Magic and swordplay at First Departure
In First Departure, players are introduced the people of the planet Roak, a medieval world filled with magic and swordplay. The game's hero, Roddick, is investigating reports of villagers in a nearby town falling ill and turning to stone. While searching out a cure with his friends Doane and Millie, Roddick stumbles across crew members from an orbiting spaceship, who explain that they are at war with an alien race responsible for the mystery illness. The Captain offers to take the group aboard to help cure the people of Roak and figure out why they were infected in the first place.
The thing about updating an old-school RPG for a new generation of gamers is that you can't stray too far from the formula that made the original a success to begin with. What this means for Star Ocean: First Departure is that the game follows just about every convention of the JRPG genre. That includes lots of grinding for experience and equipment while travelling from location to location completing strings of quests to advance the plot inch by inch.
