Star Ocean: The Fifth to Last Hope

[Ultima Shadow]

It's been years since I last played SO3, but if I remember correctly, you had to press and hold the attack buttons to do skills, which wasn't detrimental or difficult at all, but I think having them as shoulder buttons is more intuitive. The only real problem I have with SO4's controls is the camera. It's so awkward and I wish there was an option to invert the x-axis.

And does your spoiler have any MAJOR plot spoilers? I read up to (SPOILER)Arumat inheriting Edge's levels and skills, but beyond that, does it have anything that would ruin the story?

I wouldn't say pressing R2/L2 is much different from holding down a button, but ah well. And yeah, I totally agree with Zeromus_X regarding the battlesystems. SO4's battlesystem is very good for an RPG, but I was still dissapointed by it... simply because I kept comparing it to SO3's. I mean... the system with Strong/Weak moves and the AAA was pure GENIOUS! It's so sad that they removed it. MP kills made battles more intense since you basically had to keep track on 2 "life gauges" rather than just one. The fury system was also something I liked better about SO3. I guess another thing I really loved more about SO3's battlesystem was the fact that it was so abusable, mainly thanks to AAA. I mean... the rage gauge and combined attacks in SO4 can also be abused to some degree, but it's both less abusable and easier to abuse. SO3's AAA can be difficult and dangerous to use well against many enemies and at the same time it makes it possible for a level 1 character to beat the final boss, without using any super weapon, just because it's so abusable. And that's GENIOUS! =D

Except for being able to switch party members/abilities during battle, that was pretty awesome

I actually dissliked the party switching, just because it made things too easy. I finished the whole game and beat the bonus dungeon (only once, so I haven't faced EQ's super-wing crazy mode) without getting a single game over, just because even when your entire party is wiped out, you can just switch in new members and easily revive all the old ones and switch out again etc etc.

And ONE more thing: you can't switch targets in a smooth way in SO4. I have absolutely no idea why they made it that way, but it really sucks.

...that being said, I really like SO4's battle system. But I just absolutely LOVE SO3's system.



Edit: Oh, and don't worry, SomethingBig. The spoiler doesn't spoil anything story-releated.