STAR OCEAN First Departure R (NSP, XCI) ROM

STAR OCEAN First Departure R is a 1996 action role-playing game developed by tri-Ace and published by Enix for the Super Famicom. The first game in the Star Ocean series, it was released only in Japan in July 1996, and was the first game developed by tri-Ace, consisting of staff that had previously left Wolf Team due to being unhappy with the development process for Tales of Phantasia with Namco in 1995.

The game used a special compression chip in its cartridge to compress and store all of the game’s data due to possessing graphics that pushed the limits of the Super Famicom. Additionally, the game had voice acting for the game’s intro and voice clips that played during the game’s battle gameplay, a rarity for games on the system. The story involves three friends who, while searching for the cure to a new disease, come into contact with a space-faring federation that is locked in a war with another galactic power.

Using advanced technologies and time travel, the group attempts to uncover the cause of the war and find a cure for their planet. The Super Famicom version was never released outside Japan due to Enix closing its American branch shortly before the game was finished, as well as Nintendo’s focus on supporting the then-upcoming Nintendo 64 video game console.

The game was later remade by Tose for the PlayStation Portable under the title Star Ocean: First Departure, and released in English-speaking regions in North America, Europe, and Australia in October 2008. A remastered version titled Star Ocean: First Departure R was released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 worldwide in December 2019. The game was the start of the entire Star Ocean series, featuring six main games, 3 spin-offs, a remake, a remaster, and a manga.

GAMEPLAY

Star Ocean is a role-playing video game that is played from a top-down perspective. The player navigates a character throughout the game world, exploring towns and dungeons and interacting with non-player characters. Unlike the original game, the PlayStation Portable remake includes a world map for the player to navigate. In progressing through the game, the player can recruit up to eight additional characters to travel alongside the protagonist; some recruitments happen automatically.  While others only happen depending on the previous actions and options taken by the player. Though only 8 characters can be recruited in a playthrough, ten characters are available to be recruited, and as a result, not all characters can be recruited in one playthrough of the game.

Certain characters cannot be recruited unless the player’s party is a specific size, or the player has made specific story decisions. In First Departure, players have the option of recruiting characters they did not previously have the option of adding to their party. When players move their party in the game’s dungeons and paths, random battles occur. Combat is done in a 3D isometric point of view. Unlike games in the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest series, the battles are not turn-based, but play out in real-time. Players also do not directly control all of their characters’ actions, but instead choose battle strategies beforehand for all but one of their characters who then move and attack their closest enemy automatically. Added to First Departure was a combo attack system where special attacks stack to become more powerful.

Players can equip characters with four special abilities with “ranged” and “distance” slots, whereas the remake reduced that number to two. Up to four characters can participate in battles, but the player is only able to control one character at a time, leaving the others to be controlled by the computer’s artificial intelligence. The player can switch which character is being controlled in battle. All characters have a standard “attack” option, in which the character’s equipped item is used to attack whichever enemy the player has locked on to. Additionally, special techniques called Symbology can be used as well, which have the potential to deal more damage but cost MP (Mental Points), of which each character has a finite amount.

Special attacks are assigned before combat begins. Special Points (abbreviated “SP” in-game) are also rewarded from battles and are used to customize the character’s abilities. For instance, allotting SP to the cooking ability grants or improves a given character’s ability to make consumable foods out of raw materials to heal characters from damage taken in battles. Item creation can allow for characters to be able to create weapons and equipment that are stronger than those available to be bought in stores and towns. Individual items have a 20-item limit. Star Ocean has a game mechanic called “Private Actions” that plays a role in character development. While entirely optional, they often reveal additional backstories of particular characters or have other varying effects on gameplay.

Upon arriving in a town, the player can opt to have all the characters in the party temporarily split up and go their separate ways within the limitations of the town.  The player retains control of just Roddick (Ratix in the original Super Famicom game) and can look for the other characters. Upon finding other party members, various events may happen; sometimes only small talk results, and other times, larger events happen, that may even require a choice to be made by the player.

Depending on the results, this can cause characters to either gain or lose “affinity” toward other characters in the party.  For example, if one character loves another, the affinity level will be high, but if the former is mistreated, it will lower their feelings for the latter. A character’s affinity towards one another can have effects on the rest of the game. Affinity also affects which character’s endings players see. While the game’s overarching plot always largely ends the same, various parts of the ending are changed, added, or left out, depending on the characters’ affinity at the end of the game.

PLOT

The game takes place in S.D 346 (A.D 2432) and starts in the small town of Kratus on the underdeveloped planet of Roak. There, a few of the local Fellpool (cat-like people) youth, Roddick, Millie, and Dorne, are part of the village’s local “Defense Force”, who defend the village from minor threats such as thieves and robbers. However, one day, a neighboring town, Coule, starts contracting a terrible disease that turns people into stone. The town healer, Millie’s father, contracts the disease while trying to get rid of it, leading the group to search Mt. Metorx for a herb that is rumored to cure any sickness. Dorne unintentionally contracts the disease as well after touching an infected pigeon.

When they reach the summit, they are confronted by Ronyx J. Kenny and Ilia Silvestri, two crew members of the Earth Federation (Terran Alliance in the PSP remake) starship Calnus. They inform them that the disease was sent to the planet by a foreign race called the Lezonians, whom the Earth Federation has been at war with. Roddick and Millie go with them on their spacecraft to help them find a cure. They learn that Fellpool blood could be used to process a special, invisible material that could give them a massive advantage in the war. Upon coming in contact with Lezonians, they reveal that they were being forced into war by a shadowy, powerful third party with disgust for the Federation.

Before Dorne fully succumbs to the disease, they do tests on him to figure out a cure. They determined that the only possible way to fight it would be to make a vaccine that uses the source of the disease. While the origin of the virus is tracked back to being on Roak itself, it is from Asmodeus, the King of the Demon World, who had been killed 300 years before the spread of the disease. Ronyx talks the group into using a Time Gate on the Planet Styx to go back 300 years into the past to track down Asmodeus back when he was still alive. While this works, Ilia trips while approaching the gate. As such, Ilia and Roddick have a delay from when they enter the time gate, and after the trip through time, they find themselves separated from Ronyx and Millie. The two groups work towards locating each other, and Asmodeus, in efforts to heal their family members and stop the war.