Review: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Game: Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Developer: Tri-Ace
Publisher: Square-Enix
MSRP: $59.99
NA Release Date: 2/24/2009

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the fourth game in the popular Star Ocean franchise, yet it is a prequel to all the games that came before. In the ruins of an Earth made nearly uninhabitable by nations turning on each other in World War III, a new alliance is formed between those nations to explore the stars and seek out a new home and new hope for humanity. Tasked with humanity's first venture into the stars is a group of five ships, one of which contains our heroes - Edge and Reimi. This game details their journey to explore new planets, meet new friends from alien races and generally secure a future for mankind.

The plot is pretty standard fare for a JRPG, its predictable in many regards, but also light-hearted, sweet, and serious when it needs to be. It feels very raw and adventurous. After scouting their destination planet - Aeos - Edge, Reimi and their new friend Faize are tasked to explore nearby planets. It reminds me a lot of why I liked Star Trek so much at various points, that exhilarating feeling of seeing what the characters are experiencing for the first time - awe, wonder and fear of the unknown. I don't really think the plot suffers much because of its predictability - I don't expect this game to be some literary masterpiece to be held up on a pedestal and bowed down to as something everyone should aspire to recreate.

I've been impressed by the visuals since some of the very first screens surfaced about this title, and that does carry over into the finished game. Environments are heavily detailed and, actually, I believe, made to look familiar, yet alien at the same time. Some colors are heavily saturated: mostly the vegetation and ground textures. Others, such as the sky and horizon in many places, somewhat blend together and bleed into each other. It all creates a very alien look to otherwise familiar types of locations - beaches, forests, highlands, mountains.

While the cut scene character animations are a little rough around the edges, the animations in battle are amazingly scrumptious. It just fills me with a sense of awe watching everything take place on the battlefield, especially blindside animations for the various characters. These smooth, Matrix-style animations just blow my mind and add to the satisfaction of pulling off one of the maneuvers. They don't disrupt the flow of the battles, but rather, they enhance it.

To compliment the visual presentation is the ever-present audio. This is one of the few games where I can turn the background music volume down on the options screen and it actually stays that way. (I don't turn it all the way down, but I find the dialog gets drowned out in the music in many games I've played in the past, including the previous Star Ocean title, and try to avoid that whenever possible.) The music fits the situation and will remind you much of previous games in the series, if you've experienced them. The voice acting isn't the best I've heard, but its far from the worst, either. The voices seem to fit the characters, for the most part. You will likely be annoyed with Welch, the item creation goddess, very early on, as was I. But truth be told, she actually grows on you and has delivered some of the most hilarious lines of dialog I've heard so far.

A big issue among other reviewers and avid fans alike is the bad lip sync problem. To be quite honest, its not that big of deal unless you're actually looking for it. I didn't even think about it until I was reminded just a few minutes ago by something I read. Yes, its that unintrusive to the whole experience. This is a pretty standard issue with JRPGs that get released in Western regions, and it shouldn't even be, considering how common it is.

I'll use this word again to describe the controls - standard. If you've played one action JRPG, you've played them all. The control scheme is very familiar to me having played previous titles in the franchise, as well as Final Fantasy XII and some Tales games. Control of Edge on field screens does seem a bit loose, and this could be slightly problematic in certain situations, such as close quarters or when trying to line yourself up to open a treasure chest. In tight spaces, though, the game defaults you to a slow walk instead of a full-out sprint. You can easily change this with the press of a trigger button, but it does help in those areas.

In some action RPGs you're relegated to a button-mashing fit during battles, but not here. I'm a fan of using Reimi and she is very quick and performs well, especially by avoiding any and all contact with the monsters, while dealing out an insane amount of critical strikes. Sure, you're hitting the "A" button for standard attacks a lot, but also your "hotkeys", the trigger buttons, and the "B" button to jump out of the way and perform blindsides quite frequently.

There are many noticeable improvements over previous installments, most importantly in the battle system. I've mentioned blindside attacks a couple times previous. These are attacks that allow you to, first off, dodge an enemy's incoming attack and, secondly, jump behind it and attack it from the rear with a greatly enhanced critical strike chance. These attacks are extremely satisfying and look great, to boot. Also new is the BEAT (Battle Enhancement Attribute Type) system, which allows even greater depth of customization for your characters by allowing you to choose to level up either attack-related stats or defense-related stats on a character-by-character basis. BEAT levels increase just like normal character levels, and provide various perks. You can change which BEAT each character uses (and levels up unless its at the max level of 20) at will. There's also a type of BEAT that you don't level up but is a combination of the other two, more focused, BEAT options.

Returning is the "Bonus Board" concept, which allows you to get specific bonuses at the end of battle, as well as the freedom to change which character you're controlling at any given time. A couple other improvements are the absence of "MP death" and your Bonus Board shattering when any player gets critically hit (now it only shatters when the player you're controlling gets critically hit, which gives you a huge advantage if you enjoy using ranged characters like Reimi, and you might not even lose all the tiles). I didn't like those mechanics in SO3 and I'm glad they removed them this time around.

Item creation is back, of course. It seems much more streamlined and simpler than in the past. You're directed to the need for IC more than in previous titles, also. Various stores throughout the towns and planets you visit will send you out on mini-quests to retrieve various items for them, most of which are only obtainable through item creation. Private actions also make a comeback, and are more easily accessible. Many times viewing them is required to push the story forward, but you're often given the choice to pick one out of two to view, and the required ones usually don't involve anything but improving the affinity between Edge and whichever character the PA is about. I enjoyed the private actions in SO3 because it seemed to flesh out interpersonal character relationships more than the standard story did, and it’s the same here, as well.

The combination of store orders, regular side-quests and the IC system is bound to keep players busy for hours upon hours in addition to the standard 40-hour story. This isn't to mention the post-story events and dungeons and the two other difficulty levels on top of Earth (easy) and Galaxy (normal), which you start with. There is definitely more than enough to keep anyone busy for a very long time.

I honestly can't find much wrong with this game, besides nitpicky things. Three of them I mentioned earlier - lip sync issues, slightly loose controls on the field and rough-around-the-edges animation during some cut scenes. While I'm at it, there's a couple more minor issues to bring up. I've tried and failed to see any purpose whatsoever from having save points and recovery points be separate entities. On the first planet you explore, you run into a save point, then, right around the corner past one or two enemies is a recovery point. Why not just make these one in the same, similar to the last couple Final Fantasy games? Its an unnecessary aggravation for the player. While I'm on the subject, this is probably the best current generation JRPG I've played, why can we not save anywhere we want like most Western RPGs? (Yes, I realize I'm violating my own principle and am trying to force something that's prevalent in one genre on that of another, but there's always exceptions to the rule.) I feel that pre-defined save points are an archaic mechanic, and its high time it was removed in favor of a "save whenever and wherever you want" system. Granted, JRPG fans, myself included, are used to save points, and they are placed liberally in this title, but I felt the need to point out the fact that the mechanic should be updated.

All these are very minor issues in an otherwise outstanding game. Whether or not you consider it the best JRPG of this generation is up to your own informed opinion, but taking everything into consideration I would venture to say it ranks very high up on the list.

There are a few things I would have liked to see expanded upon or added to this game, but their absence doesn't detract at all from the overall experience. I didn't mention this earlier, but there is a very rudimentary interior customization ability for the Calnus. You can build and find various items such as a status-effect curing pad and a vending machine and place them in the recreation room on board the ship. It would have been awesome if this customization was expanded with many more items and places to put said items. More decor such as furniture, plants and the like would have been welcome, as well. While we're on the subject of customization, different character outfits would have been fun, as well. And, for personalization's sake, I would have also liked to see an option to show the "lead" character - whichever one you are controlling on the battle screen - appear as the character you control on your field screen. Also options to hear the original Japanese language track with English subtitles and the original anime-style portraits and menu screen would have been wonderful, as well.

If you're an action RPG or JRPG fan, you'll definitely want to check this title out, especially if you've played the earlier entries in the series. There are very few games I would pay full price for these days, and I went out on a limb with this one, only having played Star Ocean 3 for the PS2 back in the day. I was not disappointed - this game is worth every penny.

A strong battle system, many extra hours of optional questing and post-game dungeons overshadow the predictable, although still enjoyable, story to make this game a must-have for any JRPG fan.

Score: 9.5 (out of 10)