How to Make Money Early in Star Ocean The Second Story R

Although Star Ocean The Second Story R gives you plenty of money to mess around with, having some extras is never enough. The game’s many systems give you tons of different ways to make some big cash easily, and here are some of them.

How to Make Easy Money in Star Ocean Second Story R

While you can get plenty of easy cash by advancing through the game and completing its Challenge Missions, you can get literally an infinite amount of money from the moment you unlock Replication. This Specialty lets you replicate almost any item as long as you have the necessary tools. Replication is unlocked by leveling the Imitation ability. Success chances increase as you level it.

Replicated items are identical to the original in every way. This includes prices, so you can make infinite amounts of money as long as you have the following in your bag:

• Magic Film (as many as you need);
• RIRICA;
• One expensive item to be replicated.

A recommended expensive item is the Miracle Styr-Fry food, earned by completing the “Have a character learn 60% of all Special Arts and Symbology spells!” Challenge Mission. You should have it done by the time your characters get around Level 35, so it won’t take long.

To get your hands on the RIRICA camera, you need the Machinist Specialty, which requires leveling Machinery and Operation. Level 8 guarantees a craft, but you can get it from lower levels too. You can also steal one with the Pickpocketing ability, but not only do you risk your Friendship levels as it’s also hard to come across an NPC holding one.

With those two items in your hands, head to Hilton, Harley, or any other big city with an Item Shop and buy as many Magic Films as possible. I recommended getting Replication to at least Level 7 to have a good success rate. You can assign the Imitation skill to a single character and focus on them, maximizing Replication as early as possible for maximum profit.

Since each Magic Film costs 400 Fol and Miracle Stir-Fry sells for over 9000, it only takes a single success out of 20 to get a profit. And you’ll eventually come across other even more expensive items (sometimes also given through Challenge Missions), so that’s even more easy money for you to replicate. Just never sell all Stir-Fries, or you’ll be out of something to replicate.

Using the Group Appraising Super Specialty when selling the copied Miracle Styr-Fries can also get you even more extra cash, so use it if you have it as it’s almost free (8 Fol per Spectacle). Leveling the Item Knowledge Specialty also increases the amount of Fol you get from each sale, and extra levels for that one can be obtained with Writing, too.

Some items such as instruments, can be expensive later in the game, so if you ever find yourself needing some extra change, that’s usually your way to go for that. With so many characters to recruit, buying equipment for all of them is hard if you couldn’t get anything good out of crafting, so copy your way to victory!