Star Ocean: The Last Hope Review

I just got my hands on Star Ocean: The Last Hope through my Gamefly video game rental account and have been playing for the past week. So far I am fairly pleased with the game. The gameplay is fairly fast and addictive, the graphics are gorgeous and the story is solid so far (though maybe a little trite). Here is a quick gameplay video to get you started, then I will go into a little more review of the game:

The Star Ocean Story

A.D 2064...Planet Earth was on the brink of destruction as clashes between the World Republic Federation and the various nations that opposed it sparked the outbreak of World War III. Weapons of mass destruction, deployed with complete impunity razed the land in the blink of an eye. The dire situation forced the two opposing factions to negotiate a cease-fire and an agreement was quickly reached, but although the war may have ended, its effects remained. With the deteriorating environment, Earth's population was drastically reduced and those who survived lived a confined existence trapped in underground cities. Eventually countries joined together to form the Greater United Nations and turned their eyes skyward, to space. With the establishment of the USTA, the Universal Science and Technology Administration, man began to seek new worlds beyond the stars.



AD 2087...The first year of the spacedate (SD) calendar. Thanks to the success of Professor Trillas Bachstein's warp drive experiments, mankind's dream of a spacebourne existence has inched closer to reality and the USTA secretly began to implement its SRF project, the Space Reconnaissance Force. Now it is SD 0010, and the first official SRF mission and your adventure has begun.

The Star Ocean Review

So how good is the game? When it comes down to the battles and basic gameplay, Star Ocean is a ton of fun. The fighting is all real time and the pace is very fast. You control one out of the four party members at a time while the others are controlled by basic AI. You can switch between the different members anytime during the battle so you can take better control over your battle strategy. Each character has a different set of skills and abilities, so you will find yourself using the other characters quite a bit as each of them are fun to use. Battles are made even more exciting with monster aggro and rush mode with its party combos and bonuses.

I have not finished the game by any means, but I have played enough to get a good feel of the story and characters. Unfortunately the characters are a little cliche and the voice acting is not that great. There are some long cut scenes as well and some of them can be tough to get through. You can skip them if you want and the game then provides you with the text of the cut scene so you can figure out what is going on. However the story is not too bad and I do not think it takes too much away from the game experience.

So far I have been very pleased with Star Ocean: The Last Hope. I would recommend it for RPG fans in general and definitely for fans of the series. If you are unsure, then what better way to try the game out then renting it at Gamefly!