At last...at long last...It is here. Over a year of waiting, constant delays, and agonizing pacing on my part has led up to the release of Star Ocean: Til the End of Time, a game I have waited quite some time for. Was my wait justified? I say to you: Abso-freaking-lutely.

The US version (and possibly the UK version) is actually the director's cut version of the Japanese game. It's surreal, seeing that American gamers almost never get the director's cut of ANY japanese game, much less in lieu of the original one. This version includes two new playable characters, a new dungeon, a two-player versus mode, and best of all, a reworked battle system.

But how does the actual game hold up compared to the others? Thankfully, this is the best Star Ocean game yet. The graphics are 3D, but have an anime feel to them. While this bars them from reaching FFX's level of realism, they are still beautiful to look at, and the character designs might be the

best yet. While the graphics are great, the sound is another issue. Voice acting is spectacular, and the sound effects are clear and realistic. Music, on the other hand, tends to be on the quiet side. Perhaps that's appropriate, as there are quite a few tracks that are wildly inappropriate for an RPG. You can shift suddenly from an orchestrated RPG score to a techno hip-hop song that says "Move that body, make sure you don't hurt nobody." Really now.

Thankfully, Star Ocean's story will distract you from the music. While most of the story is standard fare RPG cliches, the characters are at least fun to watch as they act out this tale. And the plot actually takes a very unexpected turn towards the end. Unfortunately, you'll spend about 80% of the game seeing things you've probably seen before in other RPGs as far as storylines go. That's not to say Star Ocean's plot has no originality to it...it just takes some time and patience to get to the

good stuff.

But by far, the best part of the game is the battle system. Fans of the previous game are familiar with its real-time, action oriented combat. It has been improved even further. The analog stick does not control a pointer or targeting reticle anymore (unless you manually activate it with the square button). Instead, it freely moves your character around. The X and O buttons are used for weak or strong attacks. Tapping the button results in a regular blow, and holding it down results in a battle skill. To make this feature even better, attacks can be canceled into other attacks to form chains and combos. Doing so gives you bonuses like temporary stat increases. The days of mashing on the X button to attack are gone! If you want to win a fight, you'd better learn how to effectively control your characters and create devastating 300% damage combo attacks.

Even with all this power at your disposal, the game can still be very hard, which leads to

the one other complaint I have with the game...not nearly enough save points. The most you'll find in most dungeons is 2. And these are very big dungeons with lots of enemies just waiting to kick your ass. Expect to do quite a bit of backtracking. Oh, and expect to spend lots of money creating equipment, as the game practically forces you to use Item Creation if you want to get anywhere. While Item Creation can be fun, it is a very expensive process, and all your hard-earned Fol can disappear in the making of one measly item.

Even though the game is sometimes frustrating, the battle system may be the most fun one I've seen in any RPG. It is a truly interactive experience that keeps you from feeling like you're just watching these people do the work for you. No, when you slay a monster, YOU slay that monster with 10, 20, maybe even 30 hits. Is that a dragon around the corner? Bring it on...