Let’s face it, this is a wonderful week for all of us PSP fans, thanks in no small part to our buddies at Square Enix. First we got the news that a brand new Final Fantasy (for the PSP!) is in the pipeline, then they surprised all of us by announcing the remakes of the excellent Star Ocean and Star Ocean 2 as Star Ocean First Departure and Star Ocean Second Evolution respectively too!

Since nothing more can be said about Dissidia Final Fantasy until Square Enix releases more information, let’s take a trip back through time and revisit the Star Ocean titles in their original, wonderful glory.

The Beginning - Star Ocean (Star Ocean First Departure)

Released in 1996, Star Ocean was a SNes RPG by the (then) little-known Tri-Ace. Graphically, Star Ocean was ground-breaking stuff and really took the capability of the SNes to its extreme. But what separated the title from the rest was its innovative real-time battle system, as well as being one of the first RPGs to feature multiple endings which are directly dependent on the choices you make with a colorful cast of characters.

The story of Star Ocean takes place on Roak, a planet that is badly hit by a plague that is turning people into stones. The story starts off typically enough. The hero, Ratix Farrence, and his friends are guarding their village against hostile enemies when one of them gets infected with the deadly virus. In a desperate quest to save his friend, Ratix ventures into the unknown to seek for a cure, only to bump into two space travelers from another planet who also happen to be seeking the same cure. Together, they journey into space to seek the origin of the disease. Sure, it sounds far fetched and probably a little cheesy on paper, but I suspect many new gamers will be pleasantly surprised with the unique mixture of fantasy and sci-fi when they get their hands on this baby.

If you were a SNes owner back in the glorious 90s, arguably Star Ocean’s best aspect would be the innovative AI-controlled characters. In a nutshell, you control one character while the AI controls the rest. This may sound like a nightmare (uncontrollable characters!) but it works surprisingly well. Battles, like your traditional RPGs, are random though the frequency of battling can be a little on the high side. But the sophisticated battle system more than make up for this, I assure you.

The skills system in Star Ocean is also very advanced. It is probably one of the first console RPG games to take customization to such an extent. During the game, you are required to “buy” skill sets from towns. You then upgrade your characters accordingly from the skill points you earn in battles by distributing your points on the skill sets you bought. Depending on your style of play, you can make your characters physically stronger, or choose to not “overpower” them and spend your points on a useful range of techniques. In this way Star Ocean is very customizable, and fun for players who love customization. Obviously it does get a little tedious for the casual gamers.

So I hear you ask: where do all the different endings come from? Throughout the game you have more than 10 characters to choose from, and you can only have 8 at one play. This means many would be tempted to play Star Ocean over and over again with a different party. This is also where your different endings come from, since different party combination gives you a (slightly) different ending. The endings aren’t really all that great but I suspect the most players would give it a go for a second time. That’s more than okay for an RPG by any standard.

The Next Level - Star Ocean: The Second Story (Star Ocean Second Evolution)

Star Ocean: The Second Story was released in 1998 on the PS, with upgrades in various aspects compared to Star Ocean I. With a different console, Star Ocean 2 was obviously much, much better than its predecessor in the graphic department. The colors are brighter, the characters better portrayed, and generally everything is so much more pleasing to the eyes. Sadly, Star Ocean 2 slipped under the radar of many gamers due to none other (drum roll…) than Square Enix’s timeless classic - Final Fantasy VII. FFVII created such a hype on the PS that many gamers couldn’t help but compare Cloud and gang with every RPG that hit the shelf. Sad… but true.

Back to Star Ocean 2, the game takes place in the planet of Expel, where an army of robots is attacking its population following the arrival of an enigmatic meteor. In the beginning of the game, a young man named Claude is undertaking his first job as a greenhorn for the Earth Federation, where he is investigating a mysterious energy field. Disregarding direct orders, Claude approaches the field recklessly and gets transported to a forest in Expel, where he meets the other protagonist Rena. The most novel of ideas in this title is actually the ability to choose between these 2 protagonists, and depending on your choice, you will view the story either from the perspective of Claude or Rena.

Gameplay-wise, the game isn’t that much different from its predecessor. You control one protagonist, and the AI takes care of the rest for you. Battles are still real-time and still random, and the frequency is still much too high to be desired. And yes, all the customization is retained for the customization-deprived like me, though tweaks have been done here and there to make battling more enjoyable. Bottom-line, this is like Star Ocean 1 except better.

Also resembling its predecessor, Star Ocean 2 is considered “non-linear”, where choices of characters affect the ending of the game. There are also many characters that you can choose from, and many of these characters you would have to uncover by doing certain actions during the course of the game. All these potential character combinations result in the game boasting over 80 endings. But like Star Ocean 1, the endings are not all that great. Still, this does enhance the replay value to a certain extent.

Expectation, and More Expectation

So what do I expect from the remakes of these 2 classics? There is a whole range but here are some are some to start with…

• Better graphic (it’s one thing to marvel at the accomplishment on older consoles, but it is another to actually play it on the PSP)
• More characters (meaning more endings, woo hoo!)
• New sets of techniques
• More realistic sounds (and hopefully voice too)
• Beautifully-directed, anime-style opening movie

I can’t wait for these two, that’s for sure.

Posted in General, PSP on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm |
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