Customer Reviews

Star Ocean Till the End of Time Official Strategy Guide

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To put it simple, if you're looking to complete Star Ocean: Till the End of Time this is a good guide. But as it says in the heading, the information is all over the place and that means there's A LOT of page flipping.

Don't be fooled by the exhaustive size. The guide just has thick pages. The book is heavy but each page is full of tons of info, to the point where its helpful enough so that you can get through the game without fail.

The guide will quickly help you adjust to the game in an easy way. The font size is small so there's a lot on one page but this shouldn't be a problem. The screens are crystal-clear.

The characters section is really helpful giving a little bio and then a list of what level the character will learn Battle Skills, Support Skills and spells. Then there's a handy table of the battle skills they posses, showing the weak position and strong position.

The walkthrough is different. It is divided into chapters and at the beginning of each chapter is an outline of everything you'll do. In the outline they tell you when all the private actions come up and where, all the main events, bosses (but no strategies in the outline), battle trophies and any time you can sign an inventor. The outline also directs you to the proper page. This is very handy if you want to get the most out of the game without the guide taking away the fun.

The walkthrough also lists all the enemies in an area and has some detailed maps with a handy dandy items lists. Boss strategies are detailed but they take a little while to get to the actual strategy.

The guide details all the bonus dungeons, mini-games and sidequests. In the process they also have an entire section dedicated to the Private Actions. In the Private actions section they show you the consequences of each one. Who you'll gain points with and who you'll lose points with. You'll also know exactly when its availible, the requirements, where it is and of course, the guide tells you what page to turn to to find it.

Along with the items and equipment lists you've got an item creations sectoin. In the Item Creators section they'll tell you what character specializes in what, where they are and the signing requirements.

The Bestiary is huge but it works. Rather than most guides you have to search through each of the enemies alphabetically, in the walkthrough not only are the enemies basic stats listed, but each enemy has a number. On the side of each page in the bestiary it tells you what numbers your looking at. It's much easier to find the enemies number than to find their name. It works too.

This is an incredible tome but there are a few little tidbits that annoy me. For one, this guide is heavier than most of guides of this length. The second is simply the walkthrough moves a little too slowly. Sure they tell you all you need but sometimes they waste too much time trying to catch you up on what you're supposed to be doing. At least they don't spoil the storyline but sometimes I wish BradyGAMES would get to the point. My last small tidbit is to fully utilize this guide you've got to flip around a lot. Especially if you plan on doing all the Private Actions. Its clear the guide wants you to use the Private Actions list in the back.

Overall, the guide deserves five-stars. The walkthrough is a little sluggish at times and you've got to flip pages a lot (you may want to bookmark some) but the guide is a great resource in helping to do all the game has to offer.

OVERALL

The Good
+Nice game basics
+Good walkthrough
+Outline of events makes the walkthrough easier and faster to use
+Bonus Dungeons and Private Actions covered
+Item Creation
+Easy to use Bestiary

The Bad
-For 272 pages this guide is thick and is kind of heavy
-A LOT OF PAGE FLIPPING!
-GET TO THE POINT BRADYGAMES! The walkthrough is sluggish

But if you need help with the game, grab the guide.

A very indepth analysis of the game system. Gives a good walk through of the game, with plenty of tips on how to best level up ones characters. Like most RPG'S Star Ocean second edition, requires time to level up one's character's in order to move on with the progress of the story. Yet isn't that the fun part, engaging in lots of battles in order to level up one's character's and discover treasure items. A typically excellent game guide, better than some I've used in the past for other games. Would highly recommend to anyone wanting to experience the overall experience of Star Ocean Second Edition. Gives an indepth view of the various styles of game play available involved in going through the game the second and third time. To really experience the realm of Star Ocean Second Edition, playing through all 3 levels of expertise is a requirement, and without the guide this would be extremely difficult to figure out on one's own. I realize some puristist's believe game guides are like cheating, yet with the difficulty of most games now days, the average player needs a little nudge at times to head in the right direction. This tutorial works extremely well in that department.

Star Ocean is such a thorough game that the only way to truly experience its full richness is with the help of a guide.
The guide has these features:
basic explanation of gameplay
walkthrough and bonus dungeons (with explanation and answers to puzzles therein)
a thorough guide to the possible dialogues with characters in the game and a guide to the different possible endings
a list of enemies and their stats (bestiary)
and perhaps most helpful a chart that expedites the item creation process

So I would rate the guide as very helpful.

If you bought Star Ocean recently and thought you could get away without having a strategy guide, you're going to get frustrated and toss the game. Or you may decide to just be frugal and use an online guide; but will get lost using it and eventually give up playing. You NEED this strategy guide.
Here are some reasons why:

-Locations in the game aren't marked on the map, they are color coded. This book gives you an area by area map of all the items and the locations to different zones. This helps a lot when you have to backtrack and forget which zone goes into where. (And you will backtrack several times)

-It helps BIG TIME with bosses who have high HP, but low MP. You don't always know what you're going against, and if you're prepared it makes things easier.

-In terms of the insanely intricate crafting system on Star Ocean, it's going to be a no-brainer that you'll be using the book non-stop. The guides on GAMEfaqs.com and IGN don't help you out well enough to figure out what items you need, and how to craft.

-Private Actions/Endings: The game can be beaten several different ways (I believe it's seven, much like Chrono Trigger). This guides helps you determine what endings you want to see first.

-Character Standings: This is another big thing the guide covers which online guides can't help you out on. This shows you what private actions determine your standing with that character, which in turn, determines how well they fight for you.

Like others have been saying, you'll be doing a lot of page flipping, back and forth checking the maps on where to go next. A good pullout page for the map locations would have been a lot better than the crafting system map they provided instead. Either way though, I couldn't have beat the game without this.

I've been playing RPGs for over 13 years, and I've never had to rely on a strategy guide as much as this one. I seriously suggest buying this book if you are really interested in beating the game. Stop being cheap and get a copy before they go out of stock.

There is a lot of things you would need to do in the game and the guide does tell you everything you need. However it is not really written well so you need to turn a few pages to get to the map of the area and the objective you need to do. But i think it tells me everything i needed to do.

This strategy guide is very important if you want to play the game correctly, otherwise you'll be totally lost (except with Final Fantasy games). It has the maps, chests locations, answers to puzzles, etc.

I found many mistakes in this guide and also found that the walkthrough was kinda not well written (wassup with those ME notes at the bottom of the pages? why not put them in the chapters they belong? also why not put all the ME, PA, BB, etc in the walkthrough instead of seperating them into parts so we don't need to go back and forward?)

This strategy guide is a MUST for anyone who has this game. Especially, though, for those who have to have every item in video games.

Good:
1. Pretty detailed
2. Boss strategies!
3. Doesn't seem to give away too much of the storyline
4. Item Creation guide
5. List of every item in the game
6. Nice maps

Bad:
1. There is a LOT of flipping back and forth between pages
2. Why detail the chapter at the beginning? They should take it out of the first few pages and put it in the place where it's supposed to be in the chapter!
3. Maybe just a little more detail would be nice
4. There were several errors that I have found that are easily avoidable

It is a good strategy guide overall. As I said before, this book/novel is pretty much essential to the person who must get everything in the game. Heck, it's essential to anyone who owns this game! It is a good guide and its shortcomings are fairly easy to ignore.

Like most RPGs, if you want to unlock everything the game has to offer, you need the guide. This guide is excellent in almost every way. My only problem is the layout at the beginning of each of the game's chapter. Everything that needs to be done in that chapter is listed at the beginning. It would have been helpful if the actions done on certain maps were listed where that map was instead of having to constantly flip back and forth between pages. I know it's minor, but for how long this game is, this can get annoying.

Product was received in a timely manner in condition as indicated. Guide contains maps, items, bestiary, and everything a guide should contain. I wished I would have had this the first play through, since I missed a lot of items. With a game of this size, you at least need a detailed items list and very good maps, since this game does not have a in-game map of each area that you can find. You have to explore each area to complete the map before you can view it on screen, so without a good map, you will have to explore every nook and cranny to find items, new areas and things.

While it took a long time for the seller to ship the product (almost a month, actually), and I even considered reversing my order, the product eventually shipped and I eventually got my guide. The guide was not new, as was claimed by the seller, it did have a few dings in the cover, but all in all it was in pretty good shape. The book itself was very helpful, I enjoyed a lot of the information found in this game guide. For collectors value, this is definitely worth a look. Even for the casual gamer, both the game and guide are worth a serious look. This is hands down the best video game I have ever played, and I found the guide very helpful, especially in certain tricky spots in the game where I got stuck.