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Star
Ocean: Till the End of Time (PS2) |
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Review by: theunhackable1
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Reviewers Score:
8 / 10
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Posted: May 01, 2006
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Love/Hate relationships and plot
twists!
So, this will be post number 50 for theunhackable1, and i just want to
say that I'm proud to be part of such a fine internet establishment.
That being said, let's get down to business, shall we?
Story: 7/10
For the most part, this game follows the time-honored RPG cliché: Evil
empire wants young boy for unknown purposes, boy is taken away from
everything he knows, boy swears vengeance against evil empire, boy finds
friends and becomes extremely powerful, good defeats evil, and cut to
closing cutscene. The only kicker to this game though, is this: it takes
place in space!!!!
Aside from the constant clichés, the game does fairly well in it's
presentation. Various levels abound, and some locations in the game will
bring a smile to an SO fan's face. The only drawbacks that I saw were
the constant backtracking and one particular event that happens.
Backtracking, because no one wants to do that, plus it's annoying. The
one event that I spoke of, though, was the plot twist at the beginning
of the second disk. When it happened, I stared at my screen for several
minutes, then shut off the system. This twist is one of the worst that I
have ever seen, and for that the story gets a seven.
Graphics: 9/10
Not much to say about this category. Decent graphics, though just a
little sub-par for my tastes. There are also some beautifully rendered
cutscenes, though.
Sound: 8/10
Two different parts to the sound here: Music and Voice. On the musical
side, there only seems to be four or five different songs played
throughout the entirety of the game. While this is bad, the extreme
variety only makes it worse. I personally find it painful to go from
listening to quiet ambient music to hearing heavy guitar riffs.
In voice, there is fortunately more good than bad. The good thing is
that all of the cutscenes have VA. Bad thing is that some of the
character's voices are so freaking annoying that I physically turn down
the volume. There is also the ability to be able to turn off
voice, but everyone looks silly pantomiming their words.
Gameplay: 8/10
The combat in this game is deliciously simple, and yet it holds some
depth to it.
Battles are placed in real-time, and you can switch between your
characters with a simple button press. Everything in a combat situation
is controlled by the character's "Fury". Depending on how much
"Fury" you have, you can either pull off a simple move or an
awesome special attack. Speaking of, the special attacks are determined
by how far away that character is and by what button you're currently
mashing. The only bad thing about combat is that you can die by either
losing all your HP or your MP, which sucks when you're at an early
level. Also, some of the characters you get start out at level 1, which
is really bad when everyone else is at around level 30. Finally, each
character is only allotted 15 points in which to set up their special
attacks, meaning that the player would have to sacrifice something good
for something else.
The second part of the gameplay comes in with the sidequests. There are
a plethora of minigames to play, including a stadium mode and bunny
races (ooh, the bunnys...). In addition to that there is the ever
present "Synthesis" mode, in which you can create new and
better items. The only drawback to this is that synthesizing good items
is freaking expensive, as in costing me over 500,000 GP to create
resurrection potions. There is also the "Battle Trophy" mode,
where by completing certain objectives you get battle trophies. Some of
the requirements are easy, whereas others are nigh impossible. For
example, one requires you to beat the final boss when the character you
control is at level 1. Only for the experts, it is.
Overall: 8/10
It's a good game, and it's real cheap too. So go on and pick up a copy.
And tell me if you hated or loved the twist. It would be good to know... |
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