Star Ocean The Divine Force Review: a good starting point

United by the stars

Given the aims of Star Ocean VI, on whose success the fate of the entire franchise probably depends, the tri-Ace guys have chosen for the occasion to dust off the much appreciated “dual protagonist” system of the second chapter.

As told in the special about the five things to know before starting Star Ocean: The Divine Force, at the beginning of the campaign the product invites you to play to select one of the two main characters and experience the story from his point of view. Clearly the story is always the same, but since the party tends to separate very often, in order to carry out multiple tasks at the same time, the initial choice allows you to focus on the path of a single protagonist and face every single step. Similar to what happened in Tales of Xillia or Scarlet Nexus, this expedient guarantees the title a good replayability, but it is equally true that to understand the narrative in its entirety it is necessary to complete it at least twice; otherwise, developments explored exclusively in the unselected route may appear unclear.

Where in the past the characters of Star Ocean were very stereotyped, the cast of the newcomer has kept well away from the historical rats of the genre, welcoming within it a large group of individuals characterized in a convincing way. The male protagonist of the adventure – that is, the one we have chosen to play during our journey among the stars – is Raymond Lawrence , a stubborn intergalactic merchant whose spaceship is attacked and destroyed in the very first stages of the story by a cruiser of the Pangalactic Federation.

Determined to at least save the crew, whom he now considers family, Ray orders his underlings to abandon ship and flee via escape pods to nearby Aster IV, an apparently undeveloped planet. As reported by the on-board computer, however, only a handful of merchants actually manage to leave the Ydas spacecraft before its explosion and reach the fourth planet of the Aster system, where a war is about to break out between two neighboring nations . Crashed in the territory belonging to the Kingdom of Aucerius, a bewildered Ray almost immediately meets the female protagonist, Laeticia Aucerius, who together with the faithful knight Albaird is traveling to track down the brilliant semiomancer known as Midas Felgreed, that is the only person who could help her save her country from the inevitable and now imminent conflict with the neighboring Vey’l Empire. In the hope that this will facilitate the rescue of his companions lost in a foreign land, Ray offers to accompany the princess on her long and difficult journey, unaware that this will place the fate of the entire universe in her hands .

Drawing heavily on the brand’s lore, the plot of Star Ocean: The Divine Force has a somewhat slow start, so much so that the first 8-10 hours or so are limited to painting and preparing the scenario for the immersive events who in the intermediate chapters of the story will end up upsetting Ray, Laeticia and the other companions recruited along the way.

However, once all the pawns have been placed on the board, the tri-Ace creature presses hard on the accelerator, giving the player a thrilling cosmic journey aimed at shedding light both on the real enemy of the moment and on the radical change of the Pangalactic Federation ( an organization which for centuries had fought to preserve peace in the cosmos, but which today conquers one planet after another). Long-lived and with a clearly superior script to that of its predecessor, Star Ocean: The Divine Force however has to deal with a major obstacle, represented in this case by the lack of localization in Italian , which once again could preclude its usability for those who still don’t know the English idiom.

To infinity and beyond!

Let’s start the analysis of the playful mixture with a premise: although this has recovered some mechanics from the most successful chapters of the franchise, the gameplay of Star Ocean: The Divine Force has undergone a total modernization. By equipping Ray’s band with a highly advanced sentient robot that accompanies and can even “connect” to the heroes as if it were a jet pack, tri-Ace has been able to revolutionize and above all speed up both the real-time combat system and the exploration phases .

Using DUMA, Laeticia and the other adventurers are able to hover and move through the air at great speed, which allows them to traverse a very large map in no time, reach elevated points or islets suspended in mid-air to take possession of treasures hidden, or in any case to overcome ravines and any other obstacle encountered along the way. DUMA also has extra functions, such as the scan that marks all the chests found around the user on the mini-map, which is why a special item placed in the main menu allows you to customize and enhance his skills. It is an innovative and fun expedient, which on balance encourages the total exploration of the vast game areas created by the team, which, not by chance, has also tried to develop them vertically. As mentioned earlier, the DUMA also strengthens the war component, sincethe protagonists can use the thruster to crash into enemies and take them by surprise .

Retrieved from Star Ocean: The Last Hope, the Blindside mechanic increases damage inflicted and disorients opponents caught from behind, in addition offering the player a large time window to maximize the offense without running the risk of suffering a counterattack. Alternatively, the DUMA can erect a barrier which, depending on the skills installed on the drone, reduces the damage received and grants other rather useful bonuses. Using both mechanics wisely and remembering where possible to hit the enemies in their blind corner, the battles tend to be resolved in a reasonably short period of time, avoiding breaking or in any case slowing down the pressing pace that distinguishes exploration.

The other strength of Star Ocean: The Divine Force is represented by the great customization of the fighters , who are characterized by very large skill trees where you can spend the Skill Points acquired with the level increase. Comparable to the spheres of Final Fantasy X, the Star Ocean VI skill trees offer both improvements to the main statistics and new active and passive skills with which to customize the build and even attack patterns.

In fact, once new assaults have been unlocked, the user has the option to build “Chain Combos”, i.e. sequences of absolutely personal attacks that can be triggered through three front buttons, which depending on the opponent faced can be more or less effective.

Having a maximum of twelve slots available, it is possible to create combos aimed at eliminating enemies capable of flying in a hurry, chains of shots aimed at hitting all nearby targets, and so on. Bearing in mind that both active and passive skills can be improved up to level 10, the variables offered by the customization of Ray and associates are truly innumerable , as are the strategies that can be implemented after having studied the individual talents of the various heroes at the table.

What hasn’t completely convinced us is the introduction of the AP bar, that is to say the resource consumed by the triggering of the Chain Combo and which gradually empties after each single attack performed. Although this reloads as the seconds pass, during our long test we too often found ourselves in the annoying condition of not being able to complete a chain because we suddenly ran out of AP.

Considering that each single attack pattern consumes a certain number of AP, depending on the power of the triggered skill, it is damn difficult to be able to pull off a complete combo before running out of steam. For our part, we would therefore have preferred that at least the physical assaults did not present limitations of any kind, just as happened in the past episodes of the brand.

The legacy of the last generation

Son of a cross-generational development, Star Ocean: The Divine Force is a very dated product from a technical point of view, also due to a limited budget which probably prevented the developer tri-Ace from properly treating the rendering of the polygonal models .

As told in a previous special, the JRPG enjoyed the participation of Akira Yasuda , legendary character designer of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers 3 (for details, rush at full speed on our interview with the character designer of Star Ocean: The Divine Force) who for the occasion has created some well-kept artworks and overflowing with details, giving both the protagonists and the secondary characters an always captivating and refined look.

However, the 3D models do absolutely no justice to his impeccable work , also due to excessively woody and sometimes unnatural animations. However imaginative and rich in detail, the scenarios convinced us only minimally, since they are too often affected by low-resolution textures that penalize their performance. If we add to this that during the flight sequences it continually happens to get stuck in the environment or in any case near the irritating invisible barriers, on a technical level we must note that Star Ocean: The Divine Force proved to be even more deficient than expected.

Despite the aforementioned technical poverty, in performance mode the title struggles to maintain 60 FPS even on PlayStation 5, where there are quite noticeable drops in the middle of crowded fights or when particle effects invade the screen. The mode that, on the contrary, favors image quality performs much better, offering almost granite 30 FPS and greater cleanliness.

Being able to count on a star of the caliber of Motoi Sakuraba , who during his career has composed the soundtracks of the series Tales of , Valkyrie Profile and Dark Souls (just to name a few), the musical accompaniment of Star Ocean: The Divine Force us it seemed varied and punctual, respecting the tradition of the franchise and offering us lively tunes. Finally, nothing to complain about the dubbing in the original language, in our opinion supported by more convincing vocal combinations and acting performances than those offered by the track spoken in English.