This game is exactly what I would call a love hate relationship; there’s just so much that I enjoyed and about an equal amount that flopped or straight up demotivated me from continuing.
For starters, this remaster of the original Star Ocean (Super Famicom) does wonders to the presentation of the game adding a sort of PS1-esque visual sense reminiscent of Star Ocean the Second Story. The pixelated character sprites set against prerendered backgrounds was neat, but the real shining factor was how the combat looked aka my favorite aspect of the game.
The battle system is fast paced with easy controls and a fun ability to choose a single character to control manually while the other three party members could have tactics set, altering the way the AI controlled their abilities and movement. It’s sort of a precursor to how FFVIIR handles its battle system and overall I looked forward to the battles… sometimes. Unfortunately the random encounter rate is astronomically high and gets extremely annoying while trying to traverse dungeons, so there’s that.
The skill point system is pretty innovative, but can also curse you if you don’t upgrade certain skills wisely. It’s easy to abuse how this system works by upgrading, for example, your Determination skill for each character, that way every single other skill they can learn requires less skill points to obtain. I restarted my first save because I blew all of my skill points up to level 10 or so unknown to the fact that Determination existed, so that was really fun…
Later on in the game when you get to the Silvalant Continent, the difficulty spike in random encounter enemies is INSANE. I was breezing my way through 15-20ish hours of gameplay and the instant I set foot outside I was getting demolished by the enemies. Through hours of level grinding and careful skill point distribution, I managed to get ahold of my party and continued on with the game, but that brutal jump in difficulty seriously made me question finishing the game or not.
Just before the end game stretch to the Demon World, I spent a whole day delving into Star Ocean’s specialty and super specialty system, which I slept on heavily throughout most of my playthrough. This is where I started to enjoy the overall experience more, and where the fun really began. Level up your main party’s skills so that they learn the abilities to play and compose music so you get Orchestra. Then make sure you level up more skills so your characters are proficient in customizing weapons and crafting new armor/accessories. With this you can have Orchestra play in the background to greatly increase the success rate of performing your specialties and completely break the game by obtaining ridiculously overpowered pieces of equipment.
With that, the remainder of Star Ocean FDR was a walk in the park and the final bosses all perished to me in mere seconds :)
If you couldn’t already tell, the gameplay systems and their implementation in battle is by far the best this game has to offer. Story wise it’s extraordinarily bland. I liked all the characters the game had and the ability to recruit certain ones while being locked out of others adds to the replayability. The Private Action scenes too were enjoyable and gave me lots of laughs with the interactions between party members, but main story wise it’s nothing to write home about.
At the end of it all, I’m still super glad I gave this title a shot. I tackled the learning curve of Star Ocean’s ingenuity and gained not just understanding for the importance of its series defining gameplay systems, but also a thirst to explore what other titles come after First Departure.
For starters, this remaster of the original Star Ocean (Super Famicom) does wonders to the presentation of the game adding a sort of PS1-esque visual sense reminiscent of Star Ocean the Second Story. The pixelated character sprites set against prerendered backgrounds was neat, but the real shining factor was how the combat looked aka my favorite aspect of the game.
The battle system is fast paced with easy controls and a fun ability to choose a single character to control manually while the other three party members could have tactics set, altering the way the AI controlled their abilities and movement. It’s sort of a precursor to how FFVIIR handles its battle system and overall I looked forward to the battles… sometimes. Unfortunately the random encounter rate is astronomically high and gets extremely annoying while trying to traverse dungeons, so there’s that.
The skill point system is pretty innovative, but can also curse you if you don’t upgrade certain skills wisely. It’s easy to abuse how this system works by upgrading, for example, your Determination skill for each character, that way every single other skill they can learn requires less skill points to obtain. I restarted my first save because I blew all of my skill points up to level 10 or so unknown to the fact that Determination existed, so that was really fun…
Later on in the game when you get to the Silvalant Continent, the difficulty spike in random encounter enemies is INSANE. I was breezing my way through 15-20ish hours of gameplay and the instant I set foot outside I was getting demolished by the enemies. Through hours of level grinding and careful skill point distribution, I managed to get ahold of my party and continued on with the game, but that brutal jump in difficulty seriously made me question finishing the game or not.
Just before the end game stretch to the Demon World, I spent a whole day delving into Star Ocean’s specialty and super specialty system, which I slept on heavily throughout most of my playthrough. This is where I started to enjoy the overall experience more, and where the fun really began. Level up your main party’s skills so that they learn the abilities to play and compose music so you get Orchestra. Then make sure you level up more skills so your characters are proficient in customizing weapons and crafting new armor/accessories. With this you can have Orchestra play in the background to greatly increase the success rate of performing your specialties and completely break the game by obtaining ridiculously overpowered pieces of equipment.
With that, the remainder of Star Ocean FDR was a walk in the park and the final bosses all perished to me in mere seconds :)
If you couldn’t already tell, the gameplay systems and their implementation in battle is by far the best this game has to offer. Story wise it’s extraordinarily bland. I liked all the characters the game had and the ability to recruit certain ones while being locked out of others adds to the replayability. The Private Action scenes too were enjoyable and gave me lots of laughs with the interactions between party members, but main story wise it’s nothing to write home about.
At the end of it all, I’m still super glad I gave this title a shot. I tackled the learning curve of Star Ocean’s ingenuity and gained not just understanding for the importance of its series defining gameplay systems, but also a thirst to explore what other titles come after First Departure.