New to the Star Ocean series is the 'Blindside' maneuver, which slips the action into slow-mo as your character slips behind the enemy and lands several critical, devastating blows to their exposed back. The system for AI behavior isn't as comprehensive as FF12's Gambits, but it's certainly more than adequate considering you're likely to be switching who you're controlling a lot more than FF12.Īll the traditional RPG elements you'd expect are here, with a sizable number of skills and moves at your disposal as well as an attack combo system and "Rush Mode" - a Star Ocean equivalent of Limit Breaks or Overdrive. Those you aren't controlling at any given time are controlled by basic AI behavior instructions you can set. You can switch between the four characters in your party on the fly, meaning you can mix and match the different skills and abilities of the characters as you please. It's another fusing of Action-RPG and Turn Based elements, and it's been handled masterfully. You take control of one character from a party of four, and you can move this character freely around, allowing you to either attack an enemy head-on, flank, or remain at the back of your party firing off ranged attacks to do damage from a safe distance. The Last Hope's battle system is some of the most fun we've had in a next-gen RPG. In addition to beautiful world design, those who can fight past the clichés, plot holes and voice acting will find themselves immersed in quite an entertaining gameplay experience. The character models aren't as good, but they blend into the pretty environments well. The design of the actual world of Star Ocean: The Last Hope is second to none, and the immense amount of imagination and talent that went into realizing the different worlds you can visit and the space that surrounds them is quite apparent.Įven if the worlds themselves don't have the biggest or best variety of enemies to battle, NPCs to interact with or quests to undertake, one thing you're guaranteed from The Last Hope is some amazing looking worlds to explore that give the 360's graphical capabilities a push. This leaves the science fiction setting often feeling under-utilized, but at other times the influence of Sci-Fi, in particular the game's stated influence Star Trek is clear and profound. While you are flying through space and landing on various planets in this world of high technology our hilariously named protagonist Edge Maverick still wields a sword (admittedly a space sword) and still spends much of his time opening chests and battling creatures that match up more to the fantasy RPG stereotypes set in games like Final Fantasy and Disgaea than Sci-Fi. The translation is good enough on paper, but it makes the classic mistake of being far too literal - resulting in hours of characters repeating themselves and phrasing things in a strange, incorrect way that can only be compared to bad English anime translations.Ĭharacters will monologue about practically nothing for minutes at a time, and some of the more pivotal cutscenes can drag on for over half an hour.
Sadly, the plot holes and clichéd cast aren't helped by the terrible, ham-fisted voice acting. This is a term we use a lot on RPGSite and JRPG is quite a broad term in reality - even Pokémon is a Japanese RPG - but Star Ocean is a true Japanese RPG, oozing Japanese culture and styling to its very core where other series' might choose to have a bit of Western style to make it more appealing around the world.ĭespite the setting, Star Ocean has a very clichéd JRPG cast and storyline agape with plot holes but the actual underlying story has the potential to be fairly interesting - it just never reaches that potential. Make no mistake - Star Ocean is a Japanese RPG.
While refining their space technology, mankind sends advance parties into deep space in order to attempt to find a new home amongst the stars. Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the fourth entry in the series but is actually the first chronologically, a prequel which depicts mankind heading into space to escape a ruined planet Earth, ravaged by Nuclear Warfare to a near-unlivable state.
Thank the lord, then, for Square Enix's Star Ocean series, which allows you to do just that.
#Last hope anime full
Science Fiction is a genre that is more often cropping up in RPGs, though few Japanese made ones actually go the full whack and are a remorseless RPG romp through space.
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