Star Ocean
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| A good example of the series |
Background Information:
Star Ocean (スターオーシャン, Sutā Ōshan) is a franchise of console role-playing video games developed by tri-Ace and published by Square Enix (originally Enix). The series is made famous for its use of real-time battle engines for their gameplay. Once a battle encounter occurs, all characters (rather than waiting in one spot and taking damage) are fully mobile in three dimensions, can dodge and chase foes, and must cast their spells and deploy attacks despite enemy harassment. Outside of combat, one of Star Ocean other reputable features is Private Action--a sort of dating sim type event that occurs when you (normally) press the action button outside of town.
Once the event takes place, you can perform actions with your teammates to build affinity with them. These events would determine which ending you'll receive, and also helps boost battle capability for characters teamed up with their highest affinity partner. Star Ocean is also a continuity, however, each story is not directly tied to each other. This allows new characters and settings for each game without occurring to be disparate from itself, similar to other games like Final Fantasy or Wild Arms
Star Ocean has established a new calendar system that replaced the previous A.D calendar system around the year 2087. This is the system used by the Pangalactic Federation, which was sanctioned by the Terran government four years after faster than light travel was developed by Professor Trillas Bachtein. The system of dates is called Space Date (or S.D.).
As for the world itself, Star Ocean is a space-faring universe. Here is a great summation of the universe
"While the games take place in a futuristic environment it's not limited to out of this world, fancy technology. Only Earth and some other planets have such advanced technology, while other worlds, such as Elicoor II from Till the End of Time is still developed as much as Earth in the 17th century. Thankfully however many of the Federation nations (a bunch of nations that adhere to a number of space rulings), including Earth has an all important ruling known as the "Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact", otherwise abbreviated as the UP3. This very ruling prohibits those from more advanced worlds from engaging with lesser developed worlds to allow them to thrive under their own ways without outside interference. Sadly though not all nations are part of the Federation, much less agree with the ruling and at times this will be one of the many issues you face throughout your games, particularly considering under what circumstances is it reasonable to breach these rulings for the betterment of such worlds."
"Staroceanuniverse.com"
It should also be mentioned that Star Ocean is possibly a multiverse in the form of higher/lower dimensions, as made apparent by Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. In it, the game's protagonist visit the creator of their universe (which is also the universe for all the other games in the series). In a sense, the way it is established, the world of Star Ocean has similarities to Men in Black.
Standing in the Battledome:
Being a space-faring universe, Star Ocean has technological advances that makes it a pretty powerful verse. The universe have races that can create planets, make hand-held weapons capable of destroying small planets, federations with ships that have weaponry capable of using infinite energy, Earth fiddling with tech that wiped out their planet and an instant Big Crunch artifact (with aforementioned race capable of containing said universe level energy with their barriers)
On the average, however, the series aren't even close to planet level, and would say that they don't warrant competition for even the Holy Shonen Trinity.
This mainly speaks of the protagonist on average, as the villains/antagonist adhere to a higher level of standard as typically seen in fiction.
Character Profiles:
- Enforcer
- Gabriel
- Rival
- Luther
- Faize Sheifa Beleth
- Claude Kenni
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