The Divine Pressure Isn’t Horrible And That’s Sufficient

I dwell solely a 15-minute drive from the home the place I grew up. My mother and father moved once I was in school, at which level the bodily embodiment of each reminiscence from my youth was turned over to strangers, solely to be revisited in my desires. On the few events I’ve gone again to that avenue the reminiscences 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 Pressure may 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 house anymore.

As soon as upon a time, Star Ocean was a stable JRPG sequence that provided followers a meaty different to Last Fantasy and Dragon Quest. It lets gamers embark on a Dungeons & Dragons fashion marketing campaign inside a bigger Star Trek-inspired universe. It punched above its weight with frenetic fight, deep crafting methods, and an abundance of facet 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 sport on the PS2 was even higher. It’s been downhill ever since. Till now.

Star Ocean: The Divine Pressure, the sixth sport within the sequence and the primary one on PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S, is a transparent enchancment over the past sport. 2016’s Integrity and Faithlessness was unremarkable, incomplete, and had a third-person digicam that made you need to throw-up. A low bar to clear for positive, however Divine Pressure does extra than simply keep away from the pitfalls of its predecessor. It additionally gives an modern overhaul of the fight system that’s finicky however compelling, with the prettiest environments the sequence has ever achieved. I’ve been taking part in 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 degree of backtracking.

Does this imply Divine Pressure is an efficient sport? No. I’m about six hours in, and to date, I haven’t seen something that might make me advocate it to anybody who isn’t already among the many quickly shrinking group of diehard Star Ocean followers. For the entire sport’s enhancements and trendy sensibilities, it’s nowhere close to as targeted, polished, or refined as Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and even final 12 months’s Tales of Come up. For all of its shocking virtues, Divine Pressure simply isn’t in the identical league.

The English voice performing is satisfactory and sometimes endearing in its eccentricity, however largely simply appears stilted, due partially to a script that feels trapped, for higher and positively for worse, in a form 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 sport 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 individuals 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 not often fascinating, however they often open up facet missions that unlock particular objects for profiting from the sport’s crafting methods. Whereas hardly any of that is signposted, the sport’s extra esoteric facet is there for gamers prepared to go off the crushed path and attempt to puzzle collectively what the sport is attempting to inform you to do.

Exploration and fight are augmented by a mechanical companion referred to as the D.U.M.A. that allows you to fly brief distances or sprint into enemies and stun them. A stamina rely, in the meantime, regulates how typically and quickly you’ll be able to unleash combos in fights. There’s additionally a roll-dodge that you may time to completely evade an incoming assault and counter with a strong follow-up. Whereas focusing on generally is a nightmare, and it’s typically unattainable to know in case you’re about to be hit by one thing off display, it makes fight really feel extra pure and responsive than previous video games.

The transition between exploration and fight can also be seamless, and helps preserve Divine Pressure transferring 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 have a look at, are principally empty aside from just a few treasure chests and bread crumb trails of crystals you’ll be able to acquire 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 placement or your fifth. And regardless of the addition of brief bursts of flight and a gliding capability, the platforming has been too imprecise for me to ever need to attempt to attain hard-to-get-to treasure chests.

So why am I nonetheless taking part in Divine Pressure? As a result of I’m a type of followers who was Star Ocean-pilled way back, excitedly pouring by technique guides attempting to determine which character I might recruit and the way to not miss them. I’m hardly the primary particular person to comment on simply how a lot the newest sport looks like taking part in 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 sport no less than revolves round working errands for kings and mages in an more and more nonsensical sequence of nesting subplots. It’s been a pleasant stroke down reminiscence lane however none of it’s pretty much as good as I bear in mind.

Developer Tri-Ace is in an enormous monetary gap, and followers are nervous that Divine Pressure may be the sequence’ final probability to show it nonetheless deserves to exist. Some are even shopping for a number of copies of the sport to attempt to preserve 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 sequence historical past. It’s onerous in charge anybody, each due to the sport’s flaws and the inherent limitations and area of interest attraction of the a long time previous method, but in addition as a result of there are simply so many different JRPGs to select from. I’m upset that Divine Pressure isn’t the triumphant comeback followers have begged for, however I’m not stunned. 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.