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You'll be playing Till the End of Time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 169 / 177
Date: September 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Star Ocean is finally here, the game that we've been waiting for and an RPG that sparks a lot of interest in ways unimaginable. Surprisingly enough, the game is fairly addictive with the themes of a good RPG right off the bat, a good story, loveable characters and a grand battle system.

Star Ocean is a more science fiction like RPG. To put it simple, if you like RPGs and Star Trek, I don't need to tell you to get this game, chances are you'll already have it.

Star Ocean begins with Fayt, a boy staying at a hotel resort with his parents and childhood friend Sophia. Everything is going nice and well until the resort is suddenly attacked by starships. Fayt and company end up having to evacuate the resort but ultimately Fayt is separated from those he loves. Now he is stranded on an unknown planet to fend for himself and find his friends. It starts off nice and simple but as the game goes on the story developes more and becomes a bit more complex than it sounds.

Star Ocean is a little different from the traditional RPG. It eliminates random battles and instead you can see all the enemies running around on the field. Each time you touch an enemy you initiate combat and this is where Star Ocean is the most interesting. The other interesting tid-bit is that its all real time battle, and free roaming. When in battle you can run around as one of three characters freely either dodging attacks or blocking them. This makes the game more fun than it actually sounds.

In battle, each character has a "Fury" gauge. When at 100% the character can attack swiftly without fail, and block certain attacks. The more "fury" you have the more success you'll have in combat. If your characters fury guage reaches 0 then they can't attack. Luckily, the fury gauge fills up very fast when you stand still. You're also not limited to just one character. You can switch from one character to another any time you wish.

Each character also gets "Symbology" which is Star Ocean's form of magic. The magic is diverse in terms of how much there is and what they do (stun enemies, deal wide areas of damage etc.). Some skills cost more than others but its an RPG I'm sure you knew this.

Battles are fun but the game is a challenge. Especially bosses which can be unforgiving at times. It's easy to pick up the battle system, but it could take a moment to master. Dungeons are also overly populated with enemies. This wouldn't be so bad if the dungeons weren't so big, and if the number of items you could carry weren't so limited.

Star Ocean also has an "inventors" system. Each character, playable and non-playable, create inventions based on what they're best at. Some characters are best at cooking and make several different foods. Others are good at smithing and create useful weapons. When an item is "invented" it becomes available to buy. Some characters will create some pretty useless things but it makes the game bigger.

Star Ocean also features a system in which the characters have a hidden attribute as to how much they like you. Depending on the decisions you make will alter what the characters think of you and will also give you a different ending.

The game looks beautiful. Not quite as good looking as previous PS2 games before it, but those who liked the look and feel of Xenosaga will feel right at home. The games graphics look a little anime style with the big eyes and the multitudes of hair. The game is simply gorgeous.

The game also sounds really good. The voice acting is top-notch for a video game and the character voices go along quite well at times. The overall music isn't bad but takes a while to get used to. Not quite as deep as other games but it suits the situation just fine.

The game has A LOT of dialogue and the cutscenes are long but luckily you can skim though most of it without having to listen to each character word for word. If you read faster than the characters actually speak you might want to just turn off the talking all together. You can also skip cutscenes, but at least the game isn't as drowned out in dialogue as several other games out there (Xenosaga anyone?).

Star Ocean is a pretty good game overall. It has a few small problems but as far as games go, it stand above many out there. If you're an avid RPGer you might want to get this game and try it out.

The Good
+Beautiful Graphics
+Voices are pretty well done
+Battling is more interactive and fun
+Good music
+Good storyline
+The game will keep you busy for a while

The Bad
-Dungeons are ridiculously huge
-A lot of talking, making the story pace a little slow
-Most of the gameplay is spent leveling up your characters as opposed to actually advancing the storyline

It's going to be really good

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 34 / 36
Date: February 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I, being lucky enough to live a scant 45 minutes by public transport from Den-den Town in Osaka, did go to the Star Ocean III exhibition in front of the Sofmap. The demos had a selection screen at the start - skip cut scenes, mono/stereo sound, the infamous difficulty levels (Earth, Galaxy, and Universe), and about three other selections - curiously enough ALL listed in English with Japanese explanations down in the lower right. Good to see that the folks at Tri-Ace were thinking ahead for the English release.

The demo starts out with the main character, Fate, talking with his friend Sophia inside a seaside resort hotel. When they're done talking, you get to go out into the main lobby and explore the main hotel area. I, not knowing where specifically I was supposed to go, went downstairs to the beach, ran into Fate's parents at the beach, then went back inside. Souffle, the cutesy gypsy child, had an equally cute voice, yet blessedly not too terribly annoying. Shades of an early Private Action ensued. After she cheerfully signed the bottom of Fate's shirt with her name and picture (to which Fate freaked about, since Souffle signed on the BACK of his shirt) and was convinced that Fate and Souffle weren't thieves or stalkers, she gave them free tickets to her troupe's show.

After that, you go into the game rooms for battle simulation practice. The tutorial is beautifully done, and my only regret was that I had to skip through it in order to cram in as much playtime as possible. It was just as well - anyone who's played Star Ocean II will pick up on the commands supremely quickly. Circle does a regular attack - X seems to do a bonus attack of some sort, R allows you to switch between Fate and Sophia. Sophia's physical attack power, incidentally, is totally non-existent (she's the stereotypical obligatory healing magikul girl), so I stuck with Fate while fighting.

The upper right corner of the screen had an incredibly handy map - blue spots were your controlled characters, red spots were the enemies (or vice versa - can't remember which right off hand), so even if you can't see one of your allies, you know if they are getting swarmed. The Heat-up bar did SOMETHING, but heaven knows I couldn't read what fast enough. It broke during one of my tutorial fights, sooo...For the battle system, the familiar ring menus, activated by the Triangle button, have been replaced by a cycling list of options - Escape, Heraldry, Item, Tactics, and two others which I can't recall at the moment because they weren't actually available.

So, in summation:

- I'm still clueless about the Heat Up and Guts gauges. Fate's Guts meter always seemed to be stuck below 10% when I was whacking stuff with him.
- Sophia. 120 HP (250 MP, as an aside) Fate, in contrast, had 350 HP, 90 MP. Yeah.
- The graphics rock, especially with the 3D environments and the cut-scenes. The game will also suppot progressive-scan (480p)for a super shap display.
- The voice acting and music also rock and supports Pro-LogicII sound.
- The story looks like it will rock (I'm not sure, because I couldn't read it since I was 1) under time constraints, 2) the guys ahead of me in line just blipped through the dialogue, and 3) I read really slowly in Japanese.)
- The battle system REALLY rocks.
- Seems pretty importer-friendly for English-speakers with the placement of what English is there in the game. Woohoo, I can't wait!

You'll be playing Till the End of Time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: September 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Star Ocean is finally here, the game that we've been waiting for and an RPG that sparks a lot of interest in ways unimaginable. Surprisingly enough, the game is fairly addictive with the themes of a good RPG right off the bat, a good story, loveable characters and a grand battle system.

Star Ocean is a more science fiction like RPG. To put it simple, if you like RPGs and Star Trek, I don't need to tell you to get this game, chances are you'll already have it.

Star Ocean begins with Fayt, a boy staying at a hotel resort with his parents and childhood friend Sophia. Everything is going nice and well until the resort is suddenly attacked by starships piloted by the evil force known as the Vendeeni. Fayt and company end up having to evacuate the resort but ultimately Fayt is separated from his parents and childhood friend. Now he is stranded on an unknown planet to fend for himself and find his friends. It starts off nice and simple but as the game goes on the story developes more and becomes a bit more complex than it sounds.

Star Ocean is a little different from the traditional RPG. It eliminates random battles and instead you can see all the enemies running around on the field. Each time you touch an enemy you initiate combat and this is where Star Ocean is the most interesting. The other interesting tid-bit is that its all real time battle, and free roaming. When in battle you can run around as one of three characters freely either doding attacks or blocking them. This makes the game more fun than it actually sounds.

In battle, each character has a "Fury" gauge. When at 100% the character can attack swiftly without fail, and block certain attacks. The more "fury" you have the more success you'll have in combat. If your characters fury guage reaches 0 then they don't act and instead droop over. Luckily, the fury gauge fills up INCREDIBLY fast when you stand still (its literally only one second out of the battle).

In Battle there are three characters but you can only control one at a time. You can switch between them as well. Each battle plays out with a set of strong or weak attacks set to the circle and X buttons. Weak attacks can be used almost instantly while the stronger ones take more time to charge. You can also see if an enemy is charging up an attack, which will give you time to back away.

Each character also gets "Symbology" which is Star Ocean's form of magic. The magic is diverse in terms of how much there is and what they do (stun enemies, deal wide areas of damage etc.). Some skills cost more than others but its an RPG I'm sure you knew this.

But even battles in Star Ocean Till the End of Time have their drawbacks. Battles pace incredibly fast and if you let your guard down for even the slightest moment things could go awry, especially as you get further into the game. The game apparently wants you to battle a lot as well, some bosses are no cakewalk. So even though it is possible to go through an entire dungeon without touching an enemy, its obvious you're supposed to battle everything.

Dungeons are also incredibly huge! This is great for exploration but they're also populated with TONS of enemies, and because the boss at the end of a dungeon is hard the game insists that you fight them. This wouldn't be such a problem if the game allowed you to carry more than 20 of each item. You use up healing items rather fast at times and often I found myself leaving a dungeon to buy more items and then rushing back in fighting more hordes of enemies. It is a long game but as you can imagine most of its lentgh will come from leveling up. But as you get further into the game there are more and more items to heal you and it is relatively easy to dodge enemies should you have to (and probably will) backtrack.

Star Ocean also has an "inventors" system. Each character, playable and non-playable, create inventions based on what they're best at. Some characters are best at cooking and make several different foods. Others are good at smithing and create useful weapons. When an item is "invented" it becomes availible to buy. Some characters will create some pretty useless things but it makes the game bigger.

Star Ocean also features a system in which the characters have a hidden attribute as to how much they like you. Depending on the decisions you make will alter what the characters think of you and will also give you a different ending.

The North American Director's Cut Version also has some pretty nifty features. The North American Version is 2 Disks long full of extra cutscenes and cinemas as well as two additional playable characters. The North American version also has an unlockable versus mode and less bugs than the original japanese version.

The game looks beautiful. Not quite as good looking as previous PS2 games before it, but those who liked the look and feel of Xenosaga will feel right at home. The games graphics look a little anime style with the big eyes and the multitudes of hair. The game is simply gorgeous.

The game also sounds really good. The voice acting is top-notch for a video game and the character voices go along quite well at times. The overall music isn't bad but takes a while to get used to. Not quite as deep as other games but it suits the situation just fine.

The game has A LOT of dialogue and the cutscenes are long but luckily you can skim though most of it without having to listen to each character word for word. If you read faster than the characters actually speak you might want to just turn off the talking all together. You can also skip cutscenes, but at least the game isn't as drowned out in dialogue as several other games out there (Xenosaga anyone?).

Star Ocean is a pretty good game overall. It has a few small problems but as far as games go, it stand above many out there. If you're an avid RPGer you might want to get this game and try it out.

The Good
+Beautiful Graphics
+Voices are pretty well done
+Battling is more interactive and fun
+Good music
+Good storyline
+The game will keep you busy for a while

The Bad
-Dungeons are ridiculously huge
-A lot of talking, making the story pace a little slow
-Most of the gameplay is spent leveling up your characters as opposed to actually advancing the storyline

Tri-ace cooks up another excellent game...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: February 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I am so tired of how people think Square-Enix made this game - NO! Square-Enix did not make this game, they only presented it and slapped their logo on it (which isn't a bad thing, as Square is awesome), but give credit where it's due people! Okay, my rant is over, I'll begin the review.

Being a fan of Star Ocean: The Second Story that I am, the debut of Star Ocean 3 is the one of the reasons I finally broke down and brought a PSX2, even if the hardware is the weakest of all the systems, both in in power and durabilty.

On the positive side, Star Ocean 3 improves on its predecessor in many ways. Unlike Star Ocean 2, everything is now 3D (could you imagine if Star Ocean 2 was fully 3D on the PSX, the PSX would probably burst into flames trying to play it!) While the graphics are good, they never quite reach the level of other RPG's such as Xenosaga or Final Fantasy (there are some obviously cut corners). This, however, is understandable as combat is much more chaotic, being there is much more going on on-screen at any given time in Star Ocean than either of the afformentioned titles. The fact their is no slowdown during battles is also a testiment to the game overall (the same can't be said for the rest of the game however).

Combat has always been Star Ocean's claim to fame, and this installment delivers in spades. While combat was extremely fun in Star Ocean 2, it was rather simplistic in nature as it mainly consisted of pushing buttons to preform special attacks to maul your opponent. Star Ocean 3 adds an entirely new layer the combat system with the addition of a fury meter (which is a fancy word for a characters' or enemy's stamina). No longer can you attack rerentlessly without pausing for a short break for your character to catch their breath. Fury also acts a blocking and counterattack measure as well, forcing players to use their heads instead of mashing buttons.

Item creation, Star Ocean's other claim to fame, has also recieved another impressive upgrade, now allowing you to customize your weapons and armor with various effects and factors. You can also hire people to create items for you while your exploring dungeons and the like.

Unfortunately, as far as Star Ocean 3 climbs, their are a few things that hold it back. The fact you can only use three characters in battle (compared to four in Star Ocean 2) is a bit of a letdown. Overall the game itself it pretty easy (the story portion of the game that is - say your prayers for some of the optional areas within the game).

Star Ocean 3's story is probably the game's biggest stumbling block. It's not the story is not good (although it is slow to develop, just like in Star Ocean 2), but it's this element of the game that will ultimately end up being the deciding factor if players will enjoy Star Ocean 3 or not (I know it was for me - I liked the story and it's various twists, but then at the same time I didn't ~ talk about an enigma!).

I definately would recommend Star Ocean 3 to any RPG fan, especially since there wasn't a new Final Fantasy title in 2004, but again, this game is not for everyone.

Typical and Stereotypical

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 49 / 81
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge fan of RPGs. I grew up playing all different kinds, from Final Fantasy to Fallout, and I'm still always on the lookout for gems. When I heard this was coming out I got my hands on its two prequels (for the Super NES/Famicom and PS1) and tried them out. I never finished either one. Like this latest installment, both were tired and unoriginal, with a far greater emphasis on fantasy than science fiction, despite being set in the supposed "real world".
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time will take most players an exceedingly long time to complete- not because of its difficulty or size, but because of its immensely long cutscenes. This style of game-making is not necessarily a bad thing, but because of the large number of hours the player will spend watching and listening to the action, much of this review will treat it as much like a film as like a game.

First, the game features-
1. Battle:
Like its predecessors, this Star Ocean has a relatively active battle system among the pantheon of RPGs. Players can switch between characters and move them freely and in real-time around the field. The action pauses when a menu is opened, such as for using items or casting magic ("symbology" in the game-world). Three characters can take the field at a time, so the two not directly controlled by the player are automated. I found the AI to be fairly decent, and a certain amount of control can be given through strategy settings in the menu before entering a battle. In fact, this combat system was rather refreshing and different, though veterans of the series will find it familiar. However, there were two very serious problems. One is the absence of any direct camera control. Pans and rotation would be unnecessary provided the player could zoom in and out at will. When the player-controlled character nears an enemy, however, the shot zooms in, cutting off any view of the rest of the field. Even camera control would have been unnecessary if the shot had simply stayed wide and overhead at all times. The second problem is the unintuitive method for switching targets. The player cannot simply cycle through the enemies by pressing the shoulder buttons- s/he instead uses square, a button most games assign to commands, which also means the cycle only goes in one direction. It may sound unimportant, but when many enemies are attacking at once, in can make a big difference.
2. Exploration:
Once upon a time, RPGs were a series of endless, repetetive battles with a few lines of story sprinkled around at distant intervals to try and keep the players' interest. In the past few generations of consoles this trend fortunately came to an end, and most games now have players spending nearly as much time in the cities (or other friendly areas) as in the field, furthering the story or completing non-combat quests. I think this has been a move in the right direction, and Star Ocean is no exception to the trend. The game progresses rather linearly most of the time, without the kind of world map players of Star Ocean: The Second Story (and most other RPGs) might be familiar with. Towns have people to talk to, treasures to find, and occasional side-quests to complete.
3. Difficulty:
The game is somewhat difficult by modern standards. What I mean by this is that a player may actually die once or twice during the course of the game due to carelessness or absent-mindedness. (Think "Destiny of an Emperor"-difficult, not "7th Saga"-difficult). In most of today's RPGs, the player really has to go out of their way to get killed. I found the difficulty balance here to be about right. Some leveling up will probably be required, but not so much that it should turn you off from playing. I want a small challenge, but I also want to make consistent, steady progress. Star Ocean hits the mark on that count.

Now, the movie/story features-
1. Script:
Here's where the problems begin. The script is weak. In fact, it's one of the weakest scripts I've ever read or heard. First of all, it's hokey and stereotypical, even for a Japanese RPG. (The main character's name is FAYT LEINGOD- it always makes me roll my eyes whenever I hear it). The heroine, Sophia, is a typical Japanese anime girl: gushy, cloying, dinner-plate-eyed, and with the maturity of an 8-year-old. She's supposed to be cute, but I found her even more annoying than the whiny and overly-sensitive, pussy-footing Fayt. The rest of the cast isn't much better. As usual, the future of the universe rests on goofy characters like these, plus some even worse (like the 4-foot-tall ultra-cutesy circus performer Peppita, for example). Is it too much to ask that the heroes not always be children who act young even for their ages? Is Square trying to send a message with their perpetual sixteen- and seventeen-year-old heroes that anyone over 25 should just move into a nursing home?
Unfortunately, this is true of many RPGs (and most of those from Japan). What sinks this one to the bottom of the story-telling barrel, however, is the sheer tonnage of wasted time. Many games have lots of long cutscenes. Sometimes the player spends more time watching them than playing. This can be done well. Xenosaga: Episode I is a good example. This can also be done poorly. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is the epitome of the second category. I lost track of how many times the characters sat around talking about nothing or debating their options over and over and over again, usually in the least appropriate circumstances, without putting forth any new information or advancing the story in any way. Any editor or professional writer knows that, much like pieces of a machine, every part of a story or script must have a purpose in the greater picture. One example, without giving away much of the plot, occurs near the beginning of the game. Cliff and Fayt are stuck in a prison cell. They talk about what has happened so far, not adding any new insight. Then they talk about how they're stuck. Then, when someone comes to help them, they talk about whether to accept or not, going back and forth at least half a dozen times. All this takes close to 20 minutes in cutscenes, and is framed by quite a few more on both sides. We (the audience) have learned nothing new about the characters, their world, or our own when it's finished. This kind of conversation may be realistic, but it's not interesting, and it's bad writing.
2. Direction:
This has problems beyond the ones mentioned above, but most modern RPGs suffer from the same ones. There are a lot of unnatural pauses in the dialogue that are not the fault of the voice actors. For reasons I will never understand, many games, including Star Ocean, record the characters' dialogue one line at a time, then splice them all together. This means there's loading time between each line, so interruptions sound unnatural and reaction lines fall flat. (Again, for an example of the right way to record dialogue- all at once or in appropriately-divided chunks, as in a film- look at Xenosaga: Episode I).
3. Character & Location Design:
This is merely a matter of taste, but I didn't like the universe of Star Ocean. It was too close to Star Trek, only with 'magic' thrown in. Humanity lives alongside countless alien species, almost all of which look as much like humans as Mr. Spock, have cultures barely distinguishable from our own, and are progressing along the same lines. At least the writers didn't have the aliens all speaking English (the characters in the game carry portable translators to avoid problems).
Also, for a space opera the story spent a disturbingly large amount of time in Dungeons & Dragons-esque locations, dealing with knights and monsters.
Finally, I'm sick of fan-service. It (and inappropriate comic relief) is the main reason I can't stand anime, and it's becoming a deterrent to my enjoyment of console RPGs as well. Frankly, the female characters don't need to be beautiful or sexy at all. Even if they are, they (and the men, as well) should dress appropriately. This means not exposing shoulders and bellies in arctic weather, or wearing skirts that would get them arrested in Times Square. Sophia even starts the game in low-rider jeans, then neglects to even zip up the fly. Though she's supposed to be 17, when she looks and acts 8, this is a little disturbing. If game designers want to be taken seriously as artists (and most do want to and should be) then this kind of design has got to come to an end. (Plus, I doubt people will still be wearing blue-jeans thousands of years into the future).
4. Acting:
I'd heard bad things about the acting before I bought this game, but I found it to be decent, if not exactly Oscar-worthy. Certainly, it was better than average for a re-dubbed videogame, though Sophia's voice made me want to strangle her. The voices generally fit the characters, and the actors remained true to their roles throughout the game.

Ultimately, the story fell flat for me mostly because I couldn't empathize with the characters. I didn't like them, couldn't understand their decisions or motivations for those decisions, and found their constant, meaningless exposition annoying beyond what I wanted to put up with from a so-called 'game'. In some cases I could have overlooked these negative aspects in the script and story and enjoyed the generally entertaining combat system for what it was, but Star Ocean is 90% dialogue. Unfortunately, less than 10% of THAT is STORY.

PS: For those of you who find my assessment of the dialogue in this game hard to believe, some kind, and possibly insane, individual over at GameFAQs has taken the time to transcribe every spoken line of Star Ocean for your enjoyment.

Novel and Interesting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 27
Date: November 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I know I'm becoming jaded when I play a game like 'Till the End of Time,' and come away thinking that, with just a few changes, it would be a really great game. This feeling has more to do the level of competition at high end of the RPG market than it does with any real lack in the latest in the Star Ocean series. The truth is that this really is a great game, but has just a few flaws.

The story finds us at Hyda, a resort planet, with teenagers Fayt Leingod and Sophia Esteed. In short order the station comes under alien attack, the couple flee, and after a series of misadventures are separated. The story continues to follow Fayt he is 'rescued' by anti-federation forces (I'm not going to try to explain all the politics) and finally crashes on Elicoor II, a world about Victorian level technology and a reliance on powers that a partly magical and partly science. Fayt, and his new friend Cliff Fitter become embroiled in the conflicts of Elicoor II. At each stage the solution to one problem leads to the discovery of one even more complicated, until Fayt and a collection of friends are struggling to save the universe.

This is a complex plot, and the settings of the story (Elicoor and elsewhere) provide countless options for development and support many styles of gameplay. I found the battle system a bit awkward - you fight using a selected group of up to three people. You can switch among the people, or set them on automatic and pick an overall style for each. This can take a bit of getting used to. You can also learn skills, buy, invent or find weapons and other materials. In fact, an entire sub-game is devoted to an inventors competition were you take your invention to an agent who evaluates it, creates a marketing plan, and ranks both Fayt and npc inventors. Thus character development is an intense task.

Artwork for the game is good, with believable animation. Not enough different monsters, though, so fighting can get a bit repetitious. The CG scenes are excellent as well. Dialog gets a bit thin in spots, with each character having a very short list of victory exclamations. Somewhere about the 1,000th battle you will be ready to strangle on or another character. It is interesting how Fayt grows from being a whiney teenager and apprentice prig into a young man who is willing to take full responsibility for his part in things.

This has been a sparse year for fantasy RPG's. This game and Shadow Hearts 2 are the both best of the crop and nearly the only entries for the PS2. If you are a fan of the genre you will enjoy this game a great deal, with its interesting and unique approach. Like all RPG's there is plenty of violence, but there is also a refreshing lack of rude language and overt sexuality. Recommended.

I'm glad I tried this one

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: November 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Starting up the game of Star Ocean, the first look of it did not get me very interested. Big-eyed cutesy characters wandering around a leisure complex with nothing really happening. But, many hours later, how far away that opening all seems. Now they are battling to save not only themselves and their loved ones, but the entire existence of their world! Yes, I know, that old cliche. But did it improve after that opening? Oh yes.

Star Ocean is a complex game to say the least. Lets start with the battle system. Traditional RPG players may not be that keen to hear that battles are in real-time, with a team of three fighters, only one of which at a time is player controlled. Sounds a bit tame? Far from it. The first introduction to fighting is done via a simulator that the main characters use in a holiday resort. You only get one practise go, and I got soundly thrashed. What the hell was going on? The battle was non stop action, everyone dashing around doing their own thing at once, damage counters pinging all over the screen...and then I was dead. Luckily things get a LOT easier once you are stranded outside on your own, with some very simple fights to ease you into the system. Initailly I though "Where's the fun in sharing the battle with 2 computor controlled allies?" But I was wrong, After playing for a while, I gradually started switching between all three, just to see what I could make them do, and to see if my judgement was better than whatever the AI was making them do. And it's there that the fun starts. The battle action is highly customizable. Every aspect of the AI is pre-set by you, and switching characters can be done in a second, any time you see a comrade in a jam, or if you know they have an awesome skill that would be handy to use just about...now. The battles do look insanely frantic on screen, but luckily for those who need time to think mid-fight, lots of important choices cause the action to freeze while you pick from the menu of character swapping, magic casting, even down to items currently equipped and AI settings. There are several skills per character, and you have the option of setting your favourite four at any one time to short cut buttons...so if you are well prepared, you can just run in and start dishing out your favourite moves, no stopping. As characters level up, you'll swap continually to see what their new tricks look like in practise.

So, battles - bewildering at first, but soon sorted. And they really look great. You can run all over the place at will (the battle arenas can be huge), cast spells that fill the screen with special effects, or make your characters leap all over the place as they deliver great long chains of hits. Wait till you learn "Explosion" or "Stone Rain"...the on-screen chaos will make your eyes reel!
What else...The story? It's fine by me. Every cliche is here, though. The confused hero with a power he doesn't understand, the childhood female friend who is frail but weilds the strongest healing and magic skills, the warring oppressors who turn out to be allies when an even greater evil reveals itself...it's all familiar ground. But the playable charcters are well developed in this game, and you'll certainly have your favourites. The excellent voice acting makes them come alive, and there's lots of it, which pays off. There are sidequests as you'd expect, with some optional dungeons and "errand running" type tasks. There's also the standard "entertainment" venue where you can engage in racing (bunnies!), play a chess-style tournament and take part in a fighting arena. But the major addition to gameplay is item invention, which I found to be very confusing. Inventions cannot be made to order, as the process requires that you experiment with mixing several factors and seeing what the result is. This takes a lot of time and patience - or of course referring to a guide, and even then you still need a certain amount of luck. I dabbled a bit with it, but it will take dedicated completists to get the most out of this side project. Of course the rewards for your hard work are some of the most powerful items in the game, so it's only fair I suppose.

I heartily recommend this game to RPG fans. Even though the story is somewhat predictable it delivers a surprising twist on where the ultimate threat actually comes from. My lips are sealed...it's a great plot revelation that I'm not going to spoil here. The amount of playtime depends on you - enemies in dungeons are always visible on screen, and can be avoided at will or encountered many times over (most areas re-spawn monsters if you exit) if you want to gain levels. The game graphics look pretty good throughout, monsters are well designed, and there is a good in game map that gets filled in as you explore an area - with a bonus for visiting 100% of the area. Camera view can be rotated at will, so it's your fault if you run into a nasty surprise. And some of the battles are hard...this game is no pushover. Some of the dungeons have save points that are very far apart, and the dungeons can be massive. But don't worry, you'll want to finish it - all two discs worth. Good fun and lots to do make this one a winner.

If theres anything I've learned in the past 12 years of gaming...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: November 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's this:
RPG's and reviewers don't get along. By about this time you've probably read most of the 1 and 2 star reviews on this game and are probably thinking "hey! this game must really suck! these guys said so!" - well, think again. RPG's are a funny thing - because there's really no set formula for rating an RPG (or any game if you wanna get technical). It's completely based on user-expierence. Like for instance: People complain that Star Oceans battle expierence is too "complicated", "hard" and "uneven" - Quite the contrary. I found it to be an absolute blast. It made perfect sense, and was not hard at all. Are the enemies to tough? Well, get tripple EXP battle bonus, spend 20 min destroying enemies, and level up! Oh hay... now the enemies are really easy and its fun! Gee, that made sense. Does this enemy use status effects? Oh! Use an item to cure it...hey, I won the battle. Makes sense. Is this boss destroying me? How come? Why, its because he does more MP damage then HP... okay, just make sure to use MP healing items - tada! I win. Piece of cake.

Honestly - I'm absolutely baffled that so many people are complaining about the battle difficulty - or the computer controlled AI (come on, it's not THAT bad... ive seen much much worst *cough* Diakatana anyone?). Have these so called "RPG players" forgotten how RPG's are played?! If you suddenly run into hard enemies - You go back to the previous "land" and level up. Problem solved. Now you move on with the game. This is how its always been and it has never changed. I think the main complaint here about SO3 is that it happens very early in the game - not later on in the game; like most RPGs (like the Final Fantasy series, where all the *real* battles happen towards the end of the game). So the game is a little harder from the get go. Big deal? You accept the challenge, patiently go through with it and wait for the moment when the game allows you to battle endlessly throughout the land's and gain massive EXP and level up like crazy. Now you're in complete control of the enemies and the game is much easier.

So you didn't like the storyline, or characters, or art, etc. So what... those are all opinions. Just like this review. I actually thought the storyline was decent. Nothing mind blowing, but at the same time, nothing horribally uninspired like some reviewers here are trying to paint it out to be. Yes, the characters are cliched and flat - but guess what... FFVII was the same way. Cloud was a moron, Tifa was a big-breasted brunette, Sephiroth was the typical psuedo-goth enemy guy, and Aries was the gentle pretty girl that every japanesse made RPG has - and Barret just yelled alot of non-sense. But a lot of people consider them to be "awesome" and "inspiring" characters. Go figure. There all cliched from past games/movies. Theres no point smash-talking a game because of "originality" - it's practically impossible to find any kind of originality nowadays since everything is borrowed from previous work and ideas. It's the same substance, just wrapped differently.

With that all said - I actually forgot what point I was trying to make (if any). Basically; it boils down to the old "don't judge a book by its cover" quote. It's the same for games -'specially RPG's. If your an RPG fan and is looking for a "filler" game until the next cliched-ridden FF game comes out - then try this one. I promise you it won't hurt you to ignore all the negative crapola that people say about this game and just give it a try. Take the game for what it is, and its a pretty decent one to add to the list.

Fun future based RPG

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 24
Date: September 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In Star Ocean, you're a 19 year old guy caught up in a battle on a distant planet. You try to get back to your family and friends, and sort out what is going on.

The RPG is very much like Final Fantasy set in a Star Trek universe. In fact they even have the code of non-interference - if a planet is a low-tech planet, you cannot interfere with its development by handing technology to it. Of course this becomes a main plot point.

You can have 3 characters in your party at a time, as you wander around towns and dungeons, watching the snow fall or rain streak. The graphics are quite nice, from the medieval style towns to futuristic spaceships. Lighting effects add to the realism. Even the menus are easy to read and navigate.

On the other hand, half of the females wear clothes intended to show off their skin - even when it's snowing out. Can't there be an RPG with women in NORMAL clothing?

Like all RPGs you spend time creating new items, building up characters and battling to gain experience. The combat is real time which is great for people with good reflexes but can be tough on those who would rather strategize and think through what they are doing.

The music ranges from great to iffy. Sometimes it gives a moody feeling - and sometimes it is completely inappropriate.

If you're an RPGer looking for more of a futuristic environment, give this one a try!

Frustrating on too many levels

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 23
Date: September 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It is a rare event indeed when I manage to play halfway through a game (20+ hrs) and then have to quit because of the overpowering desire to destroy my PS2, the controller, and my entire living room furniture setup out of sheer rage and frustration. I say rare, because most trash games are lucky to get a few hours out of me before they get flushed down the toilet. I'll admit, reluctantly, that I tolerated the first part of the game. So when did the honeymoon end? Wow, where do I begin?

-Story. To put it simply: it's dull. Aside from the initial medieval planet you start on, the rest of game failed to provide any form of intriguing plot. Once the giant SPACESHIP OF DOOM appeared and starting blasting things with laser beams, I yawned and lost interest. Most of the story is cliched, and that which is not tailors mostly to the Star Trek crowd (of which I am not a fan).

-Characters. The characters you control are lame and annoying, with Fayt being the worst offender by far. "Gee Cliff, I don't see why we can't just give that big dragon a big sloppy kiss and huggity hug so that we can all just live in glorious peace and harmony. Do we have to kill it?" Never mind the fact that you just polished off 5,000 of his brothers and sisters in that cave you just trekked through, Fayt you moron. The other characters aren't as bad personality-wise, but they're just as verbose. Yada yada yada. Be quiet.

-Dialogue. Mind-numbing. Like someone else said in their review, most of this game is dialogue and cut-scenes. You know, if a company is going to make this much of a game dialogue, then why not make it any good? God, I just wanted the characters to shut up already and go eat an blueberry or something. You're not philosophers, you're monster hitmen. Go do your job. Suffice it to say, this part of the game probably accounted for 15 of the 25 hrs I put into the game before ending the trauma altogether. Too much talking about a boring story and not enough action.

-Battles. By far, the most irritating part of this game. Granted, it was unique for a few hours, but it quickly got old and stale. Why? For several reasons. 1) Enemy difficult is woefully inconsistent. You'll be blazing through one dungeon, killing enemies in 3-4 hits, and then in the very next dungeon, enemies take 50 hits before they die. I remember spending 2 hours in one area, raising mad levels with my Triple EXP bonus gauge activated, only to walk into the next dungeon and have the first group of enemies use me for toilet paper! WTF?! Bosses are the same way: ridiculously easy in one battle, and near impossible in the next (without at least 10 attempts). 2)Enemies use a paralysis counteract if you hit them when their fury is full. This wouldn't be a problem if enemy Fury actually DROPPED when they attacked like your players' do. I'll be lucky to get in one hit before CLANG NOW YOU'RE PARALYZED. The enemy would usually follow up with a hit that took 100 hp off my my 2500 hp total, and my bonus gauge would break, citing a Critical Hit. Yeah, that's a critical percentage. Fun. 3)Gone are the days when just losing all your HP would kill you, now you have to friggin' worry about your MP too! If it hits 0, you die! Hooray! My favorite part was in one cave where this one enemy used some vortex blade attack and killed off two of my high-level characters immediately (each had 3000+ hp full up), mainly because the attack removed MP rather than HP. Screw you. 4) Enemy AI is cheap and stupid. They simply use the same powerful attacks over and over again. Same goes for the lame bosses. Your characters are wailing away on some boss, lost in some 30 hit combo, when all of a sudden "FIRE BREATH" happens and all your characters and blown across the screen, with half their health gone, nearly dead from MP loss, and no fury. Probably confused or poisoned too. Rinse and repeat, and you have the general battle experience provided by this game.

-Exploring/treasure. I remember in the good ol' days when exploring was productive and finding treasure chests was actually *GASP* enjoyable! Why? Because actual TREASURE was found. I think out of the 1,000 chests I managed to open before quitting, 950 of them contained some form of freakin' berry (used for healing purposes). Completely sucked the fun out of exploring. Why can't you give me more weapons!?!

-Items. Yay, I can only carry 20 of each. Umm why, considering I use 5 of them after every battle. Nice.

-Inventing. So dumb. Just how complicated must you make this process? It would be nice to have potential inventors clue you in as to which item they are looking for and where they are, rathing than spewing some more SO3 plot-garbage that means nothing anyway. Hooray, Cynthia is available to recruit! So where is she, and what do I need to do to get her? WHO KNOWS, NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL YOU! Why not even a little hint?? Oh I get it, "difficulty". Right.

-Hidden things. This reminds me of the more recent final fantasy games. You have to complete 10 off the wall, ridiculously hard tasks just to get one weapon, or one inventor. Sure, I'll win a bunny race 100 times in a row to get this one inventor. Why on EARTH would you want to do that? How on EARTH would you even know to DO that in the first place? It's like they want you to purchase a strat guide with the game. Thieves.

-Battle trophies. Stupid and not worth collecting, seeing how most of them are earned from completing mindless and outrageous tasks such as "Win 5,000,000,000 battles" or "Win 3,000,000 battles without getting hit", and when you do collect enough of them, the rewards are poor. Costumes for a battle mini-game. Yawn. New difficulty level. Oh wait, do I get to play the game on a NEW, HARDER difficulty level? Oh boy another 40 hrs of absolute frustration and poor design awaits.

-Puzzles. I just love trial and error puzzles. It's a good thing too, since this game is full of them. Sigh. This category also needs to include the "where do i go next" puzzle, where during a cutscene, a character will mention off-hand where you need to go next, and I'll miss it because I sneezed or something, and then I'll have absolutely no idea where to go. And townspeople won't even help me! WTF? How about a world map that indicates your next location or goal. Novel!

I remember 10 years ago when games used to be fun, and not a chore. You know, you can still have difficulty in a video game without making the player suffer through some overly complicated battle system, fighting enemies for hours on end because the stupid things won't die. If only the developers would take a little time to adjust the flow of the game-- start off easy and progressively get more difficult, but never too difficult as long as you're leveling at a reasonable rate. I want my games to move at a brisk pace, only slowing down when I choose to level or complete a sidequest. Don't make me spend 5 hours fighting enemies to gain enough experience to raise another TWO levels so that maybe ONE of my characters can survive a boss battle. Is that too much to ask?

Lastly, let me end on a positive note. Thanks to the glorious idea that is "Playstation greatest hits", this POS was only 19.99. At least I didn't pay twice that for this dog.

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