JRPG Overload (Star Ocean: The Divine Force Demo)
Contributed by DJMMT
I want to make it a point of saying that I don’t hate JRPGs. I actually really like them. Final Fantasy X is still one of my favorite games of all time and Final Fantasy XII features one of my favorite game characters of all time. Obviously, I’m talking about Ffamran mied Bunansa, aka Balthier. I play a lot of them and have tons of them in my backlog. One of my favorite games from last year was Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars. So, even though I haven’t played any previous games in the franchise, when I saw the announcement and demo release for Star Ocean: The Divine Force, I decided to try it out with an open mind.
At first, I was going to write a full review of this demo. But as I thought about it more, I realized it wasn’t really the experience of playing the game that I took away from the demo so much as the experience of not playing the game. To be clear, this was an excellent demo in the fact that it did everything it needed to do to try to sell me Star Ocean: The Divine Force. In fact, I could see myself buying it on sale at some point in the future. The graphics are great. And I was playing it on PS4. I’m sure it looks even better on a newer gen console or with a 30 series NVIDIA GPU. It ran well, didn’t have any tearing or glitches, and the designs looked good. Typical for the genre and franchise, but good. I appreciated that the game had English voice acting and the general audio experience was AAA quality. The gameplay ran very smoothly and had a number of quality of life features I really liked. “Stop Mode” being one of the best examples. At any time during play, you can fully freeze the game and do certain things such as use your items to heal your party. When you use this healing option, it automatically burns minor healing items one by one until the whole party is completely healed. The fact that this could all be done with two button presses without having to access the full menu was really convenient. The combat works well. While it’s not the best action RPG combat I’ve ever experienced, and I’m not really a fan of the AP system, everything feels very intentional and runs smoothly. It’s solid action RPG gameplay that has variety, customized character development, multiple playable characters, and rewards for fully mastering the combat system. The story, which I will go into more detail about, was a traditional JRPG story that involved multiple characters, plot twists, politics, magic, and all the other necessities of a traditional JRPG campaign.
This is a very competently made JRPG published by Square Enix. In a vacuum, I cannot give an objective argument for why one shouldn’t buy this game. Also, I didn’t fall asleep during the opening cutscene, which for this franchise is pretty important. What I can say is that when I finished the demo my first thought was “why?” Genuinely enjoyed the gameplay, genuinely liked the graphics, and didn’t hate the story. But I didn’t love the gameplay. The graphics weren’t so impressive as to wow me, like say Ghost of Tsushima did. And as far as the story is concerned, there was nothing in this demo that I haven’t seen before. At which point, this entire game is just a retread of games I’ve played over and over again.
Let me give you an intentionally super vague description of the plot to Star Ocean: The Divine Force, as was shown in the demo. An Asian/White passing character is riding in a long-distance form of transportation through an inhabited area that they have never been to before with friends/colleagues. Suddenly, the vehicle the character is riding in is attacked by a powerful weapon belonging to an evil empire. The vehicle is destroyed, and the character barely escapes. They find themself stranded in a strange land and immediately are attacked by dangerous local fauna. Luckily for them, a royal/divine born local of the opposite gender of the main character, and their bodyguard, happen to be passing by and toss the character a weapon. The three of them proceed to defeat the dangerous beast. Then the group decides to work together to help the main character try to find a friend they believe to be nearby. Sadly, the friend is not there but the group has now been through enough to solidify a friendship. The royal/divine character divulges that they too have a problem that needs solving and feel the main character would be useful on their quest. They agree to a mutually beneficial team-up and begin traveling together.
That’s the story of Star Ocean: The Divine Force. It’s also the story of Final Fantasy X. If you remove the foreigner aspect from the main character, it’s Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIII. If you make the main character the royal/divine born character, and you start the story before the events of the actual game, it’s Final Fantasy XV. The joke being that this story is par for the course for Square Enix JRPGs. And honestly, it’s a lot of JRPGs regardless of the publisher. And that’s what ultimately put me off of the game, after finishing the demo. There’s nothing wrong with this game if you don’t have other JRPGs in your backlog. In a vacuum, the demo presented me an objectively well-made AAA action JRPG that I’m sure I would enjoy. But in the current market, this demo amounted to little more than countless games I’ve already played with a new coat of paint. And the paint wasn’t even that different. It wasn’t the difference between Red and Blue. It was the difference between Navy Blue and Royal Blue. And since I do have a large stack of JRPGs in my backlog, including action JRPGs with combat systems I like more, why would I buy this game?
Even if I ignore every other publisher and only look at Square Enix published JRPGs currently in my backlog, I have Trials of Mana (2020), Chrono Trigger, World of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest 1 – 3, Live A Live, and Collection of Mana. And those are just the titles I can remember off the top of my head. It’s possible I have other Square Enix JRPGs in my backlog as well. I can also say beyond a reasonable doubt that I’ll be buying Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden as soon as it goes on sale on Switch. Also, Final Fantasy XVI is coming in the not-too-distant future, and I’ll definitely be playing that. I have also considered picking up Octopath Traveler with the recent announcement of Octopath Traveler II. Not to mention all the other JRPGs from other publishers in my backlog. So given the fact that I am in no way starved for JRPGs and didn’t absolutely love the combat, what reason is there for me, or anyone who has other JRPGs in their backlog, to buy Star Ocean: The Divine Force? Unless you’re a hard-core Star Ocean fan, what about this game makes it stand out from other recent action JRPGs from Square Enix such as Valkyrie Elysium, Harvestella, or Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin?
This question got me thinking about the bigger issue of modern JRPGs in general. Whether they’re action, turn-based, or something in between, JRPG publishing is at an all time high. Square Enix alone announced like 10 or more JRPGs in the latest Nintendo Direct. Yes, some of them were remakes/remasters. But the point is that the market is saturated with the genre. Yet the genre hasn’t really evolved much outside of gameplay mechanics and graphics since the PS2 era, or even earlier. As I said earlier, the plot of the Star Ocean: The Divine Force demo, in its most general terms, is nearly indistinguishable from the plot of the opening of Final Fantasy X. Why don’t the games in this genre try anything different story wise? The market has shifted over time. The audience has shifted over time. Yet plots have stayed largely the same. And yes of course there are plenty of indie titles that go outside the box; but in the AAA landscape, JRPGs aren’t trying at all compared to other genres. Somehow, we’ve let From Software make at least five games where the gameplay is almost exactly the same and the plot is basically the same thing every time with new cutscenes. The gameplay and graphics are great. But why can’t they try new stories? Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was a breath of fresh air from that studio.
These are not the same people making these games as they were 20 years ago. Every Japanese AAA team today has at least a few white people peppered in. Kojima went outside the box decades ago. Am I to believe no one has any new ideas for stories? It literally can’t be true. I don’t want much from a JRPG in 2020. I buy them. But if I take the time to analyze them for plot, I’ve been buying the same two or three games for nearly three decades. At this point, they should just go crazy with it and take a risk. Make a turn-based RPG about a Black kid in present-day Chicago fighting bullies. Make an action RPG about a K-Pop star fighting off fans during a visit to Australia. Just try something different story wise.
Again, I was not unhappy with what I experienced in the demo for Star Ocean: The Divine Force. I just wasn’t shown anything I haven’t already played 100 times before. If was just more of the same with slightly updated graphics. If that’s all the genre is going to offer, then I might as well just buy the HD Remaster of Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It’s on sale for less than $9 on Steam, as I write this. If it’s gonna be a generic action JRPG regardless, I might as well not pay top dollar for it.