Star Ocean: Second Evolution

released on Apr 02, 2008

Enhanced remastered of Star Ocean: The Second Story exclusively for PSP New high-quality animated cut scenes and character designs by Production I.G. Characters will now change facial expressions depending on their mood Revised game engine and improved real-time battle system keep players immersed in the action More private actions and extensive new fully-voiced dialogue bring the story to life


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A damn fine PS1 era JRPG. A fantasy game with a bunch of cool sci fi stuff thrown in to give the story a galaxy size threat. Rich worlds to explore, likeable characters, and expands on everything that made the first game good. There's deep relationship and crafting systems for those interested, but you can get by without them. Loads of replay value due to the two-sided story, and the exponentially difficult Universe mode. My only issue with this game is that there were multiple instances where I had to find out that a boss was supposed to beat us AFTER I poured a lot of time and resources into it, which became very frustrating after a while. Overall though, I can see why this is some people's favorite.

Significantly better than First Departure without any doubt. Claude is way more likeable than Roddick because he's not completely fucking generic (although sometimes just lmao). The story was pretty good but I wish they dived more into his relationship with Ronyx because father-son issues are my weakness. Game itself was fun, and the item creation/specialties system was awesome as per usual. I love becoming stronger than the final boss like 10 hours before I actually fight him. Speaking of which...

The main antagonists kinda fucking suck and would've been way better if the information that is literally optional wasn't just, you know, optional, and was actually part of the story. The ending was also pretty anticlimactic and stuff which I'm pretty sad about.

My overall experience with the game was definitely one of enjoyment though. I liked this game a lot and am looking forward to playing Till the End of Time now.

Last thing WHY IS THAT VOICE CAST SO STACKED??? SHINICHIRO MIKI, AKIRA ISHIDA, SUGITA, NANA MIZUKI, KEIJI FUJIAWARA (rip), DAISUKE NAMIKAWA, AND RIE KUGIMIYA LIKE HELLO???? THAT VA BUDGET MUST'VE BEEN FUCKING CRAAAAAAAZY

Much better than the original. Still suffers from random difficulty spikes to a horrendous degree, but with a likable cast and intuitive map traversal

How did Ronyx and Ilia end up with such a punk kid? Playing First Departure R first may have soured me on this...

This review contains spoilers

Star Ocean 2 would likely have been one of my favourite games ever if it wasn't for that awful ending. Thankfully it felt way less rushed than Star Ocean 1's (whose final boss sucked?), but god from what I remember I did not enjoy how a lot of people got killed based on the decision of a couple of people who said "we've had our time :)". Bruh what?? We're meant to be the good guys?? The gravity of a decision like that was just not handled well tonally.

Aside from that, the combination of 3D pre-renders and pixel sprites are stunning, the not-turn-based combat is wickedly fun and takes the sting out of any grinding, and the cooking/crafting systems! The 3D models are so beautiful, suits my taste in PS1 retro just right. I've beaten everything in this game aside from XXXtra hard Gabriel cause I didn't meet that condition at the port town right, but damn was that extra dungeon fantastic. Those final extra bosses are burned into my brain as some brilliant final challenges, there's nothing I love more than hidden stuff like that. Do agree that as a kid I felt a bit let down by the lack of sci-fi it was advertised on, but going back into it as a teenager knowing the vibe I've had a great time on many replays since. Would still recommend despite the bizarre morality of that ending.