General Gaming Star Ocean The Divine Force - [10/27/2022 for Playstation / Xbox / Steam]

[Keyser_Soze]

 

Quote

 STAR OCEAN is back!

 

We’re excited to unveil STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE - a brand new sci-fi fantasy RPG that will take you on an exhilarating journey into an expansive world.
Featuring two main protagonists and several playable ally characters, freedom of movement and character illustrations by renowned artist Akiman (Street Fighter series) it’s a bold new entry for the series that takes exploration and combat to another level - literally!

 

Read on and we’ll tell you all about it:

 

What is STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE?

 

Developed by tri-Ace, STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE is a thrilling new adventure that fuses science fiction and fantasy. Although it’s the sixth mainline entry in the STAR OCEAN series, THE DIVINE FORCE will be an excellent starting point for newcomers as it tells a completely original story with brand-new characters.

 

For existing fans, the game brings back the popular dual protagonist system from STAR OCEAN: The Second Story and puts you in the shoes of two very different protagonists: Raymond and Laeticia.

 

Raymond is from an advanced civilization, and the captain of the space trading ship Ydas. Laeticia, meanwhile, is a princess-knight from a kingdom on an underdeveloped planet. When they meet, the fate of the galaxy will change forever.

 

You’ll get to choose which of the two heroes to control and the events that take place during the story, including the allies who’ll have your back by the end of the game, will change depending on your decision. Naturally, once you finish playing as one of the protagonists, you’ll want to start another playthrough with the other character to see all the story twists and turns that await you there.

Regardless of which protagonist you go with, you’ll have amazing freedom over how you explore this galactically imaginative world. Characters have amazing mobility around areas - everything you see is there to be explored… from the ground and the air.

 

Not only can the characters move in 360 degrees on the ground, they can also fly up into the air, too! See a cliff or rockface that looks interesting in the distance? You can fly over there and poke around. Want to get up to the rooftops for a better look at the city? Up you go!

 

From towering mountains, to dark, vast valleys and even imposing castles, there’s an incredible variety of places to explore… but not all of them will be safe.

 

Sooner or later, you’ll encounter enemies and that means it’s time to battle. Fortunately, the sense of nimbleness extends into the combat system, too!

 

The heroes can take down hordes of enemies with super high-speed movement attacks. For example, you have a skill that lets you vanish for a moment in front of enemies’ eyes or take out a foe in a single hit.

 

Combat flows seamlessly into exploration too - there are no random battles, and all enemies are present on the field. If you see danger ahead, it’s up to you how and when you engage them. Do you rush in head-on or swoop down from the sky?

 

It’s the fastest, most impactful action the series has ever had, and we can’t wait for you to try it for yourselves!

 

When will STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE release?

 

STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE will be available for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and STEAM in 2022.

 

[Bacon]

Man, the characters still like like shit. Literal fresh out the womb baby faces. 

[Nokt]

I didn't know tri-ace was behind lightning return... thats not good lol.

[XxEvil AshxX]

I have to agree about the characters. Ugh. Japan literally needs to move on from the anime style. It's been like, 40 years. The rest of the game looks good though.

[jaethos]

I don't mind anime, I really like the character designs of both Scarlett Nexus and Tales of Arise, but the faces in this are very off putting. They actually look like baby doll faces on adult bodies.

The rest looks interesting though. I enjoyed the last Star Ocean.

[Fizzzzle]

Looks like tales of arise or ys ix only not as good.

 

I'll still play it, though. Even though tri ace hasn't made a good game in like 15 years.

 

[aett]

The first time I remember anime-style designs looking terrible in a JRPG was Xenosaga 1, back in 2003. Just like with this game, it had the weird, porcelain doll look. Other games have managed to do it well since then, so I have no idea why anyone ever goes back to this unappealing style. 

[Keyser_Soze]

4 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Looks like tales of arise or ys ix only not as good.

 

Looks better IMO as it addressed the issues I had with Arise that people casually waived off.

 

1. The world is open, it doesn't just appear open.

2. Battles are real time, you don't encounter an enemy and then shift into a battle scene for no reason in a jarring way.

[Brian]

10/27/22

[Keyser_Soze]

Pretty interesting coming out exactly one year from when it was announced. 🤔

[crispy4000]

Good year for this to be coming out.

[BloodyHell]

Ill give it a shot.

[Phaseknox]

On 10/27/2021 at 8:30 PM, Nokt said:

I didn't know tri-ace was behind lightning return... thats not good lol.

Lightning Returns is really good IMO.
 

On 10/28/2021 at 12:08 PM, jaethos said:

I enjoyed the last Star Ocean.

You did? I thought that it was really bad, one of the worst JRPGs that I’ve played in recent memory. This new one looks like the best in the series since Till the End of Time. I hope so, because I’ve been wanting another really good Star Ocen game.

[Fizzzzle]

I'm not going to get tricked by another tri-Ace title, but I'll cautiously see how it does. Their track record hasn't been great over the last, I don't know... decade and a half.

 

I liked the Last Hope well enough when it came out, but I tried playing it again when they released it on Steam and fuuuuuuck it's not good. I've bought Resonance of Fate twice and I couldn't get into it either time. I never played Integrity and Faithlessness, but everyone says it's a train wreck. I know I played Infinite Undiscovery when it came out, but I feel like I don't really remember anything about it (other than there are some boss battles where your entire cast participates, which is something I wish more JRPGs would do)

 

But like, they haven't made a good game since the mid-2000's when they had a run of Till the End of Time/Radiata Stories/Valkyrie Profile 2.

[Bacon]

I liked the game play of that really ugly Star Ocean that first came out on the 360 and then the far better version of it came out on PS3. Then the one came out on PS4 and I actually think I got a refund for it but they let me keep the game but I didn't play much of it. Which is a real fuckin' shame. Big issue with both of those games tho is that I don't recall ever liking the story. 

[Greatoneshere]

Tri-Ace was only a support studio helping Square Enix's 1st Production Studio on Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Final Fantasy XIII-3: Lightning Returns. Those games are still directed by Square Enix veteran Motomu Toriyama (who did Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and Final Fantasy XIII, yes, I dislike all 5 of his games) and Square's 1st Production Studio. Tri-Ace is not responsible for those two games in terms of crediting it to them as far as I'm aware.

 

And when was the last good Tri-Ace game? Star Ocean: Till the End of Time/Radiata Stories/Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria? That was 2004, 2005, and 2006 respectively. Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness are all pretty mediocre to outright bad games. I liked Resonance of Fate (particularly the HD remaster) but even that game came out in 2010. So it's been 12 years since an actually good Tri-Ace game, if we're being generous? 16 years if we're being harsh. And how long since a good Star Ocean game? I liked Till the End of Time (the third Star Ocean game), but that was a divisive game upon release, loved or hated, especially because of its canon universe breaking ending, but even if we start there, then we haven't had a good Star Ocean game in 18 years.

 

12 years since a good Tri-Ace game. 18 years since a good Star Ocean game. I mean, we'll see, I would love to get a good Star Ocean game again like the first three, though some fans do seem to like The Last Hope (the fourth one) but everyone seems to despise Integrity and Faithlessness (the fifth one). It's actually surprising that tri-Ace has only developed 4 games since 2006 when Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria came out. Four games in 16 years I guess isn't horrible productivity when you're also doing support coding for a ton of games for other companies at the same time. It's a shame they started farming themselves out for work after the triple sales failures of Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and Resonance of Fate in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively, I think that derailed them from making more of their own games, since they've only made once since 2010 - Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness; everything else since 2010 has been a port, a remaster, or support coding work for other Japanese studios and their games.

[Phaseknox]

2 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness are all pretty mediocre to outright bad games.

I like Infinite Undiscovery. 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Phaseknox said:

I like Infinite Undiscovery. 

 

There's nothing wrong with liking a generally disliked or divisive game (I've done so many a time), I'm just going off of the general consensus, as seen, for example, on Metacritic: 

 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/infinite-undiscovery

 

Those are bad scores from both critics (68/100 after 68 reviews) and audiences (7.1/10 after 168 votes). As I recall when the game came out in 2008, it was a massive, AAA JRPG with a lot of hype before release (it was tri-Ace, who was on a super hot streak up until that point) that crashed and burned in Japan, at least in part, since tri-Ace was, for some reason, releasing Microsoft/Xbox 360 exclusive games only at the time (Infinite Undiscovery remains locked on the Xbox 360 and Star Ocean: The Last Hope didn't get released on anything except the Xbox 360 until it was ported a year after its release to the PS3 in 2010 as The Last Hope - International). These two decision sank sales of these two games in Japan, and their unfavorable critical and audience receptions in the West hurt sales everywhere else. By the time tri-Ace realized their mistake that the Xbox 360 had always been dead in the water in Japan and that, in general, people were playing JRPG's worldwide primarily on PS3's, PC's, emulation, or legacy hardware (at the time) cemented tri-Ace's failure by the time they thankfully dual released their next game (and their final original game developed by them until Star Ocean 5 in 2016, 6 years later) on both PS3 and Xbox 360, Resonance of Fate. But this ended up being a highly niche game and that was that until 2016.

 

As for Star Ocean: The Last Hope, was that even a good game? I know us JRPG fans are willing to forgive a lot for cool shit, etc. but I recall the game getting raked over the coals a good bit upon release. As @Fizzzzle said, he remembered liking The Last Hope but tried to recently play the Steam release of the Star Ocean: The Last Hope remaster and that it was bad. The Metacritic reviews bare this out too (a 6.7 after 42 votes from audiences is super low, and indicates a dip from the original release's scores even). 

 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/star-ocean-4-the-last-hope---4k-full-hd-remaster

 

I want Star Ocean to be good - the first three games were great. I also really enjoy the Valkyrie Profile games, and it's weird it's not tri-Ace working on the upcoming new Valkyrie Profile game. And I'm one of the few who thinks Resonance of Fate is underrated. But it's been a long time since a good tri-Ace game - and by that I mean one that was unanimously praised/liked by both audiences and critics like their games used to be.

[Fizzzzle]

I'm fully on board with classifying Star Ocean: Till the End of Time as a really good game, despite the ending. It was a fun ride along the way.

 

Actually, fuck MP deaths. Your characters would die if they ran out of MP. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs a good kick in the wiener. It wasn't too hard to navigate around once you figured it out, but like... "why?"

[Greatoneshere]

43 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I'm fully on board with classifying Star Ocean: Till the End of Time as a really good game, despite the ending. It was a fun ride along the way.

 

Actually, fuck MP deaths. Your characters would die if they ran out of MP. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs a good kick in the wiener. It wasn't too hard to navigate around once you figured it out, but like... "why?"

 

I also liked Star Ocean 3 a good bit as well, but man that ending breaks the series (as ballsy as it is, which I do like). And I'm with you - the MP death mechanic was bullshit. 

[Fizzzzle]

I do remember when they announced they were making a new Star Ocean game after Till the End of TIme, I was just like ".... huh? You DO know you guys completely nuked the canon with that ending, right?"

 

After almost 20 years and not a single good Star Ocean game since that one came out, though... I don't really care anymore.

[Xbob42]

I actually bought Till The End Of Time on PS5 in December or so and was enjoying it (I remembered liking it on the PS2 but never finished it), but was getting sick of the same medieval planet. I Googled how many planets there were, expecting a game called Star Ocean to take place on many worlds... and apparently the vast majority of the game is there with a bit on some other places near the beginning and end. Kinda killed my interest to be honest. 

[dualhunter]

14 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

Lightning Returns is really good IMO.

 

Yeah, I was surprised since it's so different from XIII and XIII-2 plus I don't like time limits but I enjoyed it anyway.

 

I got Till the End of Time not long after the PS2 Slim came out but only played it around 3 or 4 years ago. I had only attempted the first battle in the original Star Ocean and knew about MP death so I worked around it and didn't have to worry about canon. Bad reviews kept me away from sequels.

[BloodyHell]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:05 PM, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Looks better IMO as it addressed the issues I had with Arise that people casually waived off.

 

1. The world is open, it doesn't just appear open.

2. Battles are real time, you don't encounter an enemy and then shift into a battle scene for no reason in a jarring way.

I was quite happy Arise wasn't open. Im also glad this is true of FFXIV.

[Greatoneshere]

6 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I actually bought Till The End Of Time on PS5 in December or so and was enjoying it (I remembered liking it on the PS2 but never finished it), but was getting sick of the same medieval planet. I Googled how many planets there were, expecting a game called Star Ocean to take place on many worlds... and apparently the vast majority of the game is there with a bit on some other places near the beginning and end. Kinda killed my interest to be honest. 

 

It's good to hear the remaster holds up at least, I've been meaning to return to the game someday. But yeah, it was lame that most of the game took place on the medieval planet. It's a great twist, but spending so much time there only to realize near the end you can and do go to other places and planets but it's already close to the endgame makes you retroactively wish you hadn't been on the medieval planet the whole time.

[Greatoneshere]

9 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I do remember when they announced they were making a new Star Ocean game after Till the End of TIme, I was just like ".... huh? You DO know you guys completely nuked the canon with that ending, right?"

 

After almost 20 years and not a single good Star Ocean game since that one came out, though... I don't really care anymore.

 

Probably why The Last Hope is a prequel to the entire series and why Integrity and Faithlessness takes place between the second and third games. The third game remains the last game in terms of the story's chronology because they can't possibly ever make a sequel. There's still hundreds of years to work with in between still, I assume The Divine Force will take place in it's own little bubble like most of these games do, but the entire canon leads to that ending no matter what.  I mean, you could technically make a sequel and either a) the characters never share what they learn with their universe and so a future game would be business as usual, or b) a future game truly deals with the fallout of the ending of the third game, which could be done and be quite interesting, but they'll never do it. 

[Phaseknox]

13 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

As for Star Ocean: The Last Hope, was that even a good game? I know us JRPG fans are willing to forgive a lot for cool shit, etc. but I recall the game getting raked over the coals a good bit upon release. As @Fizzzzle said, he remembered liking The Last Hope but tried to recently play the Steam release of the Star Ocean: The Last Hope remaster and that it was bad. The Metacritic reviews bare this out too (a 6.7 after 42 votes from audiences is super low, and indicates a dip from the original release's scores even). 

 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/star-ocean-4-the-last-hope---4k-full-hd-remaster

It’s not a good game, but it’s also not a bad one like Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is IMO. It’s average with some redeeming qualities to it, and worth a play if other better JRPG options have been exhausted. It’s a somewhat disappointing follow-up to Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, but it’s not terrible.

[Greatoneshere]

55 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

It’s not a good game, but it’s also not a bad one like Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is IMO. It’s average with some redeeming qualities to it, and worth a play if other better JRPG options have been exhausted. It’s a somewhat disappointing follow-up to Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, but it’s not terrible.

 

Yeah, I don't think there's any question that The Last Hope is a good bit better (but not good itself) than Integrity and Faithlessness, for sure.

[Brian]

 

[Keyser_Soze]

Hyde in the trailer now I'm in!

[Brian]

 

[Phaseknox]

I played the demo for this, and it’s really good IMO. The story and characters are entertaining like an anime, and the voice acting is good. The gameplay is fast, smooth and responsive with good button mapping, and the combat is real-time hack ‘n slash action. It’s a bit button mash-y, but still fun. The environments are kind of linear, but also expansive allowing for some exploration. The music is good, too.

 

I can tell that this is going to be a big epic action RPG, and I would buy it on day one if I had a PS5. However, the PS4 version is somewhat blurry and washed out looking. You can choose between graphics and performance modes, but they’re basically blurry and blurrier. I chose graphics mode since I wanted the graphics to look as good as they could, but even in that mode they were somewhat low res and blurry.

 

I just want PS4 versions of cross-gen games to look like PS4 games, but the PS4 version of this game looks like a Switch game. And there’s really no excuse for that considering how good games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Days Gone, Far Cry 6, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, The Last of Us Part II, Uncharted 4, etc. all look. This game isn’t even really in the same ballpark as those when it comes to graphics, so it should have a clean, clear, high resolution image quality instead of looking like Vaseline is smeared on the screen.

 

I still might get it for PS4 when it’s cheaper since I really like it and would like to play it sooner rather than later, but I also know that it will look a lot better on PS5 so maybe I will just wait and get that version when I get a PS5. But regardless one thing is for certain, this is the best Star Ocean game since Till the End of Time.

[Xbob42]

I also tried this, on PS5, on framerate mode. I'd also call it a little blurry and the region with a bunch of grass ran like absolute dog shit, same as when you'd get too close to those little resting campfires. The campfire part was whatever since they're uncommon, but the ENTIRE grassy region felt like it ran at 20 FPS. I imagine what was actually happening is that it's double-buffered so when it drops below 60 it defaults to 30, and 30 immediately after 60 feels WAY worse than normal 30.

 

Funny thing is, if you tilted your camera up just a bit in the grassy area, it'd go back to 60. I don't mean some huge angle change to where you're looking at the sky, it's like there was an arbitrary line where the frame rate just tanked in the middle of the screen. I'm guessing since the grassy area had little bits of fog that looked very similar to the smoke effect from the campfire, perhaps something about the alpha was hitting too hard? No idea.

That said, I also enjoyed it. I think the acting was god awful but in a fun way instead of a depressing way. The characters still look weird but they no longer look like RealDolls, so that's a huge step up. Combat in the demo was simple but fun, and got a lot more interesting when you unlock the DUMA, which basically is a little drone thing that has its own meter that builds as you hit enemies. You can expend that to fly around the battlefield field, making yourself immune to attacks and launching directly at enemies, and if you tilt the stick right before you hit (which is trickier than it sounds) you can blindside them, which opens them up for a lot of punishment.

 

You can also use said DUMA to fly around the maps in short bursts, and then glide down with it. So think of it kind of like BotW's glide if you could get an initial boost out of it. (You can boost in any direction and then glide.) There appears to be care taken to include elevation in the maps along with hidden stuff to collect by using the DUMA, so while I was unsure if I even wanted the game prior to that, getting that one item pretty much sold me. Fun ways to explore a world are basically #1 on my favorite things to have in games, so...

[Keyser_Soze]

Game Information

Game Title: Star Ocean: The Divine Force

Platforms:

• PlayStation 4 (Oct 27, 2022)
• PC (Oct 27, 2022)
• Xbox Series X/S (Oct 27, 2022)
• PlayStation 5 (Oct 27, 2022)
• Xbox One (Oct 27, 2022)
  

Trailer:

Publisher: Square Enix

    Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 73 average - 71% recommended

Critic Reviews

Digitally Downloaded - Matt Sainsbury - 4.5 / 5

I don’t want to take anything away from this game, though. I have enjoyed Star Ocean: The Divine Force more than any game in the series since the third one. The developers have calibrated just about everything about this game perfectly, from the classically entertaining JRPG plot and characters, to the incredible aesthetics and superb pacing. The Divine Force is by no means a short game, but it has a way of making the hours fly past so that it never feels like it’s dragging on your time. Yes, the combat is a little unrefined and too pacey for its own good, but it’s still very playable, and totally worth dealing with to enjoy the most exotic JRPG of 2022.

Hardcore Gamer - Adam Beck - 3 / 5

Star Ocean: The Divine Force feels drained of life.

IGN - George Yang - 7 / 10

Star Ocean: The Divine Force isn’t the best in the series, but a revamped battle system and a charming cast of characters at least make it feel like a return to form.

PSX Brasil - Thiago de Alencar Moura - Portuguese - 80 / 100

Star Ocean: The Divine Force is both a love letter to what the series once was and a reflection on what its future might look with the power of current gen consoles. While the story and gameplay excite players and bring an unexpected depth, it falls short of its potential thanks to its technical limitations.

Prima Games - Lucas White - 8 / 10

From the way the storytelling really takes advantage of its genre hybrid to the distinct and action-packed combat system, this is an excellent JRPG that hits its targets far more often than it misses.

Twisted Voxel - Ali Haider - 7.5 / 10

Star Ocean: The Divine Force has a terrific battle system, a variety of unique exploration possibilities with a lot of vertical mobility, and a solid cast of characters, but the game's pacing can be a problem, and the writing is somewhat weak.

Worth Playing - Chris "Atom" DeAngelus - 5.5 / 10

I wanted to like Star Ocean: The Divine Force a lot more than I did. It has a lot of interesting ideas and concepts, and I'm a prime target for Star Ocean 2 nostalgia bait. The game didn't have the time or budget to do what it wanted to do, and what we have is a half-baked title that does very little well. The story is dull, the combat is repetitive and poorly balanced, and the unique features fall by the wayside as the game progresses. There are glimmers that something great could have been created, but it isn't the game that we ended up with. It's difficult to recommend The Divine Force to even die-hard JRPG fans, since the game's few strengths are eclipsed by its many flaws. Wait for a sale if you're curious, but otherwise, there are plenty of other better JRPGs to play this year.

 

[Xbob42]

Yup, those are Star Ocean reviews and just about exactly what I expected based on the demo! Well, except the 5.5, if there are more like that that'd be lower than what I expected. But it's absolutely what one might call a 7/10 game based on the demo. But it felt like a good one of those.