Full reveal information is imminent (tomorrow, supposedly). What we have now from Famitsu:

Officially called Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness, the game is being developed by Tri-Ace and published by Square Enix.

Set on an uncivilized planet called Fakelead, 6,000 light years away from Earth, the battle system will be seamless and take place in real-time.

I've never played a SO game. It sounds like Tales in space. Is anyone else excited for this? Should I be? How's the storytelling and characters in the series generally?

It's coming to PS3 too.

 

Three (Till the End of Time) was amazing, one of my favorite games of all time. If you have a ps2, I highly recommend it. Four was kinda crappy though, from what I've heard.

I'd say cautious enthusiasm. If it's good, it'll probably be really good. If it isn't, you'll probably regret paying $60 bucks for it, so I'd wait a couple days after launch, read the user reviews, watch the first few parts of a couple let's plays if that's your thing.

 

Oh my god. OH. MY. GOD.

When tri-Ace got sold to a shitty mobile company, I gave up hope on ever seeing another Star Ocean on consoles, let alone one that is borderline next gen.

And yes, you should be excited. It IS Tales in space, or rather, Tales with a setting that shuttles between different planets with varying levels of technologically advanced civilizations (some are medieval and some are space age).

With the exception of Last Hope, the story, voice-acting, and combat in SO games have all been better than that of typical Tales games from an equivalent era.

 

<3 One of the reasons I finally bought a PS4. Love the series.

The combat is infinitely better than in Tales. One of my favorite combat systems ever.

It's in space, but you usually end up in medieval fantasy planets and use weapons from their level of technology.

I'm expecting some good graphics as well! SO4 wasn't terrible, character-wise.

Storytelling and characters go from average to good to some fucking terrible (in SO4 only). There are usually significant changes with the type of story and characters you get in the games, so we'll have to see.

"Wallow in despair!"

 

Anyone else a little weirded out by that purple-haired girl's face? Dem giant cheeks.

 

Sophia 2.0 heh.

I'm sold. MC looks better than Captain Edgelord Angst.

Now we need some combat footage

 

From what I'm reading, combat is basically the same but there's no battle screen. So, switching between one controlled char with gambits for others.

I am so ready to combo chain.

 

She looks unnaturally cute, lol. So wanna pinch them cheeks.

And what do you mean by 'battle screen'? Just encountering enemies in the wild like FFXII?

 

In previous games, you encountered a roaming monster sprite in the overworld and went into a battle screen, like Grandia and... Tales, lol. But yeah, this sounds something like FFXII.

 

God I hope not, FF12's battle system sucked ass. Would not work at all with SO's strong-attack weak-attack long-range thing, though I have no idea if that was unique to 3. It's probably to much to hope for that they don't fuck up the encounter system, given the 'seamless' claim, but I'm still hopeful.

Err... SO3, and I assume the others, used a system where you equipped skills to either the O button or the X button. Tapping the button used a different skill to holding the button, and you had a different attack at short range then long range. Enemies (and you, as well) also had something called Aura, that blocked weak attacks and usually countered in some way. Aura would only activate if they were standing still, though, and strong attacks were slightly slower then weak ones. So you had to balance your attacks against what the enemy was doing, while also stop moving yourself so your aura would block otherwise unavoidable AOE attacks from bosses. Pretty sure triangle opened a menu you could use items or magic from (unless you had the spell equipped to a skill slot), and that menu didn't pause the game. Start opened a second menu that let you change tactics, which did.