Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness ($59.99) is the newest action-RPG from developer tri-Ace. Launching internationally on the PlayStation 4£306.98 at Amazon UK this summer, Integrity and Faithlessness is also the first game in the series released on current-gen hardware. This Star Ocean incarnation drops the movement-centric action of the last game, A New Hope, in favor of the defense-heavy combat from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. This is a welcome change to the series, but Integrity and Faithlessness still suffers from some of the flaws that plagued earlier games.
A New Hope for Action
Integrity and Faithlessness, in many respects, feels like an enhanced version of Till the End of Time. Combat uses the same rock-paper-scissors mechanics, combo-chains are still the most effective way to deal damage quickly, and even many of the attack animations are the same. As I was not a fan of the sloppier, movement-focused combat of the previous game, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, the return to Till the End of Time's combat style is a change I welcome. At the same time, many of the flaws of that combat style are preserved as well, which sours my anticipation.
View All On the one hand, combat makes use of seven characters, any of which you can switch to on-the-fly, with the touch of the shoulder buttons. Each character has its own attacks and special skills, giving you a very beefy offense during combat. When not being controlled manually, allies are AI-controlled, and you can adjust complex series of AI settings to dictate their behavior during a fight. Combat is also seamless, so you transition from exploration to combat on the same map rather than getting transported to a themed combat arena like in earlier games.
Defense is manual in Integrity and Faithlessness, so you can block attacks with the touch of a button. In Till the End of Time, you would need to stand still to block, and guarding was automatic. This had the adverse effect of slowing down what was otherwise a very fast-paced game. By dedicating a button to defense, Integrity and Faithlessness lets you defend much more smoothly and quickly.
Stale Ocean
These are all great improvements, but the positivity ends there. Based on my experience with the demo, Integrity and Faithlessness recycles too much from previous titles and doesn't inject enough new gameplay to keep things fresh. The most egregious example of this is the reuse of attack animations. For example, protagonist Fidel uses the same attacks as Fayt, the protagonist from Till the End of Time. Light attacks, heavy attacks, and special attacks are all shamelessly ripped from that game, with zero changes to the animation from what I could tell. I found this to be the case for many other characters in the game. Because the core appeal of Star Ocean is its combat system, the reuse of attack animations is extremely disappointing, and it makes for very stale fighting.
