Star Ocean is a series of action role-playing games, developed by Tri-Ace. Integrity and Faithlessness is the 5 instalment of main games in the series. The main concept of Star Ocean is that in a world where space travel has been near perfected, worlds that are `developed`, as in they have modern/futuristic technology, faction together. These factions then uphold piece and refrain from interfering with `underdeveloped` worlds so as to let them develop on their own. However in most games - they interfere with the underdeveloped planets.
In the fifth instalment you take control of Fidel. One night, Fidel's village is attacked by a rival nation on his `underdeveloped` planet. After successfully defending his town from the rival nation, Fidel is thrown into a mix of galactic conspiracies and moral dilemma's.
Integrity and Faithlessness features a diverse range of characters, from the protagonist's potential love interest Miki, to the space captain Emmerson, each with their own unique backstory. However, half of their backstories get barely any screen time - or make the player do a lot of needless wandering around and side quests just to get a glimpse at their background. A great concept but poorly executed social simulation makes the characters seem quite bland if not playing the game literally till it's stripped to the bone. Each character gives hints to a deeper personality, to something that might lead to a better form of character development. Unfortunately this is just never delivered to the player.
The battle system in Integrity and Faithlessness is intuitive and fun to play - however extremely flawed. Using the gaming capabilities of modern consoles, it creates an incredibly fast-paced battle system where spamming powerful skills really won't get you very far. Still, if you're not playing as some form of ranged character, you're probably still not going to get very far. With most enemies and all bosses having a super armour effect that practically stops them from ever being staggered, you're stuck having to stay in the background and either focus on healing your close-ranged characters so that they don't die immediately - or playing as a ranged character and trying to get as many hits in before the enemies turn on you. This creates a sense of injustice and can make some very normal battles just infuriating. Especially since leaving the healing to AI characters means you'll have to spend your entire game healing them.
When it comes to the method of learning skills, the game once again falls short. Having to find items that relate to more the one character in order to learn a single, item specific skill, becomes very tedious and makes levelling up seem a lot less rewarding. Of course, to those players out there that love a good challenge and a good scavenger hunt then this is probably perfect for them.
Good elements still shine throne in the dark chaos of unfair battle's however. With the addition of simply having all party members in battle at once, there's no longer a panic on which characters to use and which tactics - as you can quite literally apply them all. This allows for the execution of some good team up attacks with a variety of characters. The settings for the AI characters, while a little difficult to get used to, actually works fairly effectively. Being able to level up old tactics to make them more effective, and learn new ones through this process - you can really get your AI healer pumping out spell after spell... when they're alive.
Unlike previous games in this brilliant series - you practically never leave the same planet, apart from the odd trip to a random space station. This goes in tie with how ridiculously short the game actually was. In fact, just as it seems like the story is actually about to get going, like you've finally passed the beginning... it just sort of ends, with a poor excuse for an epilogue on what the characters are doing now. Solving one sole issue in frankly, a poorly written manner, the game just ends, giving you access to the EX dungeon. This was not only uncharacteristic to previous games in the series such as Last Hope International, but also uncharacteristic to JRPG's as a whole, which tend to be known for their long, in depth stories. This leads me personally to think that the game may have been incredibly rushed as it genuinely plays out as if there's meant to be more, or that it's set up for series of sequels, as opposed to the nothing that it provides you.
Despite it's dismally short story, what there is does create a good sense of atmosphere and at least basic character. The backgrounds of the beautiful planet you explore give off a mixture of a tropical island, and futuristic city vibe. Spanning from ocean blue beaches, deep dry canyons, and clinical white cities of learning. There was potential for a lot of great law within the game, that unfortunately was let down.
Overall, the Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness fails to deliver on a lot of the aspects that Star Ocean fans have become used to, and it's attempt into the modern era both works and fails - creating a smooth experience at the cost of decent character expression and actual cutscenes. What it does manage to get right, it really does so - but what it gets wrong it completely fails at. Still, it keeps you playing and gives you some intense battles.
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