Star Ocean: The Last Hope (International)

Space Opera

Star Ocean: 'Til The End of Time was my first experience with the Star Ocean games, and was a great introduction to the series.  The Last Hope is a lot like 'Til the End of Time; you can read more about it after the jump...



Unlike the Final Fantasy games, Star Ocean has active battle systems, allowing you to move, attack, use symbology (a.k.a. spells), etc.  Your attacks change based on your distance, how long you hold the button, etc.  Battles are downright fun.

The Last Hope is a prequel to the series as a whole.  You play as Edge Maverick (yes, all Star Ocean games have incredibly cheesy main character names: consider in 'Til the End of Time when you played as Fayt Leingod, seriously).  Edge is the member of a fleet of human ships seeking planets suitable to colonization after Earth has pretty well been made uninhabitable due to war.

And, also like 'Til the End of Time, The Last Hope features a Battle Trophy feature, wherein doing certain activities rewards you with in-game achievements.  Accomplishing enough of these achievements awards you with an honest trophy (15%, 30%, etc.).  I made it to the mid 30s by the time I finished the game, as some of the awards would require way more time than I'm willing to put into the game.

No, he's sort of annoying, really.

The game also returns the item creation feature, where you can collect recipes and materials to create items.  Nothing new there.

The big complaint with the game is the truly awful dialogue and voice acting (mainly through direction and source material, nothing against the actors).  Lines written about heroics make Snow from FFXIII look humble.  The female characters are shallow and terrible to listen to: like nails upon a chalkboard.

But it certainly was worth the 50-some hours put into it.  Especially if you're into angsty JRPG space operas.