The problem could have been remedied easily by giving range and melee attacks dedicated buttons, or by giving you a modifier button to switch between attack types. In the heat of battle this is unfeasible, and feels needlessly clunky. Unfortunately, this attack can only be initiated from long range, so if you want to set up said attack string, you must run away from your target to do so. For example, in Star Ocean 3, protagonist Fayt has a fantastic uppercut attack combo that can juggle most enemies for good damage. It's especially awkward when playing as a melee fighter. This seems sensible on paper, but in execution it means that if you ever want to perform a long range attack, you must move away from your target to initiate it. When in melee, the same button performs a close-range attack. When you are at long range, pressing the attack button performs a long ranged attack. Star Ocean utilizes a bizarre range system to modify the attacks that your character can perform at a given time. ![]() If Star Ocean is dead set on telling a serious story, it desperately needs good writing and character development to go with it. It’s subpar storytelling, yet is never treated as such. Imagine the party learning the truth about our universe’s origins by spilling out of a TV panel into another dimension. On the other hand, Star Ocean’s cookie-cutter characters, lack of development, stilted dialogue, and genuinely dumb plot points, particularly with later games in the series, mar any motivation to follow or care for the story. Yuri is a cool protagonist who lives on the edge of the law due to his hands-on approach to justice, but watching his actions escalate to vigilantism and ultimately cold-blooded murder later in the story is a shocking, and thoroughly engrossing development. But watching him commit a horrific atrocity due to his own stupidity, and subsequently face abandonment by everyone he knows and fought with previously, is a genuinely interesting twist. Luke is your typical bumbling, spoiled hero in Tales of the Abyss, for example. Tales games are guilty of overusing clichés, as well, but the series often tweaks the character or scenario to create interesting story beats. The truth is, Star Ocean leans heavily on anime clichés to characterize its cast, rather than interesting development, interactions, and growth. That's a bit of an overstatement as there are many anime programs that tell great, sci-fi space dramas, such as Macross, Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, and Outlaw Star. As a Japanese RPG, one can expect some degree of anime-fueled melodrama and character cliche: it comes with the territory. In space, no one can hear you cringe, which is perhaps why Star Ocean’s storytelling is so terrible. Add to that the messy story attached to each game, and you have an inconsistent, mixed-bag of an action-RPG series. Worse still, some gameplay systems feel like relics from the SNES era that weren’t ironed out during the transition to 3D models and arenas. Action-focused combat is the series norm, but the rules drastically change between games so that they play differently from one another. ![]() Star Ocean struggles to define its own gameplay, too. The problem is, it doesn’t usually do that. This is unfortunate, because Star Ocean is amazingly fun when it nails the fundamentals. Star Ocean is decidedly less consistent, with its gameplay, plot, and visual quality greatly varying between games. However, the Tales series found its footing early on, developing a formula for its gameplay and story tropes that remain consistent to this day. They both share core gameplay elements, including action combat and involved interactions between party members. ![]() Star Ocean was the studio’s first title, and is something like a sister series to the Tales franchise. Star Ocean developer Tri-Ace broke off from Wolf Team in the mid-1990s, after developing Tales of Phantasia. How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication.How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac.How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files.How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill.How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad.How to Block Robotexts and Spam Messages.
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