Star Ocean: First Departure

"Old-School Cool"

The PSP is swiftly becoming the gateway with which PAL gamers can finally gain access to aging RPGs that never found their way over here or are exceedingly hard to find – case in both points respectively being Final Fantasy Tactics: War Of The Lions and Disgaea: Afternoon Of Darkness. Thankfully they often come ‘re-imagined' and otherwise boasting a few extra bits and pieces, and the latest in this lengthening line of lost treasures is the very first game in the galaxy-spanning Star Ocean series, Star Ocean: First Departure. It's likely you've never had the opportunity to play it either, as its legacy pre-dates even that of the humble PlayStation – this baby started life on the Super Nintendo all the way back in 1996, and was never released outside Japan. The fact that it's over a decade old shouldn't and doesn't mean a thing unless you've got beef with top-down 2D sprites (and if you do, you're obviously not much of an RPG fan) – it was a must-play then, and it's even more of a must-play in its second and smaller coming.

The Star Ocean series has always been unique for several reasons, and immediately striking is First Departure's strangely appealing marriage of traditional sword ‘n sorcery aesthetics with almost over-bearing science fiction mandates. You'll be hit with both upon entering, but it is the fantasy side of things that comes to dominate a large percentage of the game. Our plucky protagonist is Roddick, a young Fellpool going nowhere pretty slowly alongside his chums Millie and Dorne as a sentry in the Clatos, a small town stuck next to some woods on the backwards medieval planet of Roak. It's a sleepy existence, but things start to wake up just a little when a mystery plague drops in from out of nowhere and starts turning townsfolk into stone. Naturally, Roddick and crew head to a nearby mountain in search of a theoretical cure, and it's cue the sudden appearance of Ronyx and Ilia. Who? Two members of a Terran Alliance reconnaissance mission, who come equipped with crazy futuristic technology and the revelation that this ‘plague' is actually a biological weapon with a million-yard stare, and it's going to take hours upon hours of old-school adventuring to reduce it to a harmless string of airbourne proteins. But wait, it gets trippier: it turns out that the only way to save Roak is to retrieve a particular genetic sample from the same planet... somewhere in the past.

Being that First Departure originated in the ‘90s, gameplay is extremely traditional and has only really been ‘modernised' with the inclusion of lovely anime cut-scenes, anime-ised character portraits and quite solid voice-acting (particularly from Ilia). When tramping around the place with your party of four, think Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger – cute, big-headed sprites and picturesque, albeit static, backgrounds. During combat, things move a little closer to Namco's Tales series, with the fight breaking to real-time. You control one of your party and the AI handles the remaining three. Tonking enemies is as easy as hammering the X button for whacks with a weapon or the L and R buttons for pre-set special movies, and you can deftly switch characters with a quick stab of CIRCLE. It's a little different and does keep you on your toes, but First Departure's most interesting feature (and, at the time, pioneering) is the Private Action. Private Actions are initiated by pressing Square outside a town, allowing Roddick to converse with different members of the party personally, changing the flow of the story and revealing ever more backstory on each of them. It's worth noting that it's impossible to get all playable characters in your party in one play-through, and there are two secret characters as well – so with an average playtime of 30 hours each time around, if you want to see it all that's some pretty decent replay value right there. For what it lacks in the sophistication and story-telling of more contemporary RPGs, Star Ocean: First Departure is such a fine example of a traditional RPG moving way ahead of its time it's definitely worth bunking down with your PSP for a dose of old-school cool.

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A STAR BY ANY OTHER NAME
For some bizarre and seemingly pointless reason, all of the characters have had their names altered slightly from the original. Roddick used to be Ratix, Dorne was Dorn, Millie was Milly, Ilia was Iria, Ronyx was Ronixis... er, why bother, lads?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/08

Game Release: Star Ocean: First Departure (EU, 10/24/08)