Star Ocean 4

[Dumac]

As SO4 gets closer to release both in Japan and the west, info about the English version of the game has been slim. Most media has been of the Japanese version until just recently. However, new screenshots show that they are very distinct differences between the two versions.

Link

An embargo just lifted for a bunch of Star Ocean: The Last Hope media. I gave it glance and didn?t notice anything special. Pesmerga00 who has been following the game very closely did (thanks for the tip!!). It?s subtle, but it appears Square Enix is erasing anything anime in the English release of Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

Look at these battle screenshots and focus on the character portraits. The Japanese version (top) has anime faces while the English version (bottom) has CG models.

Even more noticeable are the menu differences. The Japanese version has colorful character silhouettes while the English build has a lot of? blue. The status screen and character icons use the CG models too.

Pesmerga00 also discovered the character portraits accompanying dialogue vanished in the English version. I couldn?t find a good comparison screen in my batch of media, but going by the other changes I wouldn?t be surprised to see those removed too.

While these changes don't effect the game drastically and I am sure some are happy to see any anime elements removed, I, for one, am pretty disappointed.

The characters in SO4 look so doll-like that without character portraits and such they will seem very dull and emotionless. Drawn animation conveys emotion much better than CG does, and I always though that character portraits add a lot of JRPGs.

EDIT: Also, "private actions" such as this video are reported to aparentally have been removed.

EDIT2: Apparently an onsen scene has been removed as well? (rumor)

 

[ubercaffeinated]

damn it...

 

[darkswordsman17]

The characters are still very Japanese in the way they look, I think it might have been done less to remove the anime (I don't think they're going to be alienating too many people who like JRPGs like this anyways by leaving it in) and more that it fits the visual style more? The hand drawn bits look out of place to me personally, and I think the newer one has a more coherent visual style to it.

Hmm, I'm not a big fan of cut content, but that "private action" video was just sorta stupid and a bit creepy.

 

[erwos]

I'd be shocked if they yanked the PAs... those actually made it over in the recent PSP remakes, too.

 

[Saga]

Considering my 360's have all been doing nothing but streaming Hulu for half a year, it'll be damn nice to be able to finally put the PS2 away and stop playing 5+ year old RPG's and play something with modern graphics.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
The characters are still very Japanese in the way they look, I think it might have been done less to remove the anime (I don't think they're going to be alienating too many people who like JRPGs like this anyways by leaving it in) and more that it fits the visual style more? The hand drawn bits look out of place to me personally, and I think the newer one has a more coherent visual style to it.

Hmm, I'm not a big fan of cut content, but that "private action" video was just sorta stupid and a bit creepy.

If it was done to maintain a coherent visual style, it doesn't explain why they only removed character portraits from the Western version.

I thought the dialogue of the PA video was funny, but the animation is really creepy. The characters looks really robotic and lifeless (which is why I want drawn character portraits in the first place).

Is the 360 region locked?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Dumac
Is the 360 region locked?

It depends on the game. Some games can be played across multiple regions while others can not.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Crappy news. I'll probably still get it though.