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Well Worth $20

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

For the price, this game is worth every penny you'll spend.

First off, this is not a turn-based RPG. As a fan of that genre, I was skeptical of enjoying this title. It took a very little amount of time to get used to the real-time battles. Button mashing wasn't the main focus of fighting. Strategy of attack style was needed more than fast fingers. I also liked the lack of random battles - you know where the enemies are, so you can prepare yourself before the fights.

Now, the story is FAR from being the greatest in gaming history, let alone RPG history. There is a twist to the story that put me, and quite a few other gamers off. However, I enjoyed the game anyway, even if I no longer took the plot very seriously.

There were some interesting aspects to game play: moderately customizable characters, item/armor/weapon creation and customization, vast areas to explore.

My main issues with the game were this: mindless leveling in order to defeat the "bosses" of certain levels. Yes, no random battles, but a LOT of fighting had to be done in order to survive the boss fights. Sometimes, though, I found that regular enemy fights were more difficult than the bosses. Also, some side quests were so difficult to find that even with a faq/walkthru I had difficulty finding and starting them. In some levels, there is a dearth of save points when you REALLY want one, and in other levels, they're scattered all over the place without need. Some dungeons are tedious mazes - and you're relief at finally being beyond them shatters when you need to return to that area later in the game.

Don't be fooled, this is NOT a purely sci-fi game. Many levels/areas take place in backwater planets, turning the game into a medieval adventure quest. I had a lot of fun in spite of my frustration of certain aspects of the game. It took me a long time to finish, but considering that low price, I more than feel that I got my money's worth.

Get This Game Into Your Collection

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Most of the reviews on Star Ocean are very half hearted and non-linear. The more I read them, the more I saw people who probably played this game for 5 hours and gave up. It's obvious with the way they write. Here I will show you why this game is definately a showboat that could have been unbelievably great if it didn't have such miniscule problems.

You star as a 19 year old snotty nosed teenager named Fayt. He whines, doesn't like violating some OPT agreement, and you'll generally will not be able to deal with him the first half of the game. I personally would have rather been Nel or Cliff, but unlike Star Ocean: The Second Story, you don't get a choice in what character you play.

The game starts off at a snails pace. Mostly because it's so big and freebase you'll have a hard time knowing where to go. ((Hint: Buy the strategy guide, it's worth it.)) Pretty soon the story unfolds and you find yourself on a planet alone and not knowing where to go. You meet up with some future friends of yours like Cliff, a girl who looks like Sophia, Roger, and other members of Qwark. Then you find out you have special powers, and you eventually set out on a quest to find you dad.

Confused about the plot yet? So was I. If you compare this game with say any Final Fantasy game, you'll find better written scripts there. But if you compare the battle system of FF to Star Ocean, you'll wonder why FF didn't pick up on this sooner.

Battle are done in real time, and are the best part of the game. Whenever you fight, you have to make split second decision making, or else your entire party could die in 4 seconds. This makes strategy important when you fight, and what is lacking from all RPGs lately; skill.

Building up your characters isn't as important as to how you fight. If you have a level 99 character in this game you'll have all the abilities, but if you don't know how to fight, you'll still get wiped out in record time. Most people who are traditional turn-based RPG sissies may say this game is too hard, I on the other hand, loved the challenge.

Anyone who likes to craft in RPGs is going to love this game too. This game has an extensive crafting system very similar to online RPGs nowadays. Rare and extremely exlcusive items can all be made, and ultimately determine the performance of your characters when they battle.

Although Fayt starts off whiny, he eventually becomes a man and starts showing some spunk for actually having a pair. Cliff is probably the best comic relief of the game, while Nel keeps things serious. Sophia, Roger, and the teenie-bopper characters are typical Manga throwaways that I had no time for to listen to. Overall though there is extensive character development for each of the people in your party, and private actions determine whether or not you get to see their endings after the final boss.

Despite the good points of the game, there were several downpoints that many have agreed with as making this game less than phenominal.

- A horrible and sometimes boring story line. This really pissed me off the most. The story for the most part is predictable and flat out hair pulling at points. For instance, the story of Maria is about 30 minutes long, and I could already guess what was going to happen by the time their ship was going to explode.

- Odd loading times on the older fat PS2s. I hear this isn't the case for the streamlined version.

- Retarded AI settings: Sometimes the team mate charaters just stand there like hindu cows until you give them the order to attack all out.

- No adequate dodge or blocking system given. ( You have the ability to sidestep or just stand there until your fury is at 100%, but I rarely ever used the two.)

- Absolutely wretched character voices. When Fayt cries like a baby in a couple of the scenes, I turned off the voices. The game is sometimes better played without them. Nel probably had the best voice acting along with some of the NPCs she understudied.

Despite the downfalls, I would have to agree with most of the other reviewers out there and say this game is worth buying on the gameplay alone. Despite bad storyline plotting, there are some interesting moments that kept me coming back, and for the value of time you can play this game (ranging from 70 hours for the main quest, over 200+ hours for all the battle trophies if you're hardcore) this game is well worth the 20 bucks.

A lot of people who reveiw this are going to tell you this game was too hard, too complex, too boring. The choice is ultimately up to you whether you want an RPG ahead of its time that takes skill to win, or stick to turn based brainless fights. Either way, I imagine more RPGs are going to take this format with future games. I know FFXI already has, I wonder whats next?

An Alright Game but far from perfect

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: March 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So, Star Ocean is a little known RPG series whos only other game in the series to reach the states is Star Ocean: The Second Story. Till the End of Time has a pretty good if kinda lacking storyline which can get kind of confusing but you'll understand it if you stay focused. So anyway, you're a guy named Fayt Leingod who has to flee from an alien force and save his family and friends from these aliens only later realizing that he must soon journey to stop something much greater. The battle system is a nice real-time battle system which can make you or break you depending on how well you learn the basics. Later in the game you get team mates who can assist you in battle and you can also control these team mates and you can let the AI control the other 2 members in your party. However, here is where the problems come from. The AI acts very stupid at times where the AI controlled members will stop moving or start hopping backwards like some kind of strange dance and start running continuously into walls leaving you to fight the battle virtualy alone. Also if you knock one of the guys you're fighting down, you won't be able to hit them while they're on the ground leaving them enough time to get back up and start wailing on you again. Oh yeah, the guys you fight can hit you while you are on the ground which makes things kinda unfair. Another gripe I had with the battles is you have to wait like five or so seconds after you use an item before you can use another one which makes it VERY hard to heal your self quickly if everybody is about to die. And finally, the cinematics are kinda lackluster with not much moving when people are talking except their heads and their mouths which make cinematics seem long and boring. So, with a sudden and non- explanatory beginning, boring cinemas, stupid AI and battles that are unfair Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is a barely good game which seems like a waste of time once you play it for a long while. I'll say stay away and buy something else.

Ummm.. yeah

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 29
Date: February 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I just have a question... If I post questions in the reviews section of Amazon.com, am I an idiot? Anyone?

A diamond in the vast desert of RPGs

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: May 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

SO3 is an astonishing game....

THE GOOD
-Ridiculusly long (nearly 200 hours if you play the entrie postgame) yet never gets repetive.

-Unique battle system, you see enmies, and can engage in a fight with them or try to dodge them

-Invention system, very fun to try and make uber weapons and armor

-Very deep storyline, with a very nice plot twist wich you will either love or hate

- Just plain fun!

THE BAD
-too many characters, you will have to play a few times to choose a good party of 3 and stick with it

-Absurdly long cinematics (the first 3 hours are watched not played....)

-Invention system involves alot of presing X X X X X X X X (DOH i missed the right price range) X X X X X;.....

THE UGLY

-Hmm....

-Uh...

-*Crickets chirping*

Coolest RPG besides Final Fantasy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: June 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I may be only 12 years old but I played a few RPGs in my time.If you like RPGs with real time battle system then I recommend this game.

Review, Comments on Star Ocean

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have just recently bought this game because I was waiting for the price to go down, and I had just now gotten into Final Fantasy, so that has been keeping me busy. It has finally dropped down to the greatest hits list and is only $20.

The game right off the bat was beautiful. Gorgeous suroundings and enviroments, but what do you expect from a RPG made by Square Enix. EGM magazine did not like the new fighting system, so I was kind of nervous in my first battle (I always read reviews before buying games). The fighting system took only a few seconds to get into... EGM made a boo boo. Battling is so much fun, you can choose to fight enemies for the show up on the field and don't pop up unexpectedly like in most all RPG games. You can switch between characters during battles which is way cool. Storyline is good so far. The main storyline is has been summed up by Amazon. I'm on the part where you're on the medieval planet. War is on this planet and you are asked to build a ultimate weapon to end the war but your character has problems with the ideas of making a weapon to kill humans even though it will end the war(sound familiar...the atom bomb in WWII). Game Informer magazine had problems with the music; but I saw no problems with the music at all. The music fits the situation of the storyline quite well. I think Game Informer made a boo boo but it really is opinion on this matter. Characters aren't bad looking either. There has not been really good cutscenes with characters, but with space ships and things like that the cutscenes are amazing.

Anyways there are some flaws that got this game 4 stars instead of 5. The dungeons are really big and is very easy to get lost. I mean thats fine sometimes if there are plenty of save points. Alas, there is not. The save points most always come at the beginning of a dungeon and before a Boss. It can get really annoying trying to find a save point. I wanted to go to bed at 10 one night because of work and I was playing Star Ocean (I had started around six and at 10 decided to go to bed[clarification]); I was in the middle of a cave. It took me till 1 in the morning to find a save point. There are many "side" quests in the game. The game jumps around a little too much and does not stick too much with the main storyline (sort of like the Anime Inuyasha: Many extra episodes that has nothing to do with the main storyline at all.)

I do recommend this game... only to people who experience and love RPG. I don't really recommend this for RPG newbies because most people don't have the attention span to play this RPG. The game is long, no doubt (2 PS2 DVD disc... even San Andreas isn't this big) so people might not have the determination to finish the game. RPG newbies pick up any of the Final Fantasy VII-X games, if you like those then pick up Star Ocean because then you will have a the feel of a RPG.
It has been a few months since I wrote this review, but I have continued with the game. I had avoided so many enemies, that when I got to a boss, he destroyed me. I went back to level myself up, and I still got whooped by the minions. After all this, I gave up on the game. Therefore I reduce the overall fun to 3 stars because it is a very challenging game... too much of a challenge for me.
What makes a good RPG is storyline, good characers, and what I think is important: Music that fits the situation. This game definitly has them all.

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: August 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Game is just awesome, I love the graphics, the story, the format of the game, it's all just great.

Sets the bar for bare minimum

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: August 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I had heard some good things about Star Ocean and was eager to try it out. Unfortunately, this proved to be a costly mistake that drained hours of my life which could've been better suited playing a "good" game.

PRESENTATION: The game starts off average and pretty much stays there. There is a moment where the story picks up, and with it your hopes. But it too comes crashing down when the story drags its mediocre behind on for hours.

SOUND: The are some good pieces in here. The battle music is, well, average. There are one or two boss fights that sound good, but the rest are just bad. Also, be sure to use subtitles since the horrid voice-acting will cause you to plug your ears.

GRAPHICS: The game really hurts here. In cutscenes, the characters barely move, the mouths are just squares that flap up and down. It's not horrible, but nothing worth talking about.

GAMEPLAY: Every review will tell you that this is where it exceeds, and its true. That's why the fun rating is higher than the overall rating. I got into the system after a few hours, but it doesn't get better at the rate that most rpg's do.

OVERALL: This game is not absolutely horrible, it just doesn't have much going for it. The battle system alone cannot save this game. If you're new to rpg's, I'd recommend it. The real time battle system is easy for beginners to enjoy since it's more fast paced than turn-based rpg's are. But veterans beware, this is not for you. You've more than likely played an rpg must better than this.

Star Ocean til the end of time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

With the multiple choices of characters and therefore different endings,
this gives the player some control over the game story. It is a challenging
game and you will want to re-play it.

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