Star Ocean The Divine Force update adds useful tweaks and changes

A new update for Star Ocean The Divine Force landed this week, and includes various quality of life upgrades as well as some tweaks and balances.

Perhaps one of the more niggling annoyances was that your accessories would be unequipped by characters that leave the party. As a situation that happens frequently, having to re-equip accessories to your party and remembering your specific setups was a bit of a pain.

Another big update is being able to use DUMA’s scan action while moving. This feature is most commonly used to find treasure boxes hidden within the world, and having to stop for several seconds to initiate the scan felt a bit unintuitive.

A rather infamous battle versus Sampati, the Holy Bird has been tweaked so that it’s a bit less brutal, as it’s also something of a tutorial for the Vatting system, which allows for super attacks against a target.

You can check out the full list of updates below, and while you’re here, read our review of the PlayStation 5 version of the game.

Version 1.0.3 Update

Retention of equipment and accessories equipped by characters who leave the party
 ・It has been changed so that accessories which characters currently have equipped are not removed when they leave the party during story progression.
  *Es’owa decks can still be changed while accessories are equipped.

Ability to carry out DUMA scanning while moving (walking or dashing) *Excludes VA and gliding
 ・It is now possible to use the DUMA action “Scan” while moving.

Adjustments to the frequency that allied characters use healing actions during battle
 ・The chances of Nina’s AI using a heal action has been greatly increased.

Adjustments to specific battles
 ・The trigger conditions for factors such as “XX+YY% while waiting” have been tweaked to include “shift movement”*
(*Shifting refers to the slow walking movement while maintaining distance from a target unique to AI characters)
 ・The weaknesses of several enemies such as Sampati, the Holy Bird have been adjusted.
 ・Changes have been made so that the Vatting gauge starts from the 90% mark at the beginning of the battle where Vatting is learned.
 ・The target lock display has been altered to make it easier to follow.

Changes to UI and controls
・The following lists have been amended so that pages can be cycled using the left and right directions on the D pad.
Party screen: Used item list for when setting link combos, battle and active skills list, equipped weapons armor and accessories list.
   Item screen: Items list
   Item creation screen: Items list
Collection screen: Main story, side stories, enemies, dictionary, spaceships
Shop screen: Inventory list, Items to sell list
 ・Region names have been enlarged when the map is expanded on the map screen.
 ・The time that notices (e.g. messages about items obtained or consumed etc.) are displayed on the left-hand side of the screen has been extended
 ・Loop processing for selecting item quantities

Bug fixes
 ・Partial fixes to the bugs currently occurring.
 ・Amendments to mouse sensitivity on the STEAM edition.

Optimization
 ・Optimization of game behavior on the various platforms.


About the Author

Tony Garsow Tony joined Nova Crystallis in 2015, and has spent more than a decade writing in the Final Fantasy community. He also contributes to the Nova Crystallis Twitch and YouTube channels, where you can watch select gameplay highlights, previews, and streams.

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