Taking a cue from Chuckles I figure I should also promote my favorite games.

Square's efforts recently have been, to say the least, shoddy (mainly just the FFX games.) I had some hope left though after playing Kingdom Hearts again recently, so I decided to buy Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. I can honestly say it is one of the coolest games I've played in a while.

I won't go into much detail about the story, as this is not the game's most redeeming feature. Actually, the story, while very interesting and enough to keep you playing, suffers from some originality issues and therefore takes a backseat to the amazing battle system. You run into enemies on the field and then fight them on a seperate battlefield, similar to most RPGs. However, the fighting is real-time and extremely fast. You control one of your party members, the others are controlled by the CPU (you can switch between them at any time.) You have both regular attacks as well as tactical skills that you hold the button to activate. They change depending on your range and are more useful in certain situations. Needless to say, it creates an interesting range of strategic possiblities, and also keeps you on your toes because the battles move so quickly.

The music and voice acting are all decent. The character voices are particularly great, with the exception of Farleen, who makes my ears bleed. The music is very eclectic, ranging from Celtic-ish stuff to hard rock. Graphics are also very well done, with gorgeous character models and the best shadows on the PS2 this side of Splinter Cell.

Any problems? Well, one noticeable flaw: the dungeons are way too big and confusing. You often know what to do, but not where to go to do it, and this resorts in much frustration. The minimap helps some, but it doesn't totally alleviate the problem. Still, once you get around these annoying parts you won't be able to put the game down.

All in all, Star Ocean: Til the End of Time is a great game that's well-deserving of your money. Those of you whose faith was tarnished by FFX should give SO a chance.

Rating: 8.5/10

Hehe, WEEE!

Well, I haven't yet gotten to play this game, but is the battle system the same as in Second Story? If so, it can't be bad, as that game was amazing!

:huh: I've played the whole series of star ocean and I'd like to state that though so2 is still my fav so this game holds up and makes a grand addition to the series.
And personally I think its the best thing thats come out of squarenix in a long time.

I have always wanted very badly to play Second Story (as far as I know its the only SO game besides End of Time to make it over here). It's probably so rare now that I'd have to pay upwards of $75 or something for it.

Actually, at my local EB Games, they had SS for about 15-20$

*Thinks about buying it so he can say he has two*

You see, my local EB Games sucks. There's one all the way in Charlotte at Concord Mills Mall (but that's like 45 mins away) that according to my friend, has a copy of the original Grandia and even the strategy guide!!! I should go there and look for Second Story sometime.

*Thinks about killing Chuckles and stealing his second copy*

:huh: Dude you should go there right now and pick up Grandia I think the first game was way underrated, I loved it.

*Feels totaly left out* The only one i've played is the Znes dejap translation. lol.


BTW, since were talking about Star Ocean, any one heard of Star Ocean EX?

:huh: I believe theat was the original title to so3 before they changed it to "end of time". Or it might have been the title to blue sphere in japan... I know I've heard it before in some far off galaxy or somewhere there abouts.


Edit: okay it just clicked where I'd heard it before. Its a anime of the so2 game in japan. Yes they made an anime of the game, I haven't watched it but the reviews I read say its decent for a game to anime transition.

OMG! Yes!! Star Ocean EX! ^___^ It's one of the few video game animes to actually follow the game to a degree. I loved it! Ha ha, when you got to see Ashton's barrel obsession in full beautiful anime, it made importing the boxset worth it. I heard they're releasing it over here, which can't be all bad. I forget who's dubbing it though. Oh well, at least now I can buy it without messed up Engrish subtitles. O__O

SO3 is actually my least favorite out of the three SO games, but it's still loads better than the last few FFs. Also technically we have Enix to thank for SO3, as the original version was made before the Squaresoft/Enix merger. Square just gave us the director's cut. I guess my problems with SO3 were pretty fundemental--the story really hurts. I mean, really. I was loving it up to one point, but after that point, I didn't want to play anymore. Sickened me like Chrono Cross did after you found out certain horrible things had happened to the cast of CT. And though I loved the battle system, it was really easy. I was able to get the under 1 minute trophies for just about every boss. Of course, I was playing on Galaxy Level as I haven't unlocked Universe or 4-D mode yet, so maybe they just made it that way so 4-D mode wasn't super rediculous.

The characters were pretty cool, though I hate Sophia like I hate most female leads in video games--they're always the same. Freaking healers. O__O I liked Ratix and Claude better than Fayt too. ^^;;

( I would take this a little further, but my cat just brought in a bird, and I have to save it now. O____O )

Actually, SO:EX got released jan 4 2005 (11 days ago) on dvd over here. I've heard alot about it, and i'm actually trying currently to dl all 26 episodes from the soldat tranlation, but its kinda hard on a 56k. lol. I also heard that it was ment to be a 2 season series, but got canned in the first season. Thats a bummer.



Intro's really cool tho :lol:

I haven't gotten but about like 12 hours or so into the game (thank you, Ratchet and Clank) but what I have seen so far of Sophia I don't really like much either. What about Tifa though? She wasn't exactly a healer...then again I thought Tifa kind of sucked anyway. OOH! Freya! Freya kicked butt!

Yes Freya did :D, dosn't hurt to kill lv 60 thunder dragons either.

Star Ocean EX, yeah I loved that series ...... It was brillant ........... When it finishes downloading for you Wolfpack your in for a really treat the animation is beautiful and personally I really liked the storyline and characters ........... Great series unfortunately after watching it I tryed to play the SO2 game only too realise that I already new the whole story :lol: ............ I'm glad I rented it ........... The anime series was definately true to the game though ............

Cheers,

Vash

Hey, thats great to know, cause i've never played anyother SO games than the snes.

~___~ They were supposed to make Star Ocean NE. EX stood for Expel, which is why the series only covers half the game. ^^;; They didn't make it because they started working on that stupid Spiral anime though.

:huh: Spiral?


What about dagger, she wasn't a healer, a summoner maybe but not a healer. I think the brat with the horn was the healer. Infact... kid wasn't a healer... I hate that name though, "Kid".... how retarded a name can you get, did lucca give her that name.

Not sure I'd buy the series if I couldn't finish it, I hate being left on cliff hangers for shows I really like.

True, there were some main characters that weren't healers, but if I remember correctly, Dagger had white magic in addition to summoning.

...I guess Rydia was the only black magic using summoner. ^__^;;

Kid sucked, imo. She was like a horrible melding of Marle and Lucca into some sort of terrifyingly crappy fire mage. O__O If she was Schala, they at least could have given her an element befitting of Schala. I mean, fire? Come on. Magus got to be shadow. They could have at least made her white based, and give Serge some sort of lightning element. It would have been fitting to have a lightning based main character again. Of course, that wouldn't have worked in with their big genious plot twist (OMG, you had white magic, now you have black! OMG!), which failed because you were playing a character who didn't talk, and therefore couldn't react to the plot twist in a fitting way.

...sigh... CC rants at 7:30AM aren't good.

But anyway, there are lots of games where the main female is some sort of healer. I think we need a game where the main male character's a healer. Heh heh--turn it around a bit.

...oh wait, that would be Breath of Fires III and IV. LOL I forgot--Ryu has the healing magic, and Nina's your attack magic mage. ^^

As for SO:EX, I don't think they ended it as a cliff hanger (although I really hope they didn't--if anyone's beaten disc one of SO2, they know why. LOL Baaaad place to leave off an anime.). I never saw the last few episodes, so I have no idea how they ended it. It was probably cheesy, and must have sucked, because you never got to have bad things happen to Claude's dad, get to find out Rena's back story, meet the two remaining characters, face the wise men (and the last boss, for that matter), or get to even see Energy Nede, which was the source of everything that happened on Expel. O___O Plus there was no bunny racing, and you didn't get to see Ashton and Claude share that love soda. LOL--that was classic. Still, at least we got half of the game in anime form.

Hey, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll finish it someday.

Heh yeah that brat is Eiko...wow, how much did she suck. Dagger did have white magic, and quite a bit of it, that's why I put her in my main party. Rydia I believe did use black magic, though I couldn't get into FF4 because of the excessive melodrama (everyone dies, then everyone comes back! WTF?) I had fun watching my friend play through my copy though.

Kid...heh I never liked Kid either("I'll kick your arse so hard you'll kiss the moons!" UGGGH SOMEONE KILL ME), but the reason I played CC is because the story, what with its whole trippy parallel dimension aesthetic, was pretty awesome. The original battle system and beaufiful artwork didn't hurt either.

LOL--that melodrama was the best part. Towards the middle of the game, you're almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people that you are loosing. LOL I think that they should have left some of the characters dead for effect though--as much as I liked Yang, he really didn't do much for the plot after his unfortunate run in with the Super Cannon. Cid still mattered with the whole plot, so I can see why he left him alone, and Rydia kicked some major ass when she came back. LOL Also, if they had left the twins dead, I would have been sad.

I think that Square was too uncreative to find alternative ways of having people leave your party without killing them, maiming them, or having them betray you.

:huh: Never understood why they changed schala so much in cc to fit the kid persona, the hair the attitude... eh... and wasn't she shadow also, it might have been cooler to user her later on in the game and have a shadow element character that looked more similar to schala.

Got pretty far in ff4 never beat it though. I was sad when... well half the cast supposedly died, but when I found out they all lived through some obscure event... well eh...

Yeah, now I don't Schala as much as I used too because I think of Kid. ~__~

At the very least, they could have given her blue hair. She looked more like Marle than Schala. Actually--her being Marle's daughter or something would have made more sense, since she had the whole rebellious attitude thing.

The only complain I have about CC is the silent MC.

A 3rd person silent MC is something I wouldn't like to look at. Throughout the entire process, everyone but Serge showed expression. Even when he got sweep away and enter into another world, he wasn't looking the least surprise.

Apart from that, everything is good. I like the battle system too and the boss fight were challenging unlike the latest FFs boss fight.

I still miss the FF old school final boss fight. They are alot more challenging than the recent FFs(7-10 that is). Hope 12 wouldn't turn out that easy. Oh well...

:huh: You know the chrono is a silent main character right?

You don't schala as much as you used to?... um I didn't quite understand that one. Do you mean cosplay?

I thought most of the FF boss's up till FF10 were pretty mean... well the secret ones that is; Emerald(7), Ruby(7), Osma(9), OmegaWeapon(8), and many others that just don't come to mind at the moment.

Though ff10 had those monster rancher creatures and they were down right cruel at times.

I do know Chrono is a silent MC. Just don't like the idea of silent MC, makes everything look awkward. It was all right for CT, coz Crono is a sprite. And as a sprite, I don't expect much expression out of it.

But for CC, characters goes 3D. Every CC cast has their own unique and fun expression except Serge, who just walks and listens like a mindless creature. Observe the scene where Serge got swept away into another world. Sure, the FMV did show a little expression, but when it's CG, everything is back to the expressionless Serge. It doesn't really fit in. I hope the CTRP won't make the same mistake CC did. If Crono is not going to have a voice(i.e his own dialogue, not the actual voice), at least throw in some expressions.

I know secret bosses were hard. But back in old school, the final boss itself was hard. Esp FFV, even with high levels, you can't beat the boss easily.

:huh: You have a point about the final bosses being wimpy, but if you tried to get the excalibur 2 in ff9 I'm sure you would find the final boss quite challanging... or near every boss for that matter, you have to get through more than 75% of the game in less than 12hrs... and that can make for some painful battles. But generally yes the final bosses are losers.

I thought that Neocron (FF9) was very difficult, I had to try 3 times to beat him. I thought Trance Kuja was a pushover. Safer-Sephy was also a little hard the first time I fought him, but now I enjoy fighting him to see how many Omnislashes it takes.

Hardest end game boss ever? Zophar from L2: Eternal Blue. He could wipe out like 2 of your characters in one turn! I never beat this guy, and when I wanted to try again I found I had lost my memory card, along with my FFIX save. :ph43r: You cannot imagine the expletives that escaped my mouth at that moment. Plus, I lent the first disc to a (used to be) friend who moved away without giving it back (therefore I can't start over). If I ever see him...wow.

In my last post I meant "I don't like Schala as much as I used to, because now I think of Kid." LOL--sometimes I get ahead of myself when I'm typing, and I miss weird things like that.

I found Necron to be pretty easy. First, I was laughing the whole way through the Kuja fight because my friend Stephanie likened his music to some sort of weird 80's porno music. Then when Necron appeared, and I kept laughing, and well, I beat him really quick.

I think the hardest boss out of all of them is Sephiroth, since if you don't have your final awesome stuff, you get Super Nova-ed to death. ^^;; I remember watching one of my friends get absolutely destroyed by Safer Seph at about level sixty five. Most of the other FF bosses I can usually take at about level 50.

FFVII end boss is a pushover because of the omnislash and the summon knights of the round.

FFVIII end boss becomes a pushover when Squall learned lion heart. (Hit more than Cloud's omni)

FFXI end boss becomes a pushover when Dagger and Eiko gets their best summon out.

FFX end boss is simply a joke.

LOL! :lol: The music for that scene was a massive letdown, especially considering the quality and emotional heft of the game's ending scene.

Hee hee--I can still remember that corny DUN DUN DUN DUN DAH electric guitar line. I'm surprised that SSJ4 Kuja--er, I mean, "Trance" Kuja, didn't do some kind of weird dance to it.

"Zidane--come to me, my canary!" ...on that note, I read somewhere that in the Japanese version Kuja confesses his love for Zidane or something. O__O I wouldn't be surprised though--did you see the stuff in his castle?! LOL

:huh: Think the hardest boss I ever fought in a rpg was the so2 final boss with his when his secret Uber hard mode is unlocked.... dick to me for ever to figure out how to kill... course that was after he turned my characters into paste a few hundred times.

Well if the way kuja acted and look didn't scream that kinda thing I would say I'm suprised the japanies version had that.

Well I consider kuja to be relatively hard on the one fact that you don't actually kill him... he pulls ultima out of his arse and wastes you with it... but otherwise pretty much ever regular boss in that game was a pushover.

OMG--I remember that. I accidently triggered the uber death mode without even knowing it, and at level 125 was still getting wasted by that bastard. O___O

:huh: I was getting wasted at lv 256, the only way I was able to beat him was to use the blood armor, and just keep healing myself when my health got low enough, course it was a very long battle though.

Holy SPAM, really? I just kept trying at him until I got lucky. I had Ashton and Claude doing their super techs on him constantly, and eventually they finally hit first. ^^;; That was the time I finally won.

:huh: Really Really. I knew about the trick before but I wanted to beat him in a fair fight.... but that just got aggravating so I put the armor on and pummeled the prick over and over till he finally fell down and stayed that way.

Hee hee--when it comes to a boss that's beaten me one hundred times, nothing is fair. ^___~

I really should go back and play that game again, though--I bet I could actually beat him now. Dragon Quest has turned me into a leveling up machine. ^^