Star Ocean: Disabled Gamers Welcome to Save the World
In the year, 2064, a war between the World Republic Federation and everybody else who opposed them leads to the beginning of World War III. Both sides make excessive use of their super weapons until Earth becomes largely uninhabitable and forces them to sign a cease-fire. The two sides join forces to create a small expedition team to seek out new worlds for the human race to populate, compliments of their newly developed warp drive technology. Thus begins the story of Star Ocean...
Star Ocean, released on February 24 in North America is an Xbox 360 exclusive game that is developed by Tri-ace and published by Square-Enix. It retails for around $49-$59 depending on where you shop for your games.
Clearly labeled menus, 98% subtitled story, simple and customizable controls make this title rather disabled gamer friendly. The down side is the game is not always clear where you need to go to progress the story and it is on three different discs.
Star Ocean for the Disabled Gamer
Star Ocean is an above average JRPG that does not leave out deaf gamers. 98% of the voice acting is subtitled in large white text which can easily be read by most players. The parts that are not given subtitles are during and after battle comments by the characters, I found these comments can get repetitive and you really do not miss anything other than generic banter. I have played about half way through Star Ocean and only two lines of voice acting from a very early cut-scene do not have subtitling, it was the two words "Ready'' and ''Go'' during a launch of a spaceship. This is a simple motion video part and has absolutely no effect on the enjoyment of the game or storyline. Although not 100% perfect, deaf gamers should have no problem enjoying this game and its science fiction storyline.
This particular game has minimal issues for people with color blindness and other visual difficulties. Menu text is large and easy to read on television. Your statistics are number based and you can tell when an item benefits or hurts your statistics. When you are locked in combat and attempt to initiate a tactic called a blindside attack, you hold down the jump button, this brings up a targeting ring that is solid yellow. The yellow ring will begin to flash when you are supposed to use the left joystick to get out of the way and commence your blindside attack. Although it uses color to communicate it also uses visual flashing as well to communicate the timing. On another note, when you initiate a chain combo successfully it will give you visual images of what key to press with its corresponding color and letter designation in large white text.
The game allows you to reconfigure the triggers and buttons to your liking. You can switch the two left triggers to the right side and vice versa, the four main buttons can be independently configured to the function you want for the game. Running around on the world map is done by moving the joystick and pressing the blue X button to sprint a short distance when needed. Picking up items on the world map is as easy as pressing the green A button. The battle system is simple and easy to understand. You press the green A button to attack with your main weapon, the red button is used for jumping while pushing a direction on the joystick to jump in that direction. In order to change your characters you press one of the triggers on the left side by default, and to do your special moves you press the triggers on the right by default. Now if your character is getting overwhelmed by enemies or you don't want to be targeted you hold down the jump button until the ring around your character starts to flash and press a direction on the joystick to do a blindside maneuver on your enemy to lose aggro.
You could get away with just running around but this will make the game more difficult for you. On the game's easy mode the battles are much easier and don't require as much advanced maneuvering as the normal mode. Another note about combat is when you do a special maneuver or a regular attack, your character will automatically move into range to do the attack on your enemy.
High recommendation
Star Ocean is a highly accessible Japanese style role-playing game and should be enjoyable by most disabled gamers in the community. In general, this particular genre is usually accessible to most forms of disability. That said Star Ocean is one of the more accessible console games out there. From the visual and sound being non-issues, to the controls being fully customizable, we highly recommend this game to any disabled gamer.
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
