AoD Review: Star Ocean EX Vol. #2

[Chris Beveridge]

Review

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In Summary:
But for all intents and purposes, we're ten episodes into the series and it is very much taking on the road trip mentality and playing up a number of the clichés from that as well as having that quasi video game feel to it. It's not bad even though it plays up things you can see a mile away but it just falls into that category of being pretty average. A few bright spots here and there aren't able to help elevate it up all that much. With the differences between this and the game it's something of a crapshoot whether fans of the game will enjoy it or whether this will inspire fans to get the games, but we're looking just at the anime by itself and for the most part it continues to underwhelm us but it doesn't insult us at least.

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[Hayate Kurogane]

Being aware of the various complaints about the series from the fans of the game (the different character dynamics, the changed story, etc.), I do have to say I'm getting a fair bit of enjoyment out of this series so far. As Chris notes, it's not the greatest thing in the world by far, but it's not downright bad either. That's a rather dubious way of qualifying the show (or any show), but that's about the best way to do it.

That said, I don't find the characters to be remarkable, nor do I find the situations they get into or the story with which they're being predictably walked through to be anything worth raving about, but I still start each episode with some anticipation, don't feel the need to look at the timer frequently, and watch the closing credits with a feeling of pleasant satisfaction (and not just because I really like the end theme).

Since it's worth noting, while this Ascent-authored series could've turned out a bit better in the video department (though it is one of their very nice-looking works), the menus are actually good. It looks like more than two minutes was spent designing the individual submenu screens, and the transition animation is stylish and smooth. It's disappointing to think they can actually do this level of work (see also: Wolf's Rain), and then to see menus like the ones for Burn-Up Scramble or X or Gundam Seed where the transition animation is crudely shoehorned in with a lazily-edited audio clip and the screens consist of questionably retouched screencaps or background plates.