A look at Star Ocean The Second Story R on Nintendo Switch 2

Nearly three decades after its initial release for Sony PlayStation, Star Ocean: The Second Storystill holds a great deal of sway in JRPG fandom discourse. Developer tri-Ace, known chiefly for the Star Oceanseries as well as Valkyrie Profile, really brought its A-game here, and the result is clear — The Second Storyis held up as an all-time classic, whereas every other entry in its series has asterisks attached at best, or (in the case of the fifth entry, the questionably-titled Integrity and Faithlessness, is broadly disliked).

The game was given a substantial makeover on PlayStation Portable. With Star Ocean: Second Evolution, skills were remade, combat was tweaked, a new playable character was introduced, another 13 endings were included (bringing the total to an eye-opening 100 in all), and — far less successfully, in my opinion — the PS1 original’s character art was redone by another artist, whose work here was so off-putting for me that I very nearly skipped a return trip to the planet Expel for this reason alone.

In 2023, however, Star Ocean’s most famous entry got yet another lease on life. A full-blown remake, Star Ocean: The Second Story Rbrings in everything that Second Evolutionprovided and so much more, but with a thirdartist on tap for the characters; this one is much more my speed, but if you prefer the original portraits (or even the PSP’s), you can always look at them again in the status screen to your heart’s content.

Again, though, The Second Story Ris a truly massive undertaking. Stunning 2.5D visuals hold firm to the designs of the game’s earlier iterations while lending scale and scope as never before seen. The gorgeous pixel-based cast gets a bit of an HD facelift (think Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster); the battle system is radically expanded-upon with new features like Break and Assault; original composer Motoi Sakuraba returned with a largely-appreciated soundtrack arrangement; and myriad quality-of-life features exist which make a somewhat infamously obtuse adventure far more manageable. 

All told, The Second Story Ris a triumph, and while I have some quibbles with the base game itself (more on that later), I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it three years ago on PlayStation 5.

With the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 home console, Square Enix has proven its seriousness about expanding platform availability for many of its JRPGs. At launch, it brought Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster. Thereafter, it’s given new homes to Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven,both Final Fantasy VII Remakeand Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and several further titles. The latest to arrive at the scene is indeed the dual-pronged adventure of Claude C. Kenny and Rena Lanford, as the Second Storydeuteragonists team up to solve the mystery of the Sorcery Globe and recruit memorable allies along the way.

I’ll o cut to the chase at this point and tell you how well The Second Story Rruns on Switch 2. Others may be new to the game (or even the series) altogether. I’ll tackle the former first and give you my broader thoughts on the game itself thereafter.

  The Port  
Star Ocean: The Second Story Rruns fairly nicely, indeed. Square Enix cites 1080p resolution in both docked and handheld modes, versus 864p docked and 576p handheld on last generation’s Switch 1. That version was also only 30fps, whereas Switch 2 boasts 60fps. I can only personally compare my experience with the PS5’s. On the specs front, PS5 and Switch 2 are identical in this regard, but I do recall some real shimmering issues on PS4 and especially Switch 1 back when The Second Story Rlaunched. The PS5 delivered better results here, with PC as the unsurprising winner. On Switch 2, I’ve seen minimal shimmer issues, though they still exist here and there — again, it seems like it’s pretty much the PlayStation 5 port through and through. All things considered, I think that’s a great place to be.

There is one area where I’m less certain things are neck-and-neck with Sony’s current-generation hardware. Don’t take this as gospel, because I could be mistaken, but it feels like things do slow down a bit on the world map when a high number of “shadows” (enemies which, when touched, trigger random battles) are out and about. I booted up my PS5 save, and sure enough, it doesn’t seem to chug under this pressure at all. But the thing is, I haven’t seen any other impressions pieces make claim that the Switch 2 struggles here, and I don’t trust my eyes to be 100% on-the-ball when I see a lack of supporting evidence elsewhere. In other words, take this with a grain of salt, but if you bump into the same vibe, know you’re not alone.

Performance aside, there’s an elephant in the room — or perhaps a giant bunny would be a more fitting animal reference for Star Ocean— that absolutely must be addressed. Much like Square Enix’s other offerings with existing Switch 1 versions, there is no upgrade path for Switch 2 with Star Ocean: The Second Story R. This has frustrated more than a few fans, and not for no reason. 

Consider, for instance, that owners of Xenoblade Chronicles games on the Nintendo Switch can fork over five to ten bucks for improved Switch 2 versions. (Granted, “improved” is somewhat subjective, as Xenoblade Chronicles Xin particular has a less-than-perfect update.) By contrast, Square has shown no interest in following Monolith Soft’s lead, nor what Nintendo themselves have been doing with Switch 2 upgrades for their own first-party fare. If you forked over $50 USD for Star Ocean: The Second Story Ron Nintendo Switch, you cannot upgrade your game at a discount. You are instead expected to fork over another $50 USD.

At this point, you have to ask yourself whether the performance upticks are worth spending a cumulative $100 USD. Personally, I can’t imagine my own answer would have been yes under such circumstances. I neither owned the Switch port, nor paid for the Switch 2’s — I bought it on PS5, after all, and Square Enix kindly supplied Nova Crystallis with a digital code here — but if I was in most consumers’ shoes, I doubt I’d double-dip. Maybe I’d wait for a nice eventual discount, like I said for Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster’s Switch 2 port just last week.

This doesn’t really factor for those who never scooped up Star Ocean: The Second Story Ron the older hardware, nor FFXfor that matter, but it’s still worth raising our voices over it. Square Enix can and should do better.

  The Game  
Back to basics, though. If you’ve never played Star Ocean: The Second Story, here’s what you should know going in. Star Oceanoccupies a niche position as JRPGs go, as it typically blends space opera with high fantasy in meaningful ways. The Pangalactic Federation and its allied and enemy forces span much of the known galaxy, as Earth’s human descendants have been a part of an intergalactic community for centuries. Meanwhile, a great deal of playtime in most installments is set instead on comparably “backwater” planets, where characters from up in that ocean of stars try to keep a low profile so as not to contaminate the lower-tech worlds’ natural development.

It’s a concept straight out of Star Trek— literally, as Star Treklore has always included the “Prime Directive” which mandates no interference with “pre-warp cultures.” In Star Ocean, this concept is instead referred to as the “Underdeveloped Planet Protection Pact,” which is never abbreve the most pleasant ring to it

More often than not, Star Oceangames’ protagonists are from the space opera side of the equation, but both The Second Storyand 2022’s most recent mainline installment, The Divine Force, take the deuteragonist approach, with Claude and Raymond as spacefarers and Rena and Laeticia as planetary representatives, respectively. The Divine Forcecopied The Second Storyhere for good reason, as “Star Ocean 2,” as it’s often called, really is one of the great JRPGs of its day. You can choose either Claude or Rena as your perspective lead, and you’ll miss out on a few bits of context and narrative depending on your choice, incentivizing replays. It’s a cool approach.

Replayability is built into The Second Story’s very foundation, and it extends beyond the Claude-or-Rena question. There are numerous candidates for ending romance partners, which was a pretty novel idea back in 1998! Plenty of “Private Actions” have branching dialogue options, too, with a handful containing a surprising degree of depth. (The fate of a bedridden girl always stands out to me as a surprisingly poignant matter.) 

Up until the ‘23 remake, keeping track of when Private Actions were available, as well as other limited-time sub-quests, was a tremendous ordeal. Thankfully, The Second Story R’s plethora of improvements include an easy way to keep track of this.

There’s also the crafting system, and the associated skill system; there are dozens of skills to master, like Cooking, Art, Writing, Compounding, Music, and so forth. These all have their own individual crafting concepts, with dozens of possible outcomes. Super specialities bring multiple skills together for chances at terrific weaponry and armor via Blacksmithing, or the ability to modify EXP gain through Training; the list goes on. It’s impressive, and frankly, the depth and moment-to-moment enjoyment of it all peaked with the second game and has never quite rivaled it since. (It’s frustrating to see that hold true even in The Divine Force, which felt awkward and clumsy and almost gacha-esque about skills and crafting in ways that never really affected a game from over 20 years earlier.)

I confess, I’m not entirelyin love with Star Ocean: The Second Story. I think there are some missteps, primarily on the storytelling front. For one, the inclusion of a romance system, while cool, also leads to multiple characters who are just kind of… entirely too horny for their characterization’s own good. This happens especially often with a couple of Claude’s potential partners, and it’s unfortunate, because at their core, they’re pretty cool. It’s just that too many moments are spent on teasing Claude, or insinuating a tremendous and immediate attraction to him, and maybe I’m just oldernow, but I have less stomach for it than I used to.(It’s all kind of touch and go. The characters come across as rather insincere for it, and it’s seldom reciprocated by Claude. Similar scenarios exist on Rena’s story side, too.)

The game’s antagonists come into focus weirdly late, too, with a great deal of meandering for the first 60% or so. It’s not the worst approach, but it makes for some notably odd pacing; once things finally come into the foreground, however, the plot more or less works as intended.

  The Verdict  
Star Ocean: The Second Story Ris unequivocally the best way to play a pretty-great JRPG. The game’s mechanical intricacies are so very satisfying, even if the tale it tells is kind of uneven. Gemdrops’ remake is everything a remake ought to be, and thank goodness it doesn’t follow that strange trend we’ve seen with some of Square’s other projects where there’s new fare but an omission of content that had been added in prior re-releases. (The more time passes, the less I can forgive Final Fantasy Pixel Remasterfor this.)

If you already bought the game on the original Switch, I don’t think you should spend the same amount of money for it all over again. It’s essentially a high-quality performance patch at that point. If you’ve not done so, this is a wonderful way to enjoy several dozen hours’ worth of quality old-school RPG goodness in peak form.

Disclaimer: Code for the Nintendo Switch 2 version Star Ocean The Second Story R was provided to Nova Crystallis by the game’s publisher Square Enix. Star Ocean The Second Story R is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC