STAR OCEAN 5: INTEGRITY AND FAITHLESSNESS Announced
Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness has been announced for Playstation 3 and 4, and to say I'm jazzed about that would be an understatement. The last entry in the series was The Last Hope, which while it had some bright spots, mightily struggled in finding its way out of the mediocrity mire. My biggest and best memories from the series stem from Star Ocean 2 and 3, which are just fantastic games, and definitely worth a try if you’ve got the systems to play them on. Granted, Star Ocean 3 tried to throw a curveball at the end that may have left a bad taste in your mouth, depending on your point of view, but it is still a worthwhile journey. Star Ocean 5 is nestled (timeline wise) in between those two stellar entries.
Courtesy of Gematsu, we’ve now got a look at some of the characters in action, but the story this time around focuses on Fidel Kamyuzu and Miki Sovu~esuta, during a period called the dark seven years (ominous right?) The producers are clearly evoking the feel of the earlier Star Oceans, especially Star Ocean 3, as they want fans to be assured that the people at the helm love the franchise and want to give the fans a worthy entry. Thanks to Famitsu, here is a bit of what producer Shuichi Kobayashi had to say.
“Star Ocean 5 is about bringing a sense of reassurance back to longtime fans, which is why the game’s logo is reminiscent of Star Ocean 3‘s.”
Also an interesting bit on the battle system and the main character:
“The Star Ocean games are a series that I feel should be about enabling the players to enjoy what’s going on comfortably. Over the years, the games have always had action game elements in their combat systems, but they’re otherwise definitely not action games in the truest sense. For Star Ocean 5 as well, we’re making a game that’s not so dependent purely on player skill to be enjoyed so that our audience can focus on taking on the world and characters that we’ve created here.”
“It’s worth pointing out that Fidel, the protagonist, is 23 years old. Star Ocean fans are becoming adults and the type of people who own PS3s and PS4s are going to skew a little older, so we made Fidel as old as he is to better enable those players to more readily project themselves into him. There are other reasons why his age is what it is, but you’ll have to play the game to find out.”
A few things there. One, Tri-Ace is known for their active battle systems that mandate you keep up with your team on the fly. Hopefully that first paragraph doesn’t mean a loss of action, as I’ve always loved the fast and action based nature of previous systems. Two, as for Fidel, I’m glad he’s at least out of his teens. I'm not 16 or 17 anymore, and having the character a little older helps the immersion, at least for me. It all comes down to his personality though, so let's hope he's more Yuri than Hope (FFXIII Hope, at his worst, not improved Hope from FFXIII-2. Just giving credit where it's due).
The developers are also bringing back crafting as well, though they haven't gone into much detail on it, and are attempting to deliver seamless transitions to real time battles. This would be an improvement on previous entries, as seeing the same battle arenas over and over again grew tiresome. One area that hopefully gets some attention is the voice acting, as that aspect of the series has always been a little lacking. While there isn’t much info on the additional party members, you can get a glimpse of them in action in the screenshots above.
Truthfully, Star Ocean 5, along with games like Disgaea and Persona 5, is the type of announcement I’ve been waiting for. It doesn’t have the instant recognition of a Halo, Call of Duty, or even a Final Fantasy, but it is exactly why I went with a PS4 as my first next gen system. Notice I said first, as I thoroughly plan on purchasing an Xbox One when I can afford to, or when Gears of War 4 or whatever it ends up being called gets released. Whichever comes first.
That said however, games like Star Ocean are what ushered me through the PS1 and PS2 eras, a JRPG golden age if you will, and it was that promise of future RPGs that eventually decided my next gen purchase. Six years is a long time, but the franchise seems to be in good hands, or at least hands that truly care about the future of the franchise. Putting Final Fantasy XIV in trusting hands led to a renaissance in A Realm Reborn, so here is hoping that the same can be said of Star Ocean 5 in a few years' time.
So that is my piece on the subject, but what forgotten or languishing RPG would you like to see revived? Let me know in the comments!