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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.
If you liked First Departure at ALL then you'll absolutely love this game. Second Evolution is pretty similar to First Departure in some ways (i.e. both have the same battle system, there are private actions, the item creation system and skill system are exactly the same here as in the first) but there have been some important improvements here that make Second Evolution a must buy. Some notable improvements in Second Evolution are 1) the story is more fleshed out and is both interesting and captivating, 2) the private actions actually add something to the story (the private actions were a waste of time in First Departure), and 3) the characters don't act as annoying and the dialog is a little more mature than in First Departure.
The other 24 minutes and 30 seconds were an unending stream of dialogue and cut scenes that cannot be fastforwarded through. I don't know. I would've kept playing but despite hitting the 2nd save point, I died 10 seconds into the 2nd battle of the whole game and lo and behold was transported back to the BEGINNING. Maybe I'm just too impatient. 25 minutes into the game I've been in one battle that took 30 seconds. I simply won't wade through another 25 minutes of mind-numbing boredom to get to that second battle. Must be a cult fav thing because I didn't get it at all.
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