This Star Ocean is vast and deep, but is worth exploring?

July 1996, developer Tri-Ace, in association with Enix, unleashed a gem of a game onto the world, and that game was Star Ocean released on the SNES. Subsequently over the following years, sequels were made to the request of the huge fan base, with another SNES title being released, before Tri-Ace made the huge leap into 3-D with the Playstation 1 and 2. Now it’s the Xbox 360’s turn to host the latest chapter in the Star Ocean franchise, and it truly has never been better.

Graphics and Presentation

Star Ocean visually kicks off with an action packed, beautifully rendered cut scene of World War 3, and from then on Star Ocean manages to keep churning so much graphical goodness from the Xbox 360 hardware for the entirety of the game.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope has been in development for 5 long years, and uses a heavily upgraded engine used in another Square Enix RPG, Infinite Undiscovery, a game which already had high visual appeal.

In typical Square Enix fashion, the cut scenes in Star Oceans are immaculate and a real pleasure to watch. They are littered plentifully throughout the game, some for key story telling moments and some threw in for comic relief and added character depth. My favorite cut scene happens during a gigantic space battle between your ship, The Calnus, and a strange super vessel over run with Grigori (a strange force you will encounter as you play), as it is set at such a fast exciting pace with cleverly used camera angles like you would get in the latest Star Trek at the cinema.

Graphically the visuals are beautiful and the cut scenes are also brought to the screen with high production values, but that isn’t what amazes me the most. It’s the way the talented guys and girls over at Tri-Ace have managed to seamlessly integrate the CGI cut scenes with the in game graphical engine, to merge the both of them, and at some moments when the game cuts to a cut scene, you wont even notice the transition between in game and the cut scene. I certainly had a few moments where my character was standing stock still for a while as I thought the cut scene was still rolling, when in fact I was back in the main game.

However the game isn’t without its flaws, and I’ll state the obvious which is true of all RPG’s, the monster designs are limited, with the same creature being re-colored and reused to depict a different element, which annoys me with RPG’s. It was acceptable back in the SNES and Playstation 1 days, but now consoles have quadruple the horsepower and more space on discs so there is no excuse for this.

My other annoyance is that while some areas look fully explorable you are still bound behind invisible walls, which is a shame as the level designs are beautiful and seem to call out to you to explore them and it really is a shame you can’t.

Sound

Motoi Sakuraba has penned and keyed the musical score for this installment of the Star Ocean franchise, and for the most part has made a melodic set of music, which fits the game like a glove with a full orchestra at his command. He has delivered a score that rouses the senses and bestows you into the mood of the scenario.
Voice acting is a mixed bag, there are some great voice actors used in this game who fit the characters profile, however you come across 2 or 3 characters in the game who make you want to shove ear plugs in as they have the most annoying and unemotional voices to grace our earth. I won’t drop names but you will know when you reach them.

As with most RPG’s it would have been nice if the developer threw in the Japanese voice track as an option, however the English voices still hold their own.

Gameplay

Star Ocean: The Last Hope takes place in the year 2064 A.D, a time where war is breaking out between all the different factions of planet earth, sparking a revolt which leads to a devastating nuclear world war, which makes the planet uninhabitable forcing humans into orbit around earth.

Star Ocean puts you in control of the bizarrely named Edge Maverick, and his shipmate Reimi Saionji, as they embark on mans first trip into deep space, to find a new planet that can sustain human life. Before long however you will become captain of your own vessel, sweep across the galaxy and uncover a mysterious force known only as the Gregori.

The Last Hope takes the form of an action RPG, and while it still borrows themes and standard RPG essences its still becomes its own beast. The over world sections are navigated by using the analogue stick to run through environments, where at certain points will be points in which you can harvest crops or mine metals from the rocks. However when you jump into a battle, things become more interesting. Think Tales of Symphonia mixed with Powerstone.

Battles take place in large arenas separate from the main over world, in which you are free to run about in to get tactical advantages over certain enemies, or if you want to hop well out of range for healing or team assistance.

Each character will have a small plethora of moves, which they can unlock and use in battle and can be assigned to buttons on the 360’s control pad. Its satisfying to lay into an enemy with a few simple sword slashes before unleashing some super deadly special moves, sending your foes to an early death.

Battles may seem straight forward and in the early stages it defiantly is, however as you progress you will want to tweak ally behaviors and attacking patterns so you don’t have to see the game over screen too many times.
Again Tri-ace has included the notions of ‘Blindsiding’ enemies which you do by holding down the B button to charge yourself up, and as an enemy approaches if you tap left or right, your character will slip into bullet time, dashing around your enemy giving you several free hits However time your blindside wrong and you will be on your backside and extremely vulnerable.

As RPG’s go, Star Ocean isn’t the deepest mechanically, however it happens to be the best RPG I have played for a long time and one of the few RPGs I needed to see through to the end. The pay off is defiantly worth it, so click above and buy Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Closing Comments

Star Ocean is a nice lengthy fun adventure/RPG to work your way through and it is one of the only RPG’s for a while that has kept me involved and moving forward all the way through to completion.
Even after completion, Star Ocean has additional story quests, which you can play through at your own leisure. It is a nice touch and a welcomed addition.

I really truly love Star Ocean and it will remain in my collection well into the future, and I will play through many more times. Maybe its time you add Star Ocean to your collection, so buy it now and love it forever!

 

Aaron Cooper