Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
So this is my idea for a new thread series. Don't expect much from these reviews, as this will be my first time doing one. Just my idea of contributing to the forum. A little background on myself, I have been a heavy gamer for my entire life. I've played, and beat hundreds of games in total. I have my favorites, and games which I hate just like everybody else. I consider myself an educated gamer, and I would like to give you guys an outlook on some of my favorite games that you may, or may not have heard of. You may critique my work, and anything you guys offer will be taken, and used. Hell if you guys hate the idea, go ahead and tell me, and I will stop doing these. Just a little idea I had on my way home today. Now onto the review!
I will do my best not to spoil any game as you guys probably wouldn't like that. Till the End of Time is a game developed by Square Enix in 2003, and is the third main game in the Star Ocean franchise. The game was released, and it flopped originally. The game was bugged to hell, and pretty much unplayable. Add that to the fact the game was released much later than expected, and it was a heavy disappointment. The Star Ocean series over in Japan was a household name, and is much more popular over there than in the US, so when the game was released, and was terrible, they were upset. In 2004 Square released a Directors Cut of the game, and you could see the improvement. There were little, to no bugs, and the game lived up to it's original hype. It was great. The Directors Cut is one of the greatest, and most in depth game I have ever played.
You start the game in a hotel, as an odd looking college student named Fayt Leingod. He is on vacation with his parents, and the Esteeds whose daughter is Fayt's best friend. You run around the hotel with Sophia, talking to people, and seeing a few cutscenes. Everything seems fairly normal until shit hits the fan. An alien race named the Vendeeni attack the hotel, and capture Mr, and Mrs Leingod. This begins Fayt's original journey to get his parents back. I won't go into further detail simply because there is so much to tell, and most of it would spoil the game for you. Just know that Till the End of Time has one of the most in depth, and crazy story's out of any game ever made. Sometimes though this is a bad thing. You really have to pay attention to every cutscene, and listen, or else you'll be lost, and wondering "what the fuck just happened" for most of the game. What starts out as a simple "rescue your family" story quickly turns into a crazy battle to save everything you've ever known, and loved. It's really intriguing. I obviously left out over ninety percent of the story, so you will just have to play the game to see what I mean. There is also an amazing, and incredibly in depth item creation system, but it's way to difficult to explain, but if you do pick this game up this is something you will spend hours using.
On top of the fantastic story, you have what is in my opinion, the best battle system I have ever played. Square is known for making games with different, and fun battle systems, but this takes the cake. It offers a real-time combat system which involves running into enemies on an open field to engage in a battle. From there you control one of the three available characters in battle. You may change between any of the three on the field at any time, and you can change your battle party through the menu while not in a battle. You can also hotkey any of your moves onto different buttons. It is a hard concept to explain fully, so you will have to play the game to fully understand what I mean about the hotkeys. To unlock new moves you simply level up. You have a thing called the bonus gauge which you fill by winning battles over, and over. Filling this up gives you bonuses such as 2x exp, and additional items upon win. The bonus gauge can be broken if you are hit by a strong attack, so you must think about your moves to make you be able to hit the enemy, but also dodge his attack. To use an item such as a potion, you simply hit triangle, which pauses the game, and brings up a menu. From this menu you can use items, symbology[this games magic,] and switch up your AI's battle sequence. It's a really in depth battle system that was made incredibly simple, and easy to use. They really shined on this aspect of the game. You can also customize your characters stats. Every level you receive points which you can put into any of the four stats available. The four stats are Attack, Defense, HP, and MP. Every time you level one of these up that stat increases on that character. It's not really in depth, or complex, but it is something note worthy.
The graphics, and sound on the game are good, not great. They were above average for the time, but are put to shame by later titles on the PS2 such as FFX. Don't get me wrong the cutscenes are masterpieces. They are fucking beautiful. The rest of the game however, doesn't really measure up to most gamers standards. The voice acting is also pretty atrocious, but what can you expect. It is Square, and they are always known for terrible voice acting. One of the characters named Peppita Rossetti has some of the absolute worst voice acting of all time, and is extremely odd looking. I'm willing to overlook this though seeing as Fayt, and another character named Albel are among the most cool looking characters I have ever used.
Added onto Star Ocean's near 60 hour main story quest, there are also a load of mini games. As a matter a fact they devoted an entire world to just mini games. Most of these however aren't very fun, and won't keep you playing much longer than the game lasts, but they need to be noted. Something that will keep you playing much longer than the main story though are all of the bonus dungeons. Off the top of my head there are four bonus dungeons, one of which is available in the main story, and the others are available once you beat the game. These bonus dungeons are no fucking joke. To beat the first one you must have the best fully crafted items with the best enchantments. The final bosses to each of these dungeons are all valkyrie profile characters. You have Lenneth, and Freya, and let me tell you. These fuckers are tough. Add on the near limitless amount of mini bosses in each extra dungeon, and you will be engulfed for hours on end.
I left many things out of this review just because there would be way to much to talk about. The game is incredibly in depth, and tough to explain, but I did my best to cover what I could. It really is a fantastic game, and I would recommend this to any fan of RPG games. It doesn't get the praise it deserves, and is far from receiving the popularity it deserves.
Final Score: 9.5. While it is a great game the story is a little choppy, and tough to follow at some times. Add that to the lack of great sound, and graphics, as well as using the outdated save point system, and I think it deserves this score. The good outweigh the bad by a million pounds though, and you should consider picking this game up. Let me know what you guys thought about this review! Looking forward to see what you guys think about it!
