Played: May 2021
Everything in this write-up is wrapped around the MASSIVE SPOILER. Skip if you want to experience it for yourself.
To date, this is the only Star Ocean I've played. I picked it up in high school, made it up through The Twist™, and then fell off through no fault of the game's own. If you need a reminder, the big reveal is that your characters find out they are… in a video game. It's vague on the mechanics, but essentially you are a computer program, and your creators, "4D beings", want to wipe you out with anti-virus software. Silly, bizarre, and mind blowing to a teenager. The twist lingered with me for so long that 15 years later, I forced some free time into my life to see how it ended. My big question was "how does everyone in the story contend with having their reality so thoroughly upended"?
And in asking that question, I put in stark contrast the things that mattered to me in storytelling as a teenager vs now as an adult.
Because, unfortunately, the answer turned out to be "they treat it like any other JRPG existential threat". 4D beings are just a different form of the world-ending antagonist. I didn't expect the game to completely change its battle system or mode of play once you interact with your creators (although, how neat would that have been!?), but even in the story as-told-through-cutscenes, it's a dud. As a teen, the twist alone was enough to get me excited and call it a day. Now, while I still find the idea fun, the lack of real psychological impact on the characters really drops the ceiling. Our heroes are just so steadfast that they "believe in themselves" through the whole ordeal with no scars to show for it. I give some credit to the melancholy nature of the endings that I got (there are multiple), but I wanted a more thoughtful reaction than just a loud proclamation of "No! Our lives do matter!". Not asking for Satoshi Kon levels of psychic collapse, but this was just so underwhelming.
This is a symptom of the larger character writing in the game, particularly the dialogue. The way they speak in this game conjures the image of an inexperienced writer trying to recall the way characters in their favorite sci-fi fantasy stories talk. Video games and JRPGs everywhere bristle with clunky dialogue and awkward turns of phrases, but there's a lack of personality to Till The End of Time that stuck out. There's little sense of interiority to anyone as human beings. Rather, the words put into their mouths serve to either force out a conflict, or neatly summarize a theme, or deliver exposition, or inject a clumsy attempt at personality. I describe it as being top-down, where you know what a scene needs to do, you have the general adjectives to describe your characters, and you know where an arc needs to go -- but you stumble your way through connecting all those dots. You're backing into what you're going for, instead of organically giving your characters life to get there. Also, a lot of the lines are just woefully clumsy and redundant -- fresh on my mind is Fayt waking up after a catastrophic event surrounded by his comrades, with 4 of them saying different variations of "took you long enough!", despite not having established that sort of playful relationship with him and despite the gravity of their circumstance. I'm sure much of that had to do with voice acting production, but it still hit the ear all wrong.
It's always fun to think about what mattered to me as a kid vs now. Back then, it was all about plot, lore, design, cool factor, and the broad strokes of character. Those things can still matter, but now I firmly prioritize characterization, texture, specificity, and point of view. I love a lot of JRPGs and shonen anime, but the ones that speak to me sing with personality, while the ones like Star Ocean 3 come off as joyless. For example, there was so much fun to be had when Nel, a ninja from a medieval planet, learns about the existence of more advanced civilizations -- and then the rug gets pulled out again when she learns that she's just an artificial intelligence program! Can you imagine how interesting it could've been to really delve into someone having their reality overturned 2 to 3 times in such a short span? Instead we get some snippets and grumbles of "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on, but I'll stick with the main character because I am a Loyal Warrior™". To go back to the twist again, all the characters' reactions are collectively the same. There's no meaningful distinction between how Maria vs Fayt vs Cliff react to this existentially devastating revelation. The game had such a cool kaleidoscope in its hands to view everyone's thoughts on free will and the human soul. Would've loved to see everyone splitting apart, dealing with it differently, maybe a time skip, and then coming back together. Or any number of variations. Man, this could've been a wild ride.
Still glad I went back to it. It was worth comparing and contrasting my high school and current selves' wants and needs from art. I didn't touch on much of the gameplay, which I think is so-so? It would be unfair to critique, because that wasn't what I was here to engage with. I'll give narrative props for choosing to make the enemies significantly more tough once 4D beings are introduced, but in execution that led to other frustrations. Lots of neat things on paper, and lots of stumbling on the actual trail. I enjoyed the beginnings of many story beats and the prospect of every new world, but I wished to see a lot more planets, too. All in all, the game had a lower ceiling than the boundless promise of a great subtitle like "Till The End Of Time".
Everything in this write-up is wrapped around the MASSIVE SPOILER. Skip if you want to experience it for yourself.
To date, this is the only Star Ocean I've played. I picked it up in high school, made it up through The Twist™, and then fell off through no fault of the game's own. If you need a reminder, the big reveal is that your characters find out they are… in a video game. It's vague on the mechanics, but essentially you are a computer program, and your creators, "4D beings", want to wipe you out with anti-virus software. Silly, bizarre, and mind blowing to a teenager. The twist lingered with me for so long that 15 years later, I forced some free time into my life to see how it ended. My big question was "how does everyone in the story contend with having their reality so thoroughly upended"?
And in asking that question, I put in stark contrast the things that mattered to me in storytelling as a teenager vs now as an adult.
Because, unfortunately, the answer turned out to be "they treat it like any other JRPG existential threat". 4D beings are just a different form of the world-ending antagonist. I didn't expect the game to completely change its battle system or mode of play once you interact with your creators (although, how neat would that have been!?), but even in the story as-told-through-cutscenes, it's a dud. As a teen, the twist alone was enough to get me excited and call it a day. Now, while I still find the idea fun, the lack of real psychological impact on the characters really drops the ceiling. Our heroes are just so steadfast that they "believe in themselves" through the whole ordeal with no scars to show for it. I give some credit to the melancholy nature of the endings that I got (there are multiple), but I wanted a more thoughtful reaction than just a loud proclamation of "No! Our lives do matter!". Not asking for Satoshi Kon levels of psychic collapse, but this was just so underwhelming.
This is a symptom of the larger character writing in the game, particularly the dialogue. The way they speak in this game conjures the image of an inexperienced writer trying to recall the way characters in their favorite sci-fi fantasy stories talk. Video games and JRPGs everywhere bristle with clunky dialogue and awkward turns of phrases, but there's a lack of personality to Till The End of Time that stuck out. There's little sense of interiority to anyone as human beings. Rather, the words put into their mouths serve to either force out a conflict, or neatly summarize a theme, or deliver exposition, or inject a clumsy attempt at personality. I describe it as being top-down, where you know what a scene needs to do, you have the general adjectives to describe your characters, and you know where an arc needs to go -- but you stumble your way through connecting all those dots. You're backing into what you're going for, instead of organically giving your characters life to get there. Also, a lot of the lines are just woefully clumsy and redundant -- fresh on my mind is Fayt waking up after a catastrophic event surrounded by his comrades, with 4 of them saying different variations of "took you long enough!", despite not having established that sort of playful relationship with him and despite the gravity of their circumstance. I'm sure much of that had to do with voice acting production, but it still hit the ear all wrong.
It's always fun to think about what mattered to me as a kid vs now. Back then, it was all about plot, lore, design, cool factor, and the broad strokes of character. Those things can still matter, but now I firmly prioritize characterization, texture, specificity, and point of view. I love a lot of JRPGs and shonen anime, but the ones that speak to me sing with personality, while the ones like Star Ocean 3 come off as joyless. For example, there was so much fun to be had when Nel, a ninja from a medieval planet, learns about the existence of more advanced civilizations -- and then the rug gets pulled out again when she learns that she's just an artificial intelligence program! Can you imagine how interesting it could've been to really delve into someone having their reality overturned 2 to 3 times in such a short span? Instead we get some snippets and grumbles of "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on, but I'll stick with the main character because I am a Loyal Warrior™". To go back to the twist again, all the characters' reactions are collectively the same. There's no meaningful distinction between how Maria vs Fayt vs Cliff react to this existentially devastating revelation. The game had such a cool kaleidoscope in its hands to view everyone's thoughts on free will and the human soul. Would've loved to see everyone splitting apart, dealing with it differently, maybe a time skip, and then coming back together. Or any number of variations. Man, this could've been a wild ride.
Still glad I went back to it. It was worth comparing and contrasting my high school and current selves' wants and needs from art. I didn't touch on much of the gameplay, which I think is so-so? It would be unfair to critique, because that wasn't what I was here to engage with. I'll give narrative props for choosing to make the enemies significantly more tough once 4D beings are introduced, but in execution that led to other frustrations. Lots of neat things on paper, and lots of stumbling on the actual trail. I enjoyed the beginnings of many story beats and the prospect of every new world, but I wished to see a lot more planets, too. All in all, the game had a lower ceiling than the boundless promise of a great subtitle like "Till The End Of Time".