Dead Pixel Live

I’ll admit it now so you don’t harbor any suspicions. Star Ocean 2 is one of my favorite games. I have experienced the game dozens of times, and yes, this will affect my opinion of Star Ocean 2: Second Evolution.  It takes an avid fan to blindly sing praises, but it also takes one to vehemently spit venom.  It’s a new level of insult when a game doesn’t measure up to the standards of a self-proclaimed ‘fankid’.

Fortunately enough, that is NOT the case with SE. It takes talent to screw up a remake for a portable system- the type of talent that causes your whole apartment building to burn down because you decided to take up smoking again. It does not shock me that the game is almost exactly the same.

My confusion stems from the things in the game that are not left the same. Beautiful graphics, new FMVs, character designs redrawn by a new artist, fantastic voice acting… all of these are things I either loved or with which I had no real issue.  But I remain, as previously mentioned, confused. I’m baffled why the city of Cross in the first edition has now evolved into the city of Krosse. Why did the continent of El decide to add an extra ‘l’ and undergo metamorphosis into Ell? More importantly yet, when did the spelling of Mars not seem cool enough that it had to morph into Marze? Is this some kind of fourteen-year-old sk8r’s prank? No, wait, the town of Clik is now Kurik… oh, I see, they were being funny with new translations! Not amusing.

To be serious, though, the largest disappointment is from the opening menu, which is now non-existent in the PSP version. Granted we can do without need to chose between mono or stereo sound in our days of newfangled audio resources. But that other menu… you know… the one that let you choose basically whether you were playing a turn-based strategy game or an action/rpg hybrid for battling- that one is MIA. You have one way to play battles in this version- Semi-Automatic.

It’s the way I always played the game, but still, one choice is not how the game was originally released. I understand that there could be some Darwinian theory at work here, and SquareEnix decided those not fit to fight in real time were doomed to extinction, but I feel if SqareEnix wants to consider anything fit for extinction, it should be their tired format for JRPGs they keep reskinning for modern releases.

I want to speak of the game in broader, less criticizing terms, because let’s face it, I still love this game as much as the first day I popped in the disc, opened a package of Pocky, and hoped there were Japanese lyrics I could pretend to sing in the opening title.

Luckily enough for the first game, the music is composed by Motoi Sakuraba and blissfully deprived of any J-Pop horrors that have befallen other worthy titles *coughpersona3cough*. The remake maintains Sakuraba’s magnificence, but also has vocals from some Japanese band for the title cinematics now. That is something that you’ll just have to accept right along with the random battles and save point system when not in the world map. Oh, scratch that last part. The PSP can be turned off at any point, and it will just resume the game wherever you left off! (This has to be the best improvement for any JRPG ever.)

The new artwork for the game is a departure from the original character design by Minato Koio.

It’s a more bubbly, kawaii, want-to-pinch-it’s-cheeks style of animation (even the images for items in shops are crisp and adorable), which fits in with the type of voice acting they chose to pursue. There is some original content attached to the new artwork, since the PSP version brings new playable characters, and with them, more possible endings, I assume? Don’t ask me. I’ve never beaten the game, and I probably never will. That’s not to say the game doesn’t deserve to be beaten, but there are just so many amazing (read: distracting) things to do during gameplay, you honestly won’t feel pressured to rush through the game to get to some cinematic end scene. From cooking to jewelcrafting to building entire suits of armor, the level of creativity in Star Ocean is unsurpassed. And it’s FUN!

The remake has also seen, like the original, the beginnings of a SO:SE based manga unfolding. Hopefully this one will spawn a new animation to long outlive the original anime.

If you have never played this game and are a purist, I would suggest picking up the original (for almost the same price as the PSP version) and playing it on your PS3 with your HDtv so you can pretend you’re playing a Magic Eye puzzle while you try to understand the blotches. Sure, some of the dialogue is a little different, but the main story stays the same.

If you just want to enjoy the game while picking up some new characters, and you don’t really mind remastered, high quality graphics, the PSP version is the natural choice. They even included a handy option to skip past the voice acting if you renamed your characters and don’t want to be confused by hearing the original names.  From the company that brought you titles like Dragon Quest and Brain Lord… can you really turn down an Enix title?