Star Ocean is part of a series of RPG games developed by SquareEnix, which has one helluvah pedigree from what I hear. Unfortunately, SquareEnix hasn’t exactly impressed me over the past couple of years putting out (at least what I consider) half-baked titles that are far less impressive than what their prestigious history has provided. I had no idea what to think, as I have never actually played a Star Ocean game, nor even heard of the series until I saw the tantalizing box on the shelf and decided the description on the back was worth a try.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time touts itself as a sci-fi action RPG with a deep storyline. Since I had some good luck with action RPGs before, especially Tales of Symphonia ,which apparently has a related battle systems, I decided to press my luck.
The story is a bit strange. It is somewhat fresh as the whole “save all of existence” theme is rather absent for the bulk of the game. The most ironic part of Star Ocean is how it touts itself to be this science fiction epic, yet I spent most of my time on these 17th century backwater planets, with the only hint of a future being the fact that I have to follow this UP3 prime directive and not let anyone know I am from an advanced culture. So, basically, I run around with swords. Even more ironic, I land on backwater planets with inventors that can develop technology previously unavailable on the so-called advanced culture which the main character Fayt comes from. How did a pre-industrial age society develop a better hand-held communicator than a people that can travel across the galaxy in a few days?
The story itself revolves around Fayt, who is trying to get off these primitive rocks so he can find and rescue his father and his friend Sophia. It is interesting, especially given the quality character interactions.
An important aspect to many gamers is the frequency of cut scenes. From what I’ve personally noticed, they are just as frequent as many of the other recent SquareEnix games. Luckily, they aren’t long, drawn out behemoths that take place every 5 minutes like in, say, Xenosaga. The cut scenes are short, to the point, and never get overly dramatic. They are also so well done that I failed to notice a few and even thought there were very few at one point.
Star Ocean’s gameplay is broken up, like most RPGs, into two types of gameplay. The world and the battle modes are those two gameplay subsets. To SquareEnix’s credit, they made the basic control scheme for both the world and battle nearly identical. The only real difference is that the world screen seems to be a touch too sensitive and moving around for the first few hours of the game is a pain. Fayt behaves like a clumsy child on the world screen. He clomps around and is difficult to maneuver. Other basics like using the X button to talk and the triangle button to open up the menu are identical to most other console RPG games on the market.
The field allows you to see your enemies, so there are no random battles here. You can fight or avoid at your leisure (though sometimes it is hard given that some areas have small corridors). I like that, given my penchant for getting through the game fairly rapidly.
The battle system is far more polished when compared to the world mode. Movement is highly precise and very simple. As I mentioned before, the battle system is similar to that in Tales of Symphonia. You control one character, the computer uses the other two, and the party is given free reign of a battle area. The difference between Tales and Star Ocean is that Star Ocean gives you more freedom in each direction of movement. You couldn’t just swing up and around an enemy to flank it in Tales, but you can do so with ease in Star Ocean.
Combat is based around a stamina gauge. Each attack drains it a bit, and once it is drained, you need to hold still to build it back up again. Combat is based on combination moves between the X and circle buttons. X is a weak attack, circle is a strong. You can use these to develop attack combos. As the game progresses, you can tag special moves to your attack buttons that are activated by either tapping or holding the button. My current favorite combo is to charge with Fayt on a strong attack which lifts the enemy in the air, follow up with another strong which juggles him, then hold the weak attack which does a double damage stab followed by a shotgun blast I set to the move. I have no doubt that there are better ones to find; of course, each player will find a favorite combination.
Range also plays a factor. The game will indicate that you are in either a short or long range from the opponent and your attacks vary accordingly. You can move to long range and set up a charging attack to open up a combo or can tag two abilities to each attack button, one activated in long range and the other short.
The magic system, called symbology, has an interesting twist to it. You activate it by entering the battle menu and simply target who you want to use the spell on. The catch is, you don’t want to overuse the magic because if your magic gauge hits 0, you faint and have to be revived with some fresh sage. Such a system gives the game a strong strategy feel, as you simply can’t go out and blast away with magic spells and stock up on magic replenishing items. Items function on a time basis; if you use an item, then you have to wait a few seconds before you can whip out another one.
Star Ocean also has an invention system in place. Unfortunately, it is poorly done. Inventions take place in shops and each character has a skill at each invention category. You can select a new invention or simply build something in your inventory. When building something new, all the game presents you is a value that is used per “turn”. It never tells you what the invention will be, just some value. More often than not, when you pick a certain value, you’ll always create the same item, though the game never has the good taste to tell you. Also, you frequently discover useless items like a bent sword or gross dessert. From what I found out, I have better luck not messing with it, save my money, and let the NPC inventors find all the items for me.
Visually, Star Ocean is quite well done. The most impressive aspect of the game is the world detail. The details are rather impressive. Levels are not utilitarian in nature; things are all over the place. Rooms are well furnished, corridors have windows opening to outdoor scenes and have potted plants in them. Cities have stylishly crafted buildings and vivid plant life. Even the field areas are detailed and even what would otherwise be boring areas like a mountain pass have various things to decorate the environment like chained off cave entrances or waterfalls.
The models are very well done as well. Each character is very complex and enemies are fun to look at. Star Ocean unfortunately has a lot of skin swapping in it, which is especially noticeable when you go from the first planet to the second and run into the same Ben Franklin looking enemy, this time wearing yellow clothing instead of purple.
Model animations are very fluid and sometimes rather humorous, like the porcupine enemies. Their waddling makes me chuckle. The world animation seems to be a bit rigid though as Fayt runs around rather stiffly.
The sound department is rather weak. The music is well done; I’ll give SquareEnix that. Not surprisingly though, they tend to pull off incredible musical scores. The voiceover work is rather pitiful though, especially given Sophia and numerous other female characters this incredibly high-pitched voice that literally makes my ears hurt. To give you an idea, think of a stereotypical blonde's voice, up it a few octaves, and voila! You have the bulk of the female voices. The rest of the cast is bearable, but nothing worth getting excited over.
For replay, Star Ocean opens up the option to obtain battle trophies which unlock new clothing options, and new difficulty levels. Not all that exciting for someone like me who can’t get interested in irrelevant extras that tack on game time, but some may find it a challenge to open them all up.
Overall, Star Ocean is well worth the purchase. The battle system is excellent, the story isn’t some over-done cliché fest, and the game is visually appealing. It is a shame the voices had some rotten eggs in the bunch, or the game would likely be perfect. Overall, Star Ocean is well worth the money and time invested.
