One of the last great games released for the Super Nintendo falls short of amazing.
This is not to say that the game is a complete waste. If you have ever played any of the other Star Ocean series games, this game pretty much sticks to the same general idea of story and plot development on an Underdeveloped planet. You start out as Ratix, a racoon humanoid living on an Underdeveloped planet that is roughly equivalent to 12th century Earth. [SPOILERS AHEAD] Unfortunately, Ratix's world is plagued by an unknown disease that has turned almost all of it's people to stone. As is such, you must get an antidote off of the top of one of the highest peaks on the planet. But when you get there, you run into some people that claim to be from a world that is years ahead of your own. This sounds crazy, until they take you with them. We'll skip the drama, but in order to find the cure to your disease, you need to go back in time. So you will have to use what is called the Time Gate on Planet Styx to return to hundreds of years ago, and attempt to stop the disease. This is where the story develops and pretty much progresses up until near the end of the game when you return.
[SPOILERS END]
Graphically, Star Ocean is not anymore advanced than anyother Super Nintendo game. It does not use the overworld system like many of the Super Nintendo's other RPG classics. Instead, you must move around on foot from town to town travelling the old fashioned way: on foot! Some of the time, the graphics are great. Others, the graphics are just sloppy. It depends when you look at it.
Battling falls short of amazing in this Super Nintendo attempt at a real time battle system. All of your moves are pretty much controlled by button mashing, with a few battle skills thrown in there using set buttons. Moving around is pretty much done using the same button as attacking. Of course, you can swap from ally to ally and use different characters. Some have access to magic that allows them to support the others while they sit back and watch. However, things are pretty much controlled with three buttons. It's similar to the Tales of Phantasia battle system, but it falls short of the standard of the Tales of Phantasia game.
Enemies are encountered at random on the map. This is a bit disappointing after seeing some of the newer games that allow you to see your enemies before you encounter them. However, escape is allowed, so if you don't think you're up to the fight, just run away. Of course, if Ratix gets poisoned, it slowly drains away your health while you are running around outside of battles. If your health reaches zero for Ratix, then the it's game over.
Audibly, Star Ocean also falls just short of amazing, with sounds that sound distorted or tuned wrong. Some of the tracks are impressive, but others could use some work. My personal favorite is the title sequence. Many of the others I could live without.
Here's the breakdown:
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Storyline (Always loved the Star Ocean series storylines, no matter what): 9 out of 10
Battle System: 7.7 out of 10
Gameplay: 9.5 out of 10
Graphics: 7.5 out of 10
Audio: 7.5 out of 10
Sidequests and Minigames: 8 out of 10
Replay Value: 8 out of 10
Overall Score: 7.5 out of 10
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Nintendo's last great attempt to save the Super Nintendo with an amazing RPG falls just short of impressive with Star Ocean. It's truly a shame that the Super Nintendo wasn't capable of delivering the performance desired by Tri-Ace. I recommend this game to fans of the Star Ocean franchise and series, RPG fans and JRPG fans, fans of science fiction games, and fans of classic Super Nintendo games.