Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is an action role-playing game made by tri-Ace and published by Square Enix. As the fifth main entry in the Star Ocean series, it follows Star Ocean: The Last Hope. The PlayStation 4 version came out in Japan on March 31, 2016, in North America on June 28, 2016, and in Europe on July 1, 2016. A PlayStation 3 version was released only in Japan, on April 28, 2016. In Japan the game is titled Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness.

The story is set in S.D. 537 (A.D. 2623), placing it chronologically between Star Ocean: The Second Story and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Events unfold on Faykreed, a planet located 6,000 light years from Earth. The plot opens on an undeveloped world that falls into turmoil after first contact with a more technologically advanced spacefaring people. The protagonist is Fidel Camuze, a swordsman who guards his home village. He is joined by Miki Sauvester, his childhood friend and the game’s heroine, and by Relia, a girl with no memory and no visible emotions. Choices made during play lead to different endings.

Battles take place in real time, and the player directs one of up to seven party members while being able to swap control to another character at any point. Story scenes are designed to flow directly into and out of play rather than breaking away into separate cutscenes. Item creation returns from earlier entries, and players can adjust aspects of how enemy AI behaves. The series’ private actions system is also back: the game records which party members interact with each other and uses that to shape the direction of the story.

According to the development team, a central goal was to keep the experience uninterrupted. Random encounters were removed, transitions between exploration and combat were smoothed out, and the camera was tuned to move automatically to a position that keeps enemies in view during fights. The game was built mainly for PlayStation 3, with the PlayStation 4 version created as a port that runs at a higher resolution and frame rate. The protagonist was written as a 23-year-old rather than a teenager so that longtime fans of the series would find him easier to relate to.

Producer Shuichi Kobayashi drafted the sequel proposal in secret with series creator Yoshiharu Gotanda after many at Square Enix believed the franchise had ended, and he said he wanted the game to draw on the essence of Till the End of Time. Hiroshi Ogawa directed the project, Akira Yasuda designed the characters, and Motoi Sakuraba composed the music. A PC version was discussed but held back over concerns about players without controllers, and it has not been released. On release the game received mixed or average reviews according to Metacritic; critics generally liked the combat while criticizing the dialogue and the limited time spent in space. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 versions together sold 175,000 copies in Japan by September 2016.