Star Ocean for SFC
Review #2325
Star Ocean
Prime Directives are meant to be broken
Gameplay
Combat is far more dynamic than most turn-based RPGs, but looks are deceiving. You only "control" one character. The other 1-3 members of your party act on their own, albeit according to the Tactics you've give them. Also, you don't directly control your character - you can only control when they attack. There's almost no point to this, so battles pretty much devolve into a short button-mashing exercise. Tales of Phantasia did this better.
Besides that, this game has everything you'd want in a late-gen RPG. Fast movement, decent menus, auto-equip, et al. No complaints in the other aspects of the game.
Level Design
Extremely linear, plot-driven design. Areas are small and there's no overworld, just small paths between cities. The areas have unclear paths, which is kind of annoying but nothing to gripe about. The inclsion of "Private Events" is a novel idea. Your party breaks up and wanders around a town. You track them down and engage in one-on-one interactions to build relationships with your team members. Kinda interesting, although I'm glad they're optional sidequests.
Theme
This is one of the deeper narratives in a 16-bit RPG. You can choose from a large cast of party members so there's theoretically some replayability here. However, the MASSIVE amount of dialogue and cutscenes might make multiple playthroughs a daunting task.
I love the setting, even if it's a blatant ripoff of Star Trek VI, Insurrection, III, and IV (in that order). The sci-fi elements are handled well and I love the marriage of sci-fi with light fantasy. The time travel plotlines are subpar compared to Chrono Trigger, but hey, it works.
Art Style
Unreal. Looks very similar to Tales of Phantasia, which is to say that it looks like a PS1 or Saturn game. Incredible that this is running on a SNES. That said, there are a lot of framedrops going on. The artwork is also beautiful, although I wish they had used more vibrant colors. Everything is somewhat drab and faded. Still, on a technical level this is utterly amazing.
Audio
The soundtrack is great, but I have to knock the sound design for putting so much emphasis on superfluous sound effects and voice samples. I got distracted quite often by the cacophony of competing noises. the cicada sound in the first area is particularly ear-splitting. Still, a great OST that's probably a step below the FF games, Lufia II, CT, etc.
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