Star Ocean Retrospective Pt. 1 (1-2)

 

   

    Now, everyone knows that I am a huge fan of the Tales of series. So it was only natural that I would eventually end up playing the Star Ocean series as well. Both games boast a similar action RPG style which is a nice change of pace from the traditional turn-based gameplay that RPGs were known for. 

    Debuting in 1996 (Tales of Phantasia came out in 1995,) the first Star Ocean was published by Enix and developed by tri-Ace for the Super Famicom. Since then, there have been a total of 6 mainline games and two mobile games released under the Star Ocean name. And while the mobile games Star Ocean: Material Trader and Star Ocean: Anamnesis are no longer in service, the console games remain a treasure trove of colorful characters and intense action. However, what is it that makes this series stand out compared to other games of the same genre? Well, I am going to take a look at each game in the series and describe the gameplay and how it changed over time.

    Put simply, each Star Ocean game plays pretty differently. Sure they all have basic attacks and special moves and look just like TP-based Tales of games, but the systems are quite unique. From the functionality of the moves to the way they are inputted, each game does it a little differently.

    Starting things off with the first game. It looks like any 90s RPG from a glance. You walk around environments with a bird's eye camera and travel between them via a 3D overworld. However, as I have mentioned before, this is an action-JRPG franchise. This means that you control the movements and attacks of your characters without having to adhere to whose turn it is. Tales of fans will notice that it feels like the semi-auto battle option from that series. That is, when you press an attack button, your character will automatically move to the enemy you are locked on to and perform the attack after getting close enough. The most striking system, and probably the most iconic in the series, is the range system. This system dictates that your attacks will be slightly different depending on how far away from the enemies. In the first two games, it doesn't really affect basic attacks that much, but it's important for skills. In Star Ocean one, you can assign four skills to the shoulder buttons. But there are only two shoulder buttons on a Super Famicom. This means that the skill you use is determined by both the button you press and the range. Quick side note, in the original Super Famicom version of the game, every time you hit an attack button, you pick your target after, but ever since the PSP First Departure release, you only have to hit one button to attack. 

    But that's just the basics. If you want to deal big damage in this first game, the goal is to stun-lock your opponent. For most small enemies, it just means hitting them before they hit you and spamming basic attacks. However, this becomes tricky when there are a lot of enemies in an encounter. In this case, you would either hopefully hit them all at once, use an AOE skill, start from further away with a projectile or try to fight each foe one at a time.

    If there is one big takeaway from my recent playthrough of the Switch port, it's that the combat system is focused on offense over all else. Even in the late/post-game, when you are doing the bonus dungeon and fighting optional bosses with the best armor and accessories, you are just as likely to be one-shot as you are to put the enemy in an infinite combo. This, paired with the fact that magic attacks do very little damage, means that your party makeup will most likely be based on physical damage and multi-hit attacks that can be used very quickly *cough* galaxy *cough*. Victory truly goes to who deals the first strike. A pattern that will be repeated throughout the series.

    In addition to the combat, you will be modifying your stats primarily through a crafting system which you will need a guide for how to make the best equipment since there are no in-game recipes. Weapons and armor are made by save-scummig and combining two specific items together until you get the desired result. A result, you won't know you want without a guide either. Or maybe a shit ton of trial and error. This can grind your game progress to a halt later on, what with the random difficulty spikes, and is annoying if you are playing for the story.

    Speaking of the story, while it is kind of generic, the time travel aspect brings an interesting twist to both the plot and character interactions. But the way party members are recruited in this game is bizarre. You are most likely going to need a guide to get the characters you want because you basically have to do a mini hidden side quest to choose which four optional party members you want. The party size is eight, and you have four required party members. The rest are recruited after specific story flags. This means that the party member interaction and story relevance are minimal for the optional characters. They are far flatter and have little input in story-related cutscenes compared to the required characters. This is such a shame because their personalities are interesting and fun to watch in private actions (character interactions the player can view in towns.)

     Back to recruiting, one example of how it works is the first recruitment in the game. It comes when a temporary party member asks if you want to keep them. Any normal person would say yes. However, this makes two other party members unrecruitable. There is no indication this is the case. You have to do your research beforehand. Being cryptic is something I expect from retro games and JRPGs in general, but this is a bit absurd.

    In closing, Star Ocean suffers from a lot of early RPG jank. But if I was given a choice to play the first Star Ocean game or the first Tales of game I would have to go with Star Ocean. If you don't mind a bit of monotonous grinding and crypticism, the faster pace combat is much more mind-numbingly fun. 

    But if the jank is a deal breaker to you, then I present to you Star Ocean: Second Evolution. Similar to how Star Ocean: First Departure and First Departure R are remakes of the first game. This is a remake of the second game that originally came out on the PS1. This specific version of the game is only available in the west on the PSP, but if you can manage to get your hands on it, I highly recommend it.

    Now, on a fundamental level, it is identical to First Departure. Which makes sense since they were released so close together. This means that the combat system, crafting system, and party member recruitment system are identical. However, there are a few differences that make them smoother. 

    For the battles, they are less so about just hitting the enemy first. You can actually make battles last longer with buffs and healing and still be good. That and you are actually using real combos rather than trying to infinite. The first game kind of lacked the ability to chain a basic attack into skills, or even skills, into different skills, so you can do some really flashy stuff here. The difficulty spikes are not as extreme and you will not be one-shoted nearly as often. On the flip side, the optional bosses and dungeon are the most difficult in the entire series, in my opinion. They really require you to be at max level and have optimal equipment setups, even in normal mode.

    The crafting isn't too different, just more options, but the characters are a massive improvement. A lot of the cast of the first game, as I mentioned, felt a little generic. This was especially true for its main character Roddick. Anime sword boy number whatever who is pure of heart and has a lot of potential, and all the girls love him because he is nice. Second Evolution, on the other hand, has two main characters, Claude and Rena. You actually get a choice of who you play as at the beginning. It only has slight story differences, just a few parts from the other's POV. But each route also has an exclusive party member you can only get on that route. These characters actually go through some nice character development as well. Add that to the fact that they are the only required party members, and that leads to the rest of the cast having more of a chance to shine. The rest of the characters you can recruit participate more in the story and even interact with each other in more unique ways. There are even special endings depending on which party members you had get close to one another. While knowing how to get them did not get any easier, it's worth choosing them more carefully. Special shoutout to my boy Ashton.

    

    This game is my favorite PSP game. There that's my endorsement.