Star Ocean: The Last Hope for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

As far as Japanese RPGs go, "The Last Hope" doesn't break the mold in terms of it's cliche characters and storyline, but in terms of it's unique combat system, it's in a league of it's own. The worlds are large and beautifully rendered, so despite the fact that it get can tedious "jogging" from one place to another you can still appreciate your surroundings and you never really get tired of battling the wide variety of monsters scatterred across the landscape. Seriously, even though the game spans 3 DVDs I played through it three different times (each time unlocking higher difficulties), so compelling and fluid was the combat system they designed. I relished the challenge of the "Universe" and "Chaos" difficulty levels, as well as the secret dungeon that becomes available after the first time through, and it was fairly easy to grin and bear some of the cheesiest moments of the game because you can usually skip the cutscenes and before you go on it gives you a quick summation of what happened in text. So overall not a complete RPG experience without terribly engaging characters and story, but man it was fun to work over those monsters again and again in so many different ways.

All in all, Square Enix puts together such a fine product generally, and in Star Ocean specifically, that it’s hard to find anything to complain about. If you’re a JRPG fan, or even a RPG player, you know to expect a certain amount of contrived dialogue and stereotyping of characters. And that certain amount is a lot. As in most to all.

In theater you refer to the “willing suspension of disbelief.” JRPG fans have honed this skill, some perfecting it through the years of poorly localized games from the 8-bit days onward. Others just have that Japanese fetish. If you’re playing a JRPG you go in knowing you can look forward to at least 4 to 6 blatant stereotypes, half of which will be comic unintentionally. Knowing all this I’m not going to whine about the lackluster plot and cutscenes. You reap what you sow.

Overall, Star Ocean was about as engaging as you’d expect from a Square title, though the feeling was waning by the game’s conclusion. Whether it was a lack of a true connection with the characters or just a weariness of the mindless repetition inherent to the genre, I’m not sure. What I do know is that when I realized that I had the opportunity to take the step forward and fight the final boss, there was no hesitation. No completing old quests, no attempting for one more dragon scale to finish that uber armor, no leveling up for one more attack option. No, sir. Just grabbed the four strongest characters, ran through the palace and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. Which is odd. Usually the collection bug gets ahold of me with JRPGs, but not this time.

That said, Star Ocean: The Last Hope still stands as a solid JRPG. If you’re a fan of the genre or Square Enix you could stand to give it a shot the next time you’re trying to figure out what to do with all that free time on your hands.

If you find this excerpt useful at all, check out the full review at Gamehermit on wordpress.