What are the most important skills to master early in Star Ocean The Second Story R

In Star Ocean The Second Story R, you can unlock skills whenever you want, without the need to hunt down specific shops or any of that. You just need enough points to unlock the particular upgrades you’re looking for. However, while you can unlock them all with enough time and patience, some are simply better to get in the early game. However, this will vary between character types.

We’re going to highlight a few general skills that players should be unlocking first and then a few that depend on physical and magical damage characters. Either way, these are among the ones you should consider getting first as you play Star Ocean The Second Story R.

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The most important skills to get early in Star Ocean The Second Story R

The below skills are always useful in this game (Image via Square Enix)

Star Ocean The Second Story R makes it pretty easy to unlock and upgrade skills as you play. Through combat, achievements, and Guild Challenges, you can stock up plenty of points for your various upgrades. The below list is a more generic set of options that every character should be getting when possible while playing this classic RPG.

General choices:

• Determination: Lowers points needed to upgrade abilities
• Effort: Lowers exp required to level up
• Purity: Free money with each level (caps around 100K)
• Herbology: Berries restore more on use
• Keen Eye: HP/MP restored from foods is increased by 1% per level

These are always useful for your characters, with Determination and Effort being the two most important ones. It's nice not having to hunt down every skill like you did in Star Ocean 2.

You’re going to be doing a lot of fighting, so you may as well make it worth your while as you explore Star Ocean The Second Story R. When you’re considering skills for your physical and magical characters, there are obviously differences.

Seeing these skills repeatedly activate is very satisfying (Image via Square Enix)

Physical characters IC options:

• Knife: +10 Attack per level
• Biology: Raises HP by 20x Level + 10
• Danger Radar: Raises Stamina by 3 per level

Physical characters Combat options:

• Power Burst: Randomly increases attack power
• Feint: Randomly guarantees attack to land
• Qigong: Randomly boosts defense
• Godspeed: Randomly boosts movement speed
• Backstab: Randomly teleports character right behind the enemy
• Sidestep: Randomly evades enemy attacks

I personally look for other things on my spellcasters, as they’re seldom in melee combat. Whether IC or Combat skills, there are a few things I’d like to have on them at all times. These are, unfortunately, quite expensive though.

Sometimes, all you need are magical explosions (Image via Square Enix)

Magical characters IC options:

• Mental Science: Raises MP by 5 per level
• Mineralogy: Raises Int by 3 per level
• Faerology: Raises Int by 2 per level
• Eye for Detail: Raises Avd by 1 per level

Magical characters Combat options:

• Sidestep: Randomly evades enemy attacks
• Hasten Speech: Cuts casting time for spells
• Trance: Randomly increases spell damage
• Concentration: Randomly prevents incantation from being interrupted by enemy attacks
• Interrupt: If casting at the same time as an enemy and the enemy’s spell goes off first, there’s a chance yours will interrupt theirs

Spending skill points on these throughout the game will make your magical damage not only stronger but more reliable. There will, of course, be times when enemies make it past your frontline, so ensuring they can keep attacking in Star Ocean The Second Story R is important.

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The game is a remake of the classic Star Ocean 2 and is available starting today, November 2, 2023. You can read our Star Ocean The Second Story R review here.