STAR OCEAN: THE LAST HOPE is the latest addition to the futuristic space opera RPG series, STAR OCEAN. Science fiction and fantasy merge in this long awaited sequel to the franchise developer tri-Ace Inc. The year is SD 10. After World War III, humanity Journey to the stars of a new home ..and a second chance. A prequel that combines elements of science fiction and fantasy, that spans multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the STAR OCEAN universe. Exhilarating combat expands the franchise ¿s famous battle system in real time, including graphics and visual effects possible only on Xbox 360. Characteristics of CG films breathtaking by Visual Works, the study of art whose previous works include scenes from the popular Final Fantasy RPG
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A.D 2064...Planet Earth was on the brink of destruction as clashes between the World Republic Federation and the various nations that opposed it sparked the outbreak of World War III. Weapons of mass destruction, deployed with complete impunity razed the land in the blink of an eye. The dire situation forced the two opposing factions to negotiate a cease-fire and an agreement was quickly reached, but although the war may have ended, its effects remained. With the deteriorating environment, Earth's population was drastically reduced and those who survived lived a confined existence trapped in underground cities. Eventually countries joined together to form the Greater United Nations and turned their eyes skyward, to space. With the establishment of the USTA, the Universal Science and Technology Administration, man began to seek new worlds beyond the stars. AD 2087...The first year of the spacedate (SD) calendar. Thanks to the success of Professor Trillas Bachstein's warp drive experiments, mankind's dream of a spacebourne existence has inched closer to reality and the USTA secretly began to implement its SRF project, the Space Reconnaissance Force. Now it is SD 0010, and the first official SRF mission and your adventure has begun. Characters
Players of Star Ocean: The Last Hope will meet and interact with a wealth of characters from different parts of the galaxy, each with their own history and weapons of choice. Just a few of the more prominent characters to familiarize yourself with include:
 | Edge Maverick Although generally possessing good judgment, this young Earthling commander of the maiden deep space voyage of the SRF ship the Calnus, can be reckless. His signature weapon is the sword. |
 | Faize Sheifa Beleth A young Eldarian committed to etiquette and logic, and capable of astounding feats of engineering, Faize is always honorable of those possessing abilities he lacks. His signature weapon is the rapier. |
 | Reimi Saionji The kind and levelheaded navigator of the Calnus, Reimi was born in an aristocratic Saionji family and has a shared history with Edge back on Earth. Her signature weapon is the bow. |
 | Lymle Lemuri Phi Orphaned on her home planet of Lemrick long ago, Lymle is mischievous, but friendly and inexplicably retains the appearance of a young girl. Her signature weapon is the wand. |
Gameplay and Combat
Although Edge Maverick is the main character in Star Ocean: The Last Hope, players will of course experience gameplay action in the form of a number of different characters and utilize the signature attacks assigned to each. The game features a real-time combat system which allows for up to four party members to remain active in battle at a time. Improvements to the game's combat system include 'Rush Mode,' where players can switch out active members of their combat groups for reserve members in real-time; 'Sight In/Sight Out' which allows for timed evasive and counter moves against enemies; and the BEAT (Battle Enhancement Attribute Type) system, through which players can change a character's fighting style at will. Other actions players will master through gameplay include piloting of the spaceship Calnus, a first in the Star Ocean series; item creation in the form of weapons, healing items and accessories; and Private Actions (PAs), a cause and effect relationship between character in-game actions and the acquisition of new abilities and scenarios. Through the increased flexibility mastery of all these skills provides, players should be able to more easily increase their team and individual team member's combat experience and status, and so unlock more advanced combat styles and linked combinations. Key Game Features:
Customer Reviews
Seems like some people need to get their TVs replaced.
"Terrible graphics!!!"
That's what stands out when I read all of these reviews. I find nobody that thinks these are great graphics. Hmm. I'll get back to this.
Anyway, Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the fourth of the series. Its roots are in space and time travel, and often takes place on faraway planets, though its protagonist is generally from Earth. The first Star Ocean (Blue Sphere) never came stateside; instead, we got Star Ocean: The Second Story. During a time when the first PlayStation was hurting for role-playing games, this was a breath of fresh air. It introduced concepts that were new to gamers but taken for granted since: synthesis, cooking, and customization. In truth, The Second Story was really a 100+ hour game if you wanted to accomplish all there was to do.
What The Second Story also brought to the table was challenge. Other games were hard, but TSS is known even to this day as having one of the worst final bosses in RPG gaming history, a man known only as Indalecio. His original form was bad enough, but when you went to a certain private action, he became "Unlimited Indalecio", a true GOD that gamers were not worthy of. Being level 99 didn't do you any good either. That's not even counting the bonus dungeon's boss, Iseria Queen, who is even worse. Bottom line - the game was blatantly difficult near the end.
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time was released on PlayStation 2, and it wasn't well received by gamers, mostly because for the most part it deviated from what made Star Ocean so good. But what gamers don't see is that the third game actually added a piece of gaming goodness to the overall series. It introduced a new character in Welch Vineyard, adored by fans, almost to cultish dimensions. It also had a lot of small "throwback" things like science centers named after famous inventors in the previous and subsequent games, and bonus dungeon battles with notable characters from the past. It wasn't a bad game really...and didn't get the fair shake it deserved.
Not too long ago came two PSP remakes: Star Ocean: The First Departure and Star Ocean: The Second Evolution, based on the first and second Star Ocean games, respectively. While the gameplay is identical, these are definitely remakes in that a number of things were changed, most notably the difficulty of the second game being toned down and the skill tree being a lot more friendly than before. For those that never played the first game, First Departure was a great opportunity to find out what the first game was about, and when you play it, you get a better sense of the overall storyline.
Enter The Last Hope. This story takes place prior to the events of the first Star Ocean (using First Departure as a reference point), so if you never played the other games, a lot of the things you'll notice won't go over with you, but if you did play the others, you'll hear music that will remind you of each game, and meet characters that you either recall from the other game or who must be related to others from the previous games. There's definitely a lot of fan service to be had here.
Your protagonist is Edge Maverick, a young crewman on the Calnus. A disaster on Earth has rendered the planet unsuitable for human life, and the SRF (the organization you belong to) has been ordered to seek out habitable planets to identify their viability as a new place to live. If that story sounds familiar, at least somewhat, it's actually quite close to the story in Star Trek III: The Wrath of Khan, and one of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where terraformers are attempting to find planets that would be suitable for colonization. Unlike those however, a space "bubble" knocks you and your other ships off course, causing you to crash land on your first planet. While the plan appears to be quite like Earth, there is a darker side (this story is commonly seen on the original Star Trek). You can hopefully see where I'm going with this...there's also some instances of time travel that are quite interesting, yet infuriating at the same time. You'll end up hopping from planet to planet to achieve your objective.
Now that you have a sense of the basic storyline, let's get to the game itself. As mentioned before, it spans three full DVDs; that's over 13GB of data, for those too lazy to do the math. You can do the install to the hard drive, but be forewarned that there is a going speculation that doing so causes the game to freeze. I did experience a freeze, but I can't confirm for a fact that the install was the cause. I do installs to keep my drive from going out, and don't intend to stop anytime soon. Part of the problem with the spanned disks is that different planets are so large that they literally exist on specific discs. I know other games have the same issue. The problem is that if you wanted to go back to an older planet (and you will have to, for mining and such), you need to insert that disc. What I don't know yet is whether or not you can just install all three discs and avoid the disc swapping altogether. I assume you can, but haven't yet tested that theory. Seems though that you'd still need to swap discs, since the 360 requires the disc be in the drive in order to even access the stored data.
The music in the game is quite excellent, but for the fact that the tracks are quite short indeed. Older Star Ocean games also had short tracks, but keep in mind they were limited by the space on CDs during the PlayStation era. Either they kept the tracks short in order to emphasize the nostalgia, or they just didn't have the space left over to accommodate the music tracks in full. Of particular exception are the tracks from older planets like Roak (First Evolution) where the music from that game is playing, instantly inciting nostalgia. The extremely short, repeating nature of these beautiful tracks is the only issue here. As far as the voice acting, people are complaining about it, but I found it quite good, honestly. I mean compare this voice acting to Infinite Undiscovery or Tales of Vesperia...and you see there is no comparison. At least in this game, the personality of each character is brought to life extremely well, except for maybe Reimi (because she sounds like every other video game heroine). Part of the measure of good voice acting is whether you are emotionally moved by the character when they're speaking about something - and yes, some people don't get moved at all by game characters - but when someone like Lymle is expressing how sad she is, in a way a child definitely would in the same situation, you can't help but appreciate the voice acting that much more.
In terms of challenge, I found the game to be quite balanced compared to other RPGs of this style. Regular enemies for the most part are not difficult; you do get multiple difficulty settings to choose from, but even on the harder settings you can still reasonably work your way through the majority of regular enemies. They're aggressive, but your characters are even more aggressive. Once you master all of the nuances of battle, you will find yourself breezing through the majority of battles without a scratch. The challenge comes in when you encounter bosses though - these behemoths (and they're always behemoths, aren't they) will almost always give you at least a slight challenge, whether it's juggling you in the air, blasting you with flames or freezing you to death. But that's how it should be, in my opinion: regular enemies are moderately challenging, bosses even more so, but neither so difficult as to throw your controller against a wall.
Speaking of battle, the gameplay engine in The Last Hope is a throwback to the older Star Ocean games who really pioneered the action battle along with the Tales series...but The Last Hope threw in just a little bit of uniqueness to break the mold. Here you control your main character as he hacks his way to victory, and yes, you can take control of your other characters as you see fit. But this game offers some flavor. You can do some short range jumps in the four directions; so to the left/right, toward or away from your enemy. This is great if you need to dodge, or cut down distance to your enemy to effectively defeat them. You can also transition from the jump into the Blindside attack, which allows you to quickly run behind your enemy. If done correctly, not only will you dodge the attack, but you will surprise the enemy and do critical hits on their backside. From there you can throw regular or special attacks; even chain special attacks together if you've got a skill that allows you to do so, racking up major damage. Rounding out the feature is the Rush attack, which can be best described as a limit break. When executed, you and another team member will unleash a flurry of blows to one enemy to multiply the damage dealt. I found myself not really using this, simply because it takes a long time to build up the gauge that drives it, and the damage wasn't all that great compared to regular attacking and special moves.
As you fight and pull of special attacks, you'll build up slots on the Bonus Board, which gives you various bonuses such as Exp and Fol. It also can give you free SP which can be used to build up your skills, or HP/MP to heal you after each battle. But be careful; the enemy can destroy part of your Bonus Board if they hit you hard or frequently enough, so you really can't just bull rush every single fight. You need to pay attention and stay on the move in order keep the advantage. The Bonus Board also apparently disappears when you save and cut the game off, which I understand, but don't care for.
Making a return in a toned down fashion is the item creation feature. In Star Ocean 1 and 2, you could create items anywhere you wanted just by having the skill active. That meant cooking, alchemy, blacksmithing, etc...could all be done on the road so you could get stuff ready for that next cheating boss. Star Ocean 3 (Till The End Of Time) did away with this and centralized Item Creation to Welch Vineyard, with some exceptions. The Last Hope forces you to go back to the Calnus whenever you want to do any Item Creation whatsoever. While this does increase the strategy, it becomes a bit of a chore, because not only do you have to do the creation back at the Calnus, but also the recipe creation (you can't just find the recipes out and about and you can't just randomly mix ingredients to make stuff like parts 1 and 2). Some characters are better than others at specific skills, and unlike the previous games, you won't have a situation where the entire team can do blacksmithing or alchemy; each character has a specialty that they stick with, and while each character might have tendencies toward one skill or another, they will never do it better than the one who owns the skill. It is good to see Welch back of course, but her "edginess" has been toned down from part 3. No more witnessing her 'special dreams' here, as she's really just a holographic projection from Earth headquarters.
The Last Hope boasts some rather massive landforms for each planet and expansive dungeons. It will take you a couple of hours AT LEAST to complete a specific area, assuming you're not rushing. This has to do with the size of the areas, but also some of the puzzles that are thrown at you, which honestly aren't bad as..say...Equinox (SNES game), but they're certain to get on your nerves. What's funny is that often the item you need or the door you need to go into is just very cleverly concealed, and when you do find it, you'll likely groan at just how hard you made stuff on yourself. That's what the game does well: force you to feel bad about yourself because it seems like something is really difficult, when it actually is dirt simple.
Okay, boys and girls...the graphics. I save the best for last. All I've seen on every review is how the graphics are poor. Quite honestly, I think people need to upgrade their TVs or they don't know how to configure their TVs properly, because on my DLP LED 61" Samsung (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-HL61A750-61-Inch-1080p-Powered/dp/B001415FIG/ref=cm_cr-mr-title), this game is as beautiful as they come. I've heard people say Lost Odyssey looks better? Nuh uh. The individual hair strand detail of The Last Hope blows Lost Odyssey away, and at times the true 3D effect is so pronounced as to be mind blowing. The draw distance is the best yet, and looking out on some planets makes you truly feel as though you've traveled to another place; Roak is a prime example of this. I believe what people are having issue with is the bloom lighting effect; it is somewhat strong, but no more so than Gears of War, which is what this game looks like. It uses the Unreal engine, I'm told...as did Infinite Undiscovery, another beautiful game - and the game is simply gorgeous, all the way around. There are some intermittent places where the blending was not done properly, most notably in some shadowed areas, but it's the exception rather than the rule. Setting contrast just below maximum, brightness at max, and sharpness midway results in just a striking game. People...upgrade your sets please.
So what are the game's issues? In a nutshell, I wasn't happy with the fact that the Blindside doesn't always execute. You'll follow the conditions explicitly, yet nothing will happen, and then you get put in a spot where you are getting pummeled. Or you'll do the Blindside, it executes, but you get cut off by another attack that didn't even touch you. Or my personal favorite, when you try to dodge enemies on the field, and get stuck behind an invisible object (hit detection issue with some of the scenery) and get attacked from behind. All issues with the engine, and not the overall game, which I find to be quite excellent. Not perfect, just excellent.
In summary: I have no idea what these other cats are talking about putting this game down. This game clearly pushes the 360's capabilities more than most of the other games that are out for the system, and hopefully KOEI and others can sit up and observe how it's done. This is a must buy, in my opinion, and I hope to see other games like this.
One thing or another...
It's been a long time since I wrote a review, but after 300 hours of gameplay, I thought I would make a few points. Star Ocean is a game that, with slightly better writing and development could have been one of the best games of the decade. But it consistenly falls short.
Let's take a bit of a look.
The game is graphically beautiful. Full appreciation is due to the artists and animators. Not just for wandering around the vast multiworld universe that is the setting for the game, but fight animation is also lovingly detailed. Everything is great except for facial expressions. The characters are usually deadpan, and Reimi has a distant stare that is positively chilling.
The story is intricate. Edge and Reimi start out on Earth's attempt to find a colonizable world in order to save the human race from the ruin of a war torn planet. They meet a number of different alien races enlist characters (you wind up playing 4 out of a set of eight characters). Eventually they meet more villanous aliens, uncover a plot to end the universe and have to defeat an evil mastermind. Initially the game is linear, but gradually non-linear elements (such as quests) are introduced and you will do a lot of planet hopping. To some degree there's too much story. The worst example is the infinitely long closing sequence, which is unavoidabe and unstoppable.
Interplayer relationships are interesting as the characters are all quite different. Acting, however, is spotty. The worst example here is the crisis Edge goes through when his actions result in the destruction of a planet. Not his fault, but he spends endless hours whining and beating on himself (massively overacted) before he gets back on track
Gameplay itself is the real problem. The characters are irritatingly difficult to steer, and the precise position needed to accomplish something can be quite elusive. This can get on your nerves. For all the complicated battle options most battles are repetitious and frankly, the bosses are too easy. Or so they are until suddenly they get way to0 hard.
Battle trophy hunting is an important part of character building since you need enough trophies to remove the experience cap and get more than a small handful of things to say while killing mushrooms. Some of these are a matter of pure luck(kill an opponent with exactly the right anount of damage)or really aren't much of a challenge (run away 20 times). None of the other collectables are that hard to get, but they are easy to miss if you don't know that some place is about to be destroyed forever. Which means you will have to play the game at least twice to get the accomplishments. And while I don't mind playing the hack and slash endgame for hours on end, the last thing I want to do is live through Edge's tantrums again.
I have a number of other grumbles, but no doubt you have already figured out that this is a very playable game that simply doesn't live up to its potential. It is a pleasant pass time though so I would recommend it anyway as a good value for the money.
Star Ocean: Last Hope Review
Having never played a Star Ocean game before, I was a little iffy about picking this one up. I didn't know if it would be another Final Fantasy clone or really stand out amongst the masses of JRPG games that have been hitting the 360 lately. After checking out some pretty decent reviews, I decided to take the leap and pick up the game on a whim.
From the start of the game, I got the feeling that the combat would be a lot like Tales of Vesperia. This is a good thing, as I loved every minute of Tales and for a game to bring up memories of a favorite is definitely a plus. The combat is similar, but not exactly the same. Where Tales used a lot of one button (maybe 2 button) presses to take down most enemies, Star Ocean at least involves a little more strategy. You can whip yourself around bad guys when they least expect it (blindside move) and attack from their rear, issue orders, etc. There's a lot going on in combat, but it's not hard to manage. There are a lot of tools at your disposal, how (or if) you use them, are completely up to you. The combat through the first couple hours of the game remained fresh and exciting, and I actually looked forward to getting new skills and abilities. Where other games kind of throw them at you, I got the feeling SO eases you into them and gives them out a lot less often.
The story in this game is different that most RPGs I have played (remember, I never played the other Star Ocean games). The world suffered after World War 3 and sent explorers into the heavens to find a new home for Earthlings. You play Edge Maverick, one of the chosen explorers on the maiden voyage. That's about all you need to know to get started in the game. Like all games though, something has to go horribly wrong and it does, thus throwing you right into the action (if after a pretty long cutscene). There is a support character, named Reimi, who is your childhood bestfriend. The relationship between the two is definitely going to make for some interesting story elements. While they aren't "in love", they do have a very deep bond between the two of them. As time goes on, it looks like a love interest could form between the two given the right circumstances. And by circumstances, I mean user inputted actions. I didn't realize this was something the series does, but you control the feelings of people towards you (to a degree). For instance, in the first level, you stumble upon a flower patch. Reimi looks at the flowers and says they are beautiful. You are given 3 options to respond... "They are beautiful", "You are beautiful", "You are both beautiful". Obviously, being a chick, she want's to hear number 2 and if you choose that, you are going to increase the affinity between you and Reimi. If you chose the flowers are beautiful, Reimi may be insulted and the affinity between the two of you will decrease. With increased affinity comes increased cut scenes and pivotal moments between the characters (this doesn't just happen with Reimi, you can form bonds with all characters). When an affinity reaches a high enough level, guys and girls can share a room together...leaving the rest up to the imagination.
Graphics are a big thing for me. I love the direction current genre games are taking graphics. Tales of Vesperia was a great looking game, but I'm not too big into the anime scene. Last Remnant was a decent looking game, that had trouble performing/loading. Star Ocean on the other hand, looks great. It's nothing to write home about (a la Gears, MGS, or Killzone 2) but it's a very good looking game! Although the characters do show some anime sides to them (namely the eyes), it's easy to look past because they have normal sized features. But, anime might be your thing so that comment is just opinion. The worlds are varied and the colors are really pretty in some areas. You may not have many stop and smell the roses moments, but you will enjoy the ambiance.
Overall, I'm loving Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It's the perfect RPG to hold us fans over until FF13 comes out this year (or next). If you love collecting things, there's a ton of things for you to do. From enemy data, to battle trophies, room items, ship data, spells, it's all there. It's a collector's dream. Finishing this game is said to take around 40-60 hours, but if you want to complete it in it's entirety (all endings, all collectibles, etc.), chalk on another 30-40.
If you are a fan of games such as Tales of Vesperia, Last Remnant, and other JRPGs, you're going to love this game. If you are more of a western RPG fan (Mass Effect, Fallout 3) like myself, give this one a try. It's got the sci-fi thing going for it and the combat is very fresh. Battles are in real time and fun. Who knows, maybe it will reawaken your love for JRPGs.
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