Satoruna 最近的评测

It's been many years since I was blown away playing Star Ocean 3. It was so good it spurred me to play the 2 remake on the PSP when it came out. 3 was such a legendary game, when I heard 2 was supposed to be the best I couldn't help myself, but I ended up disappointed as it didn't live up to my expectations. When I eventually got a PS3, I played Star Ocean 4 and expected greatness, only to be let down immensely. I tried so hard to love it, but it never clicked and I went into waiting again. Then they announced 5, and they said it'd be more like 3 and I hoped yet again only to be let down again. So why in the hell did I buy this game? I suppose I'm just a dumb ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ digging in his backyard looking for gold, expecting to get rich after shoveling out crap and worms for years. But much to my surprise, tri-Ace decided they can't keep burying crap in my backyard forever considering I'm not complaining about this.

Starting off, the combat in this game is overall solid. The attacks feel snappy, strong and satisfying to land. Every character is very unique and has their own playstyle. Even the two main characters Ray and Laeticia feel different despite both being beginner friendly, with Ray focusing more on faster, strong hits with Laeticia focusing on more committal multi-hit barrages that allow you to continue juggles with ease by switching to other characters. Defensive options aren't lacking either, with the dodge, Vanguard Assault and certain attacks allowing you to avoid or block attacks in a timely manner. The AP system encourages learning about how to play as your entire party, as you can continue juggles by swapping to someone else as you use a lengthy attack to lock them in place but doesn't force it. In general, you're given a lot of options for how to win battles depending on your party, your setup, the terrain and other different factors.


However, the combat isn't perfect either. Though I do praise most of the attacks that are in the game, attack skill variety for each character is low. Most people will use similar sets of attacks for each character due to this lack of variety, and it doesn't help that certain moves just have no use case, which exasperates the issue. What point is there to using Ray's sword projectile when it does low damage and rarely lands due to the travel time? What point is there to Laeticia's upwards slash when it's weak and committal, making it poor for combos? On top of that, the AI for this game is quite poor. While it's it's an issue for both the enemies and your party, the issue is much worse for your party. They often end up walking around slowly like a kid that got lost in the mall, and their decision making is just as bad as one too. Against some enemies, they just walk slowly until they perform some big, obvious attack and end up getting swept away by some giant bird. Against others, they attack while the enemy prepares a giant attack and they get blown up. And sometimes, they'll actually avoid these big AoE attacks and you'd praise the heavens that they finally did something intelligent. Until they walk in while the attack is still active and die. It's almost like they're puppets huddling around the enemy, waiting to be the lucky character to be blessed with your brain cells so they can actually do something worth a damn.


Outside of the combat though, everything else about the game is sort of average, maybe on the good or bad side of average. The overall world of the game is okay. You end up going through these big, open spaces that look nice but basically just have enemies and a few treasures lying around. I do appreciate how seamless it is since you don't get teleported to some random arena during fights and the terrain can actually affect battles since you have to worry about walls and bottomless pits, but they're still not that interesting. The dungeons are okay, I wish they were a bit longer and maybe had more puzzles. The quests tend to be boring MMO style quests.


One thing I really appreciate is the gear. Gear can have factors with a number of different effects that actually aren't just number changes, which can be really fun to mess with. However, it comes with the downside of being mostly locked to Item Creation. IC isn't a problem by itself, but it suffers from the fact that it's very costly early game so you likely won't get to take advantage of it until later in the game. Either you pay SP to level up an IC skill, when SP is very important, or you spend money to buy materials to level up IC, which also costs money. At least you still get to mess around with factors somewhat due to Esowa pieces having factors on them as well. Speaking of Esowa, that's the minigame featured in SO6. It's kind of cute, but on the shallow side. It's very easy to figure out what the winning strategy is once you get the right pieces and it becomes impossible for you to lose.

The graphics are generally decent, but have some odd issues. Character models are hit or miss, instead of reflections you have this really strange blur effect, the game has these moments aside from that where it looks blurry for no reason. Music is okay, most of it doesn't stand out. Writing is kind of cheesy, the characters are entertaining in a way but it's hard to take the story seriously despite some decent ideas. And of course, Denuvo sucks.


Despite its issues, I honestly enjoyed myself with a Star Ocean game for the first time in many, many years. I will admit, I still don't think it's on the level of Star Ocean 3. Mainly because the dungeons, the overall length and amount of content in the game doesn't quite compare. But despite not being gold, it's at least silver. Even though it's average in a lot of categories, the battle mechanics are quite satisfying with a lot to learn and if you're fine with that, you're bound to have a good time.

To my friends that probably won't read this

Play this game

I'm usually pretty hard on a lot of Smash style games, but this one hits the mark. Movement feels crisp. The characters all feel very distinct and rewarding, from Wrastor's mastery of the air to Orcane's unique stage control with puddle and bubble based moves. Stages are decent, and if the gimmicks aren't your thing you can turn them off. Online works well enough, allowing you to invite friends easily and go against people around the world. While I wish there were a slightly larger amount of characters and waiting for single player is a bit of a drag, the game was definitely worth it.

This game is awesome, but they ruined Tornado, it was way better in Oath in Felghana. If you liked Tornado this isn't the game for you.

Pray to the gods of luck if you don't want constant 1 rolls.