Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

"A mixed bag, but good overall"

I'll begin by saying I've played the other Star Ocean games, and enjoyed them very much. They brought to the RPG genre a playing style that I found both fun and endearing, adding private actions to the storyline aspects, as well as a fast paced and interactive combat system that is a nice change from fully menu driven combat, although in my opinion not necessarily better or worse, depending on my mood. What we get in Star Ocean 3 is a bit puzzling. It has a lot of Star Ocean's prior qualities, although not necessarily implemented as well. Read on, and you'll see why, while you definitely should give this game a try, you might want to rent it before you buy it.

Graphics: 8/10 - If you've played Xenosaga, then you'll know basically what to expect. The characters look very similar, although I'd say slightly worse, than Xenosaga. It should, however, be enjoyable enough in all aspects to not draw too much attention or disapproval. The emotion is a bit clunky and not quite convincing, at least from a graphical standpoint, but it's okay.

Sound: 8/10 - I'd probably rank the sound much higher (closer to 10), if it weren't for the fact that they got the balance of music to voice wrong in about 75% of the spoken dialogue that has music playing in the background, making it harder (but not impossible) to hear what the characters are saying. It was very irritating at first, but eventually I got used to it, and it did give me an appreciation for an amazing soundtrack, truly one of the best I've heard on any RPG.

Gameplay: 5/10 - I really wish I could have ranked this higher. I do enjoy real time battles. They keep you interested in more than just moving the story along, and when implemented well, a battle system can round out a good story, making a truly satisfying gaming experience, no matter how long it lasts. Star Ocean implements a lot of good things: the ability to avoid most battles, real time combat, the ability to quickly switch to any character on the field, nice battle animations and effects, and mixes in some rather frustrating things. First off, you'll need to fight a LOT. The difficulty spikes rather dramatically in many places, and you'll find yourself in a world of hurt if you're not taking as many opportunities as possible to kill monsters. Also, battles are VERY difficult, period. Some people will enjoy this, as they like the challenge. I prefer a decent challenge, but not one that is as extreme as this. Other elements of gameplay deserve mention. The versus mode is a very nice addition, and adds some "fighter game" replay value to this title, which is good. The other minigames aren't really anything special and can be a tad boring (...cough bunny races cough...). Also worth mentioning is inventing. You'll find yourself reloading the game a LOT in this part, which while not that difficult to do, isn't much fun. You can't gain access to a shop that sells refining items until your next time through, so expect that to make a really good weapon, you're going to want to utilize your limited resources effectively through reloading. Other than that, the interface is nice, and works well.

Story: 7/10 -Although the story diverged a lot from prior games in this series, and was a bit slow starting out, I felt the pacing was pretty good. The story sequences are LONG, much like Xenosaga, again. That wasn't so bad for me, but I did notice it was dragging on a bit here and there. I did like how things turned out, and was pretty impressed with the presentation. I didn't end up getting attached to many of the characters, although for the most part I found them likable enough, in their own ways. Voice is used extensively in this title, and the talent used, which can be recognized from many other RPGs released over the years, does a pretty good job with delivery. The localization and script itself is pretty good, but there is one glaring irritant that perhaps others have noticed. What's with repeating the same thing someone else just said. Ex: He says, "I just went to the store to buy a YooHoo." She says, "Buy a YooHoo?" ARGH! Ok, if they did that a couple of times, no problem. Sometimes it's okay to repeat what someone says when you don't understand, but there are OTHER ways to express your lack of understanding, such as "I don't get you." "What do you mean by that?" "Huh?" "Eh?" "Excuse me?" "Pardon?" "Run that by me one more time?" Ok, you get the point. It could be just me, but that sort of thing really started to bug me because they did it SO much. Okay, on to private actions. I didn't run into many of them, on my first time through, but the few I did see, I liked. When I play through again, I intend to spend more time focusing on those. It's what makes Star Ocean what it is, after all, and includes the 10 different endings that you've come to expect, based on how you choose your party and how you relate to them.

Extras: 7/10 - It's the standard fare, more dungeons open up the next time through, more bosses appear, which are, as you'd expect much more difficult than the final boss. Although I'm normally not a big on replaying games that don't offer up a New Game+ of some kind when you clear it once, the Battle Trophies do enhance things a bit. Battle Trophies are, as you might have guessed, awarded based on fulfilling different conditions in the game, and unlock a few extra features, unfortunately the best of which is at the very end (95% of 300 collected), which is the full manual mode of battling. The rest are just costume changes, mainly, and unlocking versus mode to play outside the game. There are lots of little special things to collect, like trading cards that unlock things in versus mode, items to give to inventors, etc. It's all good and gets it done, although I found the battle trophies (the main extra in my opinion) to be a bit cumbersome.

Bottom Line: I wrote a lot about this game, and there's a lot more I could have written, but I think you get the general idea. It's a good RPG, and it's pretty cheat-friendly, so if you have something like that, feel free to use it. The battles get tough, and having a little boost available will keep you from running around for hours to try and level up so you can beat a nasty boss or just make it through a dungeon (oh yeah, while I didn't mind not having a lot of slots for items (20 max of any given thing, why on earth didn't they make monsters drop more healing items? You can take a LOT of damage in a single combat, more healing would have helped a lot...). It's probably not a bad buy if you like versus mode, but it's worth renting just to see if you like the battle mechanics and the pacing of the game overall.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/10/04