Genre: RPG
Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Square Enix

In the case of re-makes, developers often either go too far with creative liberties, or not far enough. In the case of Star Ocean: First Departure, the labors of tri-Ace and TOSE resulted in a perfect middle road. The SNES stage art has been completely replaced with beautiful ray-traced imagery that is as awesome artistically as it is sharp and crisp. Character portraits, all of the in-game sprites, and the menus were either re-created or touched up, and some fairly decent anime FMV sequences were added to top it off.

Motoi Sakuraba's original soundtrack, which clearly influenced some of his later works such as Golden Sun and Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, was remixed to great effect for this title. Many of the songs cleverly intertwine fantasy and futuristic motifs, aurally mirroring the concept behind the Star Ocean series itself. In the English voice acting department, Katie Leigh's emotional and breathless portrayal of "Millie" spearheads a strong effort all around.

Star Ocean marries the traditional JRPG characteristics, such as the town-field-dungeon formula and fantasy story exposition, with a real-time combat engine reminiscent of Namco's "Tales" series, and a wonderfully varied skills item creation system. The result is a well-paced, entertaining RPG with a fun but not spectacularly deep battle engine.

TOSE left alone what didn't need fixing, and thus the simplicity of Star Ocean: First Departure takes me back to the days of games like Phantasy Star II, what with its memorable locations and characters. Who can forget stepping foot in the Biolab in Phantasy Star II? Likewise, who can forget the pseudo-modern and spiritual haunting that is the Purgatorium in Star Ocean? The story can be a little disjointed, as some of the characters' motives are unexplainable, and not one member of the cast has a personality that really grows or evolves throughout. But regardless, this title is a lesson on how to apply top-drawer modern polish to a solid game from days gone by.