
#Star ocean the last hope full#
You have full control over Edge and his allies, and the whole system hangs together very well.Īttacking foes with combo attacks is easy, as is launching special attacks, which simply require a quick trigger press.
#Star ocean the last hope manual#
Unlike FFXII’s half-baked manual combat and Undiscovery‘s clunky system, here combat is fast, fluid and very, very enjoyable. Once in battle, SO:TLH also goes against tradition and, like its predecessors and more recent titles like Final Fantasy XII and Infinite Undiscovery, it does away with turn-based combat, instead allowing total, real-time control – control that works better here than I’ve seen in most other similar titles. If an enemy does the same to you though, you’ll be surprised, and your foes will start with an advantage. Even better, if you manage to approach an enemy from behind, you’ll stage a pre-emptive attack, which leaves your foes defenceless for a while. Thankfully however, Star Ocean doesn’t use the archaic and outdated random battle encounter system we see so often, but instead lets you see your foes on the field, meaning you can avoid battles if you wish. The game is split between exploration and battle, with the former letting you explore the game’s attractive landscapes and settlements, converse with locals, trade at shops and, of course, trudge around the many fields and dungeons.

This allows for a large improvement in the visual element of the game, including real time lighting, and it also brings plenty of the familiar Star Ocean gameplay along, with some great features.Īs is the norm with JRPGS, Star Ocean is populated almost entirely by colourful, spiky haired, twenty-something-year-olds, each of which has the usual cookie cutter personality we often see in this kind of fare (along with poor to average voice work). Star Ocean: The Last Hope is an epic RPG spanning three discs, and it runs on an enhanced version of the same engine that powered Infinite Undiscovery. We pick up the story as this mission is just about to begin, and the protagonist, the ridiculously named, Edge Maverick, is preparing to disembark on this historical quest. With peace finally achieved, humanity began an epic space program, with the aim of finding and colonising other inhabitable planets. Here, mankind, having decimated much of the planet Earth after triggering World War III, are on the verge of expanding into the Galaxy, thanks to the governments of the world forming an alliance. Tri-Ace, the same developer behind Infinite Undiscovery ( reviewed here), along with Square Enix aim to remedy this situation with a new outing in the popular, long-running series, Star Ocean, and The Last Hope is the result.Įxpanding and improving upon the existing Star Ocean formula, this time events take place in a parallel universe to the one seen in previous games, and serve as a prequel of sorts.

When it comes to the more traditional RPGs, and the ever poplar JRPG (that’s Japanese RPG, in case you were wondering), the 360 isn’t exactly well-endowed with the cream of the crop.
