Skill system is pretty fun. Combat is quite bland, especially for single target enemies. You can mostly just mash attacks or spam specials. The game gets pretty annoying at the end. Enemies get extremely overpowered, one shotting you. Which requires you to grind levels. For a 20-25 hour long game, a good 7+ hours is just grinding and backtracking.
Fun game. One issue is the demon king fight you need to master blacksmithing and save scum your way to good armor. Worth another play through to try out another team of character. be warned there is a alot of pointless back track to pad the game out.
Star Ocean: First Departure R is a game that shows its age but despite it conveys an incredibly fun adventure that is reminiscent of pure old-school RPG fun. I was most appreciative of how many hidden tasks there were in this game and just how varied your cast can get by the end depending on your choices. It helps that the game is relatively short, meaning, you can replay it and have a radically different experience each time. I thoroughly enjoyed the cast but felt a particular affinity for Ronyx and Ilia. I felt that the game was at its narrative excellence when it refocused to give us their interpretation of this world. I very distinctly recall the conversation both Ronyx and Ilia had regarding the differences between their belief in the religious, spiritual, and technological and how this clashed with what the people of this world believed. Star Ocean is unique in that each person has their path in life influenced by how and where they grew up as each world is so distinct.
In general, the OST was simple but effective. I felt that the combat was fun though my only two complaints are how fast some mages would fire spells at you and the difficulty in attacking some characters as the positioning system would take my playable character all over the place. I wasn't too bothered by the back-tracking in the second half of the game but did feel that the encounter rate can be a bit overwhelming at times. I enjoyed the specialty system a lot and felt that it added so much nuance to the world as well as the game systems. Symbology is a core part of the world you're exploring and so nurturing various techniques which reflect one's attunement with it felt so appropriate. The feeling of gaining a very useful "quality of life" through leveling different skills/specialties was great. I just wish the game did a better job of explaining it and guiding you through it. I think this particular aspect of the game served its purpose well when it was first released because players would likely share different techniques in person leading to moments such as, "Did you hear? If you level x and y, you get the z specialty which lets you open a shop anywhere on the map!" These moments were seminal for older RPGs and likely had a great impact on players back then. Finally, I would like to bring attention to the art. Enami is one of my favorite artists of all time. She brings each work to life in such a beautiful way and it's no different with Star Ocean. The amount of soul and passion in each character's art is astounding.
Otherwise, it's hard to criticize this game. It's a great pocket of adventure with so much soul. And I must end this review with: Phia and Mavelle are top 1.
In general, the OST was simple but effective. I felt that the combat was fun though my only two complaints are how fast some mages would fire spells at you and the difficulty in attacking some characters as the positioning system would take my playable character all over the place. I wasn't too bothered by the back-tracking in the second half of the game but did feel that the encounter rate can be a bit overwhelming at times. I enjoyed the specialty system a lot and felt that it added so much nuance to the world as well as the game systems. Symbology is a core part of the world you're exploring and so nurturing various techniques which reflect one's attunement with it felt so appropriate. The feeling of gaining a very useful "quality of life" through leveling different skills/specialties was great. I just wish the game did a better job of explaining it and guiding you through it. I think this particular aspect of the game served its purpose well when it was first released because players would likely share different techniques in person leading to moments such as, "Did you hear? If you level x and y, you get the z specialty which lets you open a shop anywhere on the map!" These moments were seminal for older RPGs and likely had a great impact on players back then. Finally, I would like to bring attention to the art. Enami is one of my favorite artists of all time. She brings each work to life in such a beautiful way and it's no different with Star Ocean. The amount of soul and passion in each character's art is astounding.
Otherwise, it's hard to criticize this game. It's a great pocket of adventure with so much soul. And I must end this review with: Phia and Mavelle are top 1.
Story and characters are good enough. Most of the lines are voice acted which I appreciate.
It's lacking a lot of quality of life features. There are frequent random encounters, a lot of backtracking, fixed save points, unconvenient crafting mechanics which waste your time with a short "animation"(it's too simple to call it an animation, it's more like a fade out effect), sudden difficulty spikes, skill system which is difficult to understand without a guide.
There is also no difficulty settings. I was forced to go out of my way at some point and follow a guide for easy levelling so I could progress, I was getting one shot by mobs otherwise.
This re-release could have been used to smooth out the issues, but it's just a port of the psp version. It's outdated and it shows.
Despite all that though, there is a good game here if you can overlook how many small problems it has. The skills allow you to break the game once you put enough into them which feels satisfying.
It's lacking a lot of quality of life features. There are frequent random encounters, a lot of backtracking, fixed save points, unconvenient crafting mechanics which waste your time with a short "animation"(it's too simple to call it an animation, it's more like a fade out effect), sudden difficulty spikes, skill system which is difficult to understand without a guide.
There is also no difficulty settings. I was forced to go out of my way at some point and follow a guide for easy levelling so I could progress, I was getting one shot by mobs otherwise.
This re-release could have been used to smooth out the issues, but it's just a port of the psp version. It's outdated and it shows.
Despite all that though, there is a good game here if you can overlook how many small problems it has. The skills allow you to break the game once you put enough into them which feels satisfying.
Pretty basic game that started the series. Definitely appreciate how the series evolved.
Man look at that ocean of stars up there alright back to our high fantasy adventure with underwhelming combat and poorly thought out leveling systems.
really enjoyed the game while playing but got really boring towards the end and playing it just felt like a chore. the combat is ok but the constant overworld encounters and slow overworld exploration is really annoying the further you get into the game.
Its a wonder that I actually played this game all the way through, considering it has so many classic RPG mechanics that I tend to despise, along with a pretty disappointing story, and somewhat bland characters.
From what little I knew about Star Ocean going into this game, I was expecting a sci-fi cross fantasy adventure, but what I got was a vanilla fantasy adventure with a dash of sci-fi at the beginning and end of the game. Only two party members actually come from the sci-fi side of things, and both wield basic fantasy weapons. The story is just a basic "go and beat the demon king" with extra twists toward the beginning and end involving time travel and advanced technology. Was really hoping for some deeper interactions between characters from different planets and some unique characters arcs, but none of them really get the time they need to feel unique. The whole pick your own party thing seems like a great strength for this game's replay value, but I feel it hurts the story more than it helps gameplay wise.
Battles are very straightforward and don't really require much of the player. Most of the challenge comes from properly equipping your party, and positioning on the battlefield. For such a basic battle system, it stinks that random encounters are constant everywhere except towns.
This game also has so many little systems to learn through the main Skill system. The game wants you to constantly experiment with these systems since so many of the good pieces of equipment come from crafting, smithing, etc. But then barely explains any of it, and makes all success rates extremely low unless you are good at a couple other systems, have a lucky item, play a certain song, etc. Just found these systems more cumbersome and picky than fun and encouraging.
All that being said, there were enough enjoyable portions to this game that made it worth getting through. For one, I really appreciated the PS1 style graphics, with expressive spritework and nostalgic pre-rendered backgrounds. Also, despite the combat being simple, it got me through the game without feeling tired of it. The ability to change characters at any point was appreciated, and encouraged me to try out new characters as I got them.
From what little I knew about Star Ocean going into this game, I was expecting a sci-fi cross fantasy adventure, but what I got was a vanilla fantasy adventure with a dash of sci-fi at the beginning and end of the game. Only two party members actually come from the sci-fi side of things, and both wield basic fantasy weapons. The story is just a basic "go and beat the demon king" with extra twists toward the beginning and end involving time travel and advanced technology. Was really hoping for some deeper interactions between characters from different planets and some unique characters arcs, but none of them really get the time they need to feel unique. The whole pick your own party thing seems like a great strength for this game's replay value, but I feel it hurts the story more than it helps gameplay wise.
Battles are very straightforward and don't really require much of the player. Most of the challenge comes from properly equipping your party, and positioning on the battlefield. For such a basic battle system, it stinks that random encounters are constant everywhere except towns.
This game also has so many little systems to learn through the main Skill system. The game wants you to constantly experiment with these systems since so many of the good pieces of equipment come from crafting, smithing, etc. But then barely explains any of it, and makes all success rates extremely low unless you are good at a couple other systems, have a lucky item, play a certain song, etc. Just found these systems more cumbersome and picky than fun and encouraging.
All that being said, there were enough enjoyable portions to this game that made it worth getting through. For one, I really appreciated the PS1 style graphics, with expressive spritework and nostalgic pre-rendered backgrounds. Also, despite the combat being simple, it got me through the game without feeling tired of it. The ability to change characters at any point was appreciated, and encouraged me to try out new characters as I got them.
Crazy amount of backtracking and high encounter rates made this super boring to play. The game advises you to break it but even breaking it was whatever. Might come back to it later since the story was alright.
There's a lot of things to like about this game, but playing it isn't one of them.
Abandoned after 12 hours on the ingame clock. Five of those were spent backtracking through uneventful areas & pointless low level random fights. I had to cross Mt Meteorx over a dozen times, and maxed the encounter reduction skill on every character.
The last boss I fought is worth mentioning though. Lady with seven deadly wolves. I won against her (after several retries) by running them around in circles with Roddick while throwing resurrection elixirs on everyone else as they whittled them down. That's probably the least effective way to fight, but I enjoyed it. Other jRPGs won't give you that experience.
There's also tons of crafting & skill options. Don't read a guide about them. You'll break the game and ruin the difficulty. Have fun figuring it out on your own.
Abandoned after 12 hours on the ingame clock. Five of those were spent backtracking through uneventful areas & pointless low level random fights. I had to cross Mt Meteorx over a dozen times, and maxed the encounter reduction skill on every character.
The last boss I fought is worth mentioning though. Lady with seven deadly wolves. I won against her (after several retries) by running them around in circles with Roddick while throwing resurrection elixirs on everyone else as they whittled them down. That's probably the least effective way to fight, but I enjoyed it. Other jRPGs won't give you that experience.
There's also tons of crafting & skill options. Don't read a guide about them. You'll break the game and ruin the difficulty. Have fun figuring it out on your own.
Não entendi porque caralhos refizeram só os portraits dos personagens e não das cutscenes (não me impediu de ter gostado do jogo como um todo, anyway)
Pretty good JRPG, the backtracking and encounter rates get very annoying and frustrating. But the game has a lot of charm and the replay value is great.
Star Ocean: First Departure R is Very Old-School Japanese RPG... And That's Good
Final Party: Roddick (Roddi)/Ilia (Ilya)/Ashlay (Ash)/Millie (Millie)/Erys (Eris)/Ronyx (Ron)/Ioshua (Josh)/Welch (...)
Disclaimer: I used a guide for Character Recruitment and Item Creation
Just like how our party got sent back 300 years into the past, I also was taken back to my early days of playing RPGs. That's the feel of playing through Star Ocean. This game is old-school af in both positive and negative ways. Let's talk about it.
Pros
+ Combat is hard. It discourages button-mashing and requires a fair bit of strategizing. I enjoyed it, until I discovered the right equipment and skills. It then becomes a bit repetitive but mostly, very fun.
+ Gameplay Progression is great. At the start, it's clunky and pretty hard but once it gets rolling, it feels like an actual party of heroes deserving to fight the Demon Lord. Roddick may be a lackluster main character, but gameplay-wise he's my favorite.
+ Characters are very likeable. Story-wise, I like that everyone, including the optional ones are proactive but the Private Actions are the MVP of this game. It helps make them feel like a real group of friends and yeah, I teared up at the ending because of it.
+ The Story is simple. It's the classic 'Take down the demon lord, o heroes' trope and ngl I don't remember a single thing about it but because of its simplicity, it's easy to digest when playing long RPGs and helps focus on the characters instead.
Cons
- The new HD portraits clash with the low-res sprites of the game. Also, a minor gripe but weird is some portraits doesn't match the sprite! Why does Ronyx have purple hair when it's black in his model?! Also the animated cutscenes use the old character designs. I'm going nuts thinking about it!
- OST is too loud. I can barely hear the VA. A simple volume slider should be very possible for a 2019 remaster.
- Roddick as a main character is really boring. He's a good guy, that's his character and it gets nowhere. He's the same in hour 1 and at the end. I guess it's a product of its time but he's no different from the silent protagonists of old JRPGs.
- Wish we jumped to different periods/planets. The game is called Star Ocean ffs. When the party goes to a different area at the end, it was awesome. I wish there's more of that in future titles.
- Gameplay has some clunky aspects to it. Auto-target sometimes makes your character just run around, seemingly having a hard time deciding whether to attack the front or back of enemies. Allies aren't smart about their use of skills, sometimes barely hitting enemies. Mages are useless for half of the game. Early-game, yeah their AOE spells are OP but about 10-hours in once you get the better skills, Melee fighters just obliterate everyone before your mage finish casting.
- Certain sections require you to grind a lot. Just that it's mind-numbingly boring when you spend at least 30 minutes to grind because some enemies just one-shot you and you don't get a healer, at least in my party setup, until 20-hours into the story.
- Backtracking sucks. You get different Private Actions per towns and you can't fast travel outside of Port Towns. There's no way to prevent encounters so it takes a while to go through every town for PAs and certain shop items.
- Menu navigation is tedious. Going through the item creation stuff involves a lot of button presses. Wish it was streamlined a bit.
- Speaking of crafting, I HATE RNG in any form. It's not hyperbole to say I spent more time crafting than the entire story itself. Mainly because It took me a while before I just gave in and just looked up a guide. Even then, it's still RNG-heavy and the only way to ease it up is to play Orchestra repeatedly. It doesn't help that the last 10 hours of content relies on you making the best set of equipment (Yes, I finished Cave of Seven Stars. It was HELL)
- Welch
I might have a lot of gripes with it but overall, I enjoyed my time with Star Ocean. I can't wait to see where this franchise goes especially after Second Story R is getting some traction. I'm a new fan and I'll definitely (slowly) play through it all someday!
44 hours/672 battles/2000 failed crafting attempts later, I give Star Ocean: First Departure R a 3.5/5
Final Party: Roddick (Roddi)/Ilia (Ilya)/Ashlay (Ash)/Millie (Millie)/Erys (Eris)/Ronyx (Ron)/Ioshua (Josh)/Welch (...)
Disclaimer: I used a guide for Character Recruitment and Item Creation
Just like how our party got sent back 300 years into the past, I also was taken back to my early days of playing RPGs. That's the feel of playing through Star Ocean. This game is old-school af in both positive and negative ways. Let's talk about it.
Pros
+ Combat is hard. It discourages button-mashing and requires a fair bit of strategizing. I enjoyed it, until I discovered the right equipment and skills. It then becomes a bit repetitive but mostly, very fun.
+ Gameplay Progression is great. At the start, it's clunky and pretty hard but once it gets rolling, it feels like an actual party of heroes deserving to fight the Demon Lord. Roddick may be a lackluster main character, but gameplay-wise he's my favorite.
+ Characters are very likeable. Story-wise, I like that everyone, including the optional ones are proactive but the Private Actions are the MVP of this game. It helps make them feel like a real group of friends and yeah, I teared up at the ending because of it.
+ The Story is simple. It's the classic 'Take down the demon lord, o heroes' trope and ngl I don't remember a single thing about it but because of its simplicity, it's easy to digest when playing long RPGs and helps focus on the characters instead.
Cons
- The new HD portraits clash with the low-res sprites of the game. Also, a minor gripe but weird is some portraits doesn't match the sprite! Why does Ronyx have purple hair when it's black in his model?! Also the animated cutscenes use the old character designs. I'm going nuts thinking about it!
- OST is too loud. I can barely hear the VA. A simple volume slider should be very possible for a 2019 remaster.
- Roddick as a main character is really boring. He's a good guy, that's his character and it gets nowhere. He's the same in hour 1 and at the end. I guess it's a product of its time but he's no different from the silent protagonists of old JRPGs.
- Wish we jumped to different periods/planets. The game is called Star Ocean ffs. When the party goes to a different area at the end, it was awesome. I wish there's more of that in future titles.
- Gameplay has some clunky aspects to it. Auto-target sometimes makes your character just run around, seemingly having a hard time deciding whether to attack the front or back of enemies. Allies aren't smart about their use of skills, sometimes barely hitting enemies. Mages are useless for half of the game. Early-game, yeah their AOE spells are OP but about 10-hours in once you get the better skills, Melee fighters just obliterate everyone before your mage finish casting.
- Certain sections require you to grind a lot. Just that it's mind-numbingly boring when you spend at least 30 minutes to grind because some enemies just one-shot you and you don't get a healer, at least in my party setup, until 20-hours into the story.
- Backtracking sucks. You get different Private Actions per towns and you can't fast travel outside of Port Towns. There's no way to prevent encounters so it takes a while to go through every town for PAs and certain shop items.
- Menu navigation is tedious. Going through the item creation stuff involves a lot of button presses. Wish it was streamlined a bit.
- Speaking of crafting, I HATE RNG in any form. It's not hyperbole to say I spent more time crafting than the entire story itself. Mainly because It took me a while before I just gave in and just looked up a guide. Even then, it's still RNG-heavy and the only way to ease it up is to play Orchestra repeatedly. It doesn't help that the last 10 hours of content relies on you making the best set of equipment (Yes, I finished Cave of Seven Stars. It was HELL)
- Welch
I might have a lot of gripes with it but overall, I enjoyed my time with Star Ocean. I can't wait to see where this franchise goes especially after Second Story R is getting some traction. I'm a new fan and I'll definitely (slowly) play through it all someday!
44 hours/672 battles/2000 failed crafting attempts later, I give Star Ocean: First Departure R a 3.5/5
Story is disappointing. Not much more to say.
I really loved the original, I am really loving this remaster.
After falling in love with the recently released Star Ocean Second Story R, I knew that I needed to continue seeing what this series had to offer. Figured I'd backtrack before I move forward- and thus here I am with Star Ocean First Departure R. I am happy to report that it, like its successor, is a fantastic time.
A lot of my praise for this game is pretty similar to the praise I gave to Second Story- the blending of sci-fi and fantasy, the mechanical depth, fun combat, wonderful characters and recruiting processes, worldbuilding, so on and so forth. However, this game still feels very distinct with its own flavors and spins on all of those aspects, and I found that to be really exciting. This game is such a blast from start to finish, and just emanates charm right from the golden snes/ps1 era of JRPGs beautifully.
The way this story is setup is so wonderfully told and compelling, and the early twist that truly kicks the game off had me engaged right from the start. From that point onward I was on board for everything the game threw at me. Time travel? Awesome. Four main protagonists? Wonderful. Keep it coming because I am having a ton of fun. Traveling around the world felt so diverse with its races, towns, and general atmospheres of the major areas, and every chance I had to meet someone I gladly took the opportunity. It manages to feel expansive and tight knit at the same time, and I think that is a commendable feat. I noticed a lot of little moments that really made the world shine. For example, I found a kid building a snowman and I joined in with Millie to help build more and more until we had a long line of snowmen. I figured it was just a little visual gag, but it didn’t reset when I left the town- and even showed up in a monumental cutscene later on. Everything about that encounter was completely optional, but it added so much texture and authenticity to the world that I was honestly pretty shocked by it. Little bits and pieces like that dotted around every corner are captivating, and that attention to detail and worldbuilding is always in effect.
In the combat encounters I had a ton of fun slashing away at the monsters, too. It is very simple, flashy, and depending on your outlook maybe a little dull and repetitive or (in my outlook) very satisfying and visceral. The true fun is seeing how you can build your characters beforehand and watching your progress pay off, and it is just as addicting as my previous encounter with the series. Crafting new weapons that would bump my stats up by 400+, blacksmithing new armor that could absorb elements, appraising amazing items, and nerfing my stats in exchange for higher xp rewards never got old. I probably spent just as much time looking at the skill screen as I did the combat itself, and watching my numbers grow always made me hyped. There is an endless amount of variety, customization, and stuff to unlock and play with that I feel like everyone could approach this game in unique ways and see great results. Heck, I have plenty of skills that I didn’t try out at all, and that's before all the attack techniques, spells, and character combinations I have yet to see too. Good stuff all around.
I think the true highlight for me here was, like Second Story, the characters. Not all of them are heavy hitters for me, for example T’nique felt very one note and boring to me, but everyone else I picked up was just a joy. Roddick is a great protagonist, and Ronyx and Ilia both gave such a unique perspective to everything and just were a ton of fun to be around. Watching the history of Cyuss and Phia was one of my favorite side stories in the game easily, and that serious tone is contrasted so heavily by how funny, naive, and energetic Pericci was and I caught myself always chuckling at her screen presence. Millie was my very favorite, though, since she was very emotionally fleshed out while still being so goofy and personable- something I always love- had great dynamics with everyone, and was also the party healer (my favorite JRPG class). Every time I saw the icon for the private actions I jumped at the chance to see what little flavor texts I could find just to spend more time with the cast. Some were really funny like Ronyx begging Millie not to tell how he learned Symbology, the girls only meeting in the inn, or all the times Cyuss got wasted at a bar- and like I mentioned before added such a great layer of texture to the world and cast that I always enjoyed. And the best part is I still have a huge stack of characters I haven’t met yet! I already want to replay just to see who else is out there, but I will save that for the future since I know I'll be back someday.
I don’t think this game is perfect by any means- as much as I wish I could say otherwise given how much fun I had, but there are some pretty apparent faults here and there. The beginning of the game and the setup it provides is so strong, and the ending kind of feels like it was thrown together at the last second and didn’t feel particularly satisfying to me. Not bad, but I was hoping for a little more. There are also some weird difficulty spikes sprinkled in that I felt were kind of absurd, especially at the end with the final boss who’s first phase I really don’t know how to beat without spending hours grinding or just cheesing him like I did. I also think there’s a little too much backtracking here that even I, a Metroid and Castlevania enthusiast, found to be a bit obnoxious. Those were the major flaws, but I also think that the soundtrack is just “good”. I liked it but it's not something that has really stuck with me like Second Story’s. The audio mixing felt all over the place, with the battle theme especially feeling like it was turned way down- made worse by everyone yelling their current actions nonstop. There’s a few more little things but I think I’ve made my point and they’re trivial enough for me not to really care when the game as a whole is so great.
Star Ocean First Departure R is a very short (only 22ish hours), mechanically dense, incredibly charming, addictive, and generally just fantastic little game. Second Story got me curious about what this series as a whole could offer, and now First Departure has cemented me as a newfound Star Ocean (series) fan. I had such a great time and I hope more people like me who are just getting into the series come and play and enjoy it like I did. Great time.
A lot of my praise for this game is pretty similar to the praise I gave to Second Story- the blending of sci-fi and fantasy, the mechanical depth, fun combat, wonderful characters and recruiting processes, worldbuilding, so on and so forth. However, this game still feels very distinct with its own flavors and spins on all of those aspects, and I found that to be really exciting. This game is such a blast from start to finish, and just emanates charm right from the golden snes/ps1 era of JRPGs beautifully.
The way this story is setup is so wonderfully told and compelling, and the early twist that truly kicks the game off had me engaged right from the start. From that point onward I was on board for everything the game threw at me. Time travel? Awesome. Four main protagonists? Wonderful. Keep it coming because I am having a ton of fun. Traveling around the world felt so diverse with its races, towns, and general atmospheres of the major areas, and every chance I had to meet someone I gladly took the opportunity. It manages to feel expansive and tight knit at the same time, and I think that is a commendable feat. I noticed a lot of little moments that really made the world shine. For example, I found a kid building a snowman and I joined in with Millie to help build more and more until we had a long line of snowmen. I figured it was just a little visual gag, but it didn’t reset when I left the town- and even showed up in a monumental cutscene later on. Everything about that encounter was completely optional, but it added so much texture and authenticity to the world that I was honestly pretty shocked by it. Little bits and pieces like that dotted around every corner are captivating, and that attention to detail and worldbuilding is always in effect.
In the combat encounters I had a ton of fun slashing away at the monsters, too. It is very simple, flashy, and depending on your outlook maybe a little dull and repetitive or (in my outlook) very satisfying and visceral. The true fun is seeing how you can build your characters beforehand and watching your progress pay off, and it is just as addicting as my previous encounter with the series. Crafting new weapons that would bump my stats up by 400+, blacksmithing new armor that could absorb elements, appraising amazing items, and nerfing my stats in exchange for higher xp rewards never got old. I probably spent just as much time looking at the skill screen as I did the combat itself, and watching my numbers grow always made me hyped. There is an endless amount of variety, customization, and stuff to unlock and play with that I feel like everyone could approach this game in unique ways and see great results. Heck, I have plenty of skills that I didn’t try out at all, and that's before all the attack techniques, spells, and character combinations I have yet to see too. Good stuff all around.
I think the true highlight for me here was, like Second Story, the characters. Not all of them are heavy hitters for me, for example T’nique felt very one note and boring to me, but everyone else I picked up was just a joy. Roddick is a great protagonist, and Ronyx and Ilia both gave such a unique perspective to everything and just were a ton of fun to be around. Watching the history of Cyuss and Phia was one of my favorite side stories in the game easily, and that serious tone is contrasted so heavily by how funny, naive, and energetic Pericci was and I caught myself always chuckling at her screen presence. Millie was my very favorite, though, since she was very emotionally fleshed out while still being so goofy and personable- something I always love- had great dynamics with everyone, and was also the party healer (my favorite JRPG class). Every time I saw the icon for the private actions I jumped at the chance to see what little flavor texts I could find just to spend more time with the cast. Some were really funny like Ronyx begging Millie not to tell how he learned Symbology, the girls only meeting in the inn, or all the times Cyuss got wasted at a bar- and like I mentioned before added such a great layer of texture to the world and cast that I always enjoyed. And the best part is I still have a huge stack of characters I haven’t met yet! I already want to replay just to see who else is out there, but I will save that for the future since I know I'll be back someday.
I don’t think this game is perfect by any means- as much as I wish I could say otherwise given how much fun I had, but there are some pretty apparent faults here and there. The beginning of the game and the setup it provides is so strong, and the ending kind of feels like it was thrown together at the last second and didn’t feel particularly satisfying to me. Not bad, but I was hoping for a little more. There are also some weird difficulty spikes sprinkled in that I felt were kind of absurd, especially at the end with the final boss who’s first phase I really don’t know how to beat without spending hours grinding or just cheesing him like I did. I also think there’s a little too much backtracking here that even I, a Metroid and Castlevania enthusiast, found to be a bit obnoxious. Those were the major flaws, but I also think that the soundtrack is just “good”. I liked it but it's not something that has really stuck with me like Second Story’s. The audio mixing felt all over the place, with the battle theme especially feeling like it was turned way down- made worse by everyone yelling their current actions nonstop. There’s a few more little things but I think I’ve made my point and they’re trivial enough for me not to really care when the game as a whole is so great.
Star Ocean First Departure R is a very short (only 22ish hours), mechanically dense, incredibly charming, addictive, and generally just fantastic little game. Second Story got me curious about what this series as a whole could offer, and now First Departure has cemented me as a newfound Star Ocean (series) fan. I had such a great time and I hope more people like me who are just getting into the series come and play and enjoy it like I did. Great time.
my first entry into the star ocean series, started this because 2nd story R looked really cool but this game was plenty cool too, it had like the usual jrpg jank and annoying random encounters but the very simple but still fun combat and the specialty system actually gave me quite a bit of gameplay elements to get invested in, ive leveled and used so many of them that my party was just OP as fuck by the end of the game but surprisingly the final boss still gave me some trouble (not much but still)
the story was good, not great, not awful but good and it as well as the characters had soul and thats what matters the most to me in the end, i do wish both were a bit more fleshed out but this game came out in 96 so i can forgive that
another thing that kinda disappointed me was that i expected this game to take place in space way more but like 80% of it was on the same planet , i guess thats my bad on expecting something that star ocean is clearly not
conclusion is, i liked this game and i can't wait to get on 2nd story now :)
the story was good, not great, not awful but good and it as well as the characters had soul and thats what matters the most to me in the end, i do wish both were a bit more fleshed out but this game came out in 96 so i can forgive that
another thing that kinda disappointed me was that i expected this game to take place in space way more but like 80% of it was on the same planet , i guess thats my bad on expecting something that star ocean is clearly not
conclusion is, i liked this game and i can't wait to get on 2nd story now :)
An admittedly clever twist does not (at least by itself) a fun JRPG make. There's also the issue that First Departure doesn't really do that much with the Star Trek influences and instead relegates the player to mostly just going through the motions of your usual save-the-world fantasy land JRPG narrative/gameplay.
Cute if pretty simple science fantasy story. Character recruitment choices are permanent and can accidentally lock other characters and resolutions to side stories, which is annoying but the game is short enough that it makes for replayability. I think it's kinda fun how figuring out how the systems all work and interact with each other lets you immediately break the game when you have the skill levels. Biggest sticking point is combat, which isn't really that interesting and the auto-targeting frequently makes you run around in circles to attack an enemy that isn't the one right in front of you.
I had measured but fairly high hopes going into this one. I'd just played Tales of Phantasia and absolutely adored it, and this game shares a lot of the same core creative team. It's actually a great meta-story -- after chafing under Namco's direction during Tales of Phantasia's development, the creatives left Wolfteam to form their own studio, Tri-Ace. So, Star Ocean was Tri-Ace's first game after its founders escaped from under the thumb of big daddy Namco. It's a great narrative about creatives thumbing their nose at big publishers and making the games -they- want to make.
So it's a shame Star Ocean sucks ass!!! I haven't played an rpg this devoid of charm and joy since Suikoden. It's easy to focus on the nakedly incompetent parts. A popular target is how the game essentially begins with a ninety minute cutscene dropping gallons of lore and exposition about its big sci-fi multi-planetary universe, only to drop you on a single generic fantasy planet for 90% of the game. I'd also mention how the entire last three hours comes out of nowhere and feels totally weak and unearned, and how we only meet each of the two main antagonists minutes before they're killed and exit the story. But there's so little here to latch onto that I don't think fixing the glaring unforced errors would help much, honestly. At least the big mistakes are funny.
I can't speak much to how the remake compares with the original. My partner and I compared scenes from the intro cutscenes with the remake, and the original seemed a little better directed. The remake will smash cut between scenes or music tracks in ways that feel amateurish and ridiculous, and the original at least seems to avoid that. The original's aesthetics feel a little nicer to me too. But I like the fighting in the remake (apparently borrowed from Star Ocean 2) a lot more, so it's all kind of a wash.
Ultimately the foundation here is so rotted through that I don't think it can matter much which version you play. Maybe the SNES version has stronger texture, but I don't think there's any iteration of Star Ocean that compares with the straightforward competence and resonance of Tales of Phantasia. Maybe some creatives benefit from a producer looking over their shoulder after all.
So it's a shame Star Ocean sucks ass!!! I haven't played an rpg this devoid of charm and joy since Suikoden. It's easy to focus on the nakedly incompetent parts. A popular target is how the game essentially begins with a ninety minute cutscene dropping gallons of lore and exposition about its big sci-fi multi-planetary universe, only to drop you on a single generic fantasy planet for 90% of the game. I'd also mention how the entire last three hours comes out of nowhere and feels totally weak and unearned, and how we only meet each of the two main antagonists minutes before they're killed and exit the story. But there's so little here to latch onto that I don't think fixing the glaring unforced errors would help much, honestly. At least the big mistakes are funny.
I can't speak much to how the remake compares with the original. My partner and I compared scenes from the intro cutscenes with the remake, and the original seemed a little better directed. The remake will smash cut between scenes or music tracks in ways that feel amateurish and ridiculous, and the original at least seems to avoid that. The original's aesthetics feel a little nicer to me too. But I like the fighting in the remake (apparently borrowed from Star Ocean 2) a lot more, so it's all kind of a wash.
Ultimately the foundation here is so rotted through that I don't think it can matter much which version you play. Maybe the SNES version has stronger texture, but I don't think there's any iteration of Star Ocean that compares with the straightforward competence and resonance of Tales of Phantasia. Maybe some creatives benefit from a producer looking over their shoulder after all.
would play if a better sequel didnt just release
should probably go back to playing this but honestly where the fuck am i while playing this game.
I'm going to offer some advice to cope with vertical difficulty spike.
1) check psn profiles guide for easy leveling trick (I'd recommend trying other things before that)
2) check Customization guide. The game doesn't give you good weapons, in fact you're stuck with garbage for the entire game if you don't use it!
3) blacksmithing (same thing, if you don't get good armor, you're fucked)
If not for awful PA system, arena, backtracking and difficulty spikes it'd be a great game
1) check psn profiles guide for easy leveling trick (I'd recommend trying other things before that)
2) check Customization guide. The game doesn't give you good weapons, in fact you're stuck with garbage for the entire game if you don't use it!
3) blacksmithing (same thing, if you don't get good armor, you're fucked)
If not for awful PA system, arena, backtracking and difficulty spikes it'd be a great game
Star Ocean: First Departure R is a solid RPG. It holds up well considering it's a game that's a remaster of a game that released in 2007 that's a remake of a game that released in 1996. Gameplay was fun enough, had enjoyable characters, and the story was good.
I'd say despite the nasty difficulty spike with the bosses right at the end, this is a pretty great JRPG. Sweet visuals, fun combat, designed to be played multiple times with different recruitable party members, it's great.
A decent mid-length JRPG. Enjoyed the character customization and party building, even if it was a bit convoluted. Fun characters, nice visuals, great music. Biggest issue I had was with the combat. Very stiff, enemies dodge most melee skills, unless you combo into them, but the combo timing was too strict. Overall a decent time.
While this is a remake/remaster of a remake of a SNES game, it is basically a PS1 game because it borrows almost the entirety of the combat from Star Ocean 2.
I'd say the combat is pretty mindnumbing, but the interesting parts of the game are the skill systems because they are really advanced for the time that the game was made.
Characters are okay and the story is really basic. I don't have anything else to say about them.
This is a decent game if you like old school JRPGs. I think it's interesting seeing what some of the first action RPGs played like
I'd say the combat is pretty mindnumbing, but the interesting parts of the game are the skill systems because they are really advanced for the time that the game was made.
Characters are okay and the story is really basic. I don't have anything else to say about them.
This is a decent game if you like old school JRPGs. I think it's interesting seeing what some of the first action RPGs played like
got up to the trials and had to stop. i usually don't mind grinding but this game was a huge slog for me once i was actually given agency. i researched when i got stuck and besides some unfortunate things i missed, i was doing most everything right. fights are either impossible or non-existent after loads of mindless grinding, which itself is very inconsistent as enemies where i grind will either go down without a sweat or will wipe me quickly. skill checks basically don't matter until late game since wasting resources to make trash is so common and frustrating. i loved millie and stuck through it with the hopes that she would carry me through, but the old school jank is just too much for me. i haven't had fun since i haute and i cannot keep going
i respect the game for what it's going for and as a product of its time, but it's been almost 30 years and this game is just too inconvenient, obtuse, and unclear. i hope with all my heart that second departure R will be a more enjoyable experience. i hope to go into that game with my head up
i respect the game for what it's going for and as a product of its time, but it's been almost 30 years and this game is just too inconvenient, obtuse, and unclear. i hope with all my heart that second departure R will be a more enjoyable experience. i hope to go into that game with my head up
Cute game. Story is so-so. Combat is kinda a mess. Characters and the PAs is where the games shines, though. This alone makes me want to play again to explore the branching paths.
The characters I found first play-through were: Cyuss, Phia, T'Nique (My absolute fave.) and Pericci.
The characters I found first play-through were: Cyuss, Phia, T'Nique (My absolute fave.) and Pericci.
The game is pretty cool up through the first continent. On the second continent all the random encounters have a big difficulty spike that you can either grind your way to level up through with normal fighting, or you can try to grind the gatcha-style crafting system into giving you the right items to level up super fast instead. Either way, too frustrating to put up with.