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Second, it's a lot harder than the first one. Great game that fixes the biggest the biggest problems from the first game. Traveling the world map has less random encounters and goes by a lot faster; a lot less tedious than the first game. The first game was waaaay to easy. After about 15 hours of expected story development, twists and turns happen that draw you in even more.
Barring the voice acting (which you're either gonna love or hate), the graphics are overhauled for this version. A definite drawback to me though is how you improve techniques (assigned to the L and R buttons) in this game. A word of caution though: pickpocketing too much (even when you are in a private action) changes the ending you can get. The problem is that it often takes a ridiculously high number to max out a move's potential, which makes it so you have to level grind and really retracts from the flow of the game overall (unless you don't care about maximizing the strength of a technique). Picking Claude if you're new is a good bet since his perspective provides more background information on the story (and also allows you to pickpocket valuable armor more often during the game). The anime cut scenes enhance the storyline overall, and this story is deeper, darker, and more involved than First departure (and it still has multiple endings).I'll admit that the story starts off really slowly.
To speed things up, you wanna make sure you enable the ability to click through spoken dialogue since you can probably read faster than they can talk. Choosing between Claude and Rena changes the perspective of the story, and allows you to recruit unique characters for each one. Having played the PSone version of Star Ocean 2 about 6 years ago, I have to say that this PSP version is far superior to it. There are ways to make the final boss really difficult but I would just refer to an online strategy guide if you're intrigued. The melee attack feature also improves other characters like Ernest and Dias from the PSone version. Each time you use a move, it increases it's proficiency by 1, and greater proficiency means a stronger and more devastating attack. The game has it's flaws, but it's easy to pick up and play and the button mashing free-for-all it leans towards is more fast paced than a traditional RPG.
Some character recruitment is complicated, and recruiting great characters like Opera prevent you from recruiting other great characters like Ashton, but these characters are far superior to the one's in First departure. the spells don't lag and are less pixelated in this version. Only pickpocket the most important items (such as rare armor or weapons or bunny shoes). The features that were great in First Departure are included in this one (like the ability to melee attack 3 times in succession by hitting the x button). They wield unique weapons with devastating techniques. Other than that, 2 perspectives on the storyline enhances replay ability (so you can try out all the recruitable characters and see which ones you enjoy most). I would recommend it for any Star Ocean fans, and for any modern RPG fans since this battle style seems like it's being phased into newer Final Fantasy games.
The original version is on the PSX and Enix not Square Enix. All of the bad glitches have been fixed now and a change in the voices too. It is called Star Ocean the Second Story. This one has had some changes of course but is still a great game. Some anime cuts added and one more optional character Welch. It is still one of the best games I have ever played.
Enjoyable and demanding, this game tends to encourage marathon play times and can be a bit hard to put aside. The pros for this game, however, do outweigh the cons. The cons, however, are that you have to mash the buttons a lot to get through the more grueling dialogs that seem to be focussed more on the characters repeating each others names followed by a very slow animated ".". Sequences which must be replayed due to failure can get grating. It is difficult without being impossible, it is stingy at times with money and goods, and has a unique and interesting skill "tree" that has more intellectuality rather than function. Played this over a long trip and it definitely was a good way to pass the time.
The voice actors are incredible: it really brought something new to the game, a charm it didn't have before. Another feature unique to the Star Ocean series is Item Creation. In the previous adventure (First Departure, also for PSP), four heroes banished evil from their continuum and restored peace to their separate worlds. Claude, after using a light gun, is proclaimed by Rena's village to be the "Hero of Light," the one who is destined to deliver them from this evil invasion.
When you leave one area and go to another on the World Map, you may suddenly find yourself 10 levels behind your enemies --- not a good place to find yourself. He soon learns that her world is in danger. With every level up you get, you also get money (FOL, as it's called here), experience points, and something else special: Skill Points.See, with the whole Item Creation idea, you need to do several things before you can gain skills. You and your battle party are free to roam the battle area as you see fit, whether if it's to close in on an enemy or to gain distance between you and your attacker so you can summon a spell. Soon, Rena and Claude depart on their great adventure to put a stop to, not only sinister creatures overtaking Expel, but to a divine conspiracy that has silently raged for centuries and centuries.In your journey, you will meet up to ten different characters, whom you can choose to accompany you on your mission, including three secret ones and many who can be added at the price of another. Before his arrival on Expel, a shimmering meteorite slammed into Expel.
There, he meets a young girl, Rena, an odd looking villager with mysterious healing powers. Newcomers will find an enormous RPG, full of continents to explore, hundreds of enemies to vanquish, and an engaging storyline to digest. When you accumulate enough skills, you learn a Specialty. Those returning to this game will find the game they remembered. Leveling up is a huge part of this game, so be prepared to do a lot of it.
With its coming came forth hordes of monsters that rampaged the surface. It's not a buy-or-not feature, but it was a new delight to a returning lover of this game. The battles themselves are also rather exclusive to the series. Star Ocean strikes again, this time accompanying the very first Star Ocean, which was never released to North America. First, you need to buy the sets in various towns in the Skill Guild. Then, you need to gain enough skill points to level up your chosen character in the skill you want he/she to have. It sounds quite complicated, but it's really quite simple when you get into the menu.
Another good thing I found about this version of the game. Bottom line. Now, Ronyx's son, Claude, is unintentionally sent to a primitive planet, Expel, upon investagation of a barren plane. If you're at all like me, and you played this game so much, so religiously, that you actually wore out the PSOne discs, buy this game. Here, you can do almost anything you can think of: create your own custom weapons, cook delicious food, conduct alchemy to make precious stones out of iron, and forge jewelry. It's in real time: there's no polite attacking in this game. Most were improved greatly from the PSOne actors.
If you have never heard of Star Ocean, and if you love RPGs, and if you don't want to miss out on one of the most epic games out there, I would give serious thought to picking this up.
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