Star Ocean 3 *official*

[taloony]

Originally posted by Ammadeau
He's also just giving his opinion, more like a warning, of the game. Perhaps you should face the possiblity that this game just might suck. The fact that it's the buggiest PS2 release I've heard of isn't a very encouraging sign.

Correct. How the guy conducted himself in the Ikaruga thread is irrelevant here (And no, I haven't read through it, nor do I care to).

He's played SO3 and most of us haven't, plain and simple. He's just giving us his opinion on it and doesn't like it, that's plain to see. What's wrong with that?

I'm playing The Second Story right now, and you know what's keeping me going through it? It's not the story. It's not the localization/translation that was done by someone's uncle's brother. It's the skills, the item creation, and to a lesser extent the battle system. The story/dialogue is weak, and it sounds like SO3 is the same. If it doesn't have a decent story, and the skill system is lacking, what is their to justify a purchase? I may give it a rental when it gets here, but no way does it signify a must buy for me anymore.

[Frogacuda]

I want to go back and play So1. I always liked it more than 2.

*kicks Dejap in the pants* Where's that beta you promisied?!

[Kidnemo]

Originally posted by duckroll
I was wrong. I thought I was right and it was fun (and childish) to run down all the people expecting that Ikaruga would be released on the date that NCSX claimed it would.

Works for me.

And even though I didn't like SO2, I was really hoping the third game would be better.

Hopefully ducks opinion is opposite of my own, because I really want to like SO3.

*flys out*

[duckroll]

I have noticed that in my extreme hatred for SO3, I -have- misrepresented certain parts of the game. SO3 did have good points that kept me going for 19 hours before getting rid of it. And since different people like different things in their games, it's only fair to talk about the good points as well as the bad.

Pros:

- Excellent dungeon/field/town design. Probably the most "complete" design I've seen in a 3D RPG so far. The towns, fields and dungeons are pretty large, well designed and very well realized in 3D. The camera is fully rotatable and the texturing is amazing. Too bad the locations for the most part of really generic. (caves, ruins, castles, etc) But they -are- some of the most impressive generic locations in 3D yet.

- Amazing loading time..... when it does load. Ok, here's the thing, when the game is working properly, load times are almost non-existant. But sadly the PS2 is not a good machine and hence even with extensive caching, shit happens. Sometimes the screen will go black for 10 seconds or more when loading from area to area, this is very unfrequent. Sometimes, you will get a "Data reading from disc" message and the loading time will be about 3-5 seconds, this is very common when you explore a large area continuously for some time then suddenly go to a new area. Sometimes the game will freeze. This is very uncommon but the very fact that it can happen pisses me off, it's terrible to train for 30 mins and then have the game freeze as you're running back to save.

- Relatively fun battle engine, well realized in 3D, lacks some polish in the graphics department but still much better than most. It also has an interesting reward system if you can chain several battles without your Heat Gauge breaking. (from getting hit too much or dying or running away) Pity the difficulty of the game is rather low.

- Several bonus dungeons, with many of the traditional special bosses returning as well as famous Valkyrie Profile characters as bosses. This sounds like an awesome part of the game, but honestly for me I couldn't justify playing another 20+ hours of the game to get to this point because it was seriously just too damn boring.

Cons (I won't go into much detail as most of this has already been discussed):

- Easy, easy, easy.

- Crappy Item Creation system. (My opinion )

- No more non-battle skill system/shops.

- Very boring plot.

- Really really crappy directing in cutscenes.

- Private Actions limited down to "auto private actions", aka: select a choice during mandatory cutscenes in the game.

- Possibly the worst plot twist ever, period. Imagine MGS2 except thrown 100000 times into the retarded zone.


Hopefully I've made a few people more optimistic now.

[ferricide]

that was a much better post on the topic than "it fucking sucks" x 20. =) thanks for the info.

still, i'm going to find out for myself, of course. i don't trust even people i know really well about games, considering how easy it is for the slightest thing or even a specific moment in time just to make tastes diverge on the same game.

[xS]

I love Tri Ace, they are my current favourite RPG developer. Their games are so forward thinking and focus on fun, rather than plot development which pushes them ahead of the pack IMO.
duckroll: how many endings does it have?

[Captain Vegetable]

Originally posted by xS
how many endings does it have?

A hundred million skajillion!!!!!!!

[Masaka]

Originally posted by duckroll
Too bad the locations for the most part of really generic. (caves, ruins, castles, etc) But they -are- some of the most impressive generic locations in 3D yet.

[duckroll]

Originally posted by xS
duckroll: how many endings does it have?

That's a good question. I really don't know. tri-Ace isn't very forthcoming about promoting multiple endings this time (no more "Over 80 different endings!!" stuff) but since you can still get a different combination of party members and there's still an invisible friendship score system according to the manual, I'll assume there are at least a few variations in the epilogue. No way to tell for sure until there's a complete guidebook out or something.

[Thief Silver]

Soooo... bets on the release date of September 1st Holding?