Anime Review: Star Ocean Ex
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Star Ocean Ex
Publisher: Studio Deen
Type of Anime: TV
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Watched Subbed/Dubbed: Subbed
Overall Rating: 
Story:
My Rating:
First, let me start by saying that if you haven't played and loved the game, Star Ocean 2: A Second Story, you will hate this anime. Really, don't watch it. The anime by itself has mediocre animation, underdeveloped and stereotypical characters and a predictable plot that follows the typical RPG gaming style - meaning you visit towns, complete small tasks, and pick up new characters along the way. While I haven't seen this entire series yet, I've heard that it also doesn't have a real ending. That being said, I absolutely loved the game, so I am quite enjoying this anime, which is based on the game, so far.
The story begins with Claude Kenni, a young crewmate of his reputable father's ship. While on a mission to investigate a meteor landing on a remote planet, Claude is teleported to a foreign world where Rena Lanford lives. A few months ago, a meteor struck the planet and now natural disasters happen more frequently and weird monsters appear. Rena's village has a legend that a warrior of light from a foreign land will appear and save their world in its time of trouble. Of course when Rena meets Claude, she immediately assumes Claude is this hero and has come to save them. Rena also isn't quite normal as she was found abandoned as a baby and has the power to heal. And so Claude and Rena become your first two party members and set out to find out more information on the meteor, dubbed the Sorcery Globe or rock of evil, in hopes of Claude returning to his home land, Rena finding out more about her past, and maybe as a side note, they can save the world. As I mentioned, classic RPG plot.
To say a bit about the game (maybe I'll write a full-fledged review at some point), Enix released it for PSone in 1999. The allure of the game first and foremost was ultimately its characters, and you could either play through Claude or Rena's story. You also had the option of adding certain characters to your party, so that if you added one, you couldn't get another. This had immediate impact because at each town, you could do a Private Action to further interact with a character from your party and increase/decrease their affection level towards you. This actually affected how characters interacted with you and what kind of ending you got (ie who ended up with who and what happened to them, and there were over 80 different endings). The other wonderful aspect to the game was the depth of its Item Creation. You could create new foods, new weapons, choose which skills you wanted your characters to learn, etc. Also, certain characters were far better with certain skills than others, leading to far more customized characters than you normally get in a game. I spend hours upon hours customizing my characters and completing the Private Actions, so I loved most of the characters in the game... who are now in the anime.
And so the anime is more or less like another permutation of the game to me, minus the battles and character leveling. As it is based on the game, it follows the game story pretty closely (at least so far).
Animation:
My Rating: 
Well, the animation really isn't great. It's ok. The motion isn't at all fluid, but the colors are vibrant & fit with the ridicious story line.
Music:
My Rating:
Ok, not good, not bad.
Character Design:
My Rating:
Again, for reasons stated above, I adore the characters. But then, that's more because of the game than the anime... still, they have similar characteristics.
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