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Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is officially the sixth Star Ocean game. It is a series that’s definitely worth getting into and has given me a number of hours of fun. The games often heavily rely on an inspiring story and strong graphics… how ironic… read on.
This is a Japanese RPG which follows suit to many similar games in this genre. It uses real-time battles which I can find annoying and I will be honest and say that I prefer turn-based. Hate being rushed… Similar to most RPGs you can learn different roles, new skills and equip new equipment. You can also create your own bits, but this isn’t half as fun as it is in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I won’t explain too much about these things, as they are literally something that has been repeated time and time again.
As per usual, I don’t want to give much away about the story. What I can say, is that this game is positioned between the PS1 game Second Story (I own the Japanese version of this) and the PS2 title, Until the End of Time. Simply put: the main character – Fidel – lives on a planet, a long way from Earth which is quite inferior to neighbouring areas. Then they get attacked by an inferior race and the youknowwhat hits the pan. As well as not wanting to divulge too much, I will add that, sadly, the story is… well a little boring.
Graphics? I was really expecting better. I mean they are not awful, nowhere near as bad as Teenage Mutant Nijna Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan or Carmageddon: Max Damage.
First of all, let’s talk about the characters. There is a severe lack of detail in all aspects of them. Their general clothing is very static (yes the back of your jacket slightly moves) and the colours are quite dull. The one thing I quite like, is how the characters breathe; You can see their shoulders rising and falling, and their breathing pattern is believable. However, the character’s faces show absolutely no definition and I was disappointed with this. Looking at two of them, I would say you could just take either face and place it on the other body – all you would have to change is their hair. If I looked at an earlier release, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, and compared the facial definition then that would make this look like a PS3 game. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that if they had banks which scanned you for facial recognition, then everyone is getting in!
Now, let’s talk about the poorly-made back drops. Come on Square Enix… The backdrops in Final Fantasy X‘s remake are better than this,and that is a remastered version of a PS2 game. The water looks horrendous and at the very start of the game, if you run to the side, you will see exactly what I mean: when you look at the ocean, you’ll notice they’ve tried to create a ripple effect, but it doesn’t quite look right. At times, I felt there was a real contrast. Some of the mountainsides were beautiful and looked well-layered, then on top of them, sat some poor attempts of trees which reminded me of Exhumed on the PS1 (don’t get me wrong I bloomin’ love Exhumed, and right now, I just rushed upstairs to ensure that I still have it – however, I don’t expect a PS4 game to remind me of it…). Maybe, in parts, I am being a bit too harsh but I just wasn’t impressed.
Now for my biggest gripe – you can literally run through people. Seriously, guys… seriously. I know we often get annoyed with super sensitivity like in the old Assassin’s Creed games where everyone would have a go at you for walking too close to them, even though you were a country mile away, but to decrease the sensitivity so far that you can actually walk through them? That’s going too far.
The music is exactly what you would want from a Sci-Fi RPG. It has a beautiful score and is the kind of music that enhances your imagination. The sounds, the mixing of the violin, chello and keyboard are just exquisite, and I wasn’t surprised to see the score was created by the master Motoi Sakuraha. I feel there was a lot of influence from the previous Star Ocean games, plus more recent titles like Bravely Default. Throughout the game, the quality of the audio is excellent and second to only a few games like Final Fantasy VII and a few others.
The voice quality is decent although I wish there was a little more of it, and less subtitles poking up here and there. Going back to the music, I would go so far to say that I would buy the audio CD for this game and listen to it whilst writing reviews. However, even though the sound is brilliant, some of the scriptwriting is incredibly cringe worthy – although it did make me laugh, I feel that this wasn’t the plan of the writers. Quite often, you will find this problem with a game that was written in Japanese. The languages don’t easily translate and this is a little like a friend#s Japanese tattoo which they think says one thing, but it doesn’t quite match… On a sidenote, if you don’t laugh when you hear the Mayor of Sthal, then you have no sense of humour.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this game…
When it comes to the gameplay, first of all, it is worth mentioning that I played this game in easy. Why? Well, it’s because I knew this was going to be a long game and I didn’t want to spend forever getting stuck at a certain part. Also, this is a story game primarily, and therefore I wasn’t too worried about the other aspects of it. So, I was devastated when I realised that the fighting was pretty poor. Star Ocean uses the real-time battle system which I have enjoyed in other titles, but due to dodgy camera angles and being slightly too fast-paced, I couldn’t quite work them out. The battling itself is relatively easy. you have two main moves, plus a few extra attacks which will knock more stuffing out of your opponent. When you have other characters, you can switch between them and this is seamless and, impressively, the AI isn’t atrocious, although sometimes you will think they run off in random places.
The biggest problem is, that half the time I couldn’t even really work out what I was doing. Basically button bashing X and O. Sometimes, I held it for a little longer and performed a slightly stronger attack, but I couldn’t often see that one as I was being swarmed by enemies which intruded upon my vision. I understood how you could use the square button to block and counter, but again, never could really see what was happening, so every time I did counter, there was definitely an element of flukiness. The buttons itself are well organised and are very responsive, and this game feels and plays just like an RPG should in that sense.
I have already mentioned a brief outline of the story in this game and I don’t want to give any plot spoilers away but it is just a little underwhelming. In fact, it’s a little boring. I mean, I gave this game a lot of hours – about 20 for the main story, but at least double that if you want to do a majority of the side quests. I was just completely uninspired throughout. At no point did I find myself desperate to find out what was going to happen next or did I ever have butterflies in my stomach because I was worried for a character (they aren’t that likeable). This is a big blow for the game because you can put up with a lot of mistakes in a Sci-Fi RPG but you can’t put up with it not having a thrilling story. Sorry guys, but this could have changed my whole outlook on the game.
Despite all the things I have said negatively about this game, I did find myself enjoying it. I played a fair bit of it and will probably play a little more. This is a weird phenomenon which I cannot really explain, as the only part of the game I really loved was the music. Maybe this is due to there not being a great amount of new games being currently released that I am overly excited to play. But whether I really liked this game or didn’t, I have to say that I enjoyed it. I know this will sound odd to some, however, other will really understand what I mean. I can’t really explain why but I did. For my enjoyment score of 7, below, I feel this is higher than it should be but it had me… somehow.
At a time where there isn’t much to play then this could be worth a go, however when No Man’s Sky comes you will need to put this far away.
Finally, note that this game was developed by Tri Ace, who have been involved with all of the Star Ocean games and also work on the Valkyrie series. Developed by Square Enix, my honest opinion is that I miss the games they released when they were just Squaresoft. Anyway, I suppose we must move forwards.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is out now on PS4 and PS4 Limited Edition which includes a Steelbook. Click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Publisher: Square Enix
- Players: single player
- HDTV options: up to 1080p
- Sound: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
5 10 4 7 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Director: Hiroshi Ogawa
Producer: Shuichi Kobayashi
Music: Motoi Sakuraba
Voice cast:
Fidel Camuze: Max Mittelman
Daks: Ray Chase
Fiore Brunelli: Aimée Castle
Victor Oakville: Crispin Freeman
Gunter: Anthony Hansen
Thoras: David Holcomb
Pavine: Corey Krueger
Ted: AJ LoCascio
Emmerson: Christopher Corey Smith
I have been a video game player since 1993 and a music fan since I can remember. I studied Film and Journalism at university and ended up becoming a Primary School teacher. Video games changed my life and sent me on the right track and have stayed with me ever since.
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