Star Ocean: The Last Hope Review

Gameplay

Functionally, Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a bit different from most other Japanese RPGs, opting for a real-time combat system instead of the turn-based or pseudo-turn based system usually associated with the genre.

Combat in Star Ocean: The Last Hope isn’t a static affair where you just line up all your attacks, buffs and revives either – each battle takes place in a small arena and you can run around at your pleasure. While the tutorial system doesn’t make it wholly clear, where you position your team mates and attack from is massively important too as some enemies have physical weak spots you’ll need to target if you want to stand a chance.

The battle system can be a touch overwhelming at first, but once you get used to it it’s actually very simple and the stat-management side of fighting is kept fairly distant from the action. You can easily play most sections of the game without having to micromanage your items and weapons too much, just slotting new swords in over the top of old ones and unlocking new combos as you go along. If all else fails then every character can attack using a blind-side move that gives you a quick cinematic and jumps you behind your foe, at which point you can unleash a quick combo or power-up.


The one cumbersome part of the combat though comes when you want to use a menu and have to scroll through the wheel-based submenu system, which immediately saps away the sense of urgency that the battles go to such lengths to cultivate.

The main flaw of the combat system - other than the fact that it’s often overwhelmingly hard even on the normal setting - is that it’s also hugely repetitive. When you’re travelling around the game world there’s always tonnes of baddies to fight, and it gets dull. Although you can pretty easily avoid nearly all the fights by running around your foes, you’ll quickly find unavoidable battles that are far too hard unless you spend time grinding dozens of smaller enemies. Then, just when you’re sick to the back teeth of grinding against the same glowing blue blobs and giant insects, you’ll have to grind some more.

Grinding against enemies though is something we’ve come to accept and, to some degree, enjoy about RPGs though and it’s something that crops up in virtually every game in the genre. One thing we haven’t yet grown accustomed to though – and actually take huge issue with – is the massive amount of pointless, lengthy cut-scenes. There’s a lot of these in The Last Hope and, though the game comes on three DVDs, we get the feeling it could have been easily condensed if even a touch of urgently required editing had taken place.


Just as it’s important prospective players know the game is a prequel, it’s important you know that we aren’t exaggerating here either. Using the in-game timer we checked and found that during our first hour with the game we had taken less than fifty in-game steps. Often we’d finish one massive cut-scene, have control restored to us, venture out of the only door in a room and be ushered straight into the next 30 minute movie.

Honestly, we don’t have a problem with such huge movies – but shouldn’t they come further into the gameplay? Shouldn’t players be allowed to actually play a bit first and get involved with the characters before having to sit through all that drivel? It should be a reward, not a punishment to see those beautiful animations and it’s a shame that the self-gratifying urges of the developers have again bought the barrier of entry so high that it seriously harms the overall quality of the game. We can’t speak for anyone, but we buy games to play them, nor to watch them and then spend the intervals grinding through enemies.

Cut-scene and editing issues aside though, it’s clear that Star Ocean: The Last Hope has a lot going for it in other areas. There’s as much length to the game as you’d expect of something that’s been in development for five years and the graphics, while perhaps a touch over-stylised for some tastes, are way above par. The fact that the combat is very action-orientated helps to speed things up and keep things interesting too, despite the grind. In the end, while Star Ocean: The Last Hope isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it should also provide the utterly standard fix that most JRPG fans are looking for.

Score Guide