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| Star Ocean: First Departure Review; Score: 8.1/10 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 19 2009, 08:13 PM (1,706 Views) | |
| Fayt | Feb 19 2009, 08:13 PM Post #1 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Full Name: Star Ocean: First Departure Genre: Action RPG Developer/Publisher: tri-Ace/Square Enix Platform: PSP Players: 1 Release Dates: JP - 27 December 07 | US - 21 October 08 | EU - 28 October 08 Official Sites: Japan | English Star Ocean: First Departure gives fans of the series a chance to finally experience the first instalment of the series, where the original was created in 1996 only in Japanese. First Departure is a remake of the original title, which has added new elements to give the game new life, such as full voice acting, new character models, improvements to the battle system and a handful of full anime style scenes. First Departure tells the story of three friends, Roddick, Dorne & Millie, all of which are on what seems to be casual patrol duties in a quiet town know as Kratus, on the underdeveloped Planet Roak. Their duty is to protect the town from any thief’s or bandits, but the three find it quite unsatisfying and frankly boring, particularly Dorne anyway. Before long however their captain of the Kratus Defence Force details an urgent matter of a spreading disease throughout a nearby town of Coule. The apparent disease is in fact turning everyone in contact with it to stone, the trio anxiously make their way to Mt Metorx where they believe the herbs there will be able to be able to remedy the problem, and from there, things gets, well out of this world! Before your eyes Ronyx & Ilia from ‘the future’ will appear right before your eyes, both whom are earthlings and know of a third party that has attacked Roak with a new bio weapon, despite federation UP3 rulings (The Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact) which prohibits those from more advantaged technologies to intervene with lesser developed worlds). How will the trio of friends respond to ‘outsiders’ entering their world? Can they prevent the spreading disease turning everyone to stone? Who is the third party that attacked Roak, and what are their true intentions? All those questions and more will form your adventure into the vast sea of Stars, known as the Star Ocean. During the game you will play as Roddick at all times, although you will have major support from Ronyx, the lead roles are shared rather equally throughout the game. The game typically adopts old school RPG overhead views, which are in effect in both towns and dungeons, as always in such environments something may be partially hidden by a tree or something, keep your eyes open! Otherwise travel between towns will take place in a 3-dimensional view, where you can turn the camera left or right as you please to help you navigate from town to dungeons etc. Despite first impressions where you see bandits appear the game uses good old random battles, simply walking in a dangerous areas (such as between towns, in dungeons, caves etc). When this occurs the screen will move into a localised action environment where battle will take place. Typically you will appear on the right of screen, and your opponents to the left, but as always there is a chance you will be attacked from behind or surrounded making your chances of winning that little bit more difficult. For those that have played The Second Story you’ll notice it’s almost identical. In battles you are able to perform regular attacks, special attacks (you can assign two at a time), use items or symbology (only available to mage types, it’s magic basically) or simply try and run away. Often the best strategy is to simply get in your enemies face and hit them as often as you can, as quickly as you can to try stop them from retaliating. But of course some battles have mage types behind a line of melee fighters, depending on your AGL ratings you can defend attacks, some enemies can seemly endure attacks and strike back regardless and so forth to make things challenging. At the end of each battle you will be awarded with Experience Points (given only to those active in the battle, not resting characters), Fol and on occasion items. At each level up your characters stats will increase, they may learn a new skill/spell and they will also receive some valuable skill points. Skill Points can be allocated at your desire to an abundance of different abilities, over 40 in fact which will become available as you purchase/find skill books throughout your travels. These skills can either improve your battle stats, chance to invoke other battle bonuses or improve your item creation skills. As always in Star Ocean titles Item Creation is available, and much alike Second Story you can make anything, anywhere really – providing your skill level is adequate and you have the necessary materials of course. With some luck of educated usage of Item Creation you can make some incredibly effective items or weapons, surpassing even those available in most shops. Frustratingly at the end of the day a bit of luck is involved, while thankfully it’s not required to finish the game and is really only there as an option if you want that little bit extra. Other features of the game include the iconic Private Actions of the Star Ocean series. With this feature you can enter any town you have already visited as an individual where all of your allies separate. Here they may be engaged in a conversation with each other, townsfolk or have some strange quirk which will really open up the characters personalities and provide some additional entertainment as you toil your way through the game. Refer to the following breakdown for my evaluation of the game in some key areas. Breakdown: Story: A great first title for the Star Ocean series, I really enjoyed how the game elaborated a little more on some fundamental things about the series, if you have played newer titles you’ll find this puts things in a little more perspective. The story is fairly straightforward with the odd twist, and will predominately revolve around making your way to Asmodeus. It’s eventful and interesting enough without been anything spectacular; Private Actions during the course of the game help give the story and characters much more personality and interest. It’s an enjoyable story, but in all honestly not much more than that. It will only take you around 20 to 25 hours to compete, if that. 7.5/10 Gameplay: Despite the games age I still think it’s an area the game excel’s, the battle system is simplistic but enjoyable, particularly for those that loved Second Story. Its action with a good pace, well expect when using Symbology where you pause for a moment, and features good old sprites that can usually attack only left or right. (Which to be honest, is no more then what most Tales games do, even ones made well after the original of First Departure). Although been an older title there will be nothing groundbreaking here either, and some fundamental things of current RPGs, such as been able to view a map as you go, and skip events is not available. Thankfully the dungeons and scenes in the game aren’t overly long, so you don’t miss them too much. It’s fairly simple of course, as expected with a remake of an older title, but just because it’s more traditional and lacks new features doesn’t mean it’s flawed. What the game does is simple, and is done fairly well. I rather see the simple things done well rather then something new which is flawed 7.5/10 Graphics: Thankfully the game generally uses 2D environments and sprites, which means despite been an older title it hasn’t aged poorly like Final Fantasy VII for example. It will have a bit of an old school RPG feel to it, for seasoned RPGers you shouldn’t be bothered by this at all, in fact you will probably like it. Add that to some quality new character images appearing regularly to highlight the characters emotion during conversations, as well as a few very nice anime scenes give the game, originally make over 10 years ago a nice look. 8/10 Music/Sound: Overall, great! Alright I’ll expand a bit, the musical score is really enjoyable, and fits the mood of the game often. The new voice actors for the game are also very good overall, as always the ‘move calling’ during battle can be a little much at times, but if you try mix up your moves and character combinations during the course of the game you can break that up. The disappointing aspect however if you don’t have the ability to adjust the music/sound settings to your desire, just one of those small additions you get used to on newer games is missed. 8.5/10 Replay Factor: This is a real strength of the game, if you enjoyed it the first time you’ll probably enjoy it even more the second time. Considering the game isn’t as long as other RPG’s I think actually helps in terms of wanting to replay it. Sometimes you know you’ll have to endure countless annoying scenes and dungeons, but that is hardly a problem here. On a replay you’ll have a fair idea of what you are doing, and knowing that the game has up to 14 characters you’ll want to find those you missed the first time around, because there are some awesome PA’s in the game too! The game also has a movie and voice collection which accumulates as you listen to the any new voiceovers or view new scenes during the game. 9/10 Final Thoughts: If you are a Star Ocean fan (particularly of Second Story), and have a PSP then just go and buy it already! It will help explain some important elements of the Star Ocean series a little more, feature the (becoming) iconic Welch, some hilarious PA’s and a decent enough story to work your way through. However if you are new to the Star Ocean series and look more towards newer RPG’s with groundbreaking elements then perhaps this is not for you – as it is indeed a remake of a title originally made in 1996, available in Japan only. If you are still curious I’d recommend hiring or borrowing a copy first instead. Rating: 8.1/10 *This review is based on my personal opinions from my own experiences with the game, which is an English PAL version. |
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| Quark | Apr 25 2009, 12:25 PM Post #2 |
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bite my shiny metal-
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Great review. I agreed with most of your points. The music and graphics were nice and I especially liked the anime scenes that they had. I wished they had more. I LOVED the private actions in this game. It really added a lot to the overall story and the character development. The story was alright, but there was room for improvement in terms of the ending. Ronyx and Ilia got a scene, but Millie and Roddick didn't. We didn't even see Dorne at the end! Last time we saw him, he went out to pick berries before Roddick and Millie got beamed up to space again
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| Gumdrop | May 4 2010, 07:37 PM Post #3 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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I played the original SO 1&2 and I loved them both, but I HATED this remake, I've still not managed to get very far in because it just annoys me so much. To me the old graphics really didn't look that bad anyway so it didn't need a remake yet. Maybe it helps if you played games for as long as I had, but they look fine to me either way. Highly dissapointed with this remake, personally don't think their remakes come anywhere near to the old games. The anime style scenes are horrible, they're done in a really cheap looking style (I could have done better myself.. >_>') and the voice acting stucks hard, I no longer feel that bad voice acting is really acceptable in games and all the scenes made it seem like a cheap/bad anime. Sure the voices were pretty suck before, but that was ten years ago before the industry was so hugly popular and there wasn't anywhere near as much room on the discs. Didn't like the changes in the script either. Whole thing seemed like a complete mess. This is what happens when you let Square get their grubby mits ANYWHERE NEAR Star Ocean ;p *nerd rage* Edited by Gumdrop, May 4 2010, 07:38 PM.
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| Fayt | May 4 2010, 11:02 PM Post #4 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Needless to say I never played the original title of this game, so I can't compare the two. But playing Second Story > Second Evolution I can completely understand where you are coming from. Probably fair to say the remakes are better suited to those that haven't played the originals. |
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| Gumdrop | May 4 2010, 11:08 PM Post #5 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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Yeah, gotta agree. I wonder if they love the remakes as much as we love the originals. |
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| Fayt | May 6 2010, 08:40 PM Post #6 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Quite possibly, it's been over 10 years since the originals which I think is a good time period for a remake. Makes use of the hand-held systems and targets a new audience all over again. |
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