WTMG's Kyle Nicol: "What a disappointing way to dive in head first into a new series. Star Ocean: The Divine Force is a stain on the history of a franchise that has a pretty solid cult following. While it does feature some decent combat, that alone doesn’t make up for its myriad of issues, such as the lacklustre story, bland world and incredibly poor visuals that look like they are from the PS2 era at the very best. It could have been great if more care had been put into it. As it stands, I just simply cannot recommend it."
Also included are Star Ocean The Divine Force, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Unpacking.
Hot damn those are some high quality games right there. I've been meaning to give 13 Sentinels a go, just haven't had the time to get around to it.
I had it on my wishlist waiting for a Discount, when I knew I would be close to playing it, so much in my backlog already, might as well try it now.
Also looks at ALL those Star Ocean titles!!!
The story is so great especially if you don't know what's going on, When i played it I kept thinking I bet this is "it" no I bet that's "it" no it's got to be this, but "it" wasn't those things in the end.
It's Japanese story telling style at it's finest, lead you along and let you wonder what is actually going on really keeping you engaged to figure out the mystery.
The RTS gameplay I really enjoyed too, my only regret was that there wasn't even more of it!
Probably why they hiked the price, so there could be better quality games and less shovelware.
It's one of the best story ever made in recent years, there's a reason it was nominated the best narrative in 2020's TGA.
I heard 13 Sentinels has a superb story, gotto try it at one point.
I can vouch for Nier Replicant, it has one of the coolest endings I have experience in a game. Took me a while to complete the game fully, but man, it was more than worth it in the end.
13 Sentinels is a must play if you haven't. Like, I can't praise enough what an awesome story and set of characters that game has.
The gaming community lately makes jokes about companies making games that look like "PS3" or "PS2" games. While this is such a nasty dig, there may be some truth to this in the case of tri-Ace.
Sad really. I used to love these guys but man...they just aren't what they used to be.
The Cod games have been using an engine built in the mid 90s. Nothing wrong with using an old engine if they update it. Bioshock used UE2 and looked better than most UE3 games. Arkham knight used UE3 and looked better than most UE4 games.
Sh it does suck but I enjoyed star ocean 6 the most out of any game last year. I thought it was solid af start to finish. My favorite game that year.
I'd love for Sony to get ahold of them.
To late to edit but I just wanted to add not every game that comes out needs to push a consoles boundaries. Star ocean 6 looked fairly good to me.
Yeah. They definitely squeezed every drop out of that engine for SO6. It was a fun game
I assume you are talking about "Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness" which I do have and am still playing. IMHO it is a good game but for some reason I still prefer "Star Ocean: The Last Hope" that I played on my PS3.
As a side note I have "Star Ocean: Till the End of Time" (PS2 version) which I played on my first gen PS3 but unfortunatly the Australian version of the PS3 did not have full backwards capability like the US version did. I got so far in the game and hit a bug (advancement to a new area between two mountains) that prevented further play.
Star Ocean: The Divine Force no longer appears to have the anti-tampering Denuvo DRM technology in the Steam version.
It doesn't need denuvo
Looks mediocre at best
Maybe it's a phenomenon in Asia
What a whack review. First not every game is gonna hit you with an award winning story nor needs to. If this reviewer knew anything about star ocean the stories were never award winning. Most games aren't.
Ps2 Era graphics this reviewer doesn't know what their talking about. Probably wasn't even alive or remember what ps2 graphics actually look like. The graphics aren't bad. They aren't the latest greatest graphics but it is the best looking game in the star ocean series. If I had to place it I'd say early ps4 graphics, and you know what that's perfectly fine.
Alot of people don't and should take into consideration the actual scope of this game. It's a pretty big game with lots to do. This game doesn't get the budget that other aaa games do and it does good with what it gets. Could it be better sure.
I've read some complaining about the camera also. Idk man I've got 65 hours into it and I haven't really felt it's an issue. I think people complaining about the camera just might have issues adjusting to new game controls.
I was defending this game without even playing cause I knew. Now after playing it my real only complaint I see alot of these bad reviews aren't warranted. If I had one complaint so far I wish I could actually talk to the towns people with a button. It kinda sucks for that. The npcs in towns do say stuff but unless you have volume up high you can't hear good enough and if you have the dialogue boxes on it goes away pretty quick especially if a crowd of people are talking. I guess two complaints. The subtitle font needs to be bigger. Maybe its'just my age but the subtitles can be hard to read for the townspeople and some other areas of the game.
So far I'd give the game a solid 8.
7.5 at the least
Lol. An actual comment on the review I just seen while reading the rest of the review
"wow, what a ridiculous review. First of all, how can you claim it's a "stain on the history of the franchise' when you admit this is your FIRST Star Ocean game? any fan would tell you Star Ocean 5 is the worst in the series, by far and is the one that can be called a stain. Also, if you think the visuals are PS2-level you have clearly forgotten what PS2 games looked like, please go back and play Star Ocean 3. The story is NOT slow paced, the whole game can be beaten in 30 hours, at least it's not bloated like Xenoblade 3."
I think they make a great point.