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STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA SOFTWARE
STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA PC
STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA SERIES

Rounding out the trio of the guards of Kratus, Dorne very quickly falls ill due to the petrification virus, and spends most of the game stuck in stone, as his friends seek a cure. Known as Ratix in the Japanese version.Ī longtime friend of Roddick, Millie helps with the town guard, and is a skilled magic user. CharactersĪ Fellpool swordsman from the planet Roak, who helps guard his hometown of Kratus. (Early translations, like the PS1 version of Star Ocean 2 and the fan translation of the SFC Star Ocean call it “Heraldry”.) These forces remain unexplained by science, and the conflict between the “new” ways of science and the “old” ways of magic and religion form one of the major themes of the game. However, in lieu of sci-fi gadgets, the planet of Roak does use magic, here called symbology. Even the Earthling characters have adapt since they have no access to their futuristic weaponry. Indeed, outside of some brief sections on the space ship at the beginning, and some dungeons at the end, most of the game takes place on Roak. This bait-and-switch approach has caused frustration for gamers who didn’t know what they were getting into, but it’s not a problem once you know what to expect. While many of the games start off featuring spaceships and laser beams, most of the stories focus on underdeveloped planets, closer to the fantasy setting of most other JRPGs.

STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA SERIES

That being said, the Star Ocean series isn’t completely a sci-fi series. And one of the heroes, Ronyx, has the same haircut as Spock, though his personality is nothing alike. The whole “travel to the past to find a cure” theme is basically the same as Star Trek IV, though fighting demon lords is a lot more involving than saving whales. The opening scene, where a space craft watches a planet get destroyed, is taken from Star Trek VI. The first game, in particular, takes a number of elements from the classic series. To say that Star Ocean is “inspired” by Star Trek would be an understatement. Breaking every protocol in the book, the humans and the Roakians travel to the past to involve themselves in the war of their ancestors. The only way to create a cure is to travel 300 years in the past, when Roak was under attack from an evil being called Asmodeus, whose blood was used to create the sickness in the first place.

While they attempt to use their advanced technology to cure the disease, unfortunately it doesn’t work. Their mission takes a sharp turn when they are greeted by beings from outer space, calling themselves part of the Pangalactic Federation, and beam them aboard their spaceship. A mysterious disease has being turning the population into stone, leading the heroes to begin looking for a cure. The first game in the series focuses on a trio of villagers on the backwater planet of Roak, a place with medieval-era level of technology.

STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA PORTABLE

It also became the defining game of the company, eventually building up to five releases (plus a portable spinoff and a smartphone game). Building on their experience with Tale Phantasia, they took some of its concepts and developed their debut game, Star Ocean, which was released in July 1996.

STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA SOFTWARE

While the exact nature of their disputes were not made public (at least anywhere in English), it seems that the staff did not take kindly to the design constraints put upon them by a major publisher, and set off to once against develop software independently. This referred to the three founders – Masaki Norimoto, Yoshiharu Gotanda, and Joe Asanuma – key designers and programmers for Tale Phantasia. This resulted in a chunk of Telenet leaving to form their own company, which they called Tri-Ace. Tale Phantasia was eventually released in late 1995 (where it was renamed Tales of Phantasia) but it suffered from substantial development problems.

STAR OCEAN FIRST DEPARTURE R ARENA PC

While Telenet had mostly been known in the console space for action games, they did have some success with PC strategy games and RPGs, including a game called Hiouden, which was also ported to the Super Famicom. While prolific throughout the 16-bit era, the company really received their big break when they were contracted by Namco to develop their flagship RPG, Tale Phantasia.

One of the key parts of Telenet was a group called Wolf Team, which generally made their better titles. Their games were rarely great – their library includes games like Valis, El Viento, and Sol Feace – but they had an interesting, messy charm. Telenet was an interesting company, that got started in the mid-80s developing computer software, and then riding the wave of multimedia CD-ROM consoles.

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