By: Derek Petrtyl For: CIS 487

 Game Title: Star Ocean The Second Story  Company & Author: Tri-Ace Inc/ Minato Korio, trademarked to Enix  Type of Game: Fantasy/RPG  Price: GameStop  Hardware Requirements: Play station 1 or higher  Actual Hardware Requirements: Play station 1 or higher

 Quick overview:  You move around the planet Expel investigating the sorcerer’s globe then fighting the evil of the globe.  When you get to Nede you fight to gain power then you combat the ten wise men who wish to destroy the universe.  If you play Claude:  You have been stranded on an unknown planet called Expel after being teleported there from a dome on a planet you were exploring.  If you play Rena:  You were found in the Shingo forest outside the village as a baby and were adopted and raised in the village.  Both: A mysterious meteor fell from the sky and since then humans animals monsters and all other forms of life started becoming aggressive and mutating into demons and monsters, you set out on a journey to find the cause.

 Claude and Rena meet in the Shingo Forest where Claude saves Rena from a monster with a phase gun which She thinks is the legendary sword of light  Rena gets Claude to stay the night in the village the next morning Rena is kidnapped by the mayor of the next town over who wants to make her his wife  Claude heads to save Rena, after defeating the mayor they find a piece of meteor which has strange powers and was the cause of the mayor's sudden insanity.  They then head out to find out what the meteor or "sorcerer's globe" as it is being called is and how to stop the spread of its maddening power.

 Move through the world uncovering the mystery of the Sorcerer's Globe and gain friends and power along the way.

 None just put it in the console like any other game.

 Combat:  You can see above your character from the south part of the map looking north.  Movement is by the arrows or left analog stick or if you're in auto mode you must use the square button and arrows to move.  You switch target with the x and directional buttons(a pain really if not set on auto)  x is the base attack and R1 L1 are for special abilities  Field:  Directional buttons for movement and R1 L1 for moving the camera.  Camp:  This is the inventory character customization item creation skill options equipment and save options.  You can move between objects with the arrow keys the currently selected item is highlighted and can be selected with the x button.

 Real time combat with enemies.  You can only control 1 character at a time so you can set the AI for your other 3 characters in combat before hand and they actually are helpful, if you set them to heal they heal to attack they attack to support they heal and attack  Enemies often team up and attack and assist each other when they’re able to

 Scoring:  There is no real form of scoring, you beat the enemy or die.  Artwork:  The artwork is kind of low quality it all looks like super Nintendo graphics and the cut scenes don't switch to video like clips.  Sound and Music:  The sound and music is varied for different zones and simply loops until you reach the next area it doesn't take anything from game play but its only addition is setting the mood of the area

 Item creation and skill upgrades.  Item creation allows you to use items you gain killing monsters to create new items such as weapons and armor, this is the only way to get the strongest items in the game.  Skill upgrades, as you level you can put points into skills for combat and item creation, also when you use an ability you increase its power.

 The manual will give you the storyline and overview of how to play and has character information for the background of the 10 characters you can get in your party.

 I have never found any bugs in the game while playing.

What is good (fun) about the game? Why?  The combat system was one of the few real time combat systems at the time  The combat does not drag on at all and you feel like you are challenged.  You had very good AIs for your teammates and the enemies could actually kill you  You do not have to constantly babysit your teammates.  As you go through the game you get more of the story line.  This means you don't have to sit there for one really long period of time and get bored at the start you get right into the game.

 The combat system moves your character against your will when you attack it doesn't allow you to attack where you are unless you're already in the place it would move you to.  There are some enemies who can kill you with almost no difficulty due to paralysis or petrification.  The game lags durring various boss fights. 

 This game has a much better combat system then many of the games in the same genre, it is unique in its itemcreation aspect and the story makes you want to keep going until you finish defeating all the enemies (they really make you wanna kill em)

 It has many unique features which add to the experience of the game, as you go through it you can end up with differnet results and at the end you get a cutscene showing the lives of your characters after they part ways and this changes depending on who ended up liking who ect.

 Teenagers are the appropriate audience for this game, it has lots of fighting and the male and female characters can end up as couples at the end.

 The game lags when played on a Playstation 1 on various boss battles.  The game doesn’t really get hung up freeze or anything that counts for actual mistakes.  The only thing close to a mistake is that the damage and hp caps at 9999 and mp caps at 999

Overall strengths  Good story: the story evolves as you go and involves the player  Multiple ways to go through the game: allow you to replay the game with a slightly different story and different quests to complete  Great battle system: the battle system comes off as being much more fun then troublesome  Item creation: item creation allows you to get good equipment early on if you can figure out how its system works. Weaknesses.  Attack system forces movement you cannot control  Some enemies can basically 1 shot you.

 Yes!  if you don't mind its graphics(its from 1999 after all).  The game is very good and I would suggest it for anyone to play, it may be old but it is involving and has a ton of content to be explored.

 Play it on a Play station 2, allow players on full active mode attack where they are rather then moving them to the targeted enemy, do not cap the hp mp and max damage dealt, cause paralysis and petrifaction to ware off over time not count as a kill.  Change the monster encounter rate in the bonus dungeon to make it feel like less of a dungeon crawl.

 P3-0 P3-0