Star Ocean TTEOT: most awesome music evarz!!

[Rolf N]

*spam*

That's the initial impression anyway. I'm about four hours in and ZOMG this is good stuff. If I were in any position to hand out sound sub-scores I'd want to give it a ten out of ten. Even if the upcoming 50 hours are shite, there's simply not enough bad music in the world to outweigh the unmitigated awesomeishness I have witnessed so far. It makes me smile.

I think I have knocked Baten Kaitos for aggravatingly bad audio production at some place or another, and as I understand those are the same guys. News: I don't hate you anymore! This work redeems everything!
*hugs*
*kisses*

/Mindless promotion

 

[oi]

The soundtrack is almost as awesome as the voice-acting is horrendous, which is quite the feat to say the least. The OST ranks among my favourite game soundtracks along with the Silent Hill series. I'm also mighty tempted to spoil the story for you since some of the later developments is at the same level of quality as the voice-acting.

 

[Rolf N]

The soundtrack is almost as awesome as the voice-acting is horrendous, which is quite the feat to say the least. The OST ranks among my favourite game soundtracks along with the Silent Hill series. I'm also mighty tempted to spoil the story for you since some of the later developments is at the same level of quality as the voice-acting.

I think I might have an idea already where this story is going, but please don't spoil it.
I don't think the voice acting is all that bad, it's solid and get's the job done, it's just not excellent. I've seen lots of games with worse voice-acting. The writing OTOH is pretty poor so far, e.g. it's much too early for me to notice that a certain character's tag-lines for the rest of his presence in the game are going to be "Sca-ree" and "That's a good point". I don't expect to be thrilled and amazed by anything story-wise in this game, but it doesn't seem so bad as to hurt the game. The game oozes artistic vision though, and that's very welcome.

But then maybe I'm just numb. I'm coming off Final Fantasy X-2 after all. Whatever the case, I think I will enjoy this, if only because music is my weak spot.

 

[oi]

The story isn't that bad for the majority of the game, it just turns slightly absurd towards the end (though I guess that could describe most jrpgs, hehe). It's more of a LOL-moment rather than anything that will make you throw your controller away in disgust. Besides, some of the best parts of the game doesn't become available untill after you beat the 'final' boss, so even if you'd hate how the story develops you need to stick it out for the bonus stuff. You'll get access to a bunch of huge dungeons with new (and old) bosses/items.

 

[Rolf N]

The story isn't that bad for the majority of the game, it just turns slightly absurd towards the end (though I guess that could describe most jrpgs, hehe). It's more of a LOL-moment rather than anything that will make you throw your controller away in disgust. Besides, some of the best parts of the game doesn't become available untill after you beat the 'final' boss, so even if you'd hate how the story develops you need to stick it out for the bonus stuff. You'll get access to a bunch of huge dungeons with new (and old) bosses/items.

That sounds nice. I think I prefer to have all the hardcore optional sidequests available only at the very end of the game.

Some things are dangling in my face but I don't know how to get them. Like a big treasure chest in the ruins area that is on the other side of a broken bridge with no way to get across. Can you spoil that one for me? Do I return there later, or did I just miss the hidden switch/whatever trick?

Edit: never mind. I think it's not much of a spoiler if I say that a certain gadget that takes a while to find will enhance your ability to explore areas. I.e. you can get more of the secrets when you return after advancing the plot to a certain point.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

The story isn't that bad for the majority of the game, it just turns slightly absurd towards the end (though I guess that could describe most jrpgs, hehe). It's more of a LOL-moment rather than anything that will make you throw your controller away in disgust. Besides, some of the best parts of the game doesn't become available untill after you beat the 'final' boss, so even if you'd hate how the story develops you need to stick it out for the bonus stuff. You'll get access to a bunch of huge dungeons with new (and old) bosses/items.

Story not that bad? SO3 has possibly the SLOWEST moving storyline ever in an RPG. It takes about 25 hours before the story gets even remotely interesting. Plus, there are so many ridiculous parts of the story that made me want to choke whoever came up with them. For example:


***********SPOILERS**************








Nel, a ninja who was able to infiltrate the imperial prison and rescue you, tells you to go on without her while she rescues her partners. What does Fayt (a 17 year old kid with a sword) do? He turns right back around and follows Nel so he can "help her out".

Then you meet Feena. Even though she has obvious health problems, Feena decides to go all the way through a huge forest maze filled with witches, bandits, and giant demon trees that block your path until you kill them, so she can pick some flowers! What does Fayt decide to do? Forget the fact that you've known Feena all of 3 minutes, and that the fate of an entire nation rests upon you getting to Aquios on time, you turn around and go rescue her!

Then you FINALLY get to Aquios and figure out you need copper for their cannons. You go through some boring-ass mine to find copper, and when you get back, they tell you you're too late! Gee, maybe you shouldn't have wasted so much fucking time solving people's personal problems. By this time I wanted to murder whoever thought this was a good plot twist.

Fast forward a little. You have to get the help of a dragon to fight against the airships. You finally get on his back and head into battle, and then freaking LASERS come out of nowhere and blow up all the ships before you fight them. Supposedly those lasers were aimed at Earth, and it's just a coincidence that they happened to blow up these airships at the exact moment you were about to fight them. Nevermind how astronomically improbable that is, and nevermind that the 4th dimensional beings have to aim their lasers from halfway across the universe despite living outside of the simulation.

How about when you get almost to the end of the generic lava dungeon, only to find a huge boulder blocking your path. Then you have to backtrack all the way to the second dungeon in the game to find a rock in order to create a ring that can blow up the boulder. What a thrilling twist that was.

And then there's the Sphere 211 building, a 211-floor office building that consists entirely of enormous, completely empty futuristic hallways with storm troopers and spider robots randomly wandering back and forth.


******************* END SPOILERS *********************






Sorry, but Star Ocean 3 is one of the worst JRPGs ever created. In fact it's possibly THE worst kind of game: it always feels like something cool is just about to happen, but that something never comes. At least, it doesn't come until you have already spent 60+ hours to get to the "post-game".

 

[oi]

I disagree completely. In fact, I'd say it's one of the most entertaining Jrpgs I've played. I thought most of the examples you mentioned were obvious attempts at humour rather than attempts at creating epic plot twists. Obviously, as an epic and serious story it's an undisputable failure, but back when I played it I thought the absurdity of it all was a clear indicator that that wasn't what they were aiming for. The only part of the game that sucks is the beginning with the hotel, which almost made me quit the game right there. And Sphere 211 rules, though not as much as the Cave of Trials, which I thought was the best post-game dungeon.

 

[.Melchiah.]

The soundtrack is almost as awesome as the voice-acting is horrendous, which is quite the feat to say the least. The OST ranks among my favourite game soundtracks along with the Silent Hill series.

Well, that certainly picked my interest. So, there's a soundtrack CD made of it? Where could I obtain it, from Yes-Asia or Play-Asia perhaps?

 

[Rolf N]

Ach, don't be so hard on mediocre JRPG story-lines. It's Star Ocean man! They got to give you reasons to explore dangerous planets and shape your main character into a hero who would always fight the good fight.
Of course it's transparent that they prevent you from getting where you want to go by inserting yet another crash landing, abduction, rescue mission etc. Of course any sense of urgency to the overall plot will take a back-seat to "personal issues" because those personal issues are what advance the character. Is Fayt a good guy or a bad guy? Well who knows because he never does anything but go in a straight line where he's supposed to. Oh wait, no, he doesn't.

Now there's something else that bothers me a wee bit, and it's the sheer length of some cutscenes. "Oh my god they are risking their lives to create a distraction that allows us to escape. We have to get away immediately!" ... all in one conversation that lasts ten fuckin' minutes. That's not just over the top, it's stupid. Same thing for the two prison escapes I've seen so far. Local urgency phenomena should not be as blatantly ignored.
OTOH "Oh let's help this kid while we're here"? Acceptable excuse for some extra content. IMO.

... and it's really just the main-plot writing. The strength of design and lore in this game is amazing.

 

[Farid]

Star Ocean 3 is what I'd consider a mix bag.

While the overall experience was something positive, it's defintely a game worth playing, if you like JRPGs, a lot of things in the game were problematic.
Two of the most glaring flaws of the game are, first, the storytelling pace, with tons of nonsensical, inconsequential and useless (not witty, funny or anything) developments taking place in the already too numerous and lenghty cutscenes. The game takes forever to actually start, really, during the few hours it almost makes Xenosaga looks like a frentic arcade game. There's definitely an overdose of cutscenes throughout the game, but most notably at the begining. The good side is that the game is not trying to dwelve into a pitiful and always awkward pseudo intellectualism, the game is just your classic sci-fi story with good hearted heroes, so at least you won't have to stand through hours of a methodic pillaging and massacre of some notorious philosopher's work.

Second, the game battle system works only with the weak enemies, as soon as you're fighting strong enemies, the system breaks, it turns into a stressful and luck driven experience. You'd really have to overpower your ennemies, stats wise, to make some of the later battle less chaotic. Even when if you're level grinding a lot, like I do, some ennemies would be more than complex to beat. Not complex as in strategically complex, which is nice, because challenging ennemies make a game better, no, the game become more complex just because the battle system (real-time) doesn't permit you to handle all the situations at hand (a lot of powerful ennemies unleashing strong attack ain different part of the map, for instance, or an ennemy that has a devastating attack with a large effect area, etc...)

It's worth of note that Radiata Story, from Tri-Ace too, uses a very similar battle system, which in this case is a lot more reliable. You rarely, if ever (when your charater are of a high enough level), have the feeling that the game went on "chaotic" mode and that you're not able to deal with every situations.
By the way, to compare the two games, Radiata Story is a much shorter, but better game experience overall, if you ask me.

 

[Carl B]

Star Ocean 3... never finished it due to that one last final - or at least I think it is? - plot twist. But overall a game I enjoyed. Maybe one day I'll finish the job.

I have to bring up Star Ocean 2 though as one of the best JRPG's of all time. I feel I must do this, so that random observers understand why SO3 would have such an install base right off the bat with such mixed reviews.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Ach, don't be so hard on mediocre JRPG story-lines. It's Star Ocean man! They got to give you reasons to explore dangerous planets and shape your main character into a hero who would always fight the good fight.
Of course it's transparent that they prevent you from getting where you want to go by inserting yet another crash landing, abduction, rescue mission etc. Of course any sense of urgency to the overall plot will take a back-seat to "personal issues" because those personal issues are what advance the character. Is Fayt a good guy or a bad guy? Well who knows because he never does anything but go in a straight line where he's supposed to. Oh wait, no, he doesn't.

I wouldn't mind developing Fayt's character if he were actually interesting. Unfortunately, he's one of the blandest RPG heroes in recent memory. You always know what he's going to say/do before he does it. His whole personality is basically: "always do the 'Right' thing, no matter how unrealistic it is, no matter how little you understand the situation, no matter how little sense it makes." Also, any time a new term comes up in conversation, repeat that term back as a question in the dumbest voice possible. This happens at LEAST once per conversation. Thankfully some of the other characters are a little more interesting, although still nowhere near the over-the-top craziness of Star Ocean 2's characters.

I love Star Ocean 2. SO2 didn't have that great of a plot, but at least SO2 didn't pretend it was freaking Xenosaga. SO2 gave you just enough plot development to give you a justification for your next quest, and then let you get to the meat of the game. SO3, on the other hand, tries to make its awful awful plot the focus of the game. You get drawn-out cutscenes, filled with bad voice acting and awkward pauses between every line of dialogue, every time Fayt wants to talk about what he had for breakfast or loudly agonize yet again over whether he's doing the Right thing (even though it's obvious almost from the beginning that that's what he'll do). Also, it helped that SO2's dungeons were bizarre, compelling pre-rendered environments, whereas SO3's are modular copy & paste corridor dungeons.

Anyway, maybe it's possible to enjoy SO3 from a gameplay perspective and advance through all the cutscenes quickly. I guess I'm still very bitter because SO3 pretended really hard to have a great plot waiting just around the corner, only to let me down every time for the 55 hours I played it. Glad you're getting more enjoyment out of it than I did I'll stick with SO2!

 

[Rolf N]

Star Ocean 3 is what I'd consider a mix bag.

<lots of text>

Hey I just realized that you do have some love for games. What a nice surprise, after reading your opinions on Bethesda-related topics and other development houses unfortunate enough to attract your wrath

And thanks for your input!

I wouldn't mind developing Fayt's character if he were actually interesting. Unfortunately, he's one of the blandest RPG heroes in recent memory. You always know what he's going to say/do before he does it. His whole personality is basically: "always do the 'Right' thing, no matter how unrealistic it is, no matter how little you understand the situation, no matter how little sense it makes." Also, any time a new term comes up in conversation, repeat that term back as a question in the dumbest voice possible. This happens at LEAST once per conversation.

I see. That's a bit disappointing.

Thankfully some of the other characters are a little more interesting, although still nowhere near the over-the-top craziness of Star Ocean 2's characters.

This is probably the right moment to disclose that I have never played/seen Star Ocean 2. I did play the original Star Ocean game but gave up after 20 hours or so because the amount of random battles was driving me crazy. Thankfully SO3 lets me avoid combat, really nice.

SO3? That's the kind of game I impulse-buy when I go shopping for a Wii and can't get one. And thanks for your input too

 

[London Geezer]

... so i take it you liked the music?

 

[Rolf N]

... so i take it you liked the music?

Yes!

Sheer talent permeates this music. It's honestly good stuff. It's instrumental but if you don't mind that "problem" this is better than 95% of all the stuff that's on the radio, on all fronts (composition, performance, adequacy).
Style varies depending on the situation of course, but I'll describe it as classic progressive rock or whatever. I.e. it is "serious" music but it's just not violins etc you'd expect from an orchestra. It does have some heavy-metal sound in a couple of songs, then there's some more low-key guitar stuff or more keyboard-centric "pop", while in other places you'll have a Mini-Moog organ for some really cool bar-lounge backdrop music. It's pretty varied, while the connecting theme (so far) is "anything but sequenced electronic stuff and/or violins". All major instruments (guitars, bass, organs, keyboard stuff and !a drum set!) are real and played by real people (or are the most convincing imitations I have ever heard).

A huge part of the quality here is that the people performing really have a grip on their instruments. It's pure genious. And it's a band! It makes me smile.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

And thanks for your input!
I see. That's a bit disappointing.This is probably the right moment to disclose that I have never played/seen Star Ocean 2. I did play the original Star Ocean game but gave up after 20 hours or so because the amount of random battles was driving me crazy. Thankfully SO3 lets me avoid combat, really nice.

Really? You owe it to yourself to track down a copy! It has better and faster gameplay with 4-character parties, a much more reasonable random encounter rate than SO1, better dungeons, a much cooler bonus dungeon, a better cast of characters, no long-ass cutscenes, and the music is pretty cool too. It's not as heavy on guitars as SO3's, but the music is really bizarre and unique, and has a similar "feel" to SO3's IMO.

Characters in SO2 include: a 3-eyed lady wearing an evening gown and carrying a giant laser-bazooka thing, a girl who uses a remote-controlled robot and a robot punching arm as weapons, a pharmacist who throws exploding pills, a skanky witch lady, a reporter who calls in attacks with her cell phone, a guy possessed by two demon dragons that stick out of his back (and has a barrel fetish. . . seriously), Indiana Jones wannabe, and a bunch more.

Anyway, I've been reconsidering re-playing SO3 in progressive scan on my HDTV and skipping all the cutscenes (or turning the voice acting off if you can). It's a game I love to hate, but I think I can enjoy it if I play it more like an arcade game than a Xenosaga-esque space opera RPG

 

[oi]

You can indeed turn off the voices, which was the first thing I did after the introduction of Cliff.

 

[Rolf N]

In case someone would like to read approximately 16000 more characters, 2700 words, about Star Ocean 3, I have recently ... you know, published something. That link there, in the sig, to the left

Linkage​

I've basically ripped it a new one. It turned completely intolerable near the end of disc 1, and while I zombied myself along well onto disc 2, I really couldn't find any further reason to go on with the stupid endless grinding and the broken combat ... and the dialogs omigawd.

The guards that ambushed me on the way to Sphere Corp presented to me the final choice: "grind ten more levels to last long enough to have a realistic chance" or "stop".

 

[Xenus]

It's not that bad, level grinding and the battle system is pretty darn good IMHO. Just learn to use chain and you don't really have to worry about level grinding all that much.

 

[Rolf N]

It's not that bad, level grinding and the battle system is pretty darn good IMHO. Just learn to use chain and you don't really have to worry about level grinding all that much.

I didn't think it was pretty darn good how the flying armor type enemies on moon base could dodge anything you do by attacking.
I didn't think it was pretty darn good how the big robotic spider enemies could only be damaged at their core but could push you away from the core with their invincible legs, and still hit you at range. Or how they could fire a swarm of rockets, counting as a shield-breaking heavy attacks which you can't evade.
I didn't think it was pretty darn good that the guards have heavy ranged attacks that come out faster than Cliff can emit a melee jab (fastest player character attack in the game).
I didn't think it was pretty darn good that even basic low-level enemies have multi-hit ranged attacks that come out so fast that you can't even recharge that last percent of the Fury meter to block them.
I didn't think it was pretty darn good that Maria's ranged attack can't hit enemies smaller than a sky-scraper as long as they are moving at any speed.
I didn't think it was pretty darn good that there's no realistic chance to keep the battle gauge filled against enemies slightly above your league, penalizing the player for overcoming greater challenges, forcing them to go back.

E.g. you can't even grind on the Executioners to make the guards easier, because the Executioners will break your battle gauge no matter what you do. You'll get more experience points if you go back and grind on demon trees and sand rats. As if there wasn't enough back-and-forth traveling in the game.

If an RPG must have an action combat system, I prefer something that it is play-tested and balanced properly. This one isn't.
I expect Rogue Galaxy to do much better.

Besides, if an RPG has enough gameplay and world content for 35 hours, it should do the right thing and let you beat it in 35 hours.

edit: just to make it clear I like the over-arching story, and I like the visual design, area design, enemy design, graphics, lore and of course the music. It's just stretched out for way ftoo long, the combat is definitely broken and the dialog writing is crap -- no surprise here; if you force yourself to write tens of hours of filler dialog, crap quality is what you get.