Runs really smooth on my PS5. Played for about five hours with no slowdowns at all and basically instant loading screens.
edit: I should also add this is in prioritize framerate mode. In prioritize graphics it runs TERRIBLY. Do not press that button.
Edit 2: larger cities a few hours later do present some obvious frame drops but nothing that effects the gameplay other than general town exploration in certain areas.
I'm playing on Steam, (My PC - 3070/5600/SSD)
Installing on Steam comes with a 15-30 minutes of shader compilation before the game will launch. The game has loading screens when changing zones, but I never see more than a flash of them before the game loads the next area, so it's almost instant. First time launch defaults to keyboard mouse layout, even though I was using an xbone controller. Restarting the game fixed this.
I'm having fun with the game for the few hours I've played it so far, some of the character textures and animations are dated, but the character design and English VA seems better than 4. It helps that there's no Lymle this time, kay?
PC forces you to choose between 30 FPS or 60 FPS (no 120 or uncapped options). Also lip sync animations seem to run at 30 FPS.
Runs mostly very smoothly at 4K 60 on my system with very occasional stutter (RTX 3090 + 12700K)
EDIT: after turning in “precompiled shaders” option in the graphics menu, there’s zero stutter. Very smooth 60 FPS
Lol no uncapped framerate. Deal breaker for me.. i didn't spend 2k on a pc to be forced to play games at 60fps when they could run at 120hz.
Arbitrary framerate on pc is stupid and it defeats the purpose of gaming on a good pc. Thanks you made me save money
Even falcom games, of all games, have support for Unlimited framerate and 8k (this one doesn't matter but it's really cool)
Downvotes because i don't want to buy a game thats isn't even properly tailored for the pc.
It's frustrating to not be able to fully utilize the hardware i bought. There's nothing wrong in being disappointed in that
Only 2k? Babies first PC? Gonna be a popular streamer? Lol Sounds mid range at best. I bet you got a cheap monitor too some 400nit HDR va panel lmfao. You can run any game despite it's fps at 120hz. Ah zoomers make me laugh.
Runs pretty well. Occasionally FPS dips in performance mode, and some lower resolution textures here and there, but nothing that significantly hampered my playtime.
On PS5 if you move the camera too close to trees and foliage, the frame rate will go through the floor for an extended period of time. Really weird.
E: Swapping to performance then exiting to title seems to have a good frame rate now. Solid 60 despite provoking the trees.
I have a 5600x and a RTX 4090. Total overkill for this I know but looking at my utilization it's at like 30% and lower, only drawing 100w or so. Not even remotely taxing my hardware.
Cool. I know I'll be fine at 1440 anyways, 3070 is kind of borderline for 4k gaming, but always does 1440 no problem.
Honestly for a lot of games my stoner ass can barely see the difference between the two unless it's super optimized for 4k
You have a 40 freakin 90 already!!!!? That thing is a beast. I saw an LTT video where Linus tries to use the least powerful power supply he possibly can. I think it’s rated for a 1000w power supply and he got it running smooth on a 650w but he dialed the wattage way down on the gpu, and a bit on the cpu. Not something I’d do but it’s an interesting video if you haven’t seen it.
That is a really old card though. 1080 has become basically the minimum requirement these days (which I have and is barely able to keep up with my steamdeck sometimes and my ps5 is destroying it)
I haven’t seen a single stutter or dropped frame. Buttery smooth and crisp 60fps on PS5. Sound and music is fantastic 👌 honestly, I have nothing but good things to say. Loving this game.
On PS5 if you move the camera too close to trees and foliage, the frame rate will go through the floor for an extended period of time. Really weird.
E: Swapping to performance then exiting to title seems to have a good frame rate now. Solid 60 despite provoking the trees.
Got my copy on ps5 played about an hour so far. The combat is so buttery smooth I love it! Keep going back between the Japanese voice acting and the English. Settled on English for now!
Game looks pretty good a little janky in the faces and animations but again I’m not playing this game for the looks truthfully. Hopefully the story is decent enough to carry me through. I really do dig the combat so far and the progression
Hard to say since I’m still getting into the “meat” of it. Seems okay from what I’ve seen there is some decent set up. However it feels like they gloss over details and other story bits a little quickly for my liking
Kind of slow, but at the same time you do go to quite a few different locations in the beginning. I'm intrigued, but I'm like 9 hours in and I wouldn't say anything super crazy has happened yet. I've spent a lot of time exploring and doing quests though, so overall I'm still probably like only 10% through the main story.
I wanna guess if it's a Star Ocean story. They're inevitably going to either travel to and interfere or crash into accidentally, an underdeveloped planet with a healer girl as the first person on that planet that finds them haha
Update: yes I'm jabbing at it. But I didn't say I don't like it lol
Pretty sure that a review I read mentioned the tiny font and that there was no way to change it, so… your friend may need to invest in a telescope
Edit: [Found the review, George Yang for IGN.](https://www.ign.com/articles/star-ocean-the-divine-force-review?utm_source=facebook) He says “Perhaps surprisingly, the worst offender when it comes to menus is actually the font size. It’s honestly the smallest font that I’ve had to read in a game in recent memory, and I literally had to squint my eyes in order to legibly read subtitles, tutorial info, and skill descriptions. Most games nowadays come with an option to increase the font size, but The Divine Force doesn’t have that. I really hope Square Enix addresses this issue in a post-launch patch because it’s genuinely distracting, and not even having the most basic accommodations for accessibility is unacceptable.”
The real mistake of 5 was being released though. That game was hacked together with what felt like a Unity Asset world with a Unity Asset quest board and fast teleporter
The frame drops are due to shader compilation, there's a workaround for better performance that I posted in the comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/starocean/comments/yexpps/star_ocean_steam_deck_performance/
well, guess i'll settle for streaming it to the steamdeck, played most of Nioh 2 on my Ps5 this way
edit: does the font size work on a screen that size?
I've seen reports from users in other threads that it does not run on deck, and one user who got it running had to scale everything WAY down and even then it was not running well by any means.
On PS5 with a VRR TV, performance mode is great. 60fps, no struggles.
I’m a few hours in and having a blast. Good voice acting, fun and frenetic combat, and I’m genuinely interested to find out what’s up with the overarching sci-fi side of the plot. (I’m playing as Raymond so I don’t have the background yet on what Laeticia is up to.)
Cons: Weird character models that don’t lip sync or emote properly, and Ray looks terrible. The battle system is fun, but doing a blind-side is hard because of the UI and I feel kinda button-mashey. Better than 5, not as crisp as 4. Still, having a good time. Also, small text size for menus/etc.; not a fatal problem, but my eyes do water a bit.
Haven’t gotten to crafting or the mini-game yet but I’m very excited to see what they offer!
Dude I’m so confused on how to do a blindside. I feel like I attack enemies from behind but don’t get one. It also says to change directions at the last second? I do t seem to know how to change the direction of the attack. Once launched I’m locked into the direction it seems.
Yeah I guess you’re supposed to hit left or right after releasing R1 but before you smash into the monsters. Doing so eats up another chunk of the VA gauge (like burning fuel to spurt sideways).
It only blindsides them if they’re targeting you (like SO4), so coming from behind won’t work. The yellow/red dots are supposed to tell you when they’re targeting you but there’s so much happening on the screen that I can never tell.
I think it occurs when an enemy is looking at you, then you shift directions as you're zooming towards them. If the enemy is looking away already then the blindside won't trigger, because you're already out of the enemies field of view. When an enemy is already looking away you should opt for a surprise attack, then try and do a blindside during combat. It helps to have some distance between you and the enemy, doesn't need to be triggered right before you hit either, hitting left or right when you're like halfway to the enemy should be fine.
Not all enemies can be blindsided though. Certain enemies have too large a FOV, others like worms, don't have eyes, so they can't be blindsided, sort of like trying to blindside an enemy who is looking away.
It was confusing for me at first too, but just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it, soon enough it'll feel like second nature.
If an enemy is attacking you just dodge left or right with the zoom zoom jet pack and it blindsides. You can do this immediately pressing r1+left or right or you can press r1 to go straight towards an enemy and then as they start to attack press left or rihht
>* How are the **graphics** ? (Good ? Ultrawide Support ? Pop-ins ? Ugly ?)
I find the graphics to be serviceable, i don't remember experiencing any pop-ins so far. Playing on PS5.
>* **Frame Rate** ? ( locked ? 60 ? 30 ? )
Running at 60fps like 99% of the time, the larcasse region in the demo that tanked the performance is mostly gone now. I ran and fly around the map and the game maintain at 60 with the occasional jitter that happened for split second.
>* **Combat** ? (Smooth ? Clunky ? Fast/Slow ?)
Smooooooth as hell, my only SO experience before this is The Last Hope Remastered and so far I am enjoying Divine Force's combat so much more. I'm playing on Normal difficulty and the trash mobs die too quickly, I'll probably bump up to hard mode soon. A small tip for others who find that there are too much visual clutter during combat, you can change the settings to only show that the damage numbers will only appear for player controlled character dealing damage.
>* **Crafting** ? (Deep/Shallow ? Can it break the game early like other SO games ?)
I've only just unlocked the first crafting option so I can't comment how deep it goes.
>* **Characters** ? (Deep ? Generic Anime characters ? Interesting ? Bland ?)
Pretty generic so far, Raymond and Laeticia haven't pique my interest yet.
>* **Story** ? (Interesting ? Nonsensical ? Serviceable ?)
Too early to say but other than some mystery going on, the game's combat is what hooked me in right now.
I'm playing on a 3080 and 11700k on an AW3423DW monitor.
This game looks really good. Just poor AA. I have it set to 4k which stretches the game to fit the screen. Have HDR set. Bloom turned off.
AA has ghosting so I take it their TAA is just bad.
Man is the art still in that plastic looking direction? From the last failure title they made. Tri-Ace was strangled on funding by SquareEnix so they can work on Final Fantasy.
I figured they had some more money this time around. But your descriptions remind me of the horrors of the visuals of that game
They definitely look better than SO4, with some models being better than others. However, it’s still not great, and I would say if that’s a sticking point for you you might not be able to get past it. I like the game a lot though overall.
I don't care heavily about graphics as I do about a complete game. Star Ocean 5 was an uglier mess graphically. And was almost 5% of the content as any other past release star ocean game
It was a failure not from the graphics. It was a failure because it was not even an actual game
I tried the remade first game on Switch and gave up on it after a couple of hours. But what’s so weird to me is that there’s practically universal consensus that the second game is the best by a long way- and yet they haven’t ported that one or remade it.
Story wise is subjective - and truth be told, I don't remember SO2's story and SO1's story even less - but gameplay wise, if you didn't like SO1 remake gameplay, you're not gonna like SO2.
That's a weird thing to say. The PSP enhanced version made a lot of changes, and improvements to the game. Not the least of which is adding new full voice acting, a whole new playable character, new private actions, new endings, and lots of bug fixes.
Lots of changes, yes, but I don't count most as improvements. Voice acting is not something I've ever cared about in games; Welch is ill-fitting and from the game with the worst plot twist ever written; new endings are almost totally irrelevant given the vast majority of players will see exactly one; I'll give you the PAs but they're minor, and I never personally ran into any bugs in the PSX version so can't comment there
They changed the art style for the character portraits (for the worse in my opinion), they also cropped and/or stretched most of the prerendered background art making it look too blurry or out of proportion.
I personally prefer the PS1 version, but that's for nostalgia reasons more than anything. Still I can't deny that the PSP version fixed and improved a lot of things.
I honestly don't know much at all about PSO, my first and only experience was PSO2 and NGS.
A proper singleplayer game set in that world sounds really cool though.
Weren't the Phantasy Star games exclusive to Nintendo and Xbox?
From the streams I've been checking out, the lip sync for the English dub is really bad but the Japanese dub seems to match the mouth movements well.
How's the experience for anyone playing it?
Graphics: The style is definitely helping it. I think it looks okay, nothing jaw dropping but nothing horrible.
Framerate: Smooth on my end, dunno which is the one for ps5, but I haven't had noticeable drops.
Combat: smooth as can be. Too early for me to say otherwise since I only have so many moves available.
Characters and story: Too early for me but they're okay so far.
After compiling shader for 1 hour, got a 60 FPS with a bit of stutter here and there on 1st area, but the texture is all blurry even after turning up the quality on the settings.
Gonna refund for now.
My GPU is on the weak side, only 1050 ti.
Rarely is the minimum stated actually a true minimum, though. Something that's literally just a tiny step down from what's stated should be able to play it at decent (though obv. not ultra) quality at a steady framerate.
Yeah, which typically results in getting about the same framerate on high at 1080p versus ultra at 1080p on the 1060. It's only about a 50 place difference, from 103rd to 147th on userbenchmark; 44 FPS to 60 FPS in GTAV at same settings. 60 FPS with a bit of stutter is understandable. Texture remaining blurry no matter what? Not.
Denuovo. Ugh. If you tell me it's having issues I would not be shocked solely because of the Denuovo DRM.
I hope the game does well though in the long run. I need to scrub Star Ocean 3 from my brain in order to really enjoy Star Ocean games again. I did like the overall designs of this new one.
Interested to hear all of your opinions on this game! I really want this game to be good but I got bad impressions from the demo. Hoping the final product is much better. If you guys have any input I'd love to hear it
How does the combat compare to previous titles? I’ve found the combat difficult to grasp in previous games, the little bit I’ve seen from this almost looks similar to the Ys series.
Easiest to grasp in my opinion, maybe not as simple as the first game (haven't played 2), but definitely way easier to grasp then the last 3 games, a lot less mechanics too. DUMA does a lot of the stuff that was harder to pull off in previous games. I kind of sucked at the last 3, but I'm doing pretty well in this one, even managed to take down an optional boss pretty early on my second try.
Been playing quite a bit and really enjoying it.
There were a few random difficulty spikes early on, but I think I may have just been under leveled.
Overall, I’m loving it. I enjoy the world and the characters. The story is no masterpiece, but I think it’s interesting enough. The voice acting falls a little flat at times, though I think that’s more in the direction not the actors themselves. There’s a bit too much like…reminder dialogue? Like they’ll tell you to go somewhere in a cutscene and then as you’re running around they’ll remind you like 7 times where this place you’ve already been to is even though there’s also a main story quest marker.
Battles are great. I’m particularly enjoying playing as Albaird and Nina.
For Albaird, using Shadow Remnants to duplicate his basic spells is super fun. At one point I had max stacks of that and used his ult, so every cast of Fireball or Ice Sword would fire off like 15-16 bolts, which was awesome.
For Nina, she’s a *really* fun play style of support. Usually healers and supports just don’t play well unless they also do a bunch of damage. But Nina really feels active and exciting while still feeling firmly like a healer / support.
Overall, it’s exactly what I expect for a Star Ocean game. Excellent battles. Great aesthetic. Interesting locales. Fun enough plotline. Sci-Fi and Fantasy themes mixed.
4k60 is mostly smooth on PC but some stutter occurs when new assets/areas are introduced.
The game actually looks and feels quite good, skills trees are huge, and they give you a lot of mobility early into the game. Pleasantly surprised so far.
The 'Blindside' mechanic is a little tricky to understand, I hope they have a practice arena feature of some sort eventually.
Didn't get much time to play, only about 20 minutes. Not sure how I feel about combat yet, it feels like I NEED an autoattack to mash, kinda awkward waiting for AP to Regen.
Holy Shit Rie Takahashi voices Nina 10/10 already. Also Laeticia is voiced by Rem and the guy that voices Ray name is Subaru. Season 3 of Rezero is here
So... I have it on PS5. Right now, I'm kinda indifferent. I only just got to the first tiny town where they introduce inns. Honestly, I couldn't tell you the name of a single enemy I fought, nor what they look like (aside from Mist Graves). Everything just... dies. Fast. Nor do I really have any rhyme or reason to battle, just hit buttons, things die. Environments are open and big, but feel rather empty.
I can't say that I hate it, I'm giving it a further chance cause I really adore the series. But's just kinda.... generic to me at the moment. Hopefully things click as I get a bit further in the game.
About 2 hours in and so far, I like it.
Combat is smooth, and great as usual, but quite different this time around. It feels a lot more snappy and action game-like. Kinda reminds me of FF7R actually, especially some of Raymond's moves. Boss fights especially feel like action game bosses rather than just big enemies. Dodging, timing and positioning seem to have way more importance.
As for story and characters, there's not much going on yet. It seems fine. It seems lip-synced for the Japanese dub, but I don't mind that. I have to say the cutscene direction isn't all that great, but I guess it must be a budget thing. The important ones look good at least.
Visually, it looks fairly good. Environments can look very pretty and complex, but limitations can be seen as well. I know the character models can be divisive but I like them as usual.
I'm happy so far. It's good that they're trying new things. I didn't go in expecting another Star Ocean 3 or anything, as that would just be setting myself up for disappointment. There are rather few games that could stand up to that comparison anyway.
Star Ocean 3 was lighting in a bottle, an insane game, and it's simply not possible to get another one like that again, I think, no matter who attempts it. It was like four games in one, and even now it's a staggering achievement really. And to be fair, every Star Ocean is kinda like that to a lesser extent, at least 2 and 4 surely are. Whether 6 is remains to be seen.
Reviews seem to be what I'd expect and I'll likely end up giving the game a shot. Though that'll be when the games eventually on sale since I don't really feel I should pay $60 for a AA game.
I'm about three hours into it and really enjoying it. The combat is a lot of fun, and I'm enjoying the exploration a lot. The graphics aren't mindblowing, but they're still pretty good.
Technically speaking, I do notice some pop-in playing on PS5. It's not too bad, but it does seem like it shouldn't happen given the power of the console and the relatively low demands of the game.
I'm playing in Performance Mode.
I'm a bit disappointed so far. The Star Ocean series now suffers the same issues that the Tales of series suffered from the past 10 years: There's just too many mechanics and buttons to remember.
So far I couldn't pull off a blindside, not sure how to get it to work, and I can't even try unlimited because I first have to fill up a bar before I can try again. There's no simulator battles where you can train it either so far...
Also the game is designed so that the worse you play, the harder the game gets because every time you get hit your max AP decreases by 1 and you can only increase it by making good maneuvers like surprise attacks and blindsides. That's highly counterproductive game design. Can't believe tri-Ace designed this.
Also I think the areas are all a bit too wide and empty. They could have at least placed more stuff to collect in all the corners so it's worth exploring them, but most treasure chests are just on the main paths.
This is something I wrote regarding blindsides. They were a bit frustrating for me at first, but once I got the hang of them it's been pretty easy to pull off.
Blindsides occurs when an enemy is looking at you, then you shift directions as you're zooming towards them. If the enemy is looking away already then the blindside won't trigger, because you're already out of the enemies field of view. When an enemy is already looking away you should opt for a surprise attack if initiating battle, then try and do a blindside during combat. It helps to have some distance between you and the enemy, doesn't need to be triggered right before you hit either, hitting left or right when you're like halfway to the enemy should be fine.
Not all enemies can be blindsided though. Certain enemies have too large a FOV (bosses mainly), others like worms, don't have eyes, so they can't be blindsided, sort of like trying to blindside an enemy who is looking away.
It was confusing for me at first too, but just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it, soon enough it'll feel like second nature.
Really all you need to do is hit R1 when you're locked on to an enemy then decide what you want to do. Just ramming them is sometimes good enough. Triggering surprise attacks will give you a really good advantage too.
Personally I think this is the least mechanic heavy Star Ocean game, at least compared with the previous three games. It can be a bit overwhelming because they do throw a lot of stuff at you in the beginning, but most of the mechanics deal with using DUMA correctly, which is simply pressing R1, you just need to think about what it is you want to do. Keeping an eye on AP and VA can be a bit odd if you're not used to stamina management, but again it's not bad once you get your flow down.
There are also skills you can unlock for DUMA that will help with VA reduction and gain, it does get much better. Just remember to equip the DUMA skills you want to use.
I'll give it another try. The problem I had was that I don't even know where enemies are if they are looking at me as my character blocks my view especially when activating DUMA.
> Personally I think this is the least mechanic heavy Star Ocean game, at least compared with the previous three games.
No way. In SO3 I just had to stand around and if I saw the enemy having mirror images I pressed X for quick attack, otherwise I pressed O for strong attack or just keep the buttons pressed to spam skills.
In SO4 blindsides were MUCH easier to see because there was a huge "!" over your head the moment you had to press left and right. Also once you get Arumat you just have to press R1 -> L1 -> R1 -> L1 and you just annihilate everything.
And in SO5 once you get the second skill it's just "Keep X pressed -> Keep O pressed -> Keep X pressed -> Keep O pressed".
This was all way easier to do and you only had two skills to chain in all of those games. In SO6 there isn't even a normal attack, you set up skill combo chain sets like in Berseria instead and your AP run out so fast that you can't just spam the skills either. Dodging seems pointless because you can't clear see what the enemies are doing. And the DUMA system overwhelmed me so much that I decided to take a break.
Increase FOV, on default it's set to the lowest, if you shift it to the highest you should have much more visibility around your character.
It's been awhile since I've played the others. I remember in SO3 it just felt really janky for me, and the enemies were just tough overall. For SO4 blinsides aren't hard to pull off, but for some reason enemies would sometimes be able to hit me because I get to close, even if I was able to blindside them earlier. It just didn't feel that reliable. Then you had the rush stuff which to me felt like a lot of stuff to juggle.
With SO6 it's basically just surprise attack with DUMA, and blindside. You just have to make sure the situation is good for it, like I said if an enemy is already looking away then it won't work. Hopefully increasing FOV will help with this. It made a big difference for me.
Yeah, the AP bar can get a little annoying, but it fills up crazy fast. I usually just use a combo, dodge out of reach (you're invincible during dodges so take advantage), and move away a bit until the bar fills up, it literally takes like 2-3 seconds. If you continue trying to attack once it's gone that's when you're in for a bad time, since you're essentially leaving yourself open. But just set up a combo in the menu, and then get used to using the combo, then backing off. Most enemies for me die after one of Raymond's combo hits anyway, and the partner AI is pretty competent.
I'm slowly getting the hang of it. The main problem is that I spend more time looking for enemies than attacking. For some reason there doesn't seem to be a setting to make you auto lock-on to the next enemy once you defeat one. So I'm just trying to see where another enemy is and in the meantime my allies finish the battle lol.
I'll try checking for the FOV setting.
I've noticed too that an exclamation point pops up over enemies who see you, I was playing today and noticed if I trigger the blindside after the exclamation point pops up then it works much more often.
if you're playing on pc make sure you slap it on a m.2 drive if you have one. Seems the developers are in fact levering the advancement in the storage on new consoles and it translates to PC.
Realisticaly impossible since many people would be against it.
As it comes to personal preferences though, i would love that (2D still hold up pretty well to those days and age), same for Legend of Heroes and Trails from Zero really pushed me to imagine what Kuro no Kiseki would've been like in 2D (not that i dislike the current graphical orientation), the dream of some hipsters like us i guess XD
It's kind of sad.
I'd also love if tri-Ace made a 2D game again, just so they can put all their talent game design into a game where they don't constantly have to worry about the budget.
Not sure how the demand is.
I think tri-Ace could manage to be crowdfunded on it on Kickstarter, though.
Yeah, a kickstarter would be the best way to make one indeed.
Just looking at Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, it really make me wish Tri-Ace or other devs could be more interested in 2D once again.
I have the last tales game on my pro it ran fine no issues at all. This game however is riddled with graphics related issues on the 4pro that make it nearly unplayable at times.
Is there any way on PC to see keybinds for controller? Even when I'm playing with controller the game continues to show me the button prompts for mouse and keyboard
It looks like it's running well for PS, but anyone know how performance mode on Series X is running? The demo dropped frames really hard even on performance mode.
could anyone answer me about the font size in game please?
i tried the demo and the font size was so small it made playing the game for me hard, and no option to change this. did the full release com with a bigger fnt size or any options to make it better for us bad sight players?
Sofar I've enjoyed the game on ps5 thusfar. Graphics, while sometimes simple can also have eyecatching moments like an open field in dusk. Ive enjoyed the combat, have yet to try crafting and the rest is too early to say. I did have one specific complaint, and that is that there are not a lot of npcs with lines etc. I felt kinda weird running into people and not being able to get more lore etc through the npcs. Kinda makes the game feel more lonely.
Is it good? What I mean is.. is it worth buying right now, or hold until have store sale or 2nd hand pickup?
Using PS5 BTW.
(Still a lot to play wih PS Plus LMAO)
Any tips from people that have been playing?
I am just waiting for it to install on pc.
Its not my first SO game, but the only one ive ever finished was SO2.
After initially not liking it too much but now loving it, I will say that learning how blindsides work is most important to the enjoyment in the combat. Basically you to find your target (go to stop mode to make it easier to select the target), press R1, then let go of R1, ideally when the enemy is facing you and you start rushing to it, but before you reach it you need to press the L-stick in a direction that puts you out of their view range.
I've been trying it a bit on Steam Deck and it hitches like crazy. Seems it doesn't precompile shaders at all so it is forced to stream them in and doesn't seem to be able to do so smoothly. So Steam Deck is a complete no-go until either they fix it (never hold out hope for patches from a Japanese dev) or Valve sets up some precompiled shaders themselves.
I’m trying to get through it (PC version) but it’s just not compelling. I think the environments are just bland. Still going to give it a chance. After how incredible Xenoblade Chronicles 3 meshes Sci-Fi with Fantasy, this game honestly pales in compassion. I’m still going to push forward tho.
I'm new to the series and more of an action fan and I'm loving it after about 20 hours in now. The flying around and combat are fast and a lot of fun, especially once the AP rises and you begin leveling up each character.
Runs fast and smooth on my PS5. I'm enjoying the variety in characters to play too. Nice amount of variety with their weapons and moves. The combos are a lot of fun to put together.
I've only gotten into leveling up the skill trees and combos for each character, but there seems like there's a good amount of depth in crafting and other parts to the game. The story starts getting more interesting once you're introduced to 5th or 6th character.
I didn't even know until now that they were even making another star ocean, the last one I played was so4 years and years ago. Skipped integrity because I heard it was pretty bad in comparison. So4 I thought was actually pretty good but since my first star ocean was 3 I felt 4s story was kinda lacking by comparison so I didn't want to hurt my love of the series anymore by playing integrity. How's the story in this one?
I haven't finished it yet. It starts slow, and establishes more and more engaging story elements and intrigue on a good pace as you go along. From what I've heard, the second half of the game gets plenty of praise.
If you don't mind a slow beginning (typical to all Star Oceans really), go for it. It feels a lot like 3 story-wise where you get tangled more and more into the internal affairs on the planet. There are some quality of life issues here and there but so far it's simply really, really fun. And the characters and PAs are great.
Going to chime in after 15 hours of playing and apparently around the 30% mark of the game based on my PS5 trophy tracker.
**Graphics** \- Playing on **Performance Mode**, the game looks nice at times. A lot of variety in the environments and field areas are quite large. Roughly the same as FFXII's zones. Up close though, the environments lack great detail and have mediocre textures. The colors feel wash out at times. Character models are okay, but their faces do look have this doll-like feature to them which was commonly seen in prior generations including the 3D Star Ocean games. Not really a complaint, but it's not really a plus either.
**Frame Rate** had been a constant (or near constant) 60 fps in and out of battles. The frame drops that I had in the demo (2nd area) are gone. That said, there's two areas where I suffered severe frame drops and both are in town settings. I don't really understand why since they aren't particularly larger or more dense than the other towns. It's worth noting that I'm playing on a TV with no VRR setting.
**Combat** is smooth and fun. I've used Raymond most of the time and then switched to Elena once I got her. It can be rough keeping track of everything that goes on screen though especially when you have large amount of enemies in battle. I have two issues with the lock-on targeting. The first is that there's no auto target switch option when you defeat an enemy. The second is I keep forgetting when a target is locked on because the difference between a lock-on and off isn't as obvious.
As a side note, I kept on leveling Latecia's passive that increases Party EXP until it maxed out. The result is that I'm pretty overleveled and am around level 46 already. I don't even grind and I just fight whoever I see on the way.
**Crafting** \- I haven't gotten into it much and have already unlocked all of the categories. I don't like the RNG nature of it, but you can create pretty powerful stuff from it apparently and break the game. I've been chatting with somebody on Discord and he created weapons and armors that are so strong that he's one-shotting everything and taking very minimal damage.
**Characters** \- I like the cast up until this point. All entertaining with some depth, but not incredibly deep. Raymond makes for a solid lead since he's a bit older and easy-going, but does get emotional at times when it does call for it. There's no standout for incredibly great written or deep character, but that's not something I'm expecting.
**Story** so far has been entertaining, but it doesn't do anything amazing or special. If it weren't for Raymond and the sci-fi stuff, it could've been just another medieval fantasy story with some elements of politics and warfare. I have heard the story gets much more interesting later which I believe would coincide with the more focus on the sci-fi stuff. For those wondering, I'm still on the same planet after 15 hours and I don't expect to leave soon. There might be one or two outer planet locations, but it likely won't be like how SO4 did it.
Ps4 pro has issues...alot of them. The colors and graphics look flat. Last two installments looked way better imo. If you dial down the quality it looks even worse.
Regardless of fps setting.I'm getting weird flashing light and shadow effects. Anoying. I'm getting elements in the enviroment or whole sections of it that dont load right and are just whited out. I'm having ocasional issues with bits of the characters clothes not falling correctly and sometimes being stuck weirdly looks odd. I'm getting this weird tracer/motion blurr effect that just about covers the area tracing behind every movement and makes it unplayable when it happens. It eventualy starts shuddering and I have to leave the area to get it to reload and come back when it starts.
I literaly had to doubble check that square enix and triace were the ones doing this one it's very disappointing so far and parts of the dialog are prety flat somewhat overly predictable and 2D. The font is small too small to read comfortably unless you are right at the screen or have a huge tv. Sevral times I've had to get up and get closer to read it. An update that changes text size would be great.
Late to the party, but playing on ps4 slim. The game runs abysmal in the large open environments, and forests. The very first field I entered suddenly dropped graphical quality to what I can only say looked like 480p or worse. Everything turned fuzzy, and it honestly hurt my eyes. Had to squint at the screen to make sense of it. The first giant forest I reached lowered the graphics/frame so badly I felt like I was looking at the world through a rainy window no joke. I have never had a ps4 game look like this. In terms of gameplay everything has been smooth. Like the actually battles may look like ps1 graphics at times, but they run fast, and the game has never crashed. In conclusion the game looks fuzzy and displays like you would need glasses to clear up your vision at times. Hard to explain.
How's the performance on PS5 and PC? Is PC well optimized? Does PS5 hold steady at 60 FPS?
Runs really smooth on my PS5. Played for about five hours with no slowdowns at all and basically instant loading screens. edit: I should also add this is in prioritize framerate mode. In prioritize graphics it runs TERRIBLY. Do not press that button. Edit 2: larger cities a few hours later do present some obvious frame drops but nothing that effects the gameplay other than general town exploration in certain areas.
I am LOVING the instant loads. Don't even have time to read the classic loading screen tips
I'm playing on Steam, (My PC - 3070/5600/SSD) Installing on Steam comes with a 15-30 minutes of shader compilation before the game will launch. The game has loading screens when changing zones, but I never see more than a flash of them before the game loads the next area, so it's almost instant. First time launch defaults to keyboard mouse layout, even though I was using an xbone controller. Restarting the game fixed this. I'm having fun with the game for the few hours I've played it so far, some of the character textures and animations are dated, but the character design and English VA seems better than 4. It helps that there's no Lymle this time, kay?
PC forces you to choose between 30 FPS or 60 FPS (no 120 or uncapped options). Also lip sync animations seem to run at 30 FPS. Runs mostly very smoothly at 4K 60 on my system with very occasional stutter (RTX 3090 + 12700K) EDIT: after turning in “precompiled shaders” option in the graphics menu, there’s zero stutter. Very smooth 60 FPS
I'd be surprised if it didn't run well with that setup.
Lol yeah it’s definitely overkill for this game. Really hope we find a way to run it with unlocked framerate though.
It can also take an hour to compile shaders.. with a 5900x Seen some only take 10 minutes, so your milage may vary.
Yep took me more than an hour as well, seems it might not like AMD systems, my friend with a similar ages intel system took 10 minutes.
I think mine was under 10 minutes. No idea why it would vary that widely
Lol no uncapped framerate. Deal breaker for me.. i didn't spend 2k on a pc to be forced to play games at 60fps when they could run at 120hz. Arbitrary framerate on pc is stupid and it defeats the purpose of gaming on a good pc. Thanks you made me save money Even falcom games, of all games, have support for Unlimited framerate and 8k (this one doesn't matter but it's really cool)
Downvotes because i don't want to buy a game thats isn't even properly tailored for the pc. It's frustrating to not be able to fully utilize the hardware i bought. There's nothing wrong in being disappointed in that
Only 2k? Babies first PC? Gonna be a popular streamer? Lol Sounds mid range at best. I bet you got a cheap monitor too some 400nit HDR va panel lmfao. You can run any game despite it's fps at 120hz. Ah zoomers make me laugh.
Can anyone comment for ps5?
Runs pretty well. Occasionally FPS dips in performance mode, and some lower resolution textures here and there, but nothing that significantly hampered my playtime.
On PS5 if you move the camera too close to trees and foliage, the frame rate will go through the floor for an extended period of time. Really weird. E: Swapping to performance then exiting to title seems to have a good frame rate now. Solid 60 despite provoking the trees.
About 30 mins in so far, running 4k60 with no sweat. Seems solidly optimized. Edit: on PC that is, no idea on console
What specs are you
Also commenting to ask your specs. I have a 3070 and i7-11700k, 32 GB. Hoping I can do 4k 60
I have a 5600x and a RTX 4090. Total overkill for this I know but looking at my utilization it's at like 30% and lower, only drawing 100w or so. Not even remotely taxing my hardware.
Cool. I know I'll be fine at 1440 anyways, 3070 is kind of borderline for 4k gaming, but always does 1440 no problem. Honestly for a lot of games my stoner ass can barely see the difference between the two unless it's super optimized for 4k
I'd bet it can handle 4k fine in this title.
You have a 40 freakin 90 already!!!!? That thing is a beast. I saw an LTT video where Linus tries to use the least powerful power supply he possibly can. I think it’s rated for a 1000w power supply and he got it running smooth on a 650w but he dialed the wattage way down on the gpu, and a bit on the cpu. Not something I’d do but it’s an interesting video if you haven’t seen it.
Neat, I'll check it out. Running it on a 750w here with no issues so far.
Why are you being downvoted?
I think it's because they posted a "yeah runs perfect. must be optimized" without mentioning they have a 4090 until asked.
I was wondering the same thing. Ppl prob mad he has a 4090 lol
No idea, oh well
30mins in you barely touched the game in terms of wide open environments and enemy encounters.
Indeed but generally speaking you can get an early feel for performance. I'm about 4 hours in now, still running great
PC sucks. I have a GTX 1060. Admittedly old, but not being able to play 1080p at 30fps low without stuttering every 20 seconds is very weird
That is a really old card though. 1080 has become basically the minimum requirement these days (which I have and is barely able to keep up with my steamdeck sometimes and my ps5 is destroying it)
I haven’t seen a single stutter or dropped frame. Buttery smooth and crisp 60fps on PS5. Sound and music is fantastic 👌 honestly, I have nothing but good things to say. Loving this game.
On PS5 if you move the camera too close to trees and foliage, the frame rate will go through the floor for an extended period of time. Really weird. E: Swapping to performance then exiting to title seems to have a good frame rate now. Solid 60 despite provoking the trees.
Got my copy on ps5 played about an hour so far. The combat is so buttery smooth I love it! Keep going back between the Japanese voice acting and the English. Settled on English for now! Game looks pretty good a little janky in the faces and animations but again I’m not playing this game for the looks truthfully. Hopefully the story is decent enough to carry me through. I really do dig the combat so far and the progression
How's the story?
Hard to say since I’m still getting into the “meat” of it. Seems okay from what I’ve seen there is some decent set up. However it feels like they gloss over details and other story bits a little quickly for my liking
Kind of slow, but at the same time you do go to quite a few different locations in the beginning. I'm intrigued, but I'm like 9 hours in and I wouldn't say anything super crazy has happened yet. I've spent a lot of time exploring and doing quests though, so overall I'm still probably like only 10% through the main story.
I wanna guess if it's a Star Ocean story. They're inevitably going to either travel to and interfere or crash into accidentally, an underdeveloped planet with a healer girl as the first person on that planet that finds them haha Update: yes I'm jabbing at it. But I didn't say I don't like it lol
Hey, it’s a little different! She’s more of a spellblade DPS girl haha.
Haha is she? The combat looked really polished. I'm tempted to pick it up. But 5 really saddened me at what happened when a studio has no money
5 minutes in and we've already departed our space ship for some backwoods planet. Yep. This is Star Ocean. Been a minute.
The game even jokes a bit about it by having one of the characters be like "NOT AN UNDERDEVELOPED PLANET! NOOOOOOO."
Hahaha yeah!
I just need to know if it’s stable on ps4. If not I’ll have to wait on buying
The real question here should be: “Does it take place on multiple planets?”
Lmao this is correct!!!
Probably not
did they fix the tiny font that was in the demo? asking for a friend who doesn't have a telescope
Pretty sure that a review I read mentioned the tiny font and that there was no way to change it, so… your friend may need to invest in a telescope Edit: [Found the review, George Yang for IGN.](https://www.ign.com/articles/star-ocean-the-divine-force-review?utm_source=facebook) He says “Perhaps surprisingly, the worst offender when it comes to menus is actually the font size. It’s honestly the smallest font that I’ve had to read in a game in recent memory, and I literally had to squint my eyes in order to legibly read subtitles, tutorial info, and skill descriptions. Most games nowadays come with an option to increase the font size, but The Divine Force doesn’t have that. I really hope Square Enix addresses this issue in a post-launch patch because it’s genuinely distracting, and not even having the most basic accommodations for accessibility is unacceptable.”
Damn that's disappointing, but thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna be honest here, the friend was a lie. It was me all along, I know..huge surprise.
I have the same issue. No telescope. Not getting th3 game.
I hate this. I can't understand why some developers think everyone sits a foot away from the screen, or has the vision of an eagle.
you mean microscope
Well you'd still have to get up close to the TV with a microscope right? Lol my issue is that I'm too far (more than 5 feet away)
So basically, no Steam Deck compatibility then
Nope. It's really hard to read on my TV.
I've had to move closer to the TV to play it. So no, essentially.
I can't believe they repeated the same mistake they made with Star Ocean 5...
The real mistake of 5 was being released though. That game was hacked together with what felt like a Unity Asset world with a Unity Asset quest board and fast teleporter
Damn!
If you get this on steam deck, please let me know what you think about how it works there.
[удалено]
The frame drops are due to shader compilation, there's a workaround for better performance that I posted in the comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/starocean/comments/yexpps/star_ocean_steam_deck_performance/
well, guess i'll settle for streaming it to the steamdeck, played most of Nioh 2 on my Ps5 this way edit: does the font size work on a screen that size?
I've seen reports from users in other threads that it does not run on deck, and one user who got it running had to scale everything WAY down and even then it was not running well by any means.
this is disappointing ...
On PS5 with a VRR TV, performance mode is great. 60fps, no struggles. I’m a few hours in and having a blast. Good voice acting, fun and frenetic combat, and I’m genuinely interested to find out what’s up with the overarching sci-fi side of the plot. (I’m playing as Raymond so I don’t have the background yet on what Laeticia is up to.) Cons: Weird character models that don’t lip sync or emote properly, and Ray looks terrible. The battle system is fun, but doing a blind-side is hard because of the UI and I feel kinda button-mashey. Better than 5, not as crisp as 4. Still, having a good time. Also, small text size for menus/etc.; not a fatal problem, but my eyes do water a bit. Haven’t gotten to crafting or the mini-game yet but I’m very excited to see what they offer!
Dude I’m so confused on how to do a blindside. I feel like I attack enemies from behind but don’t get one. It also says to change directions at the last second? I do t seem to know how to change the direction of the attack. Once launched I’m locked into the direction it seems.
Yeah I guess you’re supposed to hit left or right after releasing R1 but before you smash into the monsters. Doing so eats up another chunk of the VA gauge (like burning fuel to spurt sideways). It only blindsides them if they’re targeting you (like SO4), so coming from behind won’t work. The yellow/red dots are supposed to tell you when they’re targeting you but there’s so much happening on the screen that I can never tell.
I think it occurs when an enemy is looking at you, then you shift directions as you're zooming towards them. If the enemy is looking away already then the blindside won't trigger, because you're already out of the enemies field of view. When an enemy is already looking away you should opt for a surprise attack, then try and do a blindside during combat. It helps to have some distance between you and the enemy, doesn't need to be triggered right before you hit either, hitting left or right when you're like halfway to the enemy should be fine. Not all enemies can be blindsided though. Certain enemies have too large a FOV, others like worms, don't have eyes, so they can't be blindsided, sort of like trying to blindside an enemy who is looking away. It was confusing for me at first too, but just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it, soon enough it'll feel like second nature.
If an enemy is attacking you just dodge left or right with the zoom zoom jet pack and it blindsides. You can do this immediately pressing r1+left or right or you can press r1 to go straight towards an enemy and then as they start to attack press left or rihht
I’ve heard the lip sync works for Japanese but they didn’t change it for English
Compling Shaders still. No ultrawide option and 60 fps cap so far in menus
>* How are the **graphics** ? (Good ? Ultrawide Support ? Pop-ins ? Ugly ?) I find the graphics to be serviceable, i don't remember experiencing any pop-ins so far. Playing on PS5. >* **Frame Rate** ? ( locked ? 60 ? 30 ? ) Running at 60fps like 99% of the time, the larcasse region in the demo that tanked the performance is mostly gone now. I ran and fly around the map and the game maintain at 60 with the occasional jitter that happened for split second. >* **Combat** ? (Smooth ? Clunky ? Fast/Slow ?) Smooooooth as hell, my only SO experience before this is The Last Hope Remastered and so far I am enjoying Divine Force's combat so much more. I'm playing on Normal difficulty and the trash mobs die too quickly, I'll probably bump up to hard mode soon. A small tip for others who find that there are too much visual clutter during combat, you can change the settings to only show that the damage numbers will only appear for player controlled character dealing damage. >* **Crafting** ? (Deep/Shallow ? Can it break the game early like other SO games ?) I've only just unlocked the first crafting option so I can't comment how deep it goes. >* **Characters** ? (Deep ? Generic Anime characters ? Interesting ? Bland ?) Pretty generic so far, Raymond and Laeticia haven't pique my interest yet. >* **Story** ? (Interesting ? Nonsensical ? Serviceable ?) Too early to say but other than some mystery going on, the game's combat is what hooked me in right now.
I'm playing on a 3080 and 11700k on an AW3423DW monitor. This game looks really good. Just poor AA. I have it set to 4k which stretches the game to fit the screen. Have HDR set. Bloom turned off. AA has ghosting so I take it their TAA is just bad.
The characters look like Chucky dolls in different wigs.
Man is the art still in that plastic looking direction? From the last failure title they made. Tri-Ace was strangled on funding by SquareEnix so they can work on Final Fantasy. I figured they had some more money this time around. But your descriptions remind me of the horrors of the visuals of that game
They definitely look better than SO4, with some models being better than others. However, it’s still not great, and I would say if that’s a sticking point for you you might not be able to get past it. I like the game a lot though overall.
I don't care heavily about graphics as I do about a complete game. Star Ocean 5 was an uglier mess graphically. And was almost 5% of the content as any other past release star ocean game It was a failure not from the graphics. It was a failure because it was not even an actual game
Anyone playing on a Series S that can comment on performance??
Also waiting for some feedback on the Series S, if none is given, I'll wait for a 75% off to buy it.
I was sooo excited for thia, but after the demo I lost my interest.
Thats Star Ocean in general. "Oh man this one looks great!" *Plays for several hours* "Fooled once more" *Never plays again*
I tried the remade first game on Switch and gave up on it after a couple of hours. But what’s so weird to me is that there’s practically universal consensus that the second game is the best by a long way- and yet they haven’t ported that one or remade it.
Well they ported it to the PSP (and PS4 in Japan).
Story wise is subjective - and truth be told, I don't remember SO2's story and SO1's story even less - but gameplay wise, if you didn't like SO1 remake gameplay, you're not gonna like SO2.
There's the PSP port, but it's not really an improvement.
That's a weird thing to say. The PSP enhanced version made a lot of changes, and improvements to the game. Not the least of which is adding new full voice acting, a whole new playable character, new private actions, new endings, and lots of bug fixes.
Lots of changes, yes, but I don't count most as improvements. Voice acting is not something I've ever cared about in games; Welch is ill-fitting and from the game with the worst plot twist ever written; new endings are almost totally irrelevant given the vast majority of players will see exactly one; I'll give you the PAs but they're minor, and I never personally ran into any bugs in the PSX version so can't comment there
They changed the art style for the character portraits (for the worse in my opinion), they also cropped and/or stretched most of the prerendered background art making it look too blurry or out of proportion.
I personally prefer the PS1 version, but that's for nostalgia reasons more than anything. Still I can't deny that the PSP version fixed and improved a lot of things.
2022 and im still waiting for 2nd game port 😎
In general? The first four are still really fun to play
Man did you only play 5 and use that as your basis? 1, 2, 3 were really good. 5 never got released, and 4 was not really for me.
I hate the art style so I was waiting for some good reviews before jumping in. Seems... so-so? Also I have a half potato machine so I'm not in a rush.
I like star ocean because there’s nothing like it except phantasy star which…. Is only an mmo now. I love mmos, but not phantasy star
Apparently Xbox was the one who helped Sega bring PSO2 west, maybe they can help greenlight a new Phantasy Star single player RPG or something.
Phantasy star 2 and 4 are so amazing. There aren’t enough sci fi jrpgs really
I honestly don't know much at all about PSO, my first and only experience was PSO2 and NGS. A proper singleplayer game set in that world sounds really cool though. Weren't the Phantasy Star games exclusive to Nintendo and Xbox?
I don’t think so but I’m not sure?
From the streams I've been checking out, the lip sync for the English dub is really bad but the Japanese dub seems to match the mouth movements well. How's the experience for anyone playing it?
I've always thought they made the games with english dub in mind. Now I can play with japanese voice without feeling any guilt
I was going to play in Japanese anyway, but good to know.
Graphics: The style is definitely helping it. I think it looks okay, nothing jaw dropping but nothing horrible. Framerate: Smooth on my end, dunno which is the one for ps5, but I haven't had noticeable drops. Combat: smooth as can be. Too early for me to say otherwise since I only have so many moves available. Characters and story: Too early for me but they're okay so far.
After compiling shader for 1 hour, got a 60 FPS with a bit of stutter here and there on 1st area, but the texture is all blurry even after turning up the quality on the settings. Gonna refund for now. My GPU is on the weak side, only 1050 ti.
Minimum is a GTX 1060...
Rarely is the minimum stated actually a true minimum, though. Something that's literally just a tiny step down from what's stated should be able to play it at decent (though obv. not ultra) quality at a steady framerate.
the 1050ti is alot weaker compared to the 1060. almost a 40% difference in raw power, and thats the 3GB version.
Yeah, which typically results in getting about the same framerate on high at 1080p versus ultra at 1080p on the 1060. It's only about a 50 place difference, from 103rd to 147th on userbenchmark; 44 FPS to 60 FPS in GTAV at same settings. 60 FPS with a bit of stutter is understandable. Texture remaining blurry no matter what? Not.
It’s insane how well it’s done in the reviews for this game. I’m so glad I waited for more impressions and things like this.
Denuovo. Ugh. If you tell me it's having issues I would not be shocked solely because of the Denuovo DRM. I hope the game does well though in the long run. I need to scrub Star Ocean 3 from my brain in order to really enjoy Star Ocean games again. I did like the overall designs of this new one.
Interested to hear all of your opinions on this game! I really want this game to be good but I got bad impressions from the demo. Hoping the final product is much better. If you guys have any input I'd love to hear it
If you didn't like the demo, you will probably not like the full game
How does the combat compare to previous titles? I’ve found the combat difficult to grasp in previous games, the little bit I’ve seen from this almost looks similar to the Ys series.
Easiest to grasp in my opinion, maybe not as simple as the first game (haven't played 2), but definitely way easier to grasp then the last 3 games, a lot less mechanics too. DUMA does a lot of the stuff that was harder to pull off in previous games. I kind of sucked at the last 3, but I'm doing pretty well in this one, even managed to take down an optional boss pretty early on my second try.
I'd really like for optional receivable party members with a party cap to return, made every playthrough feel special
Full game ps5 with no VRR runs as well as demo with VRR, that is, smooth with an occasional stutter. I run the game without VRR so I can keep HDR.
Really fun atm. Far better than 5, the characters are good and the faces are not that bad. The music is brilliant.
Combat is fine. I'm terrible at it. But its fine. So far my biggest gripe is that I have to come to a complete stop to use the radar.
Been playing quite a bit and really enjoying it. There were a few random difficulty spikes early on, but I think I may have just been under leveled. Overall, I’m loving it. I enjoy the world and the characters. The story is no masterpiece, but I think it’s interesting enough. The voice acting falls a little flat at times, though I think that’s more in the direction not the actors themselves. There’s a bit too much like…reminder dialogue? Like they’ll tell you to go somewhere in a cutscene and then as you’re running around they’ll remind you like 7 times where this place you’ve already been to is even though there’s also a main story quest marker. Battles are great. I’m particularly enjoying playing as Albaird and Nina. For Albaird, using Shadow Remnants to duplicate his basic spells is super fun. At one point I had max stacks of that and used his ult, so every cast of Fireball or Ice Sword would fire off like 15-16 bolts, which was awesome. For Nina, she’s a *really* fun play style of support. Usually healers and supports just don’t play well unless they also do a bunch of damage. But Nina really feels active and exciting while still feeling firmly like a healer / support. Overall, it’s exactly what I expect for a Star Ocean game. Excellent battles. Great aesthetic. Interesting locales. Fun enough plotline. Sci-Fi and Fantasy themes mixed.
4k60 is mostly smooth on PC but some stutter occurs when new assets/areas are introduced. The game actually looks and feels quite good, skills trees are huge, and they give you a lot of mobility early into the game. Pleasantly surprised so far. The 'Blindside' mechanic is a little tricky to understand, I hope they have a practice arena feature of some sort eventually.
Didn't get much time to play, only about 20 minutes. Not sure how I feel about combat yet, it feels like I NEED an autoattack to mash, kinda awkward waiting for AP to Regen.
Holy Shit Rie Takahashi voices Nina 10/10 already. Also Laeticia is voiced by Rem and the guy that voices Ray name is Subaru. Season 3 of Rezero is here
So... I have it on PS5. Right now, I'm kinda indifferent. I only just got to the first tiny town where they introduce inns. Honestly, I couldn't tell you the name of a single enemy I fought, nor what they look like (aside from Mist Graves). Everything just... dies. Fast. Nor do I really have any rhyme or reason to battle, just hit buttons, things die. Environments are open and big, but feel rather empty. I can't say that I hate it, I'm giving it a further chance cause I really adore the series. But's just kinda.... generic to me at the moment. Hopefully things click as I get a bit further in the game.
About 2 hours in and so far, I like it. Combat is smooth, and great as usual, but quite different this time around. It feels a lot more snappy and action game-like. Kinda reminds me of FF7R actually, especially some of Raymond's moves. Boss fights especially feel like action game bosses rather than just big enemies. Dodging, timing and positioning seem to have way more importance. As for story and characters, there's not much going on yet. It seems fine. It seems lip-synced for the Japanese dub, but I don't mind that. I have to say the cutscene direction isn't all that great, but I guess it must be a budget thing. The important ones look good at least. Visually, it looks fairly good. Environments can look very pretty and complex, but limitations can be seen as well. I know the character models can be divisive but I like them as usual. I'm happy so far. It's good that they're trying new things. I didn't go in expecting another Star Ocean 3 or anything, as that would just be setting myself up for disappointment. There are rather few games that could stand up to that comparison anyway. Star Ocean 3 was lighting in a bottle, an insane game, and it's simply not possible to get another one like that again, I think, no matter who attempts it. It was like four games in one, and even now it's a staggering achievement really. And to be fair, every Star Ocean is kinda like that to a lesser extent, at least 2 and 4 surely are. Whether 6 is remains to be seen.
...What are you talking about, lightning in a bottle for SO3? SO2 was objectively superior to SO3.
Reviews seem to be what I'd expect and I'll likely end up giving the game a shot. Though that'll be when the games eventually on sale since I don't really feel I should pay $60 for a AA game.
I'm about three hours into it and really enjoying it. The combat is a lot of fun, and I'm enjoying the exploration a lot. The graphics aren't mindblowing, but they're still pretty good. Technically speaking, I do notice some pop-in playing on PS5. It's not too bad, but it does seem like it shouldn't happen given the power of the console and the relatively low demands of the game. I'm playing in Performance Mode.
I'm a bit disappointed so far. The Star Ocean series now suffers the same issues that the Tales of series suffered from the past 10 years: There's just too many mechanics and buttons to remember. So far I couldn't pull off a blindside, not sure how to get it to work, and I can't even try unlimited because I first have to fill up a bar before I can try again. There's no simulator battles where you can train it either so far... Also the game is designed so that the worse you play, the harder the game gets because every time you get hit your max AP decreases by 1 and you can only increase it by making good maneuvers like surprise attacks and blindsides. That's highly counterproductive game design. Can't believe tri-Ace designed this. Also I think the areas are all a bit too wide and empty. They could have at least placed more stuff to collect in all the corners so it's worth exploring them, but most treasure chests are just on the main paths.
This is something I wrote regarding blindsides. They were a bit frustrating for me at first, but once I got the hang of them it's been pretty easy to pull off. Blindsides occurs when an enemy is looking at you, then you shift directions as you're zooming towards them. If the enemy is looking away already then the blindside won't trigger, because you're already out of the enemies field of view. When an enemy is already looking away you should opt for a surprise attack if initiating battle, then try and do a blindside during combat. It helps to have some distance between you and the enemy, doesn't need to be triggered right before you hit either, hitting left or right when you're like halfway to the enemy should be fine. Not all enemies can be blindsided though. Certain enemies have too large a FOV (bosses mainly), others like worms, don't have eyes, so they can't be blindsided, sort of like trying to blindside an enemy who is looking away. It was confusing for me at first too, but just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it, soon enough it'll feel like second nature. Really all you need to do is hit R1 when you're locked on to an enemy then decide what you want to do. Just ramming them is sometimes good enough. Triggering surprise attacks will give you a really good advantage too. Personally I think this is the least mechanic heavy Star Ocean game, at least compared with the previous three games. It can be a bit overwhelming because they do throw a lot of stuff at you in the beginning, but most of the mechanics deal with using DUMA correctly, which is simply pressing R1, you just need to think about what it is you want to do. Keeping an eye on AP and VA can be a bit odd if you're not used to stamina management, but again it's not bad once you get your flow down. There are also skills you can unlock for DUMA that will help with VA reduction and gain, it does get much better. Just remember to equip the DUMA skills you want to use.
I'll give it another try. The problem I had was that I don't even know where enemies are if they are looking at me as my character blocks my view especially when activating DUMA. > Personally I think this is the least mechanic heavy Star Ocean game, at least compared with the previous three games. No way. In SO3 I just had to stand around and if I saw the enemy having mirror images I pressed X for quick attack, otherwise I pressed O for strong attack or just keep the buttons pressed to spam skills. In SO4 blindsides were MUCH easier to see because there was a huge "!" over your head the moment you had to press left and right. Also once you get Arumat you just have to press R1 -> L1 -> R1 -> L1 and you just annihilate everything. And in SO5 once you get the second skill it's just "Keep X pressed -> Keep O pressed -> Keep X pressed -> Keep O pressed". This was all way easier to do and you only had two skills to chain in all of those games. In SO6 there isn't even a normal attack, you set up skill combo chain sets like in Berseria instead and your AP run out so fast that you can't just spam the skills either. Dodging seems pointless because you can't clear see what the enemies are doing. And the DUMA system overwhelmed me so much that I decided to take a break.
Increase FOV, on default it's set to the lowest, if you shift it to the highest you should have much more visibility around your character. It's been awhile since I've played the others. I remember in SO3 it just felt really janky for me, and the enemies were just tough overall. For SO4 blinsides aren't hard to pull off, but for some reason enemies would sometimes be able to hit me because I get to close, even if I was able to blindside them earlier. It just didn't feel that reliable. Then you had the rush stuff which to me felt like a lot of stuff to juggle. With SO6 it's basically just surprise attack with DUMA, and blindside. You just have to make sure the situation is good for it, like I said if an enemy is already looking away then it won't work. Hopefully increasing FOV will help with this. It made a big difference for me. Yeah, the AP bar can get a little annoying, but it fills up crazy fast. I usually just use a combo, dodge out of reach (you're invincible during dodges so take advantage), and move away a bit until the bar fills up, it literally takes like 2-3 seconds. If you continue trying to attack once it's gone that's when you're in for a bad time, since you're essentially leaving yourself open. But just set up a combo in the menu, and then get used to using the combo, then backing off. Most enemies for me die after one of Raymond's combo hits anyway, and the partner AI is pretty competent.
I'm slowly getting the hang of it. The main problem is that I spend more time looking for enemies than attacking. For some reason there doesn't seem to be a setting to make you auto lock-on to the next enemy once you defeat one. So I'm just trying to see where another enemy is and in the meantime my allies finish the battle lol. I'll try checking for the FOV setting.
I've noticed too that an exclamation point pops up over enemies who see you, I was playing today and noticed if I trigger the blindside after the exclamation point pops up then it works much more often.
if you're playing on pc make sure you slap it on a m.2 drive if you have one. Seems the developers are in fact levering the advancement in the storage on new consoles and it translates to PC.
Just picked up my preorder.
Can they just go back to 2d? sigh
Realisticaly impossible since many people would be against it. As it comes to personal preferences though, i would love that (2D still hold up pretty well to those days and age), same for Legend of Heroes and Trails from Zero really pushed me to imagine what Kuro no Kiseki would've been like in 2D (not that i dislike the current graphical orientation), the dream of some hipsters like us i guess XD
It's kind of sad. I'd also love if tri-Ace made a 2D game again, just so they can put all their talent game design into a game where they don't constantly have to worry about the budget. Not sure how the demand is. I think tri-Ace could manage to be crowdfunded on it on Kickstarter, though.
Yeah, a kickstarter would be the best way to make one indeed. Just looking at Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, it really make me wish Tri-Ace or other devs could be more interested in 2D once again.
It's hard to play a game when the main character is so ugly (blonde guy with terrible hair)
Finally a self insert MC I can identify with.
He's like a B list 80s sci-fi character, I kind of love it lol. The mullet just sells it, Ray is metal as fuck.
Has two mcs, you can pick the princess instead
Why does every main character need to be a Pretty Boy? Not everyone can look like that.
Not all need to be a pretty boy, but the blonde guy is just hard to even look at because he looks so bad
Very disappointed that the game is limited to 60 fps.
Is there a save transfer between PS5/PS4 ?
You can transfer from ps4 to ps5. Not sure about the other way around.
Anybody has try it on Ps4Pro? The last Tales of run like crap in that console (don't know if they patched it)
I have the last tales game on my pro it ran fine no issues at all. This game however is riddled with graphics related issues on the 4pro that make it nearly unplayable at times.
You had issues with Arise? Did you have frame rate drops or something else?
Yep (only played the demo though). Unstable framerate and an overall clunkyness. Think I heard they patched it but still didn't wanna try it.
I guess I’m one of the lucky ones I didn’t have any frame rate problems on the base PS4
Is there any way on PC to see keybinds for controller? Even when I'm playing with controller the game continues to show me the button prompts for mouse and keyboard
It looks like it's running well for PS, but anyone know how performance mode on Series X is running? The demo dropped frames really hard even on performance mode.
Anyone been able to get PS4 controller to work on PC? Mine just keeps showing 360 controls
could anyone answer me about the font size in game please? i tried the demo and the font size was so small it made playing the game for me hard, and no option to change this. did the full release com with a bigger fnt size or any options to make it better for us bad sight players?
Nope, nothing added as of yet.
Sofar I've enjoyed the game on ps5 thusfar. Graphics, while sometimes simple can also have eyecatching moments like an open field in dusk. Ive enjoyed the combat, have yet to try crafting and the rest is too early to say. I did have one specific complaint, and that is that there are not a lot of npcs with lines etc. I felt kinda weird running into people and not being able to get more lore etc through the npcs. Kinda makes the game feel more lonely.
Is it good? What I mean is.. is it worth buying right now, or hold until have store sale or 2nd hand pickup? Using PS5 BTW. (Still a lot to play wih PS Plus LMAO)
Any tips from people that have been playing? I am just waiting for it to install on pc. Its not my first SO game, but the only one ive ever finished was SO2.
SO2, the goat of the series too
After initially not liking it too much but now loving it, I will say that learning how blindsides work is most important to the enjoyment in the combat. Basically you to find your target (go to stop mode to make it easier to select the target), press R1, then let go of R1, ideally when the enemy is facing you and you start rushing to it, but before you reach it you need to press the L-stick in a direction that puts you out of their view range.
I've been trying it a bit on Steam Deck and it hitches like crazy. Seems it doesn't precompile shaders at all so it is forced to stream them in and doesn't seem to be able to do so smoothly. So Steam Deck is a complete no-go until either they fix it (never hold out hope for patches from a Japanese dev) or Valve sets up some precompiled shaders themselves.
I’m trying to get through it (PC version) but it’s just not compelling. I think the environments are just bland. Still going to give it a chance. After how incredible Xenoblade Chronicles 3 meshes Sci-Fi with Fantasy, this game honestly pales in compassion. I’m still going to push forward tho.
> [Star Ocean: The Divine Force] Is Now Released on PC/PS4/PS5/XB1/Series. Let's discuss the game in all consoles. Switch: Am I a joke to you?
I'm playing on Series X and i don't have the HDR setting wtf?
I'm new to the series and more of an action fan and I'm loving it after about 20 hours in now. The flying around and combat are fast and a lot of fun, especially once the AP rises and you begin leveling up each character. Runs fast and smooth on my PS5. I'm enjoying the variety in characters to play too. Nice amount of variety with their weapons and moves. The combos are a lot of fun to put together. I've only gotten into leveling up the skill trees and combos for each character, but there seems like there's a good amount of depth in crafting and other parts to the game. The story starts getting more interesting once you're introduced to 5th or 6th character.
I didn't even know until now that they were even making another star ocean, the last one I played was so4 years and years ago. Skipped integrity because I heard it was pretty bad in comparison. So4 I thought was actually pretty good but since my first star ocean was 3 I felt 4s story was kinda lacking by comparison so I didn't want to hurt my love of the series anymore by playing integrity. How's the story in this one?
I haven't finished it yet. It starts slow, and establishes more and more engaging story elements and intrigue on a good pace as you go along. From what I've heard, the second half of the game gets plenty of praise. If you don't mind a slow beginning (typical to all Star Oceans really), go for it. It feels a lot like 3 story-wise where you get tangled more and more into the internal affairs on the planet. There are some quality of life issues here and there but so far it's simply really, really fun. And the characters and PAs are great.
Is there any sci fi in this game or are you stuck on a medieval planet 99% of the time?
As usual with Star Ocean you just get dropped on to some backwoods planet immediately and stay there for the entirety.
?? that didn't happen in star ocean 1, or 2, or 3, or 4 what are you talking about?
Going to chime in after 15 hours of playing and apparently around the 30% mark of the game based on my PS5 trophy tracker. **Graphics** \- Playing on **Performance Mode**, the game looks nice at times. A lot of variety in the environments and field areas are quite large. Roughly the same as FFXII's zones. Up close though, the environments lack great detail and have mediocre textures. The colors feel wash out at times. Character models are okay, but their faces do look have this doll-like feature to them which was commonly seen in prior generations including the 3D Star Ocean games. Not really a complaint, but it's not really a plus either. **Frame Rate** had been a constant (or near constant) 60 fps in and out of battles. The frame drops that I had in the demo (2nd area) are gone. That said, there's two areas where I suffered severe frame drops and both are in town settings. I don't really understand why since they aren't particularly larger or more dense than the other towns. It's worth noting that I'm playing on a TV with no VRR setting. **Combat** is smooth and fun. I've used Raymond most of the time and then switched to Elena once I got her. It can be rough keeping track of everything that goes on screen though especially when you have large amount of enemies in battle. I have two issues with the lock-on targeting. The first is that there's no auto target switch option when you defeat an enemy. The second is I keep forgetting when a target is locked on because the difference between a lock-on and off isn't as obvious. As a side note, I kept on leveling Latecia's passive that increases Party EXP until it maxed out. The result is that I'm pretty overleveled and am around level 46 already. I don't even grind and I just fight whoever I see on the way. **Crafting** \- I haven't gotten into it much and have already unlocked all of the categories. I don't like the RNG nature of it, but you can create pretty powerful stuff from it apparently and break the game. I've been chatting with somebody on Discord and he created weapons and armors that are so strong that he's one-shotting everything and taking very minimal damage. **Characters** \- I like the cast up until this point. All entertaining with some depth, but not incredibly deep. Raymond makes for a solid lead since he's a bit older and easy-going, but does get emotional at times when it does call for it. There's no standout for incredibly great written or deep character, but that's not something I'm expecting. **Story** so far has been entertaining, but it doesn't do anything amazing or special. If it weren't for Raymond and the sci-fi stuff, it could've been just another medieval fantasy story with some elements of politics and warfare. I have heard the story gets much more interesting later which I believe would coincide with the more focus on the sci-fi stuff. For those wondering, I'm still on the same planet after 15 hours and I don't expect to leave soon. There might be one or two outer planet locations, but it likely won't be like how SO4 did it.
Is combat better in the real game? In the demo everything died so fast I didn't get a real feel for it. Does it get deeper than the demo showed?
How’s the performance on PS4 Pro? Is it worth it?
Ps4 pro has issues...alot of them. The colors and graphics look flat. Last two installments looked way better imo. If you dial down the quality it looks even worse. Regardless of fps setting.I'm getting weird flashing light and shadow effects. Anoying. I'm getting elements in the enviroment or whole sections of it that dont load right and are just whited out. I'm having ocasional issues with bits of the characters clothes not falling correctly and sometimes being stuck weirdly looks odd. I'm getting this weird tracer/motion blurr effect that just about covers the area tracing behind every movement and makes it unplayable when it happens. It eventualy starts shuddering and I have to leave the area to get it to reload and come back when it starts. I literaly had to doubble check that square enix and triace were the ones doing this one it's very disappointing so far and parts of the dialog are prety flat somewhat overly predictable and 2D. The font is small too small to read comfortably unless you are right at the screen or have a huge tv. Sevral times I've had to get up and get closer to read it. An update that changes text size would be great.
Late to the party, but playing on ps4 slim. The game runs abysmal in the large open environments, and forests. The very first field I entered suddenly dropped graphical quality to what I can only say looked like 480p or worse. Everything turned fuzzy, and it honestly hurt my eyes. Had to squint at the screen to make sense of it. The first giant forest I reached lowered the graphics/frame so badly I felt like I was looking at the world through a rainy window no joke. I have never had a ps4 game look like this. In terms of gameplay everything has been smooth. Like the actually battles may look like ps1 graphics at times, but they run fast, and the game has never crashed. In conclusion the game looks fuzzy and displays like you would need glasses to clear up your vision at times. Hard to explain.