A new chapter in the Star Ocean saga will begin in a few months, when Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness finally makes its North American debut, and it’s starting to look like SOIAF could be the game to revitalize one of Square Enix’s most time-honored franchises
Unlike many modern franchises, Square Enix and tri-Ace aren’t rebooting Star Ocean with the series’ latest outing. Integrity and Faithlessness is set about halfway through the 406-year gap between the events of Star Ocean: The Second Story and Star Ocean: ‘Till The End Of Time . Players will explore Faykreed, a planet roughly 6000 light years away from Earth, through the eyes of protagonist Fidel Camuze, his childhood friends and a few new allies met during their journey. Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness actually boasts the largest party of any entry in the series to date, eventually giving players a team of seven fighters to command.
Thankfully, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness doesn’t expect you to dive headfirst into its massive encounters. As someone whose only previous experience with the series comes via a few hours with Till The End Of Time — which only features a three-person party — the idea of trying to coordinate seven entirely unique characters (in a universe I’m not familiar with) was a bit daunting. But tri-Ace does an excellent job of gradually increasing fight scale as the game progresses. Some truly excellent character design, from renowned illustrator Akira “akiman” Yasuda, also makes it easy to identify each character with a quick glance.
During combat, players can choose to remain in control of Fidel for the duration of the fight or use the Left and Right buttons on the directional pad to take control of other party members. Whichever members aren’t currently being controlled by the player will instead be driven by AI, which can be programmed (to some extent) via the Role system. Players assign roles to each member of their party based on how they’d like to see them perform in combat situations. For example, Miki is commonly given the Healer role because it keeps her on the perimeter of the fight and focused on using her curative spells to heal the party.
Once you take control of a character, players can move around the battlefield at will; however, that battlefield will be much smaller than some gamers are used to. This isn’t Fallout 4 or The Witcher 3 , where a particularly tough fight might begin in one corner of the map and end in another. When combat begins, a large circle appears on the ground to indicate the borders of the space designated for the current fight. In most cases, the circle will be blue and trying to run outside of it will give the party a chance to escape from the encounter. But there will be scenarios, like boss battles, when the player has no choice but to stand their ground and fight. In these instances, a red circle is used to identify the perimeter of the battlefield.
We spent more than two hours with the game at PAX East, the bulk of that dedicated to an early portion of the campaign that allowed us to re-familiarize ourselves with Star Ocean ’s take on real-time combat. At first, your party is relatively small, never featuring more than one or two of Fidel’s allies. Similarly, the enemies you face tend to appear in small groups, giving you plenty of time to figure out how to build combos with each character’s light and heavy attacks, block or parry incoming strikes and familiarize yourself with the casting system. Now that attacks change based on the distance between the attacker and his/her target, early encounters also give the player a chance to figure out which characters/attacks/spells are best at short and long range.
After a few fights, and some plot building, the party begins to grow, giving the player new skills to learn and battlefield strategies to master. Towards the end of our demonstration, a Square Enix representative loaded up a later game save, giving us access to Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness ’ full seven-person party. We didn’t get to see much from the second save, other than a few altercations against trash mobs, but the demonstration did end with a boss fight. And it seems like those are going to be really tough in Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness .
To be fair, our unfamiliarity with the universe and lack of recent history with the franchise likely played some role in the struggle against our giant foe. But trying to coordinate the attacks and supporting actions of a such a large party proved to be even more difficult than we’d imagined. While roles can be assigned to each character, and the AI driving your team seems to make a genuine effort at sticking to that role, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness still expects the player to keep a close eye on the party. Players need to dispense or consume supplemental healing items surprisingly frequently, given the presence of a dedicated healer, and sometimes you’ll even have to manually reposition squad members to reduce (or avoid) incoming damage.
We managed to take down the boss using an (admittedly cheap) kiting strategy that involved letting most of our party die repeatedly while a few lucky members stood at the edge of the battle and peppered the boss with attacks. Another member of the press playing next to us also managed to squeeze out a victory. But we were apparently the only ones to accomplish the task all weekend. And there weren’t many hours left in Day Two when we left Square Enix Japan’s media room on Saturday afternoon. So it’s probably safe to assume Square Enix will dial things back a bit before Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness heads to stores this summer. Then again, it's possible the onslaught we endured could be preserved in all of its glory/misery since the game will include multiple difficulty options at launch.
Fortunately, while combat was clearly the focus of our Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness demo at PAX East, it’s not the only change that will build upon the foundation laid by the game’s predecessors. One of the most obvious is the introduction of a seamless world. The studio’s goal is to give players the freedom to explore Faykreed and form attachments with the many character you’ll meet over the course of the game. Integrity and Faithlessness will also continue to expand the series crafting mechanics introducing a brand new “specialty” system that gives the player more control over what kinds of materials each character collects for the party.
For a closer look at Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, including the story behind the fifth entry in the series, take a few minutes to watch the Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness story trailer that debuted last month.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is in development exclusively for PS4 and will debut June 28.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness coverage throughout 2016 and for however long tri-Ace continues to support Star Ocean in the months following launch.
Note: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that Star Ocean: 'Till The End Of Time featured a three-person party system. A fourth character wasn't added to the rotation until Star Ocean: The Last Hope (2009).
