Why is the combat so boring?

[icecreamman]

Am I missing something? Every fight is "mash A until dead". Is the combat supposed to feel pseudo-automated? I don't feel like I'm doing anything in most fights, all fighting is auto-moving, auto-targetting, button mash. I really feel like giving my lead character free movement and a jump button would have helped a lot.

Yes this is my first Star Ocean game. I'm level 36. In the middle of the Hoffman ruins with Leon, just taking a break to post this. I enjoy the game, there's a lot of fun and seemingly deep systems to mess around with. The story is ok so far, but Claude is so basic and awkwardly written, they should have put more work into updating the dialogue.

I'm currently switching between Ashton and Claude as lead. I tried spellcasting lead as Celine and Rena, but it doesn't feel great. Very slow, and some enemies are usually dead by the time a spell casts so the AOE is that much weaker. Some of the spells and effects are fun, but they're better left to the CPU to manage. It also feels extremely weak compared to Claude and Ashton, but I've gotten a lot of melee boosting items/accessories so that might be part of the issue. I've tried Precis as well, she seemed like an interesting melee/range mix, but her attacks were so weak I replaced her with Welch who has good break and debuff abilities.

Anyway, just looking for advice. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Maybe I should give the magic classes a more thorough look? I don't know. Thanks for reading.

[Chezident]

What difficulty are you on?

[Powersword]

The combat is loads of fun. If you don’t enjoy it you’re playing the wrong game. The combat characters have their best moves so it’s going to be repetitive as not much point using others. Claude’s headspilter / helmet breaker move doubles up as an escape move later on as it makes you invulnerable to earthquake spells which cause near instant death damage near the end of the game

[AceMan#1]

I use Opera, you can make her healing star via Mechanist. Her healing star heals the whole party for 9mp and heals as much as Ren'as best healing spell that take tons of mp like 50 mp to heal the whole party. I also loves Opera's art gravitational sphere as it is breaking art against armor it takes it down crazy fast and also the art draws enemies in so you can most of the mobs all bundled within the big dark purple circle and your teammates can start slashing most the mobs and not have to run around as often attacking 1 foe then the next and then the next lol. Just make sure to get a faerie ring and an mp factor for criticial hits and raise guts with a equipe and you will never run low on mp whilst spamming gravitation sphere. In the begging you won't be able to get faerie ring for a nice long while so I just focus on using the healing star, saved my teammates from dieing so many times against bosses. Oh and the art Photo Prism is another breaking art and another nice weaker version than gravitational sphere as it for about 2 seconds stop the mobs from moving and it will chain onto other mobs if they are behind the other mob so with 1 cast of 18mp you can stop mobs from moving oh and also it does do some damage as well when it hits not great amount of damage but decent enough and stopping mobs for a few seconds is helpful.

[AceMan#1]

P.s. this game is much older of a game as it is a game that was first released on ps1 so yes it is more so an auto combat game than other newer games, think of this game as tales of phantasia but with upgraded combat, 360 degree movement in combat and dodging that also restores mp. This games is for sure way way way way better than tales of phantasia and is also better than ni no kuni that was first released on ps3, so yes this game isn't as good as games such as ps4, ps5 games and not as good as tales of symphonia combat, abyss, xillia, and so forth but it wasn't made to resemble that. I for one would take this game's combat over tales of combat where in that you would have to move the stick a certain direction for a certain type of hit such as if you move it downwards with the stick it would be to hit short opponents with a lower to the ground lunge attack but this game star ocean you don't have to worry about that it all connects the attacks with ease so no missed hits.

[Xengre]

Are you using weapons from the Goodie Box or Claude's other end game weapons Aertna or whatever? If you are it would be no wonder it is too easy. Otherwise, the enemies shouldn't be dying before your casters cast. It's around that time casters start to truly completely outpace melee fighters until post game with physical dmg dealers simply never catching up unless you do the tricks to get high end stuff early or before post game. Enemies at that point should have enough HP that they don't melt under you before your casters can nuke the field.

Also are you on what difficulty? If it is too easy you can change at any time to a different difficulty like Universe.

[icecreamman]

Originally posted by Chezident:

What difficulty are you on?

I'm on Galaxy. Good thought, I forgot I could change difficulty.

Originally posted by UnholyBlood:

The combat is loads of fun. If you don’t enjoy it you’re playing the wrong game. The combat characters have their best moves so it’s going to be repetitive as not much point using others. Claude’s headspilter / helmet breaker move doubles up as an escape move later on as it makes you invulnerable to earthquake spells which cause near instant death damage near the end of the game

You could be right, it just seems like such an odd choice to remove my autonomy during combat. I've been trying out all the moves as they come along but yeah I've settled on their 4 slots as of now. I've been primarily using Meteor Palm and Life Sword, I didn't like how Helmet Breaker took you out of combat, but I'll give it a second look.

Originally posted by AceMan#1:

I use Opera, you can make her healing star via Mechanist. Her healing star heals the whole party for 9mp and heals as much as Ren'as best healing spell that take tons of mp like 50 mp to heal the whole party. I also loves Opera's art gravitational sphere as it is breaking art against armor it takes it down crazy fast and also the art draws enemies in so you can most of the mobs all bundled within the big dark purple circle and your teammates can start slashing most the mobs and not have to run around as often attacking 1 foe then the next and then the next lol. Just make sure to get a faerie ring and an mp factor for criticial hits and raise guts with a equipe and you will never run low on mp whilst spamming gravitation sphere. In the begging you won't be able to get faerie ring for a nice long while so I just focus on using the healing star, saved my teammates from dieing so many times against bosses. Oh and the art Photo Prism is another breaking art and another nice weaker version than gravitational sphere as it for about 2 seconds stop the mobs from moving and it will chain onto other mobs if they are behind the other mob so with 1 cast of 18mp you can stop mobs from moving oh and also it does do some damage as well when it hits not great amount of damage but decent enough and stopping mobs for a few seconds is helpful.

From what I'm reading, I'm locked out of Opera because I recruited Ashton. That's kinda neat I didn't know there would be character choices like that.

Originally posted by AceMan#1:

P.s. this game is much older of a game as it is a game that was first released on ps1 so yes it is more so an auto combat game than other newer games, think of this game as tales of phantasia but with upgraded combat, 360 degree movement in combat and dodging that also restores mp. This games is for sure way way way way better than tales of phantasia and is also better than ni no kuni that was first released on ps3, so yes this game isn't as good as games such as ps4, ps5 games and not as good as tales of symphonia combat, abyss, xillia, and so forth but it wasn't made to resemble that. I for one would take this game's combat over tales of combat where in that you would have to move the stick a certain direction for a certain type of hit such as if you move it downwards with the stick it would be to hit short opponents with a lower to the ground lunge attack but this game star ocean you don't have to worry about that it all connects the attacks with ease so no missed hits.

Tales of Phantasia is actually the first of this type of game I played back in the day (on GBA). I've since played Symphonia (on Gamecube maybe 15 years ago) and Vesperia (maybe 3 years ago), but I didn't enjoy Vesperia. Also didn't enjoy Trials of Mana remake, though I emulated Seiken Densetsu 3 about 15 years ago and liked it. So you could be right I've just grown out of this type of game system.

Originally posted by Xengre:

Are you using weapons from the Goodie Box or Claude's other end game weapons Aertna or whatever? If you are it would be no wonder it is too easy. Otherwise, the enemies shouldn't be dying before your casters cast. It's around that time casters start to truly completely outpace melee fighters until post game with physical dmg dealers simply never catching up unless you do the tricks to get high end stuff early or before post game. Enemies at that point should have enough HP that they don't melt under you before your casters can nuke the field.

Also are you on what difficulty? If it is too easy you can change at any time to a different difficulty like Universe.

I actually haven't opened any of my goodie boxes, thanks for reminding me. Ashton is using Maiden's Aria+, which I feel like I've been using forever. Claude was using the Deadly Edge that you get from the tournament with Dias until about 20 minutes ago, I pickpocketed a Soulbreaker at the Front Line Base, it was a huge upgrade.

Ok thanks guys I will up the difficulty to Universe from Galaxy, I forgot I could do that in the middle of the game. I don't think this will change my feelings on combat that much but it could be enough.

[Powersword]

Helmet breaker is also a good way to zip towards the enemies quickly. Highly recommended.

[AceMan#1]

"Tales of Phantasia is actually the first of this type of game I played back in the day (on GBA). I've since played Symphonia (on Gamecube maybe 15 years ago) and Vesperia (maybe 3 years ago), but I didn't enjoy Vesperia. Also didn't enjoy Trials of Mana remake, though I emulated Seiken Densetsu 3 about 15 years ago and liked it. So you could be right I've just grown out of this type of game system."

As you said above, you are right you have grown out of it, games have evolved much better than this game and even though this is a remake it hasn't changed combat enough from the original to be how games are nowadays, even I to be honest with you don't love this combat in this game I just enjoy how simple it is I suppose but that comes with lots of drawbacks as you said it is more boring. Me though I can also mention for some reason I didn't remember how short this story is and nothing amazing seemed to happen and I remember playing the first star ocean on psp more than this game so I am probably not going to finish the game and also part of it has to do with the English voice acting from psp version they kept and did not add ps1 version that sounds less like robot acting lol.

[AceMan#1]

I still to this day play tales of symphonia on my original gamecube and tales of the abyss on my original ps2 and it has a better more fleshed out story and more enjoyable combat where you feel like you are actually a part of the combat.

[AceMan#1]

Star ocean second story r in battle the menu you pull up I still get lost with how many items are in it and it takes me forever to use what I want lol so that is why I chose Opera, but still I like easy and more basic rpg/jrpg games that are easy to pick up and play and this game is way to bloated with this remake that I gotta use so much brain power just to play it.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by icecreamman:

I actually haven't opened any of my goodie boxes, thanks for reminding me. Ashton is using Maiden's Aria+, which I feel like I've been using forever. Claude was using the Deadly Edge that you get from the tournament with Dias until about 20 minutes ago, I pickpocketed a Soulbreaker at the Front Line Base, it was a huge upgrade.

Ok thanks guys I will up the difficulty to Universe from Galaxy, I forgot I could do that in the middle of the game. I don't think this will change my feelings on combat that much but it could be enough.

Universe will only help make it less button mashy braindead, but this still will not be some super elite skill game or even something not too hard but more skill based like Sekiro. Ultimately, this is primarily a JRPG in the end with okay combat.

You might find the raids, the Fun City arena challenges, and the post game the most appealing in terms of combat while the rest of the game it is mostly some fluff between story segments.

Yeah, Fort Line Base had some pretty nice goodies to collect lol. I'm not abusing Goodie Box or Dead Edge's customized final form (can be made into one of Claude's best weapons so don't sell it ever) so I also got sticky fingers at the Base.

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, as I'm old and slow now and always sucked at the combat even back in the day lol. So the easier more accessible features in this remake make it a lot easier to consume the game as what I want out of it: nostalgic comfort food. For a newcomer though trying to find challenge, definitely up the difficulty and try predominantly controlling the non-combat-focused characters and messing with the AI a bit. It can make it more tactical feeling. It's never going to be the most challenging game in the genre though, it just is what it is. It's more about the atmosphere and how you run your party and the satisfaction of that. It's one of those games you can make an incredibly broken set up in if you choose to and just crush everything. But the opposite isn't as true.

[Village Idiot]

You gotta play on Universe difficulty. Galaxy is way too easy and monsters die too fast.

On Universe, unless you go out of your way to completely break the game by getting the end game gear, monsters are so tanky and dish out so much damage that you'll need to actually use the Break System and Evade to win.

It's so satisfying once you learn to chain stun lock even bosses to death.

[Poyzo]

Increase the difficulty to Universe. However, with this version, it doesn't necessary make it difficult.

You have to remember that JRPGs were never hard to begin with. If you are looking for challenge then I would recommend a different genre of game, such as PvP games. Some people consider souls-like games difficult, so you could look there too.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by UnholyBlood:

Helmet breaker is also a good way to zip towards the enemies quickly. Highly recommended.

Helmet Breaker is only decent in the early game, by the time you're on the second world it's almost useless even fully upgraded. The game quickly ends up revolving around grinding crafting for rare factors for max resistances or you end up being insta killed or cc'd to death.

The Tales of series does this style of combat far and away better.