Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

While it's an ambitious RPG that has some strong combat mechanics and a huge world to explore, this game ultimately disappoints for its bland and repetitive missions. It also suffers from a story that's hard to follow, paper-thin characters you won't care about, and some technical issues that break the immersion. Interestingly, you really can feel a disconnect between the good and bad in this game. On one hand, you have fast, frenetic, and fun combat sequences, including multiple fighters in your party that each bring something different to the brawl. These fighting scenes are tense, pretty, and rewarding. But when it's time to move on, there are boring missions where have you walk around a huge and sparsely populated world, characters who don't discuss what they're doing there and why they're helping you out, and sloppy audio and video issues (such as characters who talk over each other or you walk right through your mates, respectively). While not horrible, this fifth Star Ocean game may only satisfy longtime fans of the franchise, and even with this group, many will likely feel it's not the polished adventure they were hoping for.