Star Ocean EX

Origins

This is a Japanese anime based off of a two disk video game for the Sony Playstation console called Star Ocean: The Second Story released in the US May 31, 1999. It was a big thing for a video game to have two-disk back in 1999 because it meant the game was supposed to be epic. This, unfortunately, wasn’t always the case in with some games but Star Ocean came through for the most part. Disk one was epic and made the user feel as if the game would never end. Disk two, however, much shorter than one and was slightly disappointing.

The Game

The game allowed you to play as either Claude (blond haired guy on the far right) or Rena (blue haired girl on the far left); although, it didn't matter who you chose because Claude would still save Rena from the monsters at some point in the game. Rena was a weaker healer type, but could still defeat the monsters while Claude was easier to play with, for this first fight, because he had a ray gun that you could blast the monsters with.

After this fight, the ray gun looses power and you have to relay on a sword from that point on. Through your journey you meet all sorts of characters that have their own little story and lives that you can play a part in. The thing is…. your choices mattered. If you talked to a character a lot and healed them during battle, if they got badly hurt, your stats would go up. If you chose to do one thing over another, you can earn a really power or unique character to your party.

This action anime game didn’t allow you to have every possible playable character in the game. You had to be enterprising enough to find them. That is to say, you had to go to towns and dungeons and be friendly enough to talk to everyone you saw and say the right things. Again, however, there was no way to get all the characters. You just had to make the right choices to get who you wanted. So it’ll be interesting to see how the show handles the characters.

The Show

The sound track appears to be similar or the same one from the game so it adds a special flavor to the fans. The show has Claude accidentally transported to the planet Expel and he saves Rena from the monsters. The thing is, the game had three monsters attack but the show only had one. The show, however, did a good job on taking away Claude’s “sword of light” (ray gun): a monster hits it later on disabling it.

Also Rena is made to be weak because in the first episode she doesn't fight at all and the second episode she at least uses her healing abilities while in the game Rena fights alongside Claude right away. Also, the designers did well designing the town of Arlia (Rena’s home town), but it does seem a little bigger. Another strange thing is that the second episode introduces shows the town bustling with people, but doesn’t introduce Rena’s mother (but does show her holding a sword for Claude). I suppose the creators decided to not include her since she is a minor character. The show does, however, mention the Sorcery Globe, the target of your quest throughout most of the game, and Claude’s responsibility as “the warrior” to help save them from it.

This trend follows the series for the most part. I haven’t completed it yet, but so far it seems like the basically the same things happen, but in different ways. The show also puts importance on minor characters in the game. Although, ironically the game takes importance away from some characters that were really important in the game.

Strong Women Characters

Although Japanese anime is notorious for dressing their women characters in provocative clothing they are also known for making some powerful ones. This is the case with Celine Jules. She’s a powerful sorceress

who meets our heroes in Cross City and shows herself to be a power to be reckoned with and she has more power in the show at the start than she does in the game. If you can ignore her constant passes at Claude, she represents woman at her best! Get ready to hear her roar!

(to be continued)

Sonic The Hedgehog: an oldie

Intro

After watching Sonic grow over the years and seeing his many incarnations, I've decided to go back and talk about an arguably a classic in the Sonic-cartoon world. I'm referring to the second cartoon made based on Sonic the Hedgehog. This cartoon, that appeared in 1993, featured Sonic and Tails with a whole new set of friends and a more solidified storyline. The story didn't follow the game at all. Sonic and Tails are a part of a group of freedom fighters assisting Princess Sally Acorn. Sally, of course, was Sonic's love interest and Tails, a.k.a Miles Prower, was his plucky, substantially weak, yellowish-orange, two-tailed fox, sidekick.

Who's Sonic?

Sonic: The Hedgehog was a game for the Sega Genesis. The Genesis was a home gaming console that appeared in the USA in 1989. This video game featured a blue hedgehog, going through 2-D side scrolling world, trying to stop someone name Dr. Robotnik/Dr. Eggman(depending on what country you played the game). The object of the game was to go through the stages, collect chaos emeralds, and defeat Dr. Robotnik, and by wining the game, you saved the other animals (who are realistic size in comparison to Sonic) from being roboticized. Roboticization is essentially turning a living thing into a robot. This process is supposed to cause the host to become completely unaware of their previous life and will only follow orders.

Hedgehog?


Hedgehog is a small insectivorous (feeding on insects) mammal who is spiny like the porcupine. In the picture to the right, some may call it cute. When threatened the hedgehog will curl up into a ball.



Plot

As I mentioned before, Sonic, an arrogant, super-fast, hedgehog, hero, and Tails are part of a group called the Freedom Fighters who fight against Dr. Robotnik. The show features mutlible anthropomorphic (having human qualities) animals fighting on a planet called Mobius in the 33rd Century. When Dr. Robotnik attacks the city, he captures King Acorn and exiles him in "The Void." This was a place that Dr. Robotnik theoretically would send all his enemies if they were too much for him. Although, I never fully understood why he just didn't roboticize all of them. He roboticized Sonic's Uncle so I'd guess everyone was fair game.

Sonic and the other animals escape into the Great Forest and created a village called Knothole. Sonic uses his lightning fast speed to fight off Robotnik's forces while tails uses his two tails to fly away. As the show progressed the storyline of the various characters opened up but it was all genreally the same. Dr. Robotnik: evil; roboticization: bad. Almost every character knew someone who had be turned into a robot and one had been partially roboticized.

The war went on for 10 years when we start the show and during this time the Freedom Fighters worked diligently to foil their adversary's plans. And in spite of the danger, they always landed on top. At least, if you forgive the fact that the King was missing and animals are constantly being roboticized but you don't meet most of them. You just know about it. The main characters seem to stay safe because Sonic usually sped in as a distraction and if he wasn't fast enough to use his speed to escape, he pulled a large golden ring from his backpack and got a boost of extra speed.

Other Characters

• Rotor a walrus with a knack for machines
  
• Antoine a French coyote and former palace guard. Although, I don't know how since he was kind of scary, a little wimpy, arrogant and didn't want to admit when he was wrong.
• Bunnie Rabbot a southern cyborg rabbit who was partially roboticized before being saved by Sonic, of course.
• Princess Sally Acorn a chipmunk and the king's only daughter. She carried a sentient mini-computer named NICOLE.

The Game

The show only lasted for two seasons, but that could be because the show was nothing like the game. Sure Sonic was fast and tails flew, but the creators where taking a big risk by adding too many characters and not being similar to the game. With that being said, I have to tell you that the games story line wasn't specific. In fact, some would say it didn't have one. The game play involved traveling through various levels, using your speed to collect gold rings, avoid traps, and enemies and using your quills, looking more like spikes, to destroy the robots and free the little animals inside. After killing a robot bad guy, a cute little, real-sized animal pops out and bounces away. After killing a boss, you release a barrel full of animals.

None of this happened in the show. Golden rings couldn't be found everywhere, sonic never "freed" any robotizied animals, and he barely used his spikes to defeat the bad guys. Once Tails was introduced in the second game, he could defeat bad guys too! He wasn't as fast as sonic, but at least he didn't just fly away all the time like he does in the cartoon.

Then there were the Chaos Emeralds: never mentioned in the cartoon. These things seemed pretty important in the game since you had to go through a little puzzle, special music played, you got an extra score, and you can only "fully" defeat Dr. Robotnik when you collect them. (This means you get a different/better ending.) Aside form these minor gifts for collecting the emeralds, Sonic could transform into super sonic! (see picture on the right) This form of sonic was super fast and could jump higher! Once you collected all the emeralds and collected at-least fifty rings you'd transform. The bad part was one ring was lost for every second in this form so staying super was hard to do. This super Sonic, however, couldn't ever show up in the game since there were no emeralds.

Although, I think it has to be said that there was one episode about a "crystal" that clearly was the chaos emerald but not given the same level of importance.

The Conclusion

Overall this was a decent cartoon. It parodied a game a lot of people loved, had a traditional good versus evil plot, and bravely tried to come up with a new plot. Even though the show was canceled early I still think they did an OK job. It's the free thinking that manifested in this show that gave way to the Sonic games we have today. The games of today are full of new and exciting characters and I think the creator's timing was just off because there have been a few Sonic cartoons since this show. Who knows, maybe the next sonic game will revisit some of the storylines introduced here.

Check out a video of the opening: