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I’ve been playing the original Star Ocean: The Second Story for almost two decades now. The game is one of my favorite JRPGs ever made, due to the story, memorable cast of characters, combat, Item Creation system, and the music. I honestly couldn’t be happier for The Second Story R even existing.
This title is pretty much everything I’ve been wanting for the series for over a decade, especially after the enhanced port of First Departure launched on the PS4. I’m completely blown away by the amount of care and love poured into this project to truly make justice to objectively THE best game in the Star Ocean series.
The game pretty much goes on a Octopath Traveler route, keeping the 2D sprites from the original title but completely remaking the older backgrounds as fully fledged 3D models as opposed to pre-rendered graphics, which gives a lot more dynamic to movement and exploration in general.
The title also reworks various older systems, ranging from Combat to Item Creation and Specialties, as well adding various new mechanics to flesh out combat and add more depth.

Strengths

✅ The 3D models for the environments evoke the old pre-rendered graphics from the original game in such polished way that it almost feels like a set of doll houses. Everything is so lively and filled with details.
✅ Combat is snappy and responsive, and has plenty of mechanics to keep things interesting (assist characters, extra passive bonuses, counter attack system, etc). Those who played the original game will see that all characters were reworked in some shape or form with their special attacks.
✅ While the story is simple, it’s filled with various recruitable characters with their own unique personalities and gameplay styles.
✅ The game is very challenging but players can now switch the difficulty at any given time and retry battles.
✅ A stellar, ageless soundtrack made by the legendary Motoi Sakuraba. It features both the original soundtrack from the PS1 title as well a brand new remastered soundtrack.
✅ The Private Action system, a staple of the series, is a very neat way to break the pace of main story and flesh out other characters in small, yet entertaining optional short side-stories, that can even unlock new Special Arts, items and even endings.
✅ The Item Creation / Specialty system is arguably the best in series. It's a pretty robust, yet straightforward way to create your own items to further enhance the experience. The remake added plenty of tweaks and reworks to make it faster and feel more rewarding.
✅ New Japanese voice acting with the returning cast of the original 1998 game.
✅ Tons of quality of life changes from the original game, ranging from a fast travel system, a comprehensive minimap with points of interest, to revamped systems across the board.
✅ This game gives players a lot of freedom to play however you like.. You can actually break the game within the first few hours and become extremely overpowered, and the game gives you all the tools to do so; this was true for the original game and is further reinforced in the remake.


Weaknesses

❌Since this game is a 1:1 remake, they didn’t change anything in the story, which can be seen as either a good and a bad thing. But personally, I think this was a bit of a missed opportunity; I wish they had taken this chance to further expand the world and narrative by exploring plot points that are not very developed in the original game, and maybe even adding new story content and more Private Actions to flesh out characters even further. Given how this game recycles the voice acting from Second Evolution, it wouldn’t be possible unless they got the same VAs to reprise their roles to add more content. It’s a minor nitpick since this game is already amazing.
❌ While the backgrounds have been remade, the character sprites have been recycled from the original game. While I think those sprites aged exceptionally well, the dev team could’ve at least remastered them, and also fixed the design inconsistency of sprites versus character artworks (Bowman, Opera, Ernest and Noel are the most notable examples).
❌ A lot of the dungeons use more or less the same top-view layout which kinda robs them of uniqueness the old ones had. They all kinda feel the same now.
❌ Leveling was made easier but enemies didn’t get a level cap raise. Even without trying to grind I was vastly overleveled and stomping the content while on Universe difficulty. Hoping they’ll add another difficulty beyond it as a post launch patch or something.
❌ The particle effects during combat become overwhelming and clutter the screen as your characters learn more flashy moves. At times it becomes pretty hard to understand what is even going on the screen. I hope they add options to tone it down a bit.
❌ The party member AI still is a bit bad, and a lot of times you find yourself babysitting your characters that walk straight into enemy attacks and spells. The Strategy System hasn’t been revised or changed to make AI a bit smarter; they'll often just burn its MP reserves and stand there. This is less problematic in the mid-late game where MP starvation is no longer an issue and you unlock passives to make the characters more resilient and with self-sustain.

Overall, the small nitpicks I have with this remake pale in comparison with the game finally being available on modern consoles and PC with a fresh new coat of paint and various new additions. I literally couldn’t be happier that one of my favorite games finally got the love it deserved, and that'll reach an old and new playerbase.
Ultimately, this game respects your time. Grinding is fun thanks to the many ways to add buckets of EXP multipliers, on top of an addicting combat system. Fast travel makes everything easier, instead of constant backtracking; you can fast travel at any given point outside of key story moments. And there is a Super Specialty that allows you to instant kill much weaker enemies than you to avoid wasting time. I really hope future JRPGs take a lesson or two from this game.
If you played the original title and / or the PSP remake, getting this game is a non-brainer: it has everything the original title had, but more refined and with new mechanics. If you’re new to the Star Ocean series, or are looking for a JRPG with a solid story, combat and characters, with aesthetics reminscent of Octopath Traveler, I’m sure you’ll love this game.