling your character. If you don't do each and every one of the optional side quests, you'll be under-leveled and will be constantly one-shot by regular enemies. The side quests consist only of killing certain monsters or getting monster drops and turning them in to a bulletin board. If that doesn't sound interesting to you, then choose Easy mode - You can't change difficulty levels after the game starts.

Additionally, if you don't buy upgraded weapons and armor at every opportunity, you'll have a bad time. At one point, I didn't realize that a shop had new weapons (a shop that I had just bought new weapons from 30 minutes prior), so I had a very difficult time with the next hour of gameplay, where I was locked into completing the section and couldn't go back.

Your party's battle AI is horrid. While playing, I had flashbacks from when I used to play MMORPGs, where I would be the healer and would be in a group full of damage dealers who couldn't maintain monster aggro. They'd all constantly die and I'd spend my time resurrecting and healing, while kiting monsters around. That's exactly how I played this game, and was actually the best strategy I found for boss fights. In short, your AI party members will bunch up, all die from the same attack, and will almost never guard. Healers also like to stand around occasionally instead of heal. Unless you're over-leveled, you'll need to manually take control of your main damage dealers and healers to make sure they're not doing something stupid.

That's all I've got. There's not much else to the game. It definitely feels like a start-up indie developer effort, but with high graphical production values.… Expand

Unicron35

Jul 6, 2022

7

Reviewed on PS5. The graphics are okay. The music soundtrack is decent. The story is good. The protagonist is bland. The rest of your team fall into cliche character tropes. The antagonist is predictable. Several other villains are outright hilarious and I can't take them seriously.

The combat is smooth and fluid. The UI is okay. The game froze a couple of times. There are difficultyReviewed on PS5. The graphics are okay. The music soundtrack is decent. The story is good. The protagonist is bland. The rest of your team fall into cliche character tropes. The antagonist is predictable. Several other villains are outright hilarious and I can't take them seriously.

The combat is smooth and fluid. The UI is okay. The game froze a couple of times. There are difficulty spikes which will force you to grind to overcome them. The role system is addicting. I had my most fun with this game unlocking and experimenting with new roles.

This was the first Star Ocean game that I finished. While it can be rough around the edges, the story plot and role system kept me engaged to end. I did find it disappointing that you are on one planet the entire game. I hope Star Ocean 6 has more planets to visit and that the role system returns. Overall, a decent JRPG.… Expand

Editman3

Feb 25, 2017

1

Hello this is my first Star Ocean game hearing that this is a good series from Square after FF15 Disappointed us my brother decided to play Star Ocean 5 and boy was this WORSE than FF15 I mean in a nutshell

-Bland Straightforward story with little to no twist or great moments -Lacks traditional star ocean mechanics (or that's what I heard) -Bland Characters -Escort MissionsHello this is my first Star Ocean game hearing that this is a good series from Square after FF15 Disappointed us my brother decided to play Star Ocean 5 and boy was this WORSE than FF15 I mean in a nutshell

-Bland Straightforward story with little to no twist or great moments
-Lacks traditional star ocean mechanics (or that's what I heard)
-Bland Characters
-Escort Missions SUCCCCKKKKSSS!!!!!!
-Combat Tales of series RIPOFF a two button masher combo
-Lackluster environment
-Little to no side quest
-Annoying gameplay cutscenes OH THIS ONE I HAVE TO RANT ABOUT THIS
THIS ONE SUCKS SO BAD MY BROTHER AND I WERE ANNOYED BY THIS PRACTICE YOU CAN'T SKIP GAMEPLAY CUTSCENES ESPECIALLY THOSE ESCORT MISSIONS which some last a minute or 5 and everytime we fail we have to watch the cutscene again fail watch the cut scene again wash rinse and repeat yeah someone at Square thought it was a great idea to sell this piece of junk for 60$ at launch good thing we got it at the Christmas sale :3 What really makes me hate this MECHANIC THE MOST SOMEONE AT SQUAREENIX THOUGH IT WAS A GREAT IDEA TO HAVE CUTSCENES AT THE SAVEPOINTS THE SECOND YOU SEE IT CAUSE GUESS WHAT ONCE YOU'RE CLOSE TO THE SAVEPOINT A GAMEPLAY CUTSCENE POPS UP AND YOU CAN'T GO AND SAVE YOU'RE GAME EVEN THOUGH THE SAVE POINT IS RIGHT UP CLOSE TO YOU BUT YET IT GOES RED AND YOU HAVE TO SIT IN A 5 MIN CUTSCENE TO DRAIN A PLAYERS EXPERIENCE WHAT'S REALLY A KICK IN THE NUTZ IS HOW SHALLOW THE TOWNS AND CITIES ARE THEIR LIFELESS :-'( I'm only giving it a 1 because of the job system that's it :(… Expand

winterbox

Dec 19, 2016

10

I am just a casual gamer who played an SO game for the PS2 years back. I do not follow the series.

Overall I enjoy the game, I definitely understand that the game can be a grind sometimes coupled with dry narratives, and not the best voice acting (some encounters are quite... cringe worthy). All good. I love jrpg's for what they are and I do love grinding. The game does feel like anI am just a casual gamer who played an SO game for the PS2 years back. I do not follow the series.

Overall I enjoy the game, I definitely understand that the game can be a grind sometimes coupled with dry narratives, and not the best voice acting (some encounters are quite... cringe worthy). All good.

I love jrpg's for what they are and I do love grinding. The game does feel like an MMO with side quests, leveling up characters and roles, unlocking specialties through other specialized side quests. There is a lot of back tracking too. What drew me in was the art work and graphical design of the game. Sure this is not Uncharted 4, but it is a different genre and I appreciate it as a different genre.

Even though I find the story entirely forgettable, characters very uninteresting and (because they keep leaving time to time they don't feel like they are "yours" to level, so you lose that personal connection to your characters). The combat system is a rock - paper - scissor based rotation which is interesting but I usually ignore it and bash the enemies dead. Head strong ya know? So far I got an invincible Miki healing everyone and even my Fidel with 0 def and full attack (1k +) doesn't die in boss combats.

Don't know, I just enjoy it as a grind fest game. I paid full price and I don't regret. It's a fun game if you can look past criticisms and don't compare it to other games that are AAA.

I use SO5 as my advanced complicated candy crush for the ps4.… Expand

rpgmaster28

Feb 9, 2017

3

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I'm giving this game a 3 because the combat AND the story are just....bad. How many people have to get shot before SOMEONE puts on some armor? The combat is a mess. You've got SEVEN characters on the field, and there's a manual option for some reason! WHY!? They thought of that, but there is NO WAY to mark the enemy I want to kill! Your party attacks whatever enemy they want. That's just unforgivable. There's so many BETTER RPGs for the playstation and playstation 2 that gave you a way to tell all of your party members to attack ONE enemy.
Here's the spoilers, the story is cliched as heck. "You killed my father!" was a cliche back in the 1960s. Yes, the father dies. The father always dies. I don't know why that's a spoiler. What's worse is, he gets shot. The main love interest girl, ALSO gets shot earlier. But NO ONE decided, "Hey, Let's put on some armor!" How did the dad even make it to 40 or 50 as a soldier without getting killed!? I could see if he had armor on, and he got killed by magic missiles. Nope, it was one bullet.… Expand

Suzumiya1

Apr 3, 2017

5

Muy decepcionado de este juego, yo pensaba que el patito feo de la saga era the last hope, pero no, este le gano, por favor que alguien me diga que este juego es un demo, por que eso es para mi, un demo de $ 60

ObsidianLion

May 29, 2018

3

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The good about this game. Music. Characters Emmerson and Anne. The end.

The bad.

The plot.

You find a girl in a crashed spaceship and save her, effectively stealing her from a mysterious enemy. Enemy steals her from you. You steal her from them. They steal her from you. You steal her from them. They take the girls twin sister and you keep yours. You embark to get the twin. 18 hours later, the game ends. This is one of the worst RPG stories I have played in my 25 years of gaming.

You wanna know how bad the writing is? At one point the girl is being shot at by an enemy using magic. The protagonist's father blocks the shot by getting shot in the back. He and the girl are kidnapped. RIGHT AFTER THAT you go to rescue them. You find the girl and dad, enemy appears, tells his lackeys to shoot your team, the girl is AGAIN PROTECTED BY THE SAME GUY IN THE SAME WAY AND GETS SHOT IN THE BACK AGAIN!

Dropped plot points all over the place.
1. There is a war your country is facing? Who cares, go find out why the mysterious girl has powers. Mid game at a crucial point of the war, you never hear about the war again.
2. You are introduced to the continent with 3 countries. You never see the leader of any of them. Your country is lead by your father who dies later on. The man who is his pupil and most qualified replacement joins your team. Who leads the country in this crisis where the country doesn't have a capable military leader anymore? No one. Why would you care.
3. The game introduces you to the main character and his best friend Ted. The best friend never does anything. He keeps saying the same sentence after you leave the first town. He is voiced but his character leads nowhere but giving you 3 quests not related to him.
4. The country allied with yours is super advanced to the point that it is immersion breaking. Imagine, your kingdom is middle aged castles, allied country has a crashed space ship with automatic opening doors, biometric scanners, magical runes, floating statues. Where did this come from? Who cares. Play the game.

Bad game design.

1. The game has a item creation option. It's grayed out at the beginning of the game, in the menu. I finished the game never found out how to unlock item creation. So much for that. Never felt I needed it.
2. You can unlock mining. Never found out how to unlock it, never needed it. There are around 40 specialties (skills in the game). I unlocked maybe 10 and finished the game. You get these from side quests only. No one ever mentions that. You can literally finish the game not unlocking anything due to this.
3. The game has a super move gauge that you can fill up and use up to deal huge damage. I needed it only twice. I have not even seen the ultimate moves of all of my characters. As the gauge fills, you increase exp gained at the end of the game. 450% exp boost for every won battle is so good that it is not worth wasting it to damage some enemies in one battle and refill it again (which can take a long time late game when you destroy enemies).
4. The game has the option to switch between your 6 controllable characters in battle. I only used this in the last hour and a half of the game. Not needed before that.
5. The game has battle skills. I finished 80% of the game using my first basic skill which knocks the enemy in the air.
6. There are items to remove status effects. I never saw more than 3 status effects, poison, fog and silence.
7. The game has single use magic cards that you can use to do a magic spell in game. Never needed them.
8. The characters look the same no matter what you equip, BUT, every armor and weapon in the menu has a unique look.
9. The game has a social aspect where the group would scatter in a town with some dialogue options. This lead nowhere.
10. There game has an encyclopedia, a glossary, a quest list, a synopsis, yet you can not look up enemies. I can look up weapons and armor, items and crafting items, but not enemies.
11. The game has around 25 different looking enemy types (bosses included). They cycle colors as they get more difficult. Effort.
12. There are a total of 12 locations though the story. A dessert, a grassy field, a beach, a coastal path, a icy mountain path, a normal mountain path and 3 cities and 3 underground labs that look the same. This is in a game called Star Ocean, which offered other planets to visit in previous games.
13. Game has a rock-paper-scissors battle mechanic. Guard, light attack and strong attack. The game has so many effects you will not be able to see what the enemy is doing, you end up pressing light attack and using special moves.
14. Literally all 3 major villains are crazy.
15. Party emotional progression. From being friends when game starts to asking for marriage with zero cutscenes in between. No buildup. It looked forced. Nuff said… Expand

Brev_Karlaus

Mar 23, 2019

7

Having played the series since Star ocean 3, I feel like the series has lost some of its personality and imagination over time.
A lot of the familiar thing like the gameplay are still there. However the main story itself feels like a lot shorted of an adventure than previous titles like Star ocean 3 which proudly spanned 2 DVDs back in its days. 95% of the game takes place in a singleHaving played the series since Star ocean 3, I feel like the series has lost some of its personality and imagination over time.
A lot of the familiar thing like the gameplay are still there. However the main story itself feels like a lot shorted of an adventure than previous titles like Star ocean 3 which proudly spanned 2 DVDs back in its days. 95% of the game takes place in a single continent of a single planet.
The spaceship parts are still as awesome as always and I wish there were more of them.
The game almost totally lacks cutscenes and instead almost all the conversations happen with a free camera in real time, I think this really damages the storytelling that worked so well in the previous 2 games, sometimes I could not tell who was speaking when there was a supporting character mixed in the conversation.
Motoi Sakuraba still breathes in life to the game with his music but even he seems to say "meh" and like 40% of the music is recycled from SO3 and SO4 (though I was glad to head again some pieces).
Overall the world feels small, only stretched by the huge waking sessions from point A to B. The antagonists ended up being very lame compared to the world threatening adversaries of the previous SO games, it was kind of a let down.
I believe the creators of Star ocean have more than enough time between the titles to come up with something more than this. If they are out of ideas I hope they would recommend SO1 and SO2 on either this or the next generation of consoles
That said like a classic SO game it has a lot of playtime specially if you want to do the postgame and the side quests… Expand

Sharingan1

Jun 28, 2023

3

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Every New Star ocean Getting Worse ,,
This One Is Nightmare ..
- Worse Story
- Bad Charecters
- Boring Cutscenes Ever
- Big Monsters Not Stopping Atk You what ever you attack / Conter Them ,, They will keep atack you and Break you Bouns ,,,
and now i'm having a Worse Nightmare for trying to get Platinum ,, Thanks to Square Enix For That ...
If you really want to Realize How Bad this game is ,, Just Start Getting Platinum… Expand

Melkiades

Apr 6, 2023

1

If you're a fan of JRPGs, it's hard not to be drawn to the genuine aesthetic and gameplay of Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness.

However, it's not the low-budget graphics or the narrative that weighs this game down, but serious programming flaws. To illustrate it with an example, I had to stop my game in the middle because in combat, the game is programmed so that all the enemiesIf you're a fan of JRPGs, it's hard not to be drawn to the genuine aesthetic and gameplay of Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness.

However, it's not the low-budget graphics or the narrative that weighs this game down, but serious programming flaws.

To illustrate it with an example, I had to stop my game in the middle because in combat, the game is programmed so that all the enemies attack the same character, whom the rest must protect. There is no way around this and I am aware that a large number of players have had to leave the game due to this issue.

The result is a crappy JRPG, which should have been tested much more before launching it for sale. A big disappointment.… Expand

Lufia

Jul 7, 2023

10

As always, an awesome Star Ocean game. The only bad thing in this game is the smal battleground. If you play as a ranged character, you accidently start an escape from battle realy often.

Droplesgantsfgc

Jan 28, 2021

4

For fans of the series, this installment is nothing short of a massive dissapointment. Most of the combat mechanics (and character archetype, right down to the moveset) are reused assets from Till the end of time. So even if the mechanics and moves are reused, Star Ocean shines on its storytelling prowess,I hear you say.

well, the story has been drasticaly scaled down to a ratherFor fans of the series, this installment is nothing short of a massive dissapointment. Most of the combat mechanics (and character archetype, right down to the moveset) are reused assets from Till the end of time. So even if the mechanics and moves are reused, Star Ocean shines on its storytelling prowess,I hear you say.

well, the story has been drasticaly scaled down to a rather personal story of 6 cardboard cutouts and one little girl (oh wait 2) who constantly gets captured so you have to rescue her. no kidding this story beat is repeated 3 times in a short 30-40 hours rpg. Hell, your princess is in another castle. Villains motivations are non-sensical, heroes are pale shonen anime clichés(you got the bland protag, childhood friend who has a crush on protag to his obliviousness, sexy mage girl, womanizing booze swindling gruff military man, beautyfull stoic science lady, even blander rival and mistycal weapon misterious little girl)and there are no innovations in the core mechanics known to the series. add in unskipable cutscenes and cheap battles (protect Anne anyones?) and you got yourself a recipe for a mediocre,series killing RPG.

faithlessness wmeans to believe in something with faith or having no faith in something.

this might be a cheeky message from the dev team, letting us know they had no integrity while developping this game and had no faith in its quality.… Expand

sapphireglaceon

Mar 27, 2022

0

these games are getting less and less of a star ocean feel to them 5&6 mainly first departure felt right this just feels so off from that and tri ace should have stopped after till the end of time and should have remade 3 and brought that to america as well as remastering 2 and TTEOT for switch the only good thing i can say about this is the music everything else is just NO

Tintler

Jul 21, 2023

4

Uzun zamandır bir oyunda gördüğüm en kötü kamera kontrolüne sahip, kamera ana karakterin görüş açısına paralel gitmeye çalışıyor fakat hareket ettiğiniz alan engebeliyse bir aşağı bir yukarı mide bulantısına yol açıyor. Çok kolay çözülebilecek bir sorun, internette bakarsanız başkalarının da bu konu hakkında rahatsız olduğunu görebilirsiniz. Diğer bir konu ise, biraz deneysel gidipUzun zamandır bir oyunda gördüğüm en kötü kamera kontrolüne sahip, kamera ana karakterin görüş açısına paralel gitmeye çalışıyor fakat hareket ettiğiniz alan engebeliyse bir aşağı bir yukarı mide bulantısına yol açıyor. Çok kolay çözülebilecek bir sorun, internette bakarsanız başkalarının da bu konu hakkında rahatsız olduğunu görebilirsiniz. Diğer bir konu ise, biraz deneysel gidip ara-sahne koymak yerine bu sahneleri oyun devam ederken koymayı tercih etmişler, keşke böyle yapmak yerine ara sahne koysalarmış. Bu iki nedenden dolayı kırıyorum puanın. Bunun dışında hikayesi, seslendirmeleri, grafikleri klasik AA action jrpg bunları ne iyi ne de kötü yapıyor. Beğendiğim nokta ise savaşlarda tüm parti üyelerinin kullanılabilir olması, sadece 3-4 kişi ile kısıtlamıyor ve ekranda 7 kişiyi de görüyorsunuz. Bunun dışında role sistemi de çok güzel olmuş, role sistemi sayesinde oyunun ortalarına doğru resmen oyunu bozan bir build yaptım ve hiç zorlanmadan bitirdim.… Expand

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