An Ocean of Stars...or perhaps just water? Let's play Star Ocean: The Second Story. (Completed)

[Second Duke Revier]

Star Ocean: The Second Story is a bit of a unique game. Released in the middle of 1998 by tri-Ace, the company most famous for creating the Valkyrie Profile series of games, the game is technically an action rpg where all the action happens in a sidecut view, kinda like a fighting game but in 3D and with more "vertical" depth. In practice...it's essentially a weird blend of JRPG sensibilities with WRPG ideas, especially with stuff like a really intricate crafting system with multiple types of crafting, many choices of characters, a fairly flexible stat boosting system, multiple endings, and even lots of town exploration. Much of this is optional, and a fair bit of this is obscure, but the game gives plenty of freedom to approach it.

That being said, this isn't exactly a flawless game. The combat is fun, but rather on the simplistic side. The story is quite poorly written, and while it has some decent ideas they don't really go anywhere. The writing in general mostly serves to bog the game down by being both too dull and also too long for its own good, not helped in the slightest by the translation being of questionable quality. And while I did make the crafting and other stuff sound intriguing, the actual mechanics behind them leave a fair bit to be desired.

Still! The game deserves a fair shake, and none of the LPs I've found online seem to do it justice. The closest thing to a good LP for it is Grimith's video series, which I found immensely enjoyable. Alas, it's also pretty incomplete, only covering up to the end of the first disc. So, I decided to stick up for it and try my hand at giving it a good, fair presentation through my playthrough.

My approach to this game is pretty up in the air - for now, I've decided that I shall be playing the PS1 version, for the sake of presenting the game as it looked and played back in the day, warts and all. I've also decided to be picking Claude as the main character, as I find his story considerably more interesting, even if the game on the whole fails to do justice to it. I shall be putting up certain major decisions to vote, but otherwise shall be playing the game as I wish. Updates shall occur on a fairly flexible basis; I'll try to be reasonably frequent, but can't promise a consistent schedule.

Spoilers are fine, as long as you tag them for events that haven't transpired, or game mechanics that haven't been revealed. Talk of the PSP port or the remake is also fine, provided, again, that you spoiler tag things that haven't been revealed yet in the LP.

And that's that. Have fun in this (not so) spacey ride!

INDEX

1. A Million Miles Away from Home...
2. Mining Damsels
3. A Wizardly Duel
4. Dubious Spelunking
5. Unnaturally Disastrous
6. Magical Brigandry
7. The Biggest, Richest Port Of the Continent
8. The Oddest Jinx of Them All
9. The Power of Friendship...and Acceptance
10. Gladiatorial Interruption!
11. Scholarly Bureaucracy
12. Herbilacious Detours
13. Imperilled
14. The Perils of Hubris
15. End of a Planet
16. A Cyber Dragon on a Cyber Planet
17. Power Mountain
18. University of Mysteries
19. Energy Planet Tourism
20. The End of Orb Quest
21. Hunting for Barkers
22. Ten Evil Men

 

[Falselogic]

I played through this game when it first came out. I remember enjoying it but wishing it was more sci-fiey. Also, the thing I remember most is all the yelling the characters do in combat, am I remembering correctly?

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Oh, yes. The "voice acting" in combat is delightfully campy, and it's a shame that I won't be able to capture most of it, as it's going to be a written LP. But this format suits it better, because, like most RPGs, many of the battles are fairly repetitive and don't make for interesting viewing.

I will be getting the first "real" post up soon, assuming everything goes right. Stay tuned!

 

[SpoonyBard]

"Bllllllllloody Mary!"

This should be a fun trip down memory lane. Haven't played this in ages and I haven't tried the remaster yet.

I appreciate leaving certain designs up to a vote, even though any decision that doesn't put Ashton in the party is incorrect.

 

[Beowulf]

I played Till the End of Time and thought the story was interesting but never really groked the combat (and ended up needing cheats to get through the last quarter of the game). I never got more than ten minutes into the original Star Ocean because I couldn't win the tutorial battle. So this will be an interesting experience for me!

 

[Second Duke Revier]

The intro begins with a strange, humongous object colliding into...Earth? Not quite, but, well, you'll see.

It then slowly rotates around space, as the credits slowly fade in and out of view. Eventually, it centers focus on this huge spherical space station thing.

From it, this giant, catapult shaped spaceship takes off, and warps away to the vast reaches of space, with the game's title fading in and then exploding into a million fragments! Well, that is quite the dramatic intro indeed.

Anyway, back to Claude. There's some settings and stuff before the game begins, but it's not important enough to warrant explanation. Just know that you always want to select "Full Active" for the battle mode; the other modes try to convert the combat into some sort of hybrid between a turn based and real time system, and fail miserably.

After a pithy little quote about the universe holding countless ambitions and dreams, Claude narrates about the events of Star Ocean 1, and how his dad helped them earn victory in their last major war. This earned him a great reputation, and he became a grand admiral and war hero. Claude ends this recollection by noting that he admires his dad, but wishes to stand on his own two feet. That's a pretty excellent hint to what his character and motives are, and explains a fair few things about how he acts throughout the game, despite the writing being poor and inconsistent.

We then cut to a scientific team on the surface of Milokinea, a barren, desolate planet. There's some mumbo jumbo about their sensors not being able to detect some field correctly, and then Ronixis, Claude's father, hands him a laser gun, chides him a little for being nervous, and gives a mildly humorous fourth wall breaking hint to using it.

Eventually they end up travelling to a mysterious, derelict dome, where there's a save point, a bunch of rubble...

...and an ominous, electrifying device.

Claude, evidently not being much for caution, boldly steps up to it, despite multiple warnings from his dad and the team...

...and gets teleported off. Welp.

Naturally, the teleporter sends him somewhere completely different! At least this planet has a lot more greenery.

Claude naturally panics and tries contacting his dad, but evidently, he's been teleported so far, even space age communications can't get him connected to anyone. Welp. Time to spend the rest of his life substituting on wild fruits and-

Oh. There's life besides plants after all. Unfortunately, that gorilla doesn't look very friendly. In fact, it outright attacks the girl! Claude, like any good hero, jumps in and saves the damsel in distress, by lasering the gorilla a bunch.

The girl is naturally flustered by this sudden turn of events, and quickly runs off. Fortunately, she quickly gets over it and waits for him. She apologizes, introduces her name, Rena, and quizzes him about his whereabouts. Claude is very, very embarrassed, as he has no clue whatsoever, being randomly teleported and all.

Of course, Rena has no clue of Claude's planet either. Nor do the people in her village, Arlia, which is up ahead, right after a short yet scenic walk. She leaves Claude to his devices for a bit, but, like I just said, the people simply can't help him. Claude sighs, unwilling to accept being stranded in some alien planet without the space era technology he's used to.

In desperation, he barges into Rena's house, and ends up overhearing a bit of a conversation with her mother. Some familial comedy happens, with the mom chiding Rena for being too adventurous right in front of Claude, and then Rena plays coy and offers to show him around the town...that he just explored, and that the game encouraged exploring. Yeah, this game's got pacing issues, lol.

Nothing of note really happens during the tour, aside from some teenage comedy and the game wasting my time by forcing me to revisit literally every building in town. Back at home, though, her mom prepared a big feast to welcome Claude. Cue more comedy.

Claude is left to his devices for a bit, but eventually, Rena's mom heads up to him and intensely asks him about his opinions on the food. Then she blurts out something about him being a chosen one, and rushes downstairs, embarrassed. Claude, exceptionally annoyed by this constant display of coyness, follows behind her, eager for an explanation.

After some misunderstanding about Claude being a prophesized hero, the mayor finally fills in the situation - a meteorite crashed into a far off kingdom. Ever since, their world has been plagued by disasters of all kinds, like quakes, demonic invasions, and the wildlife turning far more hostile. They had a prophecy speak of this, as well as of a hero who would wear odd clothes, wield a sword of light, and save them from their greatest time of peril. Claude, with his laser toting action and his space age costume, ended up fitting the description, hence the confusion.

Now, I actually think this is a very interesting premise. The idea of a guy with some resentment over never being able to carve their own space in life, thanks to their parents constantly towering over them, suddenly being thrust into the role of a prophesized hero of an otherwise doomed world, is actually quite appealing, and has many interesting directions it could be taken in. Unfortunately, well....you'll see.

Claude, naturally feeling overburdened by the weight of the demand suddenly imposed on him, forcefully protests against being the prophesized hero. The mayor reluctantly agrees to his claims, but Rena is left really upset, and rushes out of the village altogether! The mayor cautions him to stay inconspicuous, and kindly offers him lodgings until he can figure his way back. He even points him to the direction of a more well travelled town, Salva, and gives him a sword, so as to hide his futuristic technology better, at least in combat. What a nice guy!

And with that, his journey begins...next time! Join me as he explores an unassuming mining town that hides no secrets whatsoever, nope! Until then.

 

[Mogri]

What are your thoughts on the remake?

 

[FelixSH]

That's one of the games I've wanted to play for...more then ten years. I always get disappointed with this series, when it starts IN SPACE, and then, we spend most of our time in a fantasy world. But that isn't a problem for this thread, I'm looking forward to seeing what this game has to offer.

When you are comfortable with it, please write a bit about the battle system. I know that this series has complicated ones - I tried to play the third game two or three times, and one time got a bit in, but never really understood the battle system. And even the first one took me a bit to wrap my head around, I find them kinda weird.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

What are your thoughts on the remake?

I thought it was pretty good, for the most part it did a good job of modernizing the game and removing a lot of its needlessly obscure and obnoxious aspects. The new environments also look amazing and much better than the PS1 backgrounds, which scream of early 3D modeling in some of the worst ways possible.

They did, however, hold the player's hands a bit too much, and while I wasn't bothered much by that, I know of quite a few fans who were.

I always get disappointed with this series, when it starts IN SPACE, and then, we spend most of our time in a fantasy world.

Yeah I totally get you, the space opera bits are usually more intriguing than the fantasy bits. I'm not sure if later games strike a better balance between the two, but from what I understand this is the best game in the series anyway; apparently it went wayyyy downhill after this game.

When you are comfortable with it, please write a bit about the battle system.

Sure thing. The next update should have some "real" combat, which should give me an opportunity to talk about its meat and bones. Speaking of! I should be writing it quite soon, so look forward to it!

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Claude heads to Salva, the mining town that's relatively close to Arlia and is better travelled. Of course, they can't exactly help him find his way back to his spaceship. They do, however, have a lot of intriguing stuff to say about the mine and a stone recently unearthed from it. Apparently the stone is very valuable, the town's mayor's son, Alen has been obsessed with it and has perhaps embezzled it for himself, and while the mine was closed because of reports of a cave in, that is not the whole truth.

Of course, as interesting as that might be, it doesn't really help Claude, who sighs in resignation and decides to return to Arlia. Guess he's going to retire as a farmer in a remote village of an alien planet. What a way to go!

But oh noes! Alen had abducted Rena while he was away, and threatens to forcibly marry her...or worse! The village was powerless to stop him, as he had brought a posse of armed goons alongside him. Claude, never one to balk from saving women, decides to boldly charge into his mansion and rescue her!

Unfortunately, he runs into a teeny tiny problem - his laser gun runs out of battery, thus forcing him to fight with his sword. At least he blew open a lock before it ran out. Also the onlookers totally noticed that. Claude is not exactly the most inconspicuous - or responsible - man.

Rena isn't in the mansion, but Claude finds a secret passage, which connects it to the supposedly closed mines. Apparently, they have been turned into a hideout for Alen's goons. This chap here had been commissioned to build a strange altar within, and tried to stop Alen from abducting Rena, but was beaten up for his efforts.

The Salvan Mines are our first dungeon, and thus, prominently feature combat encounters. Right now combat is fairly simplistic, and will fundamentally continue to be so for quite a while. You run your character around, and hitting attack makes them pick a target, run towards them, and swing at them. As such, there's little space for things such as swing speed, player controlled dodging, or hit recovery.

The game, of course, attempts to spice this system up in various ways. The biggest and most prominent way is by giving characters special moves they can execute at range. These moves often have their own valid ranges, trajectories and eccentricities. Right now, Claude learns his first special move, Air Slash, which just shoots a somewhat slow long range projectile through the ground. Believe it or not, this is actually among the more useful special moves in the game. You will see why.

The other two icons there just indicate the item timer and the current state of combat. Items are on a short cooldown, presumably to stop players from spamming healing items to survive dangerous fights, and certain skills, usually spells, freeze time to play out their animations. Both are mildly aggravating, but not a major drawback, at least, not to me.

Being a first dungeon, it's not very long or hard, and Claude gets to Alen's little altar room here in no time. There, Alen villainously gloats over Rena and insists that they are in love...but something's clearly off about his demeanor. A strange green stone floats up, and he transforms into a huge monster!

Now, this is technically the first fight with an ally, so I'll quickly note that you can quickly switch the controlled character, the non controlled characters automatically act based on some rudimentary AI, and that said AI can, thankfully, be switched on the fly. Pretty standard stuff, really. Rena here is set to heal allies and sometimes cast support or attack spells, and that suits her pretty well, actually, as she's basically the cleric of the party.

That aside, this monster is a pretty simple boss, given as you have very few tools to fight anything at this point, and it is easily beaten. Rena heals Alen, and he reveals that the stone was controlling his mind the entire time. He apologizes for the entire incident, Claude safely brings Rena back home, and everyone is happy.

Actually, no, there's a long drawn out expository scene where Rena insinuates that the green stone may have been part of the cursed meteorite based on the thinnest of evidence, the mayor goads Claude into investigating the meteorite because it is potentially behind all the problems they have been facing, and Claude agrees because he somehow thinks it could give him a clue to leaving this world.

Rena then has a night time scene with Claude alone, where she reveals she's accompanying him because she wants to know who her real mother was, as she's not native to the village, and her healing magic is not an ability any of the people on the planet possess, to her knowledge. It's all very generic and long winded, typical RPG intro stuff, and the reasoning isn't very solid either. I would say this is where the writing starts drifting away from its genuinely intriguing concepts and towards generic fantasy nonsense.

But now, the adventure really begins, as Claude and Rena set foot into the broader worl- what's that?

Okay, so Private Actions are conceptually a neat mechanic that are somewhat haphazardly implemented. The idea behind them is that, at any notable settlement, you get to let your party have a "break", where they split off and indulge in their own activities, while you control Claude and get to talk with them. The problem is, the game doesn't tell you where they go, and so you end up having to pixel hunt for them, which is a bit of a pain. On the other hand, they do provide some nice private chats, some expansion on the game's lore, and sometimes even some nifty secrets and items!

I bring this all up to cast the first notable choice of this LP: should Claude and Rena hang around for a bit in Arlia and Salva before venturing out, or should they just head straight for the broader world? Please let me know, with rationale for your choice if you wish, and I will move them accordingly. Until next time!

 

[FelixSH]

The battle system sounds pretty mach identical to the one from the first game, aside from you being able to move simply on your own, and you bein able to run in two dimensions. Pretty straightforward.

I always liked private actions, one of my favorite parts of these games.

I assume you get some private actions, if you hang out here, so do that.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

I assume you get some private actions, if you hang out here, so do that.

Yeah, I guess I should've been clearer. So, let me rephrase my question:

1. Should I engage in some private actions in Arlia and Salva before progressing the story?

OR

2. Should I ignore doing them, and just head ahead?

Pick one!

 

[Torzelbaum]

1

 

[FelixSH]

1, of course. Always do private actions.

 

[Falselogic]

1!

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Before heading into the depths of the world, Claude and Rena decide to kick back and relax for a bit in Arlia and Salva. In Arlia, they have a little chat about a long lost childhood friend who once cheered her up in her moody moments. Unfortunately, she doesn't know where he could've gone, only that he left after a horrible incident.

In Salva, they chat about their dads, which causes Claude to reminisce about the time right before the Milocinian landing, where his dad accompanied his exploration team and also ordered Claude to come along. While his crew was loyal to him, they murmured about the blatant nepotism and favoritism he was showing to his son, which Claude caught and felt very upset about. Unfortunately, he's too shy to reveal any of that to Rena, who is left confused.

Their next stop is the royal capital of Cross, the seat of power of the Cross kingdom, which dominates the entire continent. They plan to speak with its king to figure out more about the cursed meteorite, but by the time they arrive, it is too late, and they have to lodge at an inn. The innkeeper, of course, notices Rena hanging out with a boy, and teases her about being in love. Cue some cringey romantic "comedy". Also, her childhood friend, Dias, had stopped here about two months ago. Also also, Claude not so subtly reveals that he has been smitten by Rena. Oh boy.

The city of Cross is much bigger than either Arlia or Salva, with many people milling about its roads. They mostly talk of random, unrelated matters, but there is prominent gossip about the king hiring people to investigate the meteorite, the place becoming more dangerous by the day, and an auction for a new treasure map of sorts. There is also a store selling better gear, and our first skill store, but well, we can't afford either of them at this point.

The royal castle in Cross is impressively large, yet the people inside have little interesting to say, save for the fact that the king's prince has mysteriously gone missing, and is a bit of a runty chap. The king fills them in on what he knows - which is, unfortunately, not much. There's a war raging on between humans and monsters at El, the kingdom where the meteorite fell, he sent a survey team to investigate the meteorite and possibly also the region, but all he's got back are a few spotty reports from the battlefield, which are hard to understand.

The king tries to desist the couple from exploring, but Rena insists on going ahead, so he gives them his blessings with an official passport and some travel money. Throughout this exchange, a mysterious white robed figure spies on them from the right corridor, and hurriedly leaves once their audience is concluded.

But surprise, surprise! They run into her being involved in an altercation with another wizard, who accuses her of stealing his baubles. Claude, being a hot blooded boy, runs to her defense. But his presence only angers the wizard even more, who decides to start a magical duel in the town square! The mysterious robed woman easily defeats him without inflicting much injury, leaving him limping away in pain and embarassment.

Then, she thanks Claude, reveals that she had spied on them during their audience with the king, and also reveals the bauble that had sparked the fight - the new treasure map that had been much talked about! Apparently it revealed the location of new, unexplored treasure in a nearby thoroughly mapped cave. Then she forces the party to escort her in this cave and help her hunt for the treasure, much to my chagrin. Yes, you are forced to do her little quest, despite the game acting like you have a choice to turn her down.

Anyway, she then introduces herself as Celine, talks a little more about the cave, and joins...as a guest, not an actual party member. Despite this, we can thankfully access her inventory, as she has two useless yet pricy baubles - a ruby earring with a whopping 1 defense on it, and a prism ring that has a 1/20 chance of blocking attacks directed at her. I sell both, and get a whopping 6000 gold, which I use to refit both Claude and Rena(I will hold off on refitting Celine until we're sure of her place in the party).

I also use the money to get some skills, which, generally speaking, do three things - raise the stats of characters when invested into, unlock various forms of crafting, and also raise the character's proficiency at crafting. Characters can invest into them using skill points, which are earned on level ups. Currently I won't be investing into any skills, as the party hasn't fought much and so has a pittance of skill points, but I will go through them once they earn enough to seriously consider investing.

And that's a wrap! Join me next time as the party relaxes in Cross for a little longer before setting off for a treasure hunt! Until then.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

The team breaks for a short while at Cross, but nothing of interest happens, save for Claude running into a three eyed man in a trenchcoat. Weird.

The cave, being a thoroughly explored location, has lots of empty chests strewn around, alongside a few unopened chests with trivial items. Besides that, the opposition is still really trivial, and so the cave is still mostly uneventful.

Claude unlocks his second special move, Shooting Stars. This move nicely demonstrates why most special moves are bad - it is short ranged, barely does more damage than his regular attack, and, most glaringly, locks him into place for a long period of time. Suffice to say, I will be sticking with regular attacks and Air Slashes, until I unlock his next Good Move.

Celine unlocks Ray, and casts it here, bombing out the opposition. Spells are like special moves, with some important distinctions - they ignore target defense, are always guaranteed to hit(with some exceptions), often hit all enemies in the area, and usually have elements attached to them. This is balanced out by spellcasting requiring the character to stand still for a few seconds without being hit, and spell damage itself not scaling all that well. For now, though, spells serve us well, Ray does about as much damage as Claude's regular attacks, but to every enemy, and on enemies weak to Holy, it hits for double its damage, making it quite effective indeed!

The team unseals a sealed chamber deep in the cave, which contains some mysterious writings, some random uninteresting treasure, and...

Two gargoyles, which are the game's second boss fight, in a sense. They don't actually have any particularly impressive moves, and are strictly melee combatants, but they do have a lot of HP, and also strike with a multihit attack which can quickly inflict lots of damage. That being said, they really aren't too tough to maneuver around, and are weak to Ray besides, so they are brought down without much worry.

There's little of interest that happens afterwards, and soon they return to the cave's entrance. They briefly discuss how disappointing the cave's "treasure" was, and then Claude invites Celine to the party! Celine is taken aback, but agrees to join...if Rena is accepting. And this brings up to our next big decision:

1. Should Celine join?

or

2. Should we leave her?

This may seem like a no brainer, but there's a limited number of slots available for party members, and magic doesn't scale all that well later. Wizards will still have their uses, but they'll generally be weaker than fighters. Vote carefully!

 

[Lokii]

Eh. There are better weirdos.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Just the one vote? It would seem not many care enough about Celine, one way or the other.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Eh. There are better weirdos.

But are there weirder ones?

 

[Falselogic]

I dont recall this decisions locks us into anything does it? Let's go for it!

 

[Second Duke Revier]

And now we have a tie.

Anyone gonna break the tie? Or should I flip a coin?

Oh and no, @Falselogic, aside from Celine's presence or absence in the party, noted mostly in private actions and some story bits, and hitting the character limit blocking us from recruiting some folk, nothing about the adventure changes.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Anyone gonna break the tie?

I guess I will. She seems tedious already so I say leave her behind.

So how total party member slots do you have?

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Four in your active party, four in your reserve, for a max of eight total. This game has twelve characters in total, and several later recruits will potentially block other recruits on their own.

Anyway...

The thread elects not to take Celine! She's a little disheartened, but takes the rejection in stride, though she does take the cave's "treasure", the indecipherable ancient text, with her. With their business in the cave done, the duo hastily make their way to Clik, facing little resistance on the path in between.

Clik is obviously not as grand as Cross, but it's still a very lively town, with well stocked shops, a packed bar, a restaurant with an eccentric menu, and a cheery throng of people at its square. The duo head for the one ship that's preparing to leave for El, and the captain gives them permission to board after seeing their passport, but asks them to wait around the town, as they haven't finished loading their cargo. Sure, no big deal.

But the moment they head back, a little kid thwacks Claude down, steals his money, and runs off! They question the people around town, and eventually find him near a warehouse. Claude is furious at him, but Rena queries him more gently, and gets him to confess. Turns out, he's the lamest thief ever - he's a rich kid who stole because he wanted to prove to the other kids how badass he was, because they weren't playing with him. Then, as "punishment"(there are not enough scare quotes in the world to describe how lightly he gets off), he takes them on a "tour" through town, with such amazing commentary as pointing out that the town's fountain square is called "Fountain Square". Sheesh.

But hey! The duo convince the other kids to play with him, and they do! Yay happy ending! So...can we go now?

Nope! The town's getting quaked!

And tsunami'd, for good measure. Nothing remains of the city, save for a few survivors who managed to get to its highest point before it went crashing down. Well, that was a colossal waste.

For those curious, yes, there is a private action you could've done here before it got destroyed. I didn't show it off because it would spoil the city's fate, as it has an oracle outright point it out. Of course, nobody actually pays much attention to her. The oracle also potentially lets you power up the final boss of the game to ridiculous levels, for some reason. I will obviously not be doing that either.

Right now, the duo meet up with the ship's captain, who miraculously survived the double whammy of a disaster. He gives them back their passport, as, with his ship wrecked, there is no way for him to take them across. Instead, he advises them to head for the port of Herlie, which will take them to the Lacour continent, from where they can seek a ship to El. Before all of that, though, he advises stopping in the village of Mars for provisions, so that is where they go next.

Next time: teenage drama! Rivalries! And also bandit smacking! See you all then.

 

[Sarge]

I'll stick up for Star Ocean 3 - it's stupidly imbalanced and the plot twist is incredibly dumb, but it's also a lot of fun to play. The game definitely expects you to have engaged in the item crafting stuff for the last third, because that's where the difficulty spikes through the roof. But then you can make a bunch of Battle Boots and apply those boosts to other items and it makes the whole game a pushover.

I hear mixed opinions on SO4. Still haven't put much time into it. Or SO5, for that matter, which is apparently pretty short and clearly made on a budget. I've played a bit of The Divine Force and mostly liked what I saw there, but I figure that may be the end of the series overall...

But yeah, SO2 is easily my favorite of the bunch. The remake of the original was also quite good since it was done in this style.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Here's the situation: Bandits have kidnapped the children of Mars, and have holed themselves up in the forest nearby. They demand a lot of gold and a mysterious magical book as ransom. Apparently they are pretty magically competent, as they could dispel the magical seals on the forest to use it as a hideout. The village would have taken action themselves, but they're worried about the bandits killing off the children should they detect their approach.

Fortunately, a master swordsman and mercenary happened to pass through their village, and they decide to hire him to sneakily get to the bandits, defeat them, and release the children. There's just one teeny tiny problem, though: they don't trust him as he's an outsider to the village, and so want someone to accompany him. He, on the other hand, is a really arrogant brat, and refuses to work with anyone, as they would merely "slow him down". Discussions break down at this point, and he leaves in a huff. Further complicating matters, this master swordsman is none other than Dias Flac, Rena's childhood friend! She follows behind him, and her departure does not go unnoticed by Claude, who feels more than a little jealous.

Celine is also put off by Dias' crude attitude, and decides to team up with Claude to defeat the bandits and rescue the children. Rena somehow manages to convince Dias to work with others, but Claude and Celine blow her off. The next day, they see off the village folk, upgrade their gear, and set off.

The forest is where the difficulty picks up considerably, mainly because your cleric gets separated from the team for an extended period of time. The bandits are a huge step up over regular bandits, and often block Claude off from attacking them. They also attack quite fast, and can easily stunlock him if he isn't careful! Thankfully, Celine does show up here regardless of whether you recruited her, and helps immensely, with her spells not only doing damage to the entire group, but also causing them to flinch, giving Claude a good opening to wail on them.

Celine also picks up a really powerful spell here, Energy Arrow. This is only single target, and costs a hefty amount of MP, but it outputs a lot of damage, as you can see there. For reference, Claude's sword swings currently deal 150ish damage, usually.

They pick up quite a bit of good loot here, including this amazingly strong accessory. It resists all elements and automatically revives its wearer when they die, making it one of the best defensive accessories for most of the game, if not the outright best. Claude can craft these himself, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Eventually, after fighting their way through many bandits and some random encounters, and expounding most of their resources, they come across the village elder in the forest. Turns out, he was in cahoots with the bandits all along, and wanted to steal their book! He turns into a huge monster, and the duo square off against him for the third boss fight of this game!

The fight ends up being a bit close, as he's a very powerful melee attacker and both characters are somewhat low on MP, but, well, he's still just a melee attacker, and so is defeated without much in the way of real danger. Claude also unlocks his next useful move, Head Splitter, which he's seen using here. It sends him soaring through the air to hit his enemy, and is very powerful, if not exceptionally accurate. What it is useful for, though, is letting him switch positions quickly, so that he can either evade any nasty enemies, or get close to a strong yet frail ranged combatant and shut them down before they cause too many problems. And believe me, we'll start seeing many of those before long, the forest already introduced them in the form of spellcasting enemies in its random encounters.

They meet up with Rena and Dias here, and they reveal that, while Claude and Celine were squaring off with the bandits' boss, they successfully rescued the children and escorted them back to the village. So now the whole affair has been sorted out, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief...well, aside from Celine's dad, who took a few hits during the whole mission. Thankfully, Rena's spells come in handy, and he's cured fairly quickly. Claude and Rena, now over their stupid little grudge, spend a night relaxing in Celine's house, and then they set off for Herlie next morning.

But not before collecting the ancient texts from Celine, who offers it to them as they're heading towards the continent of Lacour. Apparently there's a town renowned for its university and scholarly facilities on that continent, and someone there could, presumably, translate the manuscript. They also choose to relax in town for just a single day more, and admire the local jewelry shop.

And that concludes this session! Next time, they shall visit Herlie, and probably cross over to the continent of Lacour. Why probably, and not definitely? Well...you'll see. Suffice to say, we aren't actually done with the continent of Cross yet, there's still a few odd things to do.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

This will be a pretty short one, as there's not a lot of story stuff I can get to before making a very important decision.

The folks upfront talk of a dragon emerging in Salva's caves, and of people trying to slay it for glory and profit. Keep this in mind, it shall tie to the choice of this update.

Herlie is a bustling port, seeing frequent business with Lacour, which, as you shall see later, is a mighty and prosperous kingdom. The bar is lively, the inns see frequent business, and it even has a restaurant dedicated to foreign food. Naturally, this means the shops have considerable upgrades, and I clear up a decent portion of my inventory to acquire them. The town also has the next set of skills, which I also acquire, obviously. Note that once you acquire skills, they are automatically learnt by every character, so there's no need to fuss about delaying them until you acquire a full party. As I had said before, I will go through them when my characters have enough skillpoints to invest in them, because they still don't have enough. Yes, really.

Of course, every big town has its ugly side, and Herlie is no different. Its mayor, Zand, is a bit of a shady guy, who employs hooligans to impose his will and has no qualms about using violence against people to "keep them in line", as can be seen with the sailor, Yul. Besides that, there's talk of accommodating Clik's refugees, who have spread to other settlements in Cross, and are looking for new sources of livelihood. There's also a sickly girl who seems to be beset by an incurable disease, and for whom we can't do anything...yet. We can and do snag her weird attack debuffing, defense boosting ring though.

ANYWAY, here's the big choice: we can go back to Salva and try to sort this whole dragon business out, or we can head onwards to Lacour. Doing the former will net us a powerful swordsman who fights with two swords, basically a Claude like character with more offense and a mite less defense. However, the catch is, he also locks us out of recruiting a cool lady with a gun, buuuut we can't actually recruit her until after we've done a fair bit more plot. Both characters also have long dungeons involved, although in the swordsman's case at least, most of them are optional.

Sooooo......

1. Do we head to Salva, and recruit the swordsman?

2. Do we head straight to Lacour, and progress the plot?

Vote away!

 

[Mogri]

We dumped the last ally. Let's get this one.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Mogri makes a good point but I really want to see cool lady with a gun.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

Anybody else?