Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

"A sorry sequel to a good series."

I have always liked every single Tri-Ace game I have played. And it is with a heavy heart that I have to give this game such a bad score. I felt I had to write this review solely for the fact that I think this is one of the worst RPG's I have ever played. On to the review

Story 1/10 Worst

To me the story is the most important part of an RPG. Without a story, there is very little motivation to play the game to the end. The only reason I played this one to the end is because I thought that maybe the story would improve at some point, but sadly it never did. The story is set up very similar to SO2 (star ocean 2) where you are from an advanced civilization but get stranded on an underdeveloped planet (Elicoor II). But unlike SO2, the planet on which you get stuck on here has nothing to do with the main story line. Instead of trying to solve some kind of mystery, or trying to get off the planet, all your characters do is wait to get rescued by their friends. But in the mean time you wander around the planet and get caught up in a pointless war.

Once you leave the planet, you can completely forget everything that happened there because it was all just filler. The only problem is this 'filler' fills up 80% of the story. Many games have filler stories, but they are redeemed by character development (Tales of Eternia). But this game has none whatsoever. The main characters (Fayt, Cliff, Sophia, and Maria) are the same person from the beginning of the game, right on til the end. Expecting any character development on the villains side? You can forget about that too. All the bosses in the game are one dimensional. And you don't even see the final boss until the end, where he does nothing but try to kill you.

Once you get off the planet, the real story begins to pick up, but then stops 3 hours later because you have reached the end of the game. Some people say there is a good plot twist near the end, but I say there isn't one at all. In order for there to be a 'plot twist', you need a developed plot. The plot twist happens 1 dungeon after you find out the plot. There is no dramatic build up to this twist, and there is virtually no story after it either. Maybe if we spent a little less time killing time on Elicoor II and more time spent unraveling the mysteries of 4D space and the people that live there, the story would actually be worth seeing.

In the end it gets a 1/10 because it feels like there are two different stories in this game. Story one is set on Elicoor II, once you leave the planet, that story is done and a much shorter story comes forth and ends 4 hours later. Too bad they chose the story that is full of RPG cliches and no mysteries as the one to last 30 hours.

Control 8/10 very good

The control scheme for this game is almost perfect. The way you can set battle skills to certain buttons is very easy to learn. Fighting battles is very easy to do right from your very first one. The menu is very easy to navigate and it is always nice to see your inventory spilt up into subsections so it is much easier to find the item you are looking for. Why doesn't it get a 10/10? Because Tri-Ace decided to lock away full control over your character movements until you get 95% of battle trophies. By this time, you have played the game countless times and you are so close to the end, how much can you actually get out of this feature. It would have made much more sense to unlock it sooner so you can use it.

Gameplay 3/10 bad

Gameplay has always been a highlight of Tri-Ace games. But they made a serious blunder this time around. First off Item Creation is back from SO2. Item creation in SO2 was actually fun and I used it throughout the whole game. There were many things to create (forged medals being my favorite) and if you spent time messing around with it, you could be handsomely rewarded. This time around, I used the item creation system just once. There is one item you can make at the midway point of the game that makes every other item pointless to make (orichalium). There is no reason to make anything before this item, and only one item that you need to make after it which you can make right at the end of the game. Unlike SO2, SO3's item creation system requires that you 'twink' your character. Instead of gradually making better weapons over the course of the game, you can instead make any weapon you have be able to destroy any enemy in the game with little or no effort.

Another let down is the battle trophies. At first I thought this was a very cool idea. But in the end, it is utterly pointless to all but the most diehard fans of the game. Each time you do something unique in battle (no damage taken, defeat a certain boss in 1 minute etc...) you get one trophy. There are 300 in all. The reason I never wanted to collect them is that they do very little. You can either unlock additional character costumes or harder game modes. The problem comes from that most of the trophies cannot be acquired the first time through. So most people will unlock one character costume and one higher level difficulty their first time through the game. So now the only reason to play again is to get all the ones you couldn't get before.

It gets a 3/10 because there is no strategy in gameplay other than learn how to 'twink' your character to win the game.

Graphics: 7/10 good

For an RPG, I have never really cared that much for graphics. The graphics in this game are quite good. There are many 3D games where many people and objects look extremely blocky but that is not the case here. Character models are clear and look like actual people (well actual anime people) and the scenery is quite nice as well. The only graphical problem that arises is that in some scenes (mostly battle) things can get a little blurry and hazy. But even that isn't too big a deal.

Sound 5/10 average

My final play time was 45 hours. I don't remember a single song. This can be a good or a bad thing. While I thought there were no truly memorable songs, I also felt that the music for the most part didn't even get in the way. And this is probably the first time where I can't remember what the battle music sounds like. This is probably due to the characters yelling and clashing swords during battle. The battle music is in the background where it should be.

My one complaint about the music is the fact that you can't turn it down. Many games allow you to adjust the voice/music/sound effects to your liking. This game doesn't and a problem sometimes arises when a character speaks, but you have trouble hearing them because the music is playing louder than the character. Since there is text too, this isn't too bad, but it can get annoying.

Replay Value 10/10 Diehard fans 3/10 everyone else

For people who really like this game, they will replay it many times just so they can say they got 300/300 battle trophies. They will say that this is a very strategic game and that it is a serious challenge to defeat enemies on higher difficulty settings. I just don't see that, as far as I was concerned, making a weapon and armor so that all attacks done to you do zero damage while you do ungodly damage doesn't qualify as strategy. And that is how the replay value of this game boils down to. If you want to be a completest, you will have to play the game more than once and 'twink' your character while making a few stun bombs.

For everyone else, I really don't see the point in playing the game on a higher difficulty setting because it adds nothing new in the way of story elements, skills, weapons, armor. Some times I would play a game again just to dissect the story and try to understand it since I already know the ending. Here you don't have to do that because 80% of the story doesn't contain one mystery to think about. All it is is a series of events that you have to work through until you get to the real story.

Overall 3/10 Bad

As a fan of SO2, I was really disappointed in this game. The characters in this game were among the most boring I have ever seen. The story, while trying to be grand and far reaching, fails miserably. And the strategy that a battle system like this is supposed to have is nullified due to the fact that you can 'twink' your character. I am sorry to say this is the first Tri-Ace game that I have played that I can not recommend to anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/05