Star Ocean First Departure R

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Originally simply titled Star Ocean, this Action-RPG was first released only in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1996 and would later flourish into a series. In the time since, Western audiences finally got a chance to play this game in its remake, Star Ocean First Departure, released on the PlayStation Portable in Western territories in 2008. This game takes the PlayStation Portable release, remasters the graphics, and finally brings it to consoles in a Western release.

However, despite that this is essentially a remake of a remake, Star Ocean First Departure R is decidedly a very old-fashioned throwback experience, combining some actually very nice-looking pixel art sprite-based graphics with some extremely archaic-looking polygonal graphics. If it wasn’t for the improved resolution, you could easily believe that you’re looking at a PlayStation One game here, and the game probably would have looked better if it simply stuck with the pixel art visuals. Also interspersed into the game are anime-style animated cutscenes, and these all look decent at least. This is all paired with a nice soundtrack and decent voice acting that does the best it can with what it’s given.

On that note, this game’s story is pretty poorly-told by today’s standards. The characters all come off as pretty broad anime archetypes with writing that’s not very good, although I will say at least the premise is fairly original, mixing fantasy and sci-fi elements. This story focuses on a group of friends on a medieval fantasy world whose quest for a cure to a local disease brings them face to face with spacefaring humans caught in an intergalactic war, joining forces to fight a greater foe.

There is one other area where the story is still somewhat innovative even by today’s standards, and that is in how it branches based on your choices through the game, with a focus on the interpersonal relationships between the game’s characters. This “dating sim”-esque element should provide some decent replay value for those who are interested in seeing more of the game’s… well, otherwise mediocre story.

The gameplay here is also a bit rough, with the game not really conveying its mechanics to players and leaving them to figure it out. In short, players control only one character at a time, with allies automatically controlled by AI set to one of multiple strategies you can assign to them. Players can also swap the player they’re controlling during battle, if they prefer. They also feel a bit unresponsive, with the game wrestling the player for control of the character and moving them where it wants you to be during battle.

In addition, there are some typical genre conventions that are apparently ignored in this game, such as every town having an inn and an item shop, clear directions for where to go, and even the default button layout during combat is just plain bizarre. These sorts of things don’t necessarily kill the game, but without explanations it can make it a difficult game to get into, especially for newer players.

I actually wanted to like Star Ocean First Departure R a lot more than I did. The sprite-based graphics and music is charming, and I’ve actually been hankerin’ for a good old-fashioned JRPG or classic Japanese-style Action-RPG. However, the bad story, and the confusing ways it bucks genre conventions without explaining things make it a hard game to love, even if there’s definitely an appeal here for those who can roll with it long enough to get used to is quirks.

tl;dr – Star Ocean First Departure R is a remaster of a remake of the first game in the Action-RPG series, and with that comes graphics that straddle the line between quaint and archaic, and a story that just can’t live up to modern-day standards. However, what’s really holding it back is the confusing ways it chooses to do things differently than other games in the genre, without explaining how it all works, including combat where the game feels like it’s fighting you for control over your own character. There’s stuff to like here, but most will find a hard time getting into this game.

Grade: C-

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