Summer bonus game: Arabian Nights: Spirit King of the Desert
October’s game: Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Star Ocean is one of the highest profile JRPG series I’d never played — until now. Like usual for series new to me, I wanted to start with the first game, and since it’s got a well-received remake in Star Ocean: First Departure, I decided to start there. This version features new art, additional gameplay systems, and redone voice acting, while retaining the sprite-based visuals and overall look of the original game. That’s my favorite kind of remake. In fact, the “R” version, released for PS4 and Switch in 2019, has an additional Japanese voice track and set of character portraits intended to better reflect the original Super Famicom game, which I appreciate.
Tri-Ace, the original developer, was founded by members of the dev team for Tales of Phantasia, and any player familiar with that series would immediately recognize this. Star Ocean plays like an early Tales game on steroids, with a focus on characters, plenty of obscure or hidden progression mechanics, and a fat load of systems layered on top of the basic action RPG combat.
These systems are deep, and they interact in a satisfying way that scratches my lizard brain itch of slowly getting watching numbers go up while making meaningful decisions. (Later Tales games accomplish this masterfully as well.) There’s cooking, which should be familiar to Tales fans, but also a host of skills that cover the range of jobs you’d expect to see in a fantasy world mixed with sci-fi flair. Any character can, say, learn to play an instrument, or level up machining, herbology, mineralogy, weapon customization, even weirder stuff like ESP or Piety. There’s dozens of these, and while each provides some benefit, like raising a character’s stats or lowering the enemy encounter rate, when four party members know the same set of skills, they can be used together in what’s called a Super Specialty. These grant all sorts of bonuses, my favorite being the Orchestra specialty, where everyone plays a song on their respective instruments to increase the chance that other actions, like crafting weapons, succeed. It’s surprisingly complicated for such an old game, and while Super Specialties weren’t present in the Super Famicom release, I’m glad First Departure added them, since they save a ton of time. More on that in a bit.
Skills points tie all these options together. Characters gain skill points when they level up, and the amount rewarded increases steadily, along with the cost of leveling skills to max. However, it’s strange how a few skills are all but required — Determination lowers the cost of all other skills by 2 SP for each level, so it should be any player’s top priority from the get-go. Same with Effort, which lowers the amount of XP needed to level up — another no-brainer. Since these (and a few others) are monumentally useful for any player, I can’t help but wish they weren’t in the game. Why waste my time having to get those skills, when the system could be designed to not require them in the first place? Same for the fact that most specialties, which are menu commands that let a character use a skill to produce some desired result, like alchemizing a piece of iron into a useful gemstone, have a high chance to fail, even at max level. I don’t understand the appeal of this; it’s nothing but a way to pad the game by wasting your time instead of letting the player get the result they’ve earned and move on. Breath of Fire II’s cooking has this as well, and it’s one of the few mechanics here that feels outdated.
What’s not outdated is the game’s premise. Sci-fi mixed with fantasy has become quite popular in modern JRPGs, but Star Ocean did it before almost anyone else — at least, I can’t think of other examples besides Phantasy Star, though I’m sure some exist. On the other hand, the majority of First Departure takes place in an almost entirely fantasy-based world. The sci-fi stuff acts more like window dressing, though it is key to the main plot and comes into play most at the start and end of the game. You play as Roddick, who, along with his fellow warriors Millie and Dorne, encounter visitors from another world who need their help. I don’t want to spoil much since the story is pretty interesting, albeit thin, but I will say I enjoyed finding out these visitors are actually from Earth. That’s right, Earth is named in the game, rather unusual for a fantasy JRPG, which is pretty cool. Citizens from Roddick’s planet are humanlike but have tails, a clever way to distinguish standard Earthians from fantasy folk, but there’s also a race of winged beings resembling angels, lycanthropes, cat people, and more. It’s all the standard Japanese fantasy tropes, with a little sci-fi mixed in, which works well.
Beyond the main plot, Star Ocean puts a heavy focus on character interaction. At every town, you can choose to enter what’s called a Private Action, or PA, where your characters split up, and Roddick can run around talking to each for some flavor text or a special event that might increase or decrease certain characters’ affection for each other. This system is hidden but PAs can affect anything from the availability of future Private Actions to the ending itself. Many PAs exist just for fun, though, my favorite being when Ilia, a party member from Earth, explains to Millie the story of Cinderella. Later, in a bizarre and hilarious scene, Roddick dreams that he is Cinderella, with the other party members playing roles in the story, like the wicked stepsisters, the fairy godmother, and so-on. Moments like this are why I love JRPGs, and Star Ocean doesn’t disappoint in its Japanese weirdness.
The biggest reason to pay attention to Private Actions, though, is that they affect which characters you unlock. Star Ocean is clearly meant to be replayed several times, as it’s not that long (anywhere from 15 to 25 hours, depending on how familiar you are with the game), and it’s impossible to predict which characters you’ll get without using a guide. I did use a guide because I wanted the cat girl Pericci, who, aside from providing plenty of comic relief, lets you access the Bunny Whistle, a godsend that mitigates my biggest complaint with the game.
The main quest involves traveling back and forth between cities you’ve already been to, speaking to their kings, and that’s about it. There’s one small dungeon you have to go through in one of the castles, but other than that, you’re trekking all over the map, fighting boring, easy enemies since you’re way past their level, and there’s no fast travel to be found. Only the Bunny Whistle, which summons a gigantic, cartoon bunny that hops through field areas, skipping random encounters, lessens the grind. If you don’t get it, you’re out of luck — have fun spending hours in unnecessary fights that add nothing to the experience.
See, most battles consist of mashing A since you automatically approach the enemy you’re locked on to once you initiate an attack. This rarely changes, since there’s so few boss battles, and while you get plenty of special attacks, you can only equip two at at time, on the L and R buttons, and the bulk of combat is so easy they’re only required if you want to speed things up. Even boss fights lean toward easy as pie, so I had to make my own fun by swapping between characters and trying out all their special moves. After the first few hours, though, I was snoring through every encounter and that only changed toward the end of the game, when the difficulty ramps up significantly. It’s a shame that only the final few bosses required any modicum of skill, and I hope Star Ocean II addresses this.
Outside the main quest, which is already barebones, there’s only a few dungeons to explore and no side quests aside from the aforementioned Private Actions. If you don’t put the effort into getting the most out of the game yourself, First Departure will surely disappoint. And even though I did that, there’s not enough game here to justify the hours spent optimizing character builds and experimenting with skills and specialties. I probably spent as much time in menus as playing the actual game, a trade-off I wouldn’t mind if the game rewarded it in a meaningful way, but Star Ocean fails to do so. It feels like an unfinished prototype for a game world and quest system, with a fully fleshed-out skills and leveling system from a better RPG layered on top.
At least the characters are pretty good. Cyuss is awesome — he’s traveling all over to work on his swordsmanship, and that’s it. I admire his dedication and the simplicity of his motivations. Sometimes the basics are all you need to create a compelling character, and while there’s a bit more to him than I’ve revealed, it’s not much. I also enjoyed following other optional party members, like Ioshua’s quest to find his missing sister, Mavelle’s thirst for revenge, and Phia’s devotion to protecting her kingdom, but the most interesting stuff is in the relationships between our main heroes, Roddick and Millie, and how they interact with the extra-planetary visitors from Earth, Ilia and Ronyx, on a mission to save both of their worlds. Watching Roddick and Millie’s amazement at the futuristic Earth technology never fails to thrill — I only wish there were more of it. The party gets split up at the start and remains that way for a surprising majority of the game, which contributes to the story’s unpredictability, since I’d assumed they’d meet up early on. But no, you can play most of the story without Millie or Ronyx in the party, and while I don’t plan to revisit the game after the 2 playthroughs I’ve already completed, I appreciate the amount of available paths and large roster.
Finally, the music, written by the great Motoi Sakuraba, one of my favorite game composers, generally pleases. It doesn’t stand out too much, especially compared to some of my favorites works of his, such as Shining the Holy Ark, but there’s several great tracks and many feature his signature thumping bass lines and prog rock tendencies. All in all, it’s good but mostly forgettable, though the Portminth town theme is quite the ear-worm, despite not even being one of my favorites — for some reason, I could not get it out of my head.
In summary, I enjoyed Star Ocean but was ready for it to be over by the end. That’s uncommon for me and JRPGs, but it means I can look forward to Star Ocean II instead, as it’s considered a much better game by fans. Thanks for joining me for this month’s edition of JRPG Journey 2022. Next up, Ys: The Oath in Felghana. See you next month!
