Star Ocean: The Second Story

About Star Ocean: The Second Story

Star Ocean: The Second Story (1998) is tri-Ace's science-fantasy action RPG, the first Star Ocean released abroad, with real-time battles, two protagonists and a sprawling crafting system.

Star Ocean: The Second Story in Depth

Claude C. Kenny, an officer of a space-faring Earth organisation, is stranded on an undeveloped, medieval-level planet, where he meets Rena Lanford. Together they gather companions and must stop an evil group whose plot spans several worlds. The player chooses to play as Claude or Rena, and the journey and ending change with the choices made. Ten more characters can join, but only six fit into the eight-member party, and recruiting some rules others out. As in most RPGs, the party travels between towns and dungeons, following the story and taking side quests, and characters level up through battle.

Battles are fought in real time on a broad field: the player directly controls one character, free to trade blows head-on or circle round to flank, while up to three allies follow one of six AI strategies, such as "Spread out and attack" or "Save your Magic Points". Nine batches of skills bought in shops are learned with Skill Points, raising statistics, giving battle bonuses such as counterattacks, or unlocking Specialties like herbal medicine, cooking, writing, composing, pickpocketing and training. The whole party can combine on Super Specialties such as Master Chef, Blacksmithing, Publishing and Reverse Side, which counterfeits valuable items at the risk of allies thinking less of the character. Enix used sprites for the characters to achieve an anime look it felt polygons could not yet deliver.

Making Star Ocean: The Second Story

tri-Ace developed it as the second Star Ocean, and Enix published it on the PlayStation, the first game in the series to leave Japan. It received favourable reviews and was lauded for innovative elements new to the genre while borrowing some of Final Fantasy VII's best features, though some critics found it mediocre; Next Generation's Jeff Lundrigan called it "average". It did not sell enough in North America to join the Greatest Hits range, but it has a cult following and is often considered the best Star Ocean. Tose's Star Ocean: Second Evolution remastered it for PSP in 2008, and Gemdrops' remake Star Ocean: The Second Story R followed in 2023.