Star Ocean: The Second Story

Star Ocean: The Second Story
Developer: tri-Ace Publishers: Enix (JP), SCEA (US), SCEE (EU) Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: July 30, 1998 Released in US: August 6, 1999 Released in EU: April 12, 2000 This game has unused items. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences.

Star Ocean: The Second Story is an RPG for the PlayStation (and later re-released for the PSP as Star Ocean: Second Evolution) that's heavy on pseudo real-time combat and item creation. It has a rather similar feel to the Tales series, as tri-Ace was founded by Tales of Phantasia staff. Despite being the second game in the series, it was the first one released in the west.

Debug Menu

Star Ocean 2 has a debug menu! To access it, first, input the following codes:

D00D3898 FFE8
800D38AC 000C
D00D3898 FFE8
800D38AE 240C

This will enable four hidden options on the subscreen, below the "Data" option. The first appears to simply be the team member select screen, but you can switch characters with glitched characters (some with levels exceeding 255 & other weird stuff). The second is just the formation select screen, while the third is a strange glitched shop with crazy prices that can freeze the game (image above). The final option after this seems to do nothing, showing a screen that looks like a blank shop menu with your party roster lined up in the corner, but pressing the "confirm" button again will bring up the debug menu. It's pretty easy to understand, but when an option is selected, the error buzzer will sound; despite this, the effect still happens. In the options menu, if you go to the vibration settings and press Up, it goes to a hidden option for recalibrating the analog sticks.

Also with this code on when looking at Items, pressing Square twice shows other information about the Item.

• Item No: Should be obvious what this is.
• Usable: On top of showing whether an Item is usable the number indicates where it is usable. 1 indicates an item only usable in battle. 2 indicates an item only usable outside battle. 3 indicates an item is usable in both.
• SE: This seems to indicate the effect of the item. The food that was looked at did seem to show this as all the ones that healed HP were 1 or 2, the ones that healed MP were 3 or 4, & the ones that healed both were 5.
• The last 2 are in Japanese and need to be translated to have an idea of what they are for.

There is a chance that the above code may not work properly; in such an instance, you may instead access these "hidden" options with the code 80187E38 000x, which locks the cursor into a specific selection in camp. 0 is Specialty, 1 is Items, etc. 8/9/A/B will select the above hidden options; 80187E38 000B will take you to the debug menu. However, you must have a device or emulator that allows you to toggle these codes at will, otherwise you will lose control of your cursor.

Debug Menu Options

• ALL ITEM12 - This option gives you five of every item in the game, including unused and filler/dummy items! (See below for more on those.)
• SP MAX - Gives the lead character 999 SP.
• ALL SLV MAX - Gives the leader all skills (including Float) and sets them at level 10.
• SFLAG 1 - Enables entrance to the Debug Room - see below.
• TECH - Seems to fill the lead character's Killer Move list with other characters' moves and junk data; equipping any of these will cause the game to freeze at the next battle.
• ETC - (Unknown as of yet).
• HPZERO - Drops the lead character's HP to 0.
• HPHALF - Halves the lead character's HP.
• HPMAX - Fully restores the lead character's HP.
• MPZERO - Drops the lead character's MP to 0.
• MPHALF - Halves the lead character's MP.
• MPMAX - Fully restores the lead character's MP.
• POISONED - Poisons the lead character.
• STONED - Petrifies the lead character.
• PALAYZE - Paralyzes the lead character.
• LV MAX - Sets the leader's level to 255.

Debug Room

WARNING: THERE IS NO KNOWN WAY TO EXIT THE DEBUG ROOM AND CONTINUE PLAYING THE GAME NORMALLY. FURTHERMORE, ENTERING THE DEBUG ROOM MAKES AN IRREVOCABLE CHANGE TO YOUR PARTY. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

In order to enter this debug room, you must first be near the town of Lacour on the world map. Access the debug menu above and activate the SFLAG 1 option, then enter Lacour via Private Action. You will appear in the debug room after the PA entrance scene finishes. Note that the moment you enter the debug room, all characters other than your main character (Claude or Rena) will be gone from your party.

The debug room. What a lively party!

The debug room is, itself, kind of buggy. You will see a bedroom filled with characters - except that most of them are actually standing out of bounds, in the "dark zone" outside of the drawn map. You also will not be able to see your player character. You start close to where the "entrance" of the map is, between Rena and the green-haired NPC.

The green-haired NPC at the bottom left corner does nothing of importance. Speaking to him displays a few messages, most notably a version number and the date of the last revision (April 27, 1999), followed by some miscellaneous dialogues from the game.

To the right of him is Rena, who resets your party to just your main character.

The NPC above Rena supplies a list of options, though all but the bottom two have no immediately discernible effect. The first seven options may have something to do with event flags, but due to the nature of the debug room it is difficult to test. The last two, both in Japanese, recover your status like an inn and insert one of every item into your inventory, respectively.

The top row of characters acts as a party select. Their sprites are all facing back; talk to them to make them turn around, and they are added to your party. The NPC on the far right does the same thing as Rena, emptying your party. If you have set any characters by talking to them, speaking to either this NPC or Rena will cause everyone to turn back around.

The three children on the right side of the screen have the most interesting options. The first child gives you the option of returning to L'Aqua with your current setup (meaning only your main character if you have not added anyone to your party), however as your Synard is likely over at Fun City (if you have even played that far yet), you are stuck on the island.

The second child lets you see the end of the game - specifically starting from "Time passed..." where you see what the characters are doing after the end of the game. What is shown is based on your current character setup.

The third child presents seven options, which prove to be the most useful in the debug room. The first two are Love and Friendship value editors. The third and fourth show all characters' Love and Friendship values in a large chart. What this means is that, in conjunction with the character selector, you can access every single ending in the game. Unfortunately, despite this, there are no "dummied-out" endings for the characters who cannot be in the same party. The fifth option shows a list of items (all in Japanese) that will be given to you upon selecting (it will display the item obtained message in Japanese as well). The list, in order, contains Metox (the key item), Seventh Ray (a special weapon for Opera), Mud Boots, Bandit's Gloves, Magic Hand, Santa Boots, Mischief, Trickery, and Fortune. All of these items are either special or exceptionally rare. The final two options respectively decrease and increase your current FOL by 999999.

Unused Items

With the sheer volume of items present in Star Ocean 2, it's no big surprise that a fair number were left out. Whether this was on purpose or by accident, however, is anyone's guess.

Food

Most of the unused items are food, however. These could easily fit in various categories of Cooking and/or Master Chef, but were not included for whatever reason.

Daikon Radish - "Thick slides of daikon radish are boiled till soft, and garnished with sauce made of miso bean paste and a touch of sugar." Restores HP by 10%.

Happo-sai - "Meat and vegetables are stir-fried in vegetable oil, then garnished with their own juices thickened with arrowroot powder or cornstarch." Restores HP by 20%.

Fruit Sandwich - "A sandwich made with plenty of fruit and whipped cream." Restores MP by 50%. This item is noteworthy because it also happens to be Chisato's favorite food. As such, the "Favorite Food" entry on her status screen will always remain blank.

Tea Cloth Sushi - "Vinegared sushi rice and other ingredients rolled into a thin egg omelet skin." Restores MP by 70%.

Fish Squash Salad - "A Japanese style salad using hardened fish paste and boiled acorn squash." Cures all status ailments.

Weapons and Armor

Surprisingly little in the way of weapons/armor were dummied out.

Flare Gun - "A small firearm that uses a miniature fusion reactor to shoot a wave of heat and burn up everything in its path." The only dummied weapon. This is a high-powered fire-elemental weapon for Chisato, with an attack power of 920.

Flashy Armor - "Embarrassing armor made by someone with rather strange tastes." A useless and silly-looking piece of joke armor with only 1 defense.

Original Boots - "Embarrassing boots made by a person with rather strange tastes." A pair of female-only boots with a defense power of 3. The name suggests that they were intended to be someone's starting equipment, but the description puts them in the same category of "joke" armor as the assorted "Odd" items.

Miscellaneous

Other stuff that doesn't really fit in any category. Most of these were probably intended to be one-shot consumable items, though.

Blanking Mist - "When used during combat this magical incense enables attack on any monster regardless of type". This is supposed to be a battle item, but it cannot be used. Its vague description appears to suggest that attacks made after using it will ignore enemy defenses.

Soul Trap - "When this land mine is used in combat the monster that passes over it is killed with a certain probability." Another unusable battle item. Its description is certainly interesting; there are no other items that behave this way, and battle "traps" would have been a neat idea. Too bad it was scrapped.

Grammar - "A skill guide book. Read it to learn the skill Writing." A book that raises the "Writing" skill of the user by one level, up to level 5. Many such books with similar effects exist in the game, and can be made by Authoring. This one, however, can't be, and almost certainly by accident.

Mint Pot - "When used in camp this mysterious medicine enables a god-like skill in the user." One of the more infamous items, as many FAQs erroneously state that you can make these with Compounding by combining two Artemis Leaves. While it's true that you're probably supposed to be able to, as that combination yields only three random items while the rest yield four, it just doesn't appear to be possible. Apparently, it has no actual effect, and its description makes it sound like a stronger Flash Pot (which itself is inferior in effect to Orchestra), so it's not really a big deal that it was left out.

Others

There are also a few more unused items, including six items called "Missing Number", and one item whose name is still in Japanese (that also translates to "Missing Number"; in battle, although it cannot be used, its name shows up in English). These all have no description, no effect, and the graphic of an unidentified item. They appear to simply be placeholders for other items that the developers never implemented.

(Source: RPG Classics (item effects))

Precious Items

The Crest of Enchantment - "The Crest received from Mayor Narl to counter the Heraldic Crest of Annihilation." Probably removed from the game because there was no gameplay after the point in the story line where this would have been received.

Unused Music

There are four songs discovered in the game's PSF rip that are not used anywhere in the game.

Unused Song 1

This 30-second song sounds like it could've worked as one of the "instrument jingles", but those such songs are not sequenced, while this one is.

Unused Song 2

A much longer song (and the only unused song that loops endlessly). It's an emotional piano solo, but doesn't appear to fit in anywhere. It's possible this was intended to have a similar use as another piano solo in Tales of Phantasia, where composer Motoi Sakuraba himself would make a cameo appearance and play it.

Unused Song 3

A short-but-dramatic song. Possibly intended for one of the game's many, many endings, as that's about the only place it could fit.

Into the Legend

This is the most surprising of the unused songs. A full version of the ending theme from Dragon Warrior 3, remixed using Star Ocean 2's instrument samples. Especially strange, as Enix was only the publisher of Star Ocean 2, and this particular song was composed by Koichi Sugiyama, not Motoi Sakuraba. Probably used early in development as a placefiller to test the sound engine.

Unused Voice Clips

What a full voice test would look like.

There's a very detailed grid-based voice test accessible from the title screen, which gets filled as voice clips are heard throughout the game. A few slots in the grid, however, are impossible to fill.

Dias

• Voice #489: "Leon!" - This is a standard voice clip used when a friend is KOed. However, Dias and Leon can never be in the team at the same time, so this can't be heard. The fact that it exists, however, whereas ones for Ashton/Opera/Ernest and Precis/Bowman don't, suggests that splitting them up was a decision that came later in development.

Leon

• Voice #774: "Dias!" - As said above, Leon and Dias cannot be in the party at the same time, so this is never used.
• Voice #787: "Firebolt!" - A spell clip. Leon does not learn Firebolt, however.
• Voice #797: "Grave!" - Another voice clip for a spell Leon doesn't learn.

Noel

• Voice #1087: "Ice Needle!" - Spell voice clip. Noel doesn't learn Ice Needle.
• Voice #1097: "Thunderbolt!" - Spell voice clip. Noel doesn't learn Thunderbolt.
• Voice #1103: "Wounds! - Spell voice clip. Noel doesn't learn Wounds.
• Voice #1117: "Antidote" - Spell voice clip. Noel doesn't learn Antidote.

Unused Battlefield

There's a strange unused and unfinished battlefield that it's possible to fight on using a glitch. To access it, have someone with both Pitch and Sense of Rhythm play either song that summons a random battle ("Enter the Hero" for violin, or "The Evil Melody" for the silver trumpet). Save the game while the song is playing and, without leaving the menu, re-load the same save. Enter a town (or anywhere else you can't normally fight), and you'll be pulled into battle into an odd battlefield not seen anywhere else in the game.

Visually, it most resembles either a grassy plain or a beach with rocks, although the ground looks rather strange, so it's hard to tell exactly which it could be. The rocks themselves are only partially textured, and so parts of them appear to vanish from certain angles.

Unused Enemy

By overriding the enemy encounter load id with 1957, you can load an encounter with an enemy called "Deathsaucer". Which appears to be a fully finished encounter, however is not used in the final game.

Unused Oracle Text

There are 36 oracle messages that can be displayed normally in the game, however there are 4 more messages that can be accessed with debug tools:

Regional Differences

The European releases feature the ability to hold X to speed up the item creation animation. This was later included in the Japan PSOne Books revision.