The Backlog Chronicles: Star Ocean Second Story R

We all have a backlog. That massive list of games that we want to beat, but for one reason or another we just keep putting off. But as gaming becomes increasingly more and more expensive and scummy, those backlogs are starting to look more and more appealing.

So I figured it was finally time to start chipping away at my own personal backlog. Games that I have owned for a while that I never finished, or games I’ve always wanted to try but haven’t. And I can think of no better game to start this series than one that has haunted me since childhood.

Star Ocean the Second Story is a game that I have wanted to play for decades. My dad rented the original PlayStation game back in the day and I was immediately taken by it. I wasn’t familiar with RPGs at the time so it immediately stood out to me. The emphasis on story, the cool anime art direction, the combat, it was all a new experience for little me.

Of course, because it was so new I had no clue what I was doing. I just mashed the buttons and hoped for the best. I didn’t make it very far, but it was an experience that stuck with me and I always intended to play it again one day after I became old enough to understand the genre. And that never happened.

I never had an opportunity to play it again. I could never find the original PS1 disc due to its rarity, and I don’t think it ever got a PSN release either, at least not in Europe. There was a PSP remake, but I never got that either. I never found one in the wild and I wasn’t really following the PSP that closely. I only ever really played Tekken Dark Resurrection on that thing anyway. I probably could have just emulated it, but my skill in emulation is the same as Andrew Tate’s in being a decent human being, completely non-existent.

So due to circumstances and my own incompetence this was a game that always eluded me. Fortunately in 2023 there was Star Ocean Second Story R. A remake of the game for modern consoles. Providing me an opportune time to play it.

I actually did get a copy when it first came out. I got it for my birthday from my dad, the one who introduced me to the original fittingly enough. I had actually intended to do a review on it back then, but I wound up dropping the game about halfway through. I can’t remember why exactly, I think life just got in the way. Shit happens as they say.

But no more waiting, I’m finally going to look over this game and see if it’s worth the hype. Because Star Ocean Second Story does have a decent fan following, as does the larger Star Ocean series. For those who don’t know what Star Ocean is, it’s an action RPG series originally developed by Tri-Ace. A studio made up of former members of Wolf Team. The same people responsible for creating the Tales of series.

Star Ocean is therefore very similar to Tales, but it mixes the classic fantasy of that series with the science fiction of Star Trek. It’s a unique blend that gives the series a distinct identity among other JRPGs. Most seem to agree that the series peaked with Second Story. I don’t know much about the others other than the third game having one of the most hated twists in videogames, but the second entry does seem to be the clear fan favourite.

Part of that is because it was the game in the series most people played first. The first game was a late release on the SNES so not a lot of people played it. Especially in the west where it never got released at all. Second Story was the one that put the series on the map. In large part due to it arriving in the middle of the big JRPG gold rush spawned by Final Fantasy VII.

In fact, Second Story is so well like that when they remade the first Star Ocean on PSP, they actually based most of its gameplay and systems on Second Story. I’ve already reviewed that remake, or rather the Switch port titled First Encounter R, and you can read that for my full thoughts. But to summarise I wound up being pretty underwhelmed by it. I didn’t hate it, but it had a lot of little issues that got on my nerves, and I wound up feeling pretty meh on the whole thing.

But Second Story R seemed a lot more promising. Unlike First Encounter R which was more of a direct port with new artwork slapped on, this was a full-on remake. So they had a chance to improve on some of the issues I had with First Encounter. Granted whether it’s a remake or remaster isn’t entirely clear. It looks more like a remake with a new graphical style and gameplay improvements, but it also reuses elements from the PSP port. So it’s in a weird grey area there.

What I do know is that the game was developed by a studio named Gemdrops and not series creator Tri-Ace. Although Gemdrops was founded by former members of Tri-ace, so the remake was handed to people with some history working on the franchise. I don’t know much about them other than that. They’re a smaller developer who don’t even have a Wikipedia page and have only worked on smaller indie projects.

This is basically their first breakout title. Or at least the first one that will be noticed by more than a handful of people. Not exactly a great prospect of your first big game being a remake, but it worked ok for BluePoint. Or it would have if Sony weren’t complete jackasses.

Luckily they did a damn good job with this one. Star Ocean Second Story R is a perfect example of how to do a faithful remake. It keeps a lot of what made the original game so special and simply makes everything better. Adding in quality-of-life improvements and additional content while greatly updates the presentation to try and make it the best version of the original.

Speaking of presentation, let’s talk about that first because it’s the first thing that immediately stands out. The original Second Story was one of the earliest examples of an RPG going for a 2.5D look. Having 2D characters on a 3D world. Mostly, the 3D was largely kept for the overworld and battle sequences while most dungeons and towns were pre-rendered. Which was the style at the time.

It wasn’t the first, or even the best game to use this style, but it was the look the game was going for. I mention this because the remake feels like it finally gives the game the visual style it strived for. This really is a 2.5D game with fully rendered 3D backgrounds along with the two-dimensional character sprites and it looks goddamned great.

The easiest comparison to make is to the HD2D games like Octopath Traveler, the Live-a-Live remake and the upcoming Final Fantasy Resonance. It certainly does feel like it’s trying to capture the look those games are going for. A sort of modern retro aesthetic that combines classic sprites of the 16 and 32-bit eras with modern graphical touches.

To be clear, Star Ocean 2 R is NOT an HD2D game. It wasn’t made using that engine, and it doesn’t go for the same kind of diorama look those games go for. But it still invokes a lot of the style HD2D games have to great effect. The world looks gorgeous, and while the character sprites aren’t as detailed or well animated as something like Octopath, mainly because I’m pretty sure they’re reused from previous versions, they still have their own kind of old-school charm.

The best description I can give is that this is the Star Ocean 2 you always imagined in your head as a kid. It keeps the same style, but it’s been greatly updated to modern standards. The 3D elements are certainly leagues better than the original PS1 game and the improved lighting helps everything pop a lot more. Even if it can be a bit bloom heavy at times. Add on some flashy effects, and you’ve got a great looking update to the PS1 original.

One really nice addition are the character portraits during cutscenes. This was something added into the PSP version, but they used a really generic anime look for them that I don’t like. The portraits here are all done in a hand painted style which look much better and is more in keeping with the style of the PS1 original. They help make the cutscenes more visually interesting. At the very least they help prevent them from feeling like you’re just reading text boxes.

Not that you’ll be doing much reading during cutscenes anyway since most of them are fully voice acted. The actual audio is pulled directly from the PSP port, and it’s pretty good. It uses a lot of recognisable voice talent from anime like Spike Spencer, Kyle Hebert, Richard Epcar and others. Everyone does a solid job, and while there are some isolated instances where things are a little off, it’s a solid dub.

Now if you’re more inclined to play in the original Japanese then this is where things get interesting. Because there’s actually two different dubs to pick from for the Japanese language. One featuring the cast from the PSP port, and the other being a completely new dub featuring the actors from the original PS1 game.

As someone who doesn’t understand Japanese this is functionally useless. They both sound like gibberish to me so I can’t make heads or tails of whether these are good or not, but it is cool they gave this option for Japanese players. I wish they did the same for English speakers, but the English dub we have is a good one so I can’t really complain.

The remake also gives you the option of using the original soundtrack or a remixed soundtrack. I just stuck with the remixed ost for this since it was the default and it sounded fine. I didn’t see the point in changing it.

It doesn’t matter what you pick since he music itself is very good regardless. Very bombastic and catchy most of the time. The one drawback is that there aren’t many tracks so they reuse a lot of them, and in an RPG like this it makes things get pretty repetitive. It doesn’t get so repetitive that it becomes irritating, but I was sick of some of these songs by the end.

I don’t have much to complain about in terms of the presentation. Yeah it could have used more music, but the actual songs are still good. The voice acting is solid, and visually it’s a big upgrade over all previous versions. So as far as looks and sounds go the remake nails it.

But let’s get into the meat of things. The story of Star Ocean 2 follows two protagonists. Claude C Kenny who works alongside his father in a Star Trek Esque Galactic federation, and a young girl who lives on the underdeveloped planet Expel named Rena. During an expedition to some alien ruins, Claude is accidentally transported to Expel and ends up getting mistaken as a legendary hero by Rena after he saves her from a monster.

Claude then gets roped into investigating the Sorcery Globe. A massive meteorite that landed on Expel that’s been causing widespread chaos. With Rena going with since she doesn’t know where she came from. She was found in the woods as a kid with no memory of where she came from and wants to come with Claude to find out more about her origin.

I’m simplifying the set-up admittedly. The opening hours have an entire kidnapping plot before the actual story gets going. It’s not hugely important, but that’s kind of the thing with Star Ocean 2’s story. It feels like a game structured around smaller individual moments. It’s like an episodic anime series. You know the one’s where the cast go from town to town getting into wacky hijinks while slowly building up the main plot in the background. That’s kind of how things play out here.

Granted a lot of JRPG’s are like this to an extent, but Star Ocean 2 leans into it more. The game isn’t really focused on the overarching narrative and more on the smaller moments. The little character beats and quests between the big set-pieces. The main plot doesn’t kick in fully until the second half, and when it does it goes a bit off the rails.

I won’t give specifics to avoid spoilers. I know the game is old but not everyone has played it and it wouldn’t be fair to them. All I will say is that that this game has some of the wildest sci-fi/fantasy bullshit I’ve ever seen, and I love everything about it. It’s absurd in the best possible way.

Suffice to say the story doesn’t really hold up if you think about it too much. This is a game where you just go with the flow and enjoy the madness. Mind you for a game that takes clear inspiration from Star Trek that isn’t entirely a good thing.

Star Trek is known for its clever writing that tackles larger ideas and themes, and this game isn’t really about that. Despite the clear influences it took from it, Star Ocean 2’s writing never lives up to its inspiration. Then again Trek also had episodes like Data being a cowboy or Sulu acting like a pirate. So maybe it took inspiration from some of the goofier episodes.

At least it’s entertaining. It was never dull or uninteresting. Though it can be a little standard a lot of the time, and it does have some pacing issues. There’s a few stretches where not much really happens and it can also rely a little bit too much on exposition. There’s two major exposition dumps that feel really clunky. Feels like they could have delineated the information in a more interesting way.

But in even during the lull moments in the plot I was still engaged and that’s down to the characters. I really like this cast. They’re all very likable and I love all their interactions with each other. Even the smaller moments between the major story beats, although coming across a little like filler, are entertaining because of how endearing the characters are.

I think the game’s writing works better in the micro sense than it does the macro. It feels more focused on being an enjoyable adventure with a fun cast of characters than it is on tackling a larger theme. And in that regards it succeeds. It is not a deep story, but it is entertaining, and I just like being with these guys. I like seeing their interactions with one another. But this leads me into one of the series most memorable elements.

You see Star Ocean 2 doesn’t have a traditional party system. I mean, it kind of does, but how your party turns out is entirely up to you. The game has thirteen playable characters, but you can only have a maximum party size of 8. Since Claude and Rena are mandatory, that means you have six extra slots with a total of eleven other characters to pick from.

This was also how the first game did things too, although it was a lot more restrictive since four of the party members were mandatory. Here you’re given a lot more breathing room in how the party turns out. But the main point is, no matter what, not every character can be added to the party.

You don’t have enough party slots to include everyone so some characters will be left out. Especially since choosing some characters will lock other characters out. You could get the girl with the robo arms, but that locks you out of the battling doctor. You got to make a choice between the two.

That’s not all. At the beginning you can choose between playing the game from either Claude or Rena’s perspective. While the basic story doesn’t change, both routes have story sequences only they can access. There are even characters exclusive to each route too. So there’s reasons to try each of the two campaigns.

But even that isn’t all. You also have these things called Private Actions. These are like the Skits from the Tales of series. In that these are smaller comedic/slice of life moments between the characters. Some can have a bit more character insight, but for the most part these are played up for comedy. Some of these are little more than characters playing a small prank on each other. Which is a little pointless, but at the same time I think the game would be lesser without it.

Because these smaller comedy moments are what make the cast so endearing to begin with. You’d be surprised how scenes of people just shooting the shit can make simple characters into beloved icons. I mean that was Smiling Friends entire schtick and that show ruled.

There are a lot of these Private Actions. How many? 184. So yeah, a lot, and you won’t be able to see all of them, or even most of them in a single run. Because which PA’s you get are determined by which character you picked at the beginning, what characters are in your party, and their affinity levels. Some Private Actions will actually provide choices that can increase or decrease how characters feel about each other which can not only lead to more PA’s later on but even change the endings you get.

There are 99 endings you can unlock. Eat your heart out Chrono Trigger. Ok, admittedly the 99 endings is because of the PSP version which added an extra character. The original had 86 endings, but that’s still way more than most games offered at the time. Even today it’s an impressive number.

This gives Star Ocean 2 an insane amount of replay value just from the story alone. Helped by the fact there’s a New Game Plus option that let’s you jump in again with all your levels to get the things you missed. At the time of writing I’ve only played through Claude’s scenario, but I will definitely give Rena’s a shot in the future.

Also, if you happen to be a shipper, you are going to have a fucking field day with this. Because you can pretty much ship every party member together in this. No joke, everyone is romantically compatible in this which is kind of insane. Well ok there’s no same sex romance in this. We weren’t quite ready for that back in the nineties. But there are same sex pairings in the endings, so fuck it just use your imagination. Hasn’t stopped you guys before.

It certainly gives you a lot more freedom than a lot of other JRPG’s did at the time. It makes it feel like it’s your story since it’s your choices that change how it plays out. It’s obviously a lot more limited compared to what we have today, but by the standards of it’s day it’s impressive how much it offers.

I wound up really liking the story. It really is because of how good the characters were. The whole cast, at least of the one’s I saw, were all very lovable and I enjoyed seeing all the different Private Actions. Even the ones that were completely stupid were still pretty entertaining. They all had a charm to them, and honestly that’s the best way to describe the writing, charming.

It’s not especially deep and it can be a bit awkward at times, but there is a charm to everything that makes it very entertaining. It’s an interesting mix of sci-fi and fantasy tropes that makes for a pretty fun ride. That said, if you were going into this expecting a pure sci-fi RPG, this isn’t really it. You’ll have to play Mass Effect for something like that. Or Starfield if you hate yourself.

It’s also worth noting that the game is a direct sequel to the first Star Ocean. It mentions those events in the intro, and Claude is also the son of one of the main characters from the first game. But the events are disconnected enough that you don’t need to have played the first game to understand this one. It’s a standalone story. Playing the first one will only help in picking up some references here and there.

The remake doesn’t really add or change much to the writing. It would have been nice to have some extra story content added for the remake, but it remains faithful to the original. It doesn’t change or fuck around much with it like some other remakes do. Which is probably for the best. I don’t want another Kiwami 3 situation. Fuck me did that piss people off.

Where the remake does improve things is in how you access the story. In the original PS1 game they didn’t tell you where Private Actions were. You had to hunt for them yourself which often meant backtracking. A tiring, tedious, soul consuming amount of backtracking.

But in this remake, there’s a map feature which will not only show where you need to go to progress the story but will also highlight any side quests or Private Actions that are currently available. You can also now fast travel to any previously visited town or dungeon, and you can activate Private Action mode at any time rather than having to activate it when entering a town.

This is so much more convenient. I can actually see these Private Actions without needing to consult a guide and the fast travel saves hours of tedious bitch work. This whole remake is filled with a lot of these quality-of-life improvements, but the core gameplay remains largely intact.

Star Ocean 2 is an action RPG. Though in keeping with its connections to Tales, the battles take place on a separate screen instead of on the overworld like in the Mana series. So structurally it’s similar to most turn-based RPG’s only with an action-based battle system.

If you’ve played any JRPG before then this isn’t going to be difficult to get into at all. It doesn’t stray away from the basic JRPG structure, but that’s not inherently a bad thing. So long as you do it well and add some unique ideas into the mix then you can follow a playbook as closely as you like. And Star Ocean 2 R does both.

The exploration is great, and a huge improvement over First Departure. Not only is there actual treasure to find making you want to explore the overworld, but the remake also ditches random battles. Now enemies are visible on the overworld so you can more easily avoid them. You can even get a flying monster you can ride on which makes traveling around a lot more fun. Its rendered kind of moot by the new fast travel, but I still enjoyed using it when I got the chance.

The level and dungeon design is pretty solid too. Offering more unique gimmicks and puzzles which make them a lot more memorable. Not every dungeon is a winner, but I liked these more on average than the dungeons in the first game. Which were all kind of basic and boring.

Outside of the main story, Star Ocean 2 offers a lot more side content. There’s an entire theme park you can visit with a bunch of minigames to play, and the remake adds in new missions and even an entire fishing side quest. There’s more to see and do here outside of the main quest. Which is a huge step up from First Departure which didn’t have anything to do outside the main story.

So the world is a lot more fun to explore. The quality-of-life improvements are a big help with that, but the world itself feels richer and offers more than just going from town to town. And at the risk of spoilers for a nearly three-decade old game (fuck me I feel old typing that), but there’s actually two overworlds you explore here. This one does feature more of that planet hopping I wanted to see in the first game. I won’t say more beyond that, but I like how distinct the worlds are.

But that’s the exploration, what about the combat. It’s a simple enough system. You have a basic attack with a 3 hit combo, and each character has a set of Special Arts that can be assigned to the left and right bumpers. These Special Arts are where a lot of the combo game comes from.

Not only can you cancel the basic combo into these, but you can also cancel those Special Arts into another assigned to the same button. Which is an upgrade from First Departure which only allowed one Special Art per button and felt a bit more limited. This one lets you cut loose and style on some motherfuckers.

Each character has a lot of Special Arts to pick from, so there’s plenty to experiment with in terms of combos. Each character also has a different playstyle. Some favour being up close, other’s fight at a distance, and some are magic users more focused on larger screen clearing attacks. You have plenty of variety when it comes to how you play the game.

That’s kind of it for how the combat was in the original. It was very simple in the old game. Fun but a little basic and limited in what you could do. The makers of this remake probably agreed with this assessment because the system in the remake has a lot more depth to it.

Aside from having a more expansive combo game, the remake also adds a new Break mechanic. Enemies have a Break gauge beneath their health that will go down when they’re attacked, and when it’s depleted, they’ll become stunned for a short time and take more damage.

Basic attacks won’t do much to lower the stagger gauge, but certain Special Arts are more focused on breaking the enemy. So what I do is have one button for Break focused moves and another for raw damage. Breaking is not so useful in basic encounters, but for bosses it’s the primary strategy to focus on.

Then you have elite enemy encounters. These have an enemy leader that applies different effects to the battle. Some of which can be pretty annoying like having the enemies heal over time or preventing you from casting spells. Not a fan of that, but if you manage to Break the leader, it causes a chain reaction that will Break every other enemy. That is very satisfying when you pull it off.

Admittedly this system is also pretty simple. Especially when compared to other games with a similar mechanic. Soulsbournes in particular seem to really love this kind of thing, and this is obviously not as deep as those games get. But it does help add some much-needed depth to Star Ocean 2’s combat system, and it’s not the only one.

There’s a new Bonus Gauge that fills up as you kill enemies that gives buffs when filled. You can get a variety of bonuses depending on what battle formation you choose, but I largely stuck to the formation that rewarded more experience. I didn’t feel the need to change until I was near the end of the game. But you do unlock a good amount of them, so there should be something for everyone.

You keep these bonuses as long as the gauge is filled. Though if you get knocked out or an enemy sneaks up on you in the overworld the entire gauge is depleted, and you have to refill it from scratch. Not a huge deal since it can refill very quickly, but it can be a bit of a bummer when this happens. This can also happen if you mistime the new counter move.

To be honest though I never used this much. It’s useful early on when you only have a few characters in a fight, but once you get more party members and battles get more chaotic it becomes unwieldly. You don’t even really need it anyway. Going pure offence is the best strategy in this game.

What I did use more was the Assault Formation. This lets you call in other characters to help in battle. This is mainly here to let party members not in battle contribute to a fight. You can even set which moves they do, giving you some extra customisation. But the cool part about this is that it also lets you summon characters from past Star Ocean games. I got a lot of use out of this for extending combo’s or to help in breaking the enemy. Plus it’s just great fanservice seeing characters from the full 3D games in the Star Ocean 2 art style.

All these changes do help make the combat more in depth. But it is still a very simple combat system. You won’t be pulling off advanced tech or stringing together insane DMC style combo routes. A basic three hits into two Special Arts is what you’ll be doing for the vast majority of the game. Said Arts can change, but the actual basic combat loop will remain largely the same.

It is a fun loop though. The combat is flashy enough that it never gets boring, and the differing playstyles of the characters helps keep things from becoming monotonous. That said there are two main issues with it.

One is that magic users kind of suck. Or at least they suck in comparison to the physical attackers. Magic users are useful in dealing with groups and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses, but physical attackers can also deal more damage at a faster rate. So magic doesn’t feel as powerful as it should. Honestly the only magic user you really need is Rena and that’s largely due to her healing magic.

I don’t even find playing as magic users to be fun. They can’t combo with their spells so all you do is spam the big ones over and over. It’s not as enjoyable as playing as a physical fighter. That said magic is much better in the remake because it doesn't interrupt the flow of the fight. Aside from the most powerful spells, magic won’t pause combat and will play out in real time, and you can alter the ones that don’t by shortening the cutscenes. So it at least isn’t a pace breaker like it was before.

The bigger issue though is how easy the game is. Star Ocean 2 doesn’t provide much of a challenge. Basic enemy encounters are over before you know it, and even most bosses don’t put up that much of a fight. There are some moments where the game requires more from the player, but these are very rare and sporadic. The game is largely a walk in the park.

It isn’t so easy that it becomes boring, but the lack of challenge does mean you don’t have to engage with the games systems much. And I don’t just mean the combat mechanics. Because the real depth of this game lies not in its combat, but in its Skills and Item Creation.

Every character gains SP and BP upon levelling up. BP is used on battle-based abilities and improving Special Arts. Helpful, but the more interesting one is SP which is used to learn Skills. These can increase character stats, which is more effective than the stat growth gained by levelling up, but the real fun comes when you learn multiple skills.

Because by combining skills characters can learn Specialities. These are abilities you can use outside of combat to help you out. This can include things like blocking enemies on the overworld, finding items, lowering enemy numbers, summoning animals to retrieve items at a shop, and more.

The remake even improved some of them by making them passive. Survival is actually great now because you can just leave it on and it will pick up items while you walk around. Way better than having to keep using it in the menu. Also, Bodyguard is extremely useful because it can actually kill weaker enemies on the overworld without needing to fight them. That was very handy in the late game.

Some specialities can even let you create new items with materials you can find. You can cook food, create potions, write books, create machines, craft accessories, and customise weapons. It can be overwhelming at first with how much there is, but there are special guild missions to get you started, and every character has traits that make them better with certain specialties. So you can use those as a starting point.

I do have a couple tips though. First is to level up the Determination skill. This will lower the cost of the other skills, and they can get pretty expensive at higher levels so this comes in handy. My second piece of advice is to focus on the Train and Customise specialties. Train because it will help level up lower levelled party members faster, and Customise because it let’s you create some very powerful weapons early on. It’s the one you’ll be using the most honestly.

One thing I appreciate in the remake is having an in-game item glossary for the stuff you can make. That makes Item Creation so much easier than it was in the first game where I had no idea what I was doing. You might still need a guide for some of the stronger weapons and armour, but only to know where to start. You don’t need one once you get going.

There is a lot to the Item Creation and Specialities. I didn’t even cover half of the stuff you can do with this system. You can and likely will spend hours going through this just seeing what you can make out of it. It’s pretty addictive and I love this kind of in-depth customisation system.

The problem is that the game is so easy there’s not much of a reason to engage with it that deeply. Why bother making the best equipment in the game when the standard stuff you can find is more than enough. The game doesn’t push you into really going for the good stuff. That is if you’re playing the game on the normal difficulty.

I would actually recommend playing this game on the hard difficulty, or Galaxy as it’s called here. Because that mode does incentivise you to actually engage with the systems on a deeper level. It’s still not that difficult, but enemies do hit harder and can kill you quickly if you don’t keep your weapons and armour up to snuff. It’s easy to over level in this game and that’s actually needed to get through the game on Galaxy. If you want the richer more fulfilling gameplay experience play it on that difficulty. There is also Chaos difficulty but that’s more extreme. Best save that for when you learn the game.

The lack of difficulty is the biggest problem with the game. But it also feels like it’s the price it has to pay. What I mean it Star Ocean 2 is a game built around player freedom. From the party system to the Specialities to the Private Actions and multiple endings, it’s a game all about letting the player experience it as they want.

That can be difficult to design for. It’s hard enough trying to balance the game around a set party, but when you have multiple party members that are going to be different on every playthrough for every player… Well, it’s going to be hard to account for all those variables. You can’t make the game too difficult otherwise players will always prioritise the stronger characters. You don’t want to punish them for picking the wrong party. That would just be a dick move.

The game could change itself depending on party makeups and have a more fluid difficulty, but those are, ironically, incredibly difficult to pull off. Especially for a game in the 90’s. That would have been super ambitious if they tried that. That’s why the game still gives you items for characters you don’t have in the party. They had to have a general design that factored in as many potential combinations.

So they had to make it easy. It was the only way to ensure everyone could play through the game their way and have a good time. The game still does provide a decent challenge on occasion though, including some very difficult optional encounters and end game content, and the Galaxy difficulty does alleviate some of this issue. But this is still a very breezy adventure all things considered.

Thankfully it is an enjoyable one. I wasn’t bored at all while playing this, and the charming story and characters did help keep the adventure engaging. The combat isn’t even bad. It’s fun in its own punch drunk, button bashing kind of way. It’s not as intricate as something like Witcher 3 or Elden Ring, but it’s an action RPG combat from the 90’s. I didn’t expect it to be.

At the very least it isn’t overly frustrating and doesn’t have punishing bullshit like the first game did. You know like how the best weapon was resisted by the final boss due to its elemental properties. Second Story has nothing like that. Closest it gets is one elite enemy that disables spells and that’s only if you bring spell casters into the fight. That caught me off guard once, but truthfully you shouldn’t have more than two spell casters in battle anyway. So it was more me being an idiot than the fault of the game.

The only other problem I have with this game is the menus. This game has a lot of shit you can pick up and it can make everything feel cluttered. It is organised to an extent, but you’ll still be wading through pages of items to get to the thing you want. This is an issue with most RPG’s to be fair. I view menu navigation in these games like rummaging through a tin of sweets. Like in Celebrations where you have to sift through the Bounty’s to get to the Malteser’s. You got to wade through all the shit to get to the good stuff.

Really though the game just has far too many items. Even with a twenty per item limit there are still far too many resources to sift through. It’s not even like most of it is useful. Half the shit you find and/or make will just sit there in your inventory collecting dust. Again this is expected with the freedom the game offers, but it doesn’t change the fact that the menu design is clunky.

The game also has some pacing issues too. I said earlier the story has some lull moments, but even gameplay wise it can be a bit of a slow burn. A lot of the gameplay systems are introduced slowly overtime. It can take several hours until the game fully opens up. I know it’s to acclimate players into the game, but those early hours can be a bit dull.

None of these issues hampered my enjoyment though. I came away from Star Ocean Second Story R happy. It was a fun, light-hearted adventure with a loveable cast of characters. The game might be too easy, but I still found it engaging and it has plenty of content to sink into.

The game itself is about 20-30 hours long. Longer if you try to do everything. I didn’t do that, but I played through a lot of what the game had and it took me nearly 50 hours. Admittedly I am a slow motherfucker when it comes to games, so take that time with a grain of salt. Plus, with all the alternate endings and story paths this game has plenty of replay value. You definitely get your bang for your buck with this one.

I played this on the Switch, and it ran fine there despite it being locked to 30fps. But it’s on every other system and those run at 60 so if you have those options, it might be better on those. It also just got released on Switch 2, but there’s no upgrade for the regular Switch version. Because why treat early adopters right when you can gouge them instead. That’s modern gaming for ya. Regardless it’s perfectly fine on Switch 1, and that version is also the only physical option for Nintendo so... you make the call.

I’m glad I finally got to play this game after so many years. It did thankfully live up to my expectations. No hidden masterpiece, but a solid adventure all the same. And this remake is a great way to experience it. From what I’ve heard in fact it is the best way to experience it. So if you want to try this cult classic RPG, this is the perfect chance to do so.

Well, I can finally scratch this off the bucket list, but I have plenty more to get through. My backlog is huge so we will not run out of titles to look at anytime soon. But that’s going to bring this inaugural segment of the Backlog Chronicles to a close. Next time though I think I’ll do something a little simpler. Something that isn’t an RPG. I still have thirteen Final Fantasy’s to look at guys and I am not a machine. I need a break from them damn it.