Synthesis (合成, Gōsei?) is a feature in the Star Ocean series that normally complements Item Creation. Through Synthesis, players can improve their equipment by merging items that imbue factors into the base weapon, armor or accessory in question.
Appearances[]
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time[]
The player can add many effects to an item through certain types of invention like crafting and synthesizing, thus giving inventions a vast potential. The first step is to select the weapon on which the player will base their invention—any weapon can be used, but they should select a weapon that will be useful in battle.
Then, the player must set a line in the workshop for SYTH. One must have the synthesis materials in order to execute this step. The step will result in the reinvention of the weapon with the selected item's effect. If successful the new item will have -R# appended to the end, where # is the number of times the weapon has been synthesized.
Star Ocean: The Last Hope[]
The use of Synthesis is specific to Sarah Jerand, in contrast to the other characters, who all known a specific Item Creation skills each. It, again, allows the player to merge equipment with other items to synthesize even stronger equipment. Equipment available for synthesis include weapons, armor, Neck and Wrist accessories. One limitation is that the player cannot synthesize Common Items with other Common Items.
In the Synthesis process, there is the 'Base' item and the 'Synth' item. Every synthesizable item has a Synth Limit which is displayed at the top-left corner in the Synthesis panel. This number is how many times the player can synthesize this particular item as a Base. Each time it is synthesized, the Synth Limit is decreased by 1, and when it reaches 0, the item can no longer be used as a Base.
Each item that can be used as the Synth material has certain stat characteristics that it bestows on the synthesized equipment. They can provide up to: two stats, and two factors. Adding factor resistances is only possible by synthesizing an Equipable with another Equipable.
Note that, if a synthesized Equipable is added onto another Base, the synthesis will carry only the Base stats of the Synth item. For example: If one synthesizes a Workman's Blade (ATK 22) with a Bizarre Fruit synth (ATK +4), the player receives a Workman's Blade-R01 (ATK 26). If this blade is used as synth for a Blessed Sword (ATK 36), the player receives a Blessed Sword-R01 (ATK 38). Basically, the extra Synthed item's stats will not show if the player tries to use it 'again' onto something else.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness[]
In the fifth installment, Augmentation takes the place of synthesis. Although the names are different in both English and Japanese, the feature is functionally the same: players can combine items with pieces of equipment (weapons, armor and accessories), thereby increasing the equipment's attributes or adding factors to it. Again, items have a Synth limit after which they can no longer be enhanced.
Star Ocean: Anamnesis[]
Called enhancing (錬成合成, Rensei gōsei?, lit. Melting Synthesis), the function works quite differently than previously. It involves the melting of weapons into others so as to level them up.
The Weapon Gear (ウェポンギア, Wepon Gia?) feature, introduced in -Twin Eclipse- along with Welch Vineyard, functions much more similarly to the traiditional Synthesis. It involves the addition and substraction of factors from weapon through the usage of gears and Welch' Special Grease.
