It’s been many years since we last had a full-fledged Star Ocean game, especially one available on not only PlayStation but on the Xbox and PC as well. So come with us as we check out Star Ocean: The Devine Force on the Xbox Series X.

Developed by tri-Ace Inc. Star Ocean: The Devine Force brings you a whole new adventure in the Star Ocean universe. Indulge in this sci-fi fantasy RPG following along the stories of the two main protagonists. Raymond Lawrence, a captain of a starship that the Pangalactic Federation, suffers an unfortunate attack that leads him to crash land on an underdeveloped planet. He then meets Princess Laetecia Aucerius, who is fighting to protect her homeland from an invading empire. Together, they set off on an adventure that will shake the foundations of the entire universe.

Starting out by selecting a character you wish to be more involved with story-wise, as you do spend most of the time in a party with both main protagonists, there are sections that you will split off and give a different experience and understanding of the story and characters. Even though you have chosen the main character, you can switch between them in combat and when roaming. These two aren’t the only ones you’ll have the opportunity to play with, and as you meet new and old friends along the way, you’ll have a larger party to entertain yourself with, all with different combat styles.

An interesting story develops as you learn about the main protagonists and the many characters you meet along the way, keeping me quite entertained throughout. From the simple bickering between them in and out of combat, or developing relationships with people who might not have liked you at first, and depending on some of the things you do along the way, you might be led to other endings, and ultimately, the “True Ending”.

Combat is the fastest and most free-flowing it has ever been in a Star Ocean game, and with the ability to free roam, you can move around and avoid enemy attacks with ease. In order for you to attack, you need AP, and each attack consumes a bar or more depending on the requirement and strength of the attack. Try not to move too much though. Sprinting and dodging prevent the recovery of your AP.

Not long into the game, you gain a robot companion, D.U.M.A, allowing for more combat options, and the ability to kind of fly and dash into combat, leading to a potential blindside attack, dealing more damage, and possibly stunning the enemy. With all these improvements, at first, I constantly ran out of AP from moving too much and trying to spam moves, but later learned and slowed my roll a little until I got used to it.

With so many characters to play with, you will expect to be learning each of their skills and combat readiness. Each character has their own unique level, which only progresses when they are in your party and alive in combat, otherwise, they will not earn EXP. With each level, you gain points to put into skill trees that branch off in multiple directions, which is pretty standard for these types of games. Combat for your more physical attacks, resistance for your defense, and intelligence for your magic, offers a nice variety for multiple play styles.

Skills trees and leveling aren’t the only way you can get better stats for your party, with an array of armour, weapons, and accessories, you have more to play with when it comes to finding and finessing your play style. With a bunch of cool designs for the equipment at hand, you would expect your character’s appearance to change, but unfortunately, the armour doesn’t physically show on your character, however, the weapons do change to the design you select. Accessories are where you are going to get the most variety with stats and buffs, with many of them having different effects, not only to the single character, but some apply to the whole party.

Side quests and mini-games are a good way of obtaining EXP and items to aid you on your adventure, and with a few quests in each city, there is plenty to do. These sidequests are the usual quests you might expect; Go here, kill this, or bring me specific items. I quite enjoyed the mini-game Es’owa. It’s a small board game with figurines, each having its own attack number. Your goal is to take down your enemy’s health bar by placing your pieces on a board. With each turn, you launch an attack based on your placed pieces and depending on your abilities, you can launch a more powerful attack at the beginning of your turn. If you have the required AP that is, but be careful. If your piece is surrounded by your opponent’s pieces, it will be sent to the graveyard, and you can do the same to them. With heaps of people to challenge in each city, you’ll always find a new challenger ready to take you on. That’s if you have earned the required rank to verse them by beating lower-level players and working your way to the top.

Graphically, this game has many highs and lows, with the open world seeming a little outdated, along with some other aspects of the game, but with some nicely designed cities, characters with an anime style in mind, and equipment. This is very mismatched, leading to an unsatisfied feeling, and even in the prioritized image quality option, this was still the issue, so I generally stuck with the prioritized framerate for a mostly smooth experience. I say mostly because I was getting some stuttering when running around and in battles, but this didn’t happen too often when roaming the cities as they are normally smaller areas to explore.

Dialogue options for both English and Japanese are always nice, and while I prefer English, fans that enjoy or prefer Japanese have the option there. They are both well done, with only a few translation issues in the dialogue. It didn’t really bother me, but I know some people are very particular about that kind of thing, so be aware. A nice musical score set the mood as you play through, with a change in pace depending on the current situation, and whether it’s combat, heartfelt moments, stressful conundrums, or just roaming around, I was quite pleased and have nothing to complain about.

All in all, Star Ocean: The Devine Force has a decent story with interesting characters and a nice array of playstyle options. The graphics were inconsistent, leading me to be unsatisfied and thinking it would be nice if the world was a little prettier, and oddly enough, this led to some performance issues, even though there wasn’t much in the larger open-world areas. Combat is fun but it would be nice if my armour changed when I equipped something new, making battles that little bit cooler.

Written by: MrVibeAU