Star Ocean The Second Story R Has Added New Quests Due to Slightly More Challenging Battles

June 22, 2023June 23, 2023 Orpheus Joshua

Famitsu recently interviewed the Star Ocean team regarding the newly announced Star Ocean The Second Story R. One question asked about this remake’s difficulty level and how it compares to the previous two releases.

The Star Ocean The Second Story R producer and director, Yuichiro Kitao, replied that the difficulty level has been raised slightly with a faster pace. So, alongside that, the team has added new quests granting beneficial items and equipment.

Further, players will be able to swap between difficulties at any time.

You can view the full question and answer below, translated via our team’s Ryuji:

Interviewer: How does the difficulty of battles compare to the original and the PSP version?

Kitao: The battle system in Star Ocean The Second Story is characterized by an “easy” and “exhilarating” experience. In this title, we followed this policy and aimed to make the battles feel slightly faster pace-wise, with a greater sense of cooperation with your friends.

The entire core battle programming was redone from scratch, with adjustments made to the pacing, impact, and frame rate, as well as the effects and ranges of skills, so that the game can be played without stress as a modern action RPG. In particular, the overall atmosphere was retained, while the time stoppage during the techniques has been relaxed so that the overall tempo of battles was not affected.

In addition, we set the difficulty level of battles slightly higher this time. Bosses that appear in the middle of the story are given a clear strength, and depending on your play style, you may have a hard time with them. Because of that, we have added new quests for equipment and items to support players in this title. We hope that players will enjoy playing through the main storyline while having fun with their characters and party composition.

As in the original version, there are three difficulty levels: EARTH, GALAXY, and UNIVERSE. The easiest level is EARTH, allowing players to progress through the story without stress. You can switch between the three difficulties at any time during the game, so if you want to advance the story faster, we recommend playing on EARTH.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R will feature fully voiced event scenes with the original voice cast, a newly arranged soundtrack by original composer Motoi Sakuraba with new songs, including some with a live band, as well as the new Break and Assault Action combat mechanics.

Players can anticipate two selectable protagonists, Claude and Rena, akin to the recently released Star Ocean The Divine Force. The Earth, Galaxy, and Universe difficulties will also be implemented. Further, the developer is Gemdrops, known for porting Star Ocean: The Second Evolution to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Japan.

Further, subtitle support for the following languages will be added: