Following the (mildly disappointing) 30th Star Ocean anniversary stream, I'm sharing my English translation of the SO3 character bios + developer interview in the STAR OCEAN 20th Anniversary Memorial Book: ~Trajectory of the Eternal Sphere~, originally published in 2016 by Tri-Ace and Square Enix. 

Translation here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ojpjQmUc095ldMCKw1VeIPtukCHxBBPwh0jUYB6wHY/edit?usp=sharing

The full Japanese scan also available at this link. This translation serves as the English accompaniment for pages 100-109 (the character bios) and 184-189 (the developer interview); I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible to follow along with the Japanese scans.

The Star Ocean 20th Anniversary Memorial Book was published to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Star Ocean series. It features illustrations, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes commentary into the characters and plot development from SO1 through SO5.

Some of my favorite revelations to come from this book:

• Clair was initially intended to be playable, but they ultimately decided on Adray as a "joke character," partly because the party's male-to-female ratio was poor, and partly because Clair's popularity made the head developer (Ogawa) feel "complicated" since he's "firmly Team Nel."
• Tynave and Farleen were initially designed to be men, and they died in the Kirlsa Training Facility.
• Arumat's name is an anagram for "Tamura" as in Yoshinori Tamura, the tri-Ace producer for SO4 (if read "Tamura" backwards, it becomes "Arumat", and since Tamura produced SO4, Arumat’s middle initial is P). Most of the SO1 character and town names are also derived from developer names.
• The devs confirmed that SO4's principle enemies, the MP/Missing Procedure and Grigori, are bugs that exist between the Eternal Sphere and 4D Space.
• Welch was initially designed to speak almost exclusively using internet slang.

Also I have a question about star ocean 1 is it impossible to get phia late and the wolf guy late if I recruit ashlay or cyuss and iosuha and mavelle (I know Millie leaves so I can get phia or wolf but I can't get both)???? Unless I refuse to recruit iosuha or mavelle

Do you all prefer the psp version or SNES japanese sub? I personally like the psp one more

I'm playing divine force on normal difficulty rn. I've been using determined princess and I got it max level. At abt 10 hours in, I'm level 40. I feel very over levelled. Even with the guts and defence drop laeticia doesn't seem to dying at all. Should I turn it off or up the difficulty or just leave it?

Sadly didn't get to experience it but the models and art are beautiful... is it truly lost?

Q. Series titles you've played (Multiple choice)

1. SO2（82.5%）
2. SO3（75.6%）
3. SO1（70.8%）
4. SO2R（58.2%）
5. SO4（57.2%）
6. SOA（51.9%）
7. SO5（48.3%）
8. SO6（47.0%）
9. SOBS（40.6%）
10. Other（6.0%）

Q. What do you hope to see next from this series? (Multiple choice)

1. A brand new title（64.9%）
2. SO3 Remake（53.7%）
3. SOBS Remake（37.6%）
4. A spin-off title（29.4%）
5. SOA Remake（28.4%）　
6. SO1 Remake（22.3%）
7. SO4 Remake（16.0%）
8. SO5 Remake（10.5%）
9. SO6 Remake（6.9%）

According to the survey results, SO3 and SO2 remain the most popular among fans, but the series' appeal declined significantly after SO4.

Square Enix has announced or released separate Nintendo Switch 2 versions of:

• FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster;
• DRAGON QUEST XI S;
• OCTOPATH TRAVELER;
• OCTOPATH TRAVELER II.

Meanwhile, STAR OCEAN: THE SECOND STORY R has also received a separate Nintendo Switch 2 release rather than an announced upgrade path for existing Switch owners, raising the same concerns for players who already purchased the Nintendo Switch version.

Existing Nintendo Switch owners are not being offered either a free upgrade or a reasonably priced paid upgrade. Save data is also incompatible between the Switch and Switch 2 versions of several of these games.

That means customers who already bought the games must pay full price again to access improved resolution, performance or quality-of-life features—and may have to abandon their existing playthroughs.

I do not believe that every Switch 2 upgrade necessarily has to be free. A reasonably priced upgrade pack would already be a much fairer solution than requiring a complete second purchase.

I have started a petition asking Square Enix for:

• a free or reasonably priced upgrade path for existing owners;
• save-data transfer whenever technically possible;
• clear disclosure of upgrade, save and physical-media policies before pre-orders;
• a consistent policy for future Switch 2 re-releases.

Petition: Change.org

This is a consumer campaign directed at Square Enix’s publishing policy. It is not a call to harass developers, support staff or individual employees.

I have limited time to manage the campaign, so please feel free to share it, repost it, translate it or send it to gaming publications.

Would you pay for a reasonably priced upgrade pack, or should owners have to buy the entire game again?

Petite mise à jour de ma collection japonaise star ocean !
Demain j’expose tout sur ma table pour une photos de famille organisée 🤓

In this game u can recruit everyone except for cyuss or ashlay? (Unless you get phia early). If you obtain erys do you lose mavelle is erys better?

My first playthrough took about 40 hours, which far exceeded my expectations. I really loved the Zelda-like dungeons, where you had to use different characters' map skills to solve puzzles. It made each party member feel like they had a specific role. I also enjoyed the Item Creation mini-games, although some of them were really difficult—especially alchemy. Still, the sense of accomplishment you get when you finally craft a valuable item is exhilarating.

It's difficult to complete this game without a guide, but it's definitely worth playing. The story is simple, but not bad; it feels like a further exploration of the themes raised by SO2. I was genuinely surprised by how much content the game had. They didn't treat it like some cheap, poorly made advertisement just to get you to buy a console game simply because it was a handheld with limited capabilities.Although it's officially described as a spin-off, after finishing it, I think they could proudly call this SO2.5.

Counter skill says it works when "button pressed while blocking" but blocking itself works at random depending on a stat? So I just hope one triggers so I can counter completely randomly? And that's of course assuming the "button pressed" means the attack button, right?

Cant really find any info about this display. Still pretty cool that it exists. One of my favorites in my collection

I know this game isnt for everyone and I understand the criticisms but for me this game is iconic. I bought this game not long ago in the steam summer sale and was slightly disappointed when I got a black screen accompanied by sound. Apparently with the handhelds there is an issue, I got either massive resolution which I could not turn down in the options or the game would run in a tiny window, after finding a couple of patches (shoutout to the creators) I got it working flawlessly. Glad to be playing this again, poured hundreds of hours into the PS3 version and most likely will again now 👌

Very happy to have a full 1-6 collection (even though 1&2 are remakes). Will have to do some tetrising around to fit the newly acquired so5 ultimate box and divine force though 😂

Hello, I am looking for the Star Ocean PSP theme shown in the picture; could anyone who has it please share it with me?

https://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/070/70345/

And I kind of do? I like it so far, and I look forward to finishing it (no spoilers, just got to disc 2 I think?) And replaying it at some point, using different characters.

But the amount of things the game just expects you to know, or trial and error, is bonkers. Looking things up, makes things a lot less fun for me, it just does. So when the game just expects you to know what random thing will trigger the next event, or where that event even is...it's super frustrating. Sometimes the game tells you to go a direction from a town, and that's fine, that's useful! But too many times its nothing.

My team gets wiped out by the mandrakes like it's nothing. I'm only about 4 hours into the game on Universe difficulty, and I can deal with other enemies easily — but is it normal to run into enemies this strong in random encounters? I end up using all my recovery items after these fights. Please help me understand. Ps: Im playing second story R

Handheld: 1080p / 60
Docked: 1080p / 60

Trailer: https://youtu.be/8GZUo2iibTk
$49.99
No Upgrade Path
No Save Data Transfers

like bro the 2nd game's remake is on all platforms and now even switch2, so why is the 1st remake not on PC? this is so dumb

These made my reruns a little more smooth. It was a fun project. These maps are just for the overworld areas but I do have a set for the dungeons as well.