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Star Ocean 5 : Integrity and Faithlessness - Import Impressions

Tohsaka

Member
I don't know why they haven't localized the SO2 ports yet, the game was already translated so it's not like it'd take much work.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I don't know why they haven't localized the SO2 ports yet, the game was already translated so it's not like it'd take much work.

Wonder if they would consider it depending on how SO5 does in the West. Since right now is "retro-game" kick with Western gamers you would think that SQEX would most def want to get in on that.
 

Bladenic

Member
So far
it seems to be the starting planet plus a few spaceships
. Not done with the game yet.

Jesus, that sounds truly horrible. Never mind that Star Ocean has always been a misnomer, but at least SO4 actually made headway to live up to the title. And now they've regressed to maybe even worse than Star Ocean 1? Wow. If this was all they were capable of, they should've just not even made this game, or made it into a handheld game (where it could've had high production values comparatively).
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Jesus, that sounds truly horrible. Never mind that Star Ocean has always been a misnomer, but at least SO4 actually made headway to live up to the title. And now they've regressed to maybe even worse than Star Ocean 1? Wow. If this was all they were capable of, they should've just not even made this game, or made it into a handheld game (where it could've had high production values comparatively).

Considering am pretty much near the end of the game also yeah what he says is true so far.
 

theofficefan99

Junior Member
It's unfortunate, but it's the best tri-Ace could do with the almost non-existent budget they had.

I just hope this game does well enough to warrant another big-budget title that'll be successful.

I want tri-Ace to make games with the budgets they deserve (and better writers... pls).
 

Aeana

Member
Wow. That's a lot less than SO1 and SO2. I hope there are more planets later on. SO3 had 4-5 different worlds, was hoping it would have something like that.

I wouldn't say that.

In SO1, you go to Roak, Roak in the past, one spaceship, and the final dungeon is on another planet, it barely counts. And in SO2 you just go to two planets, and the second is a fair bit smaller.
 
Wow. That's a lot less than SO1 and SO2. I hope there are more planets later on. SO3 had 4-5 different worlds, was hoping it would have something like that.

I guess it doesn't really matter how many planets you can travel to as much as how many locations you can travel to, separate planets or not. But it's looking to be a very small game regardless.
 

Aeana

Member
Jesus, that sounds truly horrible. Never mind that Star Ocean has always been a misnomer, but at least SO4 actually made headway to live up to the title. And now they've regressed to maybe even worse than Star Ocean 1? Wow. If this was all they were capable of, they should've just not even made this game, or made it into a handheld game (where it could've had high production values comparatively).

Right, instead of this really solid but small game, they should've just kept making gacha mobile games and the occasional piece of junk for Konami, acting as code monkeys for Square Enix on the side as they were for the last several years. I for one am glad they made it. It's fun, even if it isn't everything we hoped it would be. At least there's environmental variation, unlike their last console game (Resonance of Fate), which had a small scope too and people still loved it.
 
I'm not surprised, SO is never going to be the huge space faring epic that people keep hoping it'll be. I just wish Tri-Ace would get a better battle designer for this series because it sounds like a lot the usual gripes I have with SO combat is still there. It's nice that they added Graces-style dodging though.
 
So it sounds like most of the story takes place with dialogue rolling out while the camera is in normal, gameplay mode? Like Fallout or something?

That...sounds kinda awful. If I wanted a WRPG, I can just play a WRPG. I wonder if they would fix and touch this up before localizing the game. Shame to have a supposedly good cast and plot, but then be cinematically incompetent.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
So it sounds like most of the story takes place with dialogue rolling out while the camera is in normal, gameplay mode? Like Fallout or something?

That...sounds kinda awful. If I wanted a WRPG, I can just play a WRPG. I wonder if they would fix and touch this up before localizing the game. Shame to have a supposedly good cast and plot, but then be cinematically incompetent.

Doubt they would be able to fix anything as would require quite a fair bit of work. Even if they did have something ready not enough time in between now till release.

Really is a shame since the cast, writing and VA work is good for the most part.
 

Aeana

Member
So it sounds like most of the story takes place with dialogue rolling out while the camera is in normal, gameplay mode? Like Fallout or something?

That...sounds kinda awful. If I wanted a WRPG, I can just play a WRPG. I wonder if they would fix and touch this up before localizing the game. Shame to have a supposedly good cast and plot, but then be cinematically incompetent.

It doesn't feel like a western RPG, though. It feels like an older Japanese RPG.
It's refreshing to not have such dramatic cutscenes all the time, honestly. The way you go in and out of dialog seamlessly feels awkward at first, mainly during the parts where you have to walk, but doing it this way also sidesteps the issue of awkward motion capture and overly dramatic physical acting and basically Welch-or-Sarah-from-SO4.avi. And the seamlessness just feels good at times. It keeps the pacing feeling brisk.

I'm honestly legitimately surprised that you people want more cutscenes from the company that brought you SO4 and IU.
 
It doesn't feel like a western RPG, though. It feels like an older Japanese RPG.
It's refreshing to not have such dramatic cutscenes all the time, honestly. The way you go in and out of dialog seamlessly feels awkward at first, mainly during the parts where you have to walk, but doing it this way also sidesteps the issue of awkward motion capture and overly dramatic physical acting and basically Welch-or-Sarah-from-SO4.avi. And the seamlessness just feels good at times. It keeps the pacing feeling brisk.

I'm honestly legitimately surprised that you people want more cutscenes from the company that brought you SO4 and IU.

I think people just wanted them to get better but they probably don't have the budget for that. It's probably for the best that they decided to play to their strengths.
 

Aeana

Member
Putting all tri-Ace-specific things aside, I'm glad it also gives them fewer opportunities for all of the other cutscene tropes that this industry just can't get enough of. Thanks to the lack of cutscenes, we didn't get a scene when Fiore was introduced that scans her body from her legs to her head, stopping briefly to check out her butt and boobs. In fact, the lack of cutscenes makes the whole ordeal with that character a non-issue because they aren't able to shove it in the player's face as often as they would.
 
And you don't have to look at Miki's face.

In hindsight, tri-ace seems to be very aware of what problems people had with their output last gen. They ended up being the butt end of a lot of jokes among the gaming community (dinner time!).
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Looking at the scale and the places you go to:

It seems like this game's story structure is similar to SO1 and SO2: Rena. It's limited to your planet mostly unlike SO3 and SO4, you go to different planets whereas the former is 95% in your planet. I don't know what the story is about but I'm assuming you're protecting and defending your own planet by ousting the invaders via a spaceship.
 

chozen

Member
I saw a few importers showing the total play time, unfortunately its a
20
hour story.

The rest of the post game is a
dungeon with 7 floors or so
, and thats all there is to the game, some dude put around
50 hours into the game
and has 95% completion overall very disappointing to hear.

Last (?) boss time. 22 hours on the clock, but I left the game running for an hour or two.

^ Which also supports my post. I'm upset about this.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Last (?) boss time. 22 hours on the clock, but I left the game running for an hour or two.
 
I wonder how much of the unskippable cutscenes is there to avoid loading screens, and how much of it is just to pad out the game? The cutscenes easy add a few hours to the overall time.
 

chozen

Member
I wonder how much of the unskippable cutscenes is there to avoid loading screens, and how much of it is just to pad out the game? The cutscenes easy add a few hours to the overall time.

Many I've heard most of the scenes used are the new interactive ones, which kind of annoyed some importers when they die they have to rewatch the who event unfold.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I wonder how much of the unskippable cutscenes is there to avoid loading screens, and how much of it is just to pad out the game? The cutscenes easy add a few hours to the overall time.

Id say running back and forth is what "pads out" the game more than the few cutscenes.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
That is very good news to me, i like to finish my games and my gaming time is shrinking by the years. How fetch questy is this game?

Quest requirements vary from killing something or multiple targets, getting resources be it from monsters or harvest points or following dialog to find a particular npc. Is what have shown up so far.
 
Many I've heard most of the scenes used are the new interactive ones, which kind of annoyed some importers when they die they have to rewatch the who event unfold.

That kind of stuff is unacceptable, whether they're trying to avoid load screens or not. No one has time to watch a five minute cutscene every time the AI decides to become suicidal. It makes even less sense since this game is made by the studio that pioneered cutscene skipping In JRPGs with Star Ocean 3 way back in 2003. I'm pretty sure everyone wouldn't mind a quick fade to black to skip the seamless cutscenes if it meant not having to wait so long after a wipe from a boss battle.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I guess platinuming this game won't be a pain anymore if you want to do 2 or more playthroughs.

One problem with SO4 is that you had to play the game 3-4 times and one playthrough is around 60 hours already.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I guess platinuming this game won't be a pain anymore if you want to do 2 or more playthroughs.

One problem with SO4 is that you had to play the game 3-4 times and one playthrough is around 60 hours already.

Have not looked it up but am curious if there even is a new game+ mode in this title.
 
I wonder how much of the unskippable cutscenes is there to avoid loading screens, and how much of it is just to pad out the game? The cutscenes easy add a few hours to the overall time.

I'm guessing it was implemented to make the branching/interactive cutscenes idea that never happened work.

Hurry, hurry! Can't wait to find out that Suguro didn't work on yet another big tri-Ace game!

What is the significance of this?
 

Zekes!

Member
Whoa, I'm kind of surprised at the clock in times. The Star Ocean I spent the most time with was 3 and I think I put 80 hours into that game before I beat it, though I also did a bunch of sidequest stuff.

I recently went back to my copy of SO: Second Evolution for the PSP in hopes of making some real progress in it 'cause I never got too far into it before.
 

chozen

Member
I also believe that this is just a short SO game for SO fans, and that they are trying to see if the fanbase is still there. Lots of recycling of enemies and skills.

The budget given is pretty small, I hope they get a bigger one next time (if there is a next time), time for everyone to buy two copies.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Leveled out Sage role (cast times -70%) + Holy Mother role (auto mp regen plus something else I can't remember) on Miki make her able to spam the almost full HP group heal after every enemy attack while being at max mp all the time.

The above combination was so broken that I controlled Miki through the whole last boss fight and it was a total cakewalk.

Can't stream the credits.
 
No cutscenes? Sounds great. I don't have any patience for the bullshit of JRPG cutscenes anymore. If I wanted to watch a slice of life anime, I'd go do that instead.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
No cutscenes? Sounds great. I don't have any patience for the bullshit of JRPG cutscenes anymore. If I wanted to watch a slice of life anime, I'd go do that instead.
There are cutscenes in the game, but not that many and most conversations are delivered from the gameplay perspective.
 

Illucio

Banned
Everyone's reception seems okay.

I'm actually excited, the game is a little on the short side, okay combat (for SO standards), no ridiculous amounts of cutscenes, the story/game pacing is similar to 1 and 2, beautiful game, okay missions.

Sounds like a very basic PS2 RPG game. If this is anything like Star Ocean: Til The End of Time I'll be content.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
All in all the game took me about 21-22 hours to clear. It was very easy on the normal difficulty for most of the time, with spikes here and there. The reason for the difficulty for the most part was the whole party being hit in succession by AOE attacks and healer not healing in the most effective way. If you want the game to be real easy, invest in the roles I mentioned in my previous post and control Miki. The battles will take a while, because AI can't dish really good damage with the MC.

Not going to bother with the post game dungeon, because I feel like I had enough, but it's there for anyone interested. Like someone mentioned previously, it doesn't seem to be that long though.

As for my general impressions, I guess in the end I enjoyed playing through the game, but I think it's a terrible idea to use backtracking for your padding needs. The fields are few and far between, boring to boot, and going through them for the second-third time already felt like too much. And there's way more of that.

Another thing that bothered me were enemy recolors. Obviously, it happens in most RPGs, but because the game was so short, seeding 3-4 sets of the same group of enemies within a few hours was just sad.

The battle system was okay, nothing to write home about, but I still kind of enjoyed it in the later part of the game.

In general the game felt like a Tales game with lower budget, some interesting (and some poorly executed) new-ish ideas like cutscenes, and a sci-fi twist.
 
Thanks for the impressions. This is not going to be a day one €60 game for me as I hoped it would be. I'll get it somewhere in 2017 maybe.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
All in all the game took me about 21-22 hours to clear. It was very easy on the normal difficulty for most of the time, with spikes here and there. The reason for the difficulty for the most part was the whole party being hit in succession by AOE attacks and healer not healing in the most effective way. If you want the game to be real easy, invest in the roles I mentioned in my previous post and control Miki. The battles will take a while, because AI can't dish really good damage with the MC.

Not going to bother with the post game dungeon, because I feel like I had enough, but it's there for anyone interested. Like someone mentioned previously, it doesn't seem to be that long though.

As for my general impressions, I guess in the end I enjoyed playing through the game, but I think it's a terrible idea to use backtracking for your padding needs. The fields are few and far between, boring to boot, and going through them for the second-third time already felt like too much. And there's way more of that.

Another thing that bothered me were enemy recolors. Obviously, it happens in most RPGs, but because the game was so short, seeding 3-4 sets of the same group of enemies within a few hours was just sad.

The battle system was okay, nothing to write home about, but I still kind of enjoyed it in the later part of the game.

In general the game felt like a Tales game with lower budget, some interesting (and some poorly executed) new-ish ideas like cutscenes, and a sci-fi twist.

Thanks for the impressions. The game sure is short but that's fine with me. How was the story and how would your rank this game among the other Star Ocean games?
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Thanks for the impressions. The game sure is short but that's fine with me. How was the story and how would your rank this game among the other Star Ocean games?
I played SO2 for ~30 minutes ages ago and SO4 for a few hours a few years ago.

The story was rather basic, but not too bad. I liked characters a lot - sure, tropes all around, but at least they were well made and not annoying, which is rare in JRPGs.
 

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
When you see all the shit they are doing for FFXV it doesn't surprise me this game was made on a shoestring budget.
 

Atlantis

Member
I guess platinuming this game won't be a pain anymore if you want to do 2 or more playthroughs.

One problem with SO4 is that you had to play the game 3-4 times and one playthrough is around 60 hours already.

Does this game have battle trophies? I mean, it doesn't matter how long the game takes to replay if trophies like "30,000 enemies killed" or "255 Robotics drops" exist, those were the real grind if you were trying for SO4's plat.

Going by what I've read here, looks like this game uses SO4's system and requires two playthroughs to unlock Chaos difficulty, ugh.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Jesus, that sounds truly horrible. Never mind that Star Ocean has always been a misnomer, but at least SO4 actually made headway to live up to the title. And now they've regressed to maybe even worse than Star Ocean 1? Wow. If this was all they were capable of, they should've just not even made this game, or made it into a handheld game (where it could've had high production values comparatively).

"why dont AA developers make AAA games anymore with the budgets they dont have!?"

A lot of people seem to be living in a dreamworld
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Going by what I've read here, looks like this game uses SO4's system and requires two playthroughs to unlock Chaos difficulty, ugh.
Incorrect. You unlock both UNIVERSE and CHAOS difficulties by clearing the game once.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Does this game have battle trophies? I mean, it doesn't matter how long the game takes to replay if trophies like "30,000 enemies killed" or "255 Robotics drops" exist, those were the real grind if you were trying for SO4's plat.

Going by what I've read here, looks like this game uses SO4's system and requires two playthroughs to unlock Chaos difficulty, ugh.

That's not so bad because this game is only
20 hours
. If you repeat the game 3x, skipping the some cutscenes
it will take you 60-65 hours. Basically one normal playthrough of SO4.

Edit: looks like even less. So you can finish 2 playthroughs
in 40-50 hours
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
So it sounds like most of the story takes place with dialogue rolling out while the camera is in normal, gameplay mode? Like Fallout or something?

That...sounds kinda awful. If I wanted a WRPG, I can just play a WRPG. I wonder if they would fix and touch this up before localizing the game. Shame to have a supposedly good cast and plot, but then be cinematically incompetent.

That was their "seamless" system they have been talking about, really just to save money on having to motion capture cutscenes and things of that nature.

Not a big deal, we have to understand the limitations they are under, even though i personally like cut-scenes...and they seem to have only used them in the absolute most necessary of necessary circumstances. FF12 level

No cutscenes? Sounds great. I don't have any patience for the bullshit of JRPG cutscenes anymore. If I wanted to watch a slice of life anime, I'd go do that instead.

I think your problem is more that your attitude has changed toward JPRG's rather than cut-scenes equating a "slice of life anime". Truly a ridiculous comment.
 
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