Good
The premise revolves around the classic trope of a fish out of water. Imagine a Dungeons & Dragons hero suddenly beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise and you'll start to get a taste of the series' flavor. In First Departure, players are introduced the people of the planet Roak, a medieval world filled with magic and swordplay. The game's hero, Roddick, is investigating reports of villagers in a nearby town falling ill and turning to stone. While searching out a cure with his friends Doane and Millie, Roddick stumbles across crew members from an orbiting spaceship, who explain that they are at war with an alien race responsible for the mystery illness. The Captain offers to take the group aboard to help cure the people of Roak and figure out why they were infected in the first place.
The thing about updating an old-school RPG for a new generation of gamers is that you can't stray too far from the formula that made the original a success to begin with. What this means for Star Ocean: First Departure is that the game follows just about every convention of the JRPG genre. That includes lots of grinding for experience and equipment while travelling from location to location completing strings of quests to advance the plot inch by inch.
There are a few fairly unique tricks to break up the same-old, though. For example, players can specialize in skills which allow them to use materials picked up to craft new weapons, armors, and foods for the party to use. It's a fairly straightforward process in practice, but it feels fun when added to the old RPG formula.
Another place Star Ocean stands out is in its battle system. Instead of sticking to a turn-based system for combat like many other games in the genre, players instead fight battles in real-time. When the party enters battle with an enemy, the view shifts over to a pseudo-3D isometric view. The player takes control of the party leader, with free reign to run around the battlefield with the thumbstick. The player automatically targets the closest enemy, executing standard attacks and combos by hitting the X button. Special abilities, once equipped, are assigned to either the left or right shoulder buttons. The only time the combat stops is when the player switches control from one character to another or when opening up the battle menu to do things like using items, casting spells, or changing your allies' battle tactics on the fly. It takes a little getting used to at first, but once you do, it's hard to go back to the old turn-based way of doing things.
If there's one thing Square Enix knows, it's how to make a classic game look new again, and Star Ocean: First Departure is no exception. The visuals look bright, colorful, and surprisingly detailed, and yet they never lose that 16-bit flavor from the heyday of the SNES.
Also, instead of using rendered CG cut-scenes, as has been the case with the Final Fantasy remakes, Square Enix instead enlisted the help of animation studio Production I.G. to create high-quality hand-drawn cel animations to advance key story points. It sounds cliched, but the cut-scenes in Star Ocean: First Departure truly are a work of art. In fact, our only gripe with the game's overall presentation is that the top-down portions, where the bulk of the exploration and interaction take place, look tiny on the PSP screen. While this doesn't break the overall experience, it's distracting enough to cause some minor irritations.
Despite a couple of minor hitches, Star Ocean: First Departure is one of the best remakes Square Enix has brought to portable consoles. Playing it anew, it's easy to see why the series holds a special place in the hearts of hardcore RPG fans. If you've ever reminisced about the days you lost in your youth sitting in front of your NES or SNES and building up your warrior, mage, or other such hero, you might do well to give Star Ocean: First Departure a try and relive those days once again.
