Hello

As an european, i'm still waiting for the release of that game (06/05, or 05/06 if you type it in european style).

As it is already release in North America since late february, i have some questions.

here they are :

1) what is the hard drive space needed for the installation of the 3 discs of that game?

I would guess something between 15 and 20 go, but if someone has the right amount, i'd be happy to know.

2) How long is the game, if you go from beginning to end without paying attention to sidequests?

3) How long is the game, but that time if you finish every sidequests (meaning 100%)?

4) Are the achievements linked to the story (meaning you get some by finishing disc 1, disc 2, disc 3 (end boss then), etc...) or are the achievements linked to Battle trophies and sidequests?

5) Are battle trophies easy to get?

6) Is the game hard and is there levels of difficulty like in the third (earth, galaxy, universe, 4d)?

7) without spoiling, can you tell me what you thought of that game, and if someone that has liked the third is going to like it?

I think that is all i have to ask.

Thanks in advance for the guys that will answer.

1. I wish I could tell you, but I just sent my Xbox 360 into Microsoft today. I had them all installed, and it was around 16-17 if I remember correctly, but let someone else answer more definitively.

2. I did about 4 sidequests (a pathetic amount) and finished the game in 34 hours. I also did very little extraneous leveling, so this is a pure run through.

3. Don't know, can't continue to play right now

4. There are some related to key story events (about 250 gs for the lot), and and some related to beating the game on certain difficulties (Universe and Chaos I believe). There are also achievements for getting 10%, 20%.... 100% of battle trophies. Also for completeing quests, gathering data, and crafting stuff.

5. Battle trophies are a mixed bag. Some are easy to get, and a few are stupidly insanely difficult (like defeting a certain final bonus boss in a short amount of time).

6. Yes, there are couple levels of difficulty, and you have to complete the game to unlock progessively difficult modes. I've only played on normal and it had its difficult moments, but I can't attest for the harder modes. Also, I haven't played the last dungeon (Seraphic Gate thing), which of course is several hours long with no save points.

7. It is my first Star Ocean game, and I really enjoyed it. Characters are mostly enjoyable (keyword: mostly), but the voice acting was so-so.

1)  I didn't pay attention to exactly how much space it took up--I only installed discs 2 and 3 and they took up around 13-14 GB. 

2)  About 50 hours I'm guessing.

3)  I finished less than 30% of the side quests and was at just about 65 hours.

4) The achievements are linked mostly to battle achievements, data gathering, and defeating bosses, and a lot of them are not easy to come by.  There are TONS of battle achievements, side quests, items, and pieces of information to gather and a lot of them you may not ever even discover unless you're really combing over every inch of the game.  A lot of times I would find things I needed for quests on other planets earlier in the game, and you never seem to be allowed to return to a planet once you leave it.  There always seems to be something pressing that you're forced to attend to that doesn't allow you to go backwards in the game.  In other words, do the stuff you want to do on that planet WHILE YOU'RE STILL THERE.  All told, I think I only have about 250 achievement points from the game after 3 discs and 65 hours of play time.

5)  I think I just answered that one.

6)  The game is not incredibly hard once you get to about level 10.  Money is pretty easy to come by and you get a lot of power ups to keep you in business.  Once I got the hang of how the game worked, the only time I ever died was during a boss battle here and there.  (The bosses can be a little rough--especially the last guy.)  My advice--stick to four characters you like using and power them up as much as you can.  Don't waste time and energy on people you're not going to use.  And make sure one of you characters has their ATK skill powered all the way up for the final battle.

7)  I didn't play any of the others, but I thought Star Ocean 4 was a lot of fun.  It crashes a lot if you don't have your 360 on 720 resolution, so word to the wise there.  I give it about an 8 out of 10.  The dialogue was kind of silly sometimes, and the story was a little wierd, but the battle system is a BLAST and powering up your characters is a lot of fun.  I definitely recommend this game.  I got it on launch day and didn't regret it for a second.

1) ok, so i wait for someone that has the precise amount. i guessed almost right lol

2) 34 hours straight going, quite the time i took to finish the third one on ps2, so it's ok. thanks.

3) ok. hope you will get your console back soon. on my first red ring of death, i receive it on less than 2 weeks, but i'm an european so that can't help you lol.

4) ok.

5) ok. like in the third then.

6) you said in 2) that you didn't do extra leveling, would you say that the difficult moments are because of that or are they really difficult whatever the level/things you can upgrade are?

7) As always in JRPG i guess, third star ocean was not heardable (does that word exist?) sometimes.

The discs take up 5.8-6.1 GB each disc. It's imperative to install.

Battle Trophies are stupidly hard, and the achievements you get are most for doing non story related things. You get around 250 for just beating the story though.

I've been doing tons of stuff and I'm at 200 at the end of the 3rd disc.

ok. As for the last boss that is kinda hard, on the third star ocean he was not but one attack could kill you with one hit, so...

About the 720p thing, you mean that if i have my 360 on 1080i, i should put it to 720p?

Thanks

outlawauron

Can you tell me why it is imperative (i'm not english born but i supposed you mean it's kinda mandatory in a way for this game) to install the game?

It's imperative because of the freezing problems. If you don't install it, your game will freeze constantly.

If though I've installed the game, my game has still frozen 4 times.

it freezes that hard? even in cinematics? thanks to tell that cause when i saw it running on any gameplay videos, it wasn't freezing at all, though the videos makers didn't say if they did or did not install it.

I would have installed it whatever happened, i have a 120 go hdd, but to actually think it is mandatory... if i would have guessed... no reviews ever said that, what kind of work are they doing if they don't say something like that?

i supposed you didn't "uninstall" dics 2 or 3 to look if it was freezing if it has done that in dic one, so i supposed it is better to install every discs.

Does squareenix and tri ace really know how a next gen console works or what? infinite undiscovery has frame rate problems, same for the last remnant, and now you tell me star ocean 4 freezes... what will ff13 do, burning?

I unstalled disc one after I finished it. You don't need it after. I'm keeping 2 and 3 though.

And it didn't freeze during the cinematics, just times during the battle victory screen.

ok. ign said in the review that some sidequests need disc swaping, so it seems it only concerns discs 2 and 3?