A personal blast from my past that doesn’t hold up as well without my rose tinted glasses. The things it does right in terms of overall presentation and providing an illusion of depth in the systems quickly gets overturned by some unfortunately inconsistent pacing for the story and a combat system that really doesn’t feel like it’s to be mastered, in favor of simply being brute forced. The character interactions, music and visuals all have a lot of quality and charm to them, but there’s distinct elements that take me out of the experience. Spells casted by party members completely break the flow of combat by forcing the player to watch the whole spell cast, interrupting whatever momentum or groove they could have been getting into. The skill system is half cooked, with a lot of solid consideration but also skills that are such no brainers (like Perserverence) that they should just be removed entirely because every player with a brain is gonna go for them. As well as skills like Flip actively ruining the combat (fortunately it can be manually disabled, but it’s just lame to have something so useless and situational). Finally the story ramps up in the transition from the first to second disc, and provides a lot of really interesting story a la Star Ocean 1, but unlike 1, The Second Story ends with a pretty straightforward, un-twisty conclusion that is literally described to the player by an NPC earlier with not divergence from the plan. Plus, while the 4 locations you visit to get the stones necessary to invade Fienal are super unique and pretty, it is ultimately a macguffin hunt with little actual story beats occuring, and the final attack on Fienal feels like it was in dire need of some form of story shakeup mid way to keep it engaging, instead of just being a final zone to slay some bosses and grind for levels in between. That all being said, it’s an absolute vibe of a game, and has a lot of odd quality of life features that seem well ahead of their time. It’s trope-y, it’s repetitive and a little frustrating to play but it’s ultimately worth a go-through as it’s still a nifty package with a lot of heart. But I ultimately expect to be returning to Backloggd in a week or so to completely decry this version of the game in favor of the remake.

Demo Thoughts: I'm gonna log this since I can't log or see my own thoughts on remake right now due to the limitations of the site so I just wanna get my thoughts out there for other people to see.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am not terribly fond of this series because anytime I've played any game from this franchise I keep circling my own thoughts like "what in the fuck is the decision making with anything that goes on with these games." where I feel like the people in charge desperately want to make something unique that stands out but the execution is always fucking garbage.

The writing of Star Ocean games have no sense of pacing they always try to rush through everything as quickly as possible and then ask you to care about the things that are going on as well it's utterly annoying.

And then I play the demo for Second Story R and suddenly it's like somebody at Tri-Ace woke the fuck up and tried to make something worth somebodies time for once.

The combat was basic but still very easy to understand and fulfilling to play, and the story actually takes the time to establish stuff and make you care about the main characters from what little I got to play before the demo cut me off. Timed demo's are stupid is my main take away from this. I will pick up the remake at some point. It was legitimately the first time I had ever enjoyed my time playing a Star Ocean game. Not once did the thought cross my mind that ALWAYS crosses my mind when playing these games which is "why the fuck would I play this when Tales games are right there?"

Please.
for the love of God.
I want the quest to find a good Star Ocean game to end here.

There are few games that can sustain the momentum of their opening cinematic and successfully stick the landing.
I didn't have much expectation going in and found myself immediately invested and drawn-in specifically by its soundtrack and art direction. The perfectly timed sequences and scores made the experience that much more impactful and is a perfect example of visuals and sound working in tandem. Its gameplay still handles very well and addicting, keeping me engaged and invested in powering stats and learning skills - the games biggest component. However, one thing that was sorely under-explained was the crafting system that does not explain its importance well until the very end when it suddenly becomes vital to playing the game properly. I made this mistake and regretted not having learned more since it never pressed upon the player to explore this mechanic, nor a lot of the other interesting yet tedious components from crafting, alchemy, etc.

As much as I appreciate and was pleasantly surprised by Star Ocean: The Second Story for a majority of its playthrough, it was with dismay to see how it fell short across its second disc. The quality in disc 2 in some of its plotting crumbled into trope game design and villains that are 1-dimensional and uninteresting in contrast to how the main cast is overall handled. Another thing that I wish was better integrated through its runtime that felt very outweighed in the end was the theme of self-empowerment and forging one's own path. It fell into a lot of Evangelion influence that didnt' feel deserved nor as cohesively introduced as it could have been. Despite this, and despite its shortcomings overall, the soundtrack and art direction is worth applauding. It holds as arguably rivaling FF7, Grandia, Xenogears, and the like of being the best of its era.

Star Ocean: The Second Story might not be balanced and its ambitious mechanics don't quite stick the landing, it is an impressionable experience that is well-worth traversing.