Star Ocean Integrity & Faithlessness Review(PS4) it coud've been so much better.

While this is my first ever videogame review i do want to make some things clear about this game right off the bat. If you are expecting a full on 50 - 60 hour Star Ocean experience just by playing the story mode forget about it. Unlike Star Ocean The Last Hope this game doesn't have the puzzles and bigger areas to explore like in the previous title. In fact on the Planet Faykreed where you play 98% of the game there's very few areas to explore in general since you can't get any further in the game until you advance in the story. While this may not bug some to me it surely did. I like being able to explore around some, but this game doesn't give you a whole lot to explore in from the get go. It's rather dissapointing considering this game feels like Square-Enix just decided to give Tri-Ace a very short budget to work with, and that's sadly the unfortunate truth in regards to this game. I was hoping, no I was expecting a bigger Star Ocean game with at least a few planets to explore on. Instead all I get is the main planet, and while that doesn't seem like a problem considering the first game was set on one Planet known as Roak. It nonetheless gives me the feeling that this game wasn't given enough development time to further add more areas to explore. Don't worry there are side quests, and optional dungeons you can explore. There are some positive aspects to this rather bare bones Action RPG.

Gameplay
      First of all the gameplay is definitely a copy of the original Artes setup in the original Tales of Phantasia for Super Famicom. That game featured 2 Short & 2 Long range artes you could use in battle like this game, also this makes sense considering Tales of Phantasia was originally made by the creator of Star Ocean Yoshiharu Gotanda. That was before he was kicked out & the Tales series was purchased by Namco. Anyway the gameplay is pretty good with you having all seven of your in game party members in battle at once, and battles are completely seemless throughout th whole game. You do get to use the Reserve Rush which to me is like the Mystic Artes(Tales series) a Powerful attack you can use on an enemy to further turn the tide of battle


Story
    What originally starts out with Fidel Camuze a town guard and his childhood friend Miki Sauvester protecting their town further involves a plot with protecting a young girl with some interesting power. Hmm kinda reminds me of Tales of Xillia 2 where you have to protect a young girl who is your daughter from another alternate reality. Moving on you shortly encounter the other world soldiers of the Pan Galactic Federation who help you out along the way. Without going too much deeper into the story and spoiling it for you, notably there are some otherworld invaders who want to take out your planet & their don't care about what they have to do it. Yes that's it.


Music
   I know not eveyone likes to listen to videogame soundtracks,but I must say this has got to be one of the best Motoi Sakuraba has composed in years. It's not problematic like the music for Tales of Xillia & Xillia 2 where some songs where amazingly composed and others just falling flat. Thankfully it's hard to not want to listen to the in game soundtrack considering how much effort was put into it. This is one of Sakuraba's better works he has done lately.


Characters
   The characters in truth could have been so much better. Overall they were very one dimensional and dissapointing. I'd even choose the entire cast for the Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy and still I can't stand the lightning saga in general.

In Conclusion considering it took me about 22 hours to beat the story(Minus side quests & bonus dungeons). I've heard some players finding it took them 35 hours to beat the game + bonus dungeons. For completionists it could take up to 45 -60 hours depending on whether you exceedingly level grind and finish everything in your first playthrough