This brings back nostalgia. Star Ocean 2 was one of my favourite jrpg back then and now I can finally play it again.

The recreation is done nicely, the sprites are just the same but with new portraits and voice lines. Even cameos from other SO titles can be called into battles to help.

It still is a challenging game with high difficulty - at least to me - so I recommend much training and levelling since you can get to level 255 and that is necessary if you want to beat all of the bosses.

They made some comfortable changes, like private actione which could be missed are now on the map, constructing tools or cooking can now be done 10 at once instead of one at another.

Only contra is the audio which is a bit shaky, sometimes loud, sometimes silent, but that is no big deal.

All in all I recommend it highly, a nicely done game with lots of play hours and two (or more) ways to play it through.

This is a review after 60 hours and 100% completion of the game on Universe difficulty.


This is a classic JRPG from the PS1 era, so even with all the quality of life improvements and changes from the base game, it has an old-school style that may not be ideal for some newer audiences. Luckily, there’s a demo available, so check that out first to see if it’s your cup of tea.



The remake blew me away. The game still has some rough edges, but the love and effort they put into this remake is incredible. I can't believe someone at Square Enix loves the game this much to put in so much effort. This is how you do a proper remake!

• The newly remastered music is amazing, in typical Sakuraba fashion. I love that you have the option to switch back to the original soundtrack. The same goes for the voice acting, where you can choose between the new version and the PSP one (though the music and voice options are tied together), and between Japanese/English.
  
• The new art style is fantastic, from the fully 3D maps and locations to the character portraits and cinematics.
  
• I really enjoyed all the new changes they made to the combat system. It adds a lot of much-needed depth compared to the original game.
  
• There are hundreds of quality-of-life improvements that make the game more fluid, like chain battles, a minimap, lots of map indicators, event and private action markers, fast travel, the ability to skip scenes, spell cooldown removal, visible friendship levels for every character, no random encounters, fishing, unique spots, SP being no longer finite, the separation of SP and BP, an ending compendium, New Game+, and more!
  
• If you've played the game before, I recommend playing on Universe difficulty. Be prepared to get one-shotted at times, but with the new combat additions and the overpowered stuff you can craft, it’s a nice balance.

To preface this I did get a key from Square Enix for my copy of the game, so big thanks to them!

But I will also say that Star Ocean the Second Story was my all time favorite game so hear me out.

Gameplay wise a lot has changed since both the original and psp versions. Spell combinations (a not very known mechanic) did not make a return, but not shocking since the psp version also lacked this but it was an obscure mechanic so not much was lost there. Balance wise the entire meta has shifted, due to mechanical changes and the addition of break / enemy armor it really shifts up which characters take the top spot. Also, there have been some adjustments and changes to quite a few skills and spells both frame wise and effects. So if you're a returning player you'll have a fairly fresh experience just due to this.

Story and presentation were on point, how they framed the cutscenes and important story beats with the updated graphics was a treat for me! And it was a pleasant surprise to hear voice acting on a number of the side quests / private actions!

Quality of Life additions that were added with this remake were INSANE by the way! The list is freaking huge, but if there were any complaints you had about the original they most likely have a means to get around it. Fast travel is in. You can bring up a list of the cities and see if any of them have currently active private actions available with an icon. Didn't like grinding levels through small enemy battles? Well there is a new skill/specialty added to the game to alliviate that problem, so you can quickly grind levels if you so choose! Crafting times are much faster than the original and can be done more than 1 at a time. That's all that comes to mind at the moment, but I believe there are even more I've forgotten.

There is the new stuff for the veteran players, they added whole new tough and challenging fights for people in the form of Raid battles and even new items you haven't seen before that you can acquire from them and exploration. Fishing was a fun addition, just be mindful it can be a bit of a pain to 100% that just in the difficulty of finding the fishing spots. The game will tell you the general area of where the fish are, but finding the correct pool/pond/area can still prove to be challenging.

In short, a fun remake of my favorite game that I would recommend if you're into action rpgs with a lot of story.

And lastly o7 for Rock Explosion, what was lost in your overpoweredness is made up for by the additions gained on every other character. It was a worthy tradeoff!

Playlist if you need to see some gameplay:
https://youtu.be/JY7WX-QT9jA?list=PLrjdRAKaPjnLCp29uwaTbV-hsoNrVoohZ&t=907

If you have not played the original on ps1 in 1998 like me this game is just mediocre maybe even below mediocre.
The original game was truly revolutionary for its time.
The issue is that its already 2024 soon to be 2025.
I really don't have anything nice to say about the game and I believe that almost all good reviews are by people who played the original. This is just a nostalgia trip.

An excellent remake of an excellent original. Get this if you enjoyed the original even slightly.

no woke bs

Gameplay is much faster paced, magic no longer pauses the action and most happen in real time.
Game runs great and very well optimized.
If you liked the ps1 version, you'll really love this remake.

SO MANY additions made to this game that it is mind numbing! The game has always been on my list of top 5 favorite JRPGS of all time but this new version is just plain amazing. It keeps everything I loved about playing it in all of it's earlier versions and adds so much more. 11/10

Next time they remake this I expect the character models to be upgraded too! Gimme it!

I only ever got to play parts of the original back on PSX. Strictly speaking in terms of construction of it, it seems like a great, faithful remake. You have reasonable QoL updates to a game that is mostly just a graphical uplift. More PSX era remakes should follow this example instead of whats being done with FF7.

Gameplay is overall pretty fun and the game allows a number of different ways in its skills systems that you can break it. This helps prevent things from getting too repetitive and tedious.

Story however falls apart pretty hard in the later 40% or so of the game (in what I guess is Disc 2 of the OG). The OST is also pretty poor; despite there being many towns in this game, many of the tracks are reused between towns 4 or 5 times each.

Despite that, the pros outweigh the cons of this one if you're a fan of classic style JRPGs. An easy recommend if you can score at $30 or lower

Beautiful JRPG. I didn't get the chance to play the original so I had to play the remake. I enjoyed the different characters, the story, and the adventure. Combat was fun as well.