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Star Ocean: The Divine Force |OT| Encounters in Space

KàIRóS

Member
I think I know who I'll be pairing Raymond with for the ending 😍

nCrouGv.jpg
 

JayK47

Member
So far I am enjoying it well enough. The character hair is pretty awful. So far enemies are not that fun to fight besides the big bosses. I am having more fun exploring and trying to reach all treasure chests in the field and in towns. I am still early in, so not much else to say.
 
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Graciaus

Member
22 hours and I still don't have all the party members. But I feel I spent a lot of time doing side quests, the card game and searching for PAs.
 

TwinB242

Member
game is fun but holy hell is it low budget. Im no graphics whore but im still surprised at how bad it can look at times.
 
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JayK47

Member
Getting more crew members and the game is getting much more fun. Story is picking up and the characters are all pretty interesting. Had a good laugh when my characters had to wear masks for a little while. Low budget? The voices changed just for that portion. High quality attention to detail.
 
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Neolombax

Member
The demo really hurt my impression on the game, it looked pretty bad on the PS5 on performance mode. The game ran quite choppy on graphics mode too. If it wasn't because I bought Asterigos, I would probably have bought this one. So how does the full version of the game compare to the demo? Were the any performance improvements?
 

Cao Cao

Member
So how does the full version of the game compare to the demo? Were the any performance improvements?

I read it runs a little better. But there are no battle trophies anymore, no arena and the postgame dungeons are very short and shallow.
 

Exentryk

Member
I am really enjoying this now. Can't believe I nearly decided to skip this based on the PS4 demo. It runs really great on PC.

Exploring the towns is really fun with Duma movement. The combat is fun and there is good variety in characters to work on your own optimisations and customisations.

Really just need more time to play this lol.
 

KàIRóS

Member
I am really enjoying this now. Can't believe I nearly decided to skip this based on the PS4 demo. It runs really great on PC.

Exploring the towns is really fun with Duma movement. The combat is fun and there is good variety in characters to work on your own optimisations and customisations.

Really just need more time to play this lol.

Yeah same, I'm still not buying the whole "bad graphics" everyone is trying to push on this game, I'm playing on PS5 4k 30 FPS and IMO it looks great, some of these trolls go as far to say it has PS2 graphics when the amount of foliage alone would fry a PS2.

Also guys I think this area might be a reference to Infinite Undiscovery?

SyjDHm6.jpg
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
lol, I’ve played through the whole game without a single crash and then right after the ending credits it crashes and I didnt get a chance to save, so had to kill the final boss again.

is JJ ever playable? He never joined my party…

edit: found the answer: https://samurai-gamers.com/star-ocean-the-divine-force/how-to-recruit-jj-and-theo/

I guess It's like Star Ocean 4 with Faize and Arumat where you can have one or the other but not both, except this time it depends on which main character you choose.

I really enjoyed this and I'm glad to see the franchise continue. I think SO4 will probably always be my favorite in the series since it was my first but I really like this one too. Tomorrow I'll get started with the post-game dungeon.
 
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Graciaus

Member
This game does one of the things that annoys me the most in JRPGs which is characters leaving the party. Not even talking about the split story but the other characters are in and out. It's annoying but nothing will probably ever top the rage I felt in Xenogears all those years ago.
 

Neolombax

Member
Yeah same, I'm still not buying the whole "bad graphics" everyone is trying to push on this game, I'm playing on PS5 4k 30 FPS and IMO it looks great, some of these trolls go as far to say it has PS2 graphics when the amount of foliage alone would fry a PS2.

Also guys I think this area might be a reference to Infinite Undiscovery?

SyjDHm6.jpg

Would you say it looked better than the demo or is it largely the same?
 
Yeah same, I'm still not buying the whole "bad graphics" everyone is trying to push on this game, I'm playing on PS5 4k 30 FPS and IMO it looks great, some of these trolls go as far to say it has PS2 graphics when the amount of foliage alone would fry a PS2.

Also guys I think this area might be a reference to Infinite Undiscovery?

SyjDHm6.jpg
I will forever be sad that there will never be an Infinite Undiscovery 2 or a Resonance of Fate 2.
 

Zephir

Member
This game does one of the things that annoys me the most in JRPGs which is characters leaving the party. Not even talking about the split story but the other characters are in and out. It's annoying but nothing will probably ever top the rage I felt in Xenogears all those years ago.

I'm not annoyed by that
BUT I'm annoyed by the fact that I have to equip their accessories back and, of course, I never remember what I gave them
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Some of these crew interactions on the ship are hilarious. My favorite so far is

When Theo and Antonio are talking about what’s it’s like to have little brothers LOL
 
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TwinB242

Member
Yeah same, I'm still not buying the whole "bad graphics" everyone is trying to push on this game, I'm playing on PS5 4k 30 FPS and IMO it looks great, some of these trolls go as far to say it has PS2 graphics when the amount of foliage alone would fry a PS2.

Also guys I think this area might be a reference to Infinite Undiscovery?

SyjDHm6.jpg

The art style and post processing does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the game is still pretty underwhelming technically thanks to flat lighting and poor texture quality. I was in disbelief when I arrived at the first port town and saw the PS2 quality water. I almost thought my game was bugged and the water shaders weren't loading.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
~20 hours in my impressions so far:

- Raymond is seriously cool. Just a no nonsense space trucker dude who doesn’t have time for your bullshit. He might be my favorite MC in the series

- writing and voice acting are surprisingly good. No anime cringe writing (except Welch), no grunting and sighing.

- even on Universe the difficulty is pretty low aside from bosses. You might be better off leaving item creation for endgame if you want a challenge

- all the characters have interesting skill trees and are fun to control, although I’m reaching the point where I’ve unlocked all the stuff I’m interested in. Looking forward to getting the rest of the party members so I have more stuff to play with.

- traversal is fun but some of the environments are too big IMO. Sweeping back and forth making sure you find all the treasure gets a bit tedious

- story is kinda bland and slow moving so far. The strong writing + lots of nods to older SO games make it better.
 

TwinB242

Member
Does anybody have any tips on using the item creation? I've unlocked the first 3, and nothing about this system makes sense to me. Do you just dump in items and resources until you level up the characters to the point where they're able to create useful stuff? Outside of a few healing items, everything i've managed to make has been junk.
 

Zephir

Member
Does anybody have any tips on using the item creation? I've unlocked the first 3, and nothing about this system makes sense to me. Do you just dump in items and resources until you level up the characters to the point where they're able to create useful stuff? Outside of a few healing items, everything i've managed to make has been junk.
You can level their item creation skills in "check & strengthen skills" -> "I.c. skills" up to lv10.

They'll definitely make better items but you'll also need good crafting talents to make extra good stuff and those can only be unlocked by making items
 
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KàIRóS

Member
Does anybody have any tips on using the item creation? I've unlocked the first 3, and nothing about this system makes sense to me. Do you just dump in items and resources until you level up the characters to the point where they're able to create useful stuff? Outside of a few healing items, everything i've managed to make has been junk.

Once you unlock Alchemy you can get absurdly OP, the Alchemy skill upgrades the ores you need to make weapons and armor so essentially you can transform an Iron Ore all the way into a Philosophers Stone which is the highest grade ore and then use that to make post game weapons and armor out of it, just make sure to save each time, there's a chance you will fail each time, use Albaird for Alchemy, Ray for Smithing, Leticia for Crafting and Elena for Engineering.

There's not going to be any challenge during the story if you decide to do this though.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Does anybody have any tips on using the item creation? I've unlocked the first 3, and nothing about this system makes sense to me. Do you just dump in items and resources until you level up the characters to the point where they're able to create useful stuff? Outside of a few healing items, everything i've managed to make has been junk.
Haven’t 100% figured it out yet, but my advice is to buy a couple stacks of the cheapest materials and churn through those before you spend any points in an IC for a given character.

I did that with Nina for crafting and she unlocked 3 talents and reached level 5 within like 20 minutes before I even spent any points.

Also to make infinite money early game, compound blueberries + fresh sage to make resurrection potions and sell them at a profit
 
Was planning on getting this, but the reviews say the adventure is somewhat bland, and that outside of combat there isn't much to do. Now I'm waiting for a sale since jrpgs usually go on sale quickly. Did the same for Soul Hackers 2, got it for $40.
 

Komatsu

Member
Haven’t 100% figured it out yet, but my advice is to buy a couple stacks of the cheapest materials and churn through those before you spend any points in an IC for a given character.

I did that with Nina for crafting and she unlocked 3 talents and reached level 5 within like 20 minutes before I even spent any points.

Also to make infinite money early game, compound blueberries + fresh sage to make resurrection potions and sell them at a profit

Crafting is one of my least favorite things about the SO franchise and this system seems particularly obtuse to me, being quite honest.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Just finished the first post-game dungeon. Now on to the second!

I didn't use any crafting/synthesis stuff to jump straight to lv 255 either... just hopped in and started grinding, then bought gear inside the dungeon. Currently like lv 113. Interestingly, the monsters can drop rare loot (weapons) that are stronger than what you can buy from the vendor.

Also, I always just kill the 2 wing version of Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen in SO games... I wish they didn't change this one to where you only get the achievement for beating them if you kill the 6 wing version :(
 
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SkylineRKR

Member
Crafting is one of my least favorite things about the SO franchise and this system seems particularly obtuse to me, being quite honest.

It is. I usually used a guide and save scummed for laser weapons etc. In SO2 you could get the eternal sphere by doing some shit you could get relatively early game, by save scumming. And it broke the game lol.
 

KàIRóS

Member
She reminds me of Tolten from Lost Odyssey: zero respect despite authority...basically a living punchbag xD

518ee30903899f3e3b07fe6598d27eaf.jpg


She's adorable though

I had a good laugh when Raymond's brother realized she was from the Kenny family "wait you're partnering with a Kenny!? aww you're shittin me now Ray" :messenger_tears_of_joy: as if they weren't already in big trouble with the federation.

I kinda like Marielle's character though she brings a new perspective to the Kenny family, she's naive but at the same time she's proud of being Emmerson's granddaughter, all the Contrary to how Claude viewed Ronyx in SO2.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Ugh, I think I'm done for now.
Post-game spoilers:
I was fighting Gabriel's six wing form at like lv 125 and after like fighting him for an hour my party gets wiped out. The team member AI is so bad I feel like I'm fighting them AND the boss. They'll run right into the danger spot and die. Nina will do this like 7 seconds after you res her, causing you to go through items way faster than necessary. I've already beaten this boss twice... I don't think I'm going to grind more and more just to get my levels higher and then do it again.... his attacks are exactly the same.

And based on how tough I hear the EQ is in this one I don't think I feel like grinding for that one either. Great game but I think I'm done.

edit: Finally killed him. It's like Nina was trying to die the whole time lol.
 
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Zephir

Member
Ok, I'm basically at the end but I'm going crazy because

I can't find the last Mini-Bunny and I swear I checked every inch of this damn planet (and more).
I have to play the game one more time with Letty for the Platinum so I can get them in the second playthrough, but I'm still mad...
 

Graciaus

Member
Pretty sure I'm right before the final boss. Steam says 51 hours but minus a couple. Did almost all side quests and hunted hard for PAs. It's a really fun game but not great. Needs QOL patches and the balance is terrible. Difficulty is a 0/5 on hard until the end of chapter 3. Ignored all item creation until it was needed in ch4 and never used exp passives. Story is nothing for the first half then it tries to tell one that wasn't really even very good. I did enjoy almost all the characters and the voice acting (JPN) was excellent. Ray is a bro and I'm glad he keeps what looks like a sex doll as his first mate. Glad I didn't pick Laeticia since her and the knight were annoying. Going to be hard to play another JRPG without these traversal mechanics.

Will be sad if tri-Ace goes bankrupt.
 

KàIRóS

Member
I finally finished the story at 58 hours, amazing game so far, I'll take a break to finish Bayonetta 3 and then I'll come back to finish the post game and give me final thoughts, so far I can safely say it´s the second best SO only below Second Story.
 

JayK47

Member
Enjoying this the more I play it. Tri Ace makes some of the best jRPGs in my opinion. My favorite still being Resonance of Fate.

The story has gotten really interesting and some cool new characters have joined the team. I'm only 20 hours in and it feels like I have played much longer. So much has happened.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Post-game Spoilers
I finally made it to the Ethereal Queen. However, the team member AI is so braindead that it's making it hard... they keep grouping up and following me around. SIGH
 
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anthony2690

Member
I can't decide whether to start this today or wait till after I finish Sonic Frontiers, as that arrives in a couple days :)

Maybe I need to find something short and sweet to play till Tuesday.
 
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