Platform	PlayStation 2
Available	Feb. 27 (Japan)
Price	7,800 yen
Genre	RPG
Developer	tri-Ace
Publisher	Enix

Last week's launch of the highly anticipated Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time was arguably one of the biggest Japanese RPG launches of the year. I was a bit down-trodden when I had heard that the initial batch contained a bug that would cause the game to freeze on 10000-30000 series PS2s. Despite that, I decided to pick it up. Using a friend's SCPH-10000 model PS2, I started up the game.

Let's get the bugs out of the way first. I ran the fight simulator (a prerequisite to continue the game) and it froze in the very first encounter. So, after heeding some advice I heard on from several people, I turned off the voices in battle and voila, the freezing bug didn't occur.

Now, there is a different bug that also occurs randomly. It causes the character you're using to freeze in place while actions around him continue to occur. It would always lock-up after a certain point in battle. I found out that even though the other characters may defeat the enemy, the game will freeze nonetheless. This has happened to me about four times or so in 12 hours. Thankfully, I saved before it occurred so I didn't lose any progress.

Interestingly enough, these bugs seem to be a problem when controlling Fate as the lead character. I didn't have either bug occur when I was controlling Cliff. I'll have to do some more testing but this seems to be quite an interesting issue.

As for the game itself, I'm quite a bit more impressed with it than I was anticipating myself to be.

Of course, the first thing that will always catch a person's eye when playing a game is the graphics. Although the game seems fairly colorful, most of it is chosen so that it blends well together. Even Fate's very blue costume fits in pretty well. This leads to a rather nice aesthetic feel for the game. None of the colors are washed out, over-saturated or even clash with each other.

The character modelling for the game is nice, although not quite the best for the genre. In some regards, it's very similar to Xenosaga's modelling although not as clean. The Star Ocean characters seem a bit out of proportion on occasion. There's also an odd unevenness apparent in some scenes where there might be a polygon jagging out of place or a texture that seems kind of different. On the positive side, the characters all look quite different and have varying designs and details like on Fat's leg armor or on Souffle's cape.

Environments in Star Ocean 3 have to be amongst the more spacious in the genre. Rather than having a world map the game has characters traversing areas to get from town to town like the original Star Ocean. As such, the environments are designed to be explored as you travel and most are large enough to require a bit of searching to get a full layout. There's even a percentage counter under the mini-map to tell the player how much of the current area is unlocked.

The two last things to take note with the graphics are that the frame-rate is quite nice, staying pretty constant except for a few odd instances even in battle. The other is the excellent animation. Quite outstanding in all regards, especially the twirl that Souffle does quite early into the game.

In my opinion, Star Ocean 3 soundtrack has to be Motoi Sakuraba's best work thus far. So far, there's a broad range of music on offer, from the standard orchestrated tracks to more rock-like dungeon themes. Each fits the scene or area it accompanies quite well. The voice acting for the game is abundant and thankfully it's really good surprisingly. The one major gripe is that the volume for the music on occasion is a bit loud and drowns out the voice acting. And it's a shame that I can't hear voices in battle without the game freezing.

The core of any console RPG is the battle system of course, and so far, SO3's really kicks ass. If anyone recalls, SO2 was played out in multiple formats of your choosing. Most people chose the full active options for that game and it was a fairly decent attempt, mainly marred by the fact that it was rather clumsily executed. It basically boiled down to a rinse and repeat system, almost turn-based, except it moved at break-neck speeds.

Instead of giving the player the option to choose their style in SO3, they went with the full active battle system. This time around, the game has been retooled to take advantage of the 3D and the constant motion of the full active system. Now the game feels almost like a beat-em-up in some regards. Movement is in full 3D and not 2D sprites moving up and down the Z-axis.

For attack, there are two different buttons, light and strong. Each has a different attack string depending on the character, distance, and position in regards to the enemy. The two buttons require different amounts of Guts to attack with (I'll explain more about that later). You can even combo them depending on the order and your timing. Battle skills are executed by holding and then pressing the attack strength at specific ranges.

Battle skills (known as "hissatsu waza" in previous games) make a return to the series. This time though, they're a bit different. The battle skills in the game require that you place them in slots that are either Short or Long Range and on your light or strong slashes. The significant difference though is that depending on the position of the attack in your slots, the move may get a bonus or a penalty. So far, the penalty that I've seen most often is a higher cost while the bonus is higher damage to the battle skill. The penalty is a bit more severe than you think. Battle skills require HP or MP to execute. So if you wanted to dish out more damage with the move, you'd have to pay more to execute it. Levels are back for the skills as well. It seems that they play a slightly larger role but since I'm rather early into the game, I haven't powered them up yet. Also, battle skills require Capacity Points to equip. You gain more points every level but your attacks also take up more CP. Also, to use heraldry, you have to equip a skill (which is put in an added slot for support battle skills just under the normal battle skills in that selection screen) that allows you to cast those spells in battle. These require CP as well. This creates a rather interesting situation since you have limited slots for moves but you also have to balance your points out for attacks you want to use as well as Magic and other miscellaneous skills.

There are also Support abilities to upgrade like from the previous Star Oceans but it seems rather subdued so far. There are only four options to upgrade with the earned SP so far.

And there are also tactical skills in the game. These provide a few different functions but I don't have too many except for three of them. One is a Shield Protection change for when your Guts meter is at 100%. Another is an Enemy Search that gives statistics of an enemy. Lastly, there's a taunt skill that tries to get the enemy to attack the character doing it. I'm hoping for more varied skills as the game goes on.

Heraldry is learned through books in this game, and you require a skill to use the magic in battle (which I mentioned above), but that's all I know about it right now. I haven't encountered much magic yet.

New to the game is the Guts meter. It's that wonderfully interesting third bar below MP and HP in the battle screen. That bar determines how many commands you can do consecutively. Every move attack you make drains a certain amount of Guts and is gradually drained the more you attack. If you don't have enough points in the meter you won't be able to execute an attack. If you hit zero, you'll be momentarily stunned. Standing in place for a short period of time recharges the meter.

So far, it's rather interesting because it prevents me from just mashing the Circle or X buttons and creates a situation in which you have to be watching this meter and how many attacks you're doing because the stunned state leaves the character wide open.

Having 100% Guts also gives you a protection shield. This shield prevents light attacks (and even battle skills bound to the light button) from hitting you but can be crushed by strong attacks. The shield is only put up when you actually have 100% guts, and so far that's only achieved by standing in place because running takes 1%! What's most interesting is that when this shield is up and you hit it with a light attack, it'll be deflected and your character will drop about 50% of his Guts meter. In the same regard, hitting a Protection shield with a heavy crushes it and drains your opponent's meter by 50% or so.

The Heat meter is a nice little addition. It'll charge as you fight and when it reaches its max, it'll give you a prompt about a bonus battle. It then proceeds to give you a bonus whether it's extra HP healed at the end of the battle or 300% experience (just to name a few). The longer you can keep the Heat meter going, the more bonuses you get. Apparently, the meter is broken if you take too many hits. This is surprisingly nice because EXP and Fol (currency in SO3) in the game are rather scarce so far, so every point counts. Don't worry though, as the required EXP amounts to level are kept in a relatively nice ratio so that it doesn't get ridiculously tough.

For collectors, the game has a battle collection option that records the time, date, and battle in which you achieved a specific record. There are over 300 of them.

There have been a few mini-games here and there but that seems to be a major one for the entire game. I haven't run into item creation yet, but I'm rather looking forward to it.

As for the other facets of the game, there are several rather interesting things.

The game has much more in common with the original Star Ocean than Star Ocean: The 2nd Story. The game has you running around areas to get from town to town rather than a world map, like I mentioned above. This creates a rather linear approach to the game, and thus far that's been true for me as I've been following the main storyline so there's very little exploration outside of the areas you need to visit.

Surprisingly, the game has an odd amount of lengthy cut scenes. While some may be turned off by the thought, it's been rather bearable mainly because the game is pretty well written. It's certainly not a classic literary work but the characters come across distinctly and it's rather fun to watch their banter. For storyline, there hasn't been too much in an overarching sense to the game. It's been rather situational (I can't really spoil it now can I?) so far but has had some hints at something slightly bigger. It's certainly a bit more sci-fi because there's already been more gallivanting across the galaxy than the previous games have had.

Overall, the game has left a rather positive impression on me. I'm looking forward to playing through it and I seriously hope that, as much as I loved SO2, the game doesn't fall into a similar rut.

- Anton Cao
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