| Ok Lets get things started with this very short review.. and i do mean short. I dont have all god damn day. Anyhow lets break it down into a few sections so theres at least a bit of order to this madness. Graphics: 9/10 Simply speaking they are just wonderful. Everything was well animated, characters looked good and the enemies looked equaly awesome. Special attacks were like eye candy especialy a certain few that you just had to perform over and over again in succesion because they looked so damn good. Evironments looked very nice and realistic, mountains plains futuristic type deals, even desolate planets looked pretty nice. Though the level design does get very very bland toward the very end.. post game actualy so ill leave that for later. The female ninjas offered up some eye candy as each of them were ludicrously hot. Hmm well i think that covers the visuals... Character Design: 8/10 Some of the characters in this game are just fantastic in nearly every way possible. They each have a unique feel and look to them and equaly unique fighting style with one exception. Kliff/Mirage. As a character I like Kliff more, however it seems that these two share basicaly the same fighting style and background, i feel that it would have been better if Mirage was not playable but maybe thats just me. Id have to comment that Albel is one of the coolest looking character designs of seen to date, so that counts for something. The only reason that it got a 8 here is because of the copy character. Story: 7/10 A very excellent story I thought. Well played out for most of the game that is. Things get a bit.. weird near the end. It could have been a much better game if they didnt try to screw with the story at the end. Maybe thats just my opinion but hey im the one making this damn review so it counts! Basicaly it starts off kind of the same as the previous Star Ocean. Your stranded on a underdeveloped planet searching for a way to get home. Always a good way to go, however theres a few twists.. once you get off the first underdeveloped planet you land on yet.. another underdeveloped planet.. hmm ok. This one you stay one for awhile, and i do mean awhile. Well i cant give any more away but yeah.. good story up until they start fucking around with the Star Ocean universe.. is nothing sacred? Gameplay: 8/10 Ok well let me just say this. If your only playing the game up until the ending and not getting into any of the extra dungeons or doing massive amounts of item creation then the gameplay would mostly be a 9. However since i have to review the game as a whole then i have to consider the fact that item creation gets very very very horrible and terribly tedious. Whereas in SO2 it was very enjoyable to just randomly create items, you will find that most of your time in the endgame of SO3 is spent repeatidly trying to get the exact right price that you want. Theres odds for getting a certain number when you try and create an item.. and what you make depends on that number so sometimes you have to sit there for literaly a half hour trying to find an almost impossible number, not to mention the times you pass it up by accident. Absolute horror.. ugh, please go back to SO2 if you ever make another SO. Anyhow aside from the item creation. Battles are very fun and engaging however sometimes you will find that you will just be chaining a few moves over and over again and repeating the process. While this sounds boring it realy isnt because you can still change the moves, or just switch to a different character. So with that much variety it is a very sound battle system. Replayability: 8/10 As with most RPGs this is very high since there are alot of things you can do, like new game plus and unlocking trophies. On top of that you also get two bonus dungeons after you beat the game. While this may sound great its realy just alot of tedious work and you dont even get payed for it WTF!? Ive spent about 100+ hours just getting to the last bonus dungeon so yeah its going to occupy your time thats for sure, theres no doubt about that. Its just the quality of fun that it produces after the actual game is over drops significantly. Instead of story the game ephasizes item creation and exploring the bonus dungeons to find uber items and powerful new skills. While thats all and good and its fun in its own right. The neccesary amount of item creation to actualy kill some of the monsters later on is absurd.. you could probably spend 30+ hours just making items and still not be to the point you want. My closing thoughts on this game, as with many games, are that it could have been much better than it was if only a few simple things were changed, and they didnt fuck with the story so much. That realy pissed me off jesus. While this game has its bad points i still feel that it is a highly underappreciated game, while it doesnt compare with some of the greatest RPGs out there it should keep you satisfied until something else comes along. Just try to stay away from the very final bonus dungeon as it is definately NOT worth it. A good game all in all, definately reccomended. I give it an 8..... out of 10. |