Star Ocean 4 news and media thread

[Kevassa]

Umm, Annoying creation system, bad voice acting and lipsynching, terrible storyline, boring battle system, horrible physics within the battle system, and yet another forgettable soundtrack by motoi sakuraba make SO3 complete and utter garbage....

There is only one thing to say about that... LETZ DO A BACKROLL

[ForceCube]

^you should have quoted the entire post.

[navydude]

There is only one thing to say about that... LETZ DO A BACKROLL

^you should have quoted the entire post.

Blah, blah, blah.... haterade power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol... so hateful but its not my fault u like crappy games.

Anyway, cool looking game and the release date is march in U.S. !!! Hope i dnt get sent to iraq in feb muhahahahaha 

[Demon000]

I enjoyed playing SO3

the release date is march in U.S.

And exactly on my birthday... Could that be a sign?

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Specials attacks executed like SO1/2, no more pressure-sensitive BS.

Someone's saying the "stand around like an idiot to defend" system is gone and apparently Rush is something kind of like Tales overlimit.

so basically, SO finally decided to get off their asses and rip off the Tales way of doing things instead of being total jerkwads? seriously, every single game in the series is plagued by bullshit unnecessarily poor design.

SO1 - free run is total crap (not an issue in ToP SFC), also using items in battle is awkward (not an issue in ToP SFC)
SO2 - forced "semi-auto" thing is a total pain in the ass (was never an issue in Tales, and not even in SO1!), items are still a ridiculous pain in the ass in battle (was never an issue in Tales), spell effects are retardedly long and stop time (never THAT long in Tales, plus became realtime in ToE)
SO3 - hyper bullshit defense system (Tales had a defend button since ToD), retarded skill usage (never a problem before in any game), still the same Short/Long shit (Tales dropped it in ToD). did they fix the items in battle thing? i have yet to play it because i'm just THAT disinterested.

[Cless]

Despite some of the retarded decisions that went into SO3's battle system design, it cleans up the floor with the battle systems in the first two games. It's fast and smooth as all hell, and spell pause is a thing of the past. It's faster than any Tales battle system, I seem to recall, at any rate.

And for people that like their e-penis size, it also has its own glorified battle achievement system, which incidentally came before the 360. It probably takes thousands of hours and trillions of tears to get them all. Sadly, the rewards for obtaining them should have been standard features. Apparently 95% allows you access to a battle control mode inspired by Tales manual. 95%. The "Till the End of Time" subtitle suddenly makes more sense than ever!

[ForceCube]

so basically, SO finally decided to get off their asses and rip off the Tales way of doing things instead of being total jerkwads? seriously, every single game in the series is plagued by bullshit unnecessarily poor design.

SO1 - free run is total crap (not an issue in ToP SFC), also using items in battle is awkward (not an issue in ToP SFC)
SO2 - forced "semi-auto" thing is a total pain in the ass (was never an issue in Tales, and not even in SO1!), items are still a ridiculous pain in the ass in battle (was never an issue in Tales), spell effects are retardedly long and stop time (never THAT long in Tales, plus became realtime in ToE)
SO3 - hyper bullshit defense system (Tales had a defend button since ToD), retarded skill usage (never a problem before in any game), still the same Short/Long shit (Tales dropped it in ToD). did they fix the items in battle thing? i have yet to play it because i'm just THAT disinterested.

QFT. I couldn't have put it all in better words.
I always wanted to get into Star Ocean games (despite their stories being terrible and, in SO3's case, the dialogue too - but then again, this is an issue most 128-bit movie-like RPGs have). But what always kept me from becoming a fan of them were their battle systems.

I couldn't suck any enjoyment out of SO2's battles, they were frustrating, slow as balls and just plain not fun. SO3 managed to make them frantic and surprisingly fun (as Cless pointed out), but at the same time messed with the two points SO2 didn't mess with - defending and using skills. After playing through all three games I've been secretly hoping Tri-Ace made a SO with all the good things from previous installments, but didn't screw up the battles somehow (I've given up on seeing a decent story long ago ). That said, SO4 is literally my "Last Hope" - if it sucks, I'll consider this series dead for good.

Also, I want my world map back. And my freedom to explore the worlds.

[Cless]

I think SO2 was a game you had to "be there" for, because it has not aged gracefully in a lot of key respects. I played it all summer in 1999, a time before Tales got refined as hell and just blew the crap out of it. It was one of the most fun gaming marathons I've ever had, rivaled only by my long stint with Final Fantasy VI, and I've never quite had one like that since.

But more than battles, item creation, skill system, private actions, trying to go for certain endings, and all the dicking around you could do before advancing the story was a lot of fun. RPGs have gotten so stupidly linear in recent times. As soon as you got out of the second town, you could run around the entire damn first continent if you wanted to, which enabled you access to like four towns, areas with strong monsters if you wanted to grind to ridiculous levels. You could sidetrack yourself for hours before moving on. SO2 was a blast for me.

[ForceCube]

I think SO2 was a game you had to "be there" for, because it has not aged gracefully in a lot of key respects. I played it all summer in 1999, a time before Tales got refined as hell and just blew the crap out of it. It was one of the most fun gaming marathons I've ever had, rivaled only by my long stint with Final Fantasy VI, and I've never quite had one like that since.

But more than battles, item creation, skill system, private actions, trying to go for certain endings, and all the dicking around you could do before advancing the story was a lot of fun. RPGs have gotten so stupidly linear in recent times. As soon as you got out of the second town, you could run around the entire damn first continent if you wanted to, which enabled you access to like four towns, areas with strong monsters if you wanted to grind to ridiculous levels. You could sidetrack yourself for hours before moving on. SO2 was a blast for me.

Maybe I haven't expressed myself well enough on my previous post, but I do like SO2. Even though two of the aspects I consider more important on RPGs disappointed me in it (story and battles), and I hate RPGs with multiple character pairings and endings, I still liked it for its soundtrack, likeable characters, great item creation system and for just being loads of fun to explore, as you said. RPGs have indeed become too linear nowadays.

And I'd probably have at least been less traumatized by SO2's battles if I hadn't played it right after Tales of Eternia - yes, right after. You can guess the disaster it was for me to be again confronted with action-pausing spells, absolute lack of control over allies and battles that seemed more like marathons, after coming out of the best experience I had with random battles in my life.

But trying to play through SO2 for a second time is still in my plans. And with a more open mind this time. If nothing else, I still need to beat that goddamn Cave of Trials. And the Seraphic Gate in BOTH VPs, for that matter. >_>

[Kurosuzaku]

http://www.eternalsphere.com/so4/index.html

I think most of everyone knows the official site is (finally) up?  Just throwing it out there for those who didn't know~

I hope they remove those stupid bunny races. T_T;;

[Kajitani-Eizan]

despite their stories being terrible and, in SO3's case, the dialogue too

SO2's dialogue was also terrible, btw. half of it is claude repeating what the other guy just said.

But more than battles, item creation, skill system, private actions, trying to go for certain endings, and all the dicking around you could do before advancing the story was a lot of fun. RPGs have gotten so stupidly linear in recent times. As soon as you got out of the second town, you could run around the entire damn first continent if you wanted to, which enabled you access to like four towns, areas with strong monsters if you wanted to grind to ridiculous levels. You could sidetrack yourself for hours before moving on. SO2 was a blast for me.

yeah, i loved that about FFXII, too. after the tomb of raithwall, you can sequence break so much it's ridiculous. and decently challenging.

SO2 is great for dicking around, and it's good fun, but i just wish you could do all that with a better designed battle system, etc.

And I'd probably have at least been less traumatized by SO2's battles if I hadn't played it right after Tales of Eternia - yes, right after.

lol, POOR timing. eternia was an incredible step forward for the tales battle system, while SO2 was a step sideways, or maybe vaguely diagonally backwards.

while they're at it ripping off tales, they should rip off the arte button. it wasn't a bad idea to change ToP SFC's arte button to the L/R system from SO1, but then for SO2, they already had ToD (and maybe ToP PSX?) as a reference. shouldn't they have switched over to the arte button + directional system as well? (and tossed that short/long thing while they're at it; it's mostly just silly.) i don't see why you should unnecessary be restricted in KMs. unless they meant it to be strategic like in ToP SFC, but then, didn't they add the ability to change them mid-battle in SO3?

[ForceCube]

SO2's dialogue was also terrible, btw. half of it is claude repeating what the other guy just said.

[rant]But at least it had something modern RPGs are desperately in need of: the characters talked a lot. I really miss that. In MPGs the characters rarely speak more than two lines at a time, and IMO this makes them seem incredibly shallow and uninteresting. I'd much rather see Claude repeating what others say a thousand times than Fayt saying just "Hey, that's cool!" and absolutely nothing else.[/rant]

lol, POOR timing. eternia was an incredible step forward for the tales battle system, while SO2 was a step sideways, or maybe vaguely diagonally backwards.

Yes, I know. Ironically, I got SO2 back then from a friend who told me the battle system was awesome. I played SO2 to the end, then asked him if he had played a game called "Tales of Destiny II". You can guess what he answered. lol

[Kurosuzaku]

I'd much rather see Claude repeating what others say a thousand times than Fayt saying just "Hey, that's cool!" and absolutely nothing else.

Fayt did the same thing too, repeating what everyone says... in addition to "hey that's cool" XD  My bro and I called it the Fayt Syndrome!  And when the AI was being stupid in battle standing there doing nothing, that was the Cliff Syndrome! Lol.. because it always happened to Cliff.  And when you have an awesome samurai looking sword but never unsheathe it, that would be the Adray Syndrome 

[lonerurouni187]

And when you have an awesome samurai looking sword but never unsheathe it, that would be the Adray Syndrome 

Man, what a let-down that was... I was all set for a buff samurai swordsman, but he turned out to be a slow crappy caster...