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Best Star Ocean 2 Characters Definitive Tier List

This Best Star Ocean 2 Characters Tier List gives you a rundown and ranking for all the different characters to help you decide who’s worth a spot on your team.

Trying to figure out the best characters in Star Ocean 2? Look no further. I’ve played through the game multiple times with every possible class combo, and I have a pretty strong feel for which characters are good and which characters are bad. Here are the best characters in Star Ocean 2:

S Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Claude

best star ocean 2 characters claude

He’s your main character (probably), and he’s also stupidly overpowered. Not because of any of his killer moves (although headsplitter might be pretty useful until you get his ultimate weapon), but because his best weapon, Eternal Sphere (Aeterna), is incredibly stupid and available like 15% of the way through the game.

Every time you hit an enemy with the Aeterna, it sprays out a dozen or so stars that also hit the enemy for significant damage. Not only does this beastly weapon totally remove any challenge from the entire game as soon as you get it, should anything every actually survive getting hit by it once, they’ll be stunned because SO2 calculates chance to stun by how many times an enemy is hit within quick succession.

So this thing both does massive damage and almost always stuns enemies. Slap a Berserk Ring and a Slayer’s Ring on Claude and that’s just about all you need.

Opera

best star ocean 2 characters opera

It’s sad that you have to choose between Opera and Ashton (honestly I just cheat at this point and get both), because they’re both the best characters after Claude, but Opera edges Ashton out for two reasons.

First, she can attack flying enemies from the ground, which is weirdly important in this game. Second, her killer moves are incredible. She has Alpha on One and Hyperlauncher for damage. Hyperlauncher is probably slightly better, but it’s time-consuming to build.

Additionally, she has a killer move called Healing Star which, when maxed out, heals your party to full health in a fraction of a second for barely any mana cost, without stopping the battle. It basically replaces the need for a healer.

A Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Rena

best star ocean 2 characters rena

If you’re not using Opera and maxed out Healing Star, you’re going to need a healer, and when it comes to that, your options are Rena, who is really good, or Noel, who is hot garbage. I think the choice is clear.

Rena gets full party heals, buffs and revives. Everything you want in a healer, and she also gets her ultimate weapon, which halves MP costs, automatically through the game’s story. She’s not really the best character, so much as she is pretty much required for most of the game.

Ashton

best star ocean 2 characters ashton

Ashton, in addition to looking super cool, is basically a slightly worse version of Claude. He also has access to his ultimate weapon super early. It doesn’t spray stars, but it does kill things. He gets some quite powerful killer moves, like Piercing Blades, Hurricane Slash and Dragon’s Breath.

Dias

best star ocean 2 characters dias

Dias is buff as hell and gets some strong KMs. You can also equip him with the Marvel Sword early until you can get ahold of his Crimson Devil ultimate weapon, which also acts as a free Berserk Ring. He has powerful and fast KMs (Chaos Sword, which evolves to hit twice, and Illusion, which can hit 4 times). I mean, none of that comes close to Claude’s normal attack with Aeterna + Slayer’s Ring, but it’s still very strong.

Dias is made more useful in Second Evolution because his physical attack chain is very fast and he’s able to make use of the Slayer’s Ring, but Claude still edges him out with Aeterna, even with the nerf. Definitely one of the best Star Ocean 2 characters.

B Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Bowman

best star ocean 2 characters bowman

If you can stand hearing “poison pills, p-p-p-p-poison-p-p-p-poison pills” for the entire game, Bowman’s your guy. He has two moves that are basically the same (poison pills and inferno pills). Each one is a quick-to-activate multihit move. If you choose to use Bowman, this is literally all he will ever do. He’s a one trick pony, but it’s an alright trick.

Chisato

best star ocean 2 characters chisato

Chisato is probably roughly equal to Bowman. The problem with her is mostly that you get her super late in the game, her only good weapon isn’t available until much, much later, and her only really good KM is her last one (Tear Gas). Basically, by the time she’s useful, the game is over. I’ve heard a lot of people claim that Chisato is actually the best character in the game, but that simply hasn’t been my direct experience. She does become good, but by the time she becomes good, the game is pretty much over.

C Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Precis

best star ocean 2 characters precis

Precis, unfortunately, doesn’t have a great normal attack, but Forcefield is a decently good multi-hit move. Among the physical attackers, she’s probably near the bottom of the pack, but is by no means useless.

I still usually take her over Bowman because she has a much more interesting character design, but that doesn’t make her one of the best Star Ocean 2 characters by any means.

Welch

best star ocean 2 characters welch

It’s nice that a new character was added for the Second Evolution port, but overall she’s pretty meh. I can’t imagine taking her over any of the other fighters that are available to you as options, except for variety.

Ernest

best star ocean 2 characters ernest

Probably the worst of the physical attackers overall. He gets one decent KM, but the main reason he’s useful is you can pickpocket Battle Suits from him in various PAs. Other than that, he just doesn’t stand out. Weak weapons, meh KMs.

D Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Leon

best star ocean 2 characters leon

Leon, despite mages sucking in Star Ocean 2, doesn’t suck quite as much as you’d expect. You still hit the damage cap quite late (at the very least, late second disc), so his damage doesn’t totally drop off until then. He has the highest damage spells overall. Still largely useless.

Leon has a surprisingly useful physical attack since he doesn’t have to jump to perform it, and he has the only multihit spell in the game. None of that makes up for him being weak overall, but it does keep him out of F Tier on the best Star Ocean 2 Characters Tier List.

Noel

best star ocean 2 characters noel

Noel has bad magic and mediocre healing. His healing is better than nothing. There is pretty much no reason to ever use him over Rena. I wouldn’t even recommend taking him into your team. He’s the last available character and by the time you get to him, your roster is most likely full.

F Tier – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

Celine

269175 celine 1 Best Star Ocean 2 Characters Definitive Tier List

Celine is very bad. Do not use Celine. Don’t even let her into your party. Unlock a few talents on her while you have her temporarily and max out Playfulness on her for a bunch of free FOL and then dump her. Total waste of a character slot. Absolutely bottom of the barrel when it comes to Star Ocean 2 characters.

Conclusion – Best Star Ocean 2 Characters

The general trend is that physical attackers with fast normal attacks and useful multihit KMs dominate the best Star Ocean 2 characters tier list, and mages lose out dramatically. The fact of the matter is that mages in Star Ocean 2 are simply not good. They may have some utility very early on in the game, but once you start getting powerful weapons for your physical damage dealers, they just can’t keep up in any meaningful way.


That does it for the Best Star Ocean 2 Characters Tier List. Be sure to check the Games Section for more content like this.

Author

  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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