The Ultimate Recap of Star Ocean: The Second Story (RECAPitation)  

Glad to hear it! Which video of mine is the best sleeping aid?

@@OniBlackMagenot OP but I do the same thing. Your videos about FF 7,8,9, Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, Legend of Legia, and a few others of my childhood/teen classics are on my sleep shuffle playlist. I’ll also watch longplays of games like Monkey Island or Sly Cooper for that reason.

@@BloodshadeThat's cool with me! I take it as a compliment that people can be soothed when I narrate something.

@@OniBlackMage for those who like active listening when working towards sleep, I definitely suggest any of the videos on Final Fantasy (especially 6). Your descriptions of the finer details make for great dream building material. For those needing more passive sound and less complicated but still engaging stories, the Chzo Mythos is my favorite.

@@OniBlackMagei use thé longer ones to fall asleep too my favs would be your Xenosaga and Xenogears series

Thank you... I love framing it as if every route it done and perspective is seen. Some people may not think it's 'canon', but I like to think it's 'complete'

25+ in rpgs = senior citizen

@@OniBlackMage One of my biggest problems with JRPGs. I'm almost 50, I don't want to be playing as children.

I know it's kinda cringe but I love it haha

Let us all collectively forget what SO3s story twist meant for this amazingly well written SO2 story

AND I EVEN LEARNED TWO NEW STORY FACTS! YOURE AMAZING!

That's awesome, but I now gotta ask which two story bits were they?

Celine and Chris sidestory, and some of the wisemen origins. Not sure how I missed that, but thanks for teaching me something new after all of these years!

Like, I don't know what the hell I did wrong, but I dont even think I knew Chris existed...

The secret files quest is such a good twist to reward players and add context to the whole game. I can only wonder how many new and returning players won't even catch it

There is a demo available, but you're right, there is no morphing polygons during crafting anymore.

@@AkaiAzul A downgrade from a 25 year old game. Welcome to the future of gaming?

I was honestly impressed they had spinning 3D models for all of the equipment, that's more effort than I see in most games today. Very ahead of their time.

Glad to be back

I think the remake will probably be the best way to experience the game in many ways, but how did you play the other 5 games and skip this one?

@@OniBlackMage SO3 on the PS2 was my first ever star ocean game! Then played 4, 5, 1 when they released it on ps5 and then 6 most recently! I really loved 6, and hearing that it took inspiration from 2 makes me very excited to experience this one soon

Wow, ALL of them? That is a lot of battlefields to cover, which one was your favorite?

Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite with Xenogears coming in a close 2nd, I rewatch them on my 2nd monitor whenever i am playing a mindless game hehe. Looking forward to your new stuff, thanks for making these videos :D

Glad I got to it in time! I hope the wait was worth it!

'Forgot' isn't the right word ... I just stuck to the important ones of what was either heavily implied in-game or was a 'special' ending tied to a quest. As you know, everything else is just permutations on the various shippings/pairings, and largely redundant.

@OniBlackMage I mean it's still a great game. Besides if you started to abuse the item creation system you can usually see most of them. Because, well the game does let you break a lot of things in a good way. Side note, the endings actually do change based on who likes who more or if the affection is the same. That's true for every couples ending.

@@mageiusThe combat in the game holds up for sure and is my favorite part. I have also seen all of the endings and just wish many more of them were more substantial.

@@OniBlackMage Yep, and what you said likely explains why subsequent Star Ocean games didn't have endings for every possible paring--only those with the main character. Granted that's too bad for people that want to see a Maria/Albel, Myuria/Bacchus, Victor/Fiore, or Albaird/Leticia ending.

Sounds rough, everything ok with you?

@@OniBlackMage Been doing OK. Dealing with a lot. I would really love if you could cover FF16. Maybe someday whenever you can. No rush.

@@fanfictiondreamer7836 I will for sure, it just has story DLC coming out so I will wait until then

@@OniBlackMage Any chance you would like to cover the Xenoblade series?

@@fanfictiondreamer7836 There is, I just want to pace myself with the long RPGs

If they ever released an official english localization, yes

Which endings were your favorite?

@@OniBlackMage I’m all about those Claude male friendship endings. All the guys are real bros. Even Dion. And the Ernest ending is A++. Running from opera in space is so on brand for the series.

Thanks, getting close now!

I hope you enjoyed! This was a fun one to cover

@@OniBlackMage I'm very impressed that you included the hidden story dialog that tells the true story and unlocks a harder version of the final boss.

YESSSS! i want this so bad

That is definitely on the queue, please look forward to it

@@OniBlackMage let’s go!

I can't blame him when the terms have been so mixed around. Remake, remaster, re-imagining, they've all gotten confused.

Though in this case, Second Story R is definitely a full-fledged remake. While something like First Departure R is a remaster. Note that this comment is for the person above me and the uploader of this video.

@@ThomasJeff1898 I don't disagree. It's absolutely a remake and not a remaster.

@@AkaiAzul indeed there’s a lot of misinformation around, sadly.

As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of semantics argued over where the line is drawn for calling something a remake, made more complicated that things that should be called a remaster maybe should be called a remake and vice versa. For me personally, the catch-all term is remake, and can apply more specifically to remaster/reimagining/reboot/etc. In the case of Star Ocean, the story is the exact same across all of the versions, and if all you are changing is QoL, UI, graphics, and tweaking combat or translations a little, it is more specifically a remaster (since the story is the exact same and the main changes are a fresh coat of paint and how it drives). So, I DO think it is a remake, because all remasters are remakes. Remaster is just the more specific context for HOW it is remade.

So far I have recapped Phantasia, Symphonia and Xillia... you can check them out in a playlist on my channel.

@@OniBlackMage oh really? My bad didn’t see those on the video list! Thanks again!!

The first one?

@@OniBlackMage yep, my uncle would come over to my house with shining force on some kind of emulated iPad and I would play it for hours, I still remember the first time I beat the dark dragon

After the story DLC they are making comes out

You had better buy it now lol. Honestly the game is quite fun and even if you know the story to some degree the gameplay is just worth it as well besides you didn't even talk about all the different endings and all of the private actions that are in the game.

Shut up