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Hmmm.... What's this? I never heard of this RPG before! Is it worth playing for weeks or months? Let's see....
StarOcean is about a young lad (Crawd), or girl (Rena) depending on which senario you picked, who sets off to discover the truth behind a strange energy stone. This stone reportedly caused the abundance of monsters and devistating disasters. Along your journey, you'll meet friends that will join you, of whom would be great help. Also, you will be building a relationship between the two main characters. When I played the game, however, it took a while for the story to get interesting. One time, I almost fell asleep trying to do my next mission! So, for those who aren't patient, would quit playing the game after 3 hours. Star Ocean's gameplay is quite unique...well some of it actually. In this game you'll do the basic RPG stuff: collect items, talk to people, stay at Inns, buy weapons, gain EXP, use MP, get into random battles and so on. However, battling is way different from the traditional RPGs and there's a new "system" in approving your characters, so to speak. When you battle, you'll fight in a 3D environment (complete with rocks and other obstacles) with 2D characters and enemies. In real-time, you can choose it if you want (highly recommended), you can move you characters freely and attack or cast magic with a touch of a button. Since you can only control one character full-time, the computer handles the rest of your party according to what strategy you choose for each character. For example, if you choose the strategy "attack until MP are gone" for a magician, the magician will cast powerful spells non-stop until his\her MP are gone. If you decide to use someone besides the character that you are using during a battle, you are able to switch at anytime. Oh! Here's something cool I should tell you. Later in the game, you'll battle in an environment where things FROM the environment can hurt you! In one environment, huge staltgtites fall down from the ceiling! The new "system" in StarOcean involves building certain skills. These skills are first bought from the store, and then learned by filling up the required AP that each skill needs (you'll get AP from battles). Once you get a certain amount of AP, you can choose which skill you would want to put them on. Learning skills is essential in moving forward through the game. The graphics are quite impressive! The JPEG backgrounds (I think that's what they are called) are drawn with lots of details and alittle realism. When you are at a "shadowy place", you become darker. The same goes if you're at a "bright place". In short, the graphics look almost similar to FF7's. Oh! Did I mention that the animation sequences are really impressive also? I must applaud for what the composer(s) of this game did. It feels like your watching a movie while an orchestra is playing! Quite impressive! The sound is a different story, though. Sure the sound effects are O.K., but the voices of the characters are bad. Whenever you get attacked, the characters (especially Crawd) would say something dumb like "Here's the enemy!" or "Well, that's around eighty(?) points!" One of the stupidest quote is "My strength is over flowing!" To tell you the truth, though, the voices get less annoying for each battle you win, so it isn't that bad. Maybe tha creators should have left the voices in Japanese. There's nothing bad or great about StarOcean's control. You'll learn fairly quick about everything that has to do with the controls. No complaints in this catergory. I don't think that anyone could beat this game by renting it for five days. Not even if they would rent it for ten days! I suggest borrowing it from someone else because, in my opinion, this game isn't quite worth the money. Oh! About the "over eighty endings"...don't even bother! Life is just too short. |
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All content © 1998-99 RJ Reviews. Parts or articles of RJ Reviews may not be reproduced without the authors' permission. PlayStation and the PlayStation logos are the trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Nintendo and the "N" logos are the trademarks of Nintendo of America Inc. Thanks to IGN.com for the media.
