It hit me tonight as I was out having a cigarette (I'm quitting for a new years resolution, honest!) while I was thinking about Star Ocean: First Departure as I've been playing that game lately. That I should submit some of my thoughts here because I felt more involved in the site last winter. Does that make sense? It's probably the cold.

I got Star Ocean: First Departure on release day being the star ocean fanboi that I am, but I haven't really been playing it a lot. And for what I do play seems to drag on a bit... I'm only 10 hours in! The gameplay is pretty easy and just now I've gotten all the skillbooks to learn all the skills so I can potentially be creating some cool items with freshly earned skill points. I'm also at the point in a game when I can go off the course a bit and recruit a few characters. I'm going to have a catgirl join my party, oh, joy. Peresi I think is her name.

The plot is like cliche after cliche even for a Star Ocean game... I mean, hell! A meteorite falls off somewhere all of a sudden, and you can decide to go check it out with the party, as you are prompted if you want to or not in a cutscene. You go and check it out and they're like 'OH! NOTHIN' HERE, SURE IS WEIRD.' Like, c'mon. I just found that funny because of the presence of the Sourcery Globe in Star Ocean 2 as another spherical object that has crashed into a planet. But it was pointless for me to go there and waste 10 minutes traveling the overworld and fighting / running away from enemies.

Granted, I'm still enjoying the game. The skills are growing on me, adapting it to the Star Ocean 2 battle engine was a good idea. But I want a fucking bunny or an airship or something already! Heh. In Star Ocean 2 the character will voice out "Come here Barney!" when it's supposed to be "come here bunny!" but Star Ocean 2 is known for these weird localizition quirks. Opera says "I'll turn you into a beehive!" in battle, for example is another weird one.

I think I'm out of stuff to rant about. I'll think of some games to write reviews for, guys. Mother 3, Lunar: SSSC and SO:DP have been on my mind to do.

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