Apologize

I liked the game overall but I really hated that twist.

Soundtrack

Shit

Lmao, kill yourself brain dead retard

favorite song? for me, it's rust color or moon base

youtube.com/watch?v=gADIuZsv01E

youtube.com/watch?v=NFHp2Pr6GIg

SO DANCE. WHILE I PUT YOU IN A TRANCE. SENSATION. FEEL THE VIBRATION.

it's really bizarre how much it upsets people. especially the ones who pretend it somehow ruins SO 1&2. although i'm not sure those people actually played the games i get the feeling they're just weirdos roleplaying as upset fans.

For what? Game is pure soul and literally makes me feel like a kud again when I play

Also has one of the best intros in a JRPG.

I miss Anamnesis bros...

makes an embarrassingly stupid plot twist for pure shock value

realize that they fucked up and can't make a sequel unless the retcon the retarded plot twist

instead just starts making later games chronologically set before it

It's pretty funny tbqh, like your dog shitting on your rug, it's like "you stupid fucking retard," but you're kinda entertained by how stupid it is

I really enjoyed this game
I know the ending was a silly twist, and the game never stops expanding the landscape bigger and bigger which is the whole gimmick of the narrative to showcase how vast space can be.
But the gameplay was great, the music was great if not best in the series, the characters are likeable.
In the end, that's what makes me like the game and allows me to forgive the story. Specially considering how bad 4 5 and 6 were.

Tales of Vesperia has literally the same specs
(amazing gameplay, great music, great characters, yet a story that is just an excuse to have everything happen) and people cream their pants over it and hold it as one of the holy trinity of Tales of games.

Overworld and dungeons and the music just scream the same vibe as Valkyrie Profile, too. There's that soul essence that it's worth mentioning. I fondly remember this game, and should replay it.

Motoi Sakuraba was still in his peak when he did the music for this game.

Only retards have issues with the plot.

Game is pure soul
AIMING DEVICE
AIMING DEVICE
AIMING DEVICE

Maria is still best SO girl to this day.

Magnetic Field!

Energy Burst

Fayt/Maria ending is CANON!!!

Why do you assume they would care if they retconned it?
If they really wanted a sequel, they would do it or retcon.
It's just easier to make games set chronologically prior to it.

especially the ones who pretend it somehow ruins SO 1&2

The actual story parts of SO3 don't cheapen SO1 and 2, but they went the extra mile in the encyclopedia entries and outright stated that SO1 and 2's plots were set into motion by a developer trying to keep the game fresh. That definitely cheapens them.

Nah, the moment Vesperia Definitive Edition released, people realized it's just okay. People who played the translated PS3 version hyped it to high heaven and when DE is available and now most people are able to play it it's revealed that the game is just okay.

I got this on release day but never finished it. I got stuck on a boss near the end of the game. I wanna replay it...

This game handled similar themes much better than Expedition 33.
It's strange how a JRPG with an anime aesthetic dealt with questions about free will and existence with more consideration and intelligence than a more grounded, Western game.
Expedition 33 almost entirely sidestepped those questions to wallow in family drama.

good story

starts out ok, then goes to complete shit halfway through

good combat

depleting enemies mp to beat them was the only interesting thing but was flawed

best girls in the series

Only Nel, the rest are shit

SIDE KICK
DIMENSION DOOR

Tales of Vesperia has literally the same specs

you shut your whore mouth. Tales of Vesperia is so much fucking worse than Star Ocean 3 about its plot. Star Ocean 3 has things going on for the first half of the game, even if they get scope creeped by the later plots, you're still involved in whats going on on Elicoor II for most of the game. meanwhile Vesperia just meanders around with the main cast doing nothing for the first half of the game.

it's just easier because they dead ended the plot and setting lmfao

When I was a kid I did not know how busted the circus girl was because her frame data was so shit and didn't know she had a parry/counter gimmick that was entirely the whole character and yet was super busted.
I also did not know catgirl was actually good.

I just used Fayt/Maria/Cliff and never looked back.
I liked Cliff, female version and Sophie after leveling her but by that point I was just fucking around in post-game.
And WHAT a post game btw. the crafting system in this game is still better than most JRPGs up to this date.

I still love how nonchalant everyone was about the earth being blown up, then SO4 turns around and makes that a extremely important plot point.

I guess earth was brought back in the ending. Shame we'll never know because tri-ace is too scared to continue after SO3.

then goes to complete shit halfway through

filtered

but they went the extra mile in the encyclopedia entries and outright stated that SO1 and 2's plots were set into motion by a developer trying to keep the game fresh.

It's baffling that the writers even did this shit.
Like there's retarded JRPG plot and worldbuilding, and then there's Star Ocean in its own special corner.

This is the only star ocean game I've played, but I liked it a lot. This, FFX, and Dark Chronicle were my JRPG trinity on PS2

Gold standard for post game content

Amazing ost

In depth item creation system

Tons of optional content/party members/endings for replayability

Muh twist fags need to fuck off. This game is a gem.

I want to like SO3 but the gameplay just felt too slow especially compared to 2. It just never clicked for me.

wtf? why is ToV catching strays, it's a great game too, other than the horrible story

Highbrow is up there for what is fighting the CEO of space EA but I'm going with his first phase youtube.com/watch?v=411--Pg9LjE

Except they didn't and your assertion is nonsense.

I liked Nel, but you realize she's trash compared to other party members once you get the rest of the cast.
I enjoyed Vesperia. It has the opposite effect than SO3. SO3 starts good, then it scope creeps. Vesperia starts bad, then only later the plot focuses into things actually happening.

Is there any post game as good as SO3? Hard mode, no Tri Ace games.

SO4's earth exploded is so fucking weird.
The party except EDGE MAVERICK treated it like nothing cause it's a parallel world and it means nothing to them.
People still fucking evaporated.
And EDGE MAVERICK spent 5 hours not making any win quotes for every battles cause he's depressed.
It's so surreal.

Highbrow is kino but I like Chrysanthemum in Winter. Sakuraba is the king of cold winter themes.

disgaea?
those games actually start in "post game" anyway

Vesperia starts bad, then only later the plot focuses into things actually happening.

you tricked me once already by telling me the game had good combat, i played for 50 hours and the combat and story were both shit, i'm not going back in for more. "the story gets good after 70 hours, and the combat gets good after New Game+" just isn't convincing.

Let's be real How the FUCK do you sequel that game when they know their world is a smaller universe inside a bigger one?
If you do a sequel, how do you make a villain? they already beat their creator. anything else will be less impactful.

By making a story in that universe, dummy. 4D is irrelevant, nothing happens there. It's a post scarcity society that hungers only for entertainment.

that's literally what he said, anon.
it's the same problem.

when they know their world is a smaller universe inside a bigger one?

That ceases to be true at the end of SO3. Eternal Sphere gets shut down, but the universe continues to exist. It's not a game anymore.

Vesperia starts bad, then only later the plot focuses into things actually happening.

Not to mention you unlocked every feature in the game only after like 20 hours.
One of the best character Flynn only joins in for real after like 50 hours
Game is slow as molasses but it does have a decent payback by the end.

But everything was gone anon, everything everything everything everything

the combat was shit!

Zoomer detected
filtered by "clunky ooo the clunkiness" free run gameplay.

Doesn't matter, random scientist niggas made kids who could beat the equivalent of 4D gods, there's no antagonist that matters anymore with that type of power scaling.

can I be honest for a second? the story in these fantasy + scifi rpgs never makes much sense because it CAN'T hold much weight. Like in SO2 you're a fucking starship captain, and you are supposed to care about the backwater politicking of a bunch of savages. So you play half the game doing normal fantasy rpg stuff, then suddenly you're in the fourth dimension and none of that previous shit matters at all. It's the same in SO3 once you get off the medieval planet and get to the moon base, like who even cares about those savages.

Similar in Xenogears too, you're doing a bunch of normal fantasy rpg stuff until the twists start happening, and then you realize that shit is meaningless. Like the whole plot of Bart being a long lost king, who gives a fuck about that retard's "right to rule," Solaris and Shevat controls fucking everything. His entire family line is a sick joke. Not even to mention Myyah is fucking someone in his family bed every night. How can there be political drama when at some point every human is vaporized to become part of god? It's impossible for anything to have any weight when there are such bigger fish to fry, imo.

Vesperia starts bad, then only later the plot focuses into things actually happening

are you retarded? it's the opposite. The game starts going to absolute shit once you get the boat, and it only keeps going downhill from there

Vesperia fans are the zoomers. my first exposure to tales was Symphonia on the gamecube, and even that combat feels better than Vesperia despite all its issues.

Twist could have been fine if the luther wasn't an absolute retard

Fayt and Maria are still only two people in a big cosmos. Even presuming Alteration lets them live forever and they don't just die of old age, they can't be everywhere.

Flynn isn't even the best character.
That would be Rita and her insta spell spam end game.
And for the entirety of the game, it's Yuri. Repede is a better melee than Flynn already. Flynn just has inflated stats. Patty gets better numbers than Flynn albeit being harder to use and more RNG.

lol
lmao

They can just make more overpowered niggas tho lol
The research didnt just go away

The idea of a game character coming out of the world to kill its devs is so funny
Like imagine Simon Belmont realized Dracula will always return unless he destroys Konami
Then as he came out of the game he gets gunned down by SWAT and dies miserably

He played a bit too much Xenosaga before deciding to write his story

NTA, but I get what he's saying. You kind of do nothing until the moment the final villain and true objective is set in stone.
And I also get what you're saying, that the game was more fun and entertaining when it was just Yuri and friends traveling the world.

I like controlling him as I always play the spellsword in Tales of games when available (like Kratos/Zelos)

I presume Luther died, but honestly they should just bring him back or make the next game take place outside of the Eternal Sphere and you have to go inside or something.

bro, Fayt is just a good fighter with a beam cannon in his head. dude still dies if he gets shot or the planet he's on explodes. and its not like they can just make another one, the team that worked on that project is mostly dead.

that's literally how it goes in S03, did you forget how rough the first encounter with 4D cops was? they gun you down like a motherfucker if you aren't careful, but they also die in one hit.

Damn I guess because the guy who invented the wheel died that knowledge was lost with him

They can just make more overpowered niggas tho lol

Oh wow anon what a great idea, let's just eugenics fucking every last man woman and child into battlecruiser destroying superweapons, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN FUCKING GO WRONG WITH THIS.

The game should have ended at Alexi, that would have kept the Raven arc and cut all the fat from the last fourth of the game

yes. thank you for stating it.
This is my issue with SO game plots as well.
and I liked their generic fantasy plots. the magnitude of importance just belittles any meaning it had, however. let alone importance later on.

The average person isn't going to know a damn thing about it. The only people that technically know about 4D and all that is the main party (and friends)
You could've easily had Divine Force take place after SO3 and it wouldn't of mattered one bit.

Yeah I know. It's just such a surreal idea and they played it completely straight.

It was, in fact, pretty damn top secret research performed by a small team of scientists who knew what they had was "heretical" and dangerous in the extreme, who would absolutely decline to share or preserve their research, and are all dead.

Try building your phone from scratch right now and see how long it takes you. The factory that made the parts was blown up by alien gods, and all the devs went with it, but someone made it before so surely you can just make another one right?

I guess Blair is still alive, can always have her out for revenge or whatever.

Fair enough.
Kratos/Zelos was an infinitely better character because compared to the rest of symphonia those two were 2nd best frame data after Lloyd.
Zelos also has insanely good stats (prob to compensate that he did not start early with a title like the others) so when you slap his collessium title, by end game he hits like lloyd while also having every utility a spellsword would have, all in less motions of swings.

people would have whined that it didn't mean anything because it was a game

Holy sakuraba just posted the exact same battle theme during ps2 era and nobody batted an eye.

and you are supposed to care about the backwater politicking of a bunch of savages. So you play half the game doing normal fantasy rpg stuff, then suddenly you're in the fourth dimension and none of that previous shit matters at all. It's the same in SO3 once you get off the medieval planet and get to the moon base, like who even cares about those savages.

i mean.... yeah, the fundamental driving force of most RPGs is that the protagonists aren't sociopaths and do care about human lives. plenty of games would be way shorter if the MC could just say "nah, not my problem, seeya".

Blair was the one who insisted on peace, that would just despoil the ending.
It is a bit of a narrative snag to decide how 4D is going to interface with 3D from then on, but it's actually just easy enough to say completely hands off, they made some new games without internally sapient autonomous subroutines to torment and toy with.

There is definitely a setting you can play with to make some really good schizo-core content and existentialism themes.
But it has to be written well. They have to fool the audience early in the story that this is not a SO3 sequel so fans do not know that 4D exists.

Honestly as much fun as I had with Divine Force, the post game was a let down.

Should've had a Seraphic Gate DLC with Lenneth/Lezard fights. Seriously what have Square got against OG Tri Ace representation anyway?

it's just why people make fun of the meme level 1 save my kitten, level 60, kill god.

When there's such a massive discrepancy between what you're doing at the start and what you're doing at the end, it just starts to lose all fucking gravity.

Some time in the early-midgame she gets a high MP damage ability that can instantly MP kill most enemies and a number of bosses.

The later plot of finding a way to actually destroy the ancient evil and Duke being the final antagonist is fine as a story, but not as a climax of the game. The idea of another person having a different way to save the world is not a bad idea. But that means the final boss is just some dude with powers, he's arguably not much more dangerous than any other main enemies. It's like fighting a powered up Soldier of Godrick at the end of Elden Ring.

that's just every JRPG in existence though.
still enjoy them a lot

I still love the main song, the little bird that could fly or whatever the fuck it was
The story is atrocious though, as well as the voice acting
I still love it though; fond memories

i completely disagree. the progression from small scale local problems to global threats is a big part of the appeal of RPG stories. the implication that mundane problems don't matter in the face of divine problems is fundamentally wrong considering those mundane problems are what led the hero to becoming the hero who solved the divine problem.

They pursue different goals with it. SO3 spoonfeeds you its view on existentialism. E33 gives you contrasting views and expects you to read between the lines and draw your own conclusion.
Even with the spoonfeeding, the amount of people who write everything off in SO3 after the twist is unreal.

atrocious voice acting

Eh.. it's 50/50, some are great like Cliff, others are terrible like Maria.

I think there's a difference between something like FF4 where you start caring about small scale character stuff, and then you end up on the moon, compared to something like xenogears where you initially care about small character stuff, and by the end you are literally ripping the fabric of the universe. It's the same in star ocean where you start small, and end up with interstellar drama

ps2 jrpg and bad english voice acting goes hand in hand

lymle sexo

Divine Force did well

Star Ocean 2 remake sold well

Where the fuck are my new Star Ocean games square!?

p3, 4 and abyss beg to differ

go back at being evil Faize

AIR

RAID

I personally thought it was a huge asspull and retarded. I never liked Duke as an antagonist and didn't give a fuck about whatever he was saying. I was even more apathetic about Zagi being the first and second to last final boss, despite having ZERO bearing on the story at all.

The name Fayt Leingod makes me chuckle every time

but star ocean starts with interstellar drama, then has you get stranded on a planet where you're forced to deal with small stuff. they never pretend the end goal wasn't interstellar drama.
what your saying is like saying a story about a rich guy having his boat crash and getting stranded on an island isn't interesting, because at the end he goes back to his rich guy problems, so its silly he had to struggle for food and water for a few months.

Why? Even triace tries to pretend it doesn't exist.

BRO UH I'M DEPRESSED, WHAT ABOUT ALTERNATE TIMELINE EARTH?!@?!!?

fuck off and just bury your head in Reimi's fat knockers you faggot

I picked this up for a dollar exactly used at Best Buy like 10 years ago. Still haven't played it.

what are you waiting for?
go play it.

Ho-Ho this looks like a real fi-SIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICKSIDEKICK

Fair enough. I agree Vesperia wasted a lot of its villains/major characters. Yeager or Ragey or whatever dies in the middle of an unrelated dungeon and you don't even fight his twin onaholes. Don seems can be a fun boss fight but nope he dies in a cutscene. Phaeroh also dies in a cutscene IIRC. I really wanted to fight Flynn and his 2 underlings too but nope that's too cool of an idea for a bossfight I guess.

DIMENSION

DOOR

idk where my PS2 is :(

It was fucking terrible. One thing if there was some sort of a "higher reality". But it was a god damned entertainment MMO

Vesperia had a LOT of fun moments with the cast

SO3 didn't.

This is why although both have the same sin of a story that could've been better, Vesperia doesn't get any flak. You forgive the story because the cast is loveable, if not one of the best casts in Tales of games.

SO3's cast makes no fucking sense. That old buff magic dude should've never been a party member. The twink faggot edgelord should've never been a thing. It makes no fucking sense outside Nell, Cliff, Fayt, Maria, Sophie already feeling forced, let alone catgirl and circus girl.

Fuck you man. Shit taste.

Vesperia gets a lot of flak because now the fanbase has actually played it. Personally, i despised half the Vesperia cast, especially the godawful brat Rita who painfully bullies an infinitely more likeable character.

I thought you were talking about Expedition 33 for a moment.

game's intro shows promise of cool space travel and adventures

75% of the game is spent on some primitive ass typical JRPG planet.

SHOCKWAVE SWIiiiiiiIrrRrrrrL

Whether you liked them or not, Vesperia had more party interactions and cohesion. They all plot-wise had a reason to be there and felt like party members.
In SO3 you get a lot of "why the fuck is he here" characters.

That's the entire Sar Ocean

rita is actually the best character behind raven

No wonder this franchise is a zombie.

Saar Ocean

lol

if I was Clyde I would have just picked up the bustiest girls on the planet then left. Why pick up a male party member lmfao

just remake it with UE5 and realistic graphics and everyone will love it now.

Hey now! Peppita is important. Like that one thing... and that other thing... something to do with the Moonbase.
Ok look, I just really had a crush on Sherry Lynn's voice.

awful brat...needs correction!

I still don't understand why people get so asshurt over the twist. Shit is literally a basic sci-fi theory and entire end half is about their lives are real and better in some aspects compared to the 4D beings.

Only actual flaw is a lot of the interesting dialouge about how the characters feel about the whole thing is time gated and hidden in random towns instead of the main plot. Like why the fuck would I stop everything I'm doing to go to random shit hole to find out Sophia isn't taking the news to well and is scanning everything to make sure if it's really real or backtrack to the first 4D area that has nothing their so I can find out that from Mirage the 4D beings have anti suicide measures in place on edges not for safety, but because they keep killing themselves out of misery.

this but unironically

SPHERE OF MIGHT

I still don't understand why people get so asshurt over the twist. Shit is literally a basic sci-fi theory and entire end half is about their lives are real and better in some aspects compared to the 4D beings.

Because it's not just about higher dimensions. It's about the main setting of the entire franchise being essentially a fucking MMO. It completely devalues anything that happens inside because nothing ever had anything even remotely approaching its own agency.

So why do people love this shit in E33?

Apologize for what? I’ve been saying the is the GOAT for ages now.

Ass Ocean: Still Ass at the End of Time

Because the painting dwellers have their own, actual agency, their world has an actual history that was created chaotically, without higher dimensions planning and methodically directing all of it. E33 is way closer to the proper story about higher/lower domains compared to SO3.

Based. Maria is top tier waifu. No, God tier.

Sorry for what?

Literally the simulation theory. Thinking they have no agency is also retarded. You'd have to ignore everything that is said and shown to the player to even think that.

>actual agency, their world has an actual history that was created chaotically, without higher dimensions planning and methodically directing all of it.
Isn't true. 4D beings have to jump in when shit hits the fan, but for the most part the denizens of Eternal Sphere do their own thing and it's more like the sims if anything. If 4D b3ing had as much control of everything as you think then the entire plot wouldn't have happened and the idea to breech the uncrossable boundary would have never entered Fayt's dad's mind nor would they have freaked out about it happening.

The only thing that’s really ass is Item Creation. It’s basically a combo of cancer and AIDS at the same time.

4D beings have to jump in when shit hits the fan

They only had to jump in when those retards get 4D admin rights. Otherwise it's literally an amusement MMO for them.

They only had to jump in when those retards get 4D admin rights

If the Eternal Sphere life had no agency this wouldn't be possible.

If the Eternal Sphere life had no agency this wouldn't be possible.

It only got its agency when admin rights were introduced into the system

Favorite game in the series but it's funny having the music play louder than the voice acting.

so... when the system was first built then?

The last good series not to be infected with a modern audience

because it's fotm

Bro, they literally stated that in a way it was a different reality because muh Quantum mechanics or something

Be kid

Exposed to FFX and Kingdom Hearts as my first forray into jrpgs

fall in love with .hack//infection

Go back and enjoy FFIX and FFVII

Suddenly commercials for Star Ocean 3 appear

Yo this looks amazing!!!

Go to Best Buy

That cool fucking box art

That cool title, "Star Ocean," wow, must take place in space and on amazing alien planets

Buy game

Take it home

Spend majority of the game in Missouri helping a bunch of retards push carts through mines

Man, Star Ocean fucking sucks lol

And yet it was a fucking MMO

where the native NPCs are actually fully sentient beings with their own wants needs and actions.

So just like us then :^)

no, the NPCs in the Star Ocean world actually have an internal voice, they're far more advanced than the NPC in this "Real Life" MMO.

finding out your waifu is -literally- reused assets because the devs were too lazy to design a new waifu.

actually KINO

Are you familiar with SAO Alicization?

How is that any different from gods/demons/whatever messing with reality for fun?

IRL reincarnation is just asset reuse by the simulation devs

watching reading mainline SAO after the disaster that was fairy arc

only good SAO is the one about the pink gremlin

Abyss

Some of the dub for it was good, but some didn't have good voice direction like Tear.

Cat girl

Who the fuck are you even talking about?

SIDE KICK SIDE KICK SIDE SIDE SI SI SI SIDE KICK

he's mixing it up with so4

You're mixing games, the catgirl was from Last Hope which did have its own problems with parallel earth getting nuked

Thankfully no

I played it too and don't remember cat girl. I'm going to google Star Ocean 2 catgirl and see what comes up

Pic related came up

I meant Star Ocean 3, not 2

why was there a naked cat girl on earth in the 1950s?

SO 2 > SO 6 > SO 3 >>>>>>>> SO 4 > SO 5
Play 6 bros, it has best girl Lettuce

IIRC it's because she was in a spaceship that just happened to crash land near Area 51 so they took her in custody

It was ahead of its time

6 is movement jank kino because of the robo glide but the combat and plot suck ass. At least Raymond is pretty cool

ah, so instead of greys it was flat cat girls

I'm just scrolling through the thread, but I guess I kinda get the full picture now. Although I'm the type that wouldn't flip out over the twist. Same with Xenoblade 3, probably.

FISTS OF FURY
FISTS OF FURY
AERIAL ASSAULT
I'm not getting to strong am I?

I'm sorry I've still never finished you. I completely lose interest every time after leaving the planet I just spent hours and hours getting to know.
Maybe I'd care more if there was more "fanart" of Nel.

The game's town themes were peak PS2, shame that 99% of the game is spent listening to that FUCKING AWFUL CRAFTING MUSIC.

crafting

BASED

youtube.com/watch?v=qwi-ioHKEcQ

star ocean 2 since the post game dungeon isnt just copy pasted slop.