Star Ocean 3 puts you in the role of Fayt Leingod, a heady, blue-haired young man who's also apparently a swordsmaster. As a citizen of the Federation -- an advanced civilization with colonies throughout the galaxy -- the situation that he eventually finds himself in is a little bit absurd (more on that later). During a vacation with his family and apparent love interest (eventual party member Sophia, a young girl who has problems buttoning her pants), he comes face-to-face with disaster: an alien attack on the resort ship he's cavorting on. After several requisite displays of bravery, heart, and filial loyalty, Fayt finds himself holding a one-way ticket to a decidedly backwater planet -- one with a technology level resembling that of 16th century Earth. And thus begin both the game and the absurd adventures of space boy in medieval land.
Like its predecessors, Star Ocean 3's primary attraction is its combat system. It's a real-time deal, and it's engaging, deep, rewarding, and well executed. You control one character manually, though once you assemble a party, you can switch between them at your leisure; meanwhile, the ones you aren't controlling are driven by A.I. scripts that you designate. From what we've seen so far, they seem to do a decent job of keeping themselves alive while you run around and whack stuff, which is encouraging. The combat is generally a combo-based affair. Each character has two attacks -- strong and weak -- each of which have long- and short-range versions. You also eventually get access to special attacks, which you can map to either button. These serve to increase the breadth of your combo potential, as well as to provide a level of customizability to each character's offensive "loadout."
In the thick of battle, things get pretty crazy. If your command of the weak, strong, and special-attack dynamics is both sophisticated and ruthless, you'll be busting out multi-hit combos, area-of-effect attacks, and even air juggles like its nobody's business. And, if you plan on snoozing through battles by jamming on the default attack like you would in most other action-ish RPGs, think again: if they catch you slipping, the monsters will be mad quick to counter your half-assed attacks and send you packing to the data load screen. The bottom line is that you have to stay with it, and the great thing about SO3's combat is that you'll actually care to. You'll feel challenged by the encounters, and rewarded when you do things right.
