Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Missable Elements

by Chao Min Wu and Adam Vitale on 01 November, 2023

The Star Ocean series is sometimes known for its extensive and often missable content, making it quite a challenge to experience everything in a single playthrough. Multiple playthroughs are often required to unlock all the trophies and fully explore the game's various features, which often encourages replayability. This page will try to break down a source of missable elements to get a general awareness of what to look for.

Luckily, Star Ocean: The Second Story R has a New Game+ mode that transfers just about everything to a fresh playthrough, so in a way, nothing is missable. If you are the type of person to collect everything in an RPG anyway, you'll have to play through the game at least twice; possibly more depending on character choices and endings.

Warning: There are some spoilers on this page.

Character Recruiting

In Star Ocean 2R, the process of recruiting party members can be influenced by various conditions and decisions you make during the game. Characters usually offer to join you once, if you decline their offer, you will never get the chance to recruit them again. Recruiting some characters will also prevent you from taking in some characters. There is a trophy/achievement for having all the characters or for collecting all their voice samples. Which requires at least two playthroughs minimum as some characters will only join certain routes. For more information, check our character recruitment page.

Leon: Exclusive to Claude's route.
Dias: Exclusive to Rena's Route.
Aston: Prevents Opera and Ernest from joining.
Opera and Ernest: Prevents Aston from joining
Precis: Prevents Bowman from joining.
Bowman: Prevents Precis from joining.

Skill Points

Characters in the Star Ocean franchise can learn powerful passives known as Skills. However, you will need to be careful when allocating your skill points (SP). There is no way to reallocate SP when they've been spent. A big change to Star Ocean 2R is that there are other resources of SP besides just leveling up, such as from fights or certain recipe dishes, which means SP is no longer a finite resource as it was in earlier versions of the game. The skill system has been completely reworked, as availability and effects are changed for the remake.

The most important skill to prioritize is "Determination," as it reduces the amount of SP needed to learn new skills.

Private Actions

A core mechanic in Star Ocean games. When going into a town you can trigger Private Action where your party splits, and you can engage with fellow party members in a more private setting. This can trigger events that expand the story, raise friendship levels, earn rare items, or even some game-changing events. Private Actions are also now marked on the map, so you can see whichever town has a new Private Action for you to find.

Private Actions (PA for short) can also be extremely limited as passing certain story scenes will cause you to miss out on some Private Actions. For this reason, you should complete any new Private Actions, immediately. Luckily, all you have to do in the remake is check the map, and you'll see where PAs can be seen at any point in time. Plus with the remake's extensive fast-travel system, getting around the world takes no time at all.

Pickpocket

In the Star Ocean series, a recurring feature is an ability to steal items using tools like the Thief's Glove or Magician's Hand (and the proper Specialty). In Star Ocean 2R, there have been notable changes to this mechanic. Now, you can see the success rate and steal multiple items from NPCs. There are also items that can reset your opportunity to steal from people.

It's worth nothing that stealing can negatively impact your affection level with party members, so it is recommended that steal during Private Actions to prevent any consequences to your relationship. Another note is during Private Actions, you can also steal from your own party members, if you fail to do so it will also negatively affect your friendship points.

Anyways, pickpocketing is highly worth the risk, as the game features numerous exclusive and powerful items that can be acquired by stealing from NPCs. There are towns that may become unavailable due to story-related events. For more detailed information, check our pickpocketing page to unlock this specialty.

Town of Kurik

Kurik, a town in Star Ocean 2R, is a limited-time area due to story-related events. There are a handful missable elements present in Kurik, including exclusive shops and items that can be stolen from NPCs. However, the biggest and most substantial item is Philia's Sprite Bracelet, which is obtained from a PA in the area. An easy thing to miss is also the Unique Spot, Old Lighthouse. After a point, you will no longer be able to get these on your current playthrough.

Not only is Philia the source of a one-of-a-kind rare accessory that can't be obtained anywhere else, but viewing her PA event also allows you to significantly enhance the final boss later on, if you choose to, making it one of the strongest enemies in the game. If you are going for all achievements (or trying to complete all content in general) you'll want to do this eventually anyway. So, make sure you see this PA event with Philia (and steal her bracelet).

Town of Lacuer

Similarly to Kurik, this town has limited availability due to story-related events. The most significant aspect of this town are its shops, If you don't purchase these items, you'll be compelled to wait until you reach the town of Armlock to acquire them. In the original game, it was skill books, but since a lot of them are removed, it's not as critical when it comes to missing them.

Ruddle the Traveler Mini-quest

Ruddle, also known as Raddle in the PSone version of the game, is a recurring character who often gets lost. In Star Ocean: The Second Story, there is a side quest involving this character in which you can guide him in either the right or the wrong direction. If given the right directions, you will receive the Scumbag Slayer.

The Scumbag Slayer may seem weak at first, but it has a unique ability – it can one-shot enemies with the name "Scumbag" attached to them. This makes it extremely useful in the bonus dungeon, like the Maze of Tribulations on floors 6 and 7 where you encounter such enemies. You can get the Scumbag Slayer in other ways, however, so even if you do completely skip this quest, you won't miss out on it.

Quest Outline

Requirements: Just before the Sanctuary of Linga.
Step 1: Use Private Action in the Town of Salva, and talk to Ruddle to initiate the quest. Point him, north.
Step 2: Talk to Ruddle on Marze then point him east.
Step 3: Talk to Ruddle on Lacuer, then tell him to take a boat again to reach Harley.
Step 4: Talk to Ruddle on Harley to get the Scumbag Slayer.

Minea Cave

Defeating the boss at the end of Minea Cave will cause all regular enemies to disappear from the dungeon. This can make the dungeon easy to explore for collecting the treasures. However, if your goal is to catalog enemy data or obtain specific drops, it's important to ensure you've accomplished these tasks before confronting the boss. One noteworthy item to acquire in this area is the Moon Tiara, which can be obtained by defeating the common enemies found in this cave. Additionally, you can also earn this item from the Fun City arena.

Unique Spot #30 - Space-Time Travel Relics

This is a quick one new to the remake. Of the 36 Unique spots in the game, two of them are missable. One is Unique Spot #8 - Old Lighthouse found in Kurik (Mentioned above). The other is Unique Spot #30 - Space-Time Travel Relics, found in the Symbological Weapons Laboratory. This is a one-time story area, so once you leave it, you can't get this added to your database. It's relatively in plain sight, so it's difficult to miss, but it is technically