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[Like the hat?]

seriously. its one of my favorite games of last gen, and one of the handful of RPGs I actually played all the way through. I thought the game was great. The story was good, many of the characters were likeable, the voice acting wasn't TOO bad, the battle system was fun, the music is excellent, having that encyclopedia thing was nifty as hell..really it's a fantastic game.

So tell me GAF, why did you hate Star Ocean 3?

 

[f@luS]

I dont , really good game , fun fights , and at release time , incredible graphixxx (480p )

 

[Danne-Danger]

I love it and hate it.

I love the combat.
I hate the story (or at least ~disc 2 and onwards).

That said, I've played through it multiple times (thanks to event skip) because of the "achievements".

 

[Elios83]

Imo it's a terrible game.
The story was absolutely waek and horribly told, even when there was an interesting twist the outrageous english dub made it sound like a joke. And LOL at the final part of the story ripped from Matrix (which was the cool thing at that time).
Combat system and graphics were nice though. Overall a 6.5/7 game for me.

 

[Prime crotch]

Awful battle system, ok more broken than awful SO2's worked a lot better, ammount of grinding almost comparable to an MMO, dumb plot-twist and story. Even more tiring is the fact that they took us out of a underdeveloped world just to strand us in another one. Tired of this medieval shit give a futuristic space-opera RPC damnit.
I also didn't liked the graphics, specially the character models, but it didn't bothered me that much.

After how great SO2 was I was disapointed by this one.

 

[Aeana]

It seems like most people just hate it because of the plot twist, which I think is a rather silly reason to hate an entire game.

 

[S. L.]

i love it
and star ocean 2 sucks like leech

 

[BlueTsunami]

I honestly didn't care for the Characters and the Story

I kept playing due to the Item Creation system, Battle System and the endgame content!

 

[Ploid 3.0]

I was looking foward to this game. Didn't get it much like most ps2 games. I want to play them all (Dragon Quarer, SO3, Odin Spear, VP:S, etc) but there were just too many games out to keep up.

To me SO2 was awesome.

 

[PuppetSlave]

I do not hate it. However I not finished it. Played it this spring and started to feel a bit fed up

Spoiler

when those upgraded monsters from the real universe started to show up.

It's just that the fights started to get so goddamn hard and I have played the game for quite a long time and don't feel like grinding to level up. Also I feel like my inventing may not have given me that good equipment.

All that doom and gloom aside I had really fun with it up until that point. I like the fighting system and I thought the story was quite alright. Nothing superspecial but then do any rpg really have that good of a story? Really? Better then many other rpg's I have played thats for sure.

 

[Enron]

Combat was fun. Characters were enjoyable. Story wasn't bad UNTIL 2ND HALF OF GAME OMGWTF WORST STORY TWIST EVER.

It completely ruined the game for me.

Also, crafting or whatever they called it was waaaaaay too easy. It was almost nothing to equip your characters with super-weapons. And Nel's Kyoukkusen or whatever it was called was WAAAAAAAY cheap.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Combat was fun. Characters were enjoyable. Story wasn't bad UNTIL DISC 2 OMGWTF WORST STORY TWIST EVER.

It completely ruined the game for me.

Also, crafting or whatever they called it was waaaaaay too easy. It was almost nothing to equip your characters with super-weapons. And Nel's Kyoukkusen or whatever it was called was WAAAAAAAY cheap.

I think thats a staple of tri-Ace games though. Most of them, you can get game breaking items/equipment if you put effort into getting them (early on).

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

From dialog, to voice acting, to pacing, to development character/plot development, the whole narrative. Beyond that I seem to remember there being a few cases where you need to find multiple NPCs in one town? So much fun... The combat is all the game had going for it. Oh, and the item invention was a chore.

But if you think the SO3 story is good, for the love of God play Planescape: Torment.

 

[Miroslav]

I loved the gameplay, hated the story (starts ok but then... wtf).

 

[probune]

Because some people's enjoyment of an RPG hinges on the story, for some reason.

 

[AquaticSquirrel]

There was so much wrong with the game....story, unfulfilled premise, pacing, characters, battle system was a bit hit and miss and easy to abuse, item creation was annoying and the second world you get stranded on is the most pointless and badly designed boring place imaginable.

Oh and the endless backtracking and random enemy power levels, who puts a grunt enemy you can kill in one hit next to an almost mini-boss level enemy? argh so annoying. The Partner AI was retarded and the main character was overpowered.

 

[mr_nexus]

It has a great battle system but the story is so boring and the VA sucks. I still never finished the game since I bought it at it's release. When it comes to RPGs, story and characters are very important to me.

 

[Razoric]

I loved the battle system but the way the game ended was so goddamn laughable it def took the wind out of its sails a bit.

Still a fun game for what it was though.

 

[neoism]

I love all Star ocean games. Can't wait for the psp remakes and 4!!!

 

[Zombie James]

I don't *hate* it, i'm just not a fan of real-time battle systems. The story was interesting though.

 

[FallenAngelV]

One of my favourite battle systems from any console RPG, and a great game overall. The main criticism people seem to have with it is the plot-twist, which seems a little strange, but there you go.

 

[cilonen]

The first hour pumped me up for an awesome Sci-Fi set adventure with amazing locations and future technology; then I got dumped in the back end of nowhere not allowed to use any of it or acknowledge the existence of anything high-tech. OK, fine, played through that bit and was waiting to kick off once again with the high-tech Sci-Fi world I signed up for then got dumped on a slightly more advanced planet than the one I'd just been on. At that point I stopped playing.

 

[Rolf NB]

seriously. its one of my favorite games of last gen, and one of the handful of RPGs I actually played all the way through. I thought the game was great. The story was good, many of the characters were likeable, the voice acting wasn't TOO bad, the battle system was fun, the music is excellent, having that encyclopedia thing was nifty as hell..really it's a fantastic game.

So tell me GAF, why did you hate Star Ocean 3?

*broken shit combat system. Attacking is a randomized proposition against enemies with shorter attack animations. How much dumber can anything be?
*rotten bottom-of-the barrel writing. And it was stretched out with nothing but this very same bad writing. The amount of filler in the game is ridiculous, and it all tastes like shit.
*The side-stuff is all shit as well. The crafting system is so absurdly decked against the player, you'd be an idiot to not massively abuse load/save for every single thing you're going to craft. And don't get me started about the hunt for those crafting people.

Star Ocean 3 has some pretty rad music and nice area/monster designs (purely from a visual angle). I'd also (not for the first time ...) defend the game's voice acting, it's actually quite good, it's not the actors' fault when their scripts are made of shit. Everything else in the game is terrible. That's why.

 

[Teasel]

well i only played the first disc but
- i was really annoyed they removed the item creation system and replaced it with recruting inventors
- combat also was weak,it just seemed floaty and the AI was stupid

and like every other tri-ace game you could break it by getting uber-powered equipment
tales of symphonia battle system just gangbang it
there wasn't anything particulary good in the game... it was just meh all around

 

[BlueTsunami]

*broken shit combat system. Attacking is a randomized proposition against enemies with shorter attack animations. How much dumber can anything be?

I've never had a problem with this. It must have been the way I chained together Fayt's attacks.

 

[Steroyd]

I thought the game was alright but I haven't played on it much because the difficulty spike from one area to another was just plain ridiculous.

I love and Hate it, if that makes sense I hate it because I can't bring myself to complete it, and it started off so well to.

 

[klee123]

Loved the battle system and story was ok. The devs tried to do something original with the plot twist, but it failed execution wise.

 

[tribal24]

loved battle system hated charecters they were to boring

 

[X26]

+ Battle system

- Story
- Characters
- Gameplay (outside of fighting)
- Voice Acting
- Trophies (Game is long enough, and then they expect you to go through it multiple times to unlock different outfits? GTFO)

 

[Rolf NB]

I've never had a problem with this. It must have been the way I chained together Fayt's attacks.

I think the big spider-type enemies in moonbase are a nice example. The instant you decide you want to attack (even with a basic light attack), your block ends, and if these suckers decide they want to attack, too, a little later than you they can still hit you and stagger you, simply because their animation is shorter than yours.
Then there's this soldier-type enemy you first encounter when you try to enter the

Spoiler

train to the sphere company building

. They have heavy attacks that have shorter animations than your light attacks, which means you're fucked whatever you do. They can just break your guard at will, and these attacks are ranged, there are multiple of them. They will juggle you. It's a war of attrition at that point: is your HP bar long enough for this shit.

The only character that can somewhat keep up with this is Cliff (because he has that quick jab), but everyone else is more or less screwed, whether you control them yourself or not.

 

[radios shipping overview]

FATE LINEGOD

I don't care how you spell it, it's still FATE LINEGOD

 

[Jme]

I think thats a staple of tri-Ace games though. Most of them, you can get game breaking items/equipment if you put effort into getting them (early on).

Case In Point: Star Ocean: The Second Story's "Mischief" -- For those who don't know, it goes like this.

Very early on in the game you reach a certain town where you can use the pickpocket skill to obtain the item "Mischief" - it's the only way to get the item, but again it's very early in the game. However, to get the item you need to raise 40,000 Fol ($) which, at this stage is a goddamn fortune. The tricky part is that if you enter the town, you will trigger an event that will prevent you from getting the item ever again. So, if you want the item, you're basically stuck grinding on the same monsters over and over to raise enough money to buy the Bandit Gloves (required to pickpocket). This is a lot of effort to put into a game, and also time consuming. But the payoff is immense, as the Mischief (a wearable accessory) makes the game almost too easy from then on. Every few steps (random, but about every 3-5) you randomly find items and money. Within a few hours you'll have more money than you know what to do with, keeping you stocked with the best armor and weapons money can buy at all times.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

I liked it alright, but just couldn't bring myself to finish it.

As others have said, as much potential as the game had, the ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS AI completely shattered the battle system. Hopefully SO4 won't suffer this same fate.

 

[Zweisy1]

Star Ocean always seem to be less fun than other tri-Ace developed games.

It wasn't all bad though.. Yes, the story was typical silly JRPG shit but the combat was fun and it had some decent dungeons.

It was more fun than FFX at least...

 

[Brandon F]

Loved it.

 

[Dark Octave]

The battle system killed it for me. Your allies fight off the screen most of the time and I felt like I had no control over my party and they were doing all the work for me. It made the fights a complete mess with no strategy involved. I haven't played the game in a while but I remember them using up all their magic to attack when I wanted them to use it only for healing, or you can set them to not use any magic at all which hurts you even worse. Maybe there was a deeper customization option I didn't know about, but the options I had to control my party were too broad and vague to be any good.

 

[duckroll]

The game was quite a technical accomplishment for its time, unfortunately I really hated the 3D implementation of the combat engine, among other things.

Combat: Felt too floaty, attacks didnt really seem to "hit enemies" and there was no impact. The AI blew chunks and the AI options pretty much sucked. The encounter areas were pretty small and barren, defeating the purpose up "upgrading" to 3D since they looked less impressive than the 2D battles in SO and SO2.

Gameplay systems: Private Actions seemed pretty gimped, and the item creation system was pretty much raped. The entire process became more boring and less useful than any other SO. The removal of passive skills from SO2 also took away a lof of the fun I had with the characters in SO2 and VP.

Cinematics: Really, really badly directed 3D cutscenes. It's clear that this was Tri-ace's first 3D game and they really had no idea how to direct 3D stuff. The camera was mostly stationary and boring, and some scenes would go on and on with just people talking.

Lameass plot twist: This is really the final nail in the coffin. It's by no means why I hate the game, since the previous SO games had pretty iffy stories too. But with the stuff I enjoyed in the previous SO games all ruined, a shitty ass plot twist the retroactively makes the entire SO universe pointless is the last thing you need.

F-

 

[BlueTsunami]

Gameplay systems: Private Actions seemed pretty gimped, and the item creation system was pretty much raped. The entire process became more boring and less useful than any other SO. The removal of passive skills from SO2 also took away a lof of the fun I had with the characters in SO2 and VP.

I really hated how they implimented the Item Creation System. I don't know why the felt the need to break away from SO1/SO2's familiar system...it was lush as far as abilities to learn and the passive skills is partly what made it rock. I hope they reimpliment it in SO4.

 

[Error]

Lameass plot twist: This is really the final nail in the coffin. It's by no means why I hate the game, since the previous SO games had pretty iffy stories too. But with the stuff I enjoyed in the previous SO games all ruined, a shitty ass plot twist the retroactively makes the entire SO universe pointless is the last thing you need.

F-

spoil me!

this plot twist is so legendary that I need to know (I never played SO3, I did play SO2 tho)

 

[Prime crotch]

spoil me!

this plot twist is so legendary that I need to know (I never played SO3, I did play SO2 tho)

Spoiler

If I recall it right the world you're in is a video-game and you were fighting virus by the softwares house request or they tricked you into or something like that.

 

[duckroll]

I really hated how they implimented the Item Creation System. I don't know why the felt the need to break away from SO1/SO2's familiar system...it was lush as far as abilities to learn and the passive skills is partly what made it rock. I hope they reimpliment it in SO4.

I definitely agree. In SO2, the passive skills that characters could "learn" were useful in aiding what they could eventually create. While in VP, the passive skills and attributes that characters can gain will aid them in Vahalla. Sending in more qualified people would reap you better rewards. This was something I felt was pretty unique to JRPG systems, and definitely an influence from western CRPG design. Unfortunately SO3 pretty much took everything I liked in that aspect and trashed it. >_<

spoil me!

this plot twist is so legendary that I need to know (I never played SO3, I did play SO2 tho)

Well here goes:

Spoiler

The entire Star Ocean universe, the "Eternal Sphere" is a computer simulation system created in the real world. Basically everything that has happened in SO1-3 are part of some simulation that is used for experimentation/entertainment in the real world. What starts getting fucked up is that some of the people running the simulation start playing god and introducing programs and stuff to control the good and evil in the world, etc. For whatever retarded JRPG reason, all such viruses, termination programs, etc are represented by dragons and other fantasy crap.

In this Matrix, your main character is the Neo. Created with the right "DNA" (read: program code) to break the 4th dimensional wall to get to the real world to stop the termination program. In the end you defeat the creator LUCIFER or something, but the entire program gets shut down anyway. Yet.... everyone survives because they BELIEVED in themselves and hence as long as they BELIEVE they exist.... they will..... or SOMETHING.

 

[callous]

About 20 hours in I got so sick of being in medieval times in what I thought was going to be a space opera that I stopped playing.

 

[RevenantKioku]

The battles were utter ass. The MP stun/death thing was retarded. I know there's some plot twist but I never got to it.

 

[drohne]

Spoiler

If I recall it right the world you're in is a video-game and you were fighting virus by the softwares house request or they tricked you into or something like that.

what

 

[BlueTsunami]

Spoiler

If I recall it right the world you're in is a video-game and you were fighting virus by the softwares house request or they tricked you into or something like that.

Yep and

Spoiler

you break out of the software or "Game World" to destroy the Creator (which is essentially the person who originally programmed the program). You cross over by jumping through the familiar Time Gate you saw in SO1 and SO2.

It really was a "WTF" moment and sort of a slap in the face. Star Ocean, videogames version of SLIDERS.

About 20 hours in I got so sick of being in medieval times in what I thought was going to be a space opera that I stopped playing.

Yep, it was a Bait and Swtich in that regard. I can't believed they flubbed up the game like that.

 

[Prime crotch]

Yep and

Spoiler

you break out of the software or "Game World" to destroy the Creator (which is essentially the person who originally programmed the program). You cross over by jumping through the familiar Time Gate you saw in SO1 and SO2.

It really was a "WTF" moment and sort of a slap in the face. Star Ocean, videogames version of SLIDERS.

Spoiler

Didn't recall that bit so they're alluding to the other games saying that they too were not real?! Fuck SO3!

 

[Error]

Spoiler

The entire Star Ocean universe, the "Eternal Sphere" is a computer simulation system created in the real world. Basically everything that has happened in SO1-3 are part of some simulation that is used for experimentation/entertainment in the real world. What starts getting fucked up is that some of the people running the simulation start playing god and introducing programs and stuff to control the good and evil in the world, etc. For whatever retarded JRPG reason, all such viruses, termination programs, etc are represented by dragons and other fantasy crap.

In this Matrix, your main character is the Neo. Created with the right "DNA" (read: program code) to break the 4th dimensional wall to get to the real world to stop the termination program. In the end you defeat the creator LUCIFER or something, but the entire program gets shut down anyway. Yet.... everyone survives because they BELIEVED in themselves and hence as long as they BELIEVE they exist.... they will..... or SOMETHING.

sounds a lot like DDS lol.

 

[duckroll]

Spoiler

Didn't recall that bit so they're alluding to the other games saying that they too were not real?! Fuck SO3!

Spoiler

All the games are virtual. The entire thing was a looooong simulation, that's part of the reason why it started getting buggier if I recall. Because the program was made to have everyone be good, but yet because it's a "real" simulation you can't control that. Then they started mucking with the program.... yeah the story just gets worse and worse.

 

[duckroll]

sounds a lot like DDS lol.

Imagine if DDS was SMT4 instead. And it retroactively renders SMT1-3 pointless. Yeah, that's SO3!

 

[BlueTsunami]

Spoiler

Didn't recall that bit so they're alluding to the other games saying that they too were not real?! Fuck SO3!

I played the original SO1 (Patched with Dejap Translation and on SNES9X)

Spoiler

I think that Time Gate is in SO2? Maybe I'm wrong with that but I know for a fact that the same vista (dry, dead planet) was housing that Time Gate was in SO1.

And yeah, it sucks how it effects the past games if thats to be taken as canon. Well, it IS to be taken as canon since its part of the series I guess. Which makes which direction SO4 will go that more interesting.

Also, yeah the whole

Spoiler

Glyph thing being imprinted on DNA to break into the 4th Dimension made me groan. Thats when I knew that I need to keep playing for the secret items and shit. The story got fucked up