Star Ocean: The Last Hope (TLH) International is the fourth installment in the Star Ocean role playing game (RPG) series. The developers of this game, tri-Ace, are fans of science fiction and it shows in every iteration of Star Ocean. The fourth entry is no different in this regard. Microsoft is trying to buy their way into the Japanese gaming market by luring away titles or having time sensitive exclusivity. Therefore, Xbox 360 had this game for a year before their agreement with Square Enix ran out. Nevertheless, the game sold well on the Xbox 360 in Japan where their presence is about 1/5 of Sony's. Now, PlayStation 3 owners get to enjoy it under the "International" moniker. There are several differences with this version, aside from needing only a single disc instead of three on the 360, such as different language tracks, alternate anime portraits, better balancing of items, and bug fixes.
Story: Star Ocean has always had interesting, if not cliched, stories. Typically, they often involve a seemingly normal protagonist who becomes the savior of the universe. Along the way, there will be people who guide this hero and alter the course of events. Star Ocean TLH is no different and, at times, takes a slightly darker course from the previous games. You will travel to several new planets, space stations, other dimensions, and even 1957 Earth in this game.
Although Star Ocean TLH is the fourth in the series, it is a prequel to the other titles. In this title, humans on Earth were not living a peaceful life, the world government often had clashes with other states. This led to electromagnetic pulse weapons being used, however, there was glitch or error in the devices and nukes were launched instead. This was the beginning of World War III and lasted only a week before what remained of humanity signed a treaty and went underground to escape the contaminated environment. Left with a barren, toxic world, humanity looked to the stars (The star ocean, as it is called in-game) and developed faster-than-light drives, fitting them to several spacecraft whose mission is to find a suitable home for humanity. The mission started off well, but then the problems began. This is where the rest of Star Ocean TLH's story picks up.
In this game, you are joined by a number of companions you will adventure with throughout the game, the badly-named Edge Maverick, who is you, your childhood friend, Reimi, who is excellent with a bow, the Eldarian, Faize, who is a Spock-like character with impeccable manners, the traumatized 15-year old girl who speaks in a monotone voice and looks eight, Lymle, who also has a pet demon, the emotionless cyborg, Bacchus, who is also a rocket-launching scientist, the cat girl, Meracle, who is always hungry, the seductive sorceress, Myuria, who, as Meracle points out, has "Really big thingy's," the flightless featherfolk, Sarah, who possesses a kind heart but is ditsy and very naive, and finally, the battle-hardened solider, Arumat, who calls himself death incarnate. This is very much a motley crew of individuals who each bring their own unique perspective to the game.
Star Ocean TLH's story is very interesting, it can have a very cliched moment right night to a moving one followed by humor. Indeed, there are some truly moving moments in this game where I found myself becoming misty-eyed and others where I laughed out loud. For the most part, it is a typical Japanese RPG in how it presents the story. Story progression and the final resolution of it is set and cannot be altered. However, given the large number of characters, you can change how their stories end. Throughout the game, there are a series of private actions where you can alter your relationship with your team mates, and, if you get their affection for you high enough, you can see their specific ending. These private actions form over half of each character's back story and should be viewed. Like the rest of the story, it can be moving, such as helping a character deal with the loss of another, or funny, such as walking in on Reimi in the shower or watching Faize and Lymle argue constantly.
Audio/Visual: The Star Ocean franchise has usually had graphics on par with games that are launched around the same time. The art style of Star Ocean TLH is similar to that of Xenosaga I, only more colorful and, obviously, better. This is a game deeply rooted in Japanese anime, thus, the characters do not look at all like those in Xenosaga II or even Final Fantasy XIII. The characters and many of the environments look highly detailed and it is obvious that care was taken to make the game very sci-fi. However, not all is great on the graphics front, the environments, though large and detailed, are muddy or out of focus, and, I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the console or the port from the Xbox 360, but this game needs at least basic anti-aliasing as jagged edges are everywhere in confined environments. During battles, the game's graphics do shine nicely, but the character models look like anime porcelain dolls. Star Ocean TLH runs at 720p and occupies most of the game disc. This is a vast game with a long story and many interconnected towns, field screens, dungeons, and CGI cut scenes, tri-Ace may have simply run out of space putting all three Xbox 360 discs onto one Blu-Ray and have been unable to increase the graphics.
In regards to audio, this game can be a bit of a mixed bag. Musically, the game follows the same path all of the other Star Ocean's did, classical music during key moments with progressive rock at others. This fits Star Ocean quite well with exciting tracks when needed and sweeping orchestral music at pivotal moments. This blend gives the game a distinct science fiction feel, some of the music even sounds like it belongs in Star Trek. This is all probably due to the abilities of Motoi Sakuraba who wrote the tracks to every Star Ocean. As for the voice acting, it is also mixed in terms of quality. Unlike Final Fantasy XII, which used theatre actors for voices, Star Ocean TLH used anime actors. This leads to average voiceovers, as a whole, but there are some standout characters. Reimi is perhaps the best voiced of the cast and is performed by Laura Bailey who voiced Serah in Final Fantasy XIII. One of the more infamous voices is that of Lymle. Because of the trauma she experienced, she sounds, and looks, unless you unlock one of the game's endings, emotionless. At first this was annoying, but as I listened to her, the monotone nature of the voice leads to several emotional moments where she tries to summon emotion but just can't, unable to overcome the mental block, making the scene more impactful. I strongly suggest anyone who plays this game and finds the voices, at the very least, tolerable, to go into the settings and turn off battle voices as they say the same things constantly. Alternatively, since this is the international version, you can listen to the Japanese audio tracks. While playing the game, you will notice the lip-syncing is off. The movies were not redone from Japanese and still retain their Japanese lip movements.
Gameplay: All of the Star Ocean games are large with plenty to do, this one is no different. There are a great number of quests, shop item creation orders, races, and gladiator matches. Most of the quests are typical "Take this there" or "Kill this" but there are some more involved quests that require puzzle solving or going to the ends of map to complete. There are also 100 or more item creation or delivery quests you receive from shops. These either involve venturing out into the field to hunt down hard-to-find items or going back to your ship to use the item creation system to fashion an item.
In Star Ocean TLH, item creation is often the only means to get the game's best equipment and to complete many of the quests. The previous Star Ocean did not have a deep item creation system and it was often unnecessary to use it. However, in this installment, the item creation system is a little better. Before you can make an item, you must either research to or find a "Recipe Memo." Researching can be an interesting ordeal, you place one to three of your team mates in a group and tell them to go and research. As they research, they use party skill points (SP) to come up with new items. Since each character has a specialization and certain positive or negative stats, certain items require the use of specific characters to unlock them. Once you do this, you simply gather the needed materials and build the item. Shops can have some needlessly infuriating orders. You have an inventory limit of 20 per item and if an order requires seven items but the recipe requires five items during item creation, you have to go back to your ship several times with your inventory maxed out to create the item and go back out to buy or hunt down more ingredients to complete the order. Thankfully, with few exceptions, none of the shop order quests are time sensitive and you can wait until the end of the game when it becomes easier to travel to all planets for those particularly troublesome items. In Star Ocean TLH, there are hundreds of possible recipes spanning a number of fields.
Star Ocean TLH is an RPG with some interesting options for character development. Each character has special arts, symbols (Magic), and other abilities that increase stats or allow for special actions to be taken on the field. You, naturally, level up, but you also gain skill points (SP) for each character to level them up. There is also party-wide SP which comes from quests or harvesting materials which is used for item creation or to help level up a critical skill when a party member has run out of their own SP. Almost all skills require the use of SP to level up. Battle skills also require SP and provide valuable bonuses to stats or abilities such as auto-heal, often reaching extremely high levels when fully leveled up. However, to keep a character from becoming overly powerful, you can only have two active battle skills at any given time. There is also the BEAT system which grants stat bonuses based on an overall play style for a character. One BEAT is more defensive and grants stat bonuses and abilities to defense whereas the other goes towards offensive stats. The defensive BEAT (B) also affects the rush gauge. The rush gauge fills as you either take or cause damage. If it reaches full capacity, you can enter rush mode where certain attributes are increased. If you activate rush mode while in the vicinity of another character and press the trigger button, you enter a quick time event. If you complete this perfectly, you can cause a tremendous amount of damage in a very short amount of time since standard special arts and symbols with both characters are drastically increased in power. Each of the two BEATS have 20 levels and there is a third BEAT which uses both BEATs simultaneously but cannot level up either while active.
Star Ocean has always had an innovative battle system, it is similar to Grandia's battle system only fully real time. Battles themselves do not take place on the field screen and you can avoid enemies, once you come in contact, you are taken to an arena where you fight. You are able to field up to four characters at a given time and one remains under the direct control of the player. This allows the player to select which one to play, though they may jump between characters at any given time, based on their play style. Personally, I preferred Reimi since she uses a bow from the distance and rarely comes under attack unless she takes direct offensive action. The other characters are all under the control of the AI and their actions are set by tactics you choose. These tactics aren't very specific, but you can change them during battle and turn off any symbols or skills you don't want used. Although the battles are in real time, you can access the battle menu at any time to use items, launch certain attacks, adjust tactics or BEAT's, swap out characters, or add and remove equipment. In battle, you can also chain special arts and symbols together to trigger them immediately after initial use and increase their damage potential. Star Ocean TLH uses something called the blindside, which, if performed correctly, causes the character to avoid damage, swing behind the enemy, and attack them from the rear, often granting a critical hit. Using a blindside does have its risks, not all enemies are vulnerable to them and some will attack you with a critical hit if you attempt to use it. Some characters can do blindsides better than others. Another unique feature of this game is the bonus board. If you defeat an enemy in a certain way, you get a colored gem added to the board. This gem grants special post-battle bonuses such as restoring a certain amount hit points or increasing experience. It is possible to double the amount of experience you receive from battle using the board. The board will carry over from battle to battle unless you load a saved game. However, if an enemy scores a critical hit against the player-controlled character, the board breaks. This leads to an interesting risk/reward system in battle, do you perform the blindside or perform the lengthy and very damaging symbol and risk an enemy critical hit, or do you find a safer location or alter your tactics to better keep the bonus board intact? The battle system is quite fun and I was never bored with it.
Misc.: I enjoy science fiction and I also enjoy Japanese RPG's. You can imagine my joy when Xenosaga came out. Star Ocean Till the End of Time was also released and I liked it, but I believed that Xenosaga was the best with the way it blended sci-fi and RPG's together. Then, the six-part Xenosaga got cut to three and the game's developer came under the direct control of Nintendo cutting all hope I had for a high definition follow-up to my beloved Xenosaga. I then went back to Star Ocean and was excited to see Star Ocean TLH coming to a modern console... the one I did not have nor wanted to buy. Several months following release on the Microsoft console, I was overjoyed to see it returning to a Sony system. Although I was disappointed to see it on the Xbox 360 first, I do believe the PlayStation 3 received the best version of the game given the audio and increased capacity of the Blu-Ray disc.
Star Ocean TLH is a game you can enjoy if you already like Japanese RPG's. If you do not like that particular genre, stay away from this game at it is very much part of it. This game is compared very frequently to the newly released Final Fantasy XIII and it is easy to see why. Star Ocean TLH doesn't have all of the polish FF XIII has and can stumble in places, but it is also a much longer game. Critics who did not like FF XIII because of the shortened game and lack of towns, will find many of those issues resolved since there is plenty to do in this game. For me, I had my main battle party (Reimi, Edge, Myuria/Sarah, Arumat) at level 60 and completed 60 to 70 percent of the quests clocking in at 64 hours. Still, this game does not have the name recognition of the Final Fantasy franchise and given the demographics of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners in Japan and North America, I doubt it will be anywhere near as successful as most of the titles in the other franchise. It will still sell reasonably well with already over one million sold in all territories, but with the ridiculous year-long exclusivity on the 360 and gamers moving on to other, newer games on the PS3, I believe that sales of this game will not be as high as they could have been if this title had been released simultaneously on both systems worldwide.
As for the trophies, only the most dedicated, extreme completionists, or gamers with obsessive compulsive disorders, should even try to obtain the platinum trophy for this game. The trophies take completion to a whole new level. For example, you must complete every single quest in the game, some of which vanish permanently due to unfortunate events. You must also complete the game three times at progressively harder difficulty levels. The most insanely difficult one involves obtaining 100% of the in-game battle trophies. These are awarded as you complete certain battle objectives, such as "Land five critical hits in a row," or "Defeat 30,000 enemies," but some are very specific, such as "Deal 1,111 points of damage." Each character has their own battle trophies, about 100, and they can only be obtained while you are directly in control of that character. In short, you must have limitless patience if you want to even bother with getting the platinum. There are also no gold trophies for this game. Overall, I suggest Star Ocean The Last Hope International to gamers who enjoy long Japanese RPG's. With its fun battle system, a multitude of quests, and customization options, this is a very well-rounded game for most RPG fans, but the Japanese quirkiness and occasional rough edges may put off some gamers.
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Rashad Abdullah
Hours of fun
Reviewed in Canada on May 19, 2020
Rashad Abdullah
Reviewed in Canada on May 19, 2020
Well bcoz of covid i ended up buying a ps3 so buying this game was only natural since i played the hell out of The Second Story on my ps1. The Last Hope so far is great. Some hints of Valkyrie Profile in it. Graphics r great. The story is very interesting. Battle system is A1. I havent done any item creation and what not as yet. The bosses r super hard and i havent beaten the game as yet.
Cons of this game tho;
The main character Edge really got on my nerve after he did smthn and threw a big hissy fit like a lil bitch. Man that will ruin the fun of this game for anyone when they reach that point.
You cannot save anywhere you want on the world map like in the old ps1 game which is real annoying and stupid.
The bunny isnt great.
I dont mind not being able to save at anytime in dungeons. Bcoz its a dingeon. Survival of the fittest. Oh i also feel that at one point in the game we were robbed blind bcoz we had to catch The Black Eagle but instead of us doing the whole tournament it just skipped to the finals with Edge somehow getting all the way to the end which was extremely dissapointing. I havent taken part in the tournament since nor have i found the secret dungeon so def will be another 40hrs on top of the 40 im at now that i will b packing on. Great game great buy i still highly recommend. Worth every penny.
Update July 9th 2020;
Yea so here is my close to final verdict, i have 84hrs on Galaxy Difficulty before deciding to try Universe. After 50hrs on Universe i beat the game and unlocked Chaos Difficulty. Yea so i do not have a clue in hell as to why there are Earth, Galaxy and Universe difficulties (*・～・*).
Chaos difficulty in my humble opinion is classic RPG standard. I am Playstation 1 generation. I have Grandia, SO The 2nd Story, Legen of Legaia, Suikoden, Valkyrie Profile under my belt just to name a few. Galaxy and Universe i beat without ever having to flee or run from an enemy for fear of losing my progress and dying. I never once bothered with Item Creation at all. Until i played Chaos difficulty. I am very dissapointed. Wasted what? 84 plus 50 so 134 hours before i finally got something worthy of the classification of RPG. Anyway as you see in my pictures i am currently level 145 and beefing up to try and beat Tamriel on the 6th floor in The Cave of the 7 Stars. I was level 115 i think and i couldnt beat him so. Anyway i really want to see Gabriel Celeste then unlock the Ultimate final dungeon. Wish me luck \(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ♬.
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