Star Ocean: The Second Story R – Game series Star Ocean It is also a long-standing game series, starting with the first game in 1996, which is tri-Ace developed and published by Enix.

Having said that, Star Ocean 2 – the second edition of the series – arguably the most impressive, to the point where perhaps fans Star Ocean should be divided into two categories: fan series and fan only Star Ocean 2.

Actual Star Ocean 2 has been ‘republished’ once on the Playstation Portable under the name Star Ocean: Second Evolution. Therefore, the writer was quite surprised to know that this game will … reprinted again under the name Star Ocean: The Second Story R (Then the writer remembers, this game of Square Enix should… no more surprises)

So, what is this reprint like? Let’s find out with MarkGame through the following review, friends.

YOU’LL LOVE

Delicious ‘old wine’

If readers notice, recently MarkGame used the phrase ‘new bottle of old wine’ quite a lot, because basically nowadays game makers are very, very fond of ‘digging the grave’of old games, ‘stir-frying’ a little and then selling at … 60 USD, even 70 USD!

Look no further, it is Square Enix who is the ‘oligarch’ in this, with countless genres of remakes, remasters, reboots, etc. Unfortunately, many good ‘old wines’ are poured into the ‘new jar’ that is nothing, or the extremely beautifully molded ‘new jar’ contains bad ‘old wine’ that could not be better.

It turns out that Star Ocean 2 is quite a special case, because this game has been ‘exchanged’ to… twice, the last one was a ‘remake’ from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation Portable as Star Ocean: Second Evolution, although overall it looks more like a ‘remaster’ than a ‘remake’.

As of this year, Star Ocean 2  was ‘remake’ again with the name Star Ocean: The Second Story R, and thankfully, with this version, the ‘jug’ is beautiful and the ‘wine’ is still delicious!

As well as every version Star Ocean different Star Ocean: The Second Story R there will be a mix of fictional elements, with an extremely advanced space civilization intersecting with an inferior developing civilization, mostly stuck in the Middle Ages, and because of the Pact for the Preservation of the Developing Planet, people of the advanced civilization have no choice but to obey the laws of the lower world less.

The story is set in the year 366 S.D. (or 2452 A.D.), when Earth has become a fairly advanced developed planet, able to freely travel through space to distant stars. The player will follow Claude C. Kenny, son of Ronyx Kennedy and Ilia Silvestri, two characters the player met in Star Ocean 1.

Ronyx and Ilia are two heroes of Earth, surely there must be something to give birth to a son? Sure enough, Claude inherited Ronyx’s youthful and shallow personality, and during an investigation of a strange signal on an abandoned planet, Claude — because of his buoyancy — was teleported to Expel, a medieval planet, and met little Rena Lanford.

While fighting the beast, Claude ‘misses’ using his laser gun to slaughter every monster in sight, making Rena mistake him for the messiah, the hero of light who will save Expel.

Together, they meet new friends, uncovering the secrets surrounding the Magic Orb that are harming the entire Expel (while Claude has his hands tied and does not use any high technology).

All in all, the plot of Star Ocean: The Second Story R It’s still the same, a pretty basic classic JRPG journey, things like the bad guys behind the bad guys, the power of friendship that saves the team, Claude’s journey from a ‘sassy’ young man to a mature man who thinks for others, and so on.

The writer judged the plot to be sufficiently engaging and entertaining, and stylish ‘Star Ocean‘ with an interesting cross between distant civilizations, between fiction and the Middle Ages, but if you find a twisted storyline full of unexpected twists, then perhaps Star Ocean: The Second Story R will not be enough to please you.

That being said, the strengths of the tubersa Star Ocean: The Second Story R lies in the ability to customize the player’s plot perspective. Initially, players can choose between playing from Claude’s perspective, turning Star Ocean: The Second Story R to ‘mini Star Trek‘. Or, you can play from Rena’s perspective, and understand the mentality of a medieval dweller who suddenly sees a much more advanced civilization (and the shocks that follow).

There are many characters that can be collected in Star Ocean: The Second Story R (you can completely miss most of it and still break the island), and each character is more than just a +1 party, they give the plot new pieces, new perspectives, fascinating and engaging side stories, bringing with them laughter and silence.

The above is further reinforced with the famous Private Action system. Every time the team travels to a city, the player can turn on Private Action mode, and Claude/Rena (depending on the player’s choice) will run around the city and interact with the team members.

These PA stories can be extremely funny, like Claude standing outside eavesdropping on Celine and Rena is… ‘Research’ some women’s problems, or some can be quite sad, like a sick little girl in the port city of Hilton.

Not only for fun, these PAs also directly affect the relationship between the characters, affecting the plot and the ending of the characters. In general, the plot will not change much, what will change is the interaction between the team, and the final ending of the characters.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R possesses a compelling enough storyline, and in addition to that the interaction mechanics between the characters are very well designed, enough to make JRPG fans happy

For example, you can let Claude marry Rena (which seems to be the publisher’s canon ‘boat’), or for Claude to pair with Opera, or if you like ‘bromance’ you can let Claude go with … Ashton. It is thanks to this PA mechanism that makes the story of Star Ocean: The Second Story R Adding spice, not being constrained, is highly replayable. To experience all the characters, it is mandatory to replay at least twice, because there are some characters when entering the team will prevent other characters from joining, such as Ashton and Opera, or Bowman and Precis.

All in all, Star Ocean: The Second Story R possesses a compelling enough storyline, and in addition to that the interaction mechanics between the characters are very well designed, enough to make JRPG fans happy.

Beautiful ‘new jar’!

Of course, it is impossible not to mention the graphics of Star Ocean: The Second Story R. Square Enix and Gemdrops have made the most beautiful 2D-HD classic of any I’ve ever played, surpassing even the Octopath Traveler or Live A Live, with a harmonious combination of 2D sprite character background and 3D environment, fully expressed with sharp shadows and detailed ridges.

When stepping out into the world, you really feel the grandeur and vastness of Expel, instead of just oversized characters running around on the flat green grass, but actually exploring the vast forests, high mountains surrounding the surroundings.

Thanks to this upgrade, the dungeons and cities also become beautiful, bringing the excitement of exploration to players.

It is worth noting that the combat system has been improved very well.

In the old days, playing some songs Star Ocean The correct ‘spam’ button is the main one, from beginning to end only quick slash to kill the enemy before being killed.

Now, combat becomes faster, smoother and more tactical. Star Ocean: The Second Story R Put in the Break mechanism, when the enemy is destroyed, they will be stunned for a while.

Later, the game added Perfect Dodge mechanics, almost like Blindside’s Star Ocean 4, allowing players to dodge accurately at the time of attack to counterattack, both destroying enemy armor and recovering 25% MP. However, if you dodge, you will be stunned, so players need to be careful and have a firm grasp of the dodge time!

Next, we have the Bonus Gauge, when the player defeats more monsters, this bar will increase, bringing positive effects to the team depending on the formation, making battles faster and less dull.

Finally, we have Assault Action, Basically… Call characters from other Star Oceans, or reserve characters to participate in the battle. The writer was quite surprised and delighted when he first summoned Princess Laeticia Aucerius from Star Ocean 6, and has set itself a new goal when evaluating Star Ocean: The Second Story R: collect all the characters from the versions Star Ocean different.

Thanks to the aforementioned improvements, combat in Star Ocean: The Second Story R not being returned to a dull rut with only ‘spam X’ to win, but on the contrary becoming much faster, stronger and more fun.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R brings a lot of innovations from graphics, gameplay, system mechanisms, making the experience of the game extremely pleasant and entertaining

Not only limited to graphics and combat, Gemdrops has improved many core systems such as map crafting, including many instructions on the map to make the game easier to play.

In the past, the writer felt the play Star Ocean: Second Evolution on PSP is really miserable, basically if you don’t watch the guide, only walking and groping step by step will not miss the PAs, but if you miss 1 PA, you will probably miss a long PA chain behind, and… miss beautiful girls like Opera or Chisato.

Now, in each city there is a list of PA players have not watched, making it easy for players to stay on top of the situation to avoid missing important moments.

There may be readers who think that this detracts from the exploration of the game, but that is because you do not have to go to every corner of every city every time you play! Other games the writer may agree with you, but separately with Star Ocean: The Second Story R The writer fully supports this decision of the developer, making the game much easier to play, accessible and comfortable.

In short, Star Ocean: The Second Story R bringing a lot of innovations from graphics, gameplay, system mechanisms, making the experience of the game extremely pleasant and entertaining.

YOU’LL HATE

Still have to ‘plow’!!

Original by Star Ocean 2 It is true that a real farm, if you do not ‘plow’ experience, ‘plow’ Speciality points, ‘plow’ stats, do not try to overcome some strong bosses … to the point of injustice!

In Star Ocean: The Second Story R, despite having ‘fallen back’ a bit with add-on systems such as Bonus Gauge and Assault Action, players still basically have to ‘plow’ because the difference between the monster levels of the story stages is quite large.

Once the writer was quite confident when he comfortably ‘1-hit’ (instant death) of all monsters in a dungeon, rushed into battle with monsters like a god without bothering to save the game, only to be … ‘1-hit’ killed the team in the surprise of the writer (fortunately, now the game has an autosave mode, so it is not so bad that it is ‘flying’ for several hours like Final Fantasy III).

It is a wake-up call for subjective gamers who neglect ‘plowing’ in Star Ocean: The Second Story R, after all, this is still a classic JRPG title, and good or bad… will still have to plow.

Luckily, plowing in the game is relatively pleasant and fast thanks to the above improvements, not to mention the visually pleasing graphics, and by the time you achieve some extremely powerful Super Speciality, this plowing becomes ‘flowing clouds’, no longer constrained like the original!

although it has ‘fallen’ a bit with add-on systems such as Bonus Gauge and Assault Action, players still basically have to ‘plow’ because the difference between the monster levels of the story stages is quite large

Neoclassical intercourse… not yet matched!

Square Enix made a rather strange decision for the new Japanese dub, which is that they were… invites dubbers of the original version (PlayStation 1) to re-dub. However, it should be noted that more than 20 years have passed, the voices of these actors are no longer the same. So, everybody sounds like ‘old man and grandma.’ Rena was just a 17-year-old girl who sounded like… the mother-in-law in ‘Living with her mother-in-law,’ Claude can’t tell, older than his father!

Fortunately, players have the option of using the dubbed version of the first remake (PlayStation Portable), which sounds a lot more pleasant and reasonable. In return, players will lose some voiceovers in some areas.

Players can completely ‘mix’ between two types of voiceovers – old and new – with each other, namely the game allows to install a voiceover version for each character, not covering the whole game.

For example, you don’t like the new Rena but you like the new Claude, so you can put Rena with the voice of the PSP version and Claude with the voice of the ‘remake’ (actually, the later ‘remake’ games should learn this mechanic!)

Another point is that the music is remixed, there are good versions, some versions are finished listening … don’t recognize the original anymore! In general, there are some listening songs, but there are some songs that are inculcated in the subconscious of the writer that cannot be recognized, so this will also depend on each person’s preferences.

As well as dubbing, users can choose to use original music or remixes in the menu, depending on each person’s taste.

More than 20 years have passed, and the voices of these actors are no longer the same. So, everybody sounds like ‘old man and grandma.’