In all the Star Ocean games I've played, he is by far the slowest character to ever cast spells. Even at maxed out stats with a high agility, maxed out reduction time and spell casting time, and even having Starguard equipped.
Was he intentionally made this way to aggravate the players? Because just trying to solo with him is nearly impossible. Case in point, in the arena, at rank C and B and on down, it becomes nearly impossible for him to cast the quickest spell without being interrupted.
Not only that, it is incredibly aggravating to actually use a spell when Starguard is failing to keep him defended. I mean the whole point of Star Guard is to use as a defense to cause the enemy to stagger. Is there a way around this to make sure he is incredibly well prepared? Especially when soloing?
Even using Roddick, who by far in my party has the slowest agility is able to duke it out with anything and everything around him.
He is only Useful to get Erys who is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than him. Other than that you should also have Millie, why are you using him?
This may be dumb, but maybe worth it to just melee him and hope to pad his defense enough to survive? With Rene (from SO2) I had to solo as her for a bit (and then only 2 party for a while) and had her peck at enemy with fist and run , a million times, to survive and even win a battle. Hit-run, hit-run,hit-run.
His accessory shot being locked is a holdover from the original version of the game, where he and Phia were nerfed with fixed equipment to balance their strengths (damage and healing for Ioshua, ranged basic attacks for Phia). While the remake rebalanced the game to remove or minimize these advantages, the fixed equipment remained.
He's still quite useful in most situations, given Millie has limited damage, Ronyx has no heading, and Erys requires a very specific party who trades a top tier character for a slightly improved Ioshua that makes 3/8ths of your crew redundant.
The arena wasn't really balanced for spellcasters, and vice versa.
Ahh. That would explain why you can't remove it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I think Iosha would be a great mage, but his slow speed and accessory slot being taken up kills it for me.
I remember a few times when I first tried controlling him, I'd just put weaker spells assigned to the shortcut buttons so i could cast fast spells with the shortcut buttons, then cast stronger spells from the menu.
Idk if that'd be any help, been a long time since I used him solo.
Wtf?! I've gone almost 30hrs in, and now only realized that this was accessible in battle??? Smh...
To me it was always either greyed out or has a red line through it in battle. Since I didn't pay much attention.
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u/LovelyFloraFan 20h ago
He is only Useful to get Erys who is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than him. Other than that you should also have Millie, why are you using him?