Star Ocean: The Second Story R is a Remake with a capital R with a plan to please three decades' worth of fans
Star Ocean: The Second Story R buries the lede, but once you dig into it, there's something very appealing to long-time…
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A slightly-bad name is sort of par for the course for Square Enix RPGs, of course - and Star Ocean 2’s do-over can be regarded as a quintessential Square experience in several other ways, too. It’s the company doing what it does best: making a staunchly traditional role-playing game, with an incredible visual flair, with ambitions that help to outstrip and minimize design flaws.
Basically, it has the energy of a golden-age Square title. Which makes sense, as the original game’s 1998 release puts it slap bang in the middle of the company’s explosive PS1 heyday. Playing Second Story, you can sense an intense reverence for the original versions of the game (versions, plural; it was remastered for PSP in 2008)m and it’s that worshipful attitude towards the past that makes this a particularly special-feeling remake.
Here’s a specific example. In the menus of The Second Story R, each character is represented with a portrait, as is RPG tradition. But with the press of a button, you can switch between three different portrait styles, allowing you to see the various artistic interpretations of Star Ocean 2’s characters from 1998, 2008, and today. It’s a small nod, but where most remakes present the new materials and remove the old, this game is keen to preserve all eras. It’s demonstrative of the development philosophy.
It’s not just limited to the illustrations, but it’s really our approach to the game as a whole,” says Kei Komaki, Square Enix’s producer on the game, when asked about the portraits. “We wanted to value the players of the original PlayStation 1 game from 1998 and also the PSP version from the 2000s by including these materials and these elements from both of the other versions as well as alongside the updated versions for the remake.”
We're trying to show that we have that respect for the players of those previous games, and how they remember the game.”
Respect hammers the nail on the head; this remake practically oozes it. And yet, it’s also not afraid to take chances. The biggest change comes in the visuals, which are at once faithful to the original and quite different.
Specifically, the past versions of Star Ocean 2 featured pre-rendered CG backdrops, as most Square games of its era did. Hand-drawn 2D sprites were laid atop those CG backgrounds, while battles featured rudimentary 3D backdrops. For the remake, the team elected to keep the sprites - but ditch the CG for a fully real-time world presentation.
Turn about town. | Image credit: Square Enix“What I really wanted to do was recreate and recapture the same kind of feelings and emotions that people would have had when they played the original PS1 version or the PSP version,” Remake director Yuichiro Kitao explains.
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