A remake of Star Ocean: The Second Story
Two worlds, one fateful encounter. In an endless sea of stars, at the edge of the universe, two people who live in different worlds go on a journey to save planet Expel. Choose your path and witness an awakened destiny.
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A very unique and fun experience with a handful of little flaws. This was my first experience with the Star Ocean series, and I'm glad I gave this a shot. I loved all of the characters, the combat was super fun, and the story was engaging for the most part.
I knew I would like it when I saw the trailer and artwork, but I knew I would love it when I opened the menus. This is one of the crunchiest JRPGs I've ever played, next to the Octopath Traveler series and Xenoblade Chronicles series, and this is a good thing. There is SO much customization for your character builds, and a ton of different crafting menus to create new gear. You get 2 level up currencies, one to spend on battle skills that trigger during combat, and another to spend on field skills that add overworld abilities and give stat increases. Figuring out what to specialize each character with was super fun and added a lot to the game. It was overwhelming at first, but once I got used to it I loved it.
The combat rules- it's fast paced and has extremely volatile momentum swings. I played as Rena, and using her in combat was actually pretty enjoyable. She's a healer/support character, but they made it fun to kind of be the taskmaster of your other offensive characters and manage the battle from a distance.
I loved seeing the party members interact in the private actions mode. It reminds me of the Xenoblade Chronicles heart-to-hearts. Each time I progressed in the story, I would check for new cutscenes and back track to watch them all. This really made me fall in love with the cast.
The story is fine, pretty typical for a JRPG. It was good, but was predictable aside from the end of act 1, which was a good twist. My first critique is that I feel like it meandered a lot though, especially in the second act. I had more fun doing side stuff than the main quest, which usually isn't the case for me. Felt a bit like a DnD campaign rather than a tightly-woven narrative in that sense. My second critique is that Rena's route felt a little unpolished. The tournament arc felt like an afterthought and was the least enjoyable part of the game. It felt incomplete, and two party characters addressed me as Claude during this stretch of the game. That took me out of the experience but Rena's story really shines in act 2 which mostly made up for it.
There are some things about this game that are just a little bit annoying, but they stack up. Firstly, combat can end up being shorter than the victory screen, which is annoying if you're in a dungeon packed with enemies. I also wish you could swap equipment in battle, because a lot of end game bosses have immunities that can make a party member useless if they have a specific element on their main weapon. The AI also does not recognize weaknesses very well, and I once had to tell Claude to run around and do nothing so that the rest of the party could beat something that absorbed fire without him negating our damage. The last annoying thing is that the final boss is insanely difficult, and I cheesed the fuck out of the last two fights with bloody armor and healing spam. Felt a little anticlimactic, but it basically required immunities I didn't have.
Overall this is an extremely good JRPG, and any fans of the genre should play it. I had a great time with this game, and I will definitely come back and play it again as Claude in the future.
I knew I would like it when I saw the trailer and artwork, but I knew I would love it when I opened the menus. This is one of the crunchiest JRPGs I've ever played, next to the Octopath Traveler series and Xenoblade Chronicles series, and this is a good thing. There is SO much customization for your character builds, and a ton of different crafting menus to create new gear. You get 2 level up currencies, one to spend on battle skills that trigger during combat, and another to spend on field skills that add overworld abilities and give stat increases. Figuring out what to specialize each character with was super fun and added a lot to the game. It was overwhelming at first, but once I got used to it I loved it.
The combat rules- it's fast paced and has extremely volatile momentum swings. I played as Rena, and using her in combat was actually pretty enjoyable. She's a healer/support character, but they made it fun to kind of be the taskmaster of your other offensive characters and manage the battle from a distance.
I loved seeing the party members interact in the private actions mode. It reminds me of the Xenoblade Chronicles heart-to-hearts. Each time I progressed in the story, I would check for new cutscenes and back track to watch them all. This really made me fall in love with the cast.
The story is fine, pretty typical for a JRPG. It was good, but was predictable aside from the end of act 1, which was a good twist. My first critique is that I feel like it meandered a lot though, especially in the second act. I had more fun doing side stuff than the main quest, which usually isn't the case for me. Felt a bit like a DnD campaign rather than a tightly-woven narrative in that sense. My second critique is that Rena's route felt a little unpolished. The tournament arc felt like an afterthought and was the least enjoyable part of the game. It felt incomplete, and two party characters addressed me as Claude during this stretch of the game. That took me out of the experience but Rena's story really shines in act 2 which mostly made up for it.
There are some things about this game that are just a little bit annoying, but they stack up. Firstly, combat can end up being shorter than the victory screen, which is annoying if you're in a dungeon packed with enemies. I also wish you could swap equipment in battle, because a lot of end game bosses have immunities that can make a party member useless if they have a specific element on their main weapon. The AI also does not recognize weaknesses very well, and I once had to tell Claude to run around and do nothing so that the rest of the party could beat something that absorbed fire without him negating our damage. The last annoying thing is that the final boss is insanely difficult, and I cheesed the fuck out of the last two fights with bloody armor and healing spam. Felt a little anticlimactic, but it basically required immunities I didn't have.
Overall this is an extremely good JRPG, and any fans of the genre should play it. I had a great time with this game, and I will definitely come back and play it again as Claude in the future.
Primeiro game que joguei de star ocean (provavelmente o último).
Os personagens e a dublagem tem muita personalidade ( é raro pro gênero de JRPG ter estes dois ao mesmo tempo ), dito isto , o plot não compartilha da mesma qualidade.
Ótimos visuais, gameplay sólida mas que deteriora com o tempo, porque, bem, você sabe, JRPGs não sabem quando parar.
O jogo é bom, mas eu teria dado uma nota maior se tivesse umas boas 6 horas a menos de conteúdo, a longevidade do jogo prejudica o pacing e o combate, que sofre de desbalanceamento nas partes finais. Nota: 6,5
Os personagens e a dublagem tem muita personalidade ( é raro pro gênero de JRPG ter estes dois ao mesmo tempo ), dito isto , o plot não compartilha da mesma qualidade.
Ótimos visuais, gameplay sólida mas que deteriora com o tempo, porque, bem, você sabe, JRPGs não sabem quando parar.
O jogo é bom, mas eu teria dado uma nota maior se tivesse umas boas 6 horas a menos de conteúdo, a longevidade do jogo prejudica o pacing e o combate, que sofre de desbalanceamento nas partes finais. Nota: 6,5
Mechanically speaking, the game is great and has a lot to play around with and easily break the game itself. The characters are nice, however, the story didn't engage me at all, so I kind of played on auto mode and I couldn't care for it too much...sad.
This review contains spoilers
the first like, 3-6 hours of this game are the best by far. i LOVED what the demo had to show. beautiful visuals, i wish more "HD 2D" and remasters of RPGs from this era looked like this. and such great music throughout, too.
but before too long, my enjoyment slowly and steadily declined. there were super sudden difficulty spikes, and the difficulty selection felt totally irrelevant in the endgame. i knocked myself down from the hardest to the easiest close to the end of the game and it felt as if nothing changed. i'm sad to say that i am not motivated to do another run with new party members whatsoever.... how disappointing!!
venting a bit: the characterization and motivations for almost everyone in my party felt very flimsy, having no antagonist for the first two thirds of the game felt wack, and then the coterie of goobers they introduce (who we then summarily execute one after the other with very little fanfare) were not very interesting and each had basically no characterization whatsoever. even the biggest of the bads’ backstory was sequestered away as side content. i just don’t think that mainlining a JRPG should leave players feeling so hollow.
as for combat, it felt so much fun when it was just Claude and Rena, but adding more party members cluttered up the game and made it feel unrewarding to try and engage with the parry system. wish it were more enjoyable to control casters, as well. (or to manage them — no way to back out of a spell or interrupt yourself, no way to see what the AI is in the middle of casting until it comes out... these UI failures made it feel like my own team was leaving me in the dark often!) also, pro tip, simply walking up & down is so OP in this game. better defense than anything else.
i was excited to play a relatively short JRPG, especially one i had seen discussed as a classic for so long! but i wasn’t counting on finishing it nearly out of spite.
but before too long, my enjoyment slowly and steadily declined. there were super sudden difficulty spikes, and the difficulty selection felt totally irrelevant in the endgame. i knocked myself down from the hardest to the easiest close to the end of the game and it felt as if nothing changed. i'm sad to say that i am not motivated to do another run with new party members whatsoever.... how disappointing!!
venting a bit: the characterization and motivations for almost everyone in my party felt very flimsy, having no antagonist for the first two thirds of the game felt wack, and then the coterie of goobers they introduce (who we then summarily execute one after the other with very little fanfare) were not very interesting and each had basically no characterization whatsoever. even the biggest of the bads’ backstory was sequestered away as side content. i just don’t think that mainlining a JRPG should leave players feeling so hollow.
as for combat, it felt so much fun when it was just Claude and Rena, but adding more party members cluttered up the game and made it feel unrewarding to try and engage with the parry system. wish it were more enjoyable to control casters, as well. (or to manage them — no way to back out of a spell or interrupt yourself, no way to see what the AI is in the middle of casting until it comes out... these UI failures made it feel like my own team was leaving me in the dark often!) also, pro tip, simply walking up & down is so OP in this game. better defense than anything else.
i was excited to play a relatively short JRPG, especially one i had seen discussed as a classic for so long! but i wasn’t counting on finishing it nearly out of spite.
I had never played a Star Ocean game before this, and needless to say I was pleasantly surprised by it. I knew of the series but wasn’t sure where to start and this remake gave me a perfect entry point.
First of all, the game is just gorgeous. Everything about the HD-2D style employed here combined with the diorama-esque environments easily make this one of the best looking games to come out of 2023 and arguably the last decade depending on your feelings on the style. The lighting is great, and exploring the world is just a treat knowing every time you find a new area you can see how the art brings it and its inhabitants to life.
The combat is enjoyable, with the game striking a good balance between casters and melee units all wrapped in a fun, action packed bundle. Every character has a unique playstyle giving the player plenty of options on how they want to tackle fights. It feels very Tales-like in the way battles play out with everyone having unique arts and attacks as well as gear to customize them.
I found the story to be decent, but the game really tries to sell its characters to you and mostly succeeds. You’re able to recruit various characters you find in your travels through interactions (most of which are missable), and doing so will often lock you out of recruiting others allowing for replay ability in the future. In theory, you could have a completely different party than another player barring the protagonists which I find to be a neat idea. The cast all has unique personalities and goals that make the game a fun time in in its reasonable 20ish hour runtime (give or take some hours depending on how much side content you do).
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how much the game encourages you to completely break it with its crafting and talent systems. Characters earn points doing things like battling and completing quests which you can funnel into different skills like Art, Writing, Cooking, etc. Some of these can allow players who know what they’re doing (and honestly those who just mess around with the systems enough) to acquire high level gear, power level their characters and their talents, and plenty of other things that can completely trivialize the experience which most players recognize as a Star Ocean staple.
Overall, whether you’re a fan of the series or not, I’d urge any RPG fans to check this one out. It’s a solid game and one that I think is gonna be considered a modern classic in the coming years.
First of all, the game is just gorgeous. Everything about the HD-2D style employed here combined with the diorama-esque environments easily make this one of the best looking games to come out of 2023 and arguably the last decade depending on your feelings on the style. The lighting is great, and exploring the world is just a treat knowing every time you find a new area you can see how the art brings it and its inhabitants to life.
The combat is enjoyable, with the game striking a good balance between casters and melee units all wrapped in a fun, action packed bundle. Every character has a unique playstyle giving the player plenty of options on how they want to tackle fights. It feels very Tales-like in the way battles play out with everyone having unique arts and attacks as well as gear to customize them.
I found the story to be decent, but the game really tries to sell its characters to you and mostly succeeds. You’re able to recruit various characters you find in your travels through interactions (most of which are missable), and doing so will often lock you out of recruiting others allowing for replay ability in the future. In theory, you could have a completely different party than another player barring the protagonists which I find to be a neat idea. The cast all has unique personalities and goals that make the game a fun time in in its reasonable 20ish hour runtime (give or take some hours depending on how much side content you do).
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how much the game encourages you to completely break it with its crafting and talent systems. Characters earn points doing things like battling and completing quests which you can funnel into different skills like Art, Writing, Cooking, etc. Some of these can allow players who know what they’re doing (and honestly those who just mess around with the systems enough) to acquire high level gear, power level their characters and their talents, and plenty of other things that can completely trivialize the experience which most players recognize as a Star Ocean staple.
Overall, whether you’re a fan of the series or not, I’d urge any RPG fans to check this one out. It’s a solid game and one that I think is gonna be considered a modern classic in the coming years.
Best HD-2D remake of all time