Seripha has 10 chronicles

1. Before the Battle (Star Ocean)
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on May 14 2009

   Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope is a highly anticipated game in my book. Unfortunately, when it released a couple of months ago I was neck deep in schoolwork and thought it wise to wait until the end of the semester to start playing it. Also because RyuBlitz would have killed me if I would have devoted inordinate amounts of time to it while we were working on writing our own game for our semester project. Nevertheless, the semester is over now, and I am nearing the start of my showdown with this game. I figured I would write a pre-review considering that by the time I'm done with this game the only sentence I will be sane enough to form will be something along the lines of "Glork! Pony banana puff!" Why so dramatic? I plan to achieve every achievement in this game. Enough said.
   
   The Star Ocean series was developed by a woderful company known as tri-Ace. They also created the game Infinite Undiscovery which many of you know ate up mind and spat out the remains. Their combat system is what impresses me the most. It is one of the most fun batte systems I have ever played in an RPG. This, coupled with their knack for good storytelling and character development, makes tri-Ace one of my favorite developers right behind Atlus and Squaresoft's older work.
   
   I must first confess that I have only ever play Star Ocean 2 in the series. The first one never made its way to America, and I really have no good excuse for not playing the third one... I'm going to say that I was too enthralled with the second one to even think about a third.
   
   The whole idea behind the Star Ocean series is that World War 3 has left earth uninhabitable by humans, and ventures must be made into the vastness of space to form new colonies. Star Ocean 4 is returning to the very beginning and telling the story of the first exploration team's journey.
   
   The thing I am most looking forward to is, of course, the combat system. It has always been spectacular, and from the videos I've seen this one will be no exception. What I am least looking forward to is the voice acting. I'm not sure who to blame for the shoddy voice acting of JRPGs whether it be the voice actors themselves or just poor translation. Either way, a lot of the voice acting anymore makes me miss the days when we had to read everything ever conveyed in the game.
   
   All in all, I doubt this game will capivate me quite like the second one did, but I hardly expect that anymore. With the PS1 went the last era of games that I would return to play over and over again out of shear, unadulterated enjoyment. They were amazing games, and they will never be duplicated. Anyhow, I will be sure to follow this chronicle up with another one, once I finish the game. Don't hold your breath, though, it could be a while...
   
   Cheers,
   Seripha

   
   

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Seripha has 1 comment on this chronicle.

1. BEN
   Posted On May 14 2009

   Good luck with the selective compulsion
   
   I also think these "pre-reviewing" Chronicles are fun to look back on when you've completed the game and are looking to write the post-experience review!