Star Ocean Retrospective Pt. 2 (3)

 

    Starting off from where we left off last time, Star Ocean 3, or as I like to call it "Side Kick 3," was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003 in Japan, and in 2004 in North America and Europe. The latter technically being a port of the Japanese director's cut. Unlike its predecessors, it has yet to receive a port of any kind since. Meaning that the PS2 is the only legit place to experience this game. 

    Before we start diving into the meat of things in terms of systems, gameplay, and story, I want to preface this discussion by saying that my feelings on this entry are very mixed. Its music, composed by Motoi Sukuraba, who composed the music for all past and future entries in the series as well as most Tales of games, knocks it out of the park again. I love all the battle music in this series. It's a great mix of high-energy instruments ranging from traditional orchestral sounds to rock-esque guitars, and electronic elements to boot. I forgot to mention it last time but if you have not heard the Lotus Juice Remix of the Star Ocean 2 battle music that was made as a part of the Persona 5 Royal collab with Star Ocean Anamnesis, you need to. While it can be hard to find some of the series's music due to Square Enix being the way it is with its music copyright, these OSTs are worth tracking down.

 

    Speaking of sound, Star Ocean 3 has a unique sound option. It offers a surround sound feature that I have never seen in another PS2 game. It was supposed o be if you had speakers set up around your room that it would only play specific sounds from certain speakers to mimic the direction they were coming from in relation to your character. I mention this because it also works very well with headphones. Couple that with the progressive scan feature and this is one of the better experiences you can have with a PS2 game on a modern TV setup.

    One other neat thing is that it is the only game I can name that uses a feature of the DualShock I didn't even know existed before playing this game. It is only for interacting with one item, but basically, when you use a flute item, the melody played will be different depending on whether it was a short or long press, as well as a soft or hard press. A total of four melodies can be played this way and this function only matters for one dungeon. While it is interesting if for some reason your controller is not an original PS2 controller you will have to manually adjust the sensitivity of the button each time you want to play a soft or hard press tune.

    Alright, so the game is a technical marvel for the time, but unfortunately, that does not stop the character models from being extremely outdated. While I normally wouldn't care about this so much, it is actually distracting sometimes. Weirder is that it is only a problem with the female characters. Specifically, it is their eyes. Female characters having bigger eyes in an anime art style is nothing new and in fact, the 2D art for this game is amazing, but the transition to the 3D creates this uncanny look and whenever the character of Sophia appears in the frame, it always takes me aback. Coupled with the slowly paced/mixed English dialogue and the cutscenes end up being the worst part of the game experience. 

    In fact, the story of Star Ocean 3 is perhaps the worst in the series. As a brief synopsis, the Star Ocean series centers around conflicts on different planets that become entangled with interference from other worlders. As a result the Galactic Federation, which includes the Earth government, gets involved in some way. Even though the Federation has laws in place that prevent its members from getting involved with what they consider "underdeveloped planets," the conflicts in each game end up being exceptions that are made to save the galaxy as a whole. These underdeveloped planets are where the fantasy aesthetic of the series comes from, with each planet having its own complex governments and cultures. The Federation introduces the sci-fi elements and the two coexist in a natural way. The cast of each game is usually made up of natives from the underdeveloped planets and the other worlders, Federation or other, that come to their planet for one reason or another. The protagonist of each game also switches between being a native or other worlder, giving the player more perspectives to understand this universe. In the first and fifth games, you are the native, in the third and fourth you are the other worlder, and in the second and sixth games, you have the choice to play from the perspective of an other worlder or native protagonist.

    Now, I really did not go into too much depth about the stories of the first two games because I felt as if they were great. Maybe a little generic in some places and carried more so by the character writing but nevertheless I liked them. They were not trying to have a huge existential message or anything and that was fine. Usually, I hate to spoil the plots of games most of the time but I am making an exception as I feel the world-building of 3 gets completely shattered. No scratch that, it's shit! Plain and simple. It's almost as bad as how The Devil is a Part-Timer! ruins its world-building. For my own sanity, I actually have thought about declaring this game as non-canon to the timeline. The events are not referenced in any other games and it is the only game to not feature a member of the Kenny family.

Spoilers

    Long story short, if the events of this game are to be believed, then the universe in which the first two games took place was actually a simulation. A simulation in which a bunch of complex AI interacted with each other. Known as the "Eternal Sphere" this system was created by some random company in the "real" world. A world that you end up visiting in Star Ocean 3. Essentially the main villain of the game is the creator of the world who is trying to erase the Milky Way galaxy from the program because some AI become smart enough to create their own code that could interfere with the operations of the system. In the context of the Sphere, this code is the genetic experiments that the main character, Fayt had performed on him and two others, Maria and Sophia. This gave each of them reality-bending powers that made them the target of forces inside and outside the Sphere. In what is essentially a debugging program, the admins send creatures that cannot be defeated by anyone but the main party, to rid the Milky Way of all life. At the end of the game, you fight the creator, Luther, but are unable to stop him from deleting the system. Therefore, in some quantum physics mixed with anime bullshit-type sequence of events, the emotions of everyone from the eternal Sphere, despite them all being AI ones and zeros, are strong enough to allow that world to be remade and exist independently in its own 4D space. It's all so dumb and makes everything that preceded it have so much less meaning. What this tells me is that the events of the first two games were predetermined simulations and that the characters I fell in love with were not real people and had no will of their own. Now I'm sure this is supposed to be meta and I am supposed to walk away from it thinking something along the lines of "if the emotions you hold for a fictional story are strong enough then that story really does exist on its own plane of existence." This is a nice enough sentiment but I can't help but feel it loses some of its meaning when it is included in the third entry of a series. If a stand-alone game had this plot, I would be more okay with it, I'd still think it was stupid to an extent, but at least it would not permanently damage how I am supposed to view an entire franchise. It's just so jarring for a series that has all these worlds and complex interactions between all these organizations and groups of characters for the characters to literally be told they are video game characters and then literally jump out of the TV and beat up their maker. I hate it. But as long as I am able to convince myself this game is not canon to the timeline then I am good. "Oh but it has references to the first game in the form of the time portal and planet Styx." To which I will say, "so?" It's just as plausible that the Eternal Sphere exists as a part of the real timeline and inserted references from the other games as part of its simulation. In fact, my theory that the Eternal Sphere and to that extension Star Ocean 3 as a whole exists as a simulation ran in the universe of the other games, is backed up by Star Ocean 5. 

    Originally I was planning on saving this detail for when I wrote about Star Ocean 5, but as I sit writing this I was struck with this idea. Anyone who has played both of these games will know that they feature very similar gameplay. Not just in terms of general systems, but in the move sets of some of the characters. The main character of 5, Fidel, plays almost identically to Fayt. From the battle stances, basic attacks (long-range, short-range, light, and heavy), and battle skills. The same is true for the characters Victor from 5 and Albel from 3. In the context of 3 Fayt learned how to fight by playing VR video games. In the context of 5 Fidel, and Victor to an extent, were taught the Camuze style of swordsmanship by Fidel's father. And spoilers, after the events of 5. Fidel and Victor join the Federation. Victor specifically becomes an instructor so it stands to reason that their fighting styles were documented by the Federation and become what was used in the Eternal Sphere for how its AI would fight. Normally I would be mad if a game just reused a bunch of animations from unrelated characters from a previous entry but this theory makes it all make sense to me. Originally, if I thought of Star Ocean 3 as occurring before and in the same universe as Star Ocean 5 it would make even less sense that these characters that have no relation would fight exactly the same. Below are pictures of their respective skill lists as reference. 

    

    

    Well, I did not expect to go on such a tangent. Anyway back to what is important about playing a video game; the gameplay. In Star Ocean 3, we return to the familiar range-based battle system, only this time there are a few new additions. We have a traditional HP MP system. Running out of either will cause the character or enemy to die. And different battle skills deal either HP or MP damage or both. This means that some enemies are more susceptible to dying from HP or MP. Something you may want to think of when forming your party of three. You also have what is known as "Fury." More akin to stamina, fury serves two main functions in battle. First, it is the resource you spend on battle skills, not symbology (spells). What makes it different from MP is that it recovers quickly over time if you stop performing actions. This meter also serves as both your's and your enemy's guard meter. If a weak attack hits someone with full fury, the attack will be blocked and the defender will send out their defense aura. This aura varies per enemy and you set what it is for your characters, but it can either stun or damage the attacker who is blocked. Heavy attacks, on the other hand, are slower but guard break and reduces the defender's fury to half. This battle system, at first, rewards you for playing slowly and trying to react and beat your enemy in an RPS of sorts. This soon becomes obsolete though as you will soon realize that skills have the same startup regardless of whether they are light or heavy versions. Normally light versions are the ones you combo into, while heavies start combos. The game also has one more important mechanic, you cancel any light skill into a heavy skill and vice versa. This creates a cancel bonus that multiplies damage up to two hundred percent. To achieve this you have to alternate between the light and heavy skills you have assigned for the range you are in. The skills are performed by holding either the light or heavy basic attack buttons, which make comboing from normals very intuitive and feel organic. At the beginning of the game, you are likely to approach with a heavy long-range attack, which is a launcher, combo afterward with some anti-air lights, and then cancel into skills from there. Your combos are usually brought to an end when you run out of Fury and since the heavy version costs more Fury than the light versions, canceling drains your Fury very quickly.

    Enter the "berserker" passive. Passive skills, in this entry, are equipped manually for a cost of SP and can also take up the same slots as battle skills in some cases. In the picture below, "stun" and "fear" are passives that I put in battle skill slots. I put them in the long-range slots since Fayt fights up close. There are also support skills with their own slots. The most notable one of these is "No Guard," which prevents the character from flinching whenever the damage they take is less than a certain percentage of their max HP. But where is the Berserker skill I mentioned? Well, it has its own menu. That's right, it is technically a tactical skill. Other skills of this nature include "scan." These are skills that you are supposed to use mid-battle. So what does berserker do, will it is more of a state than anything else. Once enabled the character's attack increased by thirty percent, their defense is reduced by thirty percent and their fury gauge consumption is reduced. This is meant to act as a double-edged sword, offering better offense but reducing defense. With this skill active, assuming your equal level to your enemy, you are likely to die very quickly if they hit. But what if I told you there is a way not to get hit at all. Enter the star of the show "Side Kick." This battle skill has its user hop quickly to the side and kick the enemy. This animation is also more or less completely invincible. This attack is the protagonist of the game, I am not lying. It is the most powerful attack in any universe. It can beat Goku, Superman, Saitama, anyone. They all piss themselves when they hear the words "Side Kick." I have never seen a greater proponent to Game Theory (the theory that if a player is presented with an ultimate way of achieving their goal, they will use it) than this move. It feels like a bug. Now, remember what I told you. Put all the pieces together. We have a skill that is invincible, and skills can cancel into each other infinitely as long as we have fury and get stronger each time we do so, berserker raises attack and lowers fury consumption, we can stack that effect with accessories. By the power of the cosmos, I declare that my child shall use side kick twenty times in a row and defeat every enemy in less than two minutes. It's a joke really. The only flaw to this strategy is that the move tracks a little weirdly on thin enemies such as humans. But you can still cancel on whiff so who cares, you'll hit eventually and when you do it will be for insane amounts of damage.

    Congratulations you learned the secret to beating this game. But if I have to be honest, this is something that can only be done about three-fifths through the game. However, regardless of that, this was a rough game for me to get through. The pacing of the gameplay is glacial. Dungeons are crazy long and I just about hit my limit when I was being forced to backtrack constantly without any fast travel was so boring. I distinctly remember that it was when Maria joined the party that I stopped having fun with the game and kept wishing for it to be over soon. I like to finish every game I play, but this was one case I considered stopping. If not for the side kick abuse, I would still be trying to beat it. The difficulty spikes in this game are egregious, to say the least. Unless you have the broken side kick strategy and/or broken equipment, you would have to do so much grinding I get sick thinking about it. Out of all the crafting systems in the series, this one is by far the least intuitive, but also the most necessary to interact with. RNG in crafting is nothing new, but it got to the point that in order to augment my equipment to appropriate levels, I had to spend upwards of ten hours at a time, just crafting. Half of it was to craft items for a money farm, and the other was making and modifying the actual equipment. Optimally, all party members would have equipment screens as shown below. It took me so long just to craft the shit for one character, no way was I going to do that two more times. Not to mention the hours you need to spend researching game FAQs from 2005 to figure out how the crafting system actually works and what characters or NPCs are needed to craft very specific items. I mentioned needing guides for the other games, but this one takes it a step above. There were times I couldn't advance the story because the direction was so bad, or the flags were so vague. 

    All and all, I can't call it a bad game because it is technically impressive, and the gameplay is serviceable for the time it came out. Still not as much grinding as Disgaea. But I can say one thing for sure, I am never playing this one again. Not in my free time at least. Unless I am told I need to play this game and stream to over a thousand people, making guaranteed money, I won't. Thinking about this game makes me both tired and angry. Tired at the thought of playing it and angry at the thought of watching the story again. This is the bottom of the barrel for the series in my opinion. This is unfortunate since the characters Albel, Nel, and Cliff really do deserve a shoutout. Their presence made the game much better. If only there was a game where I could see characters from all titles interact with each other outside their respective stories, oh wait, it shut down.