I searched. Anyway, this is getting released on the 19th, and they seem to be “adjusting” it for Western audiences.
SPOILERS FOR SO3:Til The End of Time was intriguing at first, but I got bogged down in the interminable “primitive” level and never made it to the apparently much more interesting second disc. Once I found out that I was fixing all of this shit on a planet that was going to be destroyed as a feature in the plot, I was done. The combat always felt like something I was doing wrong (IIRC, it ended up much like .hack, I would control the best ranged character and heal the other two while they spammed close range attacks).
SO4 is at the top of my gamefly queue. Dunno when I will get the time to play it, though.
And who lied to you and said the second disc of SO3 was interesting? The game had one of the absolute worst plot twists in the history of video games. It made no sense.
I’m with Zerot. I played SO3 up until the twist, which was “we’re all actually a video game for kids in the future, only now we know too much about what’s really going on and we’re too close to finding out the truth, therefore the GMs are doing a reboot of the game universe by killing everyone and ending the game.” I have no idea how the game actually ends, because once we all emerged into the “real world” and some kid was like “Whoa, I totally played you!” I stopped playing in disgust.
It made absolutely everything in the game up to that point completely worthless.
As far as gameplay, yeah. I’d run around trying to not get killed while Cliff nuked everyone with super fist blasto powers. I have no idea what he did, but I’m glad it worked.
I never understood why they have all these fancy space ships and technology but fight with swords, bows, and fists. Also, what looks to be the bad guy in one of the trailers reminds me of CATS from Zero Wing. Regardless i’m looking forward to it since I really liked tri-ace’s earlier games (although i haven’t tried Infinite Undiscovery).
I loved the combat system in SO3, or rather the idea of it. But basically you end up with 1 or 2 attacks and chain them together repeatedly. I think I beat 90% of the battles by spamming side kick. I’m glad to hear i’m not the only one who stopped playing after the plot twist.
Well, I finished Star Ocean 3 and, yeah, it kind of falls apart a little after the twist. You basically end up fighting the GM to the death inside a giant clock that is also the universe if I’m remembering correctly, and then you win, and everything’s white, and then you’re back on some planet, so I guess the world didn’t end? I didn’t hate the combat as much as everybody else, though - I mostly got through doing the same move over and over again with Feyt (whichever one involved him shouting something and making a shockwave with his sword and dashing behind it), but I’m the kind of simpleton that enjoyed Dynasty Warriors the first time he played it too, so I might not be the best case for comparison.
That said, I’m currently in the middle of Infinite Undiscovery and it feels a whole lot like the demo build of the combat system that they’ll end up using in this game, which, if true, will be sort of okay with me. I actually liked the characters and story (prior to the unnecessary Matrix twist) in Star Ocean better than most JRPGs, so if they can give me that, sans the unnecessary idiotic plot wankery, I’d be happy.
Wow, did they ever get back to space? Who knew. I quit in the middle too. I enjoyed the introductory space environment (that beautiful opening credits sequence made all the swordplay very disappointing), and I just wasn’t motivated to get through all that lame medieval-esque setting stuff.
But I have to admit, with so few RPGs around these days, I might actually buy a 360 and pick this up along with the couple of other 360-exclusive RPGs in a few weeks. Was there any other 360 RPG that was really very good, or even above average? I didn’t get the impression that Blue Dragon was worthwhile…
Tales of Vesperia is the one you want. Probably even its harshest critic would rate it above average. I thought it was awesome, though now that I think about it not quite awesome enought to finish. I think I fizzled out around the 40 hour mark, and I figure its a 50-60 hour game.
I’m struggling to remember, here, but I do recall there being a big orbital battle around the medieval planet that you spend the first half of the game on and then everybody leaving for some reason or another, but after that it gets really fuzzy. I do remember spamming my attack against some gigantic four legged robot crab monsters, so the technology came back. You don’t ever put down the sword, though - you get a party member that totally shoots frickin lasers, but that’s as sci-fi as the combat gets.
So far as JRPGs go, I can mostly only offer disincentives. I’m thoroughly disappointed with Infinite Undiscovery so far, Lost Odyssey lost me around the start of the third disc, and the other two that people go on about (Blue Dragon and Tales of Vesperia) are currently on my backlog pile.
Xenosaga 3 was the only relatively recent space JRPG that delivered at all on the promise of the subgenre, and even that was mostly a confusing mess. I liked it, overall, after having a very negative initial reaction based on my experiences with its abysmal predecessors.
As far as SO3 goes, choosing to intro/advertise the space stuff and then having the bulk of the first half take place in an uncivilized planet that deprived it of any of its technological glamor was a big mistake. Also not a fan of Xenosaga’s tech-might-as-well-be-magic approach, but at least they figured out a moderately interesting mech combat system and some good leveling options to go along with the space theme.
I am curious to see how SO4 fares in reviews, and what details about the plot/mechanics direction they can offer.
My understanding is that the word is deleted, but because everyone believed they existed they weren’t actually deleted and the universe continued to exist in another dimension. Or something. It’s outrageously dumb, even by JRPG standards.
Vesperia is hands down the best JRPG on the system right now. The combat is great and made playing through the end slog not very painful. But the frustrating part about Vesperia is that it starts exploring some pretty novel and dark paths for a traditional JRPG but ends up dropping those plot threads for more generic anime that you’ve seen in 100 different games before.
Seems like a typical square enix game so far. You start off with your typical melee based main character then get your ranged partner. I’ve made it to the part where you get a ‘best magic user in the town’ aka the child prodigy. As for the western adjustments yeah the background of the menues are a bit blue blobbish. The text in a box is accompanied by a small head for important characters, the no names ones are still empty. Now as for the american voice acting it once again makes me wish for an option to have the original voices instead of the redub. Having never played a previous SO game this is making me think about check some of the other out since I think this is supposedly the start of the whole story. Combat I’d compare to Infinite Undsicovery in that you control one character at any given time and the other’s do generally their own thing, you can switch to them for direct control whenever you want. Mind you these aren’t blockhead buddies either they use their abilties, rush meters, dodge attacks, and can generally fend for themselves rather well, so far. My intial impression is I like it, it’s pretty and voice acting aside it’s really enthralling.
-Mike
Also I do generally like jrpgs and the style of gameplay that it offers so your experiance may vary.
Just played for a couple of hours. Not bad. Gameplay seems superior to Star Ocean 3. Looks like there is some DQ/Rogue Galaxy influence on the game – not in art of course, but in game systems, and also in characterizations.
Opening credits are hugely inferior to SO3, which had a really nice animation sequence. The nuclear war opening to this game is not I suppose awful, but it’s pretty dull.
I hope I didn’t just miss some skill sitting around someplace that lets you do mining. This seems like the sort of game for which you might just overlook the critical chest you need if you’re not careful…
this is simultaneously one of the better jrpgs i’ve played and one of the worst.
the combat system, character customization, and bonus board are great. i can’t get enough of blindsiding and churning out massive chain/rush combos for crazy damage, and managing battles to get trophies and bonus board configurations. field skills and crafting are in their most balanced form in the series, and grinding for rewards is actually – omg! – fun.
on the other hand, the story and characters are BEYOND wretched. i especially hate the characters and their creepy doll-like faces. nothing is weirder than having the battle camera pan over reimi’s meticulously rendered leather short-shorts clad ass and then up into her lifeless porcelain autist’s face. aiiiieeeeee! and edge is possibly the most despicable jrpg protagonist ever: he’s petulant, obstreperous, passive, and shrill. reimi is the typical quasi-flirt animu tart whose portrayal waffles between insultingly misogynistic and tomboy cliched. yuck plus.
I’m digging it overall too. But it is AWFUL for save points – they are an hour or so apart sometimes, with bosses that don’t have one in front of them, and total fail to last save on death. Combine with a drastic lack of healing items, and I’m finding it a bit rough going to start, though I assume that will even out.
The combat is pretty fun, the cutscenes are no Final Fantasy but seem decent. There are a TON of combat encounters, I guess you are not supposed to fight them all. :)
Yeah, I must admit, they totally fucked up the uncanny valley on this game.
It’s not hard to make superficially doll-like and anime-like JRPG characters that aren’t creepy and soulless. I mean, take Xenosaga, or most Tales-of games for example, perfectly fine doll-like figures, not creepy at all. Atlus characters are often creepy, but then, they’re meant to be. For Squenix, the cel-shaded animation in Rogue Galaxy or Dragon Quest, the somewhat more realistic Final Fantasy X and X-2, and the even more realistic XII characters, all for PS2 – no problem at all, generally pretty good affect associated with the characters, even if you don’t like the characterization.
But unfortunately, Star Ocean 4 has evil mannequins with dead eyes and dead souls. Someone fire the art director and the face modeler.
I just found out that the main character in this game is named “Edge Maverick”. I’m usually not in the “JRPG’s are anime-retarded” camp, but seriously? Edge Maverick?
And the main character in SO3 was apparently “Fayt Leingod” Just, wow.
