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Star Ocean: The Second Story R Single Character Runs: Overview

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 So I've written briefly about this game before. While I've certainly got considerable enjoyment out of it, I feel like it's held back by one thing: it gets really easy past Expel. While some of that can be attributed to the difficulty curve getting wonky with the game opening up, it's also a matter of fact that having a full party is considerably more powerful than having a single member. For one, they provide more attacks, taking down the enemy that much faster. For two, they give the enemy team extra targets, diluting their attention and letting them be picked off piecemeal. For three, they enable some utterly powerful skills that let the player severely bend the game, from crafting strong armor early to blocking pursuing enemies in their tracks.

Besides the desire for more challenge, a solo playthrough would also be quite useful academically: it would let me accurately judge just how good each character's moves are, and thus, how good they are. With a full party this can be quite tough to track, especially when they target and hit multiple enemies at once, or a single enemy multiple times. The slower killing speed should also let enemies pull more moves, which should make for more entertaining fights. Besides, it would be nice to roleplay a solo badass, though I wholeheartedly admit this is mostly my personal preference in action RPGs.

I'll be starting with Claude, as he is a very solid character, with effective moves at both close and distant range. I will take him first through Galaxy, and then Universe difficulty. From there, I will be moving on to other characters based roughly on the order they join in, and their ease of recruitment. This should be an entertaining time. See you soon! 

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