Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time

"Star Ocean 3 is coming... whether I like it or not." A few years ago when I saw the very first two images of Star Ocean 3 released to the public, those were the first words to come out of my mouth. At this point in time, it seems incomprehensible that I would have doubt in a company whose children I practically pay through college with my obsessive purchasing of anything and everything with the heavenly words "tri-Ace" upon it. (Let us not bring up the fact that they misspelled their very own name as "try-Ace" on the original Star Ocean cartridges... silly Japanese). It's true. If one had asked me: "What do you think of this new Star Ocean game?", all I had to say was "It better be good". I admit it; I'm an insanely jaded and pessimistic video game player. I've seen 'em all come and go, and to be frank, I'm happy to see most of them go. It's very hard to impress me nowadays, and when I saw my beloved tri-Ace switching to 3D with Star Ocean 3, I lost my faith and became worried. How quickly I forgot that tri-Ace had made the transition once before. I imagine there must have been many foolish gamers like myself in Japan looking at Star Ocean: The Second Story with disdain. "The battlefields are in 3D? The backgrounds are pre-rendered? This is preposterous!" Oh, they were in for a surprise. And so was I when I popped my brand-new copy of Star Ocean 3 into my brand-new Japanese PlayStation 2. When I first viewed those fully 3D graphics and fancy-shmancy FMV sequences in screen shots, I had horrific images of Final Fantasy flashing through my head, but when I turned on my PlayStation 2, I was home. This is Star Ocean.

Two parts Star Trek, one part Matrix, a pinch of Iron Chef, and a whole lot of Japanese fruitiness is the recipe for one delicious video game.

Despite what the futuristic, Jetsons-esque FMV intro may lead you to believe, the game does not take place on Earth at all, nor does it deal with the history of space travel. Star Ocean 3 follows the same tried-and-true storytelling formula that all the previous games have used. A young human boy involved in the Earth Federation (think United Nations, except it attempts to represent and govern the entire charted universe) somehow winds up on a primitive, uncharted planet where he meets a rag-tag crew of bizarre characters who he ultimately becomes friends with. Then he must to protect everyone he loves by defeating some evil being who pops out of nowhere and threatens the whole universe as they know it. That's Star Ocean in a nutshell.

This time around, however, the overall experience is heavier on sci-fi atmosphere than any other Star Ocean title, but those who prefer the fantasy elements should still have more than enough to keep them satisfied. The plot is much more dramatic and takes itself rather seriously, which only works so well when you're seeing giant bunnies hopping all over the place. The lengthier cut scenes add to the melodrama, but unlike most RPGs, they don't grow wearisome on me. The voice acting really adds a lot of life to them, and I find the cinematic sequences that lack voice acting to be strangely quiet. Like always, tri-Ace thinks with the player's enjoyment in mind rather than purely focusing on a cheesy story, so the player always has the option to skip dialogue sequences. Although, it's not really recommended on my part, as they provide a lot of insight on what you should do next.

The core plot of a game isn't worth diddly squat, though, if it doesn't have characters you actually care about (which is my problem with many a RPG). Unfortunately, Star Ocean 3 is a bit lacking compared to the zany oddballs of Star Ocean: The Second Story. No kung-fu pharmacists or depressed zoologists here. My first impression of the cast was that it was just your typical, generic RPG characters, but in time I discovered and fell in love with the intricacies of the minor characters. Not even waiting "till the end of time" (haha, I make pun) will make me change my feelings on the two main characters, though, as they are very generic. That's nothing unusual for the Star Ocean series. There's absolutely nothing special about Ratix and Milly of the first game, nor Crawd and Rena of the second, so it's no surprise to anyone that Fate has little personality beyond "hero" and Sophia is his sickeningly cutesy "love interest".

Like nearly every other RPG, Star Ocean 3 pulls the "have the irritating-to-begin-with main heroine disappear for most of the game and still expect the player to care" crap. Well, it didn't work on me in Lunar, and it doesn't work here. In one of the most painfully cheesy moments of the game, you meet a girl who looks exactly like Sophia. "Oh my goodness, is this where the missing Sophia ended up? Does she have amnesia? Is she going to join my party?" Nope, she dies. Boo-hoo. The girl named Amina really is a non-playable character named Amina. Don't bother complaining to me about spoilers because this part of the game comes completely out of nowhere, and once it's over, it's like it never even happened in the first place. It plays no impact on the overall story whatsoever. All in all, it's just a stupid way to add melodrama that the player doesn't feel (at least I hope other players aren't that gullible), and it's a means of forcing me into remembering a character from the very beginning of the game whom I would rather forget.

Thankfully the other characters of the game, and even the non-playable characters of the game, will make you not overly care about the annoying main characters. One of the first things that caught my attention in Star Ocean 3 and made me giggle with glee is little cameos of just about every race previously used in the Star Ocean series. You'll meet Featherfolk, Fellpool, Expellians, citizens of Roak, you name it, and you'll also encounter all new breeds of humanoids such as dolphin creatures, fairies, and fox-tail people. Most of the characters that will join you in your quest are also new races. My personal favorite, Roger S. Huxley (you gotta love that name), was described by one of my boyfriend's buddies as "a raccoon with a Nazi hat". To me he looks like the man-child of Leon D.S. Geeste and Bowman Jean of Star Ocean: The Second Story, and his personality is just further proof. Imagine a tiny, adorable, 12-year-old dwarf-child with a poofy tail wielding a huge axe like a madman, all the while attempting to woo all the MUCH older women in the game and insisting that all the male characters refer to him as "Roger-sama" (Lord Roger). Genius, tri-Ace, pure genius. If that didn't make him lovable enough, you have to laugh at the fact that the only girl in the game that he has no interest in is the ditzy main chick Sophia. Marry me, Roger S. Huxley, and father raccoon-babies with me!

Roger may be a reference to Bowman Jean personality-wise, but Cliff Fitter is definitely Bowman in battle. In fact, he uses the exact same attacking patterns of punches and kicks that Bowman uses in Blue Sphere. As a huge fan of Bowman, Star Ocean 3 is pure bliss. The other playable characters may also seem reminiscent to those who have experienced past Star Ocean titles. Nel Zelpher, a beautiful, serious-minded ninja, attacks with short swords, and at times feels like a less brutish Fear Mell. Arbel Nox is arguably the Dias Flac of the game with his rude, pissy, "kill" personality. He's not quite the ass that Dias is, though, which I find makes him more tolerable. Maria Traitor has a touch of Marvel Frozen's brooding, mysterious quality, but she's not annoying about it. In a way, she's like the Chisato or Opera of the game with her small phase gun, her upbringing in an advanced, high-tech world, and her "take charge" personality. Finally, there's Souffle Rosetti. Take Precis F. Neumann and Celine Jules and combine them to get one seriously irritating little girl. Souffle is an egotistical dancer of a family circus troupe, and she won't hesitate to talk down to you when she isn't getting things exactly as she wants them. You may have noticed that the number of characters is far less than previous Star Ocean titles, and to make matters worse, you only have the choice of two characters out of four optional ones. Yep, Fate, Sophia, Cliff, and Maria are mandatory every single time you play, so you better get used to them and grow to like them.

Some of the characters and the manner in which they are recruited (or simply forced upon you) may be a step backwards for the Star Ocean series, but additions to the series such as Roger and Cliff more than make up for it. Either way, this cast surely beats out the cast featured in the first Star Ocean title, and comparing Star Ocean: Till the End of Time's characters to the cast shared in both Star Ocean: The Second Story and Star Ocean: Blue Sphere does it no justice. Such unique and endearing characters as that crew is a greatness rarely achieved in any form of art, be it literature, film, or video games.

Might Discharge? Burst Emission? Man, the Star Ocean universe needs some STD control.

As sacrilegious as it may be to say this, Star Ocean 3 has the best traditional Star Ocean battle system ever used, and it's almost as good, if not as good in a different kind of way, as the Star Ocean: Blue Sphere battle system. It takes all the best features of the two previous numbered games and adds lots of new elements that make your style of fighting more customizable and complex than ever before. Star Ocean: The Second Story most certainly has a lot of depth, but Star Ocean 3 makes it looks like nothing more than an L and R button smashing fest.

First we begin with three playable characters fighting one to several enemies, all of which attack from all sides (rather than just front and back like in the previous games), and everyone, characters and enemies alike, can use weak and strong attacks. Pretty simple and self-explanatory, but then each weak and strong attack can have two moves set to it, one long distance and one short distance. Tap the button for a normal attack, hold it momentarily from far away to perform a long distance move, or run into the fray and hold it for a short distance move. If you've been doing your math, that's six different attacks available to you per character. If that wasn't enough options, many attacks have the ability to combo, so now timed button pressing is an issue as well. Fighting in Star Ocean 3 is nowhere near as brainless as it is in other RPGs, so it can get frustrating when you accidentally hold the button and perform a move when you intended to do a normal attack or vice versa. However, in the end, when you screw up, it's your fault.

There is one exception to that. The artificial intelligence of your two partners leaves much to be desired. Now, don't get me wrong, the AI in the series has never been flawless, but few things are more disheartening than facing a tough group of enemies or a boss with the most perfect, well-thought out strategy only to see it prove worthless because no matter what setting you give your partners they still act like complete morons. C'est la vie.

It won't be infrequent when you're facing fierce foes either. You can be a weenie and play the game on Earth, the easiest difficulty, but if you're man enough to play Galaxy, the default setting, you'll enjoy a very satisfying challenge. For the masochists out there, you can also unlock two harder difficulties later on (Universe and FD), but why give the enemies even more of an advantage? They already have many of the same abilities that you do. You may think "Whoa, I can kill off enemies by doing MP damage? Awesome!", but you'll be cursing MP damage when a grinning mushroom depletes your piddly amount of MP to nothing.

Let us not forget Protect and Counter Aura as well. If you rest for a moment and allow your Guts (AKA your stamina; you need Guts to perform moves) to fill up to 100%, your character will be able to block all weak attacks that the enemy attempts on you. If you have a Counter Aura ability, it will activate the moment you Protect, so depending on which you currently possess and have set, you may shoot out rays that peep (stun, to non-Star Ocean fans) the enemy, damage them, or even heal yourself a tiny amount. Sounds great, right? Well, enemies can Protect too, and most have some Counter Aura ability as well. Few things invoke a desire for vengeance like accidentally triggering a weak attack that results in your whole party dying from the enemy's Counter Aura. Star Ocean 3 is one of the few games in existence that I actually enjoy getting pissed at, but only because I can always try again and get some sweet, sweet revenge by whooping some Funny Thief ass.

Speaking of Funny Thieves, that brings me to the bonus dungeons and bosses. Now, it wouldn't be a Star Ocean game without a super-challenging bonus dungeon at the end of the game, which house the two halves of one evil mofo of an angel, Gabriel and Iseria Queen. In Star Ocean 3, we're treated to two bonus dungeons, one being the obligatory Cave of Trials, and the other isn't so much a bonus dungeon as it is an exercise in tedium, but I digress. tri-Ace also felt like throwing in some Valkyrie Profile content, namely Lenneth and Frei (Freya to Americans), for good measure. The Ruins of a Trial is a delightfully challenging experience, but it isn't quite as brilliant and difficult as Star Ocean: The Second Story's Cave of Trials. Gabriel will make you want to vomit when you see that they've taken the pretty womanly angel of the first game and turned it into an over-tanned drag queen sporting jetpack wings and Cindy Brady bangs. Fans of Valkyrie Profile may also cringe when they see their beloved warrior maidens in super-chibi forms. Iseria Queen is the only deadly lady whose look is quite fetching. She's the most attractive and curvaceous that she's ever been. Unfortunately, both angels have gotten easier this time around, and it's almost saddening that the Valkyrie Profile goddesses are the strongest bonus bosses in this game. Something is just wrong with that picture.

If the bonus dungeons and bosses aren't enough to satiate you, there are even further insane challenges that will get you frothing at the mouth. How about 50,000 battles? Or simply 500 battles in a row without turning the system off? Maybe staying in one battle for over two hours is more your style? Perhaps a nice boss challenge like defeating the final boss at level 10 on FD difficulty or killing the bonus bosses using NOTHING but Counter Aura? Sound ridiculous to you? They're all real goals to complete in Star Ocean 3's Battle Collection. The voice collection of previous tri-Ace titles is no more, and in its place are 300 unique challenges to fulfill. While such a thing has been featured in certain action and fighting games in various forms, this is quite possibly the first time that anything of its kind has appeared in an RPG. When you throw in great rewards like a sound test and different playing modes, never before has an RPG been so maddening yet so addictive at the same time.

I would call the gameplay of Star Ocean 3 nothing short of a gaming miracle if not for the fact that it's built upon such a solid history of video game designing excellence. With a multitude of different performing moves, each that changes and improves as proficiency increases, status effects, item creation abilities (which will put you in the poorhouse this time, both paying for the manufacturing and getting those greedy item creator helpers), there is an infinite number of little, minute details to tweak around with. Star Ocean 3 is about as limited as however the gamer wishes it to be. The years of blood, sweat, and tears of gameplay mechanics development have paid off.

Where's Mayumi Azuma when you need her?

tri-Ace has always been known to push a system to its absolute limits to produce some of the most stunning visuals that will ever be seen on such platform. It's no coincidence that Star Ocean is among the three largest Super Famicom cartridges (and Tales of Phantasia, another of the three, was designed by many of the same developers). Star Ocean: Blue Sphere is the largest and most graphically impressive Game Boy Color game ever to be released. Strangely enough, however, Star Ocean: The Second Story wasn't much of anything special. The sprites were fine, the pre-rendered backgrounds were decent, and the 3D battlefield and overworld could have been worse, but still, it was missing something. That something came forth as Valkyrie Profile, an amazing feast for the eyes. Now we reach Star Ocean 3, and the transition to full 3D has gone well - very well, in fact. I would be a liar if I said I never experience nostalgia pangs, in which I fruitlessly search for those old-school sprites I so dearly love, but I can always take a warp back in time by popping Star Ocean in my Super Nintendo and imaging it's still 1996. New things are a-coming, and I'll be damned if I don't appreciate them now while they're here and end up longing for Star Ocean 3 in 2010.

Perhaps someday, before the PlayStation 2 is regulated to bargain bins, there may be a game, likely designed by tri-Ace, that'll top Star Ocean 3's graphics, but for now, it reigns as PS2 king. Every square inch on the screen is treated to painstaking detail. Just try to count how many little kitty dolls appear scattered throughout the game. After you're done playing "I Spy", take notice of the superb textures and lighting. Watch the magnificent waterfall gush at Sealand's side, the snowflakes blanket Airyglyph, and the Douglas firs sway in Douglas Forest. You may appreciate the beauty of such places, but the rich atmosphere of less halcyon places won't set so well with you. Torches flicker on and off in the nearly pitch-black and eerily silent Becquerel Mine, and Urza Lava Cave feels literally like Hell with its steaming pits of lava and disturbing flaming corpses that lurch toward you.

Once you wind up in the heat of battle, you'll find yourself in a spacious "arena" in which you can duke it out with your foes, whose size can range from a miniscule speck to a gargantuan mammoth of a beast. Your characters' abilities also vary from insignificant punches and kicks to dazzling, screen-filling special effects masterpieces of explosions and color. Despite the size and number of enemies you fight and the fervent action that takes place, the frame-rate stays perfect. It stays sharp on the overworld as well, but some very minor slowdown occurs at times when you're in an area of numerous large, detailed enemies.

As if the in-game graphics aren't enough, we are also spoiled with some sporadic, awe-inspiring FMV sequences. It's a far cry from the hideous anime FMV of Star Ocean: The Second Story and the excessive "door FMV" of Valkyrie Profile. Like typical tri-Ace, most of the FMV is used on shots of spaceships and such, but we even get a bit of character FMV that remarkably doesn't suck!

The in-game characters have some minor flaws, however. In this day and age, it's not uncommon to see an RPG that possesses two polygonal forms for each character. One is used in battle, while the more smooth, detailed one is used in dialogue sequences. This isn't the case in Star Ocean 3. The polygons you view in battle are the same ones you'll see close-ups of in cinematic scenes. Some of the characters look like they have sun-burnt faces due to the peculiar shading, and most characters have freakishly long fingers. My personal pet peeve is the mouths, which is a big obsession of mine. A person with a weird mouth will slowly drive me insane (I can't watch a Val Kilmer movie without finding myself staring at his lips and teeth the whole time). The majority of the characters are tolerable, but Fate has a whole Japanese, triangular, dark lip thing going on that disturbs me. It's also frustrating to see pretty Maria's beauty ruined by her strange puckery lips.

The official art doesn't help a whole lot either. Many of the characters have the most generic, crude, boring anime portraits you could imagine. The characters themselves have the potential to look fabulous with a capable artist like Mayumi Azuma, official artist for Star Ocean: Blue Sphere. Just look at what marvels she did for the wretched Star Ocean: The Second Story designs. More frustrating yet, the quality of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time's artwork varies so greatly. What the hell happened? I can't imagine they used more than one artist, so did the guy take some serious art classes between drawing the monkey-like Fate and the gorgeous Maria? Thankfully in the process of development, the in-battle photos were redesigned numerous times, and the final product is quite pleasant for every character.

"Work that body! Work that body! Make sure you don't hurt nobody!"

Motoi Sakuraba did it again. While some may find it peculiar, there is no question in my mind why the man is preparing for a live concert in Japan of his best work from Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile. Over the years he's gone from Wolf Team action games to Shining Force to the Tales series to tri-Ace, and not once has he tripped up. Unlike some composers in the video game industry, he doesn't appear to be "getting tired of it" and starting to show apathy in his work. Creating a new soundtrack and arrangements still gets him as excited as he always has been about his music, and we should thank our lucky stars for that.

We are treated to another grand, epic opus in Star Ocean 3. Progressive rock is still the order of the day, but there are also many other styles present. Who would've thunk that a jazz piece would work so well as a final boss theme? The music of Star Ocean 3 sounds a lot less synthesized than in previous titles, and for good reason considering Sakuraba employed a full orchestra to perform the songs (just look at that monster of a list in the credits!).

As to be expected, most of the battle and dungeon tunes have wailing guitar riffs, heavy bass lines, and strong drum beats, while the town themes are commonly comprised of lilting bells, flutes, and violins. Some songs are unique in themselves, though. Gaiety Company (no giggling!) is truly a gay (as in joyful) tune with its Chrono Cross-esque melody and a touch of Irish flare. I am the No. 1, Roger's unofficial theme song, gives mental images of a wild hillbilly hullabaloo on the Appalachians. In the high-tech areas of the game, futuristic techno is a perfect fit. Powerbroker invokes a feeling of impending doom with its tension-imbued female opera vocals.

Not all is Motoi's work in Star Ocean 3. Misia, famous Japanese pop singer, contributes a soft piano piece with soothing vocals. While I'm pleased that the game didn't wind up with a grating, super-happy-peppy pop song as its main vocal piece, I can't say I'm overly impressed with it either. Bitter Dance, now that's a whole different story... The origins of this tune's vocals is unknown to me, but whoever had the idea of including the wacky rapping in a fast-paced battle theme should be heralded as a genius (and this is coming from someone who despises Knuckle's rapping themes in Sonic Adventure and most hip-hop in general). Bitter Dance is among my very favorite songs from Star Ocean 3 solely because of its sheer goofiness. And hey, it's always good advice to make sure you don't hurt nobody when you work that body.

The most pleasing tunes of Star Ocean 3 come from a rather unlikely place - the other games. As fabulous as the new soundtrack is, you can tell that Sakuraba put a smidgen more tender loving care into the complex and elaborate arrangements of the classic Star Ocean staple songs (not to mention the Valkyrie Profile themes for the Lenneth and Freya battles). To him they are his children, and to me they are my best friends. When I listen to the remix of The Incarnation of Devil I can't decide whether I want to rock out until I'm dizzy or just bathe in my gooey nostalgia. Either way, it's all good.

Unfortunately, you'll have to delve into the bonus dungeons before you'll hear much of anything familiar, but that's fitting in a way. However, from the very first second you begin the game, you'll find yourself right at home with the game's basic sound effects. Just about every little sound effect you'll hear in the menus of the game is straight from Star Ocean: The Second Story. Battle sound effects are completely original, and they add a lot of excitement to the action. They're a bit too loud for my tastes, though, so it can occasionally become difficult to hear the music over the thunderous booms and blasts.

There are a whole lot of shouts and yells during battle as well. Star Ocean 3 contains a massive amount of voice acting, which is quite ironic considering it's the only tri-Ace game (besides Star Ocean: Blue Sphere which had no voice clips) to lack a voice collection. It's a bit of a shame when you consider that the voice acting is performed by very famous and talented Japanese voice actors (who knows what wretched actors they'll hire for the US version). As to be expected, Sophia and Souffle have extremely high-pitched voices, which is considered attractive in Japan, but I prefer the elegant, deeper voices of the more mature ladies, such as Nel and Maria. The men span the full spectrum of voices with Cliff's deep voice, Roger's high-pitched kid voice, and Fate and Arbel falling in the middle. Almost every semi-important non-playable character also has a voice, and they all suit the personalities to a tee.

Live long and prosper, Gotanda.

I'm sure that at this point many readers have long since abandoned the mighty task of conquering this review due to my endless bloviating. Well, good. This is most certainly, and obviously, not a review designed for the mass public. If you've never heard of Star Ocean, this definitely is not the review to introduce you to it. I am but one person, and I am only capable of writing from my own perspective, that being the one and only tri-Ace Super Fan (an originally self-proclaimed title that over time took on a life of its own that no one dares to challenge). This is a review by a fan, for the fans. I didn't set out to write my best review ever or something incredibly poetic. I sincerely hope that for every person who will complain about this review being "too long", "boring", or "like a FAQ", there will be a fan who will appreciate every ounce of information and comparison that I have provided. If that is the case, than I have done my job, no, my duty, as the tri-Ace Super Fan.

What it all comes down to is that Star Ocean 3 is a game that a fan of any Star Ocean title simply cannot pass up. It's one of the best combinations of new technology, innovative ideas, and plain, old-school fun to come out in a very long time. There was once a time when I claimed that I would be perfectly happy if the Star Ocean series ended after the third numbered game. While it is true that I can be forever entertained by the four Star Ocean games I already have, I would more than welcome another title if it can offer fresh ideas and everything that made the old games great just like Star Ocean 3 proved it could. As long as I don't get the "been there, done that" feeling or find myself saying "what the hell did they do to my series?", I'll be a happy, little tri-Ace camper, and this time I know to never lose my faith in the almighty tri-Ace.