Let’s not even talk about the optional secret dungeon.įirst Departure R looks marginally better than the PSP’s First Departure, which itself looked significantly better than the original Star Ocean, so you’re still coming out ahead. To compensate for this, the last few battles are brutally difficult and frustrating, so I guess that’s some sort of balance? Just expect the last couple hours of your 30 or so to be a slog. You can have some pretty ridiculous kit fairly early on and it turns most of Star Ocean into a cakewalk. It’s a great idea, but in practice interacting with this system in any real fashion tends to result in incredibly overpowered items and gear. It’s possible to train your characters in various skills and create items out of raw materials. What’s more, Star Ocean has a crafting – or “Item Creation” – system. Swordsmen Ashlay and Cyuss can’t be in the same party together, for instance, so you’ll have to choose one or the other, and there are several other examples that lend a great deal of replay value to the game. There’s quite a few of both types of character, though, and Star Ocean further distinguishes itself by making the character recruiting process more complex than most games. You’ve got two different styles of character as well, with fighting characters having numerous unique special attacks to experiment with and mages having a vast selection of spells. It’s possible to physically dodge attacks rather than just relying on your stats for safety, which is nice. Star Ocean itself is a fairly standard JRPG romp plot-wise – explore dungeons, fight baddies, save the world – but it was distinguished by several unusual gameplay mechanics that weren’t especially common back in the day.įor instance, combat is an action-RPG affair with battle taking place in real time. It’s a port of a port, in other words, with the most significant changes in this updated version being a high-definition upgrade, new character artwork and a bigger screen on which to enjoy the game. Despite the name, essentially all of this game’s action takes place on Roak, so don’t expect a planet-hopping adventure that comes in later Star Ocean game.įirst Depature R is a port of 2008’s Star Ocean for Sony’s PSP, itself an enhanced port of the original game released in 1996 on the Japanese Super Famicom only. Roak in the past is a dangerous place, so it’ll take might, magic and skill alike to survive. Even the Earthlings’ help isn’t enough, though the team needs to go back in time to find the solution and save the day. It’s been a long journey from there to here, so fans of classic JRPG adventuring and battle systems should prepare for some vaguely sci-fi-flavored goodness!Īfter a horrific disease begins to claim the citizens of the medieval planet Roak, young Roddick and his Roakian friends are forced to rely on the help of a pair of Earthlings in order to save the day. Today we’re looking at Star Ocean: First Departure R, which is a remaster of a remake of an old-school Super Nintendo RPG that was never released outside of Japan. It’s just like Christopher Nolan’s Inception, only the spinning top never stops. We’ve passed the age of remakes and remasters! We’ve now entered the age of remaking and remastering our remakes and remasters.
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