The Star Ocean Universe

I'm hoping quite a bit, actually, but I do need to look at my old updating schedules to find out what I used to do. I feel awful that I haven't kept up with this as much as I'd like, but then that's what happens when life gets in the way and other things (like sleeping, working, and eating) take precedence. I'm currently not working as I write this, but, given I work for a temp agency, that could change today or not at all for another week or two. We'll see what happens (and I'm not being idle, either).

With all of the bemoaning out of the way, it's time to get a few things set up. First, the Star Ocean Character Birthday List. Yes. I completed it a while ago. I just haven't posted it. Also, I'd like to take this moment to say that, just because I've designated birthdays for characters who don't have them that others MUST use them. If you've loved a character enough to designate when you celebrate that birthday, by all means, let me know. These are primarily for fanfiction and fanart purposes, and I try to post the entries in the actual journals at livejournal and dreamwidth as opposed to here. (And, so everyone knows, fanfiction and fanart that isn't my own does not get posted without permission. If you chose to send any artwork, photography, and writing my way, it's yours to post wherever you want.) The astericks denote where the birthdays are unofficial and are, obviously, assigned by me.

Character List for Star Ocean by Game – Birthdays, official and unofficial
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I posted this to the facebook page. Now I need to post it here. (Thanks to missnox for asking this question to me on dA and thus prompting me to find out for sure.) I must apologize to everyone for not knowing that Crispin Freeman, who was an Otakon guest along with Kyle Herbert (both of whom I did not get autographs), voiced Albel Nox for the English version of Till the End of Time. If I had been just a little more aware of who my English VAs are for the games, I would have forgone lunch and found the autograph line a helluva lot sooner than I did. I promise to do better the next time I'm at a larger convention where lines are absolutely crazy for things like the dealer's room, artist's alley, and basically all autograph panels.

Now, onto the reminder: Next weekend Laura Bailey (Reimi and Welch) and Travis Willingham (Bacchus, King of Astral) will be in Washington, D.C., next weekend for Anime USA at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel. Kyle Herbert (Dias Flac, Star Ocean: Second Evolution; Crowe F. Almedio and Arumat P. Thanatos, Star Ocean: The Last Hope) will be making an appearance at YoumaCon, which runs from October 31 to November 3 in Detroit. I'm going to get my voice actor lists compiled (Japanese and English) so I can keep an eye out for who is going to be where so fans can make plans accordingly.

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Ask the Star Ocean Character - Roger S. Huxley

Hello once again, everyone, and welcome back to Ask the Star Ocean Character! Joining us this week is Roger S. Huxley from Surferio! Hello, Roger, and thank you for joining us.

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Character Facts

Name: Roger S. Huxley
Age: 12
Height: 85 cm; 3'1"**
Weight: 30 kg; 66 lbs
English Voice Actor: Mona Marshall
Japanese Voice Actor: Mari Maruta
Weapons: Helms, mainly, and axes.
Homeworld: Elicoor II
Race: Menodix
Quote from the game manual: Sometimes a real man's just gotta keep on goin'.

While it is entirely possible to avoid recruiting Roger entirely, he is one of a few characters who has toys. Kotobuyika and Trading Arts each released a Roger PVC, each with a different pose. (There are four total, if one counts the color and clear/ivory variants.)

Roger is the only one who, if you don't recruit him and bypass him entirely, has an ending.

He was born and raised in the Lost City of Surferio. His father is the Village Chief.

Item Creation Stats:
Roger adds a -5 factor to all time it takes on Item Creation. He has no effect on the cost.
Cooking - 2
Alchemy -  6
Crafting - 35
Compounding - 6
Smithery - 23
Writing - 4
Engineering - 20
Synthesis - 10

** - Star Ocean wikia lists Roger's height as 2', 9.5" - the 3'1" comes from both the game's manual and strategy guide which I feel is more accurate.

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Character Study - Roger S. Huxley

From the game's strategy guide: Roger S. Huxley is a little boy with a humungous ego and an equally large talent for getting into trouble. Roger S. Huxley is a Menodix, a common species of humanoid that lives mostly in the Sanmite Republic. His father is the Village Chief in the Lost City of Surferio. Roger can usually be found hanging with his two pals, thinking up new challenges for their ongoing Real Man Contest.

Roger is not one of my favorite characters nor is he really one of my least favorites. I wish I could say he was annoying on the level that Meracle is, but he, sadly, does not have the tragic past she does to excuse why he is the way he is. In truth, knowing that he the Village Chief's son makes it all the more understandable as to why he's such a rude jerk when he doesn't get his way with Cliff and Fayt in their first encounter. Roger very much does have the humungous ego mentioned in the game's strategy guide, he is quite rude, especially to other males (namely Fayt and Cliff - there are no real interactions between him and the other supporting male cast of Adray and Albel). The manga took on a more real twist with Roger when he first appears in Duggus Forest. He thinks he can screw around and yank on Fayt's chain as they're looking for Ameena Leffeld, and it turns out his efforts are not very much appreciated. He tries to prove himself yet again by helping in finding the illness-struck young girl and ends up in a battle he wasn't expecting. He does become useful against the mud monster because, while he's done and trying to counteract the poison of the creature, Cliff points out real men don't run away.

Roger in the manga is certainly more interesting as a flawed character than Roger in the game.

From the in-game dictionary: A young Menodix boy who lives in the Lost City of Surferio.
This major problem child travels around with two bad influences named Dribe and Melt, and plays life-threatening games with Lucien, Lezard, and Vellion, all as part of a so-called Real Man Contest.
It would be a good idea to keep an eye on this one, as he is always buying trouble with his rude words.

At this point, here is where I disagree with this assessment of Roger, or at least his friends, Dribe and Melt. If any of them seem to be the bad influence, it's Roger. Melt will protest when something sounds too dangerous. Dribe will just speak in enigmatic riddles. Roger himself really has no sense of self-preservation in the game, especially after you've rescued him and gone to recruit him after the whole Ameena incident. (Which recruiting Roger will lower Albel's affinity for Fayt but is necessary if the player wants some really unique restorative items.)

Roger could be a very interesting character if a fanfiction writer wants the opportunity to play. Here is a spoiled child who thinks he's a real man, is quite the big flirt with Nel, but he still possesses no idea of how reality actually works. Yes, he's one of a few recruitable characters who goes up against the Creator, but it isn't quite the life-changing event he needs in order to grow up. (You'd think it would be, but given his solo ending and his ending with Fayt, you realize it isn't so.) If in the hands of a capable fanfiction writer, Roger could grow to be an interesting, multi-faceted character. Otherwise, he's just a spoiled child pretending to be an adult.

**For the Roger fans: Yes, I know my assessment of this character is harsh. It kind of needs to be since many of the characters in these games, including my beloved Fayt, tend to be a little more one-dimensional than not.

Thus concludes the entry for today.

Ask the Star Ocean Character - Bacchus D-79

Welcome back, my fellow Star Ocean friends and fans! Today, our guest on the sixth installation of Ask the Star Ocean Character is Bacchus D-79 of the Morphus and crew member on The Calnus. Hello, Bacchus!

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Note for dreamwidth, livejournal, and facebook friends, I go by Dragonfly Moonlight on fanfiction.net for posting and reviewing fan fiction, including the Ask the Star Ocean Character segments. I have a poll up in regards to the Star Ocean fan event. Please take the time to find me there and and vote! Thanks!

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Dream Houses, Part Six - Bacchus D-79

If Bacchus and his wife could settle on an actual planet, instead of living in an apartment complex on En II, I think it's something they both would do and in a heartbeat. It would be a very small house, maybe big enough for them to raise a few children (no more than three), and to grow a variety of plants and raise animals. Not so much as like a farm but more like a retreat. This patch of land would be an observatory for Bacchus, who I can see would love to have such a place just for the sake of science alone. Yes, he does the mining in the game, but that's with his cyborg form and not his . . . squishy form.

The house itself would be a simple affair and follow a rather logical pattern, as it were. Two stories, at the most, with a place for Bacchus to conduct his observations and his research as well as a lab where he could analyze the data he collects. I don't think he'd do anything super ostentatious, like Reimi, Sophia, and Deputy Director Shimada. Rather, I see him more on the same level as Maria and Meracle - something simple and functional and where his wife could feel happy and at home.

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Character Facts

Bacchus's last name is actually Dexley.
His date of birth is May 5, and his Earth astrological sign is Taurus.
His wife's name is Freesia.

Japanese Voice Actor: Hiroki Yasumoto
English Voice Actor: Travis Willingham

Item Creation Stats:
Smithery  7
Cooking -8
Alchemy  2
Artistry    -2
Engineering 10
Crafting  3
Sense -8

Considered the galactic champion of runic chess until Edge beats him (and yes, I'm saying runic chess) and likes to ponder about things on the commode.

Bacchus's other areas of specialty include robotics (increased chance of gaining an item from robotic enemies) and mining.

There is no toy for Bacchus.

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Character Study - Bacchus D-79

Name: Bacchus D-79
Real Name: Bacchus Dexley
Age: 32
Height: 7'0" (as a cyborg - chances are, he's just as tall as a squishy Morphus)
Weight: 516 lbs
Eye color: blue
Hair color: unknown
Weapon: mounted arm cannon
Field of study: medical science
Favorite food: Unknown

Quote: As a humble scientist, I would like nothing more than to answer your questions.

From the game manual: ( Read more... )
First of all, I must commend Travis Willingham for sounding so much like Robert Wagner with Bacchus. Until I visited both imdb.com and the Star Ocean wikia site, I would have sworn up and down that it was Robert Wagner. Kudos to him

Now, for the dissection of Bacchus.

It's quite clear from the moment Bacchus appears to rescue Edge, Reimi, Faize, and Lymle that he is quite the unique Star Ocean character because he is that cyborg. No other character is a complete cyborg like Bacchus (even Precis from Star Ocean 2 isn't a cyborg). He wears this stoic expression on his face and has a no-nonsense attitude about him, which lends a great deal of credibility to his strong sense of justice characterization from the manual, the strategy guide, and in-game dictionary. The only downfall to this is that he looks more like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story than anything original.

The Buzz Lightyear comparison aside, Bacchus is actually a fun character to observe. He's like an older yet more mature and wiser version of Faize, and he can be easily flustered. Speaking with Welch shortly after escaping the Cardianon mothership's suicidal warp into unknown space. As most The Last Hope players know by this point, when you head into item creation with Bacchus for the first time, Welch appears with cardboard costumes of a French maid and a surfer girl/little sister, and it does something to Bacchus. He is rendered shocked and speechless. Someone at the Star Ocean wikia said disturbed by what she was doing, but I don't see it, personally. I think the French maid and surfer girl/little sister outfits were unlike anything he had ever seen before and therefore just couldn't process it properly.

Unfortunately, the optical camouflage isn't something that we get to see right away. We do see it on the alternate Earth but not until Edge is trying to rescue Reimi from the military base. For being a very smart guy, it's actually a dumb maneuver to not pull out the optical camouflage sooner, but it was how the game needed to flow so . . .

From in-game dictionary and strategy guide: ( Read more... )
We learn much about Bacchus almost right from get go with few exceptions. For some things, private actions need to be triggered (like learning about Freesia). Bacchus, for the most part, is a Morphus of very few words. I agree with the straitlaced and doggedly logical parts. Generally unsociable? No. He may not be like Meracle, Lymle, and Reimi when it comes to being bouncy, happy, and running up to someone they're happy to see, but, if he's approached, he socializes. He talks. Playing the game of runic chess with Edge (and then Reimi) proves that to me.

Bacchus is what we would call a nerd. He is a thinker. He likes to pontificate on problems that maybe no one else would ever consider, and he likes to have the answers.

As I said earlier, Bacchus is like a wiser, older, and more mature version of Faize. He's fourteen years older than the young Eldarian and thus has seen much. His experiences make it marginally easier for him to accept tragedy and that some things can happen when logic dictates that it shouldn't happen. Refer back to the game with Tamiel's attempt at resurrecting Asmodeus for this one. Never once did Bacchus agree with Faize on how impossible it was to resurrect a demon or a fiend, and Faize didn't believe it to be possible.

Bacchus isn't exactly closed off to viewing events through the eyes of others. He quite enjoys Edge's enthusiasm for space exploration, even though the Morphus, as he explains it to Edge, have already taken that first monumental step into space, long before he was ever born.

From the in-game dictionary: ( Read more... )
Yes, Freesia's actions baffle Bacchus, who is a more the kind of guy to use logic to solve his problems rather than listen to his heart at times. He's afraid that, with all of the tinkering and modification that he's done to himself in his pursuit of destroying the Grigori, he's tinkered away his heart and thus is losing pieces of himself, but this little insecurity of his proves that it isn't happening. He's a very smart man. I'm sure that's what drew Freesia to him in the first place.

And the fact that he does suffer bouts of depression over his wife isn't surprising for me. To me, that says he misses her, that he thinks about her as much as he tries to unravel complex and simple problems, and he wants nothing more than to return home and be with her. In this, I liken him to any military service member who spends the holidays on tours in other countries, walking the walls and taking the risks so that their fellow countrymen and the citizens of the country they're in can sleep better at night and just be safe. Of course, when it comes to his wife throughout the game, he's a bit of a coward and doesn't reach out to her at all. That I can chalk up to as insecurity. He's afraid that he's losing her yet she baffles him with her stubbornness to stay in their marriage.

I actually believe that Bacchus and Freesia balance each other out quite nicely. Of course, we only see Freesia for a few moments so it's really hard to say what kind of a woman she really is, but we know that she loves Bacchus and she truly does miss him. (Gain Bacchus's ending for that.)

There is actually a lot of wiggle room when it comes to exploring Bacchus's character. What led him to become a medical scientist in the first place? What was it about Roak and the stone sickness that drew him there in the first place (and thus ended up turning him into a cyborg)? What does he actually look like? Why did he accept the mission to eliminate the Grigori? Was it because logic dictated that he do so? Was he told by EX that it was his duty? The reasons, the possibilities are endless.