The Star Ocean franchise has been an underappreciated one throughout the Japanese RPG style. Despite 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 contemplate 1999’s Star Ocean: The Second Story to be the very best entry, and now Square 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 recognition, nevertheless it’s a positive 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 gear, Claude by chance lands on a backwater planet known 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 excellent plot drivers. In an effort to discover a solution to return house, Claude agrees with the native village to analyze the Sorcery Globe, a mysterious meteor-like object that crashed into Expel, inflicting the encircling space to be infested with monsters. As he’s from a technologically superior society, he thinks that the thing may present clues on how you can 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.
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Now Playing: STAR OCEAN THE SECOND STORY R – Official Launch Trailer
While its story is not as complicated as extra fashionable Japanese RPGs corresponding 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 fascinating dynamic between the 2 and the world round them–the villagers mistake him as some form of prophetic determine as a result of he takes the native monster down with a laser gun, which the villagers suppose is a few form of “sword of light” straight out of a fantasy novel.Star Ocean: The Second Story has a complete of 12 playable characters, together with Claude and Rena. Of these, eight could be recruited in a single playthrough. Due to the variable nature of your last get together, that signifies that most of the characters haven’t got direct involvement with the plot. However, that is made up for with Private 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 attraction and are considerable since they modify relying in your get together composition. For instance, having the younger engineer, Precis F. Neumann, and the merchandise inventor, Welch Vineyard, recruited in the identical get together unlocks a dialog the place Welch learns a brand new assault talent to make use of in battle. The sheer variety of attainable get together mixtures 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 principle narrative.The battle system retains its real-time action-based fight and as much as 4 get together members could be on display screen at a time. It’s much like Final Fantasy XVI in that you just management one character in real-time with primary assaults and particular abilities 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 it is Claude chucking fireballs out of his sword or Rena summoning big stone orbs out of the sky, there’s not a boring second throughout any battle.Even although this remake nonetheless has its authentic battle system, sensible adjustments have been added to make it really feel extra fashionable. There are two new mechanics known as the Break and Assault Action programs. Each enemy has a protect that dampens the injury you deal, and so it is crucial that you just use abilities that prioritize breaking defenses fairly than inflicting HP injury. Once the protect is damaged, enemies are briefly immobilized and you may wail on them. This system incentivizes you to modify up your assaults and retains the strategy assorted, like Tales of Arise.The Assault Action system takes characters in a roundabout way collaborating in battle and means that you can summon them to unleash assist assaults. It’s a implausible solution to embody inactive characters in a fashion that makes them really feel like they’re nonetheless contributing to fights. Additionally, by finishing aspect quests, you’ll be able to generally earn the flexibility to summon characters from different Star Ocean video games, corresponding to Laeticia from Star Ocean 6: The Divine Force and Edge from Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope. As a very long time fan of this sequence, this mechanic was a wonderful solution to make the most of nostalgia with out feeling low-cost. While calling on cameo characters appears unusual from a story standpoint, they’re utterly elective and you may select to solely summon characters from Second Story.As you defeat enemies, you acquire orbs to construct up your Bonus GaugeBattle Bonus meter to grant passive bonuses, like elevated assault energy or extra expertise after battle, which helps maintain you engaged from battle to battle. This mechanic was launched within the third sport within the sequence, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. While 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 in keeping with later entries.Despite the thrilling battle system, it’s held again by a flimsy dodge mechanic. Enemies glow purple to point an incoming highly effective assault. If you appropriately time your dodge, you may zip behind the enemy and restore a few of your MP, permitting you to unleash extra abilities. But the timing wanted to tug off a profitable dodge feels off and the window is not beneficiant sufficient. Flubbing your dodge has disastrous penalties as not solely does it depart 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 a substitute of dodging. I may at all times heal my HP with an merchandise, so it merely wasn’t price doubtlessly being ganged up on and dying whereas additionally dropping my Bonus Gauge.After a battle, battle factors earned by characters could be distributed into stats, battle abilities, and skills to make them stronger. You can select to concentrate on rising Claude’s general attacking energy, or degree up a sure battle talent in order that it unleashes additional hits. For instance, I maxed out Claude’s Sword Bomber talent, which elevated the general injury and variety of fireballs launched. It’s an effective way to tailor your individual playstyle as I centered on Claude’s crowd management tactics–leveling up Sword Bomber effortlessly let me wipe out a number of enemies directly.Another staple mechanic of the sequence, Item Creation, is again. It’s a comparatively easy idea the place you’ll be able to mix completely different elements to create quite a lot of weapons, objects, and kit. It’s not crucial to grasp Item Creation throughout a traditional playthrough, however on greater difficulties and post-game content material, it is positively helpful. Being in a position to forge stronger gear and create particular setups for more durable 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 would momentarily stun bosses and stop them utilizing their strongest assaults. There have been additionally cases throughout battle the place I wanted stronger therapeutic, so a few 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 an excellent incentive to tinker round with Item Creation and uncover new recipes and formulation.Square Enix teamed up with GemDrops, which additionally developed Cogen: Sword of Rewind and Crystar, for Second Story R. The remake follows the development of Square 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 embody Octopath Traveler 1 and a pair of, Triangle Strategy, and the Live a Live remake. However, Second Story R takes this artwork fashion a step additional by conserving the 2D pixel artwork character sprites however utilizing totally fashionable 3D environments and buildings. The backgrounds, foliage, and lighting look wonderful to the purpose that it truly seems just like the 2D characters are a bit misplaced. It feels as if extra polygonal character fashions like within the authentic Final Fantasy VII could be extra applicable.This remake additionally contains full English and Japanese voice appearing, and that provides to the general status of this remake. The high quality of voice appearing has come an infinite approach because the early to late 2000s, and Second Story R’s new voice forged is lightyears forward of its earlier iterations. The voices have far more vary and emotion than ever earlier than.Additionally, Motoi Sakuraba’s newly organized soundtrack for this sport sounds immaculate. The franchise’s battle themes are grandiose with their attractive strings blended with electrifying guitars, making them distinctly “Star Ocean.” Second Story R’s battle theme, “Stab the Sword of Justice,” would not disappoint. The newly drawn 2D character artwork within the menu is unbelievable, too; the strains and colours look sharp and crisp. If you feel additional nostalgic, you’ll be able to change between the brand new character artwork and the older ones from the PSP and PS1 days and have them displayed within the menu. This is a pleasant visible indicator of how a lot effort and care Square Enix and GemDrops put into this explicit remake.Another power of Star Ocean: The Second Story R is its replayability. New Game Plus means that you can expertise the story once more, however has different perks corresponding to carrying over your ranges and gear. Due to the variability of your last 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 Private Actions you’ve got seen. There are endings for every single character, in addition to endings for every attainable pair. Since 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 last get together compositions are wanted.Gallery Trying to view all of those all through a number of playthroughs is not for the faint of coronary heart. Furthermore, you do not even have to instantly get began on New Game 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 perfect stability between staying trustworthy to the unique sport and updating it for contemporary occasions. The revamped artwork fashion and music make it extra aesthetically pleasing whereas using 2D pixel character fashions provides a sure nostalgic attraction. The battle system did not want an entire overhaul and the builders neatly 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.