Friday, October 17, 2008

Star Ocean 4 Chinese Scans are in Chinese

Still can't read Chinese. Sorry.

However, there are a few things that I've been able to glean from other people's impressions around the internet. Here's what I know:

-You (Edge) will be given a ship (probably) fairly early on. It is called the Calnus (which is clearly a shout out to long-time fans of the series, and probably has some relationship to the Calnus of SO1 and SO2)
-The Calnus will serve as a base of operations for you and your party
-You will be able to fully explore the Calnus, and interact with your various crewmates
-You will apparently be given much more freedom to customize the ship, including assigning crew to certain living quarters. It has been hinted that you will even be able to assign Edge a roommate. (Reimi ftw!)
-While on the Calnus, your party will split up, and you will be able to engage them in Private Actions (a series staple feature) which will allow you to develop your relationships with them.
-The Calnus is capable of flying to various planets, so you won't be limited to the linear story that was so prevalent in previous games
-Vakkas D-79, a new cyborg character, has been revealed as the 5th playable character

Finally, though the article is Chinese (I didn't even realize Famitsu was available in Chinese), the screenshots are in Japanese (which I can read). One of the more interesting screens is of a Private Action between Edge and Reimi, which goes like this:

Reimi: Hey, Edge? I was just wondering... You do know what day it is today, don't you?
(at which point you are given three response options)
Edge:
-The anniversary of your dieting success!
-It's your birthday, right?
-....Um, no?

This Private Action alone makes the wait for March unbearable. Maybe I'll buy a Japanese 360 just so I can play this a little sooner...

Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope will be available in Japan on February 19, 2009, and in North America on March 03, 2009 on Xbox 360. There is currently no word on a European release.

If someone knows where I can find Japanese scans, I would be more than happy to translate the article in its entirity.


2 comments:

zerolocked said...

The screen with Edge and Bacchus playing chess, is it a mini game of some sort?

Brandon said...

I hope so! That would be way cool.

It is for sure part of a Private Action (according to the scan), but I haven't seen anything saying whether the chess game is playable or not.