Excessive

To be honest, I didn't realy have high expectations when I placed Star Ocean: Till The End of Time on the ounter of the local EB Games. I knew it was published by SquareEnix, and I briefly read over a review at Gamespy about it but the real-time battle system had me iffy and the lack of the words 'Final Fantasy' had me skeptacle. Basically, Square being willing to assosciate it's name with it, the cover art, and the fact it came with a fancy box drew me in for the buy.

So I put Star Ocean in the PS2 awaiting a mediocre, hopefully mildly entertaining RPG to hold me off to Final Fantasy XII, and holy shit this game sure kicked my ass...

First off all, I was of course unsure of what to expect, never having played the first two Star Oceans, but I got from the intro movie that it took place in a futuristic earth, where humans are freely colonizing/exploring space and so on. The game introduces the characters and the battle system much like other RPG's, through slow paced Tutorials, although they don't give you much practice fighting, so it wasn't until further into the game that I completely became addicted to the battle system and fell in love with the game. When you first look at the game, you'll notice that the graphics and terrain aren't quite as stunningly beautiful as in Final Fantasy X or other such RPGs, but this is because, unlike those games, this game is in FULL 3D. Yes, you can go anywhere, rotate the camera, zoom in, zoom out, explore freely... Final Fantasy X for example uses pre-rendered backgrounds, where the image stays still (or only moves slowly) with only a straight path you can follow. So, Star Ocean must use textures, rather than pre-rendered images, so they look more crisp at first, but the extreme detail is refreshing and neat to rotate the camera and see such nice detail and textures freely explored and enjoyed!

So what I was most nervous about was indeed the real-time battle system that the game features... For those of you non-gamers, or just below-average-intelligented gamers, a real-time battle system is basically where you control a character in your party, and run around a 3d battlefield, .. real ... time .. rather than taking turns with the enemy, and when you hit the button, you swing your sword, and try to hit the enemey and avoid the enemies attacks. So basically, it has a lot more... fast-thinking skill involved, rather than just sitting there taking your time to think about your attacks, you've got to think on the run and think fast. Turns out it's FUCKING FUN AS HELL! Such freedom and such skill. It really takes a lot quicker thinking and more acting and you've got to think of strategies much quicker and it feels so good to just kick your enemies ass and see the results RIGHT now.

So to brag about the game, without giving away too much... for those of you who watched Star Trek, remember those episodes where Picard and Data and Riker and Geordy would go to an underdeveloped planet and they'd visit but have to pretend to belong and they had rules to follow... well, yeah... I can't really give away too much, but.. this game doesn't take place in space.. not, it takes place in futuristic areas, medievil planets, pre-medievil civilizations.. snow covered mountains, deep lush forests, spaceshits at warp speeds and beach resort areas.. it's amazing. Seriously, if you do not have this game... You are seriously missing out. It's leaps ahead of the competition.

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