Star ocean first departure r arena psp#

Barring a dungeon a couple of hours into the game where the difficulty hits a ridiculous spike, 90% of the game can be completed by mashing the X button.

If this game were longer than it is (it took me less than 16 hours to complete), it could have had the opportunity to flesh out the world more, although I suppose that's what the sequels are for, right?Īs far as combat goes, it's about as bare bones as you can get. The story is based around a neat idea, but ultimately isn't executed in a very interesting or engaging way.

It's a solid 7/10 in my book, with characters that, while not offensively bad, aren't anything you're going to remember. The Star Ocean franchise has been somewhat on rocky footing in the west over the last several years, but it has managed to persevere despite some setbacks.First Departure was my first experience with the Star Ocean series, and after hearing the reviews for the game, I can't say I was all that surprised or disappointed. While the mobile game Star Ocean: Anamnesis closed its English client just last month and Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness released in 2016 to mixed reviews at best, a few re-releases have recently been making their way to modern platforms.

Star ocean first departure r arena psp#

Next up is Star Ocean: First Departure R, which is a remaster of the 2007 PSP remake of the original 1996 Star Ocean game. On the underdeveloped planet Roak, friends Roddick, Millie, and Dorne protect their usually quiet hometown from monsters and bandits. Things start to take a turn for the worse when the populace begins to turn into stone. Just when things begin to seem hopeless, intergalactic travelers Ilia and Ronyx appear suddenly, and the group teams up to save a planet from imminent doom. The storyline guiding the game forward is relatively simple. You ultimately learn that in order to save the people of Roak, you need to grab a blood sample from a demon found in the past, and you'll spend the lion's share of the game slowly approaching that goal. On the way, the team will run into other characters on Roak with their own struggles, and depending on your decisions, they may join to help Roddick temporarily or stick around until the end. This first entry's plotline keeps things fairly straightforward, though a few larger universe-building elements are also lightly introduced, some of which later are expanded upon in later Star Ocean games. Square Enix calls Star Ocean: First Departure R an HD Remaster, but it feels more like an upscaled port of the PSP version with only a few notable enhancements.

The most obvious one is the new portrait artwork for all the characters done by illustrator Katsumi Enami. Otherwise, the game is mostly just like the PSP version, including the menus and UI. The new character artwork itself is really great, bringing a more detailed and lively style to the generally flat/simple style of the PSP version artwork. However, it's not quite an ideal addition for a couple of small reasons. Firstly, the few animated cutscenes found in the game are based on the PSP artwork, but these scenes are generally rare to begin with, so it's not all too problematic. More significantly, some of the characters have been given considerably different costumes. While Ilia and Ronyx's newly drawn outfits generally match designs found in the original SFC release, the PSP sprites don't reflect these outfits, so you kind of just have to get used to the portrait/sprite mismatch for a few characters. #Star ocean first departure r romance psp Luckily, you can toggle between the old & new art at any time. The spritework itself also looks great in this port, avoiding any sort of smoothing effects you sometimes find in re-released classic RPGs. Star Ocean uses a real-time battle system, where your party faces off against enemies in a combat arena, triggered by a traditional random encounter system. You can take on foes using a standard attack or a pair of special Techniques tied to the shoulder buttons. Sadly, the combat in First Departure nearly inevitably turns into nothing but Technique spamming, eventually. Techniques not only deal the most damage, but can often stunlock enemies in place, diminishing their threat. Using the same Techniques over and over is easily the most effective and most efficient way to take out enemies, and there's really no reason to not use them.

Replenishing the spent MP is also trivial. It's effective, but not terribly interesting - just click L1 a bunch during combat and your character will automatically line up and attack with the Technique. You often don't even have to move your character yourself as they can line up the attack for you. #Star ocean first departure r romance psp.