A compelling, expansive game that no RPG fan should miss out on.

User Rating: 8.8 | Star Ocean: Till the End of Time PS2
By Chadness | Review Date:
In the realm of RPGs, there's one name that usually stands above the rest - Square-Enix. That's a name that is attached to Star Ocean 3, so it has to be good, right? While I wouldn't suggest basing everything off of company names attached with certain titles, if you've loved the Final Fantasy series, you will love this game. This incarnation of Star Ocean follows the main character, Fayt, on a journey to discover more about himself than he ever wanted to know. It's a sci-fi epic, so naturally the setting for the various parts of this game are on planets scattered around the galaxy. You get a quick tease of the sci-fi aspect of the game in the first couple hours, before you're plunged into circumstances on a couple "underdeveloped" worlds in which the sci-fi setting of the game takes a back seat. But, overall, that sci-fi element runs throughout the whole game. From a visual perspective, the game is wonderfully designed. The characters are robust, colorful and very well animated. The different areas of the game all have their distinct look and feel. The cut scenes and FMVs are all up to par with the best from Final Fantasy. Although, granted, there aren't many FMVs in this game. They're mainly limited to the major plot points, which occur only a handful of times throughout the course of your adventure. While we're on the topic of graphics, I especially like how different each of the character's style is. Each character has their own unique dress, fighting style, personality and views on matters. This makes it a very interesting game to play, seeing the events play out in the wonderfully crafted cut scenes that really draw you into the game and make you care about these characters, who all have different views and concerns about what is going on as far as the story is concerned. Moving ahead into the realm of sound and music in the game, I think its excellent, for the most part. You have everything from upbeat scores for dungeons and the action that comes along with those, to somber piano themes for very delicate parts of the plot, to very intricate orchestral movements for many cut scenes. The voice acting is also excellent, as far as I'm concerned. The main characters especially shine. The voice talent is matched to the characters' personalities almost perfectly. Some of the secondary characters are slightly annoying (and you'll figure out who these are pretty quick), but overall, the voice acting is performed really well. If there was one thing I'd complain about here, is that sometimes the musical score drowns out the voice acting in cut scenes and I haven't figured out a way around it yet, besides to add captions to the cut scenes so I don't miss something. The battle system in the game is different from the normal, turn-based RPG fare. Its pretty much real-time battle that is really fun and complex. It won't take long for you to figure out the characters you enjoy playing with most in battle. At its most basic, the battle system consists of you controlling one character and letting the computer control the other two. In the tactical settings for your party, you can specify how hard and how often the computer-controlled characters attack - settings like, "Attack with all your might!" and "Attack in a well-balanced manner." come to mind. But, you're not stuck with just controlling a single character in battle. If the computer isn't doing something you like with one of the characters you don't currently have control of, you can switch to any of the characters in the middle of the fight and do as you wish with them. For the most part, the computer AI does a very nice job of doing what you want the characters to do in battle, although sometimes it overuses certain skills to the point of annoyance if you leave the battle voices on. As you progress through the game, you get access to the Item Creation system, as well. Making use of this system will help make your road to the end of the game much easier and it is required for some of the optional, post-game dungeons. Basically, you spend money and hire inventors to make items for you in Original Creation mode. You can patent all your items and they will eventually appear in stores all over the place to buy. There's also other modes of Item Creation where you can take factors embedded in certain items and attach those factors to your weapons or armor to beef up your attack, defense or give yourself extra stats or elemental protection. All in all, this is part of the very deep customization options this game has to offer, albeit it is a bit confusing since there are no in-game tutorials on how to go about performing each aspect of Item Creation. One last thing I will mention is that this game includes a lot of optional dungeons that can be explored during the main game and post-game. Some dungeons can't even be opened until after the main game's boss has been defeated. So, there's very high replay value to this game, as well as the satisfaction of completing some very hard optional dungeons. All in all, if you like a great story, great characters and great game design, you'll love this RPG and you won't want to stop without experiencing everything there is to do in this compelling, expansive adventure.

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