Square Enix released some new details for their upcoming RPG sequel Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness, mostly focusing on the crafting system, but there are also some screens showing off combat and the reveal of the Private Actions character interaction system. But predominantly, this most recent announcement concerns itself with how item synthesis functions and all of the things players will be able to do with their creations.
It appears as though there will be a rather deep crafting minigame in Star Ocean 5, with players being able to construct items and upgrades of numerous types that will have different applications. RPG fans have come to expect this degree of complex crafting out of the genre, and it appears as though Star Ocean 5 will be giving fans plenty of tools to work with to perfect their battle strategies. The SE announcement indicates that crafting will be available in the beautiful mountain city of Medauq by commissioning the NPC Welch Vineyard, who encourages players to go and gather materials that can then be combined to make numerous and plentiful items and equipment for use by the party.
The standard kinds of synthesis are there, such as healing items, attack items that can either do damage or inflict status effects, armor and accessory construction and upgrade, the ability to create special attacks that can’t be obtained any other way and a sort of ‘lottery crafting’ system where you combine any six items you have and roll the dice in the hopes that you’ll get something more useful. Also, by crafting items in a certain order and then combining them, you can create even better and more valuable equipment. Given that this is a Square Enix game, one can expect a suitably deep and rewarding crafting mechanic for those that wish to invest the time into creating the ultimate party. Here are some of the new screenshots that show the menu and interface for the system.
There were also copious amounts of battle screens offered by SE as well, some showing off item use and others displaying special attacks of different kinds. A few focused on Fiore’s abilities in particular but the screens featured a wide variety of attacks, abilities and actions that can be performed during a fight.
Additionally, some screen shots showed the Private Actions activity that you can engage in to see more of the story and unique interactions with the various characters, likely a sort of bonding system for establishing rapport with the people you want to get to know better in Star Ocean 5.
Oh, and just because…chibi art!
The game is looking amazing and it appears that there will be a great deal of content to explore, which is always a good thing when the game world is as rich and enticing as we’re all hoping it will be.
Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness will be coming to the Sony Playstation 4 and Playstation 3 on March 31 2016 in Japan and some time later this year in North America and Europe, published by Square Enix and developed by tri-Ace.
