Super Nintendo
Star Ocean
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
8.75 8.41 8.53 8.52 |
| Votes: | 93 |
| Reviews: | 3 |
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| Reviewer: c | Date: Sep 1, 2008 |
| It's a shame this gem wasn't released in the US.
Graphics: 10 The graphics are smooth. To this day I'm amazed at the level of detail that went into putting together the maps, particularly overworld scenes. They have a certain rough-around-the edges feel that make you feel like you are, indeed, walking around in the wilderness. On the other hand, in some of the early villages (i.e. present-day Clatos) they tried to cram too many effects (for some reasons, even the shadows shine), and this is a bit overwhelming. But overall, best graphics and DEFINITELY the best mapping I've seen in an SNES RPG. Sound: 8 The speech sequences at the beginning are an achievement, though they are a bit difficult to understand. Sound effects do the job. Music is kind of a mixed bag. By turns you'll find yourself turning the volume up and muting it. Gameplay: 9 The battle system is a really original, very cool idea. Only quibble I have is it doesn't require much thought. Through 90% of the battles - including boss fights - I found I could just hold down fast-forward and hit the action button. Toward the end it loses a fair amount of momentum. Where this game really shines is in dialog, storyline, and atmosphere. It's well-written and its sci-fi elements are well-constructed and add a fresh element to the RPG universe. The item creation system is HUGE. Overall, this game is about as immersive as FF3, which is not easy to pull off. Overall: 9 I can't say it's perfect, but it comes pretty damn close. The minor problems do little to detract from the overall experience of the game. A breath of fresh air for 16-bit RPG fans. |
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| Reviewer: Jared Zimmermann | Date: May 2, 2006 |
| Hmm... let's 360 Daniel's report shall we?
I was looking forward to playing this game, least to say I was VERY disappointed. I'm a big fan of RPGs and am very picky about what I play. Great games such as the Final Fantasies 7 & 10 (Don't play X-2 it SUCKS), LUNAR SSS/EBC, Legend of Dragoon, and Chrono Trigger (CC sucks as well). Anyway, on to the review. Graphics: 8 I'm not going to argue, the backgrounds in this game are excellent. Hell the title screen is hot (OMG SPACE). Character pictures of the characters give them great features from Marvel's cold puppet eyes to Ashlay's wrinkles. However, the one problem with this game is the recycling of EVERYTHING. Ok, I know this is SNES (towns/creatures low # of models) but doesn't it hurt to use different sprites for characters. I hate it in RPG games when it's like Goblin, Super Goblin, M05+ XRTME GOBLIN - And they're all the same looking thing with a different color. How hard is to make unique things! Sound: 8 A SOUND plan! (lolz) This game has great sound, but the soundtrack is rather repetitive in some areas (exam Town music is always the same). I loved in the opening sequence and during battle they actually talk (who knew SNES could do that?) However, you can always turn the sound off and replace it with your own music. Nothing is really that catchy. Gameplay: 6 And here is where STAR OCEAN breaks my balls. Okay, I know the old RPGs were supposed to be - 1.) Having Fun hometown 2.) Omg Something happens/Evil guy steals girl 3.) Find friends 4.) Beat Evil Guy. 5.) Main character gets sweet love(director's cut version). That's about how it is here. The beginning is very well done as u know Ratix, Dorn, and Milly are the town's Pig Force. When suddenly a Basilisk-Like KILLER PIGEON flies into town w/ a attached note that everyone in the next town is turned to stone. Shit happens, and somehow you end of top of mountain and travel through space and time. Thing is, they most DEFINITLY stole this whole idea from an episode of STAR TREK when Captain Jean Luc Picard helps a man from a 3rd world planet, and him and the clan think that they are gods. Well you and your girlfriend decide to go with these people that just popped out of nowhere. The middle really nothing happens and at the end of the game I've sort of forgotten who the final boss is. That's how strange (not cool strange just wtf is going strange) it gets at the end of the game. The final boss is never mentioned in the game until literally the final dungeon. Overall: 7 Overall, if your kid brother is using the PS2 right now playing the new Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, then I guess if you got nothing better to do you could play this. Think of it as RPG filler for when you just played like 5 action games in a row. Make sure you level up on the ROM in 10X faster because it takes forever and the enemies have like no EXP for you. That ARP rating the faqs talk about? Don't worry about it. There's nothing special about it entirely, but the game in it's entirety is a good effort by Enix. Then again, you truly see how ENIX was before it merged with Squaresoft. Good move on their part. |
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| Reviewer: Daniel Yetman | Date: Feb 20, 2004 |
| Hey, gamers. First off, I'd like to say that I'm extremely picky when it comes to RPGs (the Final Fantasy series has spoiled me), so it came as a great shock to both my friends and myself when I discovered that I enjoyed Star Ocean. I've played Second Story and Till the End of Time for PS, and I have to admit...I wasn't too impressed. My fiancee's sister is an RPG otaku, and she pressured me into trying Star Ocean, and I have only one word to say... Whoa. Graphics: 10 Graphics are smooth and clean-cut. The use of anime-style character portraits (in the style of Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom and Warsong[for Sega Genesis]) is a stroke of genius - even more so since the details were crisp and consistent with the overall graphic tone of the game. Transitional errors were non-existant, and Dejap has fixed whatever bug prohibited SO from working with the SNES9x emulator - Gary Henderson (who created said emulator) also inputting a great addition in the form of graphics pack location modifier helped a bit too. But I digress - Star Ocean has the best graphics I have seen for any Super Famicom game...and better than a goodly percentage of PS games, too. Sound: 7 While the sound was excellent (and having voices - VERY much like ToP - startled me quite a bit), the fact the voices were hard to understand, even to a fairly fluent Japanese speaker, detracted from the spoken dialogue's value. The character's taunts before beginning a battle were a stroke of genius, as were the comments made after battle. Alas, again the difficulty in understanding them lessened their impact considerably. Gameplay: 10 Oh, wow. Never before have I encountered such a unique and difficult battle system! This has to be the only TRUE real-time battle RPG ever made! The fact that the enemies (unlike the FF series) would NOT wait for you to make your move before attacking gave the sense of realism a huge boost. The storyline is impressive, although a little choppy in some places, and the Characters are true works of art - You can't help feeling sympathy for Millie when Dorn is turned to stone, even at that early stage, and you can, quite easily, imagine yourself doing the same things that Ratix does when faced with dangerous or tenuous situations. Overall: 9 While an excellent game in many respects, SO does have a few flaws...albeit, not many. The failure to really detail Iria and Ronixis' histories sorta ticked me off, and...maybe it's just me, but I would have loved to see Iria and Dorn get together. Ah, well. That last honestly has no bearing on the score, and, overall, I enjoyed this game just about as much (if not more than) as Final Fantasy 6 & 8. Star Ocean...Just be sure to drop a line to Dejap.znes and let them hear your thanks for finally getting the game totally translated! |
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