Star Ocean is a series I’ve only dabbled in so far, but after finishing Star Ocean: First Departure R, my one wish was for a way to play the second game in the series before moving on, especially since I’d heard such high praise for it. As a result, I was delighted when Star Ocean The Second Story R was announced for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC, and I jumped at the chance to play the new demo.
Like in the full game, you can choose between two main protagonists for whose story you want to follow: Claude, an officer from the Earth Federation who finds himself transported to an undeveloped planet, or Rena, a girl who lives on the planet in question. I chose to follow Rena’s story, although it isn’t long before the two characters meet. When Rena sees Claude, she believes him to be their hero of prophecy. Although he denies that, he soon agrees to help investigate the recent cataclysms that have been spreading monsters across the land. Although the demo only includes the start of the story, I found myself invested in it and eager to learn what would happen next.
Star Ocean The Second Story R is absolutely beautiful. I was enchanted by the graphics, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. The only thing I dislike is that sometimes, especially during close-ups, the character sprites look out of place against the much more realistic backgrounds. I also found it a little strange that character portraits sometimes appear during dialogue, but not always. Nevertheless, the towns, dungeons, and world map are all dazzling.
There are plenty of reasons to explore this beautiful world, too. Not only can you find treasure chests, but there are also “Unique Spots” marked by a glowing light that gives you a short description of the area in question along with rewards. In town, you can have the party split up for Private Actions, short scenes with your party members that let you learn more about them. This also increases the Friendship Level between characters, which will trigger special events later on. If you hope to see everything, there are some nice quality-of-life features such as a mini-map that displays markers for your main quest, Sub Events, and Private Action scenes, as well as fast travel to any previously-visited location.
Enemies appear as symbols on the field, color-coded depending on how difficult they are. Making contact with them shifts you into combat, and it’s possible to chain together multiple symbols for back-to-back battles with increased rewards. You have basic melee attacks as well as special skills that cost MP. Two of these special skills can be set to shortcuts, and you can use any of them by opening the menu. You can also freely switch between characters during battle, in addition to setting combat tactics for your allies.
During battle, each enemy will have a number of shields above its head. Destroy all of an enemy’s shields to “break” that enemy, causing it to be temporarily stunned while your attacks ignore defense and get in critical hits. A broken enemy will also drop more spheres, which fill up a bonus gauge. When this bonus gauge fills up completely, you gain a special effect, such as +25% attack. Three of these effects can be stacked at once and are different depending on the party formation you set. This system is not only a fun additional layer to combat, but it also encourages you to experiment more with the different systems. Basic attacks might defeat the enemy, but maybe a special attack will break it and give you more orbs. Countering an attack at the perfect time will restore MP and decrease the enemy’s shields, but failing will cause you to break instead and reset the bonus gauge.
After winning a battle, you regain a little HP and MP, while also earning experience, money, BP, and SP. BP is what you’ll use to improve your special attacks, as well as skills that provide passive bonuses. SP use is unlocked a little later and lets you improve your item creation skills and specialties. Item creation is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a crafting system in which you use materials for a percentage chance to create food, equipment, items, etc. Specialties include various actions, such as fishing. While item creation and specialties will help you on your adventure, you can also use them to fulfill guild missions in exchange for rewards.
Now, the demo ends after a certain point in the story, but it also has a 3 hour time limit. Since I was thoroughly invested in seeking out treasure chests, talking to NPCs, and exploring the world map, my demo time came to an end before I managed to see the whole thing. I did start a new save file to see the beginning of Claude’s story, and while the two characters spend a good deal of time together, there are enough differences that I want to see how both play out.
As a remake, Star Ocean The Second Story R has a lot of nice features. In addition to the quality-of-life aspects I mentioned earlier, it also has an optional feature that automatically asks if you want to equip new armor if you obtain something better than your current equipment. An additional Challenge feature gives you rewards for accomplishing certain tasks or reaching certain milestones in the game, like a built-in achievement system. Finally, you can switch between the original and arranged music, switch between three styles of character portraits, and switch voices. Although the English dub only has the Second Evolution voices available, the Japanese voice acting can be switched between Second Evolution voices, new voice recordings from the original Star Ocean: The Second Story cast, or no voices at all. You can even change them separately for individual characters. Strangely, there is no way to turn off individual English voices as far as I could tell.
Overall, I loved my time with the Star Ocean The Second Story R demo, wish it wasn’t capped at 3 hours, and can’t wait until the full game launches on November 2! The second Star Ocean game is a classic I never had a chance to play before, and this remake looks like a fantastic way to finally experience it.
