Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Chris Miller

I’ve really been enjoying the kick SquareEnix has been on lately in re-releasing (or completely revamping, in the case of Final Fantasy III and IV) many of their classic RPG’s for current gen systems.  This not only gives us a chance to revisit some of our favorite titles from gaming years past, but also exposes a whole new generation to some of the genre and gameplay conventions that made us fall in love with RPG’s in the first place.

Star Ocean is the latest series to receive this shot in the arm treatment.  We saw the remake of the original game - now renamed Star Ocean:  First Departure -  last September, and the sequel has now been re-titled and re-released as Star Ocean: Second Evolution (SO:SE).   Does it successfully navigate the sometimes treacherous oceans of ported games, or does it sink under the weight of its old-school gameplay?   Let’s take a look.

The original Star Ocean 2 received fair to middling reviews by critics, but was generally well received by gamers.  While you typically won’t see it on any “best of” lists, it was a decently enjoyable game and was commonly praised for it’s good looks.  While graphics may have gotten flashier in the decade since it was released, I’d say that SO: SE still holds up extremely well. 

As with most 90’s RPG’s, you will be spending your time in 3 distinct areas:  the overworld map, towns/dungeons, and the battle screen.  Getting the bad out of the way first, the overworld map is not a thing of beauty.  It is full of bland, pixellated graphics that really do nothing but make you want to hurry a bit faster to your next town or dungeon.  Thankfully, towns and dungeons all look great, albeit in an old-school kind of way.  Character sprites are transposed over hand-drawn backgrounds, all of which show a tremendous amount of artistry.  There are a ton of intricate details that truly bring each town or area to life, and small details like writing on storefront signs or reflections in water are excellent touches.  The characters themselves are well-animated, although seeing their emoticon text bubbles tends to get annoying after a while.  The sprites-over-background style evoked many fond memories of games past, and I find that I still prefer them to most fully rendered 3D environments.  I’m sure some RPG purists may agree with me here.

Combat places the party and baddies in a small arena and lets them duke it out.  The real-time system becomes quick and frantic, and you will need to be able to keep an eye on your entire party simultaneously.  SO: SE does a decent job of doling out details during combat, but I found that I would typically ignore all but my active character in 90% of the battles.  Spells and attacks are well animated, but the some of the rudimentary graphics serve as a reminder that the game was originally designed with less powerful hardware.  My only real gripe with combat were unskippable spell or attack animations that your NPC teammates were fond of setting off with regularity.

SO: SE deserves kudos for its amount of voice acting, most of which is extremely well done.  Unfortunately, this voiceover work is completely wasted on the mind-numbingly boring script and extremely stilted writing style.   I constantly found myself jamming the X button in order to skip past line after line of conversation that never went anywhere.   While they were perhaps being true to the original script, this is a game that desperately needed some tightening up in that department.  There was a bizarre tendency to over-describe everything.  For example, instead of having the characters simply say, “We need to go to Hilton City”, you would instead get an exchange like this:

“There’s someplace we need to go.”
“Where is that?”
“The City of Hilton.”
“The City of Hilton, are you sure?”
“Yes, Hilton is where we should head.”
“Well, if you think we need to go there.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I agree, we should travel to Hilton as soon as possible.”
“All right.  If everyone is ready, let’s head to Hilton.”
“We’re off to Hilton…yay!”

Ugh.  After an endless number of these sort of exchanges (and an absolutely egregious use of “…”), I found myself screaming at my PSP, “GET ON WITH IT”.  I also found the characters endless cheeriness became extremely grating.  No matter what tragedy or disaster occurred during the course of the game, you could bet that all your characters would happily chirp on about what they were going to do next.  Even a small sense of gravitas about the proceedings would have gone a long way towards keeping the player emotionally involved in the story and characters.

The music is also rather disappointing.  While technically solid, there is not a single piece that that sticks out in any way, and nearly every area’s musical theme is instantly forgettable.   When put up against it’s contemporaries from that era (i.e. Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, etc.), SO: SE doesn’t even come close.

Overworld and town controls are pretty standard fare.  X interacts with people or objects, Triangle opens the menu, etc.  It’s worth noting that fantastic care was taken in making sure the loads of information didn’t get lost in a complex series of menus.  Everything could be found within one or two clicks, and the player is able to drill down to excellent details about specific items or equipment.

Control in combat is fairly well done as well.  You take control of a single character (out of 4) and try to beat your opponent silly in real time combat.  The early game can feel a bit button-mashy, as most enemies can be beaten simply by pressing X.  As the enemies get tougher, however, you will learn to make better use of special abilities that are easily mapped to the shoulder buttons. 

SO: SE tells the adventure of Claude C. Kenney (the son of the hero from the original Star Ocean game).  Claude encounters a mysterious portal on an alien planet which magically transports him to an unknown planet.  He encounters a local girl (Rena), saves her life, and is immediately assumed to be the Hero of Light – a mythical hero who, according to prophecy, would save the planet from the ultimate evil.   It’s a somewhat interesting premise…that goes absolutely nowhere.  Sure, you’ll hook up with a diverse cast of characters throughout the game, but they are all about as interesting as a 3am infomercial and about as deep as a puddle.  The story framework simply serves as an excuse to shuffle from town to town, beat down some monsters, and gain new skills and abilities.  Frankly, after about 15 hours, I could not have cared any less about where I was going or why, and simply kept playing with the hope that somewhere, sometime it would get interesting.  Unfortunately, it never did.

There is a gameplay mechanic called Private Action in which you can ditch your party members when entering a town and explore solo with Claude.  The idea is that you are then able to talk to each party member alone, learn a bit more about them, and gain new information, quests, or skills.  However, I found that searching around a town for every party member individually became a rather annoying game of hide and seek with little reward.  Maybe I missed something, but I’m trying to figure out why these Private Actions were such a highly touted feature. 

With such a dull story and characters, SO: SE needed some sort of saving grace.  Thankfully the combat and leveling system comes to the rescue and saves SO: SE from being completely forgettable.  The real-time combat  is fast, furious, and quite fun.  The player only controls one character directly, and the AI does a decent job of handling the rest of your party.  You can set them to specific actions such as all-out attack, reserving MP, or doing nothing, and since each supporting character has a different specialty (melee, healing, magic, etc.), finding the right balance for the each situation becomes crucial.  The system is not nearly as deep as, say, Tales of Vesperia, but there certainly is some fun to be had.

XP is received from every battle, and upon leveling up, receive SP (skill points) as well.  These SP can be used to learn and unlock a dizzying array of skills and abilities, each of which can be increased to higher levels by spending a larger number of points.  These range from combat skills such as extra spell damage or lower recharge time, to specific skills such as writing, cooking, or machinery.  As characters learn these skills, they gain Specialties, which allow them to craft better items, get discounts at shops, or create health restoring dishes.  If enough party members reach certain levels of particular skills, it unlocks Super Specialties.  These group abilities are usually nothing more than powerful variations of the individual skills, but are necessary in order to create and craft the high quality items in the late game.

While the variety of skill choices is impressive, it can also be a bit intimidating.  I would highly recommend that players read some sort of guide or FAQ prior to playing, otherwise you can easily dump points into worthless skills at the expense of others that are practically required.  It’s pretty easy to end up underpowered if you’re not careful, especially with characters that you don’t use often.    I found myself grinding quite a bit in order to keep the entire party up to snuff with both levels and skill points.

SO: SE is a decent sized game, and will probably take most gamers around 30-40 hours to finish.  Add another 10 or so if you want to complete side quests and grind for the SP needed to level all the skills.   You are actually given the option to play the game as either Claude or Rena.  While this can give you a fresh perspective on some of the story events, I didn’t feel much need to play through it twice.   This might be intriguing if the story were even remotely interesting the first time around, but it’s not.  There’s no multiplayer to speak of. SO: SE will appeal to some RPG fans, but I’m certainly not one of them.  I need at least a somewhat interesting story and/or characters to keep me engaged in a game, and these aspects were completely missing.  I found most of SO: SE to be completely and utterly forgettable – the very definition of ‘meh’.  While it was a decent game when it was first released a decade ago, this straight-up port brings nothing new to the party.  Anyone who liked the original and wants a portable version will love this.  Everyone else probably shouldn't bother. 

Gaming Trend Score

68

1. Graphics: 72
2. Audio: 58
3. Controls: 86
4. Gameplay: 62
5. Value/Replay: 69
6. OVERALL:68