As more or less a sci-fi verison of the Tales series, Star Ocean has carved out quite a following among JRPG fans. Because of this, I was curious to try out a Star Ocean game. So it should be noted that this is my first experience with the franchise and I am happy to report that it was a thoroughly engaging one. The story has some pretty noticeable pacing issues and the final boss is extremely cheap, but if you're looking for a game with a fun and engaging combat system, a multitude of deep systems to sink your teeth into, and a solid and unique visual design, you could do far worse than Star Ocean: The Second Story.
The story that Second Story tells is serviceable, and you'll come to like some of the characters, but it is definitely not this game's strong suit. Basically, you're a guy named Claude who is on an exploration mission with his father, a famous general. As they explore what appears to be a remote planet, Claude's curiosity gets the best of him and he touches a weird contraption that the rest of crew repeatedly tells him to leave well enough alone. As soon as he touches the thing, he is warped to another planet where he saves a teenage girl with blue hair named Rena, who takes him to her home village. Because he used a light gun to save her, and he is wearing what she sees as foreign garb, she mistakes him for the infamous "Warrior of Light". The mayor of the town and Rena's mom make the same mistake and hold onto the hope that Claude can sort out the frightening monster invasions and natural disasters that their world is facing. These monster invasions seem to be happening as a result of the landing of a strange meteorite called the sorcery globe. Although Claude eventually convinces everyone he's not the "Warrior of Light", due to circumstances that I won't spoil, he is nevertheless thrust into a journey to investigate the sorcery globe. This investigation eventually turns into the standard struggle between good and evil that is a hallmark of most JRPGs.
Note: you can play from both Claude and Rena's perspective and get a few different scenes, but the same story is being told in both scenarios.
The story is perfectly decent, and there is actually some pretty solid character development (though nothing on the level of a Final Fantasy game), but the story's presentation sucks away a lot of the impact it could have had. The problem is that it regularly moves at a snail's pace. With the exception of few moderately exciting FMV cutscenes, the story is presented through heaps of sloooooooow-moving dialogue. The characters insist on dragging out conservations in the most wordy way possible and they regularly talk about some of least interesting aspects of the journey. In short, there's too much telling here and not enough showing. However, the game's "private actions"---these are optional scenes triggered in towns (think FF9's ATE system but a little more complex)---really offer some really entertaining insight into the characters that so much of the main story is lacking. If there had been more of that, the story could have approached JRPG greatness, but as it is, the story is merely serviceable.
Aside from the slow storytelling, the pacing is your basic JRPG fare. Basically, you'll be investigating a lot of towns and exploring a lot of dungeons. Luckily, the dungeons in Star Ocean are quite well-designed. They have just enough alternate routes to keep the player's interest, but they aren't headache inducing mazes either. The developers definitely hit a sweet spot with these dungeons and the towns are quite fun to explore as well, with a lot of interesting buildings to discover and private actions to trigger.
However, what really shines in Star Ocean: The Second Story is the combat system. This is an action RPG much in the vein of the Tales series. If you enjoy the fast frantic real-time action of those games, you'll love this combat system as well. In Star Ocean, you control one character at a time while the other characters are controlled by the computer (you can preset what you want them to do however). Your healers will heal you automatically, provided they have enough MP, and your mages will cast spells while you focus on slicing and dicing and generally kicking ass (or, at the touch of a button, you can take on their roles instead). Because you can dodge and move around the battlefield, you can generally avoid taking damage unless you're hit by magic attacks that cover the entire battlefield. This ensures that your skill with the battle system is paramount. Battles can turn on you extremely quickly, so you'll always have to be on your feet, which provides for a battle system that is noticeably more engaging than the ones found in many of its peers. It's frantic, fun, and demanding, and I really never tired of it even though the game unfortunately requires some serious grinding to make progress.
Another of the game's strong points is its various systems. From the surprisingly robust item creation system to the involving skills system that does everything from improving your combat technique to making you a good cook (you can even use to skill system to become adept at pickpocketing people), Star Ocean has a lot to sink your teeth into. And if you don't want to mess around with this stuff? You don't have to. It is there for those who like their RPGs to have multiple layers. Furthermore, the game has a lot of cool side diversions. There's even a city unimaginatively named "Fun City" that functions as Star Ocean's "Golden Saucer." In this city, you can engage in some mildly amusing mini-games that will make themselves well worth your while by rewarding you with some awesome items.
On the visual front, Star Ocean initially seems modest, but it is actually quite well done. The prerendered backgrounds are not only clean, crisp and vibrant, but they are actually more visually imaginative than their somewhat quaint appearance makes them initially seem. There is a lot of quirky architecture that makes a stroll through towns a pretty engaging experience. The game's visual atmosphere is a mix of the old-fashioned and modern/vaguely futuristic that is quite interesting in juxtaposition. The uncluttered clean look of the game is deceptive in that it belies much of the visual detail present.
The sprites are not quite as interesting as the environments, but they get the job done. They don't have the personality of some of the best SNES era sprites, but they're pretty freaking adorable and are generally pleasant to look at. Maybe the game could have benefited from more ambition in this area, but I'm hardly complaining. The character models are perfectly competent and round out what is quite a satisfying visual package.
Sound is a mixed bag. The game has some gorgeous harp-based music that will put you in a great mood, but the voices are almost laughably bad. They are absurdly tinny and sometimes the characters don't even finish throwing out their little obligatory quotes. Not to mention that the voices simply sound silly even if one discounts the poor sound quality. It's a bit of a shame that the sound aspect of the game wasn't given as much tender lovin' care as the visual presentation was, but it doesn't really matter.
In addition to the sluggish storytelling, my main complaint is that the game simply requires too much leveling to make it through to the end and when you do get to the end, the final boss is incredibly cheap. His first form is easy enough to pummel into submission, but his second form is so ridiculously fast that he's an absolute nightmare to deal with. I was at level one hundred and I still struggled with him. If you're an easily frustrated gamer like I am, he will surely make you rage.
Despite some rough edges, Star Ocean's superb gameplay will have you coming back for more. I wish the storytelling could have been as deep as the game's robust systems or as engaging as the always-fun combat, but when a game is this fun, what could have been doesn't really matter that much.
GAMEPLAY: 5/5
DESIGN: 4/5
STORY: 3.5/5
VISUALS: 4/5
PLAYABILITY: 4.5/5
VALUE: 5/5