A 2.5D remake Star Ocean The Second Story R has been confirmed during today’s Nintendo Direct, coming to Nintendo Switch on 2nd November 2023.
Update: Star Ocean The Second Story R is also coming to PS5, PS4 and PC. As usual, Square Enix is leaving Xbox out in the cold.
Star Ocean The Second Story R takes the classic title and rebuilds it within the latest iteration of the HD-2D engine that has powered the Octopath Traveler series, or at least a rather similar ‘sprites in a 3D world’ style. Despite that, the game will feature fully real time battles and a very dynamic camera.
Originally released for the PlayStation in 1998 (the US launches were in 1999 for North America and 2000 for Europe), it was a fair commercial success that was praised for bringing new ideas to the JRPG genre, with the then separate Enix no doubt looking to expand on the ideas their rival Square’s hit Final Fantasy VII. A decade later, Star Ocean: Second Evolution brought the game to PSP, and there were Japan-exclusive releases on PS3, PS4 and PS Vita in 2015.
There’s been plenty of Star Ocean games since then – most recently Star Ocean: The Divine Force – but Square Enix has been doing a lot to revive their back catalogue of games in recent years, giving some of the golden oldies a fresh lick of paint in various ways. The HD-2D style of Octopath Traveler has been a natural fit for this.
