- Star ocean first departure r best characters Ps4#
- Star ocean first departure r best characters series#
I don’t understand the appeal of this it’s nothing but a way to pad the game by wasting your time instead of letting the player get the result they’ve earned and move on. Why waste my time having to get those skills, when the system could be designed to not require them in the first place? Same for the fact that most specialties, which are menu commands that let a character use a skill to produce some desired result, like alchemizing a piece of iron into a useful gemstone, have a high chance to fail, even at max level. Since these (and a few others) are monumentally useful for any player, I can’t help but wish they weren’t in the game. Same with Effort, which lowers the amount of XP needed to level up - another no-brainer. However, it’s strange how a few skills are all but required - Determination lowers the cost of all other skills by 2 SP for each level, so it should be any player’s top priority from the get-go. Characters gain skill points when they level up, and the amount rewarded increases steadily, along with the cost of leveling skills to max. Skills points tie all these options together. It’s surprisingly complicated for such an old game, and while Super Specialties weren’t present in the Super Famicom release, I’m glad First Departure added them, since they save a ton of time. These grant all sorts of bonuses, my favorite being the Orchestra specialty, where everyone plays a song on their respective instruments to increase the chance that other actions, like crafting weapons, succeed.
There’s dozens of these, and while each provides some benefit, like raising a character’s stats or lowering the enemy encounter rate, when four party members know the same set of skills, they can be used together in what’s called a Super Specialty. Any character can, say, learn to play an instrument, or level up machining, herbology, mineralogy, weapon customization, even weirder stuff like ESP or Piety. (Later Tales games accomplish this masterfully as well.) There’s cooking, which should be familiar to Tales fans, but also a host of skills that cover the range of jobs you’d expect to see in a fantasy world mixed with sci-fi flair. These systems are deep, and they interact in a satisfying way that scratches my lizard brain itch of slowly getting watching numbers go up while making meaningful decisions.
Star Ocean plays like an early Tales game on steroids, with a focus on characters, plenty of obscure or hidden progression mechanics, and a fat load of systems layered on top of the basic action RPG combat.
Star ocean first departure r best characters series#
Tri-Ace, the original developer, was founded by members of the dev team for Tales of Phantasia, and any player familiar with that series would immediately recognize this.
Star ocean first departure r best characters Ps4#
In fact, the “R” version, released for PS4 and Switch in 2019, has an additional Japanese voice track and set of character portraits intended to better reflect the original Super Famicom game, which I appreciate. This version features new art, additional gameplay systems, and redone voice acting, while retaining the sprite-based visuals and overall look of the original game. Like usual for series new to me, I wanted to start with the first game, and since it’s got a well-received remake in Star Ocean: First Departure, I decided to start there.
Star Ocean is one of the highest profile JRPG series I’d never played - until now.
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