star ocean the last hope international review

#STAR OCEAN THE LAST HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW SERIES#

Players follow the adventures of young Edge Maverick and Reimi Saionji, two childhood friends who have grown up to lead humanity's first intergalactic mission, in a spaceship called Calnus. Lands have been upturned, civilizations have been razed, and survivors realize that they must find a new home, on a new planet. Humanity has waged World War III, and Earth is the greatest casualty. Back to Modern Warfare 2 it is, then.Sci-fi role-players return to the Star Ocean for the first time in The Last Hope, a prequel game set centuries before the original game's story began. It was fun for a while, but it would really benefit from an online co-op mode.

#STAR OCEAN THE LAST HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW SERIES#

If you're new to the Star Ocean series you might be a little disappointed, but if you've been a fan for a while you might think differently. It's a shame because when I played on Final Fantasy I always wanted to be able to run around and fight my own way like you can in Star Ocean but, it's just not as good as I'd hoped. Taking all of this into account, I feel that The Last Hope is a very average game it's not a proper RPG and it's not a pure button basher. Unfortunately, this didn't happen so I found myself just running round looking for fights, which became a bit repetitive. I'd never played the other Star Ocean games, and wanted to become involved with it like I did when I first played Final Fantasy VII and VIII. There was just no drive to find out what happens next. For a while I was collecting, refining and going through the story, but the biggest problem for me was that I couldn't take the characters or the storyline seriously. So there is something to occupy you if you get bored smashing your way through battle after battle.Īfter playing the game for a good few hours, I gradually started to see past the clunky character movement, dialogue, annoying camera angles and cut scenes, and began to play the game for real. These can involve finding someone or something, or fighting a beast. Along with the main storyline, there are side quests to keep you occupied. Along the way you will recruit new companions, who have their own special skills, in and out of battle. You can collect raw materials to use for refining and upgrading your weapons, armour and items. Throughout your quest you will come across various beautiful and detailed landscapes to explore. One thing you might want to do is to turn off the in-battle voices, as they can become pretty annoying. You also receive board bonuses on winning battles or by certain objectives within battle, which improves your characters' abilities. This becomes quite an effective offence as it just about doubles your hit bonuses. You can link basic attacks which adds more hits and racks up the damage and your skill points. Battle mode includes some sweet combos, which are activated by the shoulder triggers. There are other skills which can be acquired, not just to be used in battle mode, but are also useful for exploring worlds and creating and refining items. These scores improve your health points, mental points, attack, defence and most of your other abilities. Like previous Star Oceans and other RPGs, you can gain experience points after you have completed each battle. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International video game There is something satisfying about catching an angry wasp off guard with a swift but firm blindside attack. This is great fun and makes the game very entertaining. Toggling between characters and their abilities increase the overall speed of the battles. They stick to a battle plan set in the menu screen and this keeps them out of trouble. In battle you're able to toggle between other party members at any time, but when not in control, the characters' AI takes over.

You, your party members and enemies all fight at the same time. The Last Hope sees the return of the real-time combat system that broke away from the classic turn-based RPG in other words, the main difference is that there is no waiting between turns. Considering that there is a lot of running involved you would have hoped that the movement would have been a lot smoother, and it becomes frustrating at times. My first impression is that the character movement in and out of battle mode is not great and slightly clunky. It's just a shame that the actual gameplay lets it down. The Last Hope has a number of stunning environments and elegant cut scenes, but you would expect no less from Square Enix.

Star ocean the last hope international review