Star Ocean: The Second Story

"One of the best games. Ever."

Star Ocean: The Second Story

Star Ocean: The Second Story, where do I begin? Let me start by saying that I have never played the first one, which never made it state side, so I did not know the complete history when I started Star Ocean: The Second Story. It did not matter, the game was nearly flawless, and I soon forgot that there was Star Ocean 1.

Star Ocean: The Second Story was made by Enix, when they were...Enix. It was released when Final Fantasy was at it's peak, so natrually, Star Ocean: The Second Story was over looked. I, however, saw this game at Video Update, and decided to rent it. The game had been out around 2 weeks when I rented it, and the clerk said I was the first to rent the game, and that I needed to take extra care of it.

When you get to the menu of Star Ocean: The Second Story, there is a place where you can enter and see hundreds of tiny blocks. These blocks WILL each contain a part of the portate. To reveal the full picture, you must get all the characters from the game on your memory card, and have them say all of their sound peices during the game. You can even select a block, and listen to the sound bit that it contains.

Now, when you start the game, you have a few choices to make. Like, who do you want to be the hero? Your choices are Rena or Claude. Basically, all this does is make that character the one you control, and you see the story through there eyes and point of view. They share the same story, and travel together, so you will not lose anything if you do not play as the other.You also choose your battle mode, which comes in three levels. Each level gives you more movement freedom on the battle field. Then lastly you choose if you are using a Duel Shock controller or a standard.

The Story

Now lets dive into the game itself. Depending on the Hero you choose, you might have a different begging. If you choose Claude for example, it starts off with him and a few other Federation Army members checking out the rubble of a mysterious object, then being "zapped" onto the planet Expel, where he saves Rena from a monster with his laser gun. If you choose Rena, you are walking through the forest, when you are jumped my a monster and a stranger with the sword of light appears and saves you. Of course the person was Claude, but Rena thinks he is the great hero.

The world, to Claude, seems young and with lack of technology. Rena introduces Claude to her village, where the village elder tells Claude that he should not use his laser, because it could attract to much attention. Rena is then kidnapped by the mayor of the near by village to marry him. At this point Claude sets off to rescue her. When Claude finds her, the kidnapper then transforms into a demon and attacks. After being defeated, they found out that the mayor had been possed by a stone. Claude also finds out that monsters have been coming from the "Sorcery Globe", which landed on Expel a few years earlier. Claude decides to inspect it, to find a way he could return home. Things start going deeper than finding his way home, and Claude will join in on the struggle to save Expel, and all other planets.

The Battle System

The battle system enables you to control one character at a time, the other 3 characters, are on AI. You can choose who you want to manually control and, in battle, you can select another character and manually control them if you wish. The AI is smart, and you can set if you want them to protect, use magic/skills, heal, or attack. You exicute Killer Moves by pressing the L1 or R1, and normal attacks by pressing X. Depending on your battle settings, you can auto lock on and follow an enemy, or you can control your characters movements.

Battles happen on the world map, and in dungeons. They are random encounters, so you need to be well prepared.

The Magic/Killer Moves

As your characters gain levels, they will learn new magic spell, or new Killer Moves. Magic is used by...magic users, and consume mp. While casting magic, the require an amount of time to charge up the spell to cast. Killer Moves are used during combat by melee, and most are executed as soon as you tap L1 or R1. You can assign a Killer Move to each button.

Experience Points, and Skill Points

After each battle, you will recieve EXP, which when the right amount is gained, that character goes up a level. When a character goes up a level, they will gain Skill Points. Each character has most of the same skills, with few differences. You place skill points on a skill (cooking, writing, dodging, music, ect) and depending on what you put them on, your character might get bonuses on their stats, or cause them to do new things in battle. It also can increase the chance on making better item during item creation and cooking. You can make things from item creation you can not normally get anywhere else. There are tons of skill, and you get more by buying them from designated people in towns and cties.

Graphics/Sound

The graphics are colorful, and the towns are really detailed. My only complaint is of the world map, where in the distance it looks like the end of the world or an ocean until you get into view. The characters are sprites, and the dungeons are nice.

Each character has a slew of sound bits they say, and so does some enemies. The music is...different. After awhile, the music gets really annoying, but they do have a few good tracks.

Other

There are a few side notes I would like to add.There are a total of 12 playable characters, but you can not recruite them all. They will join only if a certian person is the hero, or if someone else is, or is not in the party. So, if you want to collect all of the sound bits, you ll have to play through the game a few times. There are countless side quests, mini games, and loads to try and do. When you get near a town, you can choose to do "Private Action" which lets all of your characters split up and do there own things in the city. There is so much to do, the made it so that there are 80 possible endings, so everthing you do, and everyone you talk to changes the ending.

Overall

Overall, this game deserves attention, and has a ton of replay value, which is hard to find in RPGs. This game is packed with things never seen in any other game, and a story to remember. Even though the graphics and the sound were not great, they were hardly noticable later into the story. AND NOTHING BEATS 80 ENDINGS "Got'a watch'em all".

9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/16/04