Gaming Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time

[Semjaza]

I don't know how many people here are familiar with the Star Ocean series. It's published by Enix and developed with Tri-Ace (one of my favorite RPG companies, also behind the excellent Valkyrie Profile). The original was only in Japan for the Super Famicom, but the second one was released in the US as Star Ocean: Second Story. I thought it was an excellent game, that was perhaps too amibitious and was thus somewhat flawed... The horrible SCEA translation didn't help either.

Anyway, Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time is for PS2 and will be the first game under the new Square Enix label (that name must have taken forever to come up with :rolleyes: ).

The story itself hasn't really been spoken about. There are a lot of real world monuments in the game, and apparently they are important to the story. Tri-Ace really hasn't spoken about it though, other than giving some tiny background on the main characters.

Like the other games in the series, battles take place in realtime. You control one character and the computer controls the other 2 (you have 3 in a party at a time). You can switch which character you control on the fly. So basically, you get into a fight and are able to run around and hit the enemies and do all sorts of special moves. If you time yourself with the other characters, you can also do combos and such. In the past games, you could freeze the action while you went through your magic and item menus. This game seems no different in that aspect.

Graphically, sometimes shots of this game seem underwhelming. It has a style simliar to Skies of Arcadia or Suikoden III in a space environment... but there are a hell of a lot more effects. If you see recent videos the fights have some amazing lighting and pyrotechnics when characters cast spells and whatever else. There is also FMV, but Tri-Ace hasn't been a company to overuse it so far... What I've seen of that is pretty damn impressive as well.

Anyone that played the second game on PSX would remember the private events. Basically, before you entered a town you could choose if you wanted to enter it as a group or split up. If you split up, you could talk to the other members of your party in the town and influence the story (and the ending even, there were like 80 endings) in some way. I'm not clear if this in the game or not, as apparently no one has gotten to all that far in it (Enix just shows demos sometimes). However, during cutscenes you are sometimes given choices that will affect how things play out... Which is at least a start heh.

Release dates have been all over about this game. It was already supposed to be out in Japan. I don't even think it is yet. Then there was a US date of March, which was thrown out the window really quickly. Apparently the new US date is September, which is so far away :( Enix of America was originally supposed to bring it over, but they closed down. I'm not sure how the Square Enix localizing will work, but they'll probably wind up sticking with EA which judging from the past translations is a good thing.

[img]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/enix22.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/enix18.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/enix15.jpg[/img]

[Guest Zeh]

[color=003399]Too many games are coming out... hows a kid like me to get them all? :p

I don't remember much of SO... i remember how they used to say "the enemy" when you were in a fight... i thinks thats the game i'm thinking of? I loved the battle system. Even in games where you don't get to control the characters movement, and they still walk around, i like it... like in Grandia.

Another game i can't wait to hear more of :)[/color]

[conpiracymonki]

[b][size=1]
I'm with Zeh. I only have my PSX and PS2, and yet there are so many games to get, and wait for. I think all these RPGS are going to burn a deep hole in my pocket...
>.>
[/b]
It looks awesome, anyhoo. I'll watch out for this one..[/size]

[Zidargh]

[SIZE=1][COLOR=darkblue]Yay, another Star Ocean game, this looks very Suikoden 3 or Grandia 2 style as in the effects used. My main worry is that the storyline keeps up to the standards I expect, but I will no doubt be puchasing this.
Any news on a UK release Semjaza?[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Charles]

Oh man, I love anime style approaches in RPGs. The facial expressions and emotions are priceless (if done right) and the characters are easier to identify with their boring, realistically, modeled counterparts. For instance, I've seen a screen shot of this game where a small child is sulking with a large pot on his head, and Nell is trying to comfort him. Awesome.

This game is supposed to be loaded with voiced dialogue and music, too. I doubt that people like Semjaza ([b]Grampapa[/b] Azazel), who aren't big fans of voice overs will be pleased, but I'll be loving it. Games like Suikoden III or Zelda would really benefit from voiced cutscenes.

I'm happy that combat isn't always random too. The fighting sounds a lot like [b]Kingdom Hearts[/b]. That's right, the popular-for-some-reason that I can't explain, [b]Kingdom Hearts[/b]. The guts meter should be a cool twist though. Plus, item creation is always more interesting than simply purchasing weapons...

[Guest Steiner]

I just had to check out this game and what can i say. Its looks great im definatly goin to get it, its got a FF7 thing heppening.

:) Im so happy my 2 favourite developers merged :)!!!!

[Outlaw]

I am really looking forward to this one. Star Ocean 2 was one of my favorite RPGs ever. The characters where amazing, combat was fun, and the creation element just added to the enjoyment. Also, it had one of my favorite stories ever, combining technology and magic perfectly, and the possiblitys for character interagtion was amazing, especially the special scenes you could find in each city by seperating the party. I really hope that Star Ocean 3 will live upto its prequile