Star Ocean 2: Who do you love?

[Elok]

I've started playing this great PS1 classic again (I play quickly, so I'm already on the fourth floor of the COT). This is a question for any and all SO2 fans out there: who's your favorite character?

I'm assuming there ARE SO2 fans somewhere on this board, of course...

[Jon Miller]

pretty decent game

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I like the reporter pretty well

don't remember her name, and she deffinitely wasn't the most kickass

Jon Miller

[SnowFire]

Er... great game, but its strength was not in its characters. Perhaps we should blame the translation. I'll say Ashton, for his barrelphilia, but Claude was a confrontational, insecure ego-maniac and Rena could be a bit whiny. Dias was supposed to be a badass, but was just randomly mean. Celine said "dear" far too often as her only characterization. Leon could have been amusing, but they didn't do much with him. Okay, Precis & Chisato were fun. Bowman had precisely one funny line in a PA... Noel was boring and terrible in battle at the same time... Opera was okay. And Ernest, well, whatever.

SO2 was fun for its great battle system, mostly, and its innovative other systems. Plus, the plot isn't bad if you dig up the hidden library stuff on Energy Nede. You ever play Valkyrie Profile? Wonderful game, better than SO2, done by Tri-Ace, the same people.

[Elok]

Chisato was the reporter. And I mean favorite character overall, not just personality. Each character handles differently in battle; Dias has a lousy normal attack but airslash owns, Leon is a magician who fights with books but for some reason has just about the best normal attack in the game. Chisato's relatively weak but awesome for crowd control with her KMs...you get the idea. Then there's character, voice acting, talents, and so on. I got the idea for the poll when I asked the question of myself. "Yeah, Rena's utterly indispensable for healing, more valuable than the rest of the team put together, but do I like her more than Ashton the strangely effeminate, barrel-obsessed, dragon-possessed master swordsman?"

[loinburger]

Precis. She just kicks so much ass so soon after you get her, especially if you're levelled up in Orchestra. I remember trying to make some item or another, only to have Precis accidentally make her second-best or best weapon (I forget which).

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Elok
the strangely effeminate, barrel-obsessed, dragon-possessed master swordsman?"

Originally posted by loinburger
if you're levelled up in Orchestra

Is this a real game?
It looks like you're just making all this stuff up.
What kind of game is it?

[loinburger]

It's a role-playing game along similar lines of the Final Fantasy games (it was made by Enix prior to Squaresoft and Enix becoming SquareEnix), except that it has a skill point system (every time a character levels up he/she gets more skill points) and an absolutely amazing variety of skills in which to put them. F'rinstance, there are some basic combat skills that'll do things like give you more hit points, and some advanced combat skills that'l do things like let you cast spells faster (which is important, because more powerful spells take longer to cast, and if you're attacked while casting then you'll lose the spell). However, there are also some skills that will let you do things like play musical instruments, compose music, write books, create weapons, forge documents, paint pictures, etc. You can also have your party members team up in "super-specialties." F'rinstance, if you have enough musical instruments, enough pieces of music, and enough combined skill in your party in playing musical instruments, then you can use the Orchestra super-specialty and have all of your party members combine their musical talents. (Orchestra improves some of your other skills -- that's how I accidentally got Precis, who by the way is a 13-year-old girl in a robotic battle suit, to create an absolutely kick-ass weapon while the orchestra was playing.) Or, if you have enough people with good writing skills, then you can combine your party members' talents in the Publishing super-specialty and publish a book.

[Elok]

And forging documents is a super-specialty too, only doing it too many times makes your characters dislike each other and you get bad endings. Same thing with pickpocketing, only that's an individual specialty, so you can do a Private Action (enter town, split up and explore separately) to steal without repercussions, plus you can steal from your own team members during PAs. You can also cook, metalwork, blacksmith, call a bird to shop for you, paint, mix herbs to make medicine/poison, customize your weapons...is your head exploding yet? Oh, and you can also call a giant all-terrain transport rabbit, which is a useless ability more or less but still funny. It's a HUGE frigging game.

Loin: Precis might be good in a fight, but how can you stand her voice? I usually keep her in the team just enough to get machinery up to level ten so I can make a Magician's Hand without trouble. A man can only take so much "Here's Mr. Enemy!" And I think she's sixteen, sad as it is....or four, as her birthday is Feb. 29.

And I'm not sure if Ashton's deliberately effeminate or if it's just my imagination. But he does overemote and talk with a lisp like a drag queen, plus he loves chatting with Celine about jewelry.