Board 8 > Star Ocean: The Second Story R new extended gameplay and features trailer.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/Hl3AuAVC8Ss?si=QaUuM_21gyYvb4e4

God this looks amaziiiiiiing.

....Oh, and I somehow missed that a demo was out.

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0082-PPSA16352_00-STAROCEAN2DEMOUP

Demo is locked to 3 hours so I saved the first chance I got until I could set aside time to do it all at once. It also carries over to the full game.

Hearing Spike Spencer and Eden Riegel here is so fantastic. I never played the PSP version.

Just in awe of how gorgeous this game is with my eyes finally on it for real. Not jus true actual visuals, but the framing and scene composition is killing it. I think this looks MUCH better than the Octopath Team's stuff.

Music is wonderful and you can switch between soundtracks on the fly.

My ONLY complaint, and it's a big one....they changed the sound effects in the menus! The sound effects have been the only consistent mark of quality this franchise has ever maintained! No matter how bad the games got, you could always rely on those. The new stuff....is fine....but it's not the same.

Interviewed some of the staff:

https://www.thegamer.com/star-ocean-2-the-second-story-r-nostalgia-new-content-interview/

new field stuff is good. oh boy fishing
battle stuff seems unnecessary since its an easy game. i guess theyre rebalancing it though. adding the blindsides from so4 is meh
as im currently replaying so4 seeing synthesis here is augh. not having the original so2 cast makes the voice thing completely worthless.

so yeah some good stuff and some stuff im less thrilled about. a day 1 buy for sure though

So hows switch performance

Switch is 30 and it's 60 everywhere else.

Other than that no real difference other than some extremely minor effect tuning.

Reveal trailer had framefrops in the battles for the Switch version, but doesn't seem that's an issue anymore.

Radix posted...

not having the original so2 cast makes the voice thing completely worthless.

SO2's original voice acting was a joke. It wasn't even done by professionals.

I understand wanting memes (TEAR INTO PTEAR INTO TEAR TEAR INTO PIECES), but yeah that original VA work was very very bad.

the old voices were enjoyably bad

from what ive heard of the new ones they are unenjoyably mid

so yeah id rather have the old ones

They're upping the ante on difficulty especially with mid-game bosses

I haven't heard anybody besides the main cast yet but Spike and Eden are doing a fantastic job.

The randos in the opening cutscene were pretty bad though lol. One of them would have been right at home in the PS1 version.

From just Claude, I like his old Japanese VA more than his new Japanese VA when I was going back and forth in the soundtest, but I haven't tested Rena's yet. Doesn't really matter since I'm playing it all dubbed, but it's nice that it's there.

You can also individually set every characters VA. Setting some to English and some to JP would certainly be funny. Mainly it seems cool for people who want to play subbed who get to chose between 2 VAs on a character by character basis.

If you want the PS1 voices, make sure you get it on Steam because I'm sure someone's going to mod them in.

SaveEstelle posted...

They're upping the ante on difficulty especially with mid-game bosses

Isn't Limiter Off Indalecio already considered one of the hardest JRPG bosses period?

MacArrowny posted...

Isn't Limiter Off Indalecio already considered one of the hardest JRPG bosses period?

Absolutely. Though he's endgame, not mid-game! >_>

God, if he's harder... well, it'll probably even out given all the new features. At least, Kitao was convinced it would during my interview.

eh unlimited indalecio isnt that hard if youre at a high enough level and have the right equipment. or at least i dont remember him being that hard but its been like 10 years since i did that

Radix posted...

eh unlimited indalecio isnt that hard if youre at a high enough level and have the right equipment. or at least i dont remember him being that hard but its been like 10 years since i did that

Well, you're not wrong - I maxed level and had the best of the best, and he was certainly quite manageable! I think it's more that in order to have a streamlined experience with him, you've got to bring your S-game.