BATTLE SYSTEM INTERACTION ORIGINALITY STORY MUSIC & SOUND VISUALS CHALLENGE Medium to Impossible COMPLETION TIME 30-60 Hours OVERALL 3.0/5.0 Rating definitions

   The Star Ocean series, developed by tri-Ace, began as one of the final RPGs on the Super Famicom back in 1996, eventually extending to a sequel, The Second Story, on the Playstation, and a gaiden, Blue Sphere, on the Gameboy Color, with only the sequel making it to American shores. In 2001, tri-Ace announced the third installment, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, which saw its Japanese release two years later, with a special Director's Cut released in early 2004 in the Land of the Rising Sun. Despite the announcement of an American release by Enix back in 2002, their merger with Squaresoft complicated things a little, yet eventually resulted in the Director's Cut being released in the U.S. Was it worth the long wait?

Fayt shows Mirage who's boss

   Like its predecessors, the third installment features fast-paced real-time battles, with your fighting party down to three characters. Your characters and the enemy now have fury gauges, and attacks now come in weak and strong types. Weak attacks are fast, although an enemy with a full fury gauge will deflect the attack, often stunning the attacker; the same works in reverse. Slower strong attacks, however, can decimate full fury gauges. Moreover, the player can assign short and long-range battle skills (which consume either HP or MP) each to X (weak attacks) and O (strong attacks), executed when the player holds down either button at either range. Both kinds of attack and battle skills drain each character's fury gauge, with recharging done by standing still. Players can also assign two support skills to each character, such as gradual HP regeneration when they stand still. By the way, battle skills may occasionally damage MP in addition to HP, and reaching zero MP means death, as does zero HP.

   Coordinating strong and weak attacks can be maddening, given the constant fluctuation of enemy fury gauges, terrible hit direction, and clunky controls, and thus, I found myself overly dependent upon strong attack-type battle skills to get the job done. Another thing I found annoying was that some healing spells tended to "miss" at times, and using an item forces the player to wait a few seconds before being able to use another, which can screw you over if your party's emaciated.

   Star Ocean 3, of course, wouldn't be complete without item creation, with some major changes present from the first two installments. Gone, for one, are the various skills in which to invest your characters' SP (which still exists, though, gained from increasing levels, but this time only for boosting HP, MP, attack, and defense), with each of your allies having fixed talent levels, alongside specialized inventors you can recruit. Item creation occurs at special workshops, with up to three inventors assigned to up to three lines, and the player choosing a specialty with which to work, though the labor cost is random. After confirmation, the creation process begins, with the labor cost gradually wearing away at your money until your characters create an item or completely drain your funds. Overall, Star Ocean 3's fast, furious battle system definitely isn't for everyone, although item creation can occasionally make things a little less painful.

She knows how to use her noggin.

   Speaking of painful, though, it'd have been nice were the item creation interface more user-friendly, since the game randomly selects prices with which to work instead of allowing the player to manually select a price, which can lead to some heroic button-mashing in order to achieve a desired labor cost. It'd also have been nice were there transportation available faster than your feet, given the heavy amount of backtracking necessary at times, and the placement of save points, not to mention workshops, is a bit lousy at points. Mercifully, though, players can skip over the many cutscenes instead of having to watch them over and over if they lose boss fights that occasionally follow. The translation is passable, moreover, except for one character signing her original Japanese name on the back of the protagonist's shirt, which lingers there for some time. In the end, interaction in Star Ocean 3 is functional, though barely so.

   Surprisingly, however, the third installment feels quite fresh: the fury gauge in battles, strong and weak attacks, characters dying if their MP reaches zero, and the workshops all help make Star Ocean 3 feel very different from its predecessors, though the general ideas of real time battles and item creation itself still recur.

   Many have bashed Star Ocean 3's story, though it wasn't as bad as most made it out to be. It follows Fayt Leingod, vacationing on a resort planet with his family until the Vendeeni attack, separating everyone and sending Fayt on an adventure across several underdeveloped planets in hopes of finding his parents. The events Fayt gets involved with on the said planets somewhat throw the plot off course, although cutscenes are plentiful, pacing is adequate, there are some nice twists, and there's even a nifty databank explaining what everything is. In the end, the plot was better than I expected, though pretty much the humdrum I've seen in other RPGs.

KOS-MOS, eat your heart out.

   Composer Motoi Sakuraba returns in the third installment, though his work is weaker this time around. There are some nice pieces, such as the Moonbase theme and some gorgeous town themes, although most dungeon tracks are a bit weak, the battle music horribly repetitive, and some tunes just plain noise. The voice acting, moreover, is mediocre, especially in battle with gems like "Blade...of Fury!", though you can turn off battle voices. I also noticed that during many cutscenes, the music drowned out the voices. All in all, the aural presentation could've easily been better.

   Star Ocean 3 utilizes an anime-style graphics engine similar to that in Legaia 2: Duel Saga, which somewhat shows its age in the time of the game's release. Things do look pretty nice when the camera keeps its distance from your characters and the enemy, although things often look dreadful on close-up, with some pretty horrible textures, animate hair occasionally seeping through characters' clothing, and somewhat blocky models. The FMVs, however, are stupendous. In the end, though, the designers could've definitely polished the visuals for the Director's Cut release.

   Finally, even on the easiest difficulty mode, Star Ocean 3 can be tough at times, though item creation can mitigate the challenge. Moreover, depending upon how much time players spend with the extras, they can spend anywhere from thirty to sixty hours playing.

   To conclude, it's fairly difficult to say, unfortunately, that the Director's Cut of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time was worth the long wait. It can be fairly tedious at times, and largely shows its age in the time of its release in America. There are definitely better RPGs on the Playstation 2 and other consoles, but if you can find it at a discount price like I did, it mightn't be a bad investment at all, and is at best a decent time killer.