"Star Ocean ranks among Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger"

Until I discovered Star Ocean, I felt that Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 stood alone as the last great 16-bit RPGs. Only an hour into the game, I knew that whether I would end up liking it or not, Star Ocean was the last gasp, the final relic of the 2-D RPG era. It's sad that even with the Game Boy Advance, we'll probably never see another series of games so great. Since Chrono Trigger and FF6 rank highest on my list of RPGs, I will roughly compare Star Ocean to them in various aspects.

Graphics
Without a doubt, the first thing that jumps out at you when you boot up the game are the graphics. I was consistently stunned by how outstanding it looked by 16-bit standards. Details like reflections in the water and expressive tails showed that Enix truly pushed the limits of what the Super Nintendo (and their graphics designers) could do. Far into the game, when the battles began filling up with various attacks from my characters, enemies randomly disappeared because the system was overwhelmed, but for a game so beautiful, that's hardly worth mentioning. Graphics like this make me wish the SNES had remained the gaming standard for just one more year. It goes without saying that neither Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger can't even compare in this category.

Music and Sound
Where the graphics shone, the music fell flat to me. FF6 and Chrono Trigger each had several memorable tracks and, more importantly, matched each track to the occasion appropriately. To me, Star Ocean has neither. All of the music was far too regal and bombastic. Even the tenderest scenes were overwhelmed by drumbeats and trumpets where I felt the music should have been kept low-key. I loved the quiet innocence that FF6's town theme emphasized but it seems that even shopping for goods is reason for fanfare in Star Ocean. This wouldn't matter to me so much if the song selection for each scene didn't range from "passable" to "bewildering". The primal drums and rhythm of "Only Warrior" seemed completely out of place for Astral Castle Town. The only tracks that struck me as being "spot on" for their uses were "Purge Thyself" in Parj Temple and "True Figure" in Parj Inner Sanctum. Though the music isn't awful, it isn't that catchy either and Star Ocean lags behind FF6 and Chrono Trigger in this category. Oh well-- maybe a tremendous game deserves tremendous music.

As far as sound goes, only the voice acting is really worth mentioning. Voice-overs weren't unheard of in the 16-bit era, but I think Star Ocean used voices more extensively than any other game for its time. That's interesting, though not really a positive or negative point. Also, Milly's voice is one of the most obnoxious sounds I've ever heard. What is with the Japanese obsession with bimbos?

Gimmick
Final Fantasy 6 had the Esper system, Chrono Trigger had techs you could combine together, and Star Ocean has the skill system. This is probably the least restricting RPG gimmick I've ever seen. You truly had the opportunity to develop each character in any direction you wanted (with a dozen directions to choose from). I personally liked the skill system, though I didn't realize the cooking skill was virtually useless until it was too late and it got rather boring once I had maxed out my "effort" skill. I was also happy to find it wasn't too easy to abuse despite how lax it was. Though I was disappointed with the number of skills that were virtually worthless, I think the power it gives to the player makes it the most enjoyable among the three games; after all, Chrono Trigger and FF6 devolve into using "Dark Matter" and "Ultima" once you master their systems.

Battles
Star Ocean's battles are a button-masher's dream. 95 percent of all battles could be won just by pressing A for thirty seconds. While I'm much more content pressing A to keep my blood pumping than watching a summon in FF7 or FF8 for over a minute, Star Ocean once again falls behind Chrono Trigger and FF6. Chrono Trigger had plenty of enemies with elemental strengths and weaknesses as well as other interesting gimmicks (like the battle against six Nus). Final Fantasy 6 was even better since Sabin's blitzes and places like the Fanatics' Tower keep you on your toes. In addition, I felt the AI was surprisingly good for the inactive characters-- they even stood still once Ratix could handle the battle on his own. Oddly enough, however, this serves as a double-edged sword. While playing RPGs, I'll say to myself every once in a while, "Gee, I really wish that were automated." Well, the reason why everything isn't automated is because then you wouldn't have to do anything. Star Ocean's mindlessness once the battles start definitely hurts it but it could be a lot worse. Anyway, all three games pale in comparison to Paper Mario 2 for battle style.

Difficulty
I had to turn to a guide only once: to find out that the switch in the Parj Temple main entrance opened the secondary entrance. One peek at a guide is a pretty good difficulty level, in my opinion. The game was outstanding as long as it was inside a dungeon and not on the overworld map. There are huge stretches of the game where the objective is to run from point A to point B (and maybe back to point A again and onward to C) while forced to fight monsters that weren't even tough ten levels ago. Those times were very frustrating. However, just as they showcased terrific graphics in Star Ocean, they also touted enormous dungeons (and castles!). Running through a dungeon in the game is a little like typing with your eyes closed-- you can't wait to open them and see what mistakes you made. I can't wait to look at the dungeon maps and see what goodies I missed. I somehow managed to stumble through the game even though I rarely knew where I was going. I don't think any other RPG lets you run so fast (it must be those tails) which is a huge plus. On the flip side of the difficulty, once I got Milly back I rarely ran into enemies tough enough to kill us while she used her healing powers. Also, I never needed to forge the most powerful weapons and accessories in the game though I would have liked an incentive to do so.

Length and Replayability
I suppose the programmers used up all the disk space on graphics, sound, and level design so they couldn't back up quality with quantity. The game was disappointingly short. To make matters worse, the first 19 hours lead up to a fake ending at which point it seems the programmers said, "Oh crap! No one wants to play a 19 hour RPG!" and then tacked on another dungeon to add a measly hour. It took me just 20 hours to beat the game which is sad considering the last RPG I played, Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, took me 25 to beat. Still, I'm going to hold off judgment for a little bit. My policy is to play a game once without a guide, then read a guide and play through it again if I liked it. If it turns out that there are depths to the game that I didn't even imagine, I'll definitely pick it up again. I know there are other characters and weapons to get and I know the story branches into several different paths, but I'm only interested if the other characters are unique, the other weapons are that much better, and the other branches are truly different. The "New Game+" feature of Chrono Trigger made it a breeze to pick up all the stuff you left behind. The "Oracle" feature strikes me as much more restrictive as there really isn't much for me to do and I'd much rather explore the different storylines and characters. Lastly, I should mention that I stuck with the same four party members throughout most of the game so I even need to develop some of the characters I already have.

Plot
The plot gets off to a promising start, has a pretty soft middle, and then a chaotic end. Lots of stuff happens until they travel back in time which was pretty promising to me. I liked Chrono Trigger because it didn't beat around the bush-- five minutes in and you're already going back in time to save a princess. Then the plot mostly fizzled away as I progressed through medieval Roak. In Chrono Trigger, you quickly find out that your goal is to defeat Lavos and Lavos is kind enough to pop up every now and then to remind you why you're playing. Same with FF6-- you're frequently reminded that your goal is to topple the empire and in the second half of the game, Kefka. In Star Ocean, I had to frequently remind myself I was actually 300 years in the past trying to stop a plague by capturing the demon king. As I already mentioned, the final dungeon seemed completely tacked on and mostly unnecessary. Star Ocean lies between FF6 and Chrono Trigger for originality. I definitely like its style, though. FF6, though a masterpiece, was very dull and depressing. I like my RPGs light and joyous-- after all, I'm playing them to have fun, right?

Ending
Yet another area where Star Ocean falters. The credits came up way too soon. I hold out hope that there are better, alternate endings that you can unlock by beating the game following a different storyline, but I fear it's the same basic crappy ending each time. It's not terrible since the game is fairly short. If I had put in 60 hours for that ending, I'd have gone insane. In fact, the length of the game and the quality of the ending make me wonder if production was cut short by the arrival of the newer systems. I would have loved to learn more about the Moorians (or whatever they're called) and I imagine the experience would have been similar to Zeal kingdom of Chrono Trigger. The ending is dirt poor for an RPG-- one step above "Congraturation!"-- and pales in comparison to both Chrono Trigger's and FF6's. Still, it could have been a lot worse if they had decided to throw in a whole lot of plot twists, so I'm not too broken up over it.

Conclusion
So to sum things up (for all of you wise enough to skip past my ramblings): Awesome graphics, fine gimmick, and great level design but also dull battles, a somewhat soft plot, sub-par and misplaced music, far too short, and a terrible ending. Surely I couldn't rank this as high as Chrono Trigger, right? There's no way this could even be an above average RPG to me with all those faults, right? Nah, I wouldn't say that. What Star Ocean did right, it got absolutely perfect and had me drooling for more. It has its faults, for sure, but there's no way I can't rank this among Chrono Trigger and FF6. As I said in the opening paragraph, it's one of a kind and it's the last of its kind. I strongly hesitate to rank my favorite RPGs since I like them for different reasons and my list of favorites constantly changes. For now, I consider Star Ocean to be a bit better than FF6 and a bit worse than Chrono Trigger. But who knows? Maybe I'll come back to it some day and see it in a different light so it rises above the rest. Whatever the ranking, it's a classic that deserves accolade after all these untranslated years. What a gem.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/05