I don't normally write reviews, but I figured this game could use it based on the abysmal previous two Square-Enix published games and the not-so-great Star Ocean 3. And yeah, it’s pretty long. Deal with it.
Found the game good enough to put it right behind Vesperia for RPGs on the 360. Which unfortunately isn't really saying much.
Anyone familiar with the Star Ocean franchise should know that this is the fourth installment localized in the states. However unlike the rest, it’s not labeled with a number despite being the fifth game. That decision was probably made since this game is a prequel in the series, predating every single game. Star Ocean: The Last Hope is also the second tri-Ace game brought to the Xbox 360 and the third RPG title that Square-Enix has published for it. Although the previous two a bitter taste in the mouth of many with much to be desired. Thankfully though, Star Ocean is miles ahead of them in terms of actual quality. It’s also significantly better and a bit more polished than Star Ocean 3. Despite that though, it’s certainly not going to be appeal to everyone due to a wide variety of problems.
The game starts out with a short back story of Earth and how the super powers desecrated the earth through mass nuclear war and left it uninhabitable. So then man was left with but one decision, to make peace with each other and head into space or be faced with living underground for as long as humanly possible. Thus they thrust themselves into Space in order to find new colonization among other planets so that they could live on a lush planet once again. Then years into the S.D. (Space Date), a warp engine was designed and exploration of the universe began.
A pretty interesting and plausible start of a story, which really helps establish the fact that Humans were really venturing beyond their own solar system for the first time. From there it the story will have its lows and highs and would have made for quite an interesting game had it not of been bogged down by the poor voice acting and the stereotypical use of teenagers to go out and save everything. Even the game realizes that and makes fair use of some decent dialogue scenes along the way. Overall the story is pretty engaging in most parts despite the couple of plot holes and massive amounts of clichés and corny dialogue.
Characters for the most part are pretty well done, but I personally was overly annoyed by two in particular due to one being monotone and the other being a flippant retard. Each character will have a somewhat fleshed out back story to who they are and why they are the way they are. Some are pretty interesting while others you may just want to end up choking. Thankfully though the scenes that are voiced you can skip and the game will present you with a text summary of what went on during the cutscene.
The graphics are nothing short of beautiful. I’ve read some reviews that say some areas get bland, but I don’t really think that’s too true. Each environment is incredibly detailed to please the eyes. Although characters will look a bit weird and stuff at times, akin to dolls as some people like to put it. Then you have the CG which is nothing short of great when it actually happens. Although a few cutscenes are a little bit too long, clocking in at around 15, 30, and the 45 minute ending. The downside to these long cutscenes is that you can’t pause them through normal means. You’ll have to resort to cutting the power from the controller or opening the guide to pause it. This also presents another problem on long cutscenes if you’re using a wireless controller and have it set to auto-disconnect after a set amount of time. It may seem like the game froze but in actuality it just paused.
If you’re familiar with RPGs then this games structure isn’t all too much different. Despite being in space, there’s a heavy usage of old school steel and magic. So you’ll be slashing and blasting your way through enemy after enemy on the battlefield. Thankfully though it takes a Vesperia/Grandia approach by leaving enemies on the field rather than having you go into random battles every ten seconds or so. This helps immensely on cutting down the amount of unnecessary battling should you not want to fight a certain type of enemy or just feel like running past everything.
The battle system itself isn’t really quite the same as Vesperia if you’re familiar with it. It uses a larger battlefield and often will house more enemies and multiple large enemies. The system is built around one button attacking and blocking is done automatically when you’re not attacking but is dependent on the stats of you and your enemy. Abilities can be combo’d together as you progress through the game and unlock more skills. Then there’s also a rush combo mode that will allow you to combo abilities with every member on the field or you can use basic rush mode that makes your character immune to knockdown and knockback from the enemy for a period of time. Finally you have an ability called blindside, which will allow you to get behind an enemy for some free critical hits. Early on in the game, it will make it very easy. However later on it will become a little more difficult to pull off as you may be facing a fair amount of enemies at the same time and they may counter.
In battle you’re able to hotswap between any character with the use of a simple button press. From there you can even swap any character in battle with a reserve character that’s not in battle. The characters you’re not controlling will have AI take over for them and for the most part it’s pretty competent, which is a big upgrade over Star Ocean 3. Although on rare occasion you may run into a few problems where an ally isn’t doing something you want quick enough, like resurrecting your controlling character.
Controlling your own character though isn’t without its problems. The camera will be a big issue for many people, but it’s something that doesn’t take too much to get adjusted to. You have two modes named Active and Fixed. Active basically keeps the camera somewhat close to your character in an angled position and will follow you around the field. However it doesn’t turn when you turn and will have to manually turn it. Fixed is a more zoomed out camera that encompasses more of the field. You may also manually turn it like Active, but it will present a challenge to people who like to use full manual character control.
I should probably expand a little on the two modes to control your character that you’re moving on field. The default mode is automatic and will probably be the option of choice for people who play this game. Basically it will move your character to the enemy for you and perform the specific action of your choice without having to line up your character directly. As you’ve probably guessed it, the other one is manual, which required you to line up every single thing before you perform an action. It’s not as great as the Tales series manual control as it’s a lot more difficult to line up enemies well enough to get a good portion of your hits, especially if your enemy is in rush mode.
Two more things you probably want to keep track of for battle are B.E.A.T. and your bonus board. B.E.A.T. (Battle Enhancement Attribute Type) allows you to have one of three options you can enhance your character with, which are Strike, Neutral, or Burst. Strike is your main general offensive enhancement which will increase your attack attributes and give you bonuses to blindsiding. Burst is a short offensive enhancement which revolves around defensive attributes and rush mode. Both of those can level up to a maximum of 20 and gain bonuses, but Neutral will take the attribute gain from both Strike and Burst and put it into one without any abilities what so ever. So it’s pretty useful
Your bonus board consists of 14 tile slots with four different types of tiles you can gain in battle. Blue are 10% exp bonuses that are gained through finishing enemies with a critical hit and are the easiest to gain. Next are yellow tiles which increase Fol gain by 10% that are pretty tough to gain as you need to finish multiple enemies with a single attack. Then you have green tiles that will give you one party skill point per battle gained by causing yourself to be ambushed. Finally you have the pink tiles that regen 1% of your parties HP and MP per battle which is gained by only using abilities on an enemy to kill it. Some are certainly time consuming to gain compared to others and if you’re not careful, it’s even easier to lose tiles. You will lose tiles by running from battle, your controlling character dies, or you’re critically hit, which for the most part is generally random unless you’re being countered during a blindside.
Despite the problems and probable annoyances that you’re likely to meet during the battle system, it’s still very fun and engaging. Although if you’re looking for a moderately difficult game, then the beginning of the game will be a big deterrent as battles are very easy once you get the hang of things and then the game will slowly up the difficulty as enemies start gaining skills themselves and having significantly more health than the damage you deal. Of course if you’re going to complete every little thing in the Monster Book, then you will likely over level and find the game extremely easy. Which normally would probably deter a player but if they’re going that far on the first run, then they probably don’t mind.
The item creation in this game is pretty simple for the most part. Once you begin gaining members and leveling up the characters individual creation skills, you’ll be able to group players together to try and discover recipes. For the most part it’s just trying every single character combination possible once your characters are all reach their item creation level. Although there will be a fair amount of recipes that will be found throughout the game by talking to NPCs or opening treasure chests. Then after you’ve learned the recipe you want to craft, just switch over to the crafting interface and just craft the item from the learned recipe list. The only real downside to crafting is that gaining the materials required will be difficult to come by until you’re at the end of the game. So while there are over 200 things you can craft, you probably won’t be doing a whole lot during the main story of the game.
After item creation you have a third option called Synthesis. In games past you usually would take two pieces of equipment and combine them together, but it doesn’t work that way in this game. First you’ll pick a base item such as a weapon or armor. Then you’ll need to pick a usable item such as Blueberries or a Red Herb. Finally the result will be having the weapon or armor receiving a buff from the usable item you synthesized into the piece of equipment. This turns out to be pretty useful, especially since you can do this multiple times to the same item and it will compile the synthesis buffs together.
There’s not really much else to talk about other than the optional content you can do in the game, such as the achievements show. You can compile spaceship data through examining various panels throughout the game (fun, I know) and weapon data from the weapons you’ve encountered through the game either from your own characters equipment or weapons that enemies hold and don’t actually drop (A little more cool). Then there’s also opening all the treasure chests in the world and quests given to you by random people in the worlds and most shopkeepers. After that you have the Monster Book which will compile most of the games enemies with the exception of most of the colosseum. Then for an added treat, when you kill an enemy you will gain an analyzation %, which can go up to 100%. What this does is allow you to take a Monster Jewel that you’ll obtain through the game and make it into an amulet accessory which holds the monster inside for a buff. A pretty interesting concept, however bosses don’t gain 100% analyzation when you defeat them. You’ll either need to abuse the reload glitch and beat them again and again until you hit 100% or play through the game multiple times.
You also have battle trophies, all 900 of them with each character having 100 total. The trophies will range from insanely easy to frustrating annoying to time consuming. However it’s not without its bonuses for people interested in shooting for all of them. For example, when you gain 50% of the battle trophies, your characters level cap of 200 is completely removed. That’s something that the completionists out there will probably either enjoy or hate like nothing else.
You've also got the standard colosseum that offers solo play for each character as well as team play. Then each of the options offer up to 100 fights for fight coins which can be traded for equipment. There’s a third option that throws you into ten random battles consecutively that you can back out of after any round for a bid to consistently double your fight coins. On top of the colosseum you have the bunny races in the basement of the colosseum where you can raise your own bunny and then race it by using fight coins.
Last but not least, the game will offer you two extra dungeons to traverse after you’ve beaten the game. The first one is designed to be started as soon as you beat the game with the second one to be started after you’ve completed the first. Regardless, the enemies will provide a challenge in there unless you’ve taken the time to level up a significant amount for whatever reason. If you think they’re not really challenging enough you can always up the difficulty on your following playthroughs to help with that.
All in all, it’s a pretty fun and engaging game that you’ll clock in at bare minimum 30 hours with completionists clocking in over 100 more than likely thanks to battle trophies. However there are some characters that will cause you to cringe and dialogue that will just leave you speechless for more negative reasons rather than good. There's also some disk switching at the end of the game between the areas selectable with the last two being disk 3 and everything else on disk 2. It’s not an easy game to give a number rating, but rpg fans that play a wide variety of the genre should absolutely love the game as should those who enjoyed Star Ocean 3 as this is a step up from it. Those that enjoyed the series should definitely give it a go, but you’re likely better to wait for a price drop to $40 before you pick it up. If you’re still hesitant then you’re probably better off renting it or waiting for a drop to $20 or so.
9/10 Graphics – Beautiful environments and CG, but characters are a little stiff with doll-like looks
8/10 Story – Engaging, but dialogue is quite corny
6/10 Characters – A few interesting people, but some you just want to choke to death
7/10 Sound – Nothing bad for musical scores, but character voices leave a lot to be desired
9/10 Gameplay – Very engaging and fun, but camera problems
7/10 Content – It’s there; Some of it is mundane but some of it is fun and interesting and it has more stuff to do than the usual rpg game
Overall 7.7 / 10 - Good, but not great
Found the game good enough to put it right behind Vesperia for RPGs on the 360. Which unfortunately isn't really saying much.
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