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.

I've spent about 140 hours on this game so this is what I have:

-Awesome Battle system: Probably the best real time RPG battle system out there with countless variations on what you can do...8 characters to play with and blindsides are just too much fun.

-Graphics are stunning at time but bad textures lead you to wonder what system you are on.

-Music can be perfect at times but seem very generic most of the other times. Only a few select tracks that I really enjoyed...and i'm a big time RPG music fan.

-A ton of replay value: If you are a completionist this game is for you...140 hours and walking away with 500 achiev's after two playthroughs...seriously 2 post game dungeons and trying to take them on on any difficulty setting is hardcore...let alone the hardest.

-The storyline was pretty good considering nothing recently other than Lost Odyssey has really inpressed me...then again I grew up with the old school final fantasies and games like Xenogears so my bar is pretty high.

-The English dub wasn't terrible in my opinion but some characters like lymle or sarah can really get on your nerves....just way too many "kays"....but I have deffinantly heard worse. If you are a FMA fan mustang's voice is in this! =D

Overall this is probably the best JRPG on 360 this year and the gameplay alone keeps this one standing against the others.

Here's the deal:

Graphics: 7/10
Sound/Music/VA:7/10
Gameplay:9/10
Replay:10/10
Story:6/10

Overall I gave it a 7 on Gamefly rating.

If you like RPGs alot and want a challenge go for beating this bad boy on chaotic otherwise if you play it once you probably won't get what this game really has to offer...so you know I did NOT die once on the first play but could not believe how challenging it would become when I continued. It may feel very generic but even with all the frustrations you find yourself continuing to battle at it. Good luck becoming the Ethereal Executioner!

The Combat and Leveling of this game is awesome, but, what's an RPG without the main character playing an awesome Role in the story. Anyone 18 or older will probably think this story is lame, to say the least. Not only is the story lame but the characters are stupid, and so are their names. The story seems to have been written and directed by a 10 year old. One thing that aggrevated me the most was that the characters constantly said each others names before they would talk. Or if someone would complement or say something nice, instead of saying thanks or something a normal person would say, they look at the person that was giving the complement and just say that persons name. Another thing is they repeat things other people, like if some says"Look up there" the other person would say the say the same thing only slower, "Up..........There"

Example;

EDGE: Raimi what or we gonna do?
RAIMI: Edge, if we try hard we'll figure it out.
EDGE: Your right Raimi, what about you Faize?
FAIZE: Edge, Raimi, thank you for letting me join you.
EDGE: Faize.
RAIMI: Faize, your always welcome. Your our best friend.
FAIZE: Raimi.
EDGE: That's right Faize, we couldn't do this without you.
FAIZE: Edge.
EDGE: Faize, Raimi, we need to head into the vortex.
FAIZE: The............vortex?
EDGE: Yes Faize the vortex is going to show us the way.
RAIMI: Show........us the..........way?
EDGE: Yes Raimi, it will show us the way home and save everyone.
FAIZE: Save.....everyone?
EDGE: Yes Faize, we'll save everyone, it's our last hope.
RAIMI: Our....Last.....Hope.
EDGE: Yes Raimi, out last hope.

This is an example of some of the worst dialogue ever put into a game. I rate this game a 4, because a RPG, should have a great story. Rent this game only if you like to skip the story, but then, why are you playing a RPG.

If you like Final Fantasy then you love this game. Pretty much had the same setup as FF, and the cinamatic clips were awesome aswell. Although they do tend to get long, when all you want do is just get on to the fighting, luckly you can chose to skip the clips and continue with your objective. Boss battles are intense sometimes and can get lenghty, if you do have the right pple on your team. Other then that I can't really complain. But you guys and gals would have to see for yourselves. Enjoy!

Star Ocean 4 is probably the best JRPG out on the 360.

Gameplay is great, and the cut scenes never get old. The length of the game is pretty long, and expect high replayability value.

The least you can do with this game is rent it, but this would definitely be worth a buy

I remember back in the days of Square soft, (not SquareEnix) RPG titans like FF7, FF8, FF10 and Star Ocean second story etc... these games had exactly what we were looking for in an RPG , Story, gameplay, dialog, graphics, and most importantly Heart, I actually gave a dam about the characters and was excited about what the next plot twist might be. I don't know what happened to Square but as far as i'm concerned they have lost the ability to make a decent RPG, they have forgotten the core mechanics of why people play RPG's, Story being the most important. If you think I'm being to harsh on ol'square check out some other craptacular SquareEnix RPG's such as The last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery.

I gave this game a healthy try into the second disc. The characters lack of emotion, design, and acting was absolutely horrible and generic. I would have preferred not to have any voiceovers and leave the japanese in, but there's no escaping the weird doll like faces of the characters. I'm a big fan of Star Ocean and recently completely played through the remakes of First Depart and Second Evolution and those titles were tremendously better.

If your looking for a JRPG to fill the void this is not it.

I just recently got this game from gamefly and i have to say that i have been so addicted to it. Im a huge fan of SE games especially final fantasy and when i played this game i knew i was gonna fall in love with it from the very beggining. The graphics are amazing, the characters look awesome, and the storyline is great. Fighting is always fun, and interactive. This is definitly one of the best games ive played in a while.

so when i put the game into the 360 and saw the opening scene i was stunned just the amount of detail was incredible...so first impressions were good...as i played the game i loved the fighting style used in the game...easy to learn but took some skill to master...graphics were great the levels were big in the beginning and really put a hurt on my game play. i would play then something would come up and i needed to save. it would get frustrating when i couldn't find one ... music however was a bit of a downer...half way thought the game i just put my ipod on and played the game on mute since i didn't need sound after all...same goes for the character's voices...story was great but the dialog seem too much like disney movie...however some of the actions and costumes really did earn the teen rating of the game...overall great game...played about 110 hours on it so much to do in this game...if u like rpg's then this is a game u really wanna play

I have good news for all the JRPG players out there. One came out that is worth the time and effort to play!!!!

The game has awesome graphics, game play and Storyline. Not to mention 3 discs! So you are probably wondering why i gave a 9 instead of a 10 with all this hype. Its the voice overs. They are not bad to the point were you go bonkers just hearing them but can be alittle irritating at times.

In conclusion its a great game worth the money. GET IT!!!

First thing i need to get out is that this is in no way a bad game. Its very well done, the graphics hold true to the style of SO. However, it just really didn't bring anything new to the table since SO:TTEOT. It has a long drawn out story, which in my book, is a very good thing. However the combat and multiple story twists make it a bit grueling. You never really feel like you are making any progress in the story

This is my first review on Gamefly, and I usually do not bother with reviews, but after playing Star Ocean I felt that I had to say something. This game is terrible. I have been playing RPGs and Action RPGs since the days of the Atari (Adventure), and I have found this game to be the single biggest disappointment I have ever put a controller to.

Battle controls are extremely cumbersome and difficult to use, you end up just button mashing 99% of the time. Battles are very unbalanced, most of the time you are severely overpowered, which I suppose would be a good thing since you can get out of a fight much faster and not have to deal with the horrible controls.

The dialogue is just plain silly, childish, and uninspired. Cut scenes are too long, the characters are cookie cutter Japanese cartoons, and there is a complete disconnect when it comes to creating an emotional connection to the characters.

The interface in unintuitive and just like the battle controls, cumbersome. The leveling system is uninspired and offers little to no flexibility. Note to developers: RPG leveling systems should include more flexibility than just putting points into "special moves". Speaking about special moves, there is nothing "special" about them, and with the combat system the way it is, one special move has pretty much the same effect as any other special move in the game. Your just button mashing and hoping for the best. And "the best" is usually the resulting outcome since you are usually way overpowered halfway between checkpoints anyway.

Do not bother with this game. There are some great RPGs available for the 360, this is not one of them.

It is a great RPG. When I was playing it the more I played the more it sucked me into the story and the things you can do in the game. Travel in a spaceship to other planets see different worlds and the level of technology of the people on the different planets and what time period the planets are in is really cool.

From the get go, the introduction before the start menu appears was exciting. Once in the game, you watch a long cut scene then you play a VR training mode for the battle system. The tutorial in the very begining of the game gave me a good feel on what to expect in combat. I hated the experience already. Its a learning curb that would take about 10-15 minute to figure out how movement works and how to determine the best enemy approach, counters and guarding. I actually spent more time fighting the camera mechanics because it would often zoom into something leaving your field view restricted.

There are so many things that did not make this particular JRPG unenjoyable. The camera control is awful at best. The character/art design looks like its a cross between "Team American World Police" and "Dark Crystal" dropped in the set of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". The camera angles of cut scenes made me feel creepy when it swing low for an upskirt shot on a little girl doll looking character. The english voice overs are annoying and terrible. Lymle, a "15 year old" villager, speaks like a she is 2 years old. This is some serious BS when the character clearly dresses like a 5 year old, half the size of the "grown up" crew, and speaks like a toddler at best. This game would of been more tolerable if there were no spoken dialogue or kept in its native language, subtitled. I fruitlessly searched for the language, subtitle and voice option. The only thing that would of made this game tolerable was missing.

I recommend you play better JRPGs than this one. Avoid it, you will not miss a good storyline or like any of the characters.
JRPGs that are better than SO: TLH for the 360 are:

Lost Odyssey
Tales of Vesperia (highly recommend)
Eternal Sonata

First there are the emotionless characters with little to no personality. The ones that they did try to give some personality are just annoying and add nothing at all to the already weak storyline.

With that in mind prepare to sit through some of the longest cut scenes I've seen since Xenosaga. The majority of which take place in just one room, and consist of just these characters bantering back and forth about nothing in particular. Making up at least 20% of each of these scenes are long, awkward pauses and "flavor" from their "personality" characters. A lot of the villains especially that you meet seem to move and speak in slow motion, pausing between each sentence presumably to make sure you can fully grasp the enormity of their words. Words like "Oh, Kevin".

This game also suffers from freezing issues, at least two of which people have already pinpointed and are able to reproduce, but have yet to be patched. This is as frustrating as you might imagine after clearing a tough boss or running through a long dungeon only to freeze just before a save point.

On the upside the crafting system is pretty robust, as it is a Star Ocean game, and there's a lot of bonus content to explore. The battle system also isn't half-bad, though it seems to me that's it's a bit of a watered down version of the system from Tales of Vesperia and the inability to switch targets on your own really really hurts the fun factor. This is especially when your character decides he wants to lock on the least threatening guy on the map, who also happens to be behind another much larger threat that is both chasing you and directly in your path to your target. So you get to hop around aimlessly trying not to get hit until he decides to change priorities, or actually get hit to force the change.

Overall this is definitely not an RPG I can recommend. The most important factors it seems to me in an RPG are the story and it's characters and this falls flat in both these elements and so much more.

If you're about 12 years old you may like Star Ocean since your palette isn't that great yet (and apparently there's some mild T&A in it), but if you're an older gamer you should skip it. Apart from the fact that the game does nothing new it does many things just plain wrong. Let's go over a few of them.

- Multiple discs/audio

Yes Microsoft was stupid to go with DVD this generation, but if you're going to make gamers go through the trouble of remembering which disc every event is on, at least try to make up for it by stuffing multiple audio tracks on that extra space.

The english dub is, as always, horrendous. You can turn it off but then you're practically forced to watch the game on mute as music rarely plays during cutscenes. Oh, and the dialogue is just as bad as the voice over to begin with, so you're not getting any more enjoyment (just less pain).

- Battles
It's a button mashing fest. The developers try to mask this fact by bombarding you with tons of useless tutorials, gauges, acronyms, etc. If you want to kill your enemy you just have to run up to them and mash the attack button, occasionally jumping. I don't mind button mashing itself but it doesn't belong in an RPG.

- Camera
The camera helps ruin this game even further. It's either too far away or too close and too low, and controlling it is a pain in the butt whether you're fighting or exploring. Most of the time you can't see where your enemies are, and there's nothing you can do to fix it. Oh but you can change the X and Y axes! Yay.

- Exploration/conclusion
Maps are huge and boring, so when you're trying to avoid the tediously repetitive battles you're sprinting through this vapid world (most likely clueless as to your next destination) wondering why you're not playing a better game. I know I was. Two hours into Star Ocean I packed it up and moved on. Save yourself the trouble.

This game rocks there's so much to do you get three whole disks although I'm still only on the 1st disk this game has got me hooked its graphics are amazing and the storyline very deep and in-depth by far the best JRPG for the 360 yet Square Enix have really out done themselves this time they really wanted to blow are minds after tanking it with The Last Remnant. Kudos to Square Enix a fine job indeed purely amazing. The fight system is open based you get a basic combo system and special attacks you can change your leader at anytime you can play as whatever character as you want the menu and invention system are simply outstanding 10 out of 10 for me GameFly and RPG Fans Alike.

I have always had a weak spot for JRPGs and was really looking forward to playing this title. Unfortunately I was horribly disappointed by the game. The very first introductory cutscene was just so labored, with badly written dialogue that I wanted to cringe. I thought the characters were badly overdone and a bit too steroetyped - short skirts, platform shoes and knee-highs for the girls, strangely placed armor in a garish color scheme with oversized weapons for the guys.

After the initial cutscene we finally get to the game, which at this point consists of the worst tutorial since....I don't know actually. After playing for over half an hour and doing nothing more than pressing a button on command, I still know nothing of the story or characters.

To those who may say that I am not being fair to the game since I didn't really play it I say this: If an RPG cannot get me to do more than mindless button pressing, fails to reveal an inkling of a plot or character development than I'd have to say it fails. I used to think that no one can do RPG quite as whimsical as the Japanese but the genre has certainly languished in the last few years. SO:TLH simply feels too much like a phone it in, slap a sticker on it, call it done, me too JRPG that is about ten years too late to be entertaining.

Worst RPG game I've ever played. I like a game that I can get into, this one seemed like a poor Japanese cartoon. I actually fell asleep during a cut scene.

Camera is a pain to use. Fighting is cumbersome. The voices are annoying. The dialogue is terrible.

Unless you like the Japanese style cartoons pass on this. I played it for a few hours and it only got worse.

The beginning was great, best looking atomic explosions ever, then the game starts and everything goes downhill, everything is typical japanese stuff, characters look like they're from a cartoon for kids, the girls are typical japanese cartoon girls, they act like they're all 10 y/o, and they fight with swords, come on, this is in space in the future, they could have come up with laser guns or something, the whole thing sucks, even the controls sucks, the "Y" button is to access the game menu for the options... WTH! the controls are awkward to use, you feel like the character goes all over the place, then you try to go somewhere and there is a small map on the right hand corner but it doesn't even show where to go next.
People that give it a 9 or 10 must be crazy, and it's 3 discs, what's that all about, is the game 3 x 10 hrs long or something, that's crazy, I played for 45 minutes before giving up when I realized it sucked in all aspects.

This game is fun and addictive with the most beautiful graphics? So then why the bad score? Because this game freezes ALOT. I've been forced to replay areas 5 times before making it to a save point. They should AT LEAST patch this game with a save anywhere feature. I've played a long time but I'm about through with it because of the freezing issues. I get the same problem weather the game is on the hard drive or not. Its been suggested that I turn it down from 1080p which I will try next. This isn't just me, a quick web search will reveal many people haveing this unacceptable issue. You've been warned.

I had high hopes for this game after playing 'The Second Story' in my youth. But after playing this game for a few days I felt bad when for myself when my girlfriend would watch me play. I found myself making fun of the horrible voice acting and the overly childish characters. Don't waste your time with this.

Extremely hokey! It looks like it was developed by the people who did HotShots! Golf years ago. If I was 6 years old, this game might have been interesting. Don't even waste rental $ on this.