Star Ocean: The Divine Force was arguably the biggest reveal in this week’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:State of Play. It was an understated show, featuring a han🍎dful of new announcements and updates on existing titles, whether🐬 that be release dates, free downloadable content, or just a trailer.
It wasn’t planning to blow the doors off, but it still managed to pump out a couple of surprises. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Divine Force was among them, a new entry in the JRPG series I long assumed had been put to bed. Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness launched back in 2016 to mediocre sales and underwhelming critical reception, with the long gap between releases hinting that perhaps Tri-Ace went back to the drawing board to completely reinvent its anime space opera. Well, judging fro✃m the reveal, I’m not entirely sure that’s what happened.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh, there’s some potential to be found here. I grew up with Star Ocean, with Till The End Of Time being one of the first JRPGs I played back on the PS2 alongside Final Fantasy 10. Its innovative blend of traditional fantasy tropes and an operatic glimpse into the galaxy beyond remains compelling to this day, because there aren’t many games in the genre that dare venture into such a setting. It’s just a shame that almost every game since then, whether it be The Last Hope or Integrity and Faithlessness, leans into lazy anime archetypes and tired gamꦫe design that just doesn’t make them fun to play.
I’ll start🅰 with the protagonist - Raymond - who I’ll admit is a step above Edge Maverick and Fayt Leingod. The dude just has a normal ass name and I respect that. But look at him, he’s a ma🀅sculine meathead with a criminal lack of imagination to his character design. The PlayStation Blog post describes him as having a big heart and nose for business, so he’s likely the charming fellow perfect for helming an adventure where he travels the galaxy and meets new friends. Star Ocean lore also has a fascinating element where advanced civilizations aren’t allowed to interact with more primitive ones in the fear of introducing technology they aren’t ready for, and it seems Raymond supersedes that law. This could lead to some cool narrative situations, but goodness me his design is dull as dishwater.
There’s also Laeticia, a petite, properly dressed princess who finds herself wrapped up in a major conflict with Raymond by her side as an unexpected ally. She wields magic and is equipped with heavy armour, which is honestly refreshing for a female character like this. So it’s a shame this progress is immediately undermined by the introduction of Elena, a crew member of Raymond’s merchant vessel whose breasts are front and centre whenever she appears in the trailer. I just wish her design wasn’t so bor🐲ing, outfitted with such an obscene number of belts and buckles that even Tetsuya Nomura would walk away with a blush.
I will admit that I’m judging Star Ocean: The Divine Force prematurely, but the track record of this series in the past decade doesn’t give me hope that Tri-Ace is going to subvert my expectations. I really, really hope it does, since I’d love nothing more than a Star Ocean game that absolutely slaps, but ꧅everything about this trailer makes me nervous, even the aspects of the series’ well-worn formula that seem to have gone through some major changes. Exploration has been completely overhauled, with players having the ability to fly through sprawling areas filled with quests to complete and monsters to fight. We see Raymond soar through a field area before descending on a group of monsters to do battle, engaging in a combat system that also seems to be a stark departure from previous entries.
Forgive the tired comparison, but it seems to be taking inspiration from Dark Souls, with a greater focus being placed on precisely dodging foes and predicting their movements before diving in for a timely strike. Yet it’s still, fast, frantic, and dictated by classic hack ‘n’ slꦇash mechanics, so there likely won’t be too much strategy involved. I will say that not having to manually load into a battle arena each and every time you fancy a scrap is a refreshing change, even if the world and characters surrounding this evolution seems far from compelling. Like I said, I’m jumping the gun, but everything here just feels uninspired and lacking in imagination, which is a weird thing to admit given that the vast expanse of space should offer limited possibilities for Tri-Ace to explore when it comes to its characters, worlds, and storytelling. Yet here we are, with another edgy protagonist and companions who seem to occupy the most tired of cliches.
We’ll find out more when the game launches in 2022, but when franchises like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy, Persona, and Tales are pushing the JRPG mould forward into exciting new territory, Star Ocean: The Divi𒀰ne Force feels like a love letter to the past that pays homage in all of the wrong ways. I’ll keep my hopes up, but the reveal trailer has tanked my expectations in a way I wish wasn’t the case. Hey, at least the finished game won’t have an awful framerate.
