[E3 2015] Star Ocean 5

Star Ocean 3 is one of the best RPGs ever made, and has the best soundtrack bar none.

Star Ocean 4 is fine. There's nothing wrong with it at all. It's a pretty game with a good story and fun combat.

Still need to play SO4 and get around to finishing SO1.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Originally Posted by ToriJ

Skip the first four games and go straight to 5?

Okay.

4 is actually 0 and 5 is 2.5. Do not skip 4, you will miss something and I am more talking about the experience itself than the story.

Wat? They went Devil May Cry with the numbers?

They've already said where this takes place in the timeline?

Originally Posted by Vyk

They've already said where this takes place in the timeline?

Yes, it is between 2 and 3.


And Devil May Cry did that when? I only played the new one and that is a Reboot.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Originally Posted by Vyk

They've already said where this takes place in the timeline?

Yes, it is between 2 and 3.


And Devil May Cry did that when? I only played the new one and that is a Reboot.

The third game is a prequel to DMC1 and DMC4 takes place between DMC1 and 2. Oh game designers and their crazy use of numbers.

Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Yeah it was terrible how the franchise named STAR OCEAN finally dealt with exploring outer of space instead of stranding you on Generic Fantasy Planet #4555512.

How dare they. I know I personally was very disappointed when I got an awesome space ship and the ability to go to different planets right away. I never wanted any of that in mah sci-fi JRPG.

That's not why it's bad.

It's bad because the combat did a complete 180 in design philosophy. It completely missed the point of all the changes they made in SO3. Fury, MP damage and anti-attack auras were there for the express purpose of discouraging button mashing. They wanted you to play smart. On the higher difficulties, you actually have to. Those elements were implemented as a reactionary measure to the way people played SO2, and they didn't want Star Ocean to be that kind of game. It's the same kind of thinking that went into what made Bloodborne good and different from the other Souls games. SO4 disregarded all of that and went for nostalgia.

They replaced all your defensive options with flashy gimmicks like blindside and rush combos. Blindside is a "defensive maneuver," except you only use it for offensive purposes, and it boils down to "that thing you use when you can't figure out how to hurt the boss." Rush mode and rush combos are an "I win" button. The BEAT system is pointless. The bonus gauge was somehow made even more convoluted than it was in SO3.

There was no reason to go back to 4 character parties (naturally, going to 6+ in SO5 is not a good idea). On paper, having 4 characters sounds good, but until they figure out how to either program competent AI or let you program it yourself, the more characters you have, the more bad AIs you have to fight with. Micromanaging is already difficult with 3 characters, it's going to be a complete mess with 6. The only thing that would make that work is a gambit system and a Dragon Age: Origins style tactical camera. It works in turn-based games because they're turn-based. Real-time action combat demands relatively small party sizes. Online co-op would be a good thing.

The item creation took 2 steps forward with being able to make exactly what you want, and then 5 steps back with how you could synthesize items onto other items to increase their base stats and still have free factor slots. You could do that forever (albeit abusing a programming oversight), until your armor gave you +9999 everything. No real reason to play the endgame if there's no such thing as specs/setups/builds. There's a reason Dark Souls has a community-dictated PvP level cap even though you can go to 999. If you don't abuse the oversight, there are at least 3 characters in the game who can permanently stunlock the entire screen.

It's cool that they brought back stuff like pickpocket and harvesting, but they neglected to implement the most interesting aspects of SO2's item creation. There was no using reverse side to buy inns and get free heals there for the entire game. You didn't have characters who had to craft items to learn their own battle skills, there was no publishing/writing. Then they took away one of the the biggest things in Star Ocean: optional characters. If the shallow battle system and broken synthesis didn't do it, now you really have no reason to play the game more than once.

But hey, I'm not here to make you apologize for liking something. I just have actual reasons for hating that game, ya dig?

THis post does not look like you have played it for 600 hours. And I would play it another 600 before even touching a Souls gameagain, which I have tried for 30 minutes and never tried ever again.

Game looks really good, the environments especially.

But what the hell is with that creepy zoom thing they're doing. I thought I was having some kind of acid trip.

>>> SO5? WTF? SO is a super dead franchise. Not to mention the game looks lame.

Is it?

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

THis post does not look like you have played it for 600 hours. And I would play it another 600 before even touching a Souls gameagain, which I have tried for 30 minutes and never tried ever again.

Compelling arguments. Tell me more.

SO4 was truly a wretched game. It has some good aspects (like most things do) but the story and characters were soooooooooo bad that basically overwhelmed anything good that might have been happening. And combat was pretty boring.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

THis post does not look like you have played it for 600 hours. And I would play it another 600 before even touching a Souls gameagain, which I have tried for 30 minutes and never tried ever again.

Which parts of it are wrong?

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

THis post does not look like you have played it for 600 hours. And I would play it another 600 before even touching a Souls gameagain, which I have tried for 30 minutes and never tried ever again.

He needs 25 days to comment on something, but you only need 30 minutes?

Originally Posted by ToriJ

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

THis post does not look like you have played it for 600 hours. And I would play it another 600 before even touching a Souls gameagain, which I have tried for 30 minutes and never tried ever again.

He needs 25 days to comment on something, but you only need 30 minutes?

I need 30 minutes because I don't like it as its aspects don't interest me, not because I say "they added this and did it the wrong way and that's a fact which mathematically results in it being objectively bad". I do not claim the souls games to be bad and I do not say what they have done is wrong. It is just "wrong if they want my interest", it still works for many. That's the difference. He also does not need to play a game for 600 hours, it was merely to comment on how the game itself cannot be this bad if I am interested in those so-called badly placed aspects if I play it this long. If someone plays or watches something and says "not interested" that is perfectly fine. It also does not really help to always compare it to another Star Ocean and say "and that is why it is bad". People need to try out a new formula as well - and yes, it also is liked by players. Not everyone hates what Star Ocean 4 brought in. The only things I personally could complain about when it comes to the games are stuff like freezing, which happened to the best games for me and that doll-like stare of some characters in some situations. Also it does not really help commenting about blindsiding is justa defensive maneuver for offensive purposes (while it being mainly used for that might be true but at the same time greatly helps to avoid getting damage, the best way to defend yourself is by not getting damage in the first place) or BEAT is pointless when its flat-out not true as I also made good use of it. I needed to play the game enough for the platinum trophy and can say that you can definitely make good use of both. We can argue about necessity, but that's different.

Actually people can enjoy games that others consider bad (or someone may not enjoy a game that others consider good) - it's having an opinion. You may find something acceptable, while to someone else it may be a deal breaker. Jibril explained why he felt it was bad. You can disagree, but he still personally considers it bad for those reasons. It doesn't mean you are wrong for enjoying it, and he is not wrong for not enjoying it.

Of course there is no need for everyone to preface and end every post with "this is my opinion" for this general idea to be the case.

Which would result in differentiating between the opinion that something is bad and someone making a claim that something is bad, being very hard.

I loved SO4 so I am very excite about the new one I've also played 2 and 3 and I wasn't as big of a fan, but I didn't dislike them either.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Which would result in differentiating between the opinion that something is bad and someone making a claim that something is bad, being very hard.

So which parts of jibril's post do you think are incorrect? Why do you think those points he brought up improve the gameplay rather than make it worse?