Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

"Prepare ship for Ludicrous Speed!"

Star Ocean 3: Til the End of Time review

Hello there. I am FightinMongoose, and this is my first review. I've been coming to this website for a long time now, although I've been using different accounts. My first one was danebond, but I lost it during the GS merge. My second one was Quantum Drive, which I had converted during the merge. Unfortunately, I acted like a jerk with that account, so I made this account. This review is my first actual submission to this site, and I hope to be a large contributor. That being said, let's get started.

Star Ocean 3 is a Japanese RPG released in the USA around Fall 2004. Since there existed a Director's Cut version of the game in Japan, which featured new playable characters, a 2-player mode, and various other extras, the publishers decided to give us that version instead of the original version. Lucky us.

What sets the Star Ocean series apart from most RPGs is that it takes place in the future, with Spaceships, Aliens, and various other sci-fi themes. From what I have seen, it seems that the setting is based partially on the Star trek universe, although to what extent, I cannot verify, as I have never seen a single episode of ST in my entire life, out of fear of becoming a Trekkie.

Story: 4/10
Star Ocean 3 begins with Fayt Leingod and his cousin Sophia vacationing on the resort planet Hyda IV when the planet is invaded by a race of aliens known as the Vendinni. Both of them make it to an evacuation shuttle, but it too, is soon attacked, forcing their escape pods to be separated. Fayt is soon picked up by a rebel organization called Quark, led by a man named Cliff Fittir. However, their ship ends up crash landing on an underdeveloped planet called Elicoor II, getting Fayt involved in a war between two feuding kingdoms.

It takes a while for the story to pick up. Most of the game is spent doing various fetch quests and rescue missions, which soon becomes very annoying. The bland voice acting and dialogue don't help either. Although there have been parts where I was really concerned about the characters, but these parts were few and far between. However, once you get to disc two, the plot starts progressing faster. However, I must warn you, Disc 2 contains a large plot twist that most players have taken a disliking to, so be warned.

Graphics: 8/10
Nothing to complain about here. Tri-Ace did a very nice job on the graphics, with everything looking like it should. The Special effects in battle are nice, although they can get a little boring after looking at them over and over. The FMVs in this game are superb, but are usually less than a minute long. It would seem as though the developers wanted to have shorter, more frequent FMVs as opposed to having fewer but longer ones.

Sound 7/10
There are some great tracks in here, but nothing too memorable. Most of the music is what you would hear in your average sci-fi game, although there are some tracks that would feel more at home in a standard fantasy RPG. (Considering that 85% of the game takes place on a typical-RPG world with swords and magic, I'd say this isn't a big deal.) Unfortunately some of the sound FX can get on your nerves at times. A prime example of this is the “Alarm” sound the developers used. Man, I have to turn the volume down in some scenes because of that sound. Ugh.

Gameplay: 8/10
There's a lot to do in this game. You obviously have you standard RPG actions, such as buying equipment, traveling to towns, and watching cut scenes. However, Tri-ace has managed to cram as much as they could into this game.

SO3 continues to retain the “Item Creation” process used in the previous two games. About 1/3 into the game, your party is granted access to various factories around the world where you can invent new items, improve equipment, etc. You can also hire certain NPCs as inventors (In fact, many items can only be obtained by having certain NPCs inventing them.). Like the real world, you'll be competing against other inventors for patents, licenses, and such. If you have the time and patience, you can buff your characters up to ridiculous extents with this system. Be warned, this process might be confusing for some players. I would know, because even though I'm almost done with the game, I still don't really know how to use this system properly.

The battles in this game are done real-time, like in Tales of Symphonia. You can use strong attacks with the O button, and weak attacks with the X button. However, you have an attribute called “Fury” which decreases every time your character makes an action. You can recover Fury by standing still. If you're standing still at full Fury, you can counter weak attacks. (But if you're hit with a strong attack, you're guard is broken and your character will be stunned for a bit.) You can also utilize skills by holding the buttons. You can have up to four skills per character: Weak Short-range, Weak Long-ranger, Strong Short-range, and Strong Long-range. Also, your other two party members are AI-controlled, but you can switch anytime by pressing the L1 and R1 buttons.

An interesting gimmick about the battle system is that you are killed if your HP OR MP reaches zero. This means you'll have to be conservative with your magic as well as avoid enemy attacks. The same thing applies to your enemies as well, so you can use that to your advantage. In fact, many enemies are much easier to kill through this method.

The game also features multiple difficulty settings: Earth (Easy), Galaxy (Normal), Universe (Hard), as well as a hidden 4th Dimension difficulty (Very Hard.). Assuming you play on Galaxy or higher, you can earn “Battle” trophies for accomplishing various feats in battle mode, such as defeating a boss within a certain time limit, making a long enough combo, etc. With enough Battle trophies, you can unlock all sorts of goodies like Alternate costumes, or extra features. However, battle trophy data must be saved in it's own file, which takes up a good portion of memory. And you can only initialize this data near the beginning of the game. Other than that, this feature adds a lot of replay value.

Difficulty: 8/10 (1 = Easy, 10= Hard)
For me, this game is a good challenge. Even on Earth difficulty, I still had trouble with many bosses. Many times while dungeon crawling I was forced to backtrack all the way to the nearest town to buy supplies. Sometimes I even had to go much further to get the better supplies. Plus, the enemies near the end are a NIGHTMARE. Although it's possible to beat the game at low levels, I would suggest leveling up a bit before every major dungeon. If you want to go for the battle trophies, be prepared for a major challenge. ESPECIALLY if you want to get all of them. Good luck defeating the final boss with your entire party at level 1! If you want a challenge, I would say Star Ocean 3 will keep you occupied for a good deal of time.

Rent or Buy?: Both
For some people, this game is a masterpiece. For others, it's just not their cup of tea. If you can find it at a rental place, I would heartily endorse a rental. A greatest hits version of this game is also available for a measly $19.99, so if you end up buying it and not liking it, your wallet won't be drained too much.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Pros
+ Lots of things to do
+ Multiple difficulty settings
+ Multiple endings
+ Depending on how you answer multiple-choice Q's, you can get different party members.
+ Innovate battle system.
+ No random battles

Cons
- Lackluster plot
- Poor AI in battle
- Rather bland dialogue

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/05