The Star Ocean franchise has been an underappreciated one inside the Japanese RPG style. Regardless of being round for greater than 25 years, it is by no means had the breakout success that elevated it to new heights, as one thing like Persona or Tales have had in more moderen years. Many longtime followers take into account 1999’s Star Ocean: The Second Story to be the perfect entry, and now Sq. Enix has remade it for contemporary consoles. Star Ocean: The Second Story R is a remake that manages to not solely have the retro really feel of its older PS1 and PSP incarnations, but in addition make it really feel contemporary with new battle mechanics, in addition to audio and visuals updates. It might not be the large break that’ll lastly make the Star Ocean franchise explode in reputation, but it surely’s a fantastic Japanese RPG by itself phrases.
The Second Story’s plot follows an brisk younger man named Claude C. Kenny and a caring younger woman named Rena Lanford. After disobeying his father’s orders and touching a malfunctioning piece of teleportation tools, Claude by accident lands on a backwater planet referred to as Expel, runs into Rena, and has to guard her from a monster. These two characters are the core focus of the story, and their respective motivations and conditions make for nice plot drivers. In an effort to discover a method to return house, Claude agrees with the native village to research the Sorcery Globe, a mysterious meteor-like object that crashed into Expel, inflicting the encompassing space to be infested with monsters. As he’s from a technologically superior society, he thinks that the thing may present clues on the way to get off of Expel. Rena, in the meantime, is an orphan and hopes to uncover extra of her personal previous, as she is the one particular person on Expel to be blessed with pure therapeutic powers.
Whereas its story is not as complicated as extra fashionable Japanese RPGs equivalent to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, its simplicity permits character relationships to shine. The juxtaposition between Claude’s technological upbringing, the place flying in spaceships was an on a regular basis occurance, and Rena’s extra medieval background makes for an attention-grabbing dynamic between the 2 and the world round them–the villagers mistake him as some kind of prophetic determine as a result of he takes the native monster down with a laser gun, which the villagers assume is a few kind of “sword of sunshine” straight out of a fantasy novel.
Star Ocean: The Second Story has a complete of 12 playable characters, together with Claude and Rena. Of those, eight may be recruited in a single playthrough. Because of the variable nature of your remaining get together, that implies that most of the characters haven’t got direct involvement with the plot. Nonetheless, that is made up for with Personal Actions, that are aspect conversations Claude and Rena can have with these characters all through the sport’s many cities. These add a variety of appeal and are ample since they modify relying in your get together composition. For instance, having the younger engineer, Summary F. Neumann, and the merchandise inventor, Welch Winery, recruited in the identical get together unlocks a dialog the place Welch learns a brand new assault ability to make use of in battle. The sheer variety of attainable get together combos provides to the immense replayability of the sport. It additionally provides some worth to characters that in any other case really feel like bit components in the primary narrative.
The battle system retains its real-time action-based fight and as much as 4 get together members may be on display screen at a time. It’s just like Ultimate Fantasy XVI in that you simply management one character in real-time with fundamental assaults and particular expertise whereas your different companions are managed by the AI. The fights are thrilling and dynamic, with particle results flying as swords repeatedly conflict with armor and magical spells conjure blades of wind and tsunamis to envelope the battlefield. Whether or not it is Claude chucking fireballs out of his sword or Rena summoning large stone orbs out of the sky, there’s not a uninteresting second throughout any combat.
Regardless that this remake nonetheless has its unique battle system, good adjustments have been added to make it really feel extra fashionable. There are two new mechanics referred to as the Break and Assault Motion methods. Every enemy has a protect that dampens the injury you deal, and so it is crucial that you simply use expertise that prioritize breaking defenses relatively than inflicting HP injury. As soon as the protect is damaged, enemies are briefly immobilized and you’ll wail on them. This method incentivizes you to change up your assaults and retains the method various, like Tales of Come up.
The Assault Motion system takes characters circuitously collaborating in battle and lets you summon them to unleash assist assaults. It is a implausible method to embrace inactive characters in a fashion that makes them really feel like they’re nonetheless contributing to fights. Moreover, by finishing aspect quests, you possibly can generally earn the flexibility to summon characters from different Star Ocean video games, equivalent to Laeticia from Star Ocean 6: The Divine Pressure and Edge from Star Ocean 4: The Final Hope. As a very long time fan of this sequence, this mechanic was a wonderful method to make the most of nostalgia with out feeling low cost. Whereas calling on cameo characters appears unusual from a story standpoint, they’re utterly optionally available and you’ll select to solely summon characters from Second Story.
As you defeat enemies, you accumulate orbs to construct up your Bonus GaugeBattle Bonus meter to grant passive bonuses, like elevated assault energy or extra expertise after battle, which helps hold you engaged from battle to battle. This mechanic was launched within the third recreation within the sequence, Star Ocean: Until the Finish of Time. Whereas it’s not a brand new mechanic to the sequence general, it’s the primary time Second Story has it, which is a welcome addition that makes this remake really feel extra according to later entries.
Regardless of the thrilling battle system, it’s held again by a flimsy dodge mechanic. Enemies glow purple to point an incoming highly effective assault. In case you accurately time your dodge, you may zip behind the enemy and restore a few of your MP, permitting you to unleash extra expertise. However the timing wanted to drag off a profitable dodge feels off and the window is not beneficiant sufficient. Flubbing your dodge has disastrous penalties as not solely does it go away you vast open to be massacred for a number of seconds, it additionally resets your Bonus Gauge. The cons vastly outweigh the professionals and I made a decision to only tank incoming hits from enemies as an alternative of dodging. I may at all times heal my HP with an merchandise, so it merely wasn’t value probably being ganged up on and dying whereas additionally shedding my Bonus Gauge.
After a combat, battle factors earned by characters may be distributed into stats, battle expertise, and skills to make them stronger. You may select to give attention to rising Claude’s general attacking energy, or degree up a sure battle ability in order that it unleashes further hits. For instance, I maxed out Claude’s Sword Bomber ability, which elevated the general injury and variety of fireballs launched. It’s an effective way to tailor your individual playstyle as I targeted on Claude’s crowd management tactics–leveling up Sword Bomber effortlessly let me wipe out a number of enemies without delay.
One other staple mechanic of the sequence, Merchandise Creation, is again. It is a comparatively easy idea the place you possibly can mix completely different components to create a wide range of weapons, objects, and equipment. It is not crucial to grasp Merchandise Creation throughout a traditional playthrough, however on greater difficulties and post-game content material, it is positively helpful. With the ability to forge stronger tools and create particular setups for tougher battles goes a good distance. It provides a whole new dimension to gameplay as I used to be in a position to engineer bombs that might momentarily stun bosses and stop them utilizing their strongest assaults. There have been additionally situations throughout battle the place I wanted stronger therapeutic, so a number of the potions I made recovered as much as 100% HP. These greater tier objects weren’t sometimes present in common outlets, so it is a terrific incentive to tinker round with Merchandise Creation and uncover new recipes and formulation.
Sq. Enix teamed up with GemDrops, which additionally developed Cogen: Sword of Rewind and Crystar, for Second Story R. The remake follows the development of Sq. Enix’s 2.5D graphical video games, that are characterised by their 2D pixel artwork character sprites with retro-styled 3D environments and motion. These video games embrace Octopath Traveler 1 and a pair of, Triangle Technique, and the Reside a Reside remake. Nonetheless, Second Story R takes this artwork model a step additional by protecting the 2D pixel artwork character sprites however utilizing totally fashionable 3D environments and buildings. The backgrounds, foliage, and lighting look superb to the purpose that it really appears to be like just like the 2D characters are a bit misplaced. It feels as if extra polygonal character fashions like within the unique Ultimate Fantasy VII can be extra applicable.
This remake additionally consists of full English and Japanese voice appearing, and that provides to the general status of this remake. The standard of voice appearing has come an infinite approach because the early to late 2000s, and Second Story R’s new voice solid is lightyears forward of its earlier iterations. The voices have far more vary and emotion than ever earlier than.
Moreover, Motoi Sakuraba’s newly organized soundtrack for this recreation sounds immaculate. The franchise’s battle themes are grandiose with their beautiful strings combined with electrifying guitars, making them distinctly “Star Ocean.” Second Story R’s battle theme, “Stab the Sword of Justice,” does not disappoint. The newly drawn 2D character artwork within the menu is unimaginable, too; the traces and colours look sharp and crisp. In case you’re feeling further nostalgic, you possibly can swap between the brand new character artwork and the older ones from the PSP and PS1 days and have them displayed within the menu. This can be a good visible indicator of how a lot effort and care Sq. Enix and GemDrops put into this explicit remake.
One other power of Star Ocean: The Second Story R is its replayability. New Recreation Plus lets you expertise the story once more, however has different perks equivalent to carrying over your ranges and tools. Because of the variability of your remaining get together, there are 99 completely different character endings relying on the connection degree between the characters in your get together and what number of Personal Actions you’ve got considered. There are endings for every single character, in addition to endings for every attainable pair. Because you solely have a complete of eight get together slots with 12 twelve attainable characters, a number of playthroughs are wanted to unlock each single one since completely different remaining get together compositions are wanted.
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Attempting to view all of those all through a number of playthroughs is not for the faint of coronary heart. Moreover, you do not even have to instantly get began on New Recreation Plus upon finishing the sport, both. The franchise’s signature post-game dungeon, Maze of Tribulations, returns and cooks up a beefy problem for gamers who wish to tackle the toughest fights the sport has to supply.
Star Ocean: The Second Story R strikes a super steadiness between staying trustworthy to the unique recreation and updating it for contemporary instances. The revamped artwork model and music make it extra aesthetically pleasing whereas using 2D pixel character fashions provides a sure nostalgic appeal. The battle system did not want an entire overhaul and the builders well added new options to make it really feel extra dynamic–the fights really feel exhilarating and enjoyable. Second Story R is jam-packed with content material that may final any Japanese RPG fan satiated for hours on finish.