The Star Ocean Series

Better stop reading the spoiler tagged stuff at this point.

For better or worse I want to fully experience this story.

Speaking of which, are there multiple endings like in the last game?

edited 8th May '13 2:37:16 PM by Nikkolas

Yes. And for a long time, Square-Enix was removing Youtube videos of them to force people to play the game again.

edited 8th May '13 3:09:15 PM by lrrose

Well I just have to remember to try and get my affection meter or whatever really high with Lymle or any future party members I might like. Apparently it's all built up on optional scenes on the Calnus or whatever other spaceships I might get later.

I did that stuff with Faize... I hope I didn't get his meter too high. I don't wanna see his crap.

That Barachiel boss on the Celestial Ship was a nightmare. Really a wakeup call that I need to learn the battle system better I think. Namely I need to get better at Blindisdes, Chain Combos and Rush. Also I need to learn to avoid AOE attacks better.

Everyone kept fucking dying so eventually I just decided to switch to controlling Lymle so I could heal everyone constantly. Looking up some suggestions on the net, it seems the best strategy if you need constant healing is to set the Battle Tactic to Stay Outta Trouble! and then you can turn off all the Symbols you don't want them to use. So I could have won the battle a lot sooner if I had just controlled Edge while letting the AI have Lymle constantly healing everyone. That little angel never runs outta seems to run outta MP.

So yeah, my predictions about the meteor were kinda right. It made that boss and it made the crew of this ship into monsters too. Why and where it's from are of course still mysteries. After that agonizing boss fight I just saved and said I'll continue later.

I wondr how much more we'll have to do with these Cardianon people. Glancing at a FAQ I kinda spiled myself by reading how we end up on their mothership.

edited 8th May '13 6:27:35 PM by Nikkolas

Well Bacchus just joined the party but I gues that's a fair bit away from where I left off with my last post.

Poor Lym... Poor Lym's grandpa. I definitely didn't see that coming. I know it's a cliche to have a doomed hometown in JRP Gs but that's the main characters' hometown. I just figured we'd solve the sickness and then her grandpa would be like "Lymle you have such great potential so you must go with these people and realize it."

Obviously that didn't happen... Poor thing.

So I'm not sure what's going on with the Cardianon S. They were apparently jerks already but I figured the whole mutating and killing each other thing was bad and not what they wanted. But then the commander dude you talk to when you're captured seemed wholly unconcerned with that and just kept praising the "Epiphanies of Guidance". (Weird name) So I dunno if he's crazy or corrupted by them or what's going on.

I don't know what's going on with Bacchus yet. He looks cool I guess. Nice voice too.

Skill Points are annoying as shit to get though. Can you get the Bonus Board up to like 10 extra skill points per battle? Seems like the only way to get SP without taking a million years.

You neeed that shit for everything. Make your attacks stronger, item creation skill enhancement, supplemental skills like the ones to increase item drop rates... It goes super fast.

edited 9th May '13 1:24:30 PM by Nikkolas

I think I managed to get the skill points up that way.

Yeah it looks like you can get up to 14 spots of anything on the Bonus Board. So you could get 14 EXP, 14 SP, etc..

It's simple now I figured it out.

So Bracchus explaining who he was and the history of the Cardianons as well as telling us a bit more about the Grigori/Epiphanies of Guidance wasn't even a proper cutscene. It was just text. That's pretty dumb. That scene was imporant in explaining what happened to Crowe and everything.

Oh well. I suspect there's a boss coming up soon and then we'll be heading for En II I think. I was following a Private Actions FAQ on Game FA Qs to ensure I got the endings I wanted and while glancing over it I saw stuff about "Funeral Bouquet." You apparently get one and only one in some city on En II. After that you have to synthesize them yourself.

Are those Funeral Bouquet things necessary to get the endings I want? Like, I have to make sure to give one to Lymle?

edited 9th May '13 4:46:27 PM by Nikkolas

It's possible to get everyone's ending in a single playthough, it just requires careful juggling of their Private Actions. IIRC the funeral bouquets aren't completely necessary for anyone, but having extra points with them will help you get their endings.

Does it matter who the points are with? Like, say Lymle has a ton of affinity with only Edge but no one else. Do you have to try and get her points high with everyone?

Also I just escaped the Cardianon mothership. Kinda feel sorry for the poor bastards but all that was forgotten by the stuff with Bacchus. I felt it was both amusing and heartwarming. "We have to get outta here as soon as we can so let's just drag him all the way to the Calnus!" I like it.

I think I'm gonna use Bacchus instead of Faize for the rest of the game. I gotta find another character I actually like to replace Reimi.

edited 9th May '13 10:08:21 PM by Nikkolas

You'll need certain characters to room with each other to trigger certain, often ending mandatory scenes. So yes.

I gotta look into this stuff then. I'm trying to get Lym's affinity for Edge high enough so they'll room together. I think the first thing I ever saw from SO 4 was a cutscene of Edge and Lym and they were maybe sharing a room so it was probably a PA. This was years ago though and I didn't know the game then so i didn't pay attention much so maybe I'm off.

If I'm not though, I hope i have enough time to increase her affinity to bunk with him because girls are all picky and won't sleep in the same room as a guy unless they really like them.

Hinthint: you'll want to be working on rooming Lymle and Faize as early as possible.

Is that necessary for Lym's ending or Faize's? Because I don't care much about Faize.

I gotta look into how to synthesize this Love Potion thing. I'll check Gamefaqs for the ingredients later and maybe try to make it tomorrow if I can.

edited 9th May '13 10:58:07 PM by Nikkolas

IIRC, yes for both.

Hm... I guess I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for that one. I'm sure the FAQ I'm following will tell me though.

In any event all the P As on the way to En II have giveN Edge and Lym enough affinity to bunk together.

We're not at En II though. We're on Earth - the wrong Earth. I'm guessing this is the 50's Earth I've heard about. I can't wait to see and learn about this.

But that doesn't matter compared to this.

The developers acknowledging that a lot of the people who play this game are into maid and incest fetish.

It's always good to know your audience.

Speaking of fetishes, that PA is immediately followed up by Lym insisting she have "nappy time" with Edge. There's also the distinct Faize x Lym vibe you get in that scene and the other PA where they sort of kiss.

Reading teh dictionary though...Lym is fifteen and is the way she is because of accidentally opening up the realm of demons when she was six.

Sure...why not.

Anyway, I'm off to explore Earth. Perhaps run into Beaver and some people trying to hide under wooden school desks in fear of nuclear attack.

...and there goes Earth.

Well, Alternate Earth.

To anyone who says FFX has bad voice-acting - you should play this game.

It's not even that bad overall but certain scenes and emoting just fall very flat. Milla was a prime offender. The lady trying to go for hysterical and insane but failing miserably. Edge's scene where he freaks out about helping annihilate Earth wasn't really bad but it wasn't that good either.

Maybe I was spoiled by Xenosaga. Thet dub was fucking perfection.

Now...to the actual story an stuff. Meracle seems cute enough. They probably could have played up the horrific experiments done to her more instead of her just being lonely but whatever.

I sure as hell hope we find out why Klaus had some super magic stone thing that not even an Eldarian had ever seen.

On a less serious note, the monster descriptions for the test subjects was cute. The little aliens were tourists who got captured and are trying to get their race to obliterate us barbarians. Bigfoot is a like a government robot that got loose.

The whole thing was pretty interesting, if a bit too short. Also kinda disappointed the party got back to their own time so conveniently. I mean, I knew it had to happen but the "how" was something I was interested in seeing.

I guess it fits though. The game is very much "journey-based" as in you go from one locale to the other then return to the ship and go on another journey. You always go back to the beginning after completing an adventure so naturally they had to find a way to plop us back where we started after this little escapade was done with.

Also while I said earlier that Edge's VA perhaps wasn't as good as he could have been in that aforementioned scene, I still like the scene. i find myself like Edge more and more actually. He's the leader and he shoulders the responsibility of leadership like the burden it is. I guess his constant fretting over his failures might get tiresome for others but not for me. It makes him very relatable as I also worry a lot.

Right now I think I'm gonna start item creation. Gotta go harvest some crap to make that Love Potion. Maybe I'll also try my hand at making some new weapons.

EDIT: Crap, it doesn't look like I can make the potion now anyway. You need a special group of inventors or something and I only have Lymle. Sarah and some other person haven't joined the party yet.

edited 10th May '13 10:53:26 AM by Nikkolas

Holy crap a lot of stuff is happening.

En route to Roak we ran into that 13th Eldarian guy from god knows how long ago and he was chasing some unknown ship that attacked us for unknown reasons.

Once on Roak Reimi got sick in what I assumed was a horribly sexist illGirl move with no higher purpose.

...boy was I wrong. It sure as hell had a purpose. So Seeds of Hope wasn't just a fancy metaphor. Our heroes, much like the heroes in the last game, were genetically engineered by their parents to save mankind. (well save the universe in the last game)

It's an interesting enough twist and has some foreshadowing so I can dig it. What's more, it makes Reimi's "I can handle this" stubbornness a lot more logical. I figured she was just being dumb.

And on top of all that there's an evil cult going around trying to resurrect an Archfiend. Was there an Asmodeus in one of the first two Star Ocean games? I think I recall hearing about a demon or something from them...

And now that chick from the Cardianon mothership is back and says she wants to kill Crowe. I'm sure it's some misunderstanding but it's still a nice new mystery.

Unless this game completely and utterly falls apart somewhere down teh line, its plot is still better than the last one. It has intrigue and character development and the plot actually moving instead of stranding us on a crappy planet for a whole disk... God I fucking hate SO 3. So much wasted potential.

Yeah, Asmodeus appears in the first Star Ocean.

Ya know, I have a couple TV Tropes related questions now.

1. Why the heck does the SO series not have its own Crowning Music of Awesome page? Maybe it's not the best stuff ever heard in JRP Gs but it's by Sakuraba and it's pretty good.

2. Why does only Till the End of Time have a character sheet? Those characters were shit, even compared to 4's. And this is coming from someone who genuinely liked Nel.

Because no one has bothered to make them. Feel free to be the first.

Well...I could maybe try my hand at the music one. Character Sheets I'd rather leave to someone else. I'd probably fuck it up somehow.

That was one of the really frustrating things about the third game compared to the earlier ones. The dialogue was better written, or at least better translated, but the characters weren't nearly as likeable. One step forward, two steps back.

The translation was better in 3 than in 4? Or do you mean 3 compared to 1 and 2?

Compared to the first two. I haven't played the fourth for comparison.

Well a lot has happened since my last post.

I guess I'll try and recount my thoughts all the way from Roak to where I'm at now.

1. Sarah the airhead is just adorable.

2. Myuria the snarky is just sexy. I like her voice, I like her personality, I like her look. Totally gonna keep her in my party from now until the end of the game. (my party consists of my favorite characters - Edge, Myuria, Bacchus and Lym)

3. Speaking of women with wicked tongues, Lady Eleyna was pretty amusing. Her powers of foresight are truly astounding - she could see that our party is from space and even foretell the events of the first Star Ocean game. Shame she didn't get any visions about the fact they're all just video game characters.

4. On a related note, the Sorting Algorithm of Evil for the whole series is totally out of whack. Asmodeus was a threat to one planet it seems and I guess the Grigori are threats to teh galaxy but how can anything even surpass the Creator's Enforcers and Executioners from Till the End of Time? Also I'm pretty sure the tech is way better in SO 3 than it is here.

5. I'm really curious about that Tamiel fellow. He goes on a rant about human desires and he specifically says he gained them when he took a human form. What's more, his Monster data confirms he isn't human but all it says is that "it's complicated..." What the fuck does that mean?

6. The Grigori plot took a backseat for a while but now it's back with a vengeance. What attacked us way earlier was a Phantom ship and the Phantoms are a result of the Grigori. Those pesky things can do just about whatever they want it seems.

7. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Forgot to mention Faize is apparently going insane. First his nomad friends were killed and now his race is all but wiped out. I'm wondering if he'll be possessed or something or if he'll just snap in his fury to destroy the Grigori and we have to stop him from taking it too far.

8. Back to the Phantoms. Crowe is finally on the scene! And of course he didn't kill Myuria's husband at all. That was pretty obvious from teh get-go. Still, I felt it was a sweet little flashback.

9. Arumat is in my party now. Who cares.

10. The confrontation between Kenny and the crew of the Calnus was pretty cool. Gotta love all the unprofessional crew members just barging in front of Edge and Reimi to say howdy to him. Then the "we are all together in this until the end" bit was nice and fuzzy.

11. The "Edge loses and then regains his way" subplot between the Grigori stuff was well-done I thought.

12. I wonder if the Muah stuff is gonna be relevant in some way beyond explaining Edge's and Reimi's powers.

Now I think I'm gonna go sleep. I think I'm nearing the end of teh game so I'll take a nice rest.

edited 12th May '13 9:26:42 AM by Nikkolas

This is the explanation I could come up with: The Enforcers/Executioners are programs designed to end the MMORPG that is Star Ocean. The Grigori are cross-server PCs attempting to grief other players.

Alternatively, the Grigori are a virus, and are the first attempt by the creators to destroy the Eternal Sphere. But I don't like that idea very much...

Tamiel is a Grigori. Explaining how he got to Roak, and why he took human form is likely the complicated aspect...

edited 12th May '13 10:01:25 AM by Swish