Star Ocean 5 Will Stay True To Star Ocean Series Roots

JRPG’s are a dying breed in a way, as many Japanese developers who launch titles worldwide try to appeal to all regions, not just their own. As such, the JRPG, which has been one of the staples of the RPG genre, is dying out in regards to worldwide releases.

With Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness, that’s not going to be the case. In an interview with IGN, producer Shuichi Kobayashi explains that this Star Ocean title will stick to its roots:

“Rather than sitting down and thinking about what we can do to address the needs of players overseas we looked at what we can do to make [Star Ocean 5] more like Star Ocean and thinking about how we can use the JRPG genre to tell our story. We want to do Star Ocean justice and by doing that we naturally appeal to players that have liked the previous games.

I think Star Ocean is quite unique amongst a lot of JRPGs as it has had quite a large appeal outside of Japan throughout the history of the series. Maybe this is because of the fact that its world is that mix of fantasy and sci-fi, which is something that a lot of fans outside of Japan seem to really enjoy. So, no, we don’t think we have to make changes in order to appeal to Western audiences.”

Star Ocean 5 comes out June 28th.