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

I'm sorry but when I play an RPG, I don't like spending extra 10 hours looking into character backgrounds and other assorted things. I don't want to sit there watching cutscenes for hours on end either. Cutscenes are good yes, as it gives life to the characters more than 'text' does but a lot of it could have been removed.

I only got to the third planet and I had a game play time of 12 hours. What? That's silly. Not to mention to even get off the first planet, it wouldn't even let them because I kept talking to the guy who said I had to, to get my next assignment but it never happened till I went to do some 'side quests' cause I was bored and confused then I happened to talk to one guy first then my 'captain' and it worked. Gee, it was silly.

The battles, especially boss battles are boring. They are way too easy with the new 'blind side' and even the 'RUSH' thing, allowing you to go all out and chain moves and kill your enemies. I didn't feel challenged at all.

To each thier own but I am very displeased about it.

Camera is terrible.

Dialog is some of the worst I have ever heard, I mean it's mind blowing how terrible it is.

The characters are annoying, what's the deal with JRPGs and having to add a child to your party? A very very annoying child at that, I just don't understand it.

There is very little direction most the time.

Boss battles are far too tough and the bosses have far too many hit points and there is no way of knowing how close or far away from death they are.

Combat is fun at first but gets old and frustrating as the game goes on.

This game is so bad I could not even make it through the first disc.

I love RPGs but this one does nothing for me at all.

This game sadly is horrible. I couldn't get past the first 20 minutes. The voice acting is downright painful. Graphics good god, somebody needs to tell Square Enix how to code new games this is something you would see out of a PS2 game not a 360 game.

Graphics: 2
Sound: 1
Controls: 3

Where's Blue Dragon 2?!?! or Lost Odyssey 2!?!? Mistwalker has surprised me more than Square Enix has dished out. Let's home Square Enix has learned their lession and will start creating some descent next gen games.

This game is ok but it could have been alot better. The Graphics are good and the gameplay is okay and the story is pritty good but the animal, beasts and just the things you fight are not that cool or very original and not only that the characters look lifeless they dont have any emotion and that takes away alot from the story but overall it is an ok game I would try it out if you like RPGs.

I must be honest when i say that I am not sure if I am playing the same game as these other reviewers...Cut seens are great, but a little too long. The fighting controls are too complicated, but most of all it seems that this game came from the 1980's. Fighting creatures are ignorant, repetative and annoying. I got so annoyed with the corney one-liners that they repeat everytime you fight something that I turned the thing off after a couple of hours. This is the worst RPG I have ever played on the XBOX 360.

It was just flat out a stupid anime game. I loved the last one but this one was just like watching a really stupid anime, with bits and pieces of storyline pulled from movies that I have already seen. The fighting system was enjoyable, the pace of the game was too slow and was bogged down by the horrible cut scenes. I played it for a good while but ultimately lost interest and went back to playing shooting games. Xbox360 is not a console for the old style Japanese RPGs.

Play Mass Effect before you play this. Heck, play it for the second time before you play this. Just don't play this at all...

I had a better opinion early on (score ~9) despite a predictable story: Some teenagers set off on an adventure to save the universe from an unstoppable enemy (what else?). It has the usual cast of supporting characters: annoying children ('kay), indifferent adults and scantily clad women (seems familiar). The story unfolds in a familiar way with an ending that degenerates into the rambling metaphysical discussion that is right at home in a game like this.

There is hundreds of hours of playtime here, but this isn't necessarily a good thing. You will spend most of this time farming (fighting low level creatures looking for item drops, or just looking for items). This will bore you. You may succumb to what I call "battle trophy fatigue". Each character has a list of 100 trophies, similar to achievements. Many of these trophies (my guess ~50%) require a lot of time (e.g. kill 30000 enemies) , a lot of luck (e.g. deal exact damage), or are just pointless (e.g. jump 5555 times). These trophies do very little to enhance the game but with add hundreds of hours of game play. You will enjoy the game better if you ignore the trophies.

Item creation in the game is extensive, but also a time sink. You will need more farming to create the better items, usually after you need it. With a limited inventory (20 of each item) combined with extensive recipe demands means even more time spent in transit as you farm away your life.

Speaking of wasted time, the final cutscenes are not optional but are very, very long. This is normally not an issue but you have to sit and watch if you want to explore worthwhile bonus areas or are chasing achievements. There are about 10 that will require you to watch.

A disappointment...

i never skiped a cutscene before without watching it, but some scenes in this game was too painful to watch, like an after school special but sappier.
on the other hand, the gameplay was fantastic, battles were fun, character management was fun, and item creation was fun. fun enough to get me to complete the game and then some.
overall this game is great if you dont mind the mindless boring endless speeches every three seconds that go on for 10-20 mins average.

OK its an awesome game. it has a good storyline and great graphics, but the only thing i didn't like was the camera controls but once you get used to them then its all good

Maybe I just don't have the patience anymore, but this game looked pretty cool and got decent reviews so I checked it out. The battle system was extremely unimpressive and the game gets off to a very slow start. I didn't get too far into it, maybe after several hours of play it gets fun, who knows, I don't have the patience anymore.

First i would like to say that the camra angle on this game is horible half the time you can't even see what you are doing. Second the running sucks you don't even get to run for more then 3 seconds before you are walking slower than a slug again. The only reason i gave this game a 3 instead of a 1 was due to the fact that; that the battling was some what fun in the game and the story line was long but interseting. However, these facters dont make up for the running, walking, and camra being so freaking awfull. If you really like RGPs and you like the series then this game is for you. If you are looking for a good RPG for example final fantasy than don't rent or buy this game.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is not an RPG for the ages, but it is a lot of fun to play. The way the story is delivered, through awkward dialogue and drawn out cutscenes, could be a lot better. The strong points of The Last Hope, namely the combat and level progression, keep things lively and engaging and help make this one a good way to kick off your JRPG gaming for 2009.

For anyone who is a fan of the Final Fantasy series, you need to play this game. The mechanics and game play design are amazing! This is the RPG Xbox has needed for quite some time!

You may be wondering why the "Iceberg" title?! Well I was going to title it "Titanic" but Titanic is a ship so I called it "Iceberg" simply for the reason that this game FREEZES a lot. Not one time, not two times, not three times (those number are bareable) but over 7 times in one map is just ridiculous.
To overcome this some players found out why the game freezes and they discovered that a certain spell (magic casting) called "silence" is the cause of it, when you're struck by it you cannot cast any spell or special move but the option is not darkened but you can still try to cast it (and the AI of your team will try it) and whe you do you'll get an orange colored "fail" on top of the character and that "fail" will not go away. That's your cue that the game will freeze and no matter what you do it WILL freeze making you want to break your controller and everything around you. Though you try to turn off the silence casting of your team the enemy will still be able to cast it on your team and thus the game will freeze. How? I'm glad you asked and i'll give you just a little example (taken from my own gaming experience with this game), "you're running around and fighting monsters then you use a special move and in the middle of the action one enemy cast "silence on you" then you'll see the word "fail" even in the middle of your move or action and after the battle or even when you try to switch characters the game WILL FREEZE.

That's all you need to know, the rest is just BAD ACTING and HORRIBLE dialogue, not counting the even worse story line.

Star Ocean: Till the End of time (PS2)= really, really good game
Star Ocean: The Last Hope (PS3/Xbox)= EPIC GAME FAIL

Either Squaresoft lost all of their good writers in the merge with SquareEnix, or this company just can't do RPG's anymore. This game had me so bored while I was playing it, the only thing that has kept me going is the possibility of having more than 20 Gamerscore after ten hours of gameplay!!! Now I didn't look up the controls because of not having the manual for the game, and not having the patience to do the horrible excuse for a battle simulator again... but I scoured the buttons on my controller for a way to switch targets in battle, and found none!
For gameplay, with a battle sequence like SO:TLH, you need to have an easy way to switch targets, like Tales of Vesperia, which can even get annoying too sometimes. There's no combo system,
I CAN PLAY THIS GAME ONE-HANDED!
If you want to call a combo system, "mash A until you want to use some MP," then get a new definition for combo system. I foolishly thought my pressing of the X Button was causing Edge to kick instead of slash... hah. Edge is overpowered anyway, even with his pitiful battle skills.
And Tales actually has a little something Star Ocean does not... characters who you want to learn more about. I prefer characters who look like anime characters from Toonami and have some mystery and heart to them (not to mention abilities you want to learn) over characters with as generic a name as "Edge" for the protagonist. Here's a hint SquareEnix, quit making the stereotypical, whiney male hero who thinks he's not good enough. Who cares about a childhood rivalry with Crowe? I sure won't be seeing them end it! Plus, it reminds me too much of Squall and Seifer. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" should not be the motto for any RPG company.
Okay, maybe the abilities and story get better by the end of the game, but the fact that you can't move freely between worlds you've visited, the lack of a real combo system on a next-gen platform game, and simply missing something new really takes away from this RPG

I returned game out of frustration of not being able to discern direction of where to go next.

That this game was as bad as it was. People have already mentioned the horrendous voice acting and camera, but Im surprised nobody said anything about the basic controls which are equally bad. Its a shame because every other star ocean was a solid RPG. I played this for about 2 hours and just put Resident Evil 5 back in.

Calm down people this is the best RPG on Xbox 360 by far. This is a very long game VERY LONG with lots of replayability. People never cease to amaze me if you are not a RPG fan don't rate the game its that simple. ??For example I would never rate a sports game because i'm not into them except golf...

This game has a combat system that resembles the rest of the star ocean series from the PS2. If you have never played star ocean this has type of in battle character handling of Tales of Vesperia. If you never played TOV then battle wise it plays like Final Fantasy 13. If you never played any of these games then high likekly hood you shouldn't be rating this game. The battles are not random the enemies are on the screen you run into them to initiaate a battle sequence. At this point in the game I have 6 characters its best to have 1 melee person (edge) and 3 range magic users. The graphics are good and the story is very good as well. This game is a time vampire for sure but it is good. Worth 60.00 dollars finally an RPG for RPG fans.

This game has got to have the most unuseable and hard to control battle systems ever made. First your when you push the attack button the game might or might not attack your target, The Programmers really dropped the ball on this one I should have known better then to put this very Poor excuse for a RPG on my Que. I Tried to play the first one and gave up finally after a few daYS BECAUSE real-time fighting is ok if it works but in this case it doesn't. The Graphics might be great if you have an HD TV But I don't have one so the graphics on a regular TV are very very very very very POOR!
This type of game might go over really big in Japan but in my Opinion They should never be released Anywhere else especially when the game is as poorly programmed as this one is. I would avoid this game like the Plague It is Not fun to play when you can Only attack when the game wants you too And to make matters worse the Camera use is a Total drag and should never be used again. Square Enix as Long as it keeps making games as terrible as this one will NEVER Get any of my Money I will never BUY one of their Poorly Programmed games
This so called game goes on my List of games that should be destroyed For the Good of all

Most boring game ever..... After almost falling asleep playing it I decided to send it back.

I can't understand why this was rated so high. I love RPG (like Fallout 3), but this is nothing like that. I really dislike those games that use the battle arena system and this does so you're often going in/out of the arena. Even how you initate a battle is lame - I can chase a flying bug in a attempt to start a battle and the system tells me I'm the one that was surprised. However the battles are easy, just keep mashing A or use the trigger for a combo. The items you need to pick up are hard to spot.

So if you have nothing better to do - get it, but as for me - there are too many better games out there.

I am so glad I didn't buy this. I love RPGs. I've been playing fantasy games since Zork and the original D&D rules. I was totally hyped to get this game, and boy, was I disappointed.

More than an hour into it, and, gameplay wise, nothing of any interest has happened. The tutorials are horrid, the battle system is unwieldy, and the characters are horrible. They look cartoony, and the voices do not match up to the appearance. After playing Final Fantasy, this is a total buzzkill. The dialogue is mind numbing, and you just keep wishing for the cut scenes to end and for something to happen.

And the camera angles. Ugh, the camera angles.

The girl who provides assistance from Earth made me want to pull my hair out. Why does there have to always be 1 or more characters in an RPG that you just wish horrifying death upon? I finally decided I couldn't take anymore boredom and annoyance, popped out the disc, and stuck it back in the envelope.

Don't bother with this one, especially if you were thinking of purchasing it outright.

Don't try it. It is a poor man's version of any moderately entertaining square enix RPG. The fight scenes get old fast, and the cut scenes serve only to make you laugh through the first half hour, after which you will be crying and begging for them to end.

I played this game for 27 hours before giving up. I hated to give up on it, but i could not take the horrible dialog and acting anymore. The main character, Edge Maverick is so annoying. All he does is moan and whine for the first 20 hours, then he finally mans up. He reminded me of Luke Skywalker when he whines all the time. Reimi i actually liked, minus a few scenes. And then after Edge mans up, your 3rd party member that you will get turns into a whiner. But the worst character of all is Welch. She is a red haired girl that you will have a lot of cut scenes when you use your professions while on the ship. She is really bad.

Other negatives are THE GAME IS TOO EASY!!!! I didn't die for the first 20 hours. Even though combat was fun, it got repetitive after the first disc. Dungeons all look the same, turning out in small areas doesn't work well, story is so so. Opening stuff with the A button is pain in the butt most of the time. And the game freezes. Even when it was installed to the hard drive. Froze on the same boss over and over when switching characters. I didn't get past it.

Aside from all that, the game was decent, with really fun combat. The graphics of the characters models looked really good. The graphics when running around did not though. The game can be really long it looks like. Lots of side quests, and getting all the achievements looks like one of the hardest games to do it in. Lots of professions to do, tons of skills to level up, create your own weapons, then upgrade them all is really nice.

I will eventually re-rent this game just to finish it, but with games like fallout 3 and mass effect still left to play for me, this one can wait because it was hard to keep playing it with all the horrible dialog.