I stay solely a 15-minute drive from the home the place I grew up. My mother and father moved after I was in school, at which level the bodily embodiment of each reminiscence from my childhood was turned over to strangers, solely to be revisited in my desires. On the few events I’ve gone again to that avenue the recollections come flooding again, however they’re a nasty match for the yards that now appear smaller and the homes that don’t look fairly as freshly painted and saved up. Taking part in Star Ocean: The Divine Drive could be equally jarring: a monument to previous comforts that often delights, however whose cracked basis and flaking paint remind you that it’s not your own home anymore.
As soon as upon a time, Star Ocean was a stable JRPG collection that supplied followers a meaty various to Last Fantasy and Dragon Quest. It lets gamers embark on a Dungeons & Dragons type marketing campaign inside a bigger Star Trek-inspired universe. It punched above its weight with frenetic fight, deep crafting programs, and an abundance of aspect content material. There have been a number of endings and roster tradeoffs relying on who you tried to recruit throughout your journey. Star Ocean: Second Story on the unique PlayStation was good. The subsequent recreation on the PS2 was even higher. It’s been downhill ever since. Till now.
Star Ocean: The Divine Drive, the sixth recreation within the collection and the primary one on PS5 and Xbox Collection X/S, is a transparent enchancment during the last recreation. 2016’s Integrity and Faithlessness was unremarkable, incomplete, and had a third-person digicam that made you wish to throw-up. A low bar to clear for certain, however Divine Drive does extra than simply keep away from the pitfalls of its predecessor. It additionally affords an modern overhaul of the fight system that’s finicky however compelling, with the prettiest environments the collection has ever achieved. I’ve been enjoying on PS5 in graphics mode, and whereas nowhere close to the most effective trying JRPG on the console, the plush fields, detailed structure, and colourful interstellar skies added an additional spark to in any other case barebones questlines full of a tedious stage of backtracking.
Does this imply Divine Drive is an efficient recreation? No. I’m about six hours in, and up to now, I haven’t seen something that might make me suggest it to anybody who isn’t already among the many quickly shrinking group of diehard Star Ocean followers. For all the recreation’s enhancements and fashionable sensibilities, it’s nowhere close to as centered, polished, or refined as Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and even final yr’s Tales of Come up. For all of its stunning virtues, Divine Drive simply isn’t in the identical league.
G/O Media could get a fee
The English voice performing is satisfactory and sometimes endearing in its eccentricity, however principally simply appears stilted, due partly to a script that feels trapped, for higher and undoubtedly for worse, in a kind of PS2-era JRPG mad libs. Raymond, the captain of a service provider ship, crashlands on a medieval-era planet the place he runs right into a princess named Laeticia who’s attempting to stave off an invasion of her kingdom by a neighboring empire. Regardless of the menacing threats looming within the background, a lot of the early recreation is about getting blended up in mundane parochial affairs whereas Raymond tries to regroup together with his crewmates and mutters stuff like, “Who the hell are the folks on this rock with horns growin’ outta their heads?” It’s fairly boring stuff.
The sport involves life extra in-between these contrived story beats and laborious fetch quests. Conversations with NPCs are hardly ever attention-grabbing, however they often open up aspect missions that unlock particular gadgets for benefiting from the sport’s crafting programs. Whereas hardly any of that is signposted, the sport’s extra esoteric aspect is there for gamers prepared to go off the crushed path and attempt to puzzle collectively what the sport is attempting to let you know to do.
Exploration and fight are augmented by a mechanical companion referred to as the D.U.M.A. that allows you to fly quick distances or sprint into enemies and stun them. A stamina depend, in the meantime, regulates how typically and quickly you may unleash combos in fights. There’s additionally a roll-dodge that you would be able to time to completely evade an incoming assault and counter with a strong follow-up. Whereas focusing on could be a nightmare, and it’s typically not possible to know for those who’re about to be hit by one thing off display screen, it makes fight really feel extra pure and responsive than previous video games.
The transition between exploration and fight can be seamless, and helps hold Divine Drive shifting alongside in order that even when one thing leaves a nasty style in your mouth it doesn’t linger for lengthy. That mentioned, the environments you’re exploring, whereas often huge and fairly to take a look at, are principally empty aside from a couple of treasure chests and bread crumb trails of crystals you may gather to improve the D.U.M.A. Enemies at all times seem in the identical teams on the identical spot, whether or not it’s your first time visiting the situation or your fifth. And regardless of the addition of quick bursts of flight and a gliding capacity, the platforming has been too imprecise for me to ever wish to attempt to attain hard-to-get-to treasure chests.
So why am I nonetheless enjoying Divine Drive? As a result of I’m a kind of followers who was Star Ocean-pilled way back, excitedly pouring by technique guides attempting to resolve which character I might recruit and the way to not miss them. I’m hardly the primary individual to comment on simply how a lot the newest recreation seems like enjoying an HD tribute to Second Story and Until The Finish of Time. The sound results are all nonetheless the identical. You eat blueberries to heal and nonetheless can’t carry greater than 20 at a time. And far of the early recreation no less than revolves round operating errands for kings and mages in an more and more nonsensical collection of nesting subplots. It’s been a pleasant stroke down reminiscence lane however none of it’s pretty much as good as I keep in mind.
Developer Tri-Ace is in an enormous monetary gap, and followers are frightened that Divine Drive is perhaps the collection’ final probability to show it nonetheless deserves to exist. Some are even shopping for a number of copies of the sport to attempt to hold the dream alive. However the preliminary gross sales information isn’t reassuring. In Japan no less than, the sport’s launch is shaping as much as be the second worst within the collection historical past. It’s laborious accountable anybody, each due to the sport’s flaws and the inherent limitations and area of interest attraction of the many years previous components, but in addition as a result of there are simply so many different JRPGs to select from. I’m disenchanted that Divine Drive isn’t the triumphant comeback followers have begged for, however I’m not shocked. I’m simply glad it’s not horrible, and that I acquired to go to another time earlier than the entire thing will get knocked down.