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Haywood's Nostalgia Hour: Part 2; Star Ocean: The Second Story
Topic Started: Jan 27 2005, 02:36 AM (72 Views)
Haywood
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In 1998, Tri-Ace, whose only other "known" franchise is Valkyrie Profile, developed a game that would be produced by Enix and saw a US release almost a year later- the sequel to the SNES hit in Japan, Star Ocean. I first played this game after renting it from Blockbuster, and played the Dark place out of it, getting half-way through the monster of a game in the short rental window. My play was almost uninterrupted, since my brother rented a fishing game or something. Well, screw him for being stupid. This game won me over with its incredible item customization system and its free-roaming, real-time combat resembling Tales of Phantasia in 3D (a game even less people have heard about, so I'll shut up now). Later on I saw the game for sale in the same place. I latched onto it like a facehugger onto John Hurt. As those around me can tell you from my constant gushings, The Second Story is my favorite game of all time. And of course, since I liked it, no one bought the darn thing.

The game opens with enough meaningless questions to make Earthbound look like the SATs. Half the questions you don't even know what bearing they'll have on the game, such as "Manual, Semi-Auto, or Full-Auto?" which leaves the player to wonder what these apply to. The explanation for Semi-Auto, for example, is something like "Targets nearest opponent. Moves with Direction + Square." Alright... You then get to choose whether you want to be Claude, the space-warrior guy, or Rena, the mage chick. The differences are only contained in the first five minutes when the two aren't tethered to eachothers darn hands, and in four thirty-second sequences in later dungeons. So the story is exactly the same no matter who you play as. But even though Rena is the better character by far, Claude actually has a backstory, and he won't spend the first fifteen minutes either tied up or dead. BUT- if you pick Rena, you get to catch a glimpse of her granny panties after falling off a 30-mile high mountain. See? Brain damage and fan-service. Fun for the whole family!

But maybe I'm jumping around a bit. Well, after you pick Claude, you get treated to the game's subpar voice acting overpowered by music in the opening cutscene about how Claude's the son of Ronixis from the first game and a space military ensign, or something. Honestly, I played the original Star Ocean for about ten minutes two days ago, so this opening didn't mean anything to me. But hey, we haven't had a sci-fi RPG since Phantasy Star right? Well, we still haven't. You immediately get sucked into Final Fantasy Land and, being the dumbass you are, immediately vaporize a gorilla with your space-gun. But ONLY after saying repeatedly that you can't ethically do that due to the space law preventing the use of space technology in cultures that don't precede every word with "space," which is now an adjective. The planet you landed on is so backwater that Rena, whom you just saved, spreads the word that you're a holy savior come from heaven to vanquish the randomly-encountered evil with your "sword of light" (your space gun). Claude probably denies it for about ten seconds and the subject never comes up again throughout the course of your play time.

Speaking of Rena, the dumb ho, who makes Lynn Minmei look like Rosalind Franklin, gets kidnapped somehow when you're in a different town. She's been taken to the town you were at not five minutes ago, in the house you were at not ten minutes ago. Once you find the secret passage to the mine dungeon, you find a construction worker who looks like he's on the brink of death and have a brilliant conversation that goes something like this:

Claude: Have you seen a blue-haired idiot come through here?
Wounded Guy: Yeah, Alen took her to the back room...
Claude: To the back?
Wounded Guy: Yes, he made me build an altar-room back there, but I don't know what it was for...
Claude: She's in the back?
Wounded Guy: Uh huh, but be careful. Alen's not himself, and he's very powerful...
Cluade: ...You said she's in the back, right? (most conversations go this way)

My running theory on this is that Claude hopes that she's dead by the time he gets there and is trying to buy Alen some time. But the altar-room wasn't for ceremonial executions- Dark place no! It was to make Rena his "bride." I assume they're using the prison definition for this, by which case the matrimony entails hours of unlubricated anal rape. But even being a megalomaniac, Alen takes his sweet time with foreplay. So you'll always arrive just in the nick of time. darn. After saving her, you agree to go investigate an evil meteor that's causing monsters to go insane. You know. the usual maguffin. This is in the stead of doing something important, like getting back to his space home to probably hang out with his space wife. Now there's a plot twist I would have liked, because it's a detriment to Rena. If she wasn't such an awesome mage (and one of the only two characters in the game capable of healing), I'd chuck her off the mountain about eighty more times. Eventually, the panty shots must stop and the depressing truth of brain hemmoraging must set in. Just my little fantasy.

Anyway, eventually you'll run into characters that range from awesome to "more annoying than Rena, but a sucky fighter besides. DIE." There's Celine, the annoying "older" woman who's in her early 20's, who casts magic that's like a hamster's wang in the face of the monstrous elephant wang that is Rena's magic. Hey, I made a joke about an underappreciated scientist you've never heard of. I need a joke average of 75 IQ to reach a wide audience. There's Ashton, the somewhat insane swordsman with freaking dragons coming out of his back. It's like Tri-Ace set out to create the most awesome accessory ever, and fanny packs were already taken. Take that comment any way you will. There's also Ernest, while even though he's a remarkably mediocre fighter, combines the ruggedness of Indiana Jones and the sauveness of James Bond into 60 pixels of badass. Sadly, you can't use both Ashton and Ernest in a single playthrough. You have to choose between one or the other. The Playstation is only capable of displaying a certain level of kick-ass on the screen at once, unfortunately. Maybe if this game is ever rereleased on a next-gen console, there could be hope.

There's another tough recruitment choice to make, but this one's less like choosing between brands of beef jerky and more like deciding on being boiled in urine or getting punched in the face repeatedly by a bear in boxing shorts. You can pick between Precis, who makes Rena seem as intelligent as Lynn Minmei (at least!) and attacks with anachronistic robotic accessories so slow it actually slows down time. Don't quote me on that yet. I'm still waiting for NASA to send me an atomic clock (see, we're in an age that precedes words with "atomic" already! It won't be long until "space" has its day!). Then there's Bowman, the pharmacist who claims he's a fistfighter... Okay... Let me break something down for you. Rena's a mage, but she doesn't fool around with magic rods or musical instruments or enchanted tampax or anything. No, she runs up to the enemy and beats the living Dark place out of them with her fists. Now we have a fighter, who specializes in fistfighting, who is a less adept fighter than your mage, who is a sixteen-year-old girl. You'll find a lot of people who claim Bowman's the best character in the game if all you do is hammer on the Special Attack button and never move. Nice. His range is so short that you can't hit the enemy unless they're literally walking into you without attacking. Screw Bowman, screw his pharmacy, and screw the darn mini-quest he sends you on to find some rare herbs because he thinks you're weak. He's one to talk. Aggghhh... I'm too pissed off now.

There are quite a few other characters, including two requisite cat-human hybrids (both male, if you can believe it), a long-haired, brooding bishie swordsman that tries WAY too hard to be cool (you've gotta let it flow, man! Ash and Ernest nailed it, why not take some advice from them?), a female news reporter that ALSO fights melee and ALSO is stronger than freaking Ernest, and a three-eyed woman with a rail gun that gives Metal Gear Solid 2's Fortune penis envy. That's right- try to get THAT image out of your head.

The game eventually takes you to other planets to fight off ten wise men originally named after archangels but changed into stupid names that sound like the type of things really tiny Italian opera singers would be called, like Marsilio and Indaleccio. Oh, and the game has, what, 83 endings? 86? Rest assured, where I come from we call it an assload. Where do I come from, you ask? Freakin' Earth! If I came from anywhere else, rest assured we'd call it a space assload.

Likeness to Kenshin: 8
While not actually featuring Kenshin in it, this game knows what's going on. Dias, the aforementioned swordsman that tries too hard, not only looks like Kenshin with his hair down and uses a katana, but also fights using battoujutsu! Sadly, you can only get him if Rena's your main character. A price I'm not willing to pay. In this case, you still have Ashton, who uses two short-swords, uses attacks revolving around "teleporting" and afterimages, and has exquisite fashion sense. That's right, he's just like Aoshi Shinomori! Finally, a game company that applies what matters when designing video games!

Ability to Give Nerds Hard-Ons: 7
Honestly, I guess I'm not "l33t" enough to be aroused by underwear, but the internet has taught me that there are several sheltered men who probably have never seen a woman or effeminate man in their entire lives and that even a glimpse of the inner thigh causes the immediate dropoff of their payload. In such a case, there are plenty of semi school-girl/magical girl outfits and cat people to go around (pretend Leon and Noel are girls hard enough, and you can accomplish anything!). And I don't know about what you think, but Ernest is pretty darn sexy if you ask me.

Amount of Times I Said "Space"- 10
Not quite as many as I intended, but it got the point across. Any word can be funny with the word "space" in front of it. The more mundane, the better. Some of my favorites- space monkey, space chicken, space pants, space boner (don't ask).

Oh Crap, My Joke Average Is At: 62 IQ
Umm... the blaring "Orchestra" Super Specialty Skill makes me wonder why classical music didn't just die after Schubert's Symphony #5 in B Flat Major shifted the paradigm like it was supposed to. Honestly, Tri-Ace. There's a reason Germany moved on. Maybe you should, too.

Final Score: Space-tastic!
Maybe whatever I say won't matter, but Star Ocean: The Second Story is a game that didn't deserve to be missed. You can probably dig it up at your local gamestores if they carry used games. Give it a shot: it's light-years ahead of the mediocre sequel that was released recently. ...Dear God, was that a pun!? *kills self*
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