New Info on Star Ocean 5 Surfaces, Includes Battle System, Hair Color, and Age

Since its announcement and despite the previous title's reception, Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness is stirring up the hearts of fans everywhere. This is Tri-Ace's shot for redemption since the luke-warm Star Ocean 4 (Xbox 360's disc-swapping, hint-da-de-hint-hint), and it seems that the developers are so far ensuring that the experience would be a worthwhile investment. In an interview with Japanese publication 4Gamer.net on July 14, producer Shuichi Kobayashi and programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda revealed a bit more information on the upcoming Star Ocean 5.

First of all, an interesting note on the new, revised battle system. According to the interview, the battle system will feel "closer" to the MMORPG-like complex battle system within Infinite Undiscovery, but only as a base. Furthermore, players can have over six characters in their party, creating a larger depiction of battles, but the basics of battle will remain, so players won't be introduced to additional, complex mechanics.

Editor's Note: Though I loved the story of Infinite Undiscovery and some of the characters, the battle system was very unmemorable to me. I wonder how different the battle system in SO5 will be from IU?

Kobayashi also shared a fun fact that fans of the series may not have noticed: there's a pattern in the series that relates to hair color. The protagonists of the odd-numbered main series titles have blue hair (Roddick, Fayt, Fidel, though Fidel's hair appears closer to raven-colored), and the protagonists of the even-numbered titles have blonde hair (Claude and Edge, though Rena, who has blue hair, is also the main protagonist of Star Ocean 2).

Next, as we've known previously, Star Ocean 5 will take place between Star Ocean 2 and Star Ocean 3. However, what we didn't know was that Gotanda admitted that the original Star Ocean was to be 100% sci-fi. Unfortunately, he was told that fantasy elements needed to be incorporated, because fantasy was trendy at the time of development. Gotanda also wished to make 23-year-old Fidel an older character, but he decided against it, stating that a younger Fidel was more natural and fit the storyline better. Keep in mind, though, that the developers do not want to make the story out to be "a young man saving the world."

Private actions, bonding events, and item creation will make a return. However, item creation will not be too complicated and will hopefully be better than Star Ocean 4.

Finally, Kobayashi revealed that Star Ocean 6 and 7 could be over the horizon, as he felt that it was his sense of duty to continue the series. But, of course, in the business world, the continuation of the series is dependent on the sales of Star Ocean 5.

Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness will arrive this winter in Japan exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 and 2016 in Europe and North America.

If you'd like to read more of the translated interview notes, you can head right on over to Siliconera.