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For the third planet on the underdeveloped planet list, we come to Roak. This planet has been mentioned in three of the four Star Ocean game - I'm not sure if it's mentioned in Second Story/Second Evolution. It was the first underdeveloped planet to appear, to be explored by players and fans of the game. Some of its history is mentioned in Till the End of Time, and, for four, we get to explore it all over again.
I did some research at gamefaqs.com for Roak for the original Star Ocean game re-released to the PSP as First Departure, which has really sparked that desire to somehow find a way to play the game. (I used my Last Hope strategy guide for Aeos and Lemuris, and I will be using it for Roak as well.) The kinds of foods that are appearing for First Departure are almost what you'd find in any bakery or restaurant on Earth - 10 oz. steak, 16 oz. steak, apple pie (which appears in Till the End of Time along with steamed buns), batter-fried shrimp, and boiled mushrooms, as a few examples - but I know that, as with Lemuris, there aren't any visible farms on Roak, at least in The Last Hope.
To break it down, this is what you can buy/create for food in First Departure, in addition to the aforementioned foods: agar drink, amazing tenderloin, awful cider, banana frappe, bean rice cake, beautiful ice cream, beef and egg bowl, bitter cake, bitter juice, bloody driver, boiled king crab, cabbage roll, cactus cocktail, cheese salad, chicken shish kabob, chocolate banana, Christmas turkey*, coffee** milk, cola, cold soba, collagn jelly, corn on the cob, crazy cow, cream soda, custard of life, daikon salad, delectable cheese, deluxe fruit platter, deluxe sushi, demonic durian, devil's ramen, eel soup, egg fried rice, egg soup, escargot, fabulous flan, fiery cyclops cider, fine tuna sashimi, fire in the sky, fish ball soup, fresh juice, fresh orange juice, fresh spring roll, fried egg, fruit cake, fruit parfait, fruit punch, fruit sandwich, golden natto, golden stew, golden stir-fry, and granadillia juice, just to name a few. (To see the full list, follow this link: http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/939439-star-ocean-first-departure/faqs/56728 )
Some of that list is item creation. Some of it is what you can buy in stores or what enemies may drop in battles, according to the list I found.
As for The Last Hope, food stuffs are, of course, found dropped by enemies, in the stores, or for harvesting. In the Tatroi area, one can harvest blackberries, blue seeds, dendrobium, ebony, red seed, seasonings, white rice, and wooden sticks. Rich cheese, natural water, vinegar, uncooked pasta***, raw animal meat, raw fish, common eggs, vegetables, seasonings, Special Warishita sauce, fresh cream, blueberries, bigberries, blackberries, aquaberries, basil, fresh sage, hot chocolate, and pickled plums are found in the stores. Astral City, which is connected to Tatroi via barge, has a harvesting point in the castle itself with aquaberries, bigberries, blackberries, blueberries, and lemons. One of the shops - Whole Heart Foods - offers pumpkin extract, sweet fruit, and natto in addition to natural water, uncooked pasta, raw animal meat, raw fish, common eggs, vegetables, seasonings, Special Warishita sauce, and fresh cream. Next to Whole Heart Foods is the Happy Skip Grocer with the basic restorative items of blueberries, bigberries, blackberries, aquaberries, basil, fresh sage, and hot chocolate.
Heading into the Astral Desert doesn't bring a very high yield for harvesting - bizarre fruit, poison hemlock, seasonings, and thornberries. Around Tropp, harvesting points offer ash, blue seeds, dendrobium, ebony, fresh sage, lemon, oak, and red seeds. The Cave to the Purgatorium hides caterpillar fungus, ebony, fresh sage, magic seeds, poison hemlock, and white rice. Around the Purgatorium itself, lemons, poison hemlock, ripe berries, seasonings, thornberries, and white rice can be found. There are only two shops in Tropp, but neither offer food stuffs for sale. (There is a Roakian, though, he does sell grape juice. To trigger that particular sale, talk to an old man in Tatroi who is crazy for grape juice.)
There is much that we don't see on Roak in The Last Hope. Since it is, at this point, the last game but taking place before the first game, the fact we only wander the Astralian continent is, perhaps, done by design.
Even so, I can't help but wonder why we don't see any kind of farms on Roak. The food does have to have from somewhere and not just the fighting of monsters and harvesting points. The harvesting points don't even exist in the previous games, which I won't say don't exist for the NPCs . . . they just don't exist for the players to find and utilize.
Also, I realize that, when it comes to farming on these underdeveloped planets, I sound like a broken record - we don't see it, we don't see it, we don't see it . . . but I truly am very curious as to the variety that could be found in fruits, vegetables, and animals when it comes to planet-hopping. Bunnies were changed in appearance. Why not mix up the food stuffs a little and see what we can come up with that can be similar to what we know but at the same time exotic and new?
Naturally, as Roak remains an underdeveloped planet for a little over three centuries, the farming of food stuffs and raising of livestock are how the people survive. I don't believe or even think for a moment, though, that Roak is a farming/gathering/hunting type civilization. The civilization on Lemuris, yes, it is. If the right private action is triggered on the alternate Earth, Lymle indicates as much. However, Lemuris doesn't have some of the same advancements as Roak. The climate from one planet to the other also makes a difference in how easy it is to till the soil (cold weather causes the water in the soil to freeze, etc . . .) in certain areas. There's a lot of open space on Roak, and it wouldn't necessarily be hard for farmers and livestock breeders to keep monsters from eating the food/breaking into the barns and livestock pens.
I think in terms of produce, one would definitely find fruits and vegetables similar to that of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, lettuce, corn, and potatoes on Roak. There might even been wild bovines, deer, and other animals for hunting, which I feel would be done until taming the animals could be accomplished. Bunnies are "hunted" and treated like they're horses or donkeys so . . .
Anything is really possible. I'm simply wishing we had more information about the underdeveloped planets themselves so we could get those ideas.
********
* - I will only buy into the notion of a Christmas turkey in a video game with non-humans so long as it's coming from item creation and a human has been involved in the process. Christmas is an Earthen holiday. Life on other planets will not have the same holidays as we do.
** - Like with the Christmas turkey, I will only buy into the premise of coffee milk if the coffee beans are somehow imported from Earth. A friend of mine pointed out to me within the last week of this entry that coffee beans can only grow if certain soil conditions are met. She brought up Anne McCaffrey's research on coffee beans. If the right conditions aren't met - soil, weather, etc . . . - coffee can't grow anywhere other than where they're grown.
*** - I'm now having a hard time buying into the notion that players can buy uncooked pasta on underdeveloped planet. The issue is that of storage and the right combination of ingredients/chemicals to keep the pasta from spoiling . . . unless the uncooked pasta is made fresh daily and sold right away. Then I can believe that premise of buying uncooked pasta on an underdeveloped planet. Yes, uncooked pasta appears in one of the shops on Aeos, but we're talking about stores built by Eldarians so . . . . to buy uncooked pasta from people who know how to preserve it so it doesn't spoil is completely understandable to me.
*************
Note: I have an inquiry out to Laura Bailey, the voice actress for Reimi Saoinji, to interview her for this blog. Even if the interview is a no-go (or I don't hear back in time), I will be writing about Laura and the projects where we can see and hear her voice on June 22. I will post on whether or not the interview will happen.
I did some research at gamefaqs.com for Roak for the original Star Ocean game re-released to the PSP as First Departure, which has really sparked that desire to somehow find a way to play the game. (I used my Last Hope strategy guide for Aeos and Lemuris, and I will be using it for Roak as well.) The kinds of foods that are appearing for First Departure are almost what you'd find in any bakery or restaurant on Earth - 10 oz. steak, 16 oz. steak, apple pie (which appears in Till the End of Time along with steamed buns), batter-fried shrimp, and boiled mushrooms, as a few examples - but I know that, as with Lemuris, there aren't any visible farms on Roak, at least in The Last Hope.
To break it down, this is what you can buy/create for food in First Departure, in addition to the aforementioned foods: agar drink, amazing tenderloin, awful cider, banana frappe, bean rice cake, beautiful ice cream, beef and egg bowl, bitter cake, bitter juice, bloody driver, boiled king crab, cabbage roll, cactus cocktail, cheese salad, chicken shish kabob, chocolate banana, Christmas turkey*, coffee** milk, cola, cold soba, collagn jelly, corn on the cob, crazy cow, cream soda, custard of life, daikon salad, delectable cheese, deluxe fruit platter, deluxe sushi, demonic durian, devil's ramen, eel soup, egg fried rice, egg soup, escargot, fabulous flan, fiery cyclops cider, fine tuna sashimi, fire in the sky, fish ball soup, fresh juice, fresh orange juice, fresh spring roll, fried egg, fruit cake, fruit parfait, fruit punch, fruit sandwich, golden natto, golden stew, golden stir-fry, and granadillia juice, just to name a few. (To see the full list, follow this link: http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/939439-star-ocean-first-departure/faqs/56728 )
Some of that list is item creation. Some of it is what you can buy in stores or what enemies may drop in battles, according to the list I found.
As for The Last Hope, food stuffs are, of course, found dropped by enemies, in the stores, or for harvesting. In the Tatroi area, one can harvest blackberries, blue seeds, dendrobium, ebony, red seed, seasonings, white rice, and wooden sticks. Rich cheese, natural water, vinegar, uncooked pasta***, raw animal meat, raw fish, common eggs, vegetables, seasonings, Special Warishita sauce, fresh cream, blueberries, bigberries, blackberries, aquaberries, basil, fresh sage, hot chocolate, and pickled plums are found in the stores. Astral City, which is connected to Tatroi via barge, has a harvesting point in the castle itself with aquaberries, bigberries, blackberries, blueberries, and lemons. One of the shops - Whole Heart Foods - offers pumpkin extract, sweet fruit, and natto in addition to natural water, uncooked pasta, raw animal meat, raw fish, common eggs, vegetables, seasonings, Special Warishita sauce, and fresh cream. Next to Whole Heart Foods is the Happy Skip Grocer with the basic restorative items of blueberries, bigberries, blackberries, aquaberries, basil, fresh sage, and hot chocolate.
Heading into the Astral Desert doesn't bring a very high yield for harvesting - bizarre fruit, poison hemlock, seasonings, and thornberries. Around Tropp, harvesting points offer ash, blue seeds, dendrobium, ebony, fresh sage, lemon, oak, and red seeds. The Cave to the Purgatorium hides caterpillar fungus, ebony, fresh sage, magic seeds, poison hemlock, and white rice. Around the Purgatorium itself, lemons, poison hemlock, ripe berries, seasonings, thornberries, and white rice can be found. There are only two shops in Tropp, but neither offer food stuffs for sale. (There is a Roakian, though, he does sell grape juice. To trigger that particular sale, talk to an old man in Tatroi who is crazy for grape juice.)
There is much that we don't see on Roak in The Last Hope. Since it is, at this point, the last game but taking place before the first game, the fact we only wander the Astralian continent is, perhaps, done by design.
Even so, I can't help but wonder why we don't see any kind of farms on Roak. The food does have to have from somewhere and not just the fighting of monsters and harvesting points. The harvesting points don't even exist in the previous games, which I won't say don't exist for the NPCs . . . they just don't exist for the players to find and utilize.
Also, I realize that, when it comes to farming on these underdeveloped planets, I sound like a broken record - we don't see it, we don't see it, we don't see it . . . but I truly am very curious as to the variety that could be found in fruits, vegetables, and animals when it comes to planet-hopping. Bunnies were changed in appearance. Why not mix up the food stuffs a little and see what we can come up with that can be similar to what we know but at the same time exotic and new?
Naturally, as Roak remains an underdeveloped planet for a little over three centuries, the farming of food stuffs and raising of livestock are how the people survive. I don't believe or even think for a moment, though, that Roak is a farming/gathering/hunting type civilization. The civilization on Lemuris, yes, it is. If the right private action is triggered on the alternate Earth, Lymle indicates as much. However, Lemuris doesn't have some of the same advancements as Roak. The climate from one planet to the other also makes a difference in how easy it is to till the soil (cold weather causes the water in the soil to freeze, etc . . .) in certain areas. There's a lot of open space on Roak, and it wouldn't necessarily be hard for farmers and livestock breeders to keep monsters from eating the food/breaking into the barns and livestock pens.
I think in terms of produce, one would definitely find fruits and vegetables similar to that of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, lettuce, corn, and potatoes on Roak. There might even been wild bovines, deer, and other animals for hunting, which I feel would be done until taming the animals could be accomplished. Bunnies are "hunted" and treated like they're horses or donkeys so . . .
Anything is really possible. I'm simply wishing we had more information about the underdeveloped planets themselves so we could get those ideas.
********
* - I will only buy into the notion of a Christmas turkey in a video game with non-humans so long as it's coming from item creation and a human has been involved in the process. Christmas is an Earthen holiday. Life on other planets will not have the same holidays as we do.
** - Like with the Christmas turkey, I will only buy into the premise of coffee milk if the coffee beans are somehow imported from Earth. A friend of mine pointed out to me within the last week of this entry that coffee beans can only grow if certain soil conditions are met. She brought up Anne McCaffrey's research on coffee beans. If the right conditions aren't met - soil, weather, etc . . . - coffee can't grow anywhere other than where they're grown.
*** - I'm now having a hard time buying into the notion that players can buy uncooked pasta on underdeveloped planet. The issue is that of storage and the right combination of ingredients/chemicals to keep the pasta from spoiling . . . unless the uncooked pasta is made fresh daily and sold right away. Then I can believe that premise of buying uncooked pasta on an underdeveloped planet. Yes, uncooked pasta appears in one of the shops on Aeos, but we're talking about stores built by Eldarians so . . . . to buy uncooked pasta from people who know how to preserve it so it doesn't spoil is completely understandable to me.
*************
Note: I have an inquiry out to Laura Bailey, the voice actress for Reimi Saoinji, to interview her for this blog. Even if the interview is a no-go (or I don't hear back in time), I will be writing about Laura and the projects where we can see and hear her voice on June 22. I will post on whether or not the interview will happen.
