Star Ocean Universe

 

tri-Ace is the Video Game making company responsible for the Star Ocean series, as well as the Valkyrie Profile series, Radiata Stories, Infinite Undiscovery & End of Eternity.

 

tri-Ace (three Aces) is actually spelt as shown, the t is purposefully lower case.

 

They formed as their own group back in 1995. This come about from a break-up of a prior group they served called Wolf Team, indecently the last game made by this group was the first of the popular Tales of series, Tales of Phantasia. This is the very reason that Star Ocean and Tales games have many similarities, clearly they use many of the ideas that made Tales of Phantasia successful. Affection levels between characters, action style fighting etc.

 

tri-Ace adopt the services of the big name Square-Enix (formerly Enix) whom are synonymous for their most popular series Final Fantasy, however for tri-Ace they are primarily used for publishing and advertising purposes. Well, up until the announcement of End of Eternity in April 2009, where tri-Ace are in fact working with Sega for publishing/advertising purposes.

 

Game titles summary by tri-Ace

- Star Ocean* (SNES - 1996)

- Star Ocean: Second Story (PSone - 1998)

- Valkyrie Profile (PSone - 1999)

- Star Ocean: Blue Sphere* (GB Color - 2001)

- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time* (PS2 - 2003)

- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - Directors Cut (PS2 - 2004)

- Radiata Stories (PS2 - 2005)

- Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (PSP - 2006)

- Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2 - 2006)

- Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP - 2007)

- Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP - 2008)

- Infinite Undiscovery (Xbox 360 - 2008)

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Xbox 360 - 2009)

- Valkyrie Profile: Convenant of the Plume (DS - 2009)

- Star Ocean: Blue Sphere* (Mobile - 2009)

- End of Eternity (PS3/Xbox 360 - 2010)

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope - International (PS3 - 2010)

 

* = Japan only release

 

Click here to discuss tri-Ace and their games in the Eternal Sphere forum.

 

Enix (now Square-Enix) are the publishers for all of the tri-Ace games.

 

Enix was originally formed back in 1985 under the name of Enix Corporation, on the 1st of April 2003 Enix merged with Square Co., Ltd to become what is now known as Square-Enix.

 

The biggest name title which Enix published (Aside Star Ocean of course) was the Dragon Warrior (Now Dragon Quest) series. Which is also highlighted by the fact the two last titles published under Enix were Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart & Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (Japanese original version).

 

The biggest name title for Square Co., Ltd prior the merger was without a doubt the Final Fantasy series.

 

Here is a breakdown of which company has published the tri-Ace games to date.

 

While known as Enix they published the following tri-Ace games:

- Star Ocean* (SNES - 1996)

- Star Ocean: Second Story (PSone - 1998)

- Valkyrie Profile (PSone - 1999)

- Star Ocean: Blue Sphere* (GB Color - 2001)

- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time* (PS2 - 2003)

 

While known as the current Square-Enix they have published the following so far:

- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - Directors Cut (PS2 - 2004)

- Radiata Stories (PS2 - 2005)

- Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (PSP - 2006)

- Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2 - 2006)

- Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP - 2007)

- Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP - 2008)

- Infinite Undiscovery (Xbox 360 - 2008)

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Xbox 360 - 2009)

- Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS - 2009)

- Star Ocean: Blue Sphere* (Mobile - 2009)

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope - International (PS3 - 2010)

* = Japan only release.

 

Click here to discuss Square Enix and their games in the forum.