Developer: Tose
Publisher: Square Enix
Genre: Action RPG, JRPG
Format: Playstation Portable
Released: October 24th 2008
We all have tails in this world and names that don’t matter because people call you what they want. First Departure is a remake of the original SNES Star Ocean and it shows. Not only in the lack of fluid gameplay but the overall feel of the game. It seems like the developer didn’t want to take any risks in the remake and keep it as close to the original as possible.
Sometimes this isn’t a bad thing but when characters lack personality and the story is predictable you need to change a few things. I doubt there are limitations as far as the remake being on a handheld because there are plenty of other games full of content and massively better graphics. It’s a big shame as I enjoy the Star Ocean series so to see this one being so lackluster is pretty frustrating.
Let’s jump into the combat, it’s an action RPG but just barely. You get to move around during battle which is great but to attack it’s just one button. The auto locks on a target but not always the one you want to attack. You get special moves as you level up but early on they take longer to execute and do the same damage as normal.
The enemy type get better later on but at the start the enemies are pretty much just one type. I ran around in circles to test the variety of enemies and after 15 battles in a row against Bandits I fought against 2 Wolves who just happened to pass by. I guess this means the majority of animals are friendly in this world. What was my strategy against this new foe. Tap attack and win.
I mentioned earlier about you name not making a difference and the game fooled me. The first thing it asks you is to enter the main characters name, great I thought. Unfortunately everyone else in the game seems to hate the name I chose and called me by the default name throughout. Some games have people call you by your last name all the time and recognise the first name in text only, not this one, it just ignores it and leaves it as a save file name instead. Pretty clever con. The rest of the characters are as boring as the main character. They are all basic stereotypes of your mediocre RPG, not helped in the least by the terrible dull voice acting. It’s like everyone was falling asleep reading the script.
It’s such a shame with this game, I can’t find any stand out positives to try and even recommend trying it out for yourself. It’s just the perfect definition of an average game. Nothing that will blow you away but nothing that is shockingly awful. As you have probably guessed Star Ocean First Departure gets a 5/10. I can’t stress how annoyed I am, as the Star Ocean franchise is a good one. I guess there was less care for this as it’s on a handheld. I really hoped this would have more features added to it but there is just not enough flesh on these bones. Sad times.
So many stinking bandits - Mamushi
Comments