Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

"I think my expectations were set a bit too high."

This was one of the titles I was anticipating most when it came down to the PS2 release lineup. Star Ocean : The Second Story was one of my favorite games for the PS2. It sported a fun cast of characters, a well designed skill and creation system and most importantly a fantastic battle system. Naturally, I was expecting a lot of the same here. What was delivered is still a pretty decent game but it wasn't even close to what I was expecting.

The Star Ocean series was never particularly strong in this aspect. The preceding games had decent stories but were far from amazing. Well, here, the story is even worse than I expected. The characters are pretty bland and the mediocre voice acting doesn't help them in that aspect. None of the main characters stand out at all and the side characters who seem pretty interesting don't really get a lot of development essentially disappearing from the story after they join you. All in all, the story was never meant to be a deal breaker for me. What I expect from a Star Ocean game is a fun battle system so I wasn't too shocked when the story didn't really pan out. The story follows Fayt Leingod and starts off on a spaceship but soon has Fayt crashing on an underdeveloped planet where the majority of the story takes place. This is sort of a letdown as the space setting is a little more interesting than the setting of the underdeveloped planet. This planet is basically regular RPG fare with plains, deserts, forests and dungeons in between visits to towns. The dungeon and world design on this end is pretty drab and the space setting is a little more interesting. Thankfully, a bit later in the game, you do return to a few space levels but the majority of the game is set in rather poorly designed dungeons.

The twist near the end of the game is pretty pathetic and the characters never really develop into anything interesting. If you're going into this game expecting a strong story then prepare to be disappointed. Look elsewhere into other RPGs for a good story. The graphics during the story sequences are well done and although they don't really match up to the best the console has to offer, they do get the job done and are rather attractive.

Private Actions, a nice feature of the Star Ocean series return yet again giving a little bit more user input into character development. At certain predetermined points in the game, the user will come across a special scene. The outcome of this scene will affect character relationship points which in turn affect the ending you receive in the end. It's a pretty well done system but difficult to manage without following a strategy guide.

Motoi Sakuraba returns as the composer for this game. The soundtrack is decent but doesn't really compare to his work on other Enix releases like Valkyrie Profile or the earlier Star Ocean. I was never amazed by any tracks in the game and the soundtrack is simply not as memorable as the aforementioned releases. It's far from bad but I expected a little more. The problem is that a lot of the tracks sound very similar. The music is completely orchestrated which is a good thing so the sound quality is strong throughout. The voice acting is pretty weak. None of the characters stand out above the rest and most like the main character Fayt are pretty drab and boring. All in all, the presentation is very nice but the music and VA quality leaves a bit to be desired.

Gameplay is where I expected the game to shine and it somewhat delivered on this aspect. The battle system is pretty enjoyable, yet again giving the player free movement around the battle field which is very nice when compared to the more restrictive RPGs we've seen. Again, HP and MP play a role but this time running out of MP also means death for your characters. Techniques which are learned via books or when leveling up also take HP and MP each time they are used so the player must be careful to keep his HP and MP up and not overuse skills. This may seem restrictive on paper but it actually works out pretty well in battle. Early on, HP or MP deaths won't be too common but in the latter part of the game, you'll find enemies which attack both HP and MP and you'll have to be more careful in managing both.

Whereas Star Ocean : The Second Story assigned techniques to the shoulder buttons. Here, techniques are assigned to the X(Weak) and O(Strong) buttons. You can assign four techniques per character, 2 per each button(Long and Short ranges) and have a max of 15 CP to work with. Each technique costs a certain amount of CP with techniques later in the game costing up to 8CP per slot so you'll have to manage your slots as well and find a combination of techniques and skills that works well for you. A part of of Star Ocean : TSS I enjoyed was the fact that techniques gained levels with repeated use. This feature returns here with each skill having 10 levels to gain. Naturally, higher level skills deal more damage or are more effective.

Three characters participate in battle but only one is player controlled. The AI in the game is less than stellar at times especially in the latter parts of the game when the difficulty ramps up considerably. The AI could have used a little more tweaking since once you move into the higher difficulty levels, you'll find that the AI controlled characters die quite often.

All these features serve to dilute the battle system just a bit too much. What I enjoyed the most about Star Ocean : The Second Story is the rather simple and quick battle system that flowed really well. Here, there seem to be too many things going on at once. The spell and technique graphics are pretty nice but at times they're a bit too flashy and later in the game, it's difficult to see what's happening on the screen. The player also has the ability to combo cancel various moves together. What this basically boils down to is that you can string repeated moves by alternating the X and O buttons as you attack. These combos do more damage and in the end you'll find yourself using them quite a lot to defeat the bosses. Therefore, you'll be hearing and seeing the voice and animation for the spells you use over and over and over in repeated succession as you keep chaining moves over and over. By the time you reach the end of the game, bosses start having huge amounts of HP/MP so battles basically boil down to keeping them stunned via items/skills and doing cancel combos repeatedly until they die.

Dungeon designs are pretty weak. Later in the game, you'll obtain a tool that allows you to press square in dungeons and open up new areas that were once blocked by rocks or whatnot. Still, this doesn't really add much to the variety of the dungeons. They are all very similarly designed with only some variety in locations. Enemy designs are a bit better with all sorts of odd creatures and humans. However, the game uses a bit too many palette swaps so you'll be seeing the same enemy but in a different color quite a lot.

There are no random battles here and much like in Grandia or Saga Frontier, you can see all the enemies on the field screen and choose to avoid or fight them. This is nice as it keeps the amount of encounters as low or as high as you want it. You'll probably be fighting a lot at first since the battle system is quite fun in the beginning but later in the game, I sort of tired of the battle system and began avoiding them more.

The creation system returns yet again but it's in a different form this time. Upon reaching a certain point in the game, you'll gain access to workshops which will allow you to use the skills of your characters and side characters you can recruit by completing their requirements(pay them gil or bring them a specific item, etc.) to create or upgrade items. This system is sort of boring as you'll spend lots of time simply looking at boring bars move across the screen and hoping your characters fail or succeed at creating or upgrading. I wouldn't even use this system if the game didn't basically force you to do it. At a certain point in the game, the difficulty ramps up considerably. The game is terribly easy before that point and suddenly, if you lack and upgraded equipment, you'll find yourself dying a lot. Also, if you plan to play any of the other difficulties then you'll need to create items such as bombs and upgrade your equipment a lot so plan to see the creation screens a lot.

In the end, it's not as fun as Star Ocean : The Second Story. In that sense, I considered this game a failure. I must have run through TSS dozens of time while I only played through this game once and don't really plan to again. I just enjoyed the battle system more and the characters were a lot more appealing than the boring cardboard cutouts we have here. I even liked the voice acting more even though most people really disliked TSS' voice acting.

There are lots of secrets to uncover and difficult optional dungeons and bosses to conquer so a person looking for lots of playtime will not be disappointed here. It's still an enjoyable game with good graphics, decent sound and a fun battle system. Just don't expect a strong story or interesting characters here.

Recommendation: Buy even if you only play it once. The battle system is still pretty fun and it makes the game worth playing despite the weak story. There are lots of side dungeons and additional difficulties to keep you busy if you really get into the game as well.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/05, Updated 07/19/05