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Pretty good remake of a classicJul 24, 2010 I played Star Ocean: The Second Story for the PS1 way back when I was ten or so. It was my first RPG experience and will always have a special place in my heart no matter how fancy-schmancy current games are (and I love eye-candy as much as anyone). So when I heard about a port for the PSP I couldn't resist. It also gave me a chance to reevaluate this game through the eyes of a more experienced me as opposed to the nostalgic memories as a 10 year old.
Storywise, the plot isn't incredibly compelling. The connections and reasons between going from place to place are pretty contrived. The real reason I chug through the story is the characters. I have met just about every character and they all have something unique and interesting to learn about(except maybe Noel, but more on that later).Heck, one's an unlucky dragon-slayer with a pair of dragons possessing him. Another's a journalist with a stun gun and mad martial arts skills. It's the interactions with the different characters you recruit that kept the game going as opposed to the "what's going on? Oh, we need to save the world" thing.
gameplaywise, it's pretty good, although it obviously lacks the prettiness and strategic depth of newer Star Ocean releases. Fights are real time, you only actively control 1 character at a time and only 4 of your characters are on the field. those that you aren't actively controlling are controlled by a fairly competent AI. I never had any problems with the Ally AI.
In playing through, I'm realizing just how much mashing of the X button I do. The triple hitting (a new gameplay mechanic that let's you do three regular melee hits in quick succession) makes the game seem a bit easy. It also places an even greater amount of reliance on fighters rather than mages. Fighters learn special abilities as you level up but most of them are either useless or only as good as regular attacks. Mages have offensive, support or healing spells, depending on the character. The offensive mages are useful in the early game but as mentioned previously, they will tend to get overshadowed by fighters during the mid to late game. The only mage you will consistently use is Rena (healer) because she can eventually heal or revive the whole party at once. The only other healer is Noel but by the time you get him he will be way worse than Rena and his offensive abilities are laughable compared to the offensive mages.
So ,yeah, character balance is a bit of an issue. But as unbalanced as it is, I still love to fight the battles and mess around controlling the different characters and seeing what they can do. I have yet to get to the end of this version, but hopefully the fights will eventually be more difficult then the stuff I'm dealing with now.
when you're not fighting, you can learn skills to do item creation( make weapons/armor, jewelry or food), summon birds that will bring you items (always handy in a dungeon), pickpocket, and a bunch of other things. You can also do Private Actions in the towns to see how the character interact and are always fun to watch.
graphics are essentially the same as the PS1 which isn't really a complaint as it still looks good to me. My only complaint is the new character pop-ups that show up in the bottom corners whenever a particular character speaks. Half the fun for me when I was playing the original was that I could imagine how those sprites on the screen really looked like or what their facial expressions would be. The character pop-ups kinda stole that pleasure by using a fixed set of images per character (minor characters only get one image) to try to match the emotion of their dialogue. Sometimes the expression doesn't quite match the tone of the script, which throws me off a little. But whatever, it's really not that big a deal and probably won't bother anyone not me, but I do wish there was an option to turn off the character pop-ups.
Sound is pretty much identical to the original. The original had a great soundtrack and I'm glad they kept it. The new addition to this version is the voice-acting. I think they did a pretty good job for most characters and the characters can, for the most part, convey the emotions from the script well enough for me to suspend my disbelief. While, again, I miss being able to imagine what they sounded like, the voice-acting is good enough that I don't really mind the change.
Overall, fighting is unbalanced and on the easy side but still fun to play through and seeing what all your recruits can do. SKills and Private actions give you some fun distractions to tinker with. Overall plot is pretty generic. characters are a blast to follow throughout the story. graphics and sound are the same as the orginal with some new additions that I think most will enjoy. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes JRPG's with an emphasis on character development and item creation or wants a new battle system to try out. It's also not a bad way for those not familiar with JRPG's to get into the genre as I did.
Star OceanJun 18, 2010 I played this game on the PSone, and loved it. Seems just about the same, which isn't a bad thing. It's easy to put more than a hundred hours into the game. There are multiple endings, that will be affected by decisions made throughout the game. It actually matter how you interact with the other party members.
I enjoy the combat system. When running around on the map, you don't run into invisible monsters that start fights with you.
The monsters walk around and will chase after you, and when contact is made, then the "fight mode" starts. It's a nice mix between real-time fighting and menu based fighting, and you can customized your moves list, and special moves get stronger the more you use them.
Nothing like a good ol' sprite-based RPG.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Well made but a touch longMay 17, 2010 I must say that there is only one problem i have with this game. I know RPGS are gonna take a while but foring pple to play for 80-100 hrs to have a legit shot at survivng the plot, which this game will do might be a bit much. I did like the frst one and do onsider this a must have only for those dedicated RPG players
SweetApr 07, 2010 Sweet. Play as the hero or the heroine and get different endings based upon actions. Follows After Star Ocean: Fantastic Space odyssey/ The First Departure.
Star Ocean 2 RedefinedFeb 15, 2010 I played the original game on PS1 many years ago. When I learned Square Enix was relaunching this game for the PSP I knew the game was still good enough for today's standards.
The game is mostly voiced. At least on important dialogs with the other characters. There are several anime sequences throughout the game is more importantly, the gameplay remains unchanged. Action based RPG at its finest.
based on 17 reviews
