STAR OCEAN THE SECOND STORY R

Was really enjoying this until a boss fight at the end where you have to take on 3 of the strongest enemies in the game at once. Two of them constantly turn your party to stone and the other spams AOE attacks that kill the entire party. After looking up a guide and realizing the game only gets more tedious from there on I decided to quit even though there's only another 3 hours or so left. The endgame really exposes how simplistic and downright bad the battle system is. It is not fun to engage with enemies and there is no reliable way to dodge or parry with all the crap going on on-screen making battles a button mash fest. This isn't a knee jerk reaction to a difficulty spike, it's a realization after many hours of gameplay. I had an excellent time with the first 29 hours of this - the 2.5D art is gorgeous and I'm a fan of the sci-fi setting. However, a story that drags (I was skipping everything by the halfway mark) and the last gameplay section (Phynal) really, REALLY soured me on the whole experience. If you are a Star Ocean or JRPG superfan I think you'll find enjoyment on sale but for anyone else stay away.

世に多くのリメイクあれど、SO2Rの完成度はその中でも上位と断言出来る非常に良い出来 原作を忠実に再現しつつも原作のプレイでダルかったところ、分かりにくかったところはブラッシュアップされているし、 演出は原作を元にしつつも現在の技術で作り直されていて出来自体はとても良いし、それを眺めるのも感慨深い エンカウントがシンボルエンカウントに変わったことで分かりやすくエンカウントをコントロール出来るのも良いし、 Lv差があるとシンボルのまま倒せるようになるのでダンジョン探索のテンポが非常に良くなった 過去の思い出を振り返りつつも新しさを感じることが出来る「これぞリメイク」と言える良作 初代SOもこのノリでリメイク作ってくれないかな… フィア・メルさん好きだった

I know I’m still pretty new to this series, and I haven’t gotten too far into the story yet. I mainly picked up this game because of the high praise it was getting on Steam, and lately I’ve been in the mood to play more RPGs. Now that I can no longer refund it, I figured I’d share my thoughts so far. The first thing that really stood out to me was the music and graphics. Both do a fantastic job of making the world feel alive and immersive. The combat is also very solid, and it’s probably one of the strongest parts of the game. On the other hand, I felt like the random NPCs scattered around towns and cities weren’t handled with much care. I made it a point to talk to everyone I could, but most of them only had one or two throwaway lines. They didn’t add much to the world or feel like an organic part of it, which was a bit disappointing. The story so far has been decent, but I don’t quite understand the heavy hand-holding. The game constantly tells you exactly where to go, which feels unnecessary if you’re actually reading and following along. It makes the pacing feel a little strange. Some of the dialogue one-liners also came across as flat, and I think the game could benefit from putting a bit more effort into character writing and presentation to make it more engaging. Overall, I’d give it a 7/10. I’d call it a 5 baseline, then +1 for the music, +1 for the graphics. The story still has room to grow, and if it really steps up later on, I could easily see this being an 8 or even a 9. I don’t think the story is “bad,” it just struggles to execute its ideas as well as it could, which is understandable, because building a massive RPG like this isn’t easy. I also think a lot of people are too quick to judge big RPGs, expecting the story to always be a perfect 10/10 or nothing. For me, it’s already a solid game with plenty of potential.

I'm glad this game got (yet another) remake. This one's pretty amazing too. The world, graphics, and music have been entirely redone, everything feels pretty fresh and new for someone like me who has put hundreds of hours into the original PSX and then PSP version of the game. This version has voiced dialog just as the PSP version did, but also lets you select the voiced language and subtitle language, so you can effectively un-dub; you also get to choose between the PSP edition's voices or the new voices added in this version, even per character, although only when listening in Japanese. A whole lot of new stuff has been added that, at least for me so far, is pretty awesome. I've encountered tons of new items with good effects, the assault system where you can call in pixel-style versions of other Star Ocean heroes is awesome, and even enemy encounters were redone so that now you can see the enemies in world maps and the dungeon, and decide whether or not they're worth your time to fight based on their difficulty level (they show up as green, purple, or red for quick reference). This game feels like it was remade by people who really loved Star Ocean: TSS and wanted it to be *better*. The graphics are pretty, and the art style and engine are wonderful. I hope they remake First Departure in this engine some day; in fact, I wish they'd redo the 3D Star Ocean games in this engine. Awesome game altogether, highly recommend, for fans or newcomers!

10/10 I never give 10 out of 10 on anything. They made the best game in the series even better. Perfectly executed, exactly what fans want. Please release a 7th entry going back to the roots of the series - the style, story, and character development from the first 4 games that we loved so much.

Straightforward RPG. Completed story, all raid boss, collected every fish, and acquired all Ultimate Weapons. There is more to do like New Game+ and collect all 99 endings but I like to complete a game once. Please bring more Star Ocean games to PC.

The Second Story R is amazing and faithful to the original. I hated how FF7 was done, THIS is how Id have liked it to be done and how Id love all remasters to be done. NOT a remake, a beautiful remaster.