Star Ocean: The Divine Force
released on Oct 27, 2022
Star Ocean: The Divine Force is the next installment in the Star Ocean series. The game features a story that blends sci-fi and fantasy, a rich lineup of characters and side stories, a battle system delivering exhilarating combat with easy controls, and more. The “Double Hero” system returns in which the story spanning the stars and beyond will unfold from the perspective of each protagonist, one from an advanced civilization (sci-fi) and the other from an underdeveloped planet (fantasy). Events that unfold throughout the story as well as the ally characters you end up with will differ based on the protagonist the player chooses.
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Star Ocean: The Divine Force was an enjoyable, but forgettable game. During my time with it, I enjoyed every moment, and exploring the world was a joy. The combat was really fun as well!
The story kind of fell flat pretty quickly, but picked up again in the last quarter of the game. I remember the main beats, but most of the characters were pretty forgettable.
I only did the one playthrough with Raymond, but probably won't be going back for the second playthrough with Laeticia.
The story kind of fell flat pretty quickly, but picked up again in the last quarter of the game. I remember the main beats, but most of the characters were pretty forgettable.
I only did the one playthrough with Raymond, but probably won't be going back for the second playthrough with Laeticia.
It could have been a great game had it been left in the oven for longer. The story is nothing special and does not make much sense half the time, with many major plot points revealed in much later chapters. The character models and rigging are quite odd. The gameplay is fun, but there are too many aspects to level up and keep track of, especially with how many new characters you get as the game progresses.
I liked this far more than I thought I would. Honestly, after 5 I had zero hopes. However, I was greeted to a decent story, combat updated in a few ways I appreciated, and characters that are pretty okay.
That said, this definitely lost points for a lacklustre endgame, and an oversimplification of the crafting systems from previous entries.
That said, this definitely lost points for a lacklustre endgame, and an oversimplification of the crafting systems from previous entries.
bro what is Shulk doing in Tales of Arise 2!?
DUMA, the futuristic, thingy-doobry flying device, gives this an extra star out of whatever by itself. Once you get it combat gets a lot more fun and it really helps whipping around the world. It raises an otherwise dreadful game into something I definitely... played.
The rest is a mess. Ignore anything saying this is a return to form for Star Ocean. That's laughable after just playing the done up second one recently. Everything other than zipping about hither and dither is boring! The story is drivel, all the characters are dead inside, and the cutscenes where all the plot are stored are amaturish.
I got through this game by skipping entire cutscenes. They're all needlessly wordy blah blah that add nothing. Barely plot, definitely not character. I don't know why they were even cutscenes, it was just character models standing relatively still with some basic camera scans. This could have been all chat as you keep traversing one end of a map to another in what makes for the bulk of the game. But they probably didn't do that because when that happens half the game functionality doesn't work! No pause menu, no map, no scanning for stuff. Shut the hell up, I got stuff to do!
It's got a massive cheapness to it that is distracting. It's hard to go to this after playing Tales of Arise that is a relatively similar game, with a similar budget and team, taking fairly similar shortcuts too keep that down. But where they knew where to skimp and where to polish, this just looks like ran out of time and money.
The rest is a mess. Ignore anything saying this is a return to form for Star Ocean. That's laughable after just playing the done up second one recently. Everything other than zipping about hither and dither is boring! The story is drivel, all the characters are dead inside, and the cutscenes where all the plot are stored are amaturish.
I got through this game by skipping entire cutscenes. They're all needlessly wordy blah blah that add nothing. Barely plot, definitely not character. I don't know why they were even cutscenes, it was just character models standing relatively still with some basic camera scans. This could have been all chat as you keep traversing one end of a map to another in what makes for the bulk of the game. But they probably didn't do that because when that happens half the game functionality doesn't work! No pause menu, no map, no scanning for stuff. Shut the hell up, I got stuff to do!
It's got a massive cheapness to it that is distracting. It's hard to go to this after playing Tales of Arise that is a relatively similar game, with a similar budget and team, taking fairly similar shortcuts too keep that down. But where they knew where to skimp and where to polish, this just looks like ran out of time and money.
I wanted to enjoy this game, but the AP system was the biggest turn off. What kind of JRPG quickly limits the amount of times you can perform BASIC ATTACKS???