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Square Enix brings Tri-Ace’s new game stateside. The Star Ocean series has a cult following thanks to its futuristic nature with much war and all that other good stuff sci-fi gee... enthusiasts rave about. But now the series has that wanted Square Enix stamp of approval; does it live up to it?
In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, you control Fayt Leingod who was on a peaceful vacation with his best friend and parents until something goes terribly wrong. The vacation spot, Hyda IV, is attacked by the game’s villainous race, the Vendeeni, and everyone is forced to evacuate. Unfortunately, things don’t work out quite well and you end up by yourself in a strange planet.
In Star Ocean, you’ll progress by going through various towns and dungeons. You’re allowed to have three members in your party, although you can only control one of them at a time. You can program your comrades with several AI settings and while these are okay for short burst, you can’t rely on them to go through the game.
The dungeons in the game can be quite large but if you’re getting weak near the end you can simply avoid getting into new battles since you can see the enemies in the map. While this is a noble idea, it isn’t very useful as you’ll need to use these battles to level up quite a bit. You’ll need to find many, many enemies to level up or the bosses will own your butt very quickly. You don’t simply battle in the dungeons as you’ll also need to solve some simple puzzles including the very-liked find-a-key-and-unlock-a-door or find-a-switch-to-unlock-a-door.
Actual battle is pretty exciting thanks to its 3D nature. Each character has hit points for health but also a “fury” meter which measures energy or ability to fight. Your character loses “fury” when you attack and if you get to 0%, you won’t be able to attack at all. This adds some strategy to the battles as you simply can’t mash buttons with your leveled-up characters.
The game has a number of short and large range attacks, as well as normal and charged-up attacks for each range. You’ll also be able to find special skills a bit later on in the game. These skills can have different effects on the battle, so you’ll need to choose carefully. Lastly, you’ll have access to magic-based attacks which Tri-ace decided to call symbology.
You’ll also be able to use a multitude of items which are made from the Craftman’s Guild. Here, you’ll be able to purchase items made by AI characters to help you along the way. Additionally, you can use your party characters’ special abilities to help create your own items, which are likely to be better and more efficient.
The game offers a solid thirty-eight hour-ish story, but if you are so inclined it can easily be made into something like eighty hours as you can spend much time collecting everything and what not. Completing the game will unlock a two-player versus mode, some new difficulty modes, additional characters and many, many endings.
The game’s visuals are good. The environments are large and detailed and fit in perfectly with the game’s theme. You’ll go through a variety of places from ruins to deserts to forests, some look better than others but all look pretty good. The characters are clearly anime-influenced and look pretty good, although their animation isn’t all that great. The visual presentation is at an all time high in the cutscenes which are just awesome. The in-engine cutscenes are equally impressive thanks to excellent camera angles.
The game’s music is varied and fitting for the particular area; sometimes it’ll be very rock-oriented while others are more orchestral. The voice acting is solid for the main characters and above average for the rest.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is a by the numbers RPG with plenty of leveling up, a great battle system and superb presentation. It doesn’t do anything particularly innovative, but should provide great fun for RPG fans. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Sep 30, 2004
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