Star Ocean: The Last Hope International (PS3)

I am lost in admiration for the designers of this game. Not only is the gameplay immense fun, but the non-linear worlds over which the action takes place are large and varied with beautiful graphics. The attention to detail is amazing, for example: scuffing up fallen leaves when walking under certain trees, splashing through waterlogged areas or slipping about on frozen lakes, or simply just admiring the vegetation or observing the behaviour of incidental wildlife. But where the graphic artists have really excelled is in towns and particularly in interior design. Decorative stonework, beautiful windows, ceilings and floors, attractive objets d'art, fine firniture, tablecloths and carpets. Those who like running through such games as fast as possible might well miss all this which would be a shame because it deserves more careful observation. On a more RPG typical level the battles are well thought out and well choreographed, with some fine effects and some striking character costumes, although the game might not appeal to those who prefer furious, fast-reaction, and bloody fights. Personally I am not excessively keen on first-person style battles, and in this game (as in Final Fantasy XIII) you can control any one team member at any time whilst the rest of your team functions on quite decent AI which also allows you to choose to a certain extent what style of fighting each AI controlled member will use. Although not particularly apparent, and it could probably be virtually ignored by those so inclined, there is some scope for battle tactics here. Less commonly encountered in RPG's there is also scope for gameplay tactics if one learns to manipulate the battle Bonus Board. There are dungeons, and there are puzzles (although not of the frustratingly obscure variety) but basically the game is a well-balanced mix of traditional RPG fare, with opportunities to manufacture and enhance equipment when you acquire the appropriate skills. The menu system is also well-designed and easy to use. If you have read this far you will have realized that I am a long-standing RPG fan, and in my opinion there is so much to praise in this game that I find it easy to forgive its minor faults, and I have no hesitation in saying that I love it.

Well I was looking forward to this after the last Star Ocean game on the PS2 and I wasn't disappointed, although there are a few minor flaws, it's a solid RPG. Good job too, really as the PS3 is a bit short on these at time of this release!The story is unremarkable, you play as Edge Maverick (do you think game designers will ever give their heroes a non symbolic name?), who is thrust into sudden danger as a fleet of spaceships dramatically disappears and he is among the few survivors and must therefore shape the destiny of the whole universe when the evil force behind the events is revealed. As usual Edge meets a few friends along the way, including a shy spellcaster with healing abilities, a tank-like fighting dude and a witty, sexy female warrior, etc, etc. The story is interesting but not amazing - certainly without the boffo twist that Star Ocean 3 had, but never mind. What we need to know is, how much fun is it to play?Well, good news. It is a lot of fun. The battle system is pretty good although quite hard to learn, and it took me a lot of practice before I was adept at it. You have a party of up to 4 people in battle, of which you only control one at a time. You can swap between people in an instant, which is fun, and sometimes useful to control people who have different skills. Although there are only a handful of AI settings to use for the auto control, which put simply cover about 3 options: Fight Full On, Don't Use Magic and Stay Out Of Trouble. However the AI is good - the characters with healing spells use them frequently and when needed, although ALL the auto control characters relentlessly spam high costing magic attacks and support skills like crazy on the "free fight" setting. There are two basic special moves you can do when in control. One is the very tricky (well, it was for me) "blindside" move - which, if you time it right, puts you directly behind the enemy for a critical hit. Trouble is, some enemies can block them, but if you start the animation for a blindside on an enemy that can counter them, you can't cancel it, which is very annoying, especially as I seemed to be doing them all the time, as the blindside buttons are the same buttons you use to (a) get out of the way and (b) focus your strength to activate "Rush" mode. This is like filling your rage meter or limit break, and if you trigger Rush mode you can also flip into a special combo move at the same time - but the controls to do this have been made quite tricky and a bit of practice is needed. At first I thought blindsides were the way to play the game full stop, but once I got the hang of rush combos, and fed up of failed blindsides, I dropped blindsides pretty much altogether!Anyway, the graphics are great with luscious backgrounds and scenery to explore, although the characters are not very expressive, with bland faces that resemble bisque china dolls (especially Lymle, who is ridiculously stylized). Enemies are not that imaginative, and they get repeated a lot with just different colours and more health points. Items, weapons and armour are not very intricate, although there is an invention mini game that I found very tiresome because to make sure you have the ingredients for recipes you either have to have a photographic memory to remember where to get them, or just buy everything from every shop you go to to avoid the massive backtracking between planets to go shopping. Actually, on that note, the sidequests are quite minimal in this game, they are mostly just fetch quests with paltry rewards, so I eventually tired of putting the effort in.I will say though, that I didn't really get too bored in the main game. Fighting is fun when you get the hang of it, as there is loads of variety in every fight, and the pre-setting of skills for use in battle is quite interesting. The bosses can be tough, and I soon realized that you can't just charge in and mash buttons! Levelling up is not too much of a chore, and if you are clever in battle you get a grid of cumulative bonus points that stays with you as long as you don't get a critical hit yourself (in which case it resets to zero). Very handy near the end when I was getting good at critical hits and my experience started piling up. Shame some of the save points are quite far apart, but every dungeon had at least one free, reuseable health restore point somewhere in it, which was VERY nice.The game keeps up a good level of challenges, and I got through it all pretty well, with my characters at around levels of 60-70 for the final fight, which I was pleased with - until I saw the after game end bonus dungeons...I predicted that with some heavy levelling I might get myself to the standard top level of 99, but a bit of internet research brought up a recommendation that to attempt the bonus dungeons and bosses you were advised to get to about level TWO HUNDRED?!? Not gonna happen. So that put paid to my aims to explore any after game activity, however I was pretty happy with the main climax and a fairly happy ending.So there you go, it's a standard, action battle RPG with an insane after game bonus dungeon (in fact two, apparently) for the most hardcore out there. I enjoyed my visit with a total play time of 50 hours, so I think I got my money's worth.

This is the 2nd Star Ocean Game I've played.The first one been Star Ocean: Till the end of time.The story in this game is absolutely brilliant.Very Few games have such a rich and wonderful story.And this is one of the rare games that has such a rich story.The battle system is a fighting arena style battle, where when you engage a monster you are taken to the battle arena where you have control of the leader.Using the ability's and skills of your character to defeat every monster in the arena.Depending on how you engage the monster of if the monster engage you, determines your possession in the arena.You can build you your chain gage, to add exp bonus, Fol bonus and other bonus to help you in the game.There are quests and crafting that can be done in game, so there are loads to do with all the side story and quest.So there is a lot to do, other than the main story.If you have played any other Star Ocean game or Final Fantasy or any Square Enix games, then you will love this.The game dose start of a bit slow, but grind though it for a bit, and all of a sudden it will explode with loads of action, story and adventure.This is the perfect game for anyone that is in to RPG games.

I still think it's funny that you can buy a shrink-wrapped PS3 copy in 2023. That's pretty cool.

Genial. Me encanta este estilo de juegos. A pesar de no tener unos graficos tan buenos como un final fantasy, el estilo de combate es mas desafiante.

Donnerstag Abends bestellt, Freitags morgens angekommen, ALS IMPORT!!! Schnellste Lieferung die ich je gesehen habe. Anbieter war 1stvideo. 5/5Zum Spiel:Story: An sich spannend, manchmal ein bisschen cheesy oder vorhersehbar aber alles in allem cool. Jedoch kriegt man manchmal das unglaubliche verlangen, dem Hauptcharakter eine Ohrfeige zu verpassen, weil er manchmal in eine offensichtliche Falle rennt.Aber teilweise tolle Emotionale Momente & Konfrontationen 4/5Charaktere: Sympatische Chars, die alle etwas Entwicklung im laufe der Handlung abkriegen. 4/5Synchro: Englisch--> Durchschnittlich / Japanisch--> genial bis grausam. 2 Chars sind einfach nur wiederwärtig vertont. Die eine völlig emotionslos und langweilig, egal ob gerade irgedwas explodiert, die andere mit einer extrem nervigen Singsang-Stimme 3/5Grafik: Großartig für die Zeit bis auf 2 Dinge: Gesichter & Charakter-Animationen. Die Gesichter sind kaum fähig Emotionen zu zeigen und die Charaktere bewegen sich manchmal wie in der Augsburger Puppenkiste. Kam mir aber so vor als würde dies in der 2. Spielhälfte ewas besser werden. Lob gilt den Gegner-Modellen: Fantasievoll & viel Abwechslung. 3/5Kampfsystem: Mega-Spaßig. Wurde nie langweilig, selbst bei langem Grinden. Das spiel implemetiert Echtzeitkäpfe alla Crisis Core, gepaart mit einem Bonus Board (EXP, Geld etc.), das halbiert wird, wenn man sich einen Kritischen Treffer einfängt. Damit hat man Respekt for jedem kleinen Gegner und die Kämpfe bleiben intensiv. 5/5Umfang: Story ca. 40-50 Stunden, Sidequests: (meistens lahm), Post-Game: genial und gigantisch. ca. 100 Stunden. 5/5Setting: Originelles Sci-Fi Setting, das viel Star-Trek-Forscher-Charme versprüht, da man halt eigentlich kein Space-Marine sondern ein entdecker neuer Welten ist. Größtes Minus: Fast alle Rassen sehen den Menschen sehr, bis ganz ähnlich. Unkreativ 4/5Alles in allem 4.5 Sterne

Super Fast shipping and item exactly as descripted, perfection does not need much explanation, buy with confidence from this seller.

Excellent RPG, great battle system, I haven't seen in a long time an rpg that just the battle system makes it a wonderful experience to play. The Item creation its a great plus. And this Title in particular its Region Free so you can play it in your ntsc PS3 system with different choices for voices: in English and Japanese, and Subtitles in:english, spanish, italian, deutch.  STAR OCEAN LAST HOPE INTERNATIONAL PS3STAR OCEAN LAST HOPE INTERNATIONAL PS3