Star Ocean: The Second Story

"Loads and Loads of replay value!"

Star Ocean: The Second Story

The continuation of a great game which was released in Japan only. This game was made by Tri-Ace, whose works include the Tales series (Tales of Phantasia and Destiny, just imagine Destiny was never released heh heh) and the upcoming game Valkyrie Profile! This story is the continutation of the Kenni family, in this episode the hero is Claude Kenni son of Ronixis Kenni from the first game, and about a young woman named Rena Lanford. A mysterious object crashes onto a planet called Expel, and from the object dubbed the Sorcery Globe, many hiddeous creature spew forth while causing the normal animals to turn into monsters. A few months later while out on an exploration mission with his father, our hero ::coughcoughpansycough:: Claude is warped to the planet Expel. Claude saves Rena from an attack by a monster and is mistakenly? called to be the hero that will save the planet Expel from the Sorcery Globe.
This game features an innovative party system in which you can get eight out of twelve characters to join you in your quest. The thing is that the characters you can get are influenced by which character you started out with, and who is currently in your party. Some characters will join only if a certain character is already in your party. While some won't wanna go near you if a certain person is already in your party. Also the game features a character affection system. What this does is by talking to certain people and doing certain events characters can be friends and even romantically linked to one another! Well who cares if the characters have the hots for eachother right? Weeellll, if a character dies in battle and the person they're linked to is there they have the chance to fly into a rage causing an increase in speed, attack, and critical hit rate!!! I kid you not this is all true! Wait the fun doesn't stop now this also has an effect in which of the over 80 endings you get.
Over 80 endings!!! well actually 87! Yes that was what was advertised, and is somewhat true. The endings are actually different scenes at the end which are gotten by coupling or not coupling the games 12 characters. This adds loads to the replay value. But ya know what else? This lil' baby's got 3 different difficulty settings. You initial play in earth mode, but as you hear more of the voice clips played during the battle you can get an additional galaxy and universal mode, each one featuring a higher AI and HP settings for the enemies(universe mode is insanely difficult making just your random world map battle as hard as a boss!) So to get more and more clips you need to replay the game getting every character (i recommend getting Opera and Ernest on your first run, cause Ashton is the MAN!)
What's really fun about this game is the battle system. Tri-Ace has been known to take battles from that boring menu/turn based combat seen in the Final Fantasy series, and make it so enjoyable that you wanna fight. In battles you are thrust into a 3d plane with obstacles such as bolders and train carts, and are expected to duke it out in real time(except when picking items and magic), and no not the mangled fake FF version of real time. No this is as real a real time as real time. you have complete control of your characters movements and actions, they can run up to you and hit you, and you can do the same. For you Tales vets to the Linear Motion Battle system (LMB) and imagine it in 3d. Also you're characters can learn techniques and use them. The more you use them causes your proficiency counter for that tech to raise, and at certain points the tech levels up. This causes not only a change in animation but a change in damge, and for certain techs the adding of additional hits. You can also give your characters a certain formation in battle, this could help during pre-emptive strikes, or could aide you in running. Also the battle could also go in an unexpected way should you enter into a pincer attack. I found this the most enjoyable battle system i've ever played, even more so then the Seiken Densetsu(Secret of Mana) series!
The music I found was extremely well done. Many of the themes are catchy and fit the mood perfectly. It was so well done that I only recently found that the music reset after battles, but you won't even care. The dungeon themes range from catchy to some eerie. The battle theme was really upbeat and the way a battle song should be done. The boss and major boss battles were all upbeat as well, you might even find your self bopping your head to the music.
I really didn't care much for the story. I easily reduced it to your basic good versus bad thing with the major boss trying to destroy the universe and not caring. But that's not the main attraction to the game. Upon entering the world of Star Ocean you're thrusted into a world filled with great characters, and many things to do. Building up your character is an enjoyable task, and trying to make different weapons and even foods with the item creation system adds loads of hours to your game clock. There's also a really hard hidden dungeon with like 13 floors of puzzles and no save spots. Also you Iron Chef fans there's a mini game based on the hit food battle show in the game!

Score:

Story: 7/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Music: 9/10
Replay: 10/10
Difficulty: 8/10

Total Score: 8/10

Great game. rent it if you're still not sure. But if you purchase it you won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/00, Updated 07/15/00