The first question you have to ask yourself before buying SO: I&F is, "Do I like old school RPGs?" And when I say old school I mean The first question you have to ask yourself before buying SO: I&F is, "Do I like old school RPGs?" And when I say old school I mean unskippable cut scenes, areas that exist specifically for encounters and fights, standard progression, and limited save points. Because those are the biggest things people are complaining about.



Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness is a classic wrapper that has a new food inside it. Things look very similar to previous games, but there's been a lot of gameplay tweaks since the last good Star Ocean game. Combat and cut scenes are now integrated into the game. When you bump into enemies on the map your characters pull out their weapons and the fight begins with no transitions. The same for a lot of the story, people simply start speaking. It doesn't cut to dialogue boxes or a scene, in most cases. Naturally there are going to be some scenes that aren't in game at some points.



On top of removing transitions, SO has changed up how the mechanics of the gameplay. The rock paper scissors of previous titles is very prominent and easy to understand and works probably the best I have ever seen. I did an entire boss fight with counter attacks, which would have been difficult to judge in previous entries. Atop that skills have an upgrade system and a mastery system, as well as the game having a new system for learning skills instead of simply leveling up. They have also introduced AI altering "roles" which can be purchased with SP (which is used for buying skills of various types). Roles not only affect how the AI acts but give bonuses relating to the role, like increased damage to certain enemy types or extra stats.



The crafting system is back and it's more fine tuned than SO3. You see the materials you need, and when you gather them up you can make the item. However, what items you can make are limited by your specialties, sort of passive skills that let you craft items or gather materials for crafting (in the early parts).



Of course in an RPG we can't neglect the story and characters. Which, I'll admit, are rather dry. Around an hour in I had already predicted the big twist of the game (It's Star Ocean, of course it had something to do with space invaders.) But naturally the characters had to go through the phase of "OH WOW! WE WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED!" which is pretty annoying. As for the characters themselves, I feel like I've become jaded by college courses on how to write because none of them are particularly interesting. None of them are horribly offensive and annoying (Like half the cast in a Tales of series game, or completely lacking any depth like most Western RPG characters) but the game does feel kind of sped up.



What does help in both of those regards is the PA system, which has returned. Private Actions are chats with your party where you often get to make a choice that raises or lowers their affections, and in previous games altered the ending for your protagonist. PA's are usually short scenes that add more depth to a character or situation and they're welcome as the main plot focuses less on the characters you're adventuring with and more on the action (a faux pas of professional writing. The characters and their reactions should be what's interesting, not wondering what the next set piece of the game is. I should care about the characters)



Overall, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness gets a 9/10 from me. It's a classic shell with new content and I've been craving an RPG since Fallout 4 let me down. The writing could have been better, but the combat is sweet and rewarding, the exploration is simple but the areas are visually stimulating and lovely. I think if Square had made this a PS4 exclusive (the game came out on PS3 in Japan) then it could have been a 10/10 easily with better textures and more development time. Unfortunately it's held back by the previous generation of consoles in some regards, but it's still a blast to play. The people who say they cleared it in under 30 hours are either playing on easy mode or ignored the side quests and are lying about that. I spent over a half an hour in the first exploration zone after spending fifteen minutes in the tutorial town. These are people trying to make it look bad by speeding through so they can **** out day one reviews. … Expand