Star Ocean: The Second Story

""Only the vast reaches of outer space can hold the myriad dreams of ten billion people and still show them its infinite possibilities.""

I gather that the original Star Ocean was never released in North America, and since I don't speak Japanese, nor do I have the patience to be constantly consulting a translation guide while playing a game, I'll probably never get the chance to play it. And if the sinfully underrated PSX sequel, Star Ocean: The Second Story, is any indication of just how enjoyable the first game is, I will certainly jump on the first opportunity I have to play it, should it ever get a proper NA release.

The PSX is a console with a great number of RPG's. I'm in no position to say which of them is the absolute best, as I have not played all of them, and I generally have mixed feelings about the more popular ones like Final Fantasy VII (sorry to bring up that game again). SO2 is probably not the best. It lacks a consistent plot, and certain aspects of the game could have done with a little more polish. I can say, though, that of all the RPG's I've played on PSX, SO2 is my favorite – and what do you know, it wasn't made by Square.

It's not so much one thing as it is a collaboration of elements. There's something about SO2 that's amazingly endearing, and I don't know where that comes from. Maybe it's the beautiful storybook settings, delicately drawn with pastels and vibrant colors. Maybe it's the worlds-collide story of two completely different individuals that find common ground amidst chaos and confusion. Maybe it's Motoi Sakuraba's dazzling musical score, balancing quiet, folksy melodies with more upbeat, frantic rhythms. Or it could be the battle system, so fast and so intense and so brimming with strategies and possibilities. It might be the astounding level of character interaction, or the extremely robust skill-building system, or the huge world, or the occasionally insane difficulty, or the nearly unsurpassed level of replay value. Or maybe it's all of these things, and I'd be foolish to pinpoint one single aspect of SO2 that makes everything work so perfectly. I don't know.

Let's start with the story. SO2 focuses on two people from completely different worlds, and how their lives suddenly interact after a mysterious incident. Claude Kenni, son of the first game's hero, is training to become some sort of space soldier. When on a mission with his father investigating a set of mysterious ruins, he accidentally activates some sort of warp that transports him to an unknown planet. The first person he meets? Rena Lanford, a healer from a village rather close to where Claude touched down. The planet that Claude has landed on is rather primitive through his eyes. Claude comes from a world of spaceships and intergalactic travel, and he is now stuck in a world with no machines and no technology, thousands of years behind in many ways. Rena sees this alien stranger as every bit as much of an enigma, and the two quickly become friends and set off to discover the source of the monsters and evil that have lately been driving the planet into despair.

It is in this relationship that SO2 gets most of its story-related strength. At first, Claude and Rena will seem like nothing more than cardboard cutout RPG characters, but as their bond develops, we delve deeper into their pasts and what's driving them. These two people, from completely different worlds, are forced to work together and connect in a time of crisis, and how the writers at Enix have managed to create characters that seem so human, that we can relate to so easily, is part of SO2's beauty. I confess that while I was not particularly fond of either of them from the get-go, they went on to become two of my all-time favorite videogame characters.

And it's a good thing, too, because the plot itself needs some serious work, and is ultimately SO2's only major downfall. On the first disc, it's good, typical RPG stuff – go to a few towns, meet some people, explore some dungeons, fight a few bad guys, save the world; you know the drill. But in between discs, there's a frightful conversion. The tension that is masterfully built up on disc one leads to some of the most memorable moments I've ever witnessed in a game – the first disc even ends with a “cliffhanger” that will make you jump for the second disc immediately.

But the very moment you pop that second disc into the tray, you're hit with one of the biggest story pitfalls I've ever seen. It's like different people wrote each half of the story. Not five minutes into the second disc, you're hit with one of the most ludicrous, out-of-nowhere plot sum-ups ever conceived. From there, it's a nonsensical and emotionless journey. Even the new bad guys were apparently constructed with Generic RPG Villains For Dummies in mind, spewing lines like, “You pathetic scum! Insolent fool, I will destroy you now!” How Enix could take such a great setup and kamikaze it like that, I will never know. But it really is a shame.

Thankfully, the gameplay itself is far more consistent. There are actually two separate adventures here – you can choose between Claude or Rena, and while both of them are generally the same, there are various differences here and there. Claude is the better choice for a first run, as his side of the story provides far more insight into the situation, and his hack-‘em-up combat abilities are preferred (at least, by me) over Rena's healing spells. (And while most of the CG in SO2 isn't that good, Claude's intro video is great.) The game unfolds in typical console RPG style, with a linear path complemented by an overworld and some occasional detour routes for adventurous players. But there are quite a few things that separate SO2 from the standard RPG's of its time.

The first of which is through “private actions,” which lead into that amazing level of character interaction I mentioned. If you press the square button before entering a town, your party enters the town and then splits up, and you're on your own. Not only does this allow you to go about your business without your allies' consent, but if you manage to bump into any of them, you can go a little one-on-one and possibly learn a bit more about each of them. Each character in SO2 has far more depth than you would expect. Not only that, but these private actions will eventually earn you one of the game's eighty or so endings. You read that right. There are over eighty endings in SO2, and while it's not much more than a few lines of dialog, it still helps to support the idea that this is your adventure, and things happen because of the way you made them.

The innovation thankfully doesn't end there. The battle system has three variations: Turn-based, real-time, or somewhere in between. I liked the last option the most, as it gave me some freedom without letting things get too out of hand. You'll have four different party members fighting at once, and three of them are controlled by the game's AI. It sounds bad to leave so much in the hands of the computer, but you can set scripts and formations so your other characters will do generally what you want them to do. It's standard strategies here: Your melee fighters will get up close and personal, while your spell-casters will support you from behind. I've grown a liking to the more hack-and-slash tactics myself, so I usually set myself to swordfighters like Claude or Dias and sliced away, while I let the AI do its thing in the background. It's a wonderfully diverse system that is open to all sorts of variations.

Every time you level up, your character is given not only increases in status, but skill points as well. This contributes to one of the game's greatest features – the skill system. There are literally dozens and dozens of different skills, each of which takes a certain amount of time and energy to develop for each individual character. They can relate to combat (such as an increase in speed, or the ability to swing around and attack an enemy from behind), but most of them relate to out-of-battle activities. Characters can cook food, forge weapons, write books, conduct music, build machines, identify strange objects, and much more. There are literally thousands of different items that can be obtained or created using various skills, and you'll constantly be astounded at what you'll come up with. Party members will have various strengths depending on how you build them, and it's just one more way that SO2 breaks the mold and becomes a unique masterpiece in and of itself.

And it's a long-lasting adventure, too – it was well over fifty hours before I was done, with both an enormous central journey and numerous sidequests to engage in. And there are tons of reasons to come back, including the two playable characters and aforementioned eighty endings. SO2 will keep you going for quite a while.

Graphically, it's beautiful in a very non-technical way. The characters are all twelve-sided 2D sprites, but they look good, and fit nicely against the pre-rendered backgrounds (which are excellent). The in-battle visuals are largely 3D and exercise the PSX's graphical capabilities quite strongly, though I believe this game is better-looking from an artistic sense than a technical one. And aurally, it's just as solid. This is, I think, Sakuraba's best work. His soundtrack is memorable and endearing – just listening to the soundtrack brought a drop of nostalgia to my mind. Unfortunately, the audio I slightly marred by the in-battle voice work, which not only feels strained but was badly recorded, to the point that I can't even understand what they're saying part of the time. But I can overlook that.

What can't overlook is the one stupid, unforgivable mistake that Enix made at the very end of the game. It's the final boss – he's one of those ridiculously overpowered, nearly impossible-to-defeat guys that is excruciatingly difficult to take down no matter how much you level yourself up. He'll hit you with an all-encompassing, all-annihilating mega-attack one second, then smack you with another all-encompassing, all-annihilating mega-attack the next second, before you even have time to recover. It's only through sheer luck that I managed to take the bastard down in the first place. And while it's sad that Enix would take such an amazing title and allow it to crumble in its final moments like that, I'm not going to let the last fifteen or twenty minutes ruin an otherwise outstanding fifty-hour game. That would be silly. (See Console Ghost and his review of Metroid Prime for such ridiculousness.)

Pros

+ Fascinating relationship between the two main characters.
+ The story on the first disc isn't bad.
+ The game's vibrant, colorful art direction is a highlight.
+ Features what is probably Sakuraba's best score yet.
+ Unique, fun battle system is loaded with strategy.
+ Character interaction is a step above the rest.
+ Skill-building is an amazing feature.
+ Long, deep and full of replay value.

Cons

- The story takes a huge tumble on the second disc.
- Strained voice work.
- That horrible final boss…

Overall: 10/10

Are you familiar with The Feeling? It's that weird sensation that fills your body when you fire up a game that you dearly love for the first time in quite a while. It had been years since I'd played Star Ocean: The Second Story, and when I finally decided to give it a run again, the characters, the settings, the emotions, the music… It all came flooding back, and that's when The Feeling hit me again. It's the sign of a true classic, and I rank SO2 right up there with Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic as one of my all-time favorite RPG's. Many (including some critics) overlooked this fantastic RPG, and if that includes you, well, shame on you. I see no reason why this shouldn't be placed among the cream of the RPG cream as one of those timeless classics that you never let go of. And if you have yet to experience this gem, I urge you to change that. I highly doubt that you will be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/06, Updated 11/30/06