Overview

Star Ocean: The Second Story (スターオーシャン セカンドストーリー) (also known as Star Ocean 2 and SO2) is a role-playing game developed by tri-Ace and published by Enix for the Playstation. The game was released for Japan in July 30, 1998, and adapted for Western audiences and released in May 31, 1999, in North America, and in April 12, 2000, in Europe. Star Ocean 2 is the sequel to Star Ocean, a role-playing game originally released only in Japan for the Super Famicon. Though Star Ocean 2 takes place twenty years after Star Ocean, it is not necessary to play Star Ocean first.

On the tenth anniversary of the release of Star Ocean 2, the game was re-released as an enhanced port for the PSP as Star Ocean: Second Evolution in 2008 and 2009, with significant alterations to the translation and game mechanics.

Gameplay
Unusual for its time, tri-Ace split the story development into two playable routes by allowing the player to their protagonist, Claude C. Kenni or Rena Lanford, with significant differences in storyline development and possible endings. The game develops the story and the characters through a strong main story arc, as characters visit towns and explore dungeons, defeat enemies, and gain experience points (EXP) to increase in levels and player stats. Regardless of whether the player chose Claude or Rena as their hero, both Claude and Rena venture together, joined by a larger party of the player's choosing, to eventually complete the game.

The game had several innovations and departures from other role-playing games typical of the 1990s and early-2000s. Star Ocean 2 holds battles in real time, as opposed to the turn-based fighting of contemporaneous series like Suikoden and Final Fantasy, forcing the player to become responsible for the performance of up to four party members as time progresses. Real-time fighting was already a signature combat style of the Star Ocean series, first seen in Star Ocean. Combat takes place in a three-dimensional battlefied, wherein the player may strategically move the heroes to fight, cast spells, evade attacks, or flee. While the player may actually control only one character at a time, the player may set the other characters to a selection of programmed AI settings, dictating their tactics when not under the player's control.

When not in combat, the player may develop and utilize the statistics, skills, specialties, Super Specialties, and talents of the characters. Growth of a character's statistics, skills, and specialties is largely due to chance and to levelling up, while talents not already possessed by the character must be unlocked later in the game. Super Specialties are unlocked and mastered through developing the combined group's skills. Items held by the characters may further modify their statistics, and improve their performance in combat or in utilizing their specialties.

Reception
Star Ocean 2 sold 1.09 million copies worldwide, with 700,000 of them sold in Japan. This made the game a commercial success overall, especially in Japan, and moderately successful internationally.

Critic reviews of the game were positive. The most popular critical review source in Japan at the time, Famitsu, gave the game 33 out of 40 points. This is lower than Star Ocean 4 (34/40) and Star Ocean 5 (34/40), but higher than Star Ocean 3 (31/40) and Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (31/40).

Abroad, critical reception was similar, if not more positive. North American magazine Game Informer gave Star Ocean 2 a 7.5/10, while review websites GameSpot and IGN gave it 8.3/10 and 8.8/10 respectively. IGN critic Doug Perry wrote that Star Ocean 2 was "a one-of-a-kind game. It's so full of optimization that's it's bound to be one of the classics for PlayStation. It stands out from the rest in several areas, the integral Item Creation, group spells, Custom Combinations, Individual Skills, and the many characters that can be played throughout."