Star Ocean: The Second Story

"A very excellent and an incredibly misunderstood RPG. See why in an unbiased review."

Star Ocean The Second Story is a Japanese-style role-playing game which focuses on the gameplay more than any other aspect. Spawning 2 CDs, 86 100% _unique_ possible endings, many hidden secrets, secret modes, a totally original skill system, private action, deep Item Creation system, and fast-paced TRUE realtime battles make for a highly innovative, and entertaining title. If you can see through the almost mediocre storyline, poor dialogue, find some entertainment value in the battles, and understand how all the features in the game work and how they are all connected to each other, you'll be in for the most incredible RPG experience ever.

The graphics are very good. The pre-renders are some of the nicest I've seen on the PlayStation, and IMHO, the sprite-based characters blend in well. I think the sprites are nice, too, especially because of the blurring effect if they get really close to the screen, though some people really beg to differ. They blend in much better than the polygon-based characters in Final Fantasy VII. You could say that the graphics style is similar to that of first SaGa Frontier game. The battle graphics are alright, but nothing that spectacular, though some people say they are VERY pixelated. I don't agree; They only block up when it does an extreme close-up (which isn't very often). Most of the FMV is very good too, but much of it is plagued with compression artifacts, unfortunately. However, the quality of the 5 minute long ending credits is virtually perfect, and is one of the NICEST FMV videos I have ever seen.

The music is good overall, but not great. Some tunes are VERY nice, such as the ending credits, Expel's overworld theme, The Heraldic Forest/Field of Power song is VERY cool and has a dark atmosphere, nearly all incarnations of Rena's theme, Crawd's intro. Sakuraba gets my vote though for some of the best town themes in any game; Arlia is one of the greatest town themes in any RPG, and village of Cross, Herlie all fit in perfectly. Though some of others frankly aren't all that good, like the music in Clik/Hilton/Central City. I personally like the normal battle theme, but some people don't seem to agree that it's good. Most other music is "average", or subpar (Fienal tower... ugh!).

The sound isn't good. The problem is the dubbing. Granted, I liked half of the voices, some to an extent, but the rest are terrible. They shoulda left the Japanese voices alone.

The storyline is basically mediocre, along with some poorly written dialogue (mostly on disc 1, it gets a bit better on disc 2), mostly because of a *very* shoddy, and unlocalized translation. The game does have room for an awesome, entertaining storyline, but it was never executed. The characters are hurt terribly in the translation, some don't even have a real personality. In the end, I found myself liking only Rena, Ashton, and *possibly* Dias.

One of the games' most misunderstood features is the endings system. Most people will think there are just 86 FULL endings with little variation. You actually see several ending "segments" during the "ending". Each "segment" is considered one of the 86 endings. So if you have 8 characters, the most amount of endings you can get per "ending" is 8 alone endings or as few as 4 paired endings. The object of this system is to try to "hook up" two party members and try to get them in a paired ending. Some combinations can result in funny, interesting, or just plain "dumb" endings. To pair characters, it depends on their emotion levels. Each ending is 100% unique. This is the fun part of the game. The object of your playthrough is to hook up pairs of characters of your choice and see how their personalities combine!

Private Actions allow your main character to explore towns on his or her own, and letting the rest of your party members scatter about town on their own. You can talk to your members, and special convo's with them can change emotion levels. You may even find yourself trying to settle arguments between party members! Some Private Actions can call up some mini-events, or even some sub quests. One other important thing is that some details about characters are only seen in Private Actions.

The Item Creation system is exactly as it says. You create items using raw materials you buy in hardware shops, or find. From Alchemy, Blacksmithing, weapon customization, compounding herbs, and most importantly, Cooking (and so much more!). It's the deepest Item Creation system you'll see in any game. It's an almost requirement to have mastered its use if you want to survive the hidden difficult modes. [see below]

The SKILL system can be downright confusing to an absolute newbie of the game, but once it is figured out, some of the real fun of the game can be had. You obtain skills in skill shops and you learn them to get better in battles, or to learn new skills, such as those for Item Creation. Once you learn a skill, you won't exactly be an instant master with it-- you must gain proficiency with it.

The battles run in true realtime, meaning that your characters and the enemies attack at the same time, and you have the freedom to move around the battle field anywhere you want. Since it is like this, you can only control one character (you can select who you want to control). Don't be alarmed about this though; Star Ocean 2's character AI is pretty smart. You can customize your characters to fight the way you want them to by changing their Tactics, their Killer Moves, or with characters who use magic, you can shut off spells you don't want them to cast! After that, they will fight the way you want them to. (Though sometimes the "conserve MP" settings for your characters Tactics don't help too much). If you've played and liked the "fighting game" style realtime battle system in Tales of Destiny (or Phantasia), chances are, you'll like Star Ocean 2's, perhaps even more because it's a full 3D battle field that allows you to move in all 8 directions. If you DIDN'T like ToD/P's battle systems, there is a chance you won't like SO2's. However, both BS's are very different, but it's only one I can compare it too. If you find yourself just mashing the buttons, while tiring your finger and tighting your arm to win battles, read on...

The normal game itself should be pretty easy for the average RPGer, however there is a reason for it. The reason is because there are *two* hidden difficult modes hidden within the game. One is a hard mode, and the other is OVERWHELMINGLY difficult. I won't go into details, but you must have about 50% of the voice collection to access them. If you just can't access them, there are other things you can do in the normal game that would be difficult. You can try to take on the games' hidden bonus dungeon, beat the boss of it, and use the Silver Trumpet to summon her dark side, who is the second hardest boss in the game. For REAL dare devils who think they're all that, can try taking on the *hidden* form of the final boss. Even in the easiest mode in the game, he's very easily the hardest boss in of any RPG I've ever played. Don't take him lightly... he's harder than you might think!

In closing, I'd just like to say that Star Ocean 2 is very excellent game as long as you see through the story and dialogue, and can learn to enjoy its well thought-out easy-to-use but fun gameplay elements, you'll definitely love this game. It's worth at least a rental if you haven't played it yet, but it's not for everyone. Diehard storyline fans who care not for multiple outcomes, excellent gameplay and character customization will probably not like this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99