Star Ocean: First Encounter PSP

[TurboGenesis]

No mention of this yet?
I just finally pick up Star Ocean: First Encounter for the PSP handheld.
It is an update of the original Star Ocean game which was only release on the Super Famicom in Japan of 1996 and never release in USA until now.

Have anyone play this new PSP installment? If so have you play the Super Famicom version as well? I have never play the original before :embarrassed:
I am like to know how much different it is, and how close to original. I am enjoyment of the PSP game right now and have happiness to finally play this!

[Overbite]

i dont have a psp but if I did I'd get this

[heybtbm]

I pre-ordered this from Amazon and completely forgot about it until the box arrived last week. It looks like the perfect old-school RPG I've been waiting for on the PSP. Unfortunately it's been relegated to my ever increasing backlog. Soon as I'm done with Dragon Quest IV, I'll pop this one in. I can only deal with one handheld RPG at a time. The reviews say it's pretty short by RPG standards (~20 hours or so).

[incubus421]

I for one am loving it. The remake is based entirely on the Star Ocean Second story look and feel. The graphics, combat, sprites, and menu systems all look exactly as they did in Second Story. I think this was a very good call on square enix' part. It works really well for this game. I'm about 12 hours in right now.....

[skaar]

I shall have to check that out. Might be worth blowing the dust off ye olde PSP!

[Aussie2B]

There's been mention of it:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124199

I also discussed my entire experience with the game several months ago in the daily playing topic. :P

I don't want to get too redundant, but like I said in the linked topic, I've played both the original Super Famicom Star Ocean and this remake and they're both extremely enjoyable and very much worth playing, even if you've already played one version or the other. The remake is very different from the Super Famicom version, so don't expect to truly get the experience of the original. I wouldn't say the remake is better, but it's not really worse either. It's just a different, fresh take on the characters and plot. I just wish the remake was given better treatment in terms of the localization. The more I learn about it, the more I am stunned by the ridiculous changes they made. I just learned the other day that the character Tinek was renamed "T'Nique". Seriously. You can't make this stuff up. I thought it was some stupid abbreviation for "technique" when I first saw it. It looks like a freakin' rapper's name.

[Dark_Sol]

Haven't played the original, but the remake is awfully easy. Leveling up is freaking fast, monsters differentiate from hard to very easy after some pumping. Most of the skills are useless...

[TurboGenesis]

There's been mention of it:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124199

I also discussed my entire experience with the game several months ago in the daily playing topic. :P

I don't want to get too redundant, but like I said in the linked topic, I've played both the original Super Famicom Star Ocean and this remake and they're both extremely enjoyable and very much worth playing, even if you've already played one version or the other. The remake is very different from the Super Famicom version, so don't expect to truly get the experience of the original. I wouldn't say the remake is better, but it's not really worse either. It's just a different, fresh take on the characters and plot. I just wish the remake was given better treatment in terms of the localization. The more I learn about it, the more I am stunned by the ridiculous changes they made. I just learned the other day that the character Tinek was renamed "T'Nique". Seriously. You can't make this stuff up. I thought it was some stupid abbreviation for "technique" when I first saw it. It looks like a freakin' rapper's name.

Thank You for the link (I tried to do a search :embarrassed: ) as well as your impressions between the original and remake. I am very enjoying the PSP revision.



Probably the worst problem is that they screwed up the consistency in the series (like changing Ronixis to "Ronyx", which goes against the faithful translation they already used the English localization of Star Ocean 2).

This is unfortunate :(

[mailman187666]

I highly enjoy this game. It is a little bit different than the translated SFC version but I think it is equally as fun. Its one of the few PSP games I've really wanted to buy in a while and I recomend it to any psp owning rpg fan. you do level up a lot, but there is so many different attributes to allocate the points into, so it never really seems like you are doing enough.

[TurboGenesis]

I highly enjoy this game. It is a little bit different than the translated SFC version but I think it is equally as fun. Its one of the few PSP games I've really wanted to buy in a while and I recomend it to any psp owning rpg fan. you do level up a lot, but there is so many different attributes to allocate the points into, so it never really seems like you are doing enough.

Indeed.
Its the first PSP game I have got since R-Type Command.
I am very pleased with it and agree that any traditional RPG fan owes it to them selves to get a hold of this!

[Aussie2B]

Haven't played the original, but the remake is awfully easy. Leveling up is freaking fast, monsters differentiate from hard to very easy after some pumping. Most of the skills are useless...

While the difficulty of the original did fluctuate a bit, that's largely a problem with the remake. For some reason they decided to add a 3-hit combo (I believe they added that to Second Evolution as well), and it just screws with the balance of the entire game. It's as easy as just mashing on the attack button, and it's usually more effective than the vast majority of the special moves, negating their usefulness. Most of the skills weren't in the original either.

I like the game a lot, but honestly I don't think TOSE is that remarkable of a developer. I think their success comes from remaking/porting games that are good to begin with and by using content and ideas from preexisting titles, like how this game pulled so much from Star Ocean 2. I don't think they really put any thought into how the new elements would affect the difficulty.