Star Ocean: Blue Sphere Mobile (lost inaccessible mobile remake of Game Boy Color role-playing game; 2009)

Status: Lost

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere Mobile (aka スターオーシャンブルースフィアモバイル Sutā Ōshan Burū Sufia Mobairu) was a remake of the 2001 Game Boy Color game Star Ocean: Blue Sphere that was developed by tri-Ace (and published by Square Enix). Released in 2009 for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service. It featured new graphics, new artwork, new music (supervised by Motoi Sakuraba), and a reworked battle system. Like its original version on the GBC, the game was never officially translated or released outside of Japan. The game was shut down in 2018 due to Square Enix cutting off support for their mobile distribution servers.

Note: A portion or maybe even a majority of the development of this mobile remake was actually outsourced to a game company named Sonic Powered. Sonic Powered is known for porting/remaking older games made by other companies to mobile such as Wonder Project J2, Super Star Soldier, Master Takahashi's Adventure Island and Evil Sword Necromancer 2.^[1]

Gameplay

The game follows a similar formula of the previous Star Ocean games and the Tales Of series. Unlike most JRPGs from the time, the combat system is not turn-based, instead it plays similar to a one-on-one fighting game with some RPG elements thrown in. At the start of a battle, the player must choose one out of the three party characters to play as, and can switch between them at any given moment. As mentioned before, this remake completely reworked the battle system, namely with combo attacks.

Availability

The game was released on June 8th, 2009 on the i-Mode mobile service for 600 points for that service (which equaled about 630 yen).^[2]^[3] It was released later on the Yahoo! Mobile and EZweb services in December of that year.^[4] On November 1st, 2017, Square Enix announced the shutdown of its mobile services for Final Fantasy Mobile on March 31st, 2018, which also meant Star Ocean Blue Sphere Mobile along with others would become unavailable as well.^[5]

Despite there being a multitude of screenshots and the game being available to play for almost 9 years (2009 to 2018), there apparently hadn't been any attempts to document or archive it. Perplexingly, elements of the game such as certain cutscenes, skill animations and even boss sprites are nowhere to be found online. Plus, the only video footage of the mobile remake that is available online records just the first 20 minutes of the game. Also, the credits for the developer staff that worked on the game's sprites, code and illustrations are unavailable as well. Those who still have the game on their devices will most likely not be able to play it, as it required connection to the server. But, there's a chance that all of it's assets are within the game's files and there's a chance they could be extracted.

It's very possible that either Tri-Ace, Sonic Powered, or Square Enix might still have backups for the game, as the former is known for keeping all the assets they've made for their games since their conception.

Official Website

Square Enix's official website for Blue Sphere Mobile had Adobe Flash powered showcases of the game's story, characters, world, etc. These were archived in the Wayback Machine.

Archived URLs:

Working SWFs:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090807074546/http://www.square-enix.co.jp:80/mobile/sem/sobs/main.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20091226083048/http://www.square-enix.co.jp:80/mobile/sem/sobs/characters/index.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20100309040510/http://www.square-enix.co.jp:80/mobile/sem/sobs/system/index.html (THIS ONE HAS ANIMATED SPRITES OF THE CHARACTERS' FIELD ACTIONS)

Gallery

Concept Art

Artwork of Precis F. Neumann, the game's main protagonist, and her robot
Artwork of Rival, the game's main antagonist
Artwork of Celine Jules
Artwork of Ashton Anchors
Artwork of Leon D.S. Gehste
Artwork of Claude C. Kenny
Artwork of Rena Lanford
Artwork of Bowman Jeane
Artwork of Dias Flac
Artwork of Noel Chandler
Artwork of Chisato Madison
Artwork of Ernest Raviede
Artwork of Opera Vectra
Artwork of Rival, Bowman, Noel, Leon, Chisato and the Edifians
Artwork of Precis with Celine and Ashton all riding on her robot
Artwork of Claude, Rena and Dias (Opera and Ernest seemingly not included)

Screenshots

Screenshot of the overworld
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the repair minigame
Screenshot of the alchemy minigame
Screenshot of a dungeon
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of the overworld
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of the combat screen
Screenshot of a cutscene
Screenshot of the skills menu
Screenshot of a cutscene
Screenshot of the party selection menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the skills menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the skills menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of the combat menu
Screenshot of a cutscene
Screenshot of a town
Screenshot of dialogue
Screenshot of a dungeon
Screenshot of a town

Wallpapers

Website Wallpaper 1
Website Wallpaper 2
Website Wallpaper 3 (Background figure seems to be one of Rival's final boss forms)
Website Wallpaper 4 (Has sprites of Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen)