Top to Bottom: Edge Maverick (
SO4), Fayt Leingod (
SO3), Claude C. Kenny (
SO2), and Roddick Farrence (
SO1)
A series of
Role Playing Games developed by
Tri Ace and published by
Square Enix (Enix before the merger). All of them are set in the same universe, a high-tech
Space Opera, but all of them spend a significant amount of time focusing on a
low-tech, high-magic world. The games are known for their fast-paced, real-time battle system, and for the Private Action system that allows the main character to interact with party members in cutscenes while in towns. These can affect the ending through changing
Relationship Values.
The games in the series are:
There was also a game for the Gameboy Color called
Blue Sphere (
not to be confused with that one), taking place two years after
The Second Story with all twelve party members available.
So far, every game except
The Last Hope has had a manga adaptation.
There is also an
anime based on the second game's manga adaptation, entitled
Star Ocean EX.
Most famously, the creator of this series were the original creators of the
Tales Series, leaving Namco due to too much of
Executive Meddling getting on their nerves during the development of
Tales Of Phantasia. The first game is practically a
Spiritual Successor to
Tales Of Phantasia where the battle engine is concerned.
This series as a whole provides examples of:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: The max is usually 255. The Last Hope drops it to 200 initially, but you can bump it back up to 255 once you acquire enough Battle Trophies.
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: The Undeveloped Planet Preservation Pact (UP3).
- Bishounen: In every game. To name just one example from each, there's Ioshua from First Departure, Dias from The Second Story/Second Evolution, Albel from Till the End of Time, Faize from The Last Hope...
- Bonus Boss: And how! This series is infamous for the amount of grinding you'll need to engage in if you want to stand a chance against them. The fact that your maximum level in the first three games is 255 doesn't help things.
- Bonus Dungeon: Sometimes multiple, almost always huge.
- Cat Girl: The Lesser Fellpool race.
- Conflict Killer: Too many to list. There seems to be a veritable revolving door of villains in this series.
- Doing in the Wizard : Anybody from The Federation in all three games will have a Technobabble explanation for magic - or "symbology" or "heraldry", as it's usually known. For instance, Claude's "Sword of Light"? Actually just his phase gun.
- Evolving Attack: Many of the Killer Moves, especially in The Second Story.
- The Federation: It's rather obvious in the first game they're not even pretending not to rip off Star Trek.
- Genre Shift: For a series that's supposed to be set in outer space, you spend an awful lot of time on undeveloped fantasy planets. The fact that the fourth game has space travel as a core gameplay concept could almost be a Genre Shift in and of itself.
- Guide Dang It: Could very well be renamed Guide Dang It: The Series due to the sheer amount of stuff (including items, skills, and recruitable characters) that can be missed unless you know exactly what you're doing at any point.
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Completely averted in the PSP remakes: no matter what you rename your characters, the voice acting still uses canon names. [The funny thing is that Star Ocean games let you rename your characters from the Status Menu, meaning you can do it any time you want.]
- Human Aliens: The series has quite a few of them. Some have wings, some have a third eye on their forehead, some have three black rings around their necks, and some just plain look Human. Cliff's race in particular are naturally physically stronger than regular Humans, and as such have been limited to what events they can compete in during the Olympics. One thing worth noting is that all these aliens are classified as "Human" as the biological archetype, and from there you get the sub-races, including Earth's own Terrans.
- Inevitable Tournament: All four games, though only the second game forces you to compete.
- Instant Messenger Pigeon: Used as the main postal system, and to go shopping in the field.
- Item Crafting: Each game has an Invention system that varies in mechanics from game to game.
- Limited Move Arsenal: Type 1.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Somewhat averted. The first two games (especially the enhanced remake) let you surround tough enemies and just beat them up with melees while the mages try to cast their symbology.
- Little Bit Beastly: Fellpools are humanlike in appearance, but have heightened senses and tails like cats.
- Macro Game: Battle Trophies, voice samples and the Monster Compendium are all shared between save files.
- Mana Potion: Blackberries, as well as some food and drink.
- Modular Epilogue: The games are will often show different ending scenes per party member depending on their relationships with other characters.
- Multiple Endings: The franchise is known for this.
- No Export for You: The original (not in its remade form) and Blue Sphere, coincidentally the only ones released on Nintendo platforms (Super Famicom and Game Boy Color, respectively).
- One Steve Limit: Averted: the Ten Wisemen in The Second Story all have angel names, including Lucifer and Gabriel, but the boss of the bonus dungeon in the same game is also named Gabriel. Till the End of Time also has another Lucifer (Luther in the English version), who is of no relation to the one in Second Story. Till the End of Time, at least the Japanese versions, use various demonic names for the Sphere staff (Azazel, Beelzebub, Belial).
- The same applies to The Last Hope. Apparently, the names of the Grigori are based on fallen angels from biblical apocrypha.
- Optional Party Member: In every Star Ocean game, there are several optional party members; you can have up to 8 characters, and usually 4-6 are permanent, leaving the extra slots to be filled up by a moderately extensive list. Getting some help you get others, and they ultimately affect the outcome and ending.
- Saving the World: Or universe. No spoilers needed.
- Sequel First: The Second Story was the series debut in countries other than Japan.
- Stuck Items - Phia and Ioshua's accessories from the First Departure. Try as you might, you can't take that damn ring off.
- Space Is An Ocean: The name of the entire series. Directly referred to in the first game and the fourth.
- Spiritual Successor: There are major similarities between Star Ocean and the Tales Series in gameplay and design: real-time battles with combat skills that burn MP, item creation, food-based healing items that heal in percentages, Private Actions / Skits, Relationship Values leading to Multiple Endings, and so on. This is because Star Ocean was created by the company tri-Ace, a company whose founding members are best described as "Basically everyone who designed Tales Of Phantasia at Namco."
- Star Ocean is also a spiritual successor of Star Trek. A developer mentioned that the Star Ocean series was actually first created with Star Trek as main motivation.
- Time Travel: The Guardian allows this. Again, not even bothering to differentiate from Star Trek. However, its function is expanded greatly in the third game.
- Time Travel becomes a part of the plot of The Last Hope when a wormhole within a black hole sends the crew back in time to planet Earth in the year 1957. After the crew escapes from Earth as the planet itself is being reduced to antimatter, the crew realizes that the Earth through the wormhole was nothing more than an alternate dimension. Of course, this doesn't make Edge feel any better knowing that handing over the ship's energy core for research to save the future led to the planet's complete destruction. Cue Heroic BSOD.
- Title Drop: The Last Hope is very guilty of this for their sub title, though First Departure does it too.
- Both of the aforementioned also drop in the term "Star Ocean" during dialogue.
- Tsundere: That would be Reimi and Millie of The Last Hope and First Departure, respectively. Both are the canon heroines.
- Updated Rerelease: The first games in the series were posted to the PSP, marking the first release of the first game in the U.S. The fourth game was later released for the PS3 with some new features and characters.
- Useless Useful Non Combat Abilities: Of the "Optional" variety. You can beat the game without investing a point into any non-combat skills...but if you do invest time into them? You reap the rewards!
- Winged Humanoid: The Featherfolk race.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair (Unsurprising, given the series' anime-ish style; in fact, at least two party members in every game have literal blue hair, including the male leads of the first and third games.)
- Possibly justified in the third game, where both characters with blue hair are genetically-engineered weapons.
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