Still,it was thanks to this awesome game that propelled me to download 2 Star Ocean games on my PSP and spend a lot to buy Star Ocean : The Last Hope on PS3.
I played Star Ocean on PS2 without fully understanding the 'theme' of the series. Apparently,its about space exploration , and has very good action-RPG gameplay,not to mention that the story attracted me. Here we are.
World War 3 broke out on earth, and true to the prediction of a famous scientist whose name I couldn't recall ; Nuclear warfare tore up most of Earth,and the survivors had to live their confined lives in underground cities.
The Greater United Nations were worried for the well-being of the human race,therefore they proposed space-development and emigration projects to restore Earth's ecosystem and established to Universal Science and Technology Administration to focus on these issues.
The USTA are tasked with finding new planets suitable for humans to live in,and hence colonize them. The USTA are also responsible for development of technology.
The USTA has launched a project with the project team (Space Reconnaissance Force) being charged with exploring and colonizing habitable planets to aid mankind's emigration into space. Although the USTA tries to avoid military involvement,its a fact that the members of the SRF are intensely trained,to prepare them for coping with extreme conditions when colonizing new,uninhabited planets.
That said,they are authorized by the government to carry weapons for self-defense. This is quite awesome,if you ask me ; You're paid to be an adventurer,and the government will reward you and acknowledge your efforts if you do well. :)
Mankind has built their first space colony on Earth's moon to reap the resources present in the moon for spacecraft construction . This also serves ass a command post for deep-space exploration.Taking baby steps,but significant ones.
Something interesting I dug out from the game dictionary was the Earth is 150million km from the Sun,which is defined as 1 astronomical unit. Which means 1 AU = 150Million KM.
Something else I noticed was that the orbital period of Earth was 365.25 days,something I didn't fully comprehend when I was told. But now,I think I understand because although 1 day consists of 24 hours,the actual rotation period of Earth is 23 Hrs 56 Minutes,4 minutes shy of 24 hours.I'll just leave it at that,before I get confused.
And now,INTO the game!
I'm playing as Edge Maverick,a blondie which is the MC of the story. Truth be told,I didn't like his appearances much. Sure,he looks like a main character,but he just isn't that special in appearances.
Still,he has a hot girlfriend,Reimi Saionji,Japanese.Well,they're not officially going out yet,bah whatever.
I start off by doing battle simulation. At first I thought it was going to be boring if all I fought was space soldiers and the battle scenery would be nothing but stars the whole game,but I was proven wrong soon after.
Anyway,they have a new battle element this time around : Blindside attacks,this addition to gameplay isn't half bad,it means you don't have to keep mashing your attack buttons and spamming your skills ; You can play tactically,and there are also 'bonus boards',which give you bonuses each time you do something in battle and is cumulative. This gives us a lot of options in gameplay and the fighting wont get boring.
After the battle sim, there is a short cutscene where a Fatass named Shimada,a high-ranking officer (Deputy Director),chewing out all of the workers due to blow off some steam for some reason that I didn't understand. Then,some dude nicknamed 'Lightspeed Kenny' came into the bridge,and all the workers immediately stood up to respect him,even though he was lower-ranked than Shimada-chan.
Kenny respects the SRF members and refers to them as 'Seeds of Hope',which means the fate of mankind rests on these peoples' shoulders.
Anyway,after roaming the spaceship I prepare to depart to Planet Aeos for colonization. Aeos is a planet located in the Sirius system,which is quite far away from Earth. As soon as interstellar travel (very fast travel between planets) became a reality,humanity was fast to dub Aeos as 'the Second Earth'. This is because Aeos has climate and vegetation very similar to that of Earth's. Unmanned exploration reports showed no danger in this planet,which spurred mankind to colonize this planet ASAP.
Something went wrong when passing through the wormhole,due to interference from a certain 'Meteor' which seems to play a big part in the story. As a result, 4 of the 5 spaceships which were supposed to go to Aeos crash-landed in that planet. All of them in bad shape,barring the SRF 003 - Calnus,which landed on land,opposed to others which landed on the sea or on some worse terrain.
SRF 001 - Aquila was nowhere to be found,and Edge and Reimi were worried that their 'brother' and Edge's rival named 'Crowe',the newly promoted captain of the spaceship would be in grave danger.
Anyway,we crash landed and came out of the spaceship,with everyone relatively unscathed. By the way,the captain of SRF003 Calnus - Captain Grafton sounded really charismatic and cool in Japanese,and I kinda like him as a matter of fact,but I have a feeling that he's just a NPC.Well,hope I'm wrong!
We disembark from SRF003 and headed to land. Damn,the scenery is beautiful,from the sea down to the forest. Everything looked great,kudos to the CG designers. Talked to Reimi and a cutscene occurred. Reimi said that the climate of planet Aeos closely resembled that of the climate that Earth possessed during the Jurassic period,also known as the Age of Dinosaurs.
They joked about dinosaurs and whether one would appear out on this planet.As soon as they joked about that,I knew that some big-ass creature was gonna appear thanks to their joking.
I wasn't disappointed.A gigantic ant-like insect sprung out and pawned everyone in the vicinity,barring Reimi and Edge. They illogically deflected the bullets fired off by Rail-guns before the bullets even hit them,like they had a barrier of some sort. I thought they might have been robots of some sort,to have a shield like that,but turns out that they're the inhabitants of planet Aeos.
Edge's gun didn't work too well,so he picked up a sword that some random guy dropped and used it to slice through the 'ants'. If a sword could chop through the ants,I wonder why the previous guy who wielded the sword got owned? He sucks man.
Anyway,when we reach the spaceship to report in,Reimi was angry at Edge,quite cute to say the least. She didn't want Edge to be in danger,shows how much she cares,and how much Edge doesn't. :/
The crew pleaded with Simada-chan to ask for military assistance,but he seemed reluctant to do so. I was thinking to myself 'Pfft what an ass'. But he promised us to send in some reinforcements anyway,but it wasn't the military.
We're tasked by Grafton to recon with the crew of the other SRFs. And then,began our wild adventure on planet Aeos.
At first we had nothing but Adephaga - the Ants I was talking about. Then came Adephaga Drus and Killer Wasps. Interesting. We got to harvest some things and rip out some plants for their contents,and surprisingly enough we were rewarded with XP and SP for obtaining items in the field. Nice.
Then we entered a cave,named Urd Falls,which sounded strangely familiar but I can't remember where I heard of 'Urd'. There was a huge crater / hole not far into the cave, and the sides of the crater were inscribed in a random language that Edge/Reimi could not make out. Oooooooo finally some mystery and suspense! Well,the meteor shenanigan was already a mystery but it didn't pique my interest as much as this one ; This crater suggests that some other intelligent life form was here before us , and might possibly have done something to borne dangerous creatures into this planet.
Ventured through an enjoyable cave with Giant bats which had human faces and Slime-like 'mollusks' called Gerels.
Came out of the cave and found a nice save spot,accompanied by a great 'heal spot' not far from the save spot. There,we found a new type of enemy known as Polyphaga. Kabuto-like insects.
Oh yeah two things I forgot to mention that were unique in this game. Edge had a skill that would let him dash in the field for increased mobility and there were technically no cooldowns to this skill,just that your hand would be quite tired if you spammed it a lot.
One more thing is,there is a monster bestiary in the game. The more you fight a certain monster, the more information you have on it,when you acquire 100% info on that said monster,you can transfer the data to a Monster Jewel to create an accessory. Although I do not have a Monster Jewel as of now I would love to create monster accessories.
So I got to choose 2 routes by jumping down from a ledge that was one-way.I chose the ledge that faced the sea,as I saw a spaceship-wreck not far away. I saw one guy lying on the shore,so I approached him and a cutscene ensued.
That guy said he found a 'meteor fragment' (oooo) and took it back to the ship for research,somehow,there was hell. He didn't give the details but it seemed like things went haywire within the spaceship.Therefore,he opted to blow the ship from the inside to end this chaos.
Even so,he was severely injured,and could only tell Edge and Reimi to 'Stay way from it at all costs; Its dangerous' before dying.
Soon afterwards,a robot - like entity was flying towards us. The pilot emerged from the cockpit,and spoke in human language. This person looked like an Elf with long ears and green hair,but it surprised the 2 that this humanoid creature knew human language. Then the alien got astonished and wondered if the 'translator' was broken.
Before they had the chance to talk any more,the wreckage of SRF-005 Eremia strangely turned into a huge,ugly-ass monster.Enter Armados,the first boss fight of the game.
He had really tough armor,and Edge only hit him for less than 20,which was freaking low,considering that Edge normally auto-attacks for 80 or more at this point in the game. Something else that bothered me was his aptitude in accumulating rage. He was really quick in gaining rage,and was raging for the most of the battle.Good thing though ; his attacks were freaking easy to dodge. Nonetheless,it wasn't an easy first boss,not as easy as we would have liked.
The Alien-Elf introduced himself as Faize Sheifa Baleth,an inhabitant of planet Eldar. Earth and Eldar went space-exploring on a similar planetary system and confirmed each other's existences,forming an alliance between the 2 planets unknown to most.
Something really cool was the Eldarian translators ; They are so efficient that they enable to Aliens to talk with humans in the Human Tongue fluently,without any difficulty nor lag,too!Oh,their robots were also realllllllllllllyyyyyyy hgih-tech.
Faize offered to give us a lift back to SRF003 Calnus,but Smart-ass Edge said he wanted to explore the island a bit more,and declined the offer for a ride. So , the 3 of us walked back to Calnus. For now,Over and out.
There was a big ass base housing Calnus,our spaceship. Then I was wondering to myself,the most time that we could have been away in game time was a few hours as best ; since they didn't spend the night en route to SRF005 Eremia or anything,how the hell could we have built such a freaking huge establishment in such short notice? First the ants,now this?C'mon now.
Went inside the building to look for my man Grafton. Walked the whole freaking base ; couldn't find his punk ass anywhere. Turns out,he was in the first room I entered ; with his back against us,so that I couldn't notice it was him,damn!
After some chit-chat,Faize was introduced into our (Edge's) team,turning this into a 'composite squad',with Earthlings and Eldarians in it.The supreme commander of Eldar,Gaghan said Faize had a lot of potential,and will be a valuable asset to our team. But honestly,I can't stand this sissy dude ; I'll substitute him out of the team as soon as I meet more members to add to my crew. His sounds like a pussy whether in Japanese or English,and annoys the heck out of me.
Before I proceeded,I went around and bought some items,learnt some skills(by purchasing skill books).Also done some quests,which were relatively effortless since they were about item-gathering,and I had those items in hand when I came back to base,some insect legs and eggs.There was also a quest where I had to find a guy who was missing from his quarters ; I thought he was exploring the island,thus I explored the island,aiming to obtain 100% information on all the monsters that I have encountered while in Aeos.
Ironically,after going around the island one more time,it seems that the guy I was searching for was nearby to the base ; just outside of it. Just had to talk to him and quest complete. The 'client' of the quest gave Edge a kiss as a reward,and Reimi was surprised but didn't say anything. Edge,on the other hand was blushing and trying to explain to Reimi. So,this quest proves that Edge has something for Reimi,and the relationship is mutual,that it would take some time but they would definitely have a happy ending together.
Anyway,Grafton recommended Edge to be the captain of the spaceship,and I'm glad Edge wasn't like 'Hell yes! I knew I had it in me!' Rather,he was dumbfounded,and still insisted that he wasn't up to the task yet. That much,I agree. Well,he seems more mature than I initially thought him to be. Not like Naruto,annoying and reckless just because he knows he has plot armor. Even so,Reimi and Faize rooted for him,and told him they would support him wherever and whatever he did. So,he took up the position of captain graciously.
So,the captain gave us the mission to search for the missing SRF001 Aquila,while warping to nearby planets within reach to search for a suitable planet for humans to inhabit. En route to another planet,there was some time for Edge to stroll around the ship to kill time,and talking to everyone on the ship.(Lol only Reimi and Faize are on the ship besides Edge)
There,we have some interesting conversations,and there is this resting quarters in the ship where we can sleep in,which has 2 beds,thus able to hold 2 people in a room,assuming they don't sleep in the same bed. :P
We have 4 rooms here,and we have the choose on whether who sleeps where. I moved Reimi to the same room with Edge and had Faize sleep alone. Haha take that loser.
They had a few conversations that took place in different parts of the ship,and only 2 of the conversations struck me as interesting.
First conversation was about the fate of all humanity lying on their shoulders,and the reality of it is enough to crush Reimi at times. Not-so smooth talker Edge comforts her anyway. <3
Second conversation was about Edge's inclination to use the sword as a weapon. He was a poor child,and also a victim of the third World War. He and his father roamed the vast wastelands that was resulted from World War 3. Amidst their journey,they encounter a biological weapon ; Remnants of WWIII. They were taken by surprise,and Edge's father had no time to retaliate. The gun flew away from his grip and fell near Edge. He picked it up and fired,but he could not hit the target. After running out of ammo,he desperately tried to fend off the bio-weapon with a knife. Mysteriously enough,the bio-weapon ran away,but his father still died nonetheless. After listening to his story,Reimi and Faize felt sympathetic,but their sympathy was brushed off by Edge ; as he is already moving on.
The last interesting conversation was during Edge's chat with..The lolicon girl with purple hair..Couldn't be bothered to memorize her name. As with all Earthlings, she showed a bit of distrust for our young Eldarian,and took it too far with her jokes. One of her jokes were : The insects that were present on Aeos(who tried to attack us) were actually humans,and Edge has 2 moulting seasons left before he turns into one of the bugs himself. She asks Faize to beware when that happened. Then she happily closed off the communications after picking on our alien friend. :/ Bitch
Edge Maverick,Over and Out.
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