Ignore the clichés. If you aren’t a fan of anime art, then ignore the character designs. Above all else, ignore your hatred for next-generation role-playing games as Star Ocean: The Last Hope attempts to erase your thoughts on this generation of gaming’s poor RPG selection. With two to three decent RPGs released per year for the Xbox 360 at max, gamers should be eating up Square-Enix’s latest offering in the form of their highly popular Star Ocean that’s currently exclusive to the Xbox 360. Best advice to those who are looking to dive deep into the world of Star Ocean again, do so at a slow pace as you won’t find a whole lot of interesting new concepts revealed – The Last Hope is conventional and standard fare with high production values.
As revealed in the introduction, Star Ocean: The Last Hope sends players through a clichéd storyline that they have all too often experienced before with a ragtag band of teenagers and young adults out to save the world. With characters named such as Edge Maverick and Meracle Chamlotte, you can’t expect too much from the storytelling as the developers didn’t try to hard to think of unique names outside of attempting to make them clever and ironic. As for the setting, the game is a prequel to the series and explores when humankind all but nukes itself into nothingness. Earth is gone and it’s time for people to start searching the universe for a new place to call home. It’s up to you, as Maverick, to find a suitable new home somewhere in the galaxy for mankind along with a few friends that opt to join you along your journey. So be prepared for some awful annoying dialogue along the lines of any typical anime that come in the form of half-hour cutscenes.
Ignoring the storyline – as it’s not going to rot your brain or ruin the rest of your week after playing it – you should embrace the in-depth and incredibly fun combat system. Fighting in real time with a party up to four characters, Star Ocean employs one of the deeper combat systems currently offered in the RPG genre for the Xbox 360. You’ll encounter monsters and fight them on a wide-open battlefield as you, and your three AI controlled teammates, battle away to claim victory. You can manually switch between your party members to take the battle in a new direction if you’d rather use a different character. Every single character has his or her perks, so it’s best to experiment which works best for you and work towards having the best line-up that fits your style of gameplay.
