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- Platforms: PS4 | Switch |
- Developer: Square Enix
- Publisher:Square Enix
- Release: December 05, 2019
While Star Ocean games can more or less be played independently of each other (aided, as such, by the time chasm between each release), there are connecting themes that run throughout. Jun 28, 2016 Star Ocean 5 invotates some in terms of gameplay but lacks in most of the other places that the Star Ocean series usually excels. Over all Star Ocean 5 invotates some in terms of gameplay but lacks in most of the other places that the Star Ocean series usually excels. Over all it's an alright game but certainly the weakest entry in the series.
Let’s start off harshly: without including remakes, there hasn’t been a groundbreaking Star Ocean game in over two decades. Well, one can make an argument that Till the End of Time was actually pretty good, but even then, that would mean sixteen years have passed since the beloved franchise has seen a release that surpassed, or even matched, its closest competition. While it had solid combat fundamentals, The Last Hope lacked in every other category, and Integrity and Faithlessness was an utter mess that many fans want to forget completely. It got so bad that we thought we had lost it to the mobile market when Anamesis came out (and this could still potentially be the case). Square Enix has had to revert to remaking and remastering the first two games, first on the PlayStation Portable, and now on the newer set of consoles. While we’re still waiting on Square Enix to localize the PlayStation 4 version of Second Story, one of the best JRPGs released during the PlayStation era, we’re instead treated to a throwback that set the series in the right direction. This is the PSP remake of the SNES original, showcasing a newly-rendered world, beautifully-crafted sprites and high-res character art. After so long, does Star Ocean First Departure R hold up or is it best left in the void of space like Integrity and Faithlessness?
Star Ocean tells the story of the young swordsman Roddick, alongside his friends Dorne and Millie who defend a small town from bandits and monsters. A disastrous disease has started to spread across the land, turning anyone affected into stone. In the process of looking for a cure, the three are greeted to aliens from the mysterious planet Earth who have come to help them cure this deadly affliction. This is the prime objective in the game, as players will be thrown through time and space in order to obtain a vaccine to save their planet, not to mention their friends and family. It’s a simplistic story that has some twists and turns along the way, but what makes it enjoyable is the vast cast of characters. While Roddick feels like your traditional hero, sometimes being a bit oblivious to certain situations, it’s the sizable roster that brings the story to life. Of course you have the childish Welch who has become a staple of the Star Ocean franchise, along with the maiden on a mission Mavelle who only has vengeance on her mind, the stoic swordsman Ashlay, the somewhat uptight Phia and so forth. It’s not the roster of say Valkyrie Profile, but it boosts diversity, to say the least, as each comes with their own characteristic perks and mechanics.
![Metacritic Metacritic](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/3/39/JJL_Chapter_70.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171027184831)
Star Ocean First Departure R isn’t particularly a long RPG, taking roughly twenty-five hours to complete. Fortunately, a lot of its longevity comes from replaying it and interacting with the characters. Depending who you recruit into your party, there will be different stories and interactions to be told, and it’s not a game that you can get everyone in one go. Depending who you permanently obtain, other paths will be locked to you, sometimes restricting you from drafting better characters for combat. There’s not necessarily a meta as each character has their own unique quirks, but there are characters who you could very well see helping with character composition and makeup during specific scenarios. Regardless, while I’m not someone who like to replay a game over and over again, especially when you have to dedicate upwards of thirty hours each time, it allows you to unlock more story and areas you didn’t get to see on your first go around.
Mechanically, First Departure R is what we’ve come to expect from a Star Ocean game. You’ll be running around in a 3D space hacking and slashing away at opponents that you’ve found via random encounters. It still feels as enjoyable as it did back in the day, even though the random encounters can be an annoyance at times, especially during quests that have you backtracking a good distance. It would have been nice to see a no-encounter “cheat” option, similar to how Square Enix handled it in Final Fantasy VII-IX ports. They did thankfully include the ability to run twice as fast, which makes getting around planet Roak all the more bearable, something you never really appreciate until you let go of the run button. The only real shortcoming here is not having the ability to activate is to be persistent in the settings, rather than having it assigned to ZR.
While developers are using filters that utterly destroy the quality of older titles, a lot of which feels like putting Vaseline over your eyes, Star Ocean First Departure R is a nice change of pace as it retains the beautiful artwork the PSP remake displayed. The scaling to HD has gone exceptionally; you obviously can tell this was an older game originally developed for a handheld device as the 3D models are low res, and the pre-rendered backgrounds are pretty much just upscaled, but sprite-based character models are of the highest quality. First Departure R also features newly-rendered characters for dialogue (which can be swapped between the original), along with the ability to swap between the two on the fly — that’s not to mention swapping between the Japanese voice tracks. While this is great extra work was put in, it is a little off putting when cutscenes begin to play and their character art is drastically different than what we see in game. Granted, there aren’t too many to begin with, but it still something to note. With that, I actually prefer the older character art to the newer; it shows a higher level of detail, especially in clothing and armor, but the older stills instill a great deal of nostalgia.
Closing Comments:
Star Ocean First Departure R is the best Star Ocean game in a long time. It features a diverse cast of characters that will make you want to play this twenty-to-thirty hour romp a couple times over, and gameplay that, while at times can feel dated, is still highly engaging. The addition of being able to run faster is one of the best new features, although it feels like a half measure to avoid some unnecessarily lengthy treks and battles. Square Enix also was able to retain First Departure’s beautiful sprite-based artwork, and even though it won’t blow anyone away from a technical level, the art style more than makes up for it. Even though the franchise’s future looks concerning, whether you’re a newcomer or a hardcore fan, you owe it to yourself to revisit where the series began and took form.
Adam Beck
Star Ocean First Departure R
4
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
I don’t know that I’ve ever played a game where the scope and the ambition are so profoundly mismatched as.As with the previous four games in Square Enix’s 20-year-old Star Ocean series, Integrity and Faithlessness borrows shamelessly from the Star Trek playbook. It tricks players; it’s a game that begins as a by-the-books fantasy RPG before the sky opens up and reveals a much wider sci-fi universe at play.But it’s within that trick — the core reason for its existence — that Integrity and Faithlessness screws up everything. The wider sci-fi universe ends up much narrower than it seemed, and the suggestions of so much more give way to a very shallow reality. The game just can’t seem to deliver on any of its promises.
The wider sci-fi universe ends up much narrower than it seemed. Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness begins like so many Japanese role-playing games: in a small town, with a young, unassuming protagonist. Main character Fidel Camuze is the son of a legendary swordsman who, along with his childhood friend Miki, finds himself unexpectedly in the middle of a conflict between two warring nations of the planet Faykreed.Before long, the growing party discovers Relia, a strange girl with mysterious powers — such as the ability to get kidnapped by the bad guys on half a dozen discrete occasions throughout the course of the game. This revelation plods along until the characters begin to understand what's more or less clear to players from the start: The warring nations of Faykreed are actually being pushed along, manipulated and in some rare cases aided by visitors from the stars.If Integrity and Faithlessness sounds generic from the start, it’s at least charming within its stereotypes. Fidel and Miki are bland heroes, but the expanded cast is full of more interesting characters, like the powerful magic-user Fiore, the womanizing captain Emmerson and the stoic-to-the-point-of-hilarity Victor. And though 'girl with mysterious powers' is an RPG plot point I’ve written about probably dozens of times in reviews by this point, Star Ocean at least initially reeled me in with its mystery and had me hopeful that it was moving toward something worthwhile.
Well, it wasn’t.By the time Integrity and Faithlessness heads into space, 20 or so hours and about halfway through the game’s plot, its structure has devolved into a series of increasingly mundane excuses to trek back and forth across the game's shockingly tiny world. Faykreed features approximately five small cities and maybe half a dozen different environment types, each of which I hack-and-slashed my way through over and over again as I tried to rescue Relia for the fourth time or got involved with the war again or whatever my current boring objective was.By finally taking things into space, I expected the game to open up. However, Integrity and Faithlessness opts for the least interesting route possible, despite the seemingly endless possibilities afforded it.
You will not spend much time in space, and most of it will be onboard your cramped spaceship or onboard an enemy's cramped spaceship which operates as a makeshift dungeon. And then, less than an hour after Fidel is told he 'may never return to your home planet,' a plot twists sends the party. Right back to Faykreed. To retread the same ground. Again.Whether you plan to play Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness or not, do not consider the previous paragraph a spoiler. Consider it a warning. Whatever the game makes you believe about where it is headed, you’re not going anywhere special, save for the very places you’ve already been before.
There is nothing more to the game. It’s all disappointing sleight of hand. Perhaps I would have been less frustrated with fighting the same enemies in the same areas over and over if Integrity and Faithlessness had a stronger combat system, but this element seems as underdeveloped as most everything else in the game. Battles take place in real time, and run on what’s essentially a rock-paper-scissors formula. Light attacks will interrupt any strong attacks that are charging up; strong attack break blocks and leave characters briefly stunned; and blocking stops all damage from light attacks and opens an opponent up to being counter-attacked.It’s a solid enough system on paper, but remember that Star Ocean is an RPG with inputs and actions that are 'real time' only in the strictest sense of the term.
![Star Ocean Ps4 Star Ocean Ps4](https://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Star-Ocean-First-Departure-R_08-26-19_004.jpg)
Once you’ve pressed the button for your character to do a light attack, for example, it’s tough to break out of that if the enemy you’re attacking begins blocking. Inputs aren’t registered as quickly and accurately as they would be in a good full-on action game, which means battle scenarios just weren’t that satisfying, whether I was winning or losing. Integrity and Faithlessness’ biggest claim toward innovation is that all party members who are with you are active in combat at the same time. Whether you’ve got a group of two or the full, end-game party of seven characters, every one of them will be on the field at the same time. The spectacle of this impressed me at first, but before long it turned into more trouble than it was worth. You can assign different roles to party members to attempt to guide them in the right direction during battle, but the artificial intelligence is consistently awful — don’t expect party members to do a good job getting out of the way of a powerful boss’ most draining area-of-effect attacks, for example.To be clear, despite the bad party member AI and the clunky combat mechanics, my complaint is not that the game is difficult.
Aside from a few optional bosses who kicked my ass, I barely struggled during Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. But that lack of challenge feels like a concession to mechanics that couldn't feasibly shoulder the weight of a more challenging game. As such, everything has been watered down to the point that, as long as you’re doing some amount of sidequests, you’re probably not going to run into trouble.
Wrap Up: Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness has good ideas but never goes anywhere with themI hate being so harsh on Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, because I love the series, and I’m excited by the potential for greatness within its conceits. For the first fourth of the game, I believed it might realize that potential. By its end, Integrity and Faithlessness feels like a black hole, its good ideas never able to escape the pull of an underwhelming, underdeveloped game.Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness was reviewed using a final version of the game running on debug PlayStation 4 hardware. The game was provided by Square Enix. You can find additional information about Polygon's ethics policy.
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