Star Ocean Blue Sphere The Game Boy Room Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | tri-Ace is my favourite developer because of the little touches that they put into their games. Just like this one. If you play Star Ocean Blue Sphere on a Game Boy Color (which you obviously should be!) and visit Gravis Desert there will be a cracked structure, but with no way to enter it. However, if you play Star Ocean Blue Sphere on an ordinary Game Boy and visit the same structure the crack will have turned into a large opening. Inside is Gabriel Celeste (or possibly Iselia Queen, they look the same in black and white) who offers you one of two chests. In the left one is a Perfect Half (reduces all damage by half) and in the right one is a Blue Sphere. Choose wisely, you can only have one!
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Claude Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-10-27 | One Battle Skill/KM is absent from the video: Kyoumensatsu (Mirror Slice) Personally, I don't like using Claude as much as Ashton or Dias. As you can see he has a wide variety of combo moves and you can easily be caught off guard when comboing. Standing one millimeter left/right or pressing A a fraction of a second sooner/later can change the next combo Claude will perform. With his jumping move he also tends to pass by the enemy like Dias does, so he really doesn't have any advantage over the other swordsmen other than his healing move. Plus there's the fact that he's the last party member to join and it's quite late in the game. You might not want to learn a whole new combo pattern after getting used to using other characters.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Rena Hearldry Kalm Traveller 2007-10-27 | A video to demonstrate Rena in battle. One spell is missing from this video: Gravity Press. Rena is obviously the ultimate healer. She knows every recovery spell in the game, apart from Neutral. She's also the only party member to learn the Raise Dead spell. She also learns some quite powerful light elemental spells. If you were using Noel as a healer from the start you'd probably want to switch to Rena once she arrives on Edifice.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Ernest Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-10-27 | A video to demonstrate Ernest in battle. Like Opera, Ernest isn't particularly useful (especially since you get him later on in the game.) He's fairly useful to combo with since he's quite slow, but his KMs are very underpowered.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Opera Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-10-27 | A video to demonstrate Opera in battle. Opera isn't nearly as useful as in Star Ocean: The Second Story, unfortunately. Healing Star is vastly underpowered when compared to the previous game - so much so that it can't offset the damage done by Bloody Armour.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Noel Hearldry Kalm Traveller 2007-10-27 | A video to demonstrate Noel in battle. Six spells are absent from the video. Noel was the first party member I used, before I knew about learning skills. I'd levelled up skills in a way that prevented him from learning "Jumonkenkyuu" or Heraldic Research. The missing spells are: Recovery, Refresh, Revival - All restore stamina (look at the Rena video to see them) Panda!! - An earth elemental spell Neutral and Curse Noel is probably a cross between Rena and Celine. But like in Star Ocean: The Second Story he's a Jack of all trades, master of none. He does use wind and earth elemental spells that nobody else has but there are physical fighters with earth and wind elemental KMs so, once again, he falls short.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Chisato Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-09-30 | A video to demonstrate Chisato in battle.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Bowman Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-09-30 | A video to demonstrate Bowman in battle. Bowman is an combo-ing machine but his general strength and Battle Skills are generally weaker than say Dias.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Leon Heraldry Kalm Traveller 2007-09-30 | A video to demonstrate Leon in battle. Leon uses water, dark and void elemental spells mostly.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Dias Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-09-30 | A video to demonstrate Dias in battle. The bad thing about Dias is that his finishing combo almost always moves him straight past the enemy. If you don't end the combo with a decent Battle Skill then you'll move past the enemy leaving you open to attack. You have to judge when the last opportunity to hit the enemy is going to occur.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Precis Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-09-30 | A video to demonstrate Precis in battle. One Battle Skill/KM is absent from the video: Darma Strike. I had already distributed Skill Points such that Precis could no longer learn Psychometry, meaning I couldn't teach her the move. A note about combos: You can continue a combo indefinitely. As long as you retain contact with the enemy (i.e. you don't knock it too far away or pass by it) and time your button presses correctly (press A when the star appears) you will keep the combo going. You can also feed a Battle Skill onto the end of a combo as long as you manage to press the correct button combination (B/Left+B/Right+B/Up+B) when a star appears. None of this is shown here but they are techniques that become invaluable late in the game.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Celine Heraldry Kalm Traveller 2007-09-29 | A video to demonstrate Celine in battle. Two spells are absent from the video: Neutral and Curse. Both are learnt in fairly rare circumstances. They are support spells and not especially useful. Celine uses fire, thunder and star elemental spells mostly.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Ashton Battle Skills Kalm Traveller 2007-09-29 | A video to demonstrate Ashton in battle. Two Battle Skills/KMs are absent from the video: tri-Ace and Spirit Dragon. I had already distributed Skill Points such that Ashton could no longer learn these moves. A note about combos: You can continue a combo indefinitely. As long as you retain contact with the enemy (i.e. you don't knock it too far away or pass by it) and time your button presses correctly (press A when the star appears) you will keep the combo going. You can also feed a Battle Skill onto the end of a combo as long as you manage to press the correct button combination (B/Left+B/Right+B/Up+B) when a star appears. None of this is shown here but they are techniques that become invaluable late in the game.
Daigasso Band Brothers Edit 5 Main Theme of Laputa Kalm Traveller 2007-08-28 | Daigasso Band Brothers Fifth Edit The Main Theme from Laputa: Castle in the Sky It's not any particular version of the song but it's probably closest to the track "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky". This has to be my favourite edit so far. Not only do I love the song but every part is fun to play. The trumpet and drums are a little hard to hear in the video so it doesn't sound as good as when you're playing it, unfortunately. Apologies for the audio/video quality, this is the best I could do with what I had.
Daigasso Band Brothers Edit 4 This Land Kalm Traveller 2007-08-28 | Daigasso Band Brothers Fourth Edit This Land from The Lion King I wanted to move away from videogame music so I chose this song. It's not the version that was used in the film but a version that was used in a videogame of the film, so it's a little more upbeat. It sounds really good (although it's difficult to hear all the parts in the video) however, it's a bit too easy to play. Apologies for the audio/video quality, this is the best I could do with what I had.
Daigasso Band Brothers Edit 3 Plaleaf Kalm Traveller 2007-08-28 | Daigasso Band Brothers Third Edit Plaleaf from Fantasy Zone After the previous failed attempt I decided to try something more melodic with only a few parts to play. This song seemed perfect and it came out quite well. Sounds good and is fun to play. The only problem was that the melody went one note over Daigasso's "scale limit" so I had to change one note of the melody. Apologies for the audio/video quality, this is the best I could do with what I had.
(Failed) Daigasso Band Brothers Edit 2 Ryoshima Coast Kalm Traveller 2007-08-28 | Daigasso Band Brothers (Failed) Second Edit Ryoshima Coast from Okami My second attempt at an edit. From the start this edit seemed far too complicated to work well but I thought I would edit a small section of a few of the instruments. It didn't sound particularly good from the start so I didn't continue with it. Watch as each instrument cuts out, one by one. Apologies for the audio/video quality, this is the best I could do with what I had.
Daigasso Band Brothers Edit 1 Behave Irrationally Kalm Traveller 2007-08-28 | Daigasso Band Brothers First Edit Behave Irrationally from Valkyrie Profile My first edit. Although this is one of my favourite pieces of videogame music I soon realised that, while the song sounded alright, it wasn't much fun to play. The background melody is impossible to play (for me) and the choir section had to be split across three instrument tracks meaning they're very boring to play. There's an error in the choral harmony which I spent a while trying to correct but I know absolutely nothing about music so I had to end up leaving it as it was on the original midi. Apologies for the audio/video quality, this is the best I could do with what I had.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 6 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-04 | Masterchef Mix Build Note: Both of these "Super Speciality Skills" become available later in the game. They don't require you to know the Cooking skill or the Customize skill to use. Here you can see High Grade Meat and a Wonder Egg being combined to create Bacon and Eggs using Masterchef. You can also see a Cruel Diabolica and the Holy Sword Farwell being combined to form a Durandal using Mix Build.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Iselia Queen Kalm Traveller 2007-07-04 | The most difficult fight in the game. This video shows the defeat of Gabrie Celesta, after which Iselia Queen appears. You have the option of either being warped out of the Cave of Trials (which would mean having to trudge through the whole CoT again to fight her) or to just fight her there and then, with no break to heal or save. Like in Valkyrie Profile, Iselia Queen is just a palette swapped version of Gabrie Celesta but is far more difficult to defeat. It goes without saying that I didn't stand a chance against her.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Gabrie Celesta Kalm Traveller 2007-07-04 | Watch me get trounced by Gabrie Celesta. This is definitely the most difficult incarnation of Gabrie that I've fought (although I've not played Valkyrie Profile 2 yet - it's not out here!) The fight is made all the more tense because, as usual, you can't save in the Cave of Trials. I've never managed to defeat Gabrie without cheating (using save-states) but it would probably be easier with a better party (i.e. Bowman) and setup. Notice how he/she looks identical to his/her previous incarnations (the six wings, crescent rod and halo). Also notice how similar Rena's Celestial Arrow looks to Celestial Star from Valkyrie Profile.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Field Actions Kalm Traveller 2007-07-04 | One of the most unique aspects of Star Ocean Blue Sphere is it's platforming elements. There is almost always more than one way to solve a puzzle and more than one way to work your way through a dungeon. Here are 22 of the most important Field Actions which are used to interact with, and overcome, elements within the field.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 5 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | Heraldic Research - Celine Herladic Research - Rena Heraldic Research - Leon Note: Heraldic Research is used to teach mages their "ultimate" magic. As you can see, at Lv. 10 you can be quite inaccurate and still learn the spells.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 4 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | Art Identify Metalwork Psychometry Note: Psychometry is used to teach fighters their "ultimate" KM. In order to do this you must go to the facility in Knott where you will find an inventor. If you give him a Blue Sphere (the rarest mineral in the game) he will make a weapon for you which can then be used in Psychometry. There are only two Blue Spheres that can be found by normal means in the game, which shows how difficult it is to learn the ultimate KMs.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 3 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | Cooking Customize Recycle Note: In order to get a high score when cooking with the pot you must try and prevent the ingredients from touching each other and the sides of the pot. In the video I deliberately try to knock the ingredients together in order to show how they deteriorate and how you lose points.
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 2 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | Carpentry Enchantment Machinery
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Item Creation Part 1 Kalm Traveller 2007-07-03 | Alchemy Compounding Reproduction Oracle
Star Ocean Blue Sphere final boss fight Kalm Traveller 2007-07-01 | The final (well technically it's the penultimate) boss fight, against Rival. You'll notice that one of her transformations is Lenneth Valkyrie, from Valkyrie Profile. I hadn't played the game for at least a year when I made this video so I'm a little rusty. However, I did deliberately let "Lenneth" beat me to a pulp so that she would perform her Nibelung Valesti.
