|
|
|
Star Ocean: The Second Story is the second installment in a small series of RpGs made by tri-Ace. SO: TSS is the sequel to one of the hugest RpGs for the SNES, Star Ocean. Unlike the FF series, this game actually picks up and continues the story of the first one. This RpG is only available for the PlayStation game console. The third of the series is rumored to be on Sony's legendary system, the PS2. It spans only 2 CDs and has a wealth of playable characters and things to do. It lacks the cinematic splendor we've come to know in the FF games though. One of our Staff Members appear in this game and happens to be a good character. The story begins with a young man named Claude and his father Ronixis. They are exploring a nearby planet for colonization. They find a huge dome-like structure and start to investigate the insides. Claude curiously tinkered with a weird looking machine and gets transported to some other weird planet. He then meets Rena who was running around in the Shingo forest and was attacked by a gorilla-like creature (the battle between Claude and the monster is cool, you get to blast it with your laser!). Rena then takes Claude to her village of Arlia. There, Claude is given a tour of the place. The townspeople believed he was the savior of the land because of how he looked. He finds out that the land is being terrorized by something called the "sorcery globe" which was sent by the "Ten Wise Men" (weird name for the villains, huh?) He then ventures out to stop the sorcery globe, hoping that he might find a way back to his Earth. The game plays nothing like the FF series. Except for the "moving around the world and getting attacked and leveling up", that's in almost every RpG. The battle is real-time meaning that there's no waiting, anyone may attack and do whatever they want. This type of battle system is actually pretty exciting, no waiting for the bar to fill up or waiting for the opponent's turns. The real-time battle allows all 4 of your party members to gang up on one monster (its especially effective with bosses!) The Magic system is very different, only some characters may use magic. Only characters who are naturally given the ability may cast spells. The rules of leveling up and getting rich is the same, win a battle, get XP and money. There are no "limit breaks" only something called Killer Moves. For characters who don't have the Innate Magic Ability, they may use their MP for Killer Moves. Killer Moves are special moves that hurt the enemy badly, usually several times. The Killer Moves can be executed at any time as long as you have enough MP. Each without magic ability can learn them by leveling up. This game also has Item Creation. Item Creation allows you to make your own weapons and items to use. Raw materials such as mithril, steel, and several other materials can be used to make weapons. Some weapons and items can only be acquired via Item Creation. Each character can learn several skills to help them in some way, for example Alchemy will let you create minerals for use with Blacksmith and make weapons. The graphics are what people consider "old school". The characters, monsters, and some effects are presented as 2D sprites. There are pre-rendered images for backgrounds and the battlefield is in 3D. They call it old school because the old SNES games were like this, a lot worse back then, of course. The sound and music is very good. But, not is all good. There is speech within battle (the characters trash talk the monsters and yell, scream and stuff! ) The speech is cool because if one character dies, and another character had affection for him or her (I'll explain the affection and romance in the game later.) will yell out their name and get really mad! The speech is done by real people and I think it's very good voice acting. The speech is kind of distorted though, sometimes you can't understand what they say. Other than that the sound and speech is cool. The music isn't as good as the FF series, but it fits in well with the game. This game has several endings, 86 to be exact. The game has 12 characters and they all can develop Romance points for each other. The points determine what they'll do in the ending. A Private Action is an event in which all the characters split up and go their own ways in a town. Sometimes, a character might have a PA in that certain town. There you can talk to them or spend some time with them and increase your Romance points or go around and steal from people without them knowing. If you get enough romance points, you'll be with them in the ending. Unless you're really good with manipulating your characters, you'll probably end up with Claude and Rena together and everybody else alone. Making books also raises the romance points.
|
