Star Ocean: The Last Hope from Square-Enix and developed by the small company Tri-Ace is the 5th (and possibly last) installment in the Star Ocean series only out for Xbox360. A nice reminder of RPGs of the past, SO: TLH is a good example of a stereotypical Japanese RPG especially if you don't normally play RPGs. A rich and cutscene-a-plenty storyline, just enough repetitive fighting to level your opposables to a thumb wrestling championship, and item management that would go better with an day shift manager, TLH is good RPG for new and old gamers alike.
Made by the same company that brought us Infinite Undiscovery, TLH is a much better step toward what fans of RPGs expect to get from a single game. And for those that never owned a Super Famicom, PS1, or PS2 to be able to play the other Star Ocean games, TLH is very much a standalone since it is a prequel taking place a few centuries prior to the first Star Ocean. The story does tie into the other Star Ocean games and helps explain the somewhat surprise ending for Till the End of Time but anyone new to the Star Ocean series can still find themselves not needing to research anything from the older games.
For those unfamiliar with previous Star Ocean games the core background to the games follow with an Earth that was scorched from nuclear war. The survivors put all of their efforts into space exploration trying to find a new planet to call home. You are a part of the first exploration party and the actual game portion is the adventures you encounter while out in the "star ocean".
Star Ocean was one of the first RPGs to change from menu driven turn based combat system to a real-time type. Encounters, whether randomly popping from out of nowhere or actually touching an enemy on a map/dungeon, were still done with the classic cut-away screens unlike Castlevania, Zelda, or Secret of Mana that kept combat and wandering in real-time. On top of it, the combat for SO was all party based. Besides unique combat, other factors such as the large crafting system made this series a building block for later days with the later advent of MMOs. Take that Doom!
The biggest selling point for all RPG video games is the storyline and the meshing of the player actually feeling like they are "role-playing". An entire book's worth of dialog can be crammed into an RPG making a way to bridge the gap of tedious page flipping in some old dusty book that weighs a ton and smells like mothballs. If the storyline has substance then working through all the battles over and over just to go up a single level makes it all worth it or ends up taking away 80+ hours of your life you'll never get back (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Battletoads thank you). TLH has a novel's worth of dialog and contained within 3 DVD discs are a plethora of cutscenes to fill out the story nicely. On top of the usual read-along just as much voice acted dialog is done in case you hated reading everything and wanted to forget what books were altogether.
Combat is better than the older SO games and doesn't evolve into impossibility like some of the previous SOs. Previous SOs were so difficult, especially toward the endgame, that trying to figure out a trickeration type strategy to just finish the game was a usual implementation for disheartened gamers. I remember playing SO2 and seeing a strategy in which a single party member was utilized and only one ability was used (ah, AIRSLASH) and not even bothering with other party members or any other abilities. The strategy worked so well that the whole game could be completed this way. This time all party members pull their weight with or without your direct input and do a decent job with self preservation even on harder boss fights and endgame. Not as much saving, dying, reloading, and repeating till your head spins, thankfully.
Repetitiveness isn't as big a factor since combat is a challenge and rewarding when mastered. Enemy difficulty keeps pace when sticking with the storyline instead of having to take extra time to "level". There are some nice additions such as combos that can be done with fellow party members and in addition, they can even be micromanaged and changed to fit your damage needs.
The overall look of combat is a big step up from previous SOs and is very fluid in it's delivery. And it's not only the combat that shows off the graphics as the rest of the game grinds on your 360's hardware constantly. Cutscenes aren't above the visual quality of the rest of the game showing that the entire game can not only look fantastic but help to give the feeling that a lot of work was done making the gameplay look spectacular. The cutscenes don't act like separate movies inserted here and there but instead are like a part of the gameplay and story keeping the player enthralled with everything and not making the gameplay a disappointing experience when the player is given control again.
This SO had very few low points that stuck out. With all RPGs, the way in which directions on what to do and where to go next is a big part of the presentation. TLH utilizes a lot of the cutscenes to do this but in a few cases trying to figure out the next step for progression isn't the easiest thing for your cereal box decoder ring. There are also handfuls of awkward and head scratching "situations" that only anime fandom would ever consider a necessity. These can be seen with some of the characters like the personal crafting utilization program: Welch. One big teeth grinder comes from the monotone character Lymle as the creators decided to add in a South Park type tagline to the end of EVERY sentence she decides to speak ('kay). After about 20 minutes of being forced to hear the joke being taken too far, the cuteness gets loaded into a weapon of scary proportions as you begin to look into the barrel instead of looking down the sights.
Small hiccups aside, from start to finish Star Ocean: The Last Hope is an experience that fans of all of the classics will enjoy, worth the play through for any RPGer, and a good choice for those that have never ventured into needing experience points. Hours upon hours of cutscenes, gameplay that's enjoyable, minimized repetitive leveling, atypical combat that's fun, and a good return on the investment for time given, SO: TLH is by far an RPG Xbox 360 owners have been looking for ever since the console's release.
Rating: 7.5 {on a scale of -10 to 10, 5+ being a must play}
O + S - We Do What We Want To [only actual video available is Permanent Scar]
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