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i should mention -- i didn't actually read what IGN said, but the VA features a lot of xenosaga actors and is roughly on par with it. if you liked xenosaga's VA OK, you'll be satisfied with SO3. personally i thought SO3 was B+ ish on the voice acting. then again, i can't tell what people think is good/bad with voice acting.NotMSRP said:
Crazymoogle
Member
No HDD support? Dammit.
Kobun Heat
Member
I usually don't get too caught up in the nuances of voice acting quality. I just ask myself, "Does hearing the voicework in this game make me want to stab myself in the eye? Y/N", then write the review accordingly.
Kobun Heat
Member
The hideously awful accents in Sudeki are like the high point of the game's voicework. What's even worse is when they fail to actually match up the voice to the character design, and you have little kids speaking in deep adult voices or white people with exaggerated black accents.belgurdo said:
Kobun Heat
Member
It is a little weird.IJoel said:
SolidSnakex
Member
IJoel said:
From the sameples, they might be slightly better. That's about it though.
belgurdo said:
Oh, I don't disagree. I didn't compare SO3 to Sudeki, well, because almost any voice work could be better than Sudeki's, and so that's why I used ToS, which I thought was average at best, but not horrible.
I just find it hilarious that every RPG argument turns into a Sudeki bash.
Kobun Heat
Member
Didn't the last Sudeki thread turn into a ToS thread?IJoel said:
the invention system is shit.Soul4ger said:
if this game's story were less interesting and well-presented, it would be a 6. it's really what holds the whole thing together. the dungeons are really long and not terribly interesting, the battles have tons of problems, and there are no other secondary gameplay systems worth mentioning besides the inventions.
meh. hope tri-ace's next game is valkrie profile 2.
Korranator
Member
Not that I care about IGN reviews, it seems their review is in direct conflict with your review when dealing with the battle system. "Arguably the best battle system in an RPG that we've ever seen, Star Ocean also boasts some awesome customization options and plenty of tactical formalities."ferricide said:
Care to elaborate on the big problems for those of us like myself who are on the fence on this one?
Alcibiades
Member
not that I care much about this game, but isn't this out like in September 24th or Aug. 24th or something, and aren't reviews supposed to wait until like the day before or until shipping day, why would the review get leaked this soon, do companies allow early exposure to the review if they pass a certain score or what...
Also, what's up with Madden getting reviews already by all these sites, that's out till like next week, did EA say ok if it goes gold, does it differ with companies... I thought it was up to websites and magazines, but I don't follow em much anymore, except I remember that ign64.com and igncube.com (IIRC) didn't put up reviews until like release date or the day before...
I thought maybe companies made deals as to when reviews would be allowed to go up by allowing early copies as long mags/sites they complied with the wait, but I guess it's a different situation in every case...
Also, what's up with Madden getting reviews already by all these sites, that's out till like next week, did EA say ok if it goes gold, does it differ with companies... I thought it was up to websites and magazines, but I don't follow em much anymore, except I remember that ign64.com and igncube.com (IIRC) didn't put up reviews until like release date or the day before...
I thought maybe companies made deals as to when reviews would be allowed to go up by allowing early copies as long mags/sites they complied with the wait, but I guess it's a different situation in every case...
Neutron Night
Banned
That's funny, because the IGN reviewer seemed to think that SO3 had the best battle system of any PS2 RPG. Which means one of you is talking out of their ass. And frankly, I'm inclined to believe it's you.
Your taste in RPGs clearly is of no use to me.
I just beat Tales of Symphonia today and really enjoyed it, and I'm ready for this one. They sure got this review up there fast, I wish the game came out already, I'm not gonna have so much time with the Fall rush thats coming, Pikmin 2, Phantom Brave, argH! I'm waiting for the gamespot review, but probably gonna buy this one at launch anyway. Me poor wallet 
.
.Kobun Heat said:
Don't precisely recall (and too lazy to check) but it might've. Of course, after it was bashed to the ground I imagine.
On another note, I pre-ordered SO3 at Gamestop and they gave me a nice poster (true poster size, not those small ass 10x8 images). The image in the poster is the same as the cover:
Operations
Member
Jeremy Dunham gets excited too easily. He gave FFX-2 a 9.5 and Castlevania:LOI a 9.0. Both grossly overrated IMHO. Hopefully this isn't the case with Star Ocean.
certainly. now that it's on the web i may freely talk. i've been biting my lip for like a month during all those threads where people were like "should i buy TOS or wait for SO3?"Korranator said:
BTW, the game comes out 8/31. squenix is usually pretty cool with your running reviews online a couple weeks early. hell, they let me run a review of unlimited saga a while before it came out, IIRC -- i was working at gamespy, then -- and they knew what kind of scores that game was going to get.
aaanyway, i'd say that there are a number of flaws in the battle system that really keeps it from excelling. for one, you can't hit enemies when they're on the ground, which is just irritating and counterintuitive. depending on their/your animations, you can end up wasting a whole bunch of effort smacking them around with the hits going straight through them, meanwhile they recover and hit you when you're done your attacks. it all feels incredibly arbitrary.
the buttons are set up really annoyingly. X and O are the attack buttons. you tap 'em for regular hits and hold 'em for special attacks, but this is imprecise at best.
the AI options for your other party members are super scarce -- nothing like as much as TOS -- and besides just generically attacking the enemies the AI never has much use, either. never count on 'em to heal you as much as you need it, for example. it's easy to switch between characters and heal yourself or whatever, so it's not completely horrid, but it would be a non-issue if they weren't so dumb and had decent options.
the bonus battle gauge is annoying. to raise any sort of decent levels you need to get the 300% experience effect, but the way you set effects is (according to the FAQ i read) dependant on what sort of hit you hit the enemy with for the hit that fills the gauge. since you can't really control this easily due to the aforementioned problems with hit detection and button combinations, and the AI players hits seem to count for starting it, this means you'll often (mostly) get one of the other bonus battles.
now, every 5 further battles you turn on another bonus battle effect. if you get 300% exp last, that's 20 battles. the rules for bonus battle gauge breaks are kind of arbitrary -- just taking a lot of damage from a hit from an enemy, really, as far as i can tell -- which means that getting decent experience can be giant pain the ass. is this absolutely required to progress through the game? no, but it adds tedium.
moreover the middle of the game is a bit of a slog. like scooter says in OPM and EGM they could have taken this overly long and repetitive RPG and whittled it down and made it into a shorter, tighter, more fun RPG without losing much. in fact, i think they'd've gained something.
it's kind of like a high budget .hack -- slog with 3-member (2 AI), action based battles with statistical underpinnings. but it does have a pretty interesting story that's told with a lot of flair, and it's not like the battles outright suck, they just have annoying problems. it's a very attractive game and i did have fun playing it, it just began to wear on me after awhile, and especially after TOS (which came out after it in japan, of course) it seemed under-evolved from a gameplay standpoint. playing TOS again after it -- i started a replay -- just underscored this. it's much more responsive (even just walking in towns is smoother.) i miss the cinematics and the non-cliche-dripping story, but everything else goes to TOS ... well, except the music.
didn't you get banned for being a little bitch in a previous RPG thread?Neutron Night said:
and i gave both of them three stars back at gamespy. just sayin'...Operations said:
http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/castlevania-lament-of-innocence/6295p1.html
http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/final-fantasy-x-2/6368p1.html
SolidSnakex
Member
Neutron Night said:
He does like SMT and DDS, so he seems to have a good taste in RPG's.
Alcibiades
Member
wtf, LOI a 9.0?
why is it that igncube.com is very hard on their reviews (except that one SFA) and glady take out frustrations toward Nintendo in their reviews, but the others (especially ignxbox.com), review games with the perspective of being a fan of the system, etc... If Matt or whoever happen to like Nintendo more and be biased does it matter, wouldn't higher scores than usual be ok (since the other ign sites are doing it), but sometimes igncube.com scores are lower than average...
why is it that igncube.com is very hard on their reviews (except that one SFA) and glady take out frustrations toward Nintendo in their reviews, but the others (especially ignxbox.com), review games with the perspective of being a fan of the system, etc... If Matt or whoever happen to like Nintendo more and be biased does it matter, wouldn't higher scores than usual be ok (since the other ign sites are doing it), but sometimes igncube.com scores are lower than average...
IJoel said:
Watch the videos on GameSpot - the voice acting doesn't sound that bad.
But Pleaseee!!! Farleen's voice acting sounds like a joke!! Just like Tails' in the SA games..
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/starocean3/index.html?q=star+ocean
I'd also like to add that levelling feels sorta worthless because everything takes way too fucking long to kill by HP loss. Of course you can make MP-sucking weapons but I don't think you're able to do so for a while in the game, and I just never feel interested in continuing.
Strange. I gladly put in 500+ hours to SO2, all saves totalled. Can't budge myself past 15 on SO3.
Again, I predict a lot of backlash against SO3 once it's finally out.
Strange. I gladly put in 500+ hours to SO2, all saves totalled. Can't budge myself past 15 on SO3.
Gruco said:
It's a lousy cameo.
Again, I predict a lot of backlash against SO3 once it's finally out.
efralope said:
I've noticed this too.
Luigi's Mansion: 7
Super Monkey Ball: 8.3
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle: 6.9 (6.8?)
Blinx: 8.8
WWE RAW: 9.1
WWE RAW 2: 9.1
Seems like they've toned it down a bit since then though. Sudeki got a 7.8.
On the other hand... IGN PS2 seems to be more around the middle. IGN Pocket's definitely the easiest on its games though. 18 of them have received 10.0 (I think it was 18).
SolidSnakex
Member
efralope said:
They had to tone it down considering just how they reviewed games last gen.
Alcibiades
Member
Don't forget about Mario Kart's low marks, and I think DOA:VB got high marksAniHawk said:
Galleon: 8.2
Gunvalkyrie: 9.0
Jet Set Radio Future: 9.1
at least they toned it down and gave Sudeki a 7-something...
considering GBA's utter domination over XBox in hardware sales and 1 mill. + 2 mill. sellers, the market would seem to agree. To quote the press conference earlier in the year "we should first ask, can PS2 catch up to Gameboy Advance" (which has had higher sales over PS2 since it launched in mid '01).
In all likelihood, those GBA games probably deserve it...
SolidSnakex
Member
efralope said:
Except not. If you're going to attack one site for overrating games, don't try to defend another site for doing the samething because they're reviewing a platform that you like more.