Fantastic, Entertaining, Addictive, Engaging.

User Rating: 9.2 | Star Ocean: Till the End of Time PS2
By nappan | Review Date:
UPDATE: Having played TTOET for roughly 60 more hours since I wrote this review, my opinions have only grown in favour of this game. The minigames (VS mode, bunny races, Runic Chess and the Battles in Gemity and the invention system) offer well over 20 hours of fun play. The game also does a GREAT job of truly rewarding you for doing more than follow a straight line to the end. The one thing that troubles me, is that many of the problems which the gamespot reviewer cited, and virtually all of the negative fan reviews have cited (needing to constantly backtrack in the middle of a dungeon to get healing items, the battle system is too hard, the battle system is too EASY), I never once experienced. If you're a novice, or lazy, or base your opinion off the first HOUR or two of play, you'll think it's a REALLY easy game, or if you're new to the style of combat, too hard to control. Of course, 1-2 hours of a game that can easily last ONE HUNDRED hours is nothing! For instance, If you have any experience playing RPG's, I can't see where you WOULD experience issues of health items management, since you almost immidiatly get heal spells, and can invent literally dozens of cheap food items to recover health and MP from the start... It's unfortunate that this game has been so underrated by gamespot's official review, but read the reviews that give enough detial to let you know the reviewer bothered to get some depth out of the game; they tell the tale. Normally I aggree with Gamespot's review and rating, or at least understand their point of view, but in this case, I have to wonder. The gamespot reviewer grossly undersold what is a really fantastic game in this genre. Much like the Gamespot review of Xenosaga ep I actually. If long, anime-style RPG's are not your thing, then neither is this game. If on the other hand, you do like long, involved, RPG's, this is the best thing along with Xenosaga. The two actually share a lot in common, except that where Xenosaga's greatest weakness was an underdeveloped battle system, TTEOT has really gone the extra mile. Real time battles can be fun, but if they don't allow you to mix twitch based gameplay with some tactics and skill, it ends up being PAINFULLY repetitive, or even stressful. TTEOT totally avoids this pitfall, by brilliantly crafting a real time battle system which gives you room to customize your character's nature and abilities AND allows for a real learning curve in the execution of those abilities. The combo system's only shortcoming is the way it's explained in the manual, which makes it sound either hard, or cryptic; it is neither. Much like poker, it's easy to learn, but hard to master. Considering that you have a lot of characters to use, this creates a lot of depth. As one previous review stated, this game starts you at the bottom of the "hero" rung... you have a metal pipe and a prayer basically. Although you rapidly gain competance, it won't be until later in the game that you realize how far you've come, SO smoothly. This is one game that doesn't make the transition from "punk" to "warrior god" seem overly contrived. Partly this is the way the game plays, but mostly it's a result of the very gradual, but CONSTANT leveling up system. You gain a *explative deleted* number of unique and common abilities, PLUS "auras" which add effects to your guard shield, PLUS support abilities, PLUS points to distribute to "health" "strength" "defense" and "Magic Points"... Must like Xenosaga, your character has 4 slots for attacks, Weak Short Range, Weak Long Range, Strong Short Range, and Strong Long Range... the combinations you create are pretty impressive, and many abilities can be assigned to ANY slot, with varying results. In Xenosaga you had a set order of button presses needed to achieve a "third tier" attack, but it was mostly for show... no skill involved. In TTEOT, timing is everyting, and if you manage it properly (and your stamina holds) you can create amazing strings of "cancel" combos, with one special ability coming on the heels of another... the first gives a 175% damage boost, the second 200%, and so on up to a limit of 300%... it's amazing. You go from single swipes at some little robots in the earliest battles, to constant ground-to-midair thrasing of giants. You set the behavior of your teammates to one of six states, and then choose from twelve arrangements for your "troops"... and it DOES make a difference. Very little window dressing here. On a technical side, the sound is good, with solid RPG style music (not a final fantasy masterpiece, but over the 40-80 hours of play, it doesn't ever grate on your nerves) which changes as needed to fit the situation. The sounds are great in battle and outside, and the voice acting ranges from acceptle to exceptional, with most falling into the realm of "good" The story (which I will not spoil) is truly engaging, as is the pacing. It's GREAT to see character relationships evolve as the story unfolds in well crafted dialogue sections, and just when that might start to get old, you'll have a dungeon full of critters to get through... levels to gain and abilities to learn... it's never boring. You can see I have a strong tilt in this game, because this is the kind of game I love... I respect gamespot a lot, and considering how much they review, they are remarkably honest and accurate, but to give this game a 7.9 is simply doing a disservice to the many people who might look at that rating, sigh, and save their money for another game. If it's this or FFXII... well lets not be silly, get FFXII, this is not a 10... but it IS a solid 8.5 (to the untilted) to 9.X. If you really enjoyed either of the Dark Cloud games, or Xenosaga, I can guarantee, 100% you will enjoy this game. If you love FF, and other "standard" RPGs (of which I am also a rabid fan) you will PROBABLY love this game, but I fall short of absolute certainty in my recommendation. Bottom line: this is one hell of a game.

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