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For Game Boy Color, but playable on all Game Boy systems, including GB Advance and Super GB I just rented this and played it, and it's surprisingly very good. It's a cross between Estpolis II (Lufia II in the US), The Legend of Zelda, Tales of Phantasia, with all the elements of Star Ocean Second Story. This time, you have your choice of characters: Precis, Ashton, Dias, Noel, Celine, Leon, Bowman, and Chisato, in forming a 3-person party. While in the field, the A button is attack, and the B button is one of the field actions (like Dash, Push, Pull, Fire Breath, Phasegun, etc) You don't randomly run into enemies, actually, you see them moving abouts, and you can attack first by going close and hitting the A button, or staying far and using a long range field action, like Ashton's Fire Breath or Opera's Laser. Basically, here's the story: Opera and Ernest's space ship went down and they sent an SOS, which is picked up by Precis's space ship. Unfortunately, they also go down, and they also send an SOS, hoping Crawd and Rena pick it up. As they travel, they learn of an "elevator" that leads into outer space, and something called "Gift", which I think is a strange space-ship-like thing. Well, as they travel, they encounter a selfish ruler named Aba, who's in charge of Aba City, and whose soldiers are blocking the paths ahead. So you have to defeat a monster in Karb Ruins before getting a pass from him, but then you get thrown in jail for stopping a soldier from abusing a helpless townsperson. After you conquer this area, you meet up with Ernest, who's lost sight of Opera. And after helping Rebels free the slaves held by Aba and his soldiers, you get passage to the next city, Vanis City, through which you go to Nott, where you find Opera. Opera promised to help someone named Levia, who seems kinda strange if you ask me... And a lot further on, when you come across the city hidden in Stream, you see why. Levia kills the ruler there, who tells you Levia is a legendary "devil" on the planet Ediface. And as soon as Levia vanishes, your party gets a call from Crawd and Rena, whose space ship is also coming in for a crash landing. You'll find Rena at the entrance of Vanis City, but Crawd's taken ill by a virus, and you must help her find the herb to make the medicine to cure him. But once you complete the party, you can have lots of fun =^^= Battle is a little easier, since there're three of you and only one enemy at a time. Fighters like Ashton and Dias only have one special attack, like Leaf Slash and Chaos Sword, respectively, while magic users have more of a variety. Your magic-users are allowed 4 spells at a time, one for B, B + up, B + left, and B + right. However, they randomly cast other spells (ie, Leon does Ice Needle with the B button, but sometimes he'll say "What do you think of this" and cast something like Wounds). Characters like Precis, Opera, and Chisato can get more special attacks through Machinery (ie the item "White System" gives Opera the healing ability "Heal Star"). You can also do combo's in battle (ie Dias has a 2-hit combo in which he does a hard slash followed by Oboro, and Crawd has a powerful 4-hit combo that's a series of Burst Knuckle), and if the character does a move that would've cost MP in Star Ocean 2, it's free here. Dias is probably the best example, 'cuz he does a short range Kuuhazan as his regular long range attack, and Ashton does Dragon Breath for his regular long range attack. Your strongest character with the strongest combo is recorded by "Bunnycom", an item you get in the first town. When you win a battle, you get Skill Points instead of EXP. The way you level up is by raising your skill level. Each character starts with 4 skills, each under 4 categories: Battle, Craft, Knowledge, and Energy, and each character gets different skills. Leveling up on one skill can trigger a new skill or ability (ie, the Battle skill "Fast hand" gives that character the field action "Dash") Some characters get more skills than others. Like I maxed out Dias early, and his max HP was only about 520; I maxed out Ashton, and he had about 580; Precis actually had like 700; Crawd had 680. BUT Dias was still stronger than the others and he absorbed hits better (but don't ask me why Dias's 4-hit combo was weaker than Crawd's 4-hit combo). And it's not like the SP goes only to those participating in battle, no, the SP is pooled for all the characters, so you'll never have to use characters you don't like unless you have to. You have a chance at getting items, of course, but be careful, 'cuz you can only carry 15 of each at a time (and I thought 20 of each sucked), but no money. You get money by finding it in treasure chests or selling excess items. Have fun in the field 'cuz you can cut down bushes, burn really thick growths, whip from place to place, hover in certain areas, swim and dive, push and pull, etc =^^= Make sure you max out Machinery early (which is done by Precis, Leon, and Opera), and have fun doing Create (like Cooking, Medicine, and Machinery), because instead of hitting the start button and hoping for the best, each Create command is a mini game, and the higher the skill level, the faster and better control you have, so Machinery is basically burning the solder blobs as they pop up and connecting the circuitry. But you can get new abilities for Precis (like Yura-yura, hover, mapping, Missile, etc), Opera (like Heal Star, laser*alpha*, Spread Ray, etc), Chisato (like Preparation, dash, etc), and the hardest, for Crawd, which turns Phasegun into phasegun*alpha*. Each mini game racks up points, and at certain point levels, you get certain items, but if the points are too low, you could end up with something like Flare Bomb. Of course, you have to buy Material Kits at 900fol each. And you'll have to get utensils to do certain Create skills, like a Nabe pot and/or Frypan for Cooking, but at least you can pick plants using Bowman's Plant-picking Field Action =^^= Certain skills can only be learned by certain characters, like Enchantment for magic-users like Celine and Leon. And so-called Super Creations like Mix Build and Master Chef can only be done when you find the items and install them in the space ship. Overall, this is an excellent game, especially for toting around on a gameboy, 'cuz like the PS game, it can easily take several tens of hours with its challenging puzzles and secrets, let alone the skills. Allow yourself plenty of time, and search everything you come across =^^= For a GB game, it has all the elements of a fun RPG, including something like private actions, during which certain characters in your party will engage in some entertaining dialogue with characters not in use straying around in the towns and cities, like with Celine on the 2nd floor of the inn and Bowman in your party, or with Opera outside of Nott and Precis in your party =^^= Perhaps the most frustrating thing is having to teleport back to the spaceship to get the character you need to complete certain areas =><= I don't know if this game will be released in the US, but if you can afford the Japanese, don't worry -- Japanese GB games play normally on US GB without a chip or converter. If you have a friend who also has the game, you can hook up and trade items, data, or battle each other! (Kya~h, tsushin battle!) I was lucky enough to rent it, but couldn't finish it before having to return it. And this game's addictive, so there wasn't any way I was going to rent it again and eat up my time to try and finish it before having to return it again =><= This is definitely a game better suited to own rather than rent, but you'll have to wait awhile for prices to come down on either new or used. This game is 5800yen, and can be as much as double that to get it new in the US, so it's best to rent first and see if you like it, then wait until the prices go down. |
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Star Ocean Blue Sphere is
Štri-Ace.Inc/Mayumi Azuma/Enix 2001