Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Xbox 360)

Out of all the console rpg's of this generation, Tri-ace has been one of the the only developers to actually get something right and Star Ocean The Last Hope is a great example as to what a next gen rpg can do. The artwork and the detail of this game is impressive and it turns shell shaded graphics into something new giving Star Ocean The Last Hope a great advantage in terms of appearance and presentation. but what does this matter in the long run if the game is bad? For starters i would really like to touch on the presentation some more, this game is beautiful for an rpg, not the best but for it's time it's up there. Star Ocean The Last hope brings colour back into gaming again whilst keeping it's graphics top notch, something developers need to keep in mind. Anyways enough of that time to get to the bread and butter of the game. The storyline is tolerable at least for me, but for most it can become quite irritating, prepare for some bad English dubs here and some anime cliché's though it's not all that bad really though it's nothing special, if you can put up with the dubs it's fine, you can even skip the scenes if you want to and many of the most obnoxious scenes aren't part of the main story anyways as they are optional events. The game starts off fine you start off with the main protagonist Edge Maverick who at first despite his cliché appearance is a likeable character however in a certain scene (if you've played the game you will know what scene I'm talking about) his personality is altered dramatically, so dramatically that it really doesn't count towards character development and ends up being a game breaker for some but he gets over it and the game moves on as if nothing has happened. As for the other characters, they range from being down right annoying to boring yet intellectual characters with little to no personality (one of which has no emotions whatsoever but it's to do with his character) and the generic anime bad ass character everyone loves. As long as you can put up with the obnoxious cast of characters and a story which could have been better then you should keep reading this review. Star Ocean The Last Hope is filled with content that can last a while, in fact it can last years if you're compulsive with hundreds of battle trophy's to collect and bonus dungeons with challenging bosses. Even if you didn't enjoy the main game the end game is still enjoyable to every console rpg fan. Character development is not as vast as the other games in the series but still provides a great amount of options to manage your characters. The BEAT system allows you to develop your character in one of three different styles, as well as that you can also develop skills manually like in the previous games. The item creation is back and unlike the previous games in the series it functions more like a conventional crafting system combined with elements of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time's invention system though instead of spending fol (main currency) to invent items you can spend sp which is surprisingly easier to acquire than it was to acquire fol in the previous game and items are easier to invent meaning less stress for the player. You use raw materials to create items which adds more exploration value to the game as opposed to the other star ocean games which require a single raw item to make a random item etc, you will be spending a lot of time on item creation especially in the end game but it is not compulsory unlike star ocean till the end of time. The battle system is arguably the best battle system in the Star Ocean series to date, whist many prefer Star Ocean Till The End Of Time's battle system, Star Ocean The Last Hope has much smoother combat mechanics which are easy to learn and hard to master unlike Star Ocean Till The End Of Time which is the complete opposite, once you learn the combat and get used to the controls the game becomes a spam fest. Now Star Ocean The Last Hope removes this with the rush gauge though some might argue that it is possible to charge the rush gauge over and over to win (I'll admit i did it once) it's not that easy and i know that because i only just managed to win with it with no resurrection items and against a boss that 1 hit ko's everyone in seconds (don't worry this is one of the optional bosses) and by that time you have such a wide variety of moves that rush combo spamming has a great effect but it useless against the super bosses. Regardless the rush gauge enhances the game play making it so that you cannot repeatedly button mash to win easily as with each attack you fill up the gauge till it get's full and when it fills the enemy won't stagger so they will come for you no matter how many attacks you throw at them, put it this way, when a boss gets in rush mode, get ready to run. The hardest boss in the game has an infinite rush gauge near the end of the battle so you can't rely on just running away you have to think strategically to win and this is where blindsides and rush combo's come in to counter this. Blindsides evade enemy attacks and leave them open for critical hit attacks which can really leave a mark whereas rush combo's allow you to perform special moves freely without fear of being hit mid combo which can be very useful towards the end of the game, my only problem with the combat is blindside counters, i just don't like the way they implemented them and I'd rather have the option of evading away from their counter than being automatically be hit and stunned, you can double blindside though but that sometimes makes it too easy though many times bosses will aoe counter you which screws blindsides over entirely, fortunately the game allows you to automatically blindside a foe whether or not they can counter or not by dodging just before they attack which adds a risk factor to the game. Aside from that Star Ocean The Last Hope plays like all of the Star Ocean games preceding Till The End Of Time with special moves accessible with a press of a button, you can even stack up to three of them per button this time round too. The game also has a bonus board which awards you with bonus xp/hp-mp recovery/sp/fol based on your overall battle performance. It would have been nice if the rewards were randomized like Star Ocean Till The End Of Time instead of trying to repeatedly get critical hits for the exp bonus but oh well. The bonus board resets after you get hit by a critical hit/run away/die/quit the game so you can get more bonuses as there is a limit to the number of bonuses you can get. The soundtrack of the game is great, i mean it's Motoi Sakuraba's work so of course it's great, it's not his best work but it's great nonetheless and it contributes a lot towards the presentation of the game. So basically if you want another great content filled rpg to bite your teeth into, look no further, in terms of content this is one of the best rpg's on the Xbox 360 but if you want an rpg with a deep storyline I'd recommend you play something else like Lost Odyssey instead.-----------------------------Plot/story: 7.0Presentation 9.0Graphics: 9.0Music: 9.3Gameplay: 9.5Lifespan: 9.7Re playability: 8.8-----------------------------Overall score: 8.7-----------------------------If you are bored and have plenty of time on your hands and tolerate the obnoxious dubs and poor script buy this game.If you are not sure or want to try it then rent it but i strongly recommend you buy the game as the price is fairly low now.-----------------------------

Star Ocean 4 is a rather difficult game to recommend. On one hand the characters, the plot and a lot of the voice acting are pretty much abysmal. On the other, the exploration and item creation elements are good and the Battle System is superb. Which all adds up to something of a quandary.To start with Star Ocean 4 looks great. It has a gorgeous sheen over everything. The environments are varied and the character models pleasing to the eye. Though admittedly all in a very anime fashion. The over all sound design is solid, with a fairly lush, if a bit hackneyed, orchestral score. The game runs smoothly and I've yet to find a screen tear, slow down, or indeed any kind of technical flaw in the title.Added to this the exploration of the various planets which your cast discover, or inhabit, is good solid RPG fun. Chests, mining points, harvesting points are all nicely mixed in with monster slaying and the town exploration for shopping and ncp interaction. The ncps will give you a lot side quests, so many that you will often spend hours running about fulfilling these rather than being railroaded through the main plot. Which is, all in all, a good thing. The main plot is boring. It's such a tired retread of an RPG plot that you know what's going to happen in almost every situation. This is not improved by the lacklustre dialogue.However the neither the plot, nor the dialogue, are the main disappointment in Star Ocean 4, the characters and voice acting are. As with the visual design and the plot the characters all seem to be drawn straight from anime stock and Tri-Ace have taken no liberties at all. We have our young, up-beat hero, who suffers his obligatory crisis of confidence a third of the way into the game and his boring but pleasant love interest. Throw in are an emo alien side kick, a tough guy cyborg warrior with a heart of gold, even tougher alien death machine and strong, sexually provocative, slightly older woman and most of the bases are covered. If it were only this bunch I would have been a bit bored with them, but not in the mood to make a big issue of it. Unfortunately there are three further characters and they are straight from the pits of anime hell. Little girl magician who's every sentence ends "'kay". A lolitaesque, pouting cat girl. And, horror of horrors, a simpering, ditzy, bespectacled angel. What moves them up from mere annoyances to out and out ghastliness is the voice acting of the trio. If you can imagine the worst, most eardrum scratchingly awful performances that could be done with these character types, then you'll probably just be heading off in the right direction for how truly atrocious they actually are.So why after all that am I still ambivalent about whether to recommend this game or not? After all how can any amount of nice exploration and item creation make up for this sort of punishment? Well, it cant really. However the Battle System can. The Battle System is great. It's worth dealing with all the other nonsense, because once you get into it, you get hooked. At first sight it may seem too complex, as right off the bat you have half a dozen fight mechanics to learn and while the game does try to ease you into them with a lengthy tutorial, they can be pretty intimidating. If you persevere though the rewards are great. No matter how many fights I got into in this lengthy game I never once got bored of them. What gives the fighting longevity are three interrelated aspects. The first is that whatever the complexity of the system in conception it works out to be fast paced and beautifully fluid combat in practice. Secondly the game rewards you with a perfectly paced levelling system which introduces new moves which you learn to combine for hugely satisfying devastation. And third the game sports nine different characters each of whom has its own unique set of skills, magic and attacks. Learning all of them will take time, mastering all...? Suffice it to say the late game mixture of extensive dungeon crawling, or Battle Arena fighting allows you all the scope you could possibly want to play with this element of Star Ocean 4.On balance the game is one I'm happy to recommend, though with obvious caveats. Yes the plot is regurgitated and the characters range from the bland to the appalling and the voice acting is truly some of the worst I've ever heard, but it looks wonderful, it has nice exploration and item creation and the fighting would grace any game from history.

La caja del juego al parecer viene en idioma italiano y el manual también, totalmente nuevo y aunque sea PAL, funciona y lo reconoce muy bien en Xbox One y Xbox Series X con la retrocompatibilidad, un punto extra es que muchos decían que había que cambiar el idioma de la consola a español de España,pero yo lo tenía en español latino - México y me instalo el juego en español (subtitulado), excelente la retrocompatibilidad de Xbox 🎉👌🏻👏

Oui, Squaresoft nous offre toujours des oeufs d'or !!Star Ocean 4 The last Hope, un jeu RPG AVENTURE EN TEMPS REEL !! Vraiment génialDe plus, cette version (moins chère) en UK est compatible PAL avec nos consoles francaise ;) Alors foncez !!

The media could not be loaded.  Tenía muy buenas referencias, indicaba que podría ser diferente, lo asumí, pues siempre hemos comprado juegos y nunca tenemos ese problema, falta poner ese detalle en la descripción del juego y no solo imágenes asumiendo que la palabra PAL es muy visible o que todas las personas conocen el significado de la misma. El juego llegó antes de lo esperado y en excelentes condiciones.