Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

"Star Ocean 3 Does Not Deserve The Hate It Gets"

Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is the third game in the Star Ocean series. If you did not know Star Ocean is a Action-RPG series by Tri-Ace. This game for some odd reason gets a lot of hate, but in my opinion it does not deserve the hate. While it is far from perfect Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is a extremely fun game in my opinion. Well, onto the review.

Graphics:8.5/10:Star Ocean Til The End Of Time has pretty good Graphics. The character designs are good, but sort of generic. Area designs look pretty good, but at times can get a little bland. Enemies look pretty good as well the enemy designs are good, but not too amazing. Attack animations for skills in battle are quite impressive to look at. So, overall the Graphics get a 8.5/10. Now, to review Gameplay.

Gameplay:9/10:Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is a Action-RPG. Like most normal RPG's you'll go from town to dungeon. Upgrading equipment at town and resting at the Inn. Moving onto the next dungeon and beating that dungeon. Exploration and battles are done with a three man party. Battles are initiated by running into a enemy while exploring. Now, onto explaining the battle system.

The battle system in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time has you fighting enemies on a small battle field. You can run around or attack enemies. As with just about every RPG and Action-RPG you can cast magic too. Attacking enemies can be done in three different ways. The first two are two different type of normal standard slashes. The third is using Skills. First let's discuss the two normal slashes. The first is a quick slash that does low damage, but is good for easily hitting your enemy and not getting counter attacked. Your other slash is one that is far slower, but does a lot more damage and is needed to be used to sometimes break a enemy's shield. With those two slashes covered let's discuss Skills.

Skills in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time are just powerful special attacks that usually do a lot of damage. One odd thing I did notice is that skills used both HP and MP. Not sure why, but they did. Anyways, back to the point. The Skills in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time are quite fun to use and have good animations as stated back in the Graphics section of my review. A nice thing is skills vary. Some require different positions to use more effectively and others require you to be safe for a certain amount of time to pull off. A nice thing about the Magic in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is that it's not broken. Which was a major problem back then in Action-RPG's.

Magic cannot be abused in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time. Due to the fact each time a spell is casted the caster must wait for the spell to be cast. The waiting period is usually around 5-10 seconds long and you need to make sure to guard your magic user from enemies while they are casting. If you don't a enemy may hit the caster and cancel their spell. With Magic covered let me talk about the customization in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time.

The Customization in Star Ocean Til The End of time is quite good. Each time a character levels they gain SP. Skill Points. These Skill Points can be distributed into three different stats. I thought this was cool a feature because it added more customization to the game and allowed you to kind of alter how a character was. Now, let's talk about more positive aspects of the Gameplay. Battle trophies and synthesizing.

Battle trophies are kind of like achievements you get for doing certain things. They are a lot of fun to get. It's extremely satisfying when you get a battle trophy especially if it's a really difficult one. There are a ton to get and believe me if you want to get all 100% of them you'll really need to be dedicated! As for synthesizing yes another great feature of this game. Synthesizing allows you to use materials to form other materials or to attach a material to a weapon. The reason why it's so great is it just adds so much more customization. If you for example make a Orcihilaium you can attach it to a weapon to boost the weapon's ATK by like 250! Of course, this is a double edged sword. Synthesizing can greatly unbalance the game. Like I mentioned Orichilaium can be obtained early in the game. If you get it early on and a lot of it especially you can make your weapons incredibly powerful and breeze through almost the entire game. Actually, no you can just about breeze through the entire game without breaking a sweat by abusing Synthesizing. Really though, it is the player's choice and I will not lower the score because of it. Well, now that I have mentioned a lot of great things about the game let me talk about the bad parts.

The Sidequests. My main problem with the Sidequests is the A.I. Unfortunately the optional bosses have very unique attacks that require specific hit and run tactics. Now, the problem is the A.I. has no real way of getting around it. So, in the optional boss fights your allies are mostly meatbags while your the only one really getting anywhere. Sometimes for most optional boss fights you have to resort to certain stun grenade items. To stun the boss then go attack the boss like crazy and repeat. In my opinion that's not a very exciting optional boss fight and Tri-Ace really needs to improve the A.I. or Sidequests in Star Ocean 4. I mean the A.I. is fine for normal battles and boss fights, but for optional bosses where you need very specific tactics the A.I. is poor. So, that's my only real problem with the Gameplay. So, overall Gameplay gets a 9/10 from Lord_Kefka. Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is a extremely fun game and it's why it deserves a 9/10. Time to review a more worse part of the game. The Storyline.

Storyline:7.4/10:The Storyline in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is okay. Most of the plot and characters are cliche, but the plot is decently written. What mostly saves the Storyline to be honest though is one of the best plot twists ever. It happens when your quite far into the game and in my opinion is one of the most original plot twists ever. Really though, if it was not for that plot twist the Storyline would be mediocre. So, the Storyline gets a 7.4/10. Now, to review the last section Music.

Music:10/10:I loved the Music in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time. I really can't think of any songs I didn't like. So, overall the Music gets a 10/10. With all categories reviewed how is this game overall?

Overall:8/10:Star Ocean Til The End Of Time is a very fun Action-RPG with a extremely good Soundtrack. However, the Storyline wasn't too good and if not for a brilliant plot twist would have been mediocre. Plus, the Gameplay was flawed, but only due to one thing. The Sidequests if not for those the Gameplay would have been fine. So, overall Star Ocean Til The End Of Time gets a 8/10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/08

Game Release: Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (US, 08/31/04)