Star Ocean 2 – Best Weapons Early on Disc 1
Getting several of the best weapons in Star Ocean 2 on Disc 1 is not that difficult. It’s just a bit time consuming, requires some planning, and you have to know how to do it ahead of time. The main skill required to accomplish this is patience, because you’ll be resetting the game multiple times.
With a little patience, you can obtain several characters’ best weapons in Star Ocean 2 on Disc 1. Or, for people who are playing later variants of the game, super early.
Here are the weapons you can get roughly as soon as you get to the Lacquer Kingdom:
Claude’s Eternal Sphere (Aeterna)
Ashton’s Melufa (Mephistofar)
Opera’s Pulse Box (Pulse Clip)
Dias’s Crimson Diablos (Crimson Devil)
Precis’s SDUGA Punch (SDUGA Puncher)
I’m also going to teach you how to make Berserk Rings, which are pretty stupid.
Getting Started
There are some things you’re going to need to do for pretty much all the weapons. First, before you start the game, restart the game over and over again until your main character starts out with the Nimble Fingers/Dexterity talent, which makes pickpocketing have a chance for success. You need to be able to pickpocket two key items in order to have any chance of obtaining these weapons. Beyond that, everything involves finding rare items and using the customize skill.
Second, as soon as you can, go to Cross and get the skills packs there, then head to the first major port town (Herlie) and pick up, at the very least, Sensibility 2. Don’t spend any skill points until you do that.
Now that you’ve got Sensibility 2, you’re going to want to dump all of the skill points you have into Perseverance. With ten points in Perseverance, you may as well level anything that requires only 1 skill point until everything costs more. The reason you want to do this is we’re going to spend some time getting even more skill points for free.
Every character has a list of talents, and most characters can unlock talents by performing skills they’re not good at. What you want to do is find a skill the character has no talent for, like say, Sense of Taste for Claude, and then have that character do the skill they suck at (Cooking in our Claude example), until they unlock the talent.
Beware that not every character can learn every talent. Here’s what to watch out for: Ashton will never learn Design Sense (Metalwork), Opera will never learn Love of Animals or Sixth Sense, and Rina will never learn Sixth Sense. No one can learn Blessing of Mana, mages all get it automatically, and no one else can learn it.
Every time you unlock a talent, you get 100 SP. We’re going to use that to our advantage. Since no one uses Celine, because Celine sucks, after she learns Perseverance/Effort, have her dump all her points into Playfulness, which just gives you a ton of money. If you get Playfulness to 10, you’ll be super rich. Might as well do that.
Now, assuming Claude is your main character, you need to max out Poker Face and Courage to get Pickpocket to 10. After that, and for everyone else, you need to start working toward maxing out Craft (Technique 2),
Pickpocketing Rare Items
There are 3 items you need to pickpocket early in the game. And I mean early. So make sure you do that stuff above like, right after you exit Cross the first time. The first one is in Mars/Marze, and it’s held by an old man in the Eastern side of the town. It’s called the Goodie Box/Treasure Chest. Anyway, get that thing. Don’t open it yet, you don’t know what you’re looking for. If you’re Claude, you’d going to want to also do a PA in this town and Pickpocket the Fountain Card from Rena.
Next, since you’ve done all this, you might as well make sure to Pickpocket the Mischief item from Filia in Clik, because it’s the only place in the game you can get it. It’s mostly useless, but I mean… might as well, I guess.
Now, as for what you’re trying to get out of the Treasure Chest, that depends on who you have in your party.
If you have Ashton, you want a Scyther/Luminous Slicers. This is the ingredient required for his ultimate weapon, Melufa (Mephistofar). If you have Precis, you want to get the SD Punch. If you want to use Bowman, you’re looking for a Rune Full Moon. Don’t bother trying to get anything for Rena (you get her best weapon automatically and weapons are useless for her anyway). Opera’s best weapon doesn’t come from here. If you’re using Dias, you’re going to want the Marvel Sword/Sword of Marvels.
Between the Treasure Chest and the Fountain Card, you only get four, and you’re going to drive yourself insane with resets, so pick and choose which one you want. I would suggest you go for the Scyther/Luminous Slicers, Rune Full Moon (if Bowman)/SD Puncher (if Precis) and Marvel Sword. You won’t get this. The Luminous Slicers and the Rune Full Moon are the only things that can only be obtained from this box on Disc 1, so prioritize those.
For Claude’s Eternal Sphere (Aeterna):
Once you get to Lacquer, you’ll be entered in a tournament. You have to get to the last round of the tournament and lose to Dias (he is unbeatable). Once you’ve done that, head over to the far lefthand side of the city and talk to the old man, Gamgee, who made Dias’s weapon. He’ll give you the Sharp Edge (or in later versions I believe it’s called “Sharpness”).
Next, make sure you pick up Sensibility 3 from Lacour. That gives the Radar skill. Save, then pick a character and level Radar up to 10. Check your inventory. If you didn’t get 2 mithril, reset. Keep doing this until you get 2 mithril.
Get Claude’s Customization skill to 10 (this requires Functionality, Craft and Metal Casting, which you’ll have access to if you pick up the skills in all the towns in the second continent). From there, customize the Sharpness sword with a Mithril until you get a Minus Sword (Blade of Minos). Take the Blade of Minos and customize that with a Mithril until you get the Eternal Sphere (Aeterna).
Congrats, now you have one of the best weapons in Star Ocean 2 and will cakewalk through the rest of the game. But if you don’t want to stop there, here’s the rest of the characters.
Ashton’s Melufa (Mephistofar)
If you got the Scyther (Luminous Slicers) from the Treasure Box, all you need now is a Damascus, which you can find in the mountain dungeon that’s part of Ashton’s quest. Have Ashton customize the Scyther with the Damascus and boom, Mephistofar. It’s his strongest weapon, but it’s not nearly as gamebreaking as the Aeterna.
Dias’s Crimson Diabolos (Crimson Devil)
This one… I’m not quite sure if it’s worth it. It’s a marginal upgrade over the Marvel Sword. There are two ways to get it. The first is to customize the Marvel Sword itself, but you can’t do that until early Disc 2. That’s what I’d suggest. Marvel Sword + Star Ruby = Soul Slayer. Soul Slayer + Philosopher’s Stone = Crimson Devil.
The second is a little convoluted. You need a “Hope of the Breeze” sword, which you get from random invalid combinations that Dias has through customization. So basically just keep customizing random weapons until you get that. Once you get a Hope of the Breeze, combine it with a Rainbow Diamond to make a Hard Cleaver. Hard Cleaver + Damascus = Crimson Devil.
Precis’s SDUGA Puncher
If you got the SD Puncher from the Treasure Chest, that will save you some time. Otherwise, like Dias’s Hope of the Breeze, SD Puncher is an invalid customization combination, so you just have to keep combining things until you get it. From there, SD Puncher + Damascus = UGA Puncher. UGA Puncher + Meteorite = SDUGA Puncher.
Opera’s Pulse Box (Pulse Clip)
Very similar process to Precis. You need to make a Gamma Box with invalid Customization combos, and then combine it with an Orichalcum, which you can pickpocket from a dog in Cross.
Berserk Rings
Until you can get the tri-Emblem and Slayer’s Rings at the very, very end of the game, Berserk Rings are pretty much the best accessory, since they double your attack power with no drawbacks. Claude can make them through Metalwork with a Ruby. Combined with a Meteor Ring, which Claude can make out of a Star Ruby, this is probably the best possible accessory combo you can hope to achieve.
I hesitate to mention the Meteor Ring, because I’ve heard you can no longer metalwork those in later versions, and even in the original version you could only reliably get Star Rubies from the Trickster item, which isn’t available until the last dungeon in Disc 1.
Hope this guide helped you get ridiculously overpowered with all the best weapons available early in Star Ocean 2. Check out the Games section for more game guides like this.