Star Ocean-The Second Story: A Grand Adventure into the Vast Star Ocean

Anyone who calls themself a lifelong RPG fan likely has that seminal game that made the genre click, probably at a young age, and possibly before even knowing they were becoming a fan of role-playing video games. For me, that game is Star Ocean: The Second Story (or Star Ocean 2). Around the age of 11 or 12, I borrowed Star Ocean 2 from my nephew. Paraphrasing his year-younger-than-me analysis of the game indicated that it was boring because the player just walked around and found a teleporter and that’s it. But after reading the text and seeing the pictures both on the Playstation CD-ROM case and in the instruction manual, I was convinced his opinion was incorrect, and I set out to see what Star Ocean 2 was really about.

When I fired up the game back at my house, I picked Claude C. Kenni over Rena Lanford as my protagonist. I could not deny the sheer coolness of being a 19-year-old space cadet on his first interstellar mission with his father as admiral. But for the first five minutes, my nephew’s explanation of the game held true. I walked around a desolate, remote planet. I found a teleporter, and Claude was zapped off to the main setting of the game, the planet of Expel with a technology level equivalent to medieval Earth. What followed was one to two hours of exposition that would ward off the interest of my nephew, or any child who wants to play the game and not read the walls of text. But I persisted through a tutorial fight and the typical lengthy dialogue that curses the opening stages of some JRPGs. Following those opening couple of hours, though, this space opera through the vast star ocean absolutely hooked me, and that persists to the present day.

“Countless dreams expand through the vastness of space.” –Claude C. Kenni

The year is Space Date 366 (A.D. 2452), and the first decision we make after selecting New Game is choosing our protagonist. While most of the main story beats do not change with this choice, we do gain insight into the inner thoughts and motivations of either Claude, a 19-year-old Pangalactic Federation cadet from Earth, or Rena, a 17-year-old resident of the planet Expel who wields unique healing powers. Without devolving into more spoiler-y territory, Claude is stranded from his team through the earlier-mentioned teleporter and finds himself on the planet Expel, where an increasing monster threat has emerged with the arrival of the Sorcery Globe, an asteroid that struck the planet recently. With the scenario set, Claude sets out to find a way back home, while Rena joins him to discover the secrets of her heritage. Specifically, the plot developments that occur at the transition from the first disc to the second disc recalibrates the stakes of the adventure in eye-opening ways.

Back in our real world, Star Ocean 2 released in 1999 on the Playstation 1 in a period where 3D graphics were revolutionizing console video games. The age of 2D graphics was waning, yet Star Ocean 2 had these beautiful pixelated characters set against a mixture of hand-drawn and rendered environments, spanning from countryside pastoral settings, to bustling medieval kingdoms, to post-futuristic technological metropolitan marvels. Longtime collaborators Motoi Sakuraba and Hiroya Hatsushiba assembled a sweeping orchestral soundtrack that still sends my imagination flying when I step out into the overworld or into a dungeon, much like it did when I was much younger. And this wonder does not stop when entering a battle. Although I’m sure there were contemporary games that utilized action-based combat in RPGs and JRPGs, engaging in actual movement and positioning the party of four injected urgency and agency into combat when I had only played turn-based RPGs in my young gaming life at the time. And an expansive Item Creation system supported by a wide array of skills and proficiencies means there is plenty of gameplay to engage in outside of combat situations.

The choice of which protagonist to “play as” in the beginning, along with up to thirteen recruitable characters to fill out a party size that is limited to eight, almost demands that a person who enjoys playing the game in a first playthrough should then begin a second playthrough with the second protagonist and an almost entirely new party of characters, if desired.

“Who am I? That’s what I want to know.” –Rena Lanford

Star Ocean: The Second Story means a lot to me. The level of storytelling across outer space hit an exact craving of my adolescent imagination. In the present day, Square Enix has released a remake Star Ocean: The Second Story R across current generation video game systems that could now be considered the definitive way to play. The recreated HD-2D graphics and added quality-of-life features makes this remake an approachable version for both long-time admirers to appreciate and new players to wet their feet. I cannot recommend enough jumping into either the original PS1 game or the remake. Engaging battle systems, in-depth Item Creation, and beautiful music and visuals are all supported by an epic space opera “science fantasy” narrative.

See y’all in the great star ocean!