Siliconera recently spoke with Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness producer Shuichi Kobayashi, and asked if Square Enix is looking into releasing Star Ocean: Second Evolution to the West. Star Ocean: Second Evolution, the enhanced port of Star Ocean: The Second Story, originally released for PSP in 2008 in Japan and the following year in the West. The game was more recently ported with to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Japan on October 2015 and it even got a PS3 port in December, but we’ve yet to hear anything about it for the West.

Japanese

The defining title in the Star Ocean series, that reveals the greatest secret in the Star Ocean universe, is finally available for PlayStation®4! Thanks to the latest in HD emulator technology, the content of the original game remains untouched in this HD conversion available exclusively via download. Best small business software mac.

During our interview with Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness producer Shuichi Kobayashi, we asked if Square Enix is looking into releasing the PS4 and PS Vita versions of the game for the West. “Yamagishi-san he was the producer that created the PSP remake and released the PS4 and Vita version in Japan. After he released the remake he hasn’t really done anything for the West. At this moment, there are no plans to release that title in the West,” Kobayashi told Siliconera. He continued, “However, these are my personal thoughts and nothing has been decided yet, but since I am kind of rebooting the [ Star Ocean] series I know that I can’t leave it alone. I would love to release it somehow.

Maybe create a back catalog or have some way to purchase it because I know a lot of people and maybe even people who play this new title would want to play the older [ Star Ocean] titles too.” “I know we should probably do this. I don’t know if it will be me or Yamagishi-san again, but there should be a way to do this. There are no plans this moment, but I am thinking about it.“ We’ll have more from Kobayashi-san soon.

For many years, Star Ocean was one of those mythical RPG gems that had only ever been released in Japan. Murmurs of its existence had been heard in the States, but barely anybody had the opportunity to play it at all, let alone play it in English. When Star Ocean: The Second Story launched for the PlayStation in the States in 1999, many wondered “What about the first story?” Final Fantasy’s little naming secret was already out of the bag though, so Enix probably didn’t want to have to suffer through the same confusion.

The truth is that Star Ocean was way ahead of its time in Japan, using ridiculous graphics that the Super Nintendo could not handle on its own, and it required special modification chips that Nintendo of America was very strict on controlling. That right there is probably the main reason the game never made it to the States. The other is that Enix had closed shop in America during those years as well. At about the same time, emulators and the fan translation scene had taken off, and fans of the genre were finally able to appreciate so many lost classics for the first time.

Live a Live, the real sequel to Secret of Mana, the Romancing SaGa games, Bahamut Lagoon, Treasures of Rudras. So many Super Famicom games made their ways to the States in English thanks to dedicated fans who did the work of the publishers for them except for Star Ocean. Even after emulators hit the scene, it continued to be a hidden gem of an import title because early emulator programmers were finding it nearly impossible to replicate its advanced chip. Ask anyone who tried to play Star Ocean on their PCs in the late 90s, and they’ll tell you how much of a beast it was to get up and running. Square Enix finally got around to publishing it in the States for the PSP in 2008 as Star Ocean: First Departure, but it was already discovered by then, the mystical allure evaporated. Too much time had passed to have it feel like the revelation here that it really was in Japan. Xbox app for mac..