Customer Reviews
The legend begins. - By: Yannick Van Herck, 24 Nov 2008 
For the longest time I have left the Star Ocean series for what it was. I don't know why, I suppose I was just really conservative at the time & was afraid of trying new games. It wasn't untill I played Valkyrie Profile for PSP that I got interestedin other Tri-Ace titles. Needless to say that I got very excited when I heard of a remake for the first two Star Ocean games, I saw it as a chance to not only get into the series, but play them as a whole at that (minus blue sphere of course). After finally playing & finishing first departure I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.
The story begins with Roddick, a fellpool (a tailed race) living quitelyin his vilage alongside his friends Millie & Dorne where they serve as a kind of defense brigade. When suddenly a disease starts to turn people to stone, they set out to find a cure on a nearby mountain. Their lives however get turned upside down after meeting Ilia & Ronyx, two earthlings who suddenly appear before themin a flash of light. This is where the adventure begins.
The thing I noticed about Tri-Ace games is that they like to make refferences to their other titles, a lot. This goes from familiar sounds & menu navigation to having characters from other games make cameo appearances & even joiningin on your adventure. As such if you have played any other Tri-Ace title before & liked it, chances are high that you will enjoy the basic interface of this game as well.
The battle system was unique to me, during combat you move around with your party leader attacking & using special attacks/spells to obliterate your enemy while your allies move around & do the same on AI, you can switch leader mid-battle to suit your needs as well. This tends to give the game a more action oriented feelingin combat than the more traditional RPGs out there but it's worked out pretty nice & your allies arein fact smart compared to other games where they tend to run around mindlessly attacking & wasting MP. Only bad thing is that it tends to get boring after a while but then again, I think most battle systems are like that.
The story might seem a little short & primitive to some but remember, this is a remake of a game that was releasedin the SFC era, backin those days this was a great story & if you can keep thatin mind then I'm sure you'll find this enjoyable too. Just don't expect a long & intruiging story with lots of plot twists.
The only thing I disliked about the game was the overworld map, wich you ALWAYS traverse on foot, this can take long & can be quite tedious at some points when also considdering the huge ancounter rate.
Allin all this was a great game & it certainly made me crave for more. Now bring on second evolution!
