Out of all the genres that you can find on consoles, often the one that garners the most success is the RPG. But with so many RPG’s out there gamers have started to look to a few well known companies to get their roleplaying fix. Clearly one of those companies is Square Enix, with blockbuster series’ like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest). But there’s another RPG from Square that was one of the most anticipated titles this year; the next installment in the Star Ocean series, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.
The Star Ocean series started out way back on the SNES and quickly developed a following due to its unique approach to battles. Unlike the turn-based games of the day, Star Ocean went with a real-time battle system that you controlled on the fly. This new twist seemed to captivate players and when Star Ocean: The Second Story debuted on the PlayStation taking full advantage of the capabilities that the system possessed, it was a hit. For years gamers awaited the next chapter to the series and last year it was released in Japan. North American gamers began to worry if they’d ever see an English version, but their fears were cast aside when Square Enix released it this year, complete with the “Director’s Cut" features of the game that Japan had recently gotten as well.
Since the end of The Second Story, where you defeated the Ten Wise Men who plotted to destroy the universe, things have been pretty calm. 400 years have passed since that event, but now in SD 772 things are starting to shake up again. Playing as Fayt, you’re vacationing with your family and friend Sophia Esteed on Hyda (a resort planet). Things are going smoothly when suddenly the planet is attacked by an unknown enemy and everyone is forced to evacuate. Not knowing whether his parents are dead or alive, Fayt escapes the danger but is again attacked while in his escape pod. Crashing on an underdeveloped planet Fayt begins his mission to find his friends and family and discover just who attacked him and what their motives were.
While the PS2 might be getting a little long in the tooth when compared graphically to the GameCube or Xbox, Till the End of Time manages to prove that if you have the right team working on your visuals, amazing things can be pulled off. Being one of the few games on the PS2 to support 480 progressive scan, and also supporting a widescreen resolution, the game looked stunning while played on my BenQ DV3070. If HD 16:9 TV’s become more prevalent out there, you can expect quite a jump in your gaming experience.
Overworld maps and towns in the game are beautifully rendered and since the game is fully 3D, rotating the camera around yourself will often reveal hidden treasure chests or paths to follow that you just couldn’t see otherwise. When you jump into a battle you’re again greeted with a stunning visual experience. High polygon counts for all your characters and the enemies themselves, along with fluid animations and gorgeous spell effects make the act of battle a pleasure. One of my biggest pet peeves in RPG’s (namely in Final Fantasy) are the long sequences that play when you enact a special move or spell. At first we’re usually wowed by the show, but when you see it for the 500th time it starts to wear on you a bit. The Second Story suffered from this point as well with several of its spells but for the most part, attacks in Till the End of Time are quick and precise.
The battle system itself remains mostly unchanged from the previous iterations of the series, though they have been built upon. A newly added feature to the battles is the Bonus Gauge. This gauge fills up while you do battle at a rate determined by how successfully and skillfully you dispatch of your foes. If you take the time to combo your moves together for larger chains then you’ll be rewarded by having your Gauge fill up faster. When your gauge is full you’ll receive special bonuses at the end of the battle, such as 200% more Fol (money) or Exp, an increased recovery rate, or an increased chance of receiving an item. Keeping your bonus gauge full is the key to rising in levels quickly, and it allows you to build your characters up even facing weaker enemies.
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Apart from the unique battle systems, one of the mainstays in Star Ocean has been the breadth of other features that you had to take care of as well. The Private Actions (PA), side quests, bonus features (like a versus battle game system), and crafting are back and bigger than ever. While walking around towns during the game you’ll actually see members of your party hanging out. If you go up and talk to them they’ll ask you questions, mention things that you should be doing, reveal more of the story, or sometimes say nothing important at all. These PA’s are what influence the way the story evolves for you and the endings that you’ll receive at the end. Depending on your actions during a PA, you’ll effect your relationship points with that, and other characters positively or negatively. There are also certain items in the game which can increase or decrease these as well. The unique thing is that these points aren’t listed anywhere… you don’t know how much you have, or who you’re effecting, which makes it quite an interesting feature.
While playing through the game I couldn’t help noticing that I was sorely lacking in some cooking entertainment. One of the biggest features in the past games had been the unique crafting system that allowed you to build skills for all your characters and basically create all your own items and weapons. You actually don’t get this ability in Till the End of Time until a significant amount of time playing through it. Don’t worry though, because when you do acquire the ability to “invent” (as it’s called in this game) you’ll be at a stage where you’ll be more suited to doing it.
Inventing could actually be a game unto itself, and it makes me wonder sometimes… how much is too much in a game? There are 8 different disciplines of inventing to experiment with, and you can easily spend hours, or days playing around with all the options. The big difference with this game though is that you’re competing with other inventors out there in a ranking system, and you also have the option to recruit these rivals as members of your team of inventors. Things can get pretty heated as you try to rise through the ranks of the inventors and you’re actually provided with a PDA that you can use to check on your status at any time in the game (except battles) and also be alerted when new items are invented or go on sale. With all this to worry about, it’s easy to lose yourself in this inventing process, only breaking for a bit to go battle some enemies to gain more funds.
While furiously inventing items and weapons, battling baddies in the dungeons and saving planets you’re not going to be bored. But just in case you think you might be, the team in charge of the music and sound effects decided to make you think twice. The music is top notch, be it in the battle sequences or in the CG events. You’ll think you’re listening to a real band or orchestra, and it’s all in Dolby Pro Logic II as well so you guys out there with surround sound systems will get all the fixins’. To complement the music the sound effects are done well too, though the footsteps do seem a little excessive at times. The big kicker for me though was the voice acting. Although at times not the most convincing (more later), nearly the entire game is voice acted, save for NPC’s that you encounter. When games today are coming on DVD’s (and in this case, 2 of them), there should be no reason why we aren’t blessed with more games that act more like a movie, and less like a book.
But this brings me to some of the bad points with Till the End of Time. The voice acting for the most part is not that great, and tends to ruin even some of the most dramatic scenes with unconvincing lines, and bad timing. It's great that it's there, but the execution falls short. Also, being on 2 DVD’s the game has a extreme amount of gameplay, over 80 hours easily, which is a good thing, but with all the side quests and inventing you can do, you can become pretty easily become distracted from the main story. It’s not to say that the story is bad, on the contrary it’s quite involving; it’s just that it… drags… on… so… long… sometimes. You’ll routinely find yourself staring at the screen in utter amazement when your character suggests that you go help someone, or deliver a letter, or some other seemingly menial task when, THE UNIVERSE IS UNDER ATTACK! It’s as if your character and his compadres don’t seem to understand the phrase “time is of the essence,” but that’s okay I guess, they do have “till the end of time” to complete the story after all.
When you look at everything – some of the best graphics on the PS2, great music, nearly complete voice acting, and one of the most interactive battle systems out there combined with the sub-games you’d think that Star Ocean: Till the End of Time would be a no-brainer purchase. Well, it is if you’re an RPG fan. But to the casual RPG fan you may find yourself going crazy from seemingly pointless events in the story when you just want to move on. If you can overlook that, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is one of the most epic games you’ll play, and dare I say (oh the fanboys will kill me) it’s better than even the Final Fantasy games of late. Here’s looking to number four.
