Star ocean thread

can we please have a comfy star ocean thread? Im replaying 4 now and heres my thoughts

lymle might be the most aggravating fucking character in jrpg history. its not just her voice, but the fact the other characters are constantly pandering to her like a fucking daycare keeper which kills the mood of every scene shes in

remastered version is still the best looking game in the series somehow. seriously 5 and 6 look like shit compared to 4

combat is great, Id say the best battle system although 3 is a really close second

level and dungeon layouts arent pants on head retarded labyrinths like 3

the cringe dialogue is way, way easier to stomach in japanese

story and characters are a big downgrade from 3 overall, this was the best part about 3

sex with reimi

sex with myuria

postgame is better than 3 (fuck that chrysler tower esque bullshit slog) but still isnt as kino as the cave of trials in 2

overall very underrated game simply because lymle and edge are cringe magnets of the highest order and filtered millions, much like the plot twist in 3 even though that was actually awesome.

pericci, precis, maria, reimi, fiore and elena are best girls

more flawed on average than the tales games but the high points shit all over the best of tales

so2 ps1 is still the definitive version by far

I really wish snes star ocean let you control any party member (you are stuck with ratix the whole game) because visually it shits all over first departure

2 is still the only game in the series that doesnt have any major flaws. by far the best and biggest cast, insane replay value, good enough story, best music and timeless graphics as long as youre playing on ps1

2>3=4>6>1>5

played the remaster of the second game and it was fun, i still need to try the harder mode they added and other characters in general

How do you manage mages? I played it for less than 10 hours I think, what they do is spam all their spells until they run out of MP, then they just stay on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing.

mages are simple anon, you just dont fucking use them at all except for rena as your heal slut. and even she can be phased out if you teach opera healing star. theyve always been way, way worse than regular fighters, in the remake they are slightly better but still not worth using if you care about being efficient/meta/OP.

you can change their battle tactics in the menu, at least on the ps1 their default strategy is set to "go retarded and use all your mp", not sure about demake. the ai will still be pretty shit and you shouldnt use mages anyway.

Okay, it's just that at my point I only had Claude, Rena and Celine, so it was just me fighting alone all the time. I'll give it another try in the future.

yeah the game gets a lot better once you get some more fighters. protip, do private actions in every town you visit or youll miss out on characters.

I want to put my tongue inside her vagina hole.

redpill me on star ocean, is it worth getting into?

I have pic related saved from some old thread.

star ocean the last hope international was so aggressively mediocre that I couldn't bring myself to try another game from the series.

for me, its celine/opera/precis/welch/dias/chisato

the demake FORCES you to take ernest if you have opera no matter what, I remember being quite upset about this. one of many reasons why its inferior.

Been playing SO3 on my chink emu handheld. Having a very good time. Have to admit I just looked up the hauler puzzle solution and didn't get any of the extra crap. I know there's good loot but fuck that part

if youve ever played/enjoyed a tales game Id say definitely, star ocean is a better version of that. or if you just like the concept of an anime sci fi action rpg. the gameplay is really fleshed out, the battle system is a lot more fun than turn based combat, there is always an extensive and challenging post game, and I find the aesthetic/characters/stories really charming even if they arent peak FF levels of deep or iconic. what filters some people is its just TOO anime for them but if that doesnt bother you absolutely play it (and start with 2 preferably ps1 original emulated). its easily my second favorite jrpg series after golden age FF (IV-X)

the hauler is by FAR the worst fucking section of the entire game and one of the worst minigames in any jrpg Ive ever played

holy shit every time I replay 3 I think to myself "oh it cant be THAT bad ive done this before" and everytime Im floored by how awful it is. absolutely amazing that it didnt filter me as a kid who dropped games pretty easily. pretty sure if so2 wasnt my favorite game at the time I wouldve dropped it there, thank god I didnt because the second half of the game is pure unfiltered ludo

Same. Don't even give a fuck about this franchise.

my shitty laptop cant play so6 for more than a half hour without crashing. I knew my shit was way below minimum specs, but its really disappointing when I can run games that look way better visually with no problem. oh well I might just end up playing it a half hour at a time. just got to the first village

SO6 is kind of a crapshoot to run and they never quite optimized it. sounds like it happened to you

TOO anime for them

how anime are we talking?

This is only really a problem near the start, they simply get more MP later and recovering it becomes very easy

have someone learn art and someone else learn replication and paint a primavera and duplicate it to look at it after every battle

1-3: moderately anime
4: FULL ON campy shonen adventure

have not played 5 or 6 yet

youtube.com/watch?v=kNauq6_9iP0
2bf the other games aren't as anime as SO4. The director admitted he wishes he could have made it a eroge.

i just cringed into another universe

lmao beat me to it, I was going to post this exact scene.

ywn sex up meracle/reimi/myuria in a AAA eroge

end my life now

I wish you could unlock 4's hardest diff without playing the game 5 times

The director admitted he wishes he could have made it a eroge.

That's very based. No wonder the game looks and plays so well.

cant you just download a save file off the net somewhere? thats why i did for 2 and 3 to do exactly that. also to unlock the costumes in 3 because fucking getting all those battle trophies.

He didn't say that. He just said he wanted to make eroge, but it didn't happen. It was around when SO4 came out, so people assumed.

unlocking trophies and difficulties in 3 is actually kind of intuitive desu
I guess I'll try with the pc version. CE if it comes to worst. tried getting PS3 saves back in the day to no avail

yeah Im sure he wasnt thinking about picrel at all when he said that

I love my [Space Legal] Wife!

Nina!

files.catbox.moe/xg368z.jpg

gorgeous wife anon, this is mine.

wow lewd!

replaying 4

Admits 4 has the cringiest cast ever, complete with the pantheon of cringe: Lymle, Edge, and Faize.

"Durr if you didn't ignore the game's gaping flaws, you got filtered."

I'm sorry, but the cast and character interactions in a story based JRPG are vitally important. And 4's gameplay and plot aren't addicting or deep enough to make up for it alone. Difficulty is the only viable "filter" that stops someone from enjoying the rest of a game. I beat 4 in spite of the cringe fest and am never playing it again for that reason. 4 is below mid and heavily dragged down by its cast. If a core facet of a game being shitty is just a filter that weeds out plebs then Superman 64 is a masterpiece that filtered the entire world.

why do I associate star ocean with sega? Did they use to publish or am I going mental

probably thinking of phantasy star which used to be a single player JRPG series before it was online

I played 4 last year after hearing about all the hate the cast got and I was honestly kinda surprised cause I really liked all of them and was even invested in the whole Faize subplot thing
I even got the special ending for having seen nearly every private action and was really happy I did, unironically I thought it was good, Edges sad/angry bit thru the middle dragged a bit though I'd argue you can say that about the gameplay too (fuck the purgatorium) in that section
I didnt do the postgame because i think I had something else I wanted to move on to at the time but I kinda wish I had now, I mained Reimi

Probably thinking about phantasy star, but sega has never published an SO game

faize isnt as bad as the other two. even including him, theres still 6 other characters who I think are all likeable, and a few of them are great. gameplay wise its better or on par with any other star ocean game. presentation wise its the best in the series. idk i just think its a great game and 2 poorly written characters isnt enough for me to hate it. people are allowed to have different opinions. sorry you got filtered.

replay it on a harder difficulty and do the post game. thats unironically where the "real game" begins and imo is the most fun part. you will actually need to take advantage of item creation and craft all the best gear, have good battle loadouts and proper strategy to clear everything.

remastered version is still the best looking game in the series somehow. seriously 5 and 6 look like shit compared to 4

Did they create new models for the remaster? The characters in the PS3 version looked like creepy dolls.

reimi is the second best character to main for sure. but try out picrel for a while and you might never go back

nah they are still the same real dolls in the remaster. 6 has better character models, but the game itself is a blurry fucking mess for some reason, it just looks like shit to me.

sorry you got filtered.

I beat the game bud. Nothing stopped me from progressing. Cast was cringe, simple as. Sorry that fact makes you so butthurt, 'kay.

The mages are useful to cast the buff spells or whatever off cooldown as supports while your melees spam their basic attacks/killers. IIRC Celine actually has really strong normals in terms of frame properties or whatever its called so if you juice her up just right, she's excellent.

Rena need to be on slut mode only with bosses, and mostly in the early. I kept "do whatever" and never encountered major issues.
Kidding rena should be a slut at all hours

shes only a slut for dias thoughbeit. sorry claudecels.

Doesn't look that way in my game.

demake fags will never know what the properly balanced so2 universe mode post game experience is like and it saddens me. literally peak jrpg.

the properly balanced so2 universe mode post game experience is like

Meaning? I cleared all the game in universe mode and the post game and I couldn't say it was "unbalanced" or whatever.

claude is the beta bux she settled for after she was done "finding herself"

lol

Did you play it on PS4? It looks noticeably better on PS5.

Girl says another man's name

Its over vanilla bros... we have been cucked

the ps1 universe mode is way, way harder for a lot of different reasons. no 3 hit combos, no assists, no break damage limit, no uber equipment from raid battles, no staggering, skill system is totally different and far more restrictive, the cave of trials doesnt have warp points, just to name a few things

I don't know if you played on PC, but in that version there's something innately wrong that makes the game look incredibly blurry at all times. If you use ReShade you can enable a single setting, I think it's Adaptive Sharpen, which immediately alters the image to look a thousand times better.

girl literally ghosts your ass while youre getting ready for a tournament to find a sword for the guy youre fighting against

any self respecting man wouldve dropped her at that point without hesitation

That's not "balanced" that's "harder". Balanced is if the pc version had an extremely unfair difficulty and the ps1 hadn't.

You sounds like a really sad and lonely person.
Surely she couldn't even THINK of helping her childhood friends that knew since she was little for the rando encountered litterally 10 days before.

yeah I played PC version. will definitely check out the reshade

this is true but they did add a chaos mode to remake, so hopefully that will be more in line with the OG hardest difficulty, will have to try it sometime. was definitely a bit let down with remake universe, but at least they made it available from the start. and Ive also played the game 1000 times

Chaos in the remake is way harder than universe on ps1 because it is tuned for all the new stuff and you can't do it without using everything you have. They just swapped difficulties.

the rando who literally saved her life multiple times and you committed to going on adventure with and has been traveling day and night with you couldnt even be kept in the loop about what she was doing the whole time? for a guy who continually pushes her away and was literally your competition? why did she have to hide it? very realistic female behavior though so I will say its great writing.

the rando who literally saved her life multiple times

Twice. And you know just about one time for dias in 10+ years. Considering rena is a dumbfuck the number is probably exponentially higher.

was literally your competition

It was never a competition not in the battle nor for rena. I don't know if you are a speedreader a retard, you didn't play the game or just the rena side. If you play rena side you understand perfectly what dias point was. Your entire point of her being a slut for him is really... incoherent?

at its core, Star Ocean games will be isekai, and squeenix should have used that to its advantage, but they always fuck it up.

thats awesome to hear. now Im not sure which version I should play for my next run. I still like the original backgrounds and dungeon layouts more as well as the voice acting. but I guess you cant go wrong either way.

voice acting

You can put on the orginal VA choosing by character and the original OST if you wish so. You can also pick the psp version, if you hate yourself.

Ive played both sides multiple times. rena didnt see it as a competition between the two (because all she can think about is herself), but claude obviously does, and if rena had a shred of empathy she wouldve handled the entire lacour situation a lot more elegantly. not to mention everything that went down in mars.

IIRC the options are english psp VA, jap psp VA or jap ps1 VA. or did they add english ps1 as well?

but claude obviously does

And that's rena problem because....

rena had a shred of empathy

Meaning all the moments when she geniunely asked claude what was wrong and he went every time "... whatever"? He litterally didn't want to know what happened between them when rena offered to talk about him.
Claude's point on the first half of the game is to be extremely insecure and closed because he can't say himself for what he is and the instant he saw another man speaking to rena he went full emo.

Oh my bad i never considered english because i played with japanese voices and i had all the options.

Which star ocean games are good? I know how to read jap so don't worry about shitty localization.

yeah claude acted like a little bitch too. they BOTH acted immature. they are both dumbass emotional teens, it makes sense. I still wouldve dropped her for celine in a heartbeat.

they are both dumbass emotional teens, it makes sense

Yeah that's the point because it's what they are. But just blaming rena calling her a slut is extremely unfair and one sided, which was my point. Of course the theatricals of the narrative are made that way to put you at unease with the situation, if you, for some reason, play rena's adventure on your first playtrough what happens with claude assumes a complete different meaning. Rena is extremely selfish but, for her side, she tried to open a channel with claude but he was way too much insecure to sink in the truth.

Question for the SO2 ending. Does ronyx and his ship stay vaporized or the starship comes back with the timefuckery?

theyre all good to great except for 5. IMO just play them in order and skip 5. or skip to 2 if you just want to play the "best" one first (3 is the real peak but its less accessible). the games only have small connections to each other so order isnt too important. though 4 is a prequel and you visit areas from 1 and 2 so save that one for afterwards.

well the calnus incident was a totally seperate thing that happened at a later point so I dont think theyd come back. could be wrong though its been a while.

Why the hate for 5? It's for the horrible character designs?

dual protagonist system actually gives you radically different perspectives on the story depending on your choice

very kino aspect of so2 that few other games do right. though I end up almost never picking claude because I want dias in my party and leon is worthless.

But leon is hotter.
Dunno my party was C R precis and leon and i steamrolled violently. I tought to use chisato for the cocktease but precis gave me a bigger boner.

its aggressively mediocore in every respect and was clearly very rushed/had no budget. there are no real cutscenes, they are told "in game" with characters talking while youre walking around as the MC which I find very immersion breaking. there is no party building, you just fight with every character you recruit all at once, like 7 people on the field and its a fucking mess. the world is tiny. the game is very short. the story is completely forgettable. in fact the only thing I remember is the slutty mage.

there is no party building

That's the worse of all the points you made. Jesus why the fuck they had this idea? I hope they fixed this issue for 6.

I use chisato precis and opera everytime cause muh dick. plus chisato is a NASTY damage dealer at least in the original. tear gas absolutely mogs every other KM in the game.

It's such a shame that SO3 didn't get a PC release as well, it's my favorite in the series, lots of side stuff to do.

I think every single person that played those games their first party was "muh dick" for the choice of party members.

Maybe they'll remaster the entire series. I read so2r sold pretty well. Unless they want to try to save valkirya but i really hope not because i don't want a so2r treatment for the first game, the second maybe. SE original ip like harvestella or the other not ogre tactics they did with the same pixelart with full 3d enviroment tanked hard. They need to use this for something.

If I remember right, they're never mentioned again in any of the games or endings, but the Blue Sphere manga(?) briefly shows him which would suggest they're also saved by the timefuckery

I agree its the worst part easily. not only is there no party building, theres no optional or alternate characters either, which destroys the replay value and one of the most fun things about the series. thankfully 6 fixes this completely and gives you two different protagonists with exclusive characters, a big cast to choose from, party building and all that jazz like 2. the problem with 6 is the AP system but thats not too big of a deal.

but it did get a pc release anon, its on PCSX2.

blue sphere is actually full fledged sequel to so2 on the game boy color, of all things. and its one of the best looking and playing gbc games ever made. japan only but there is an english patch.

Yeah, it's a great game. The game itself never mentions Ronyx's fate regardless.

They intentionally aren't answering that question.

anybody ever watched the anime? Im curious, but my autism doesnt want to start it because I know its unfinished.

Yeah "we forgot about him". thanks a lot.
In a game where you litterally have 100 endings figuring every possibile combo and ending for every important character suddenly "we left it to the player's immagination".
Cmon.

My honest ranking:
2>4>1>6>3
Never played 5.
Best character in the whole series: Ashton.

Jesus fucking christ what the fuck are those character designs? I am having my eyes bleed worse than the first departure remake ones.

3 is the best one and its not especially close

easily the best story

best characters

best waifus

best battle system that will actually punish you for mashing

bosses and even regular encounters are challenging even on normal difficulty

ahead of its time plot twist

deep post game with even more challenge

packed up the ass with content

mirage

I wish I could like 4, I don't even care about the cringe. People say the combat is good but attacks feel much more drawn out and less consistent compared to 3.

It was enjoyable, but yeah, it's unfinished (they wrapped the storyline up with drama CDs, but who gives a shit about those?) Very cheaply animated after like the first episode, and some questionable changes to characterization kinda sucked too.

also

Clood

I think it's on retrocrush if you really wanna watch it.

3 is the worst

3 is the best

why is it so polarizing?

I never got the point of Mirage, as a party member. Why use her over Cliff?

i miss the gacha

Probably the first one the majority of people started the franchise with? Usual that's the reason.

yeah the battle skills in 3 are a lot snappier to use. feels faster in general. having light and weak attacks, shield, guts, mp damage/death made it more complex as well. 4 has rush and blindside which are fun, but feel a lot more basic.

shes cute and has tits, thats the only reason. in terms of stats and gameplay shes a worse cliff. has a couple unique moves but they arent that great anyway.

forcing Adray into my party

shes cute and has tits

Peak reason, enjoy your low poly wife.

Story-wise, there's a shitty early 2000s mindfuck twist which ruins the whole series. Not spoiling it.
Gameplay wise, it's extremely boring, you cruise through the game with a handful of attacks.
This wan't my first Star Ocean, I played 2 (first one in Europe), then 1, then 3.

i prefer to just imagine he doesnt exist. seriously what a dumb addition. at least I dont have to keep roger around.

The director admitted he wishes he could have made it a eroge.

It was around when SO4 came out

What happened was the interview was from 2002 (before SO3), where the series producer says he asked the president if they could make an eroge an was shot down. Then before SO4 came out, a Japanese blog referenced this interview making a joke using Edge's name, because Edge is pronounced very similarly to "ecchi" in Japanese. Sankaku Complex took that blog/joke and ran with it using it as clickbait, which then caused people to associate SO4 with the quote even though it was 7 years prior (and had nothing to do with SO in general)

Why does everyone hate Adray? He's a cool old man and asks me to marry his daughter

I don't hate him, I'd just prefer to have Peppita, Nel, and Albel in my party, but I can't because he's forced on me. He'd be a lot more appealing if he were an option, not a requirement.

She has much better MP. She outright replaces him because of it.

he shows up out of nowhere, has like 3 lines of dialogue, and then joins your party and never speaks again. feels totally out of place because they added him to the directors cut as some bonus content but hes not actually worked into the game at all. they did the same with mirage but it makes way more sense since shes at least a character you interact with from the start.

oh and hes also complete shit in battle, probably the worst character in the game.

He's forced upon you, but it's not like he's cockblocking you from other party members. The original Japanese release of the game didn't have him or Mirage as party members, and even in that version you still were locked between having two of 4 optional party members. And even in the international release, if you use glitches to avoid Adray, it's not like you can suddenly recruit a third optional character.

PS1 or PSP version of SO2?

I would argue Sophia is worse. But both Symbology users pretty terrible to use.

PS1 or just the remake, it is that good.

psp version is by the worst way. go ps1 if youre a real ass nigga or play the modern remake if youre a casual.

yeah she is awful in battle and feels practically worthless. AND you get her at level 1 late as fuck in the game. AND I still end up using her anyway because she a QT. thank god maria can hard carry her ass.

I remember her being fucking obnoxious in the PVP mode at least. Thunder Flare is a pain in the ass.

I seethe in a graveyard of gachas. All the good ones die..

She does her job fine from the sidelines if you spec her into explosion spam.
I still have the photo of when I used her for pic related back on PS2. Man, I had such a great time with this game.

Sophia can stun lock with thunder flare, she bypasses all guards, can actually hit incredulity hard if you exploit elemental weaknesses, and her close range heavy attack hits incredibly hard. She's definitely on the weaker end, but she has actual niches unlike other shitters like Roger, Adray, and Albel.

Is Roger bad? (I have literally never used him)

He actually really good in the early game, but he falls off more and more the futher you get into the game. By the time you get to pay game he's complete ass.

respect anon, I love this game and still havent even cleared all the post game bosses on earth mode. the copy pasted 100 floor tower always ends up filtering me.

albel is cool cause hes a sexy twink. or so Ive heard some people on the internet claim. not really my thing.

2 was the best i think, i liked 3's story alot too but if you figured out the refining items thing it broke the game
luther had some damn good quotes though

data should behave as such!

wallow in despair

2 had better soundtrack
havent played the others, i bought 4 and never played it
infinite undiscovery was a MASSIVE let down, i dropped that game like an hour in

Can someone help me with star ocean 2 recruitment

Do space elves have wiggly ears?

I've never played SO, I wanted to get into it during the ps2 days but I never had the chance
is SO2 remake a good entry point? I played a bit of the demo and it seems cool, is the combat actually challenging?

theres like a 5 hour long animated series they made for it on youtube

see
tells you everything you need to know. as far as whos the best, you cant go wrong picking between ashton and opera. precis is better than bowman. noel is shit. leave a spot open for chisato cause she rules.

It's blurry

you have 4(5?) difficulty modes you can change at any time, and the last one is quite brutal so if theres no challenge its your own fault. 2 r is easily the best entry point in the series, even if purists like me still say ps1 is better (it is)

It's blurry

No it's not.

I cant read the bottom

1724x9777

blurry

are you looking at the thumbnail?

Get your eyes fixed

In a new tab on my phone

hit the left 3.buttons and open original image button

Wow, thanks. Never noticed that button.

its kinda recent....2 years old.maybe?

damn it I have to go wage slave now, hopefully someone else keeps my comfy thread alive a bit longer.

Just make a new one.

i fucked up and left leon to die on expel
i didnt like him that much anyway

I haven't played postgame in 3-5 yet, but it's been so long I feel like I would have to start over to knock the rust off. And leave Roger in his cage.

SO2 is the best one. The Remake is good. The game isn't particularly "challenging", like I beat it as a a ~10 year old child, but you can increase the difficulty. There are still things that "break" the game however.