Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Xbox 360, 2009)

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the latest entry in the Star Ocean series. It is most similar to the last game, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. You visit a handful of planets, help people out of sticky situations, and end up in quite a big mess yourself.

The short and sweet version:

Plot: 7/10. The weak point. It doesn't really go anywhere until the final disc of the game.
Graphics - 9/10. Beautiful, although there are some noticeable flaws. A huge step up from SO3.
Gameplay - 10/10. Great battle system, and easy to understand controls and mechanics.
Sound - 10/10. The voice acting fits the characters great and the music provides a feeling of adventure.
Overall - 9/10. Plenty to do, plenty to see. This game is by far one of the best JRPGS on the Xbox 360. Do yourself a favor and pick this game up.

The long version:

Plot. 7/10
This section features small spoilers for the first 2 hours of the game. The plot starts out with you playing as Edge Maverick, a 20 year old member of the Space Reconnaissance Force. You are on your way to the planet Aeos alongside your team and childhood friend Reimi aboard the Calnus, your squads ship. It crash lands, and after a scuffle with some hostile creatures, you are sent out along with Reimi to investigate. It turns out the ship was taken over by the monsters. A giant, nasty one attacks and you are assisted by Faize, a young man from the planet Eldar. You defeat it, and report back to your captain. He, along with the captain of the Eldarian force called to help your squad, suggest you take Faize and Reimi and investigate other inhabitable planets. You visit many planets on your journey, and the plot finally picks up on the 3rd disc, near the very end of the game.

Gameplay. 10/10
The best part of the game. The controls aren't hard to figure out at all. A attacks, you move with the analog stick, L and R do special attacks. More advanced things can be done by pressing the Y button, which brings up a menu of Spells, Items, the ability to swap party members mid-battle ( ! ) and so on. The battles are very fun, although somewhat easy on the 2 difficulties available from the start. Overall, there are 4 difficulty settings. Earth, Galaxy, Universe, and Chaos, which are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard, respectively. After you beat the game, however, some bonus dungeons are able to be done, which are much harder and geared towards more experienced Star Ocean players. Overall, gameplay is simple, yet very fun.

Graphics. 9/10
The graphics in Star Ocean TLH are, in a word, beautiful. The environments are incredibly varied and large. It's mesmerizing looking around at the landscape of the different planets and ships in the game, and all the detail and work that must have gone into making these fantastic locales. The areas you visit range from a lush forest on the coast of an ocean, to a planet split down the middle in terms of terrain, with one side being a grassy plain with some forests and one side being a huge frozen lake and some snowy mountains. The character designs are, for the most part, great. Edge's armor in particular is very detailed, in all, the graphics are almost perfect.

Overall - 9/10
There's plenty to do and plenty to see in SO:TLH. The average gamer will clock in at the end of the game around 50 hours for a barebones run through. With dozens of sidequests, an arena, 2 bonus dungeons, and 900 battle trophies to collect(That's 3 times as much as Star Ocean 3!) it's very likely you'll at least.

Star Ocean is another episode in the Star Ocean saga, which began in the Super Famicom console in mid 90'. The game is developed by the renowned Square Enix, the Japanese company specialized in the RPG genre, the same responsible for other major titles in the same row as the franchise Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

In this version you control the Edge Maverick hero, and his partner Reim. Unlike earlier versions, this edition of the franchise will have a much greater emphasis on the scientific aspects of history, leaving aside a bit of fantasy.

The great advantage of the game were fighting, performed in real time. Moreover, instead opting for a medieval theme or what seems to have come from fairy tales, the developer, with members openly fans of science fiction and space travel, chose a theme more "sci-fi."

Star Ocean also attracted the attention of several players, thanks to its gameplay different and unique style. In all, the franchise now has seven titles, including remakes, released for various platforms such as PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PSP and Game Boy

In 2008, fans of the series received notice of two ways. The producer of the franchise, Yoshinori Yamagishi, announced a new game titled Star Ocean: The Last Hope, exclusively for the next generation console from Microsoft, the Xbox 360. However, along with the revelation, Yamagishi also said that this was the final game of the franchise.

The Games was Baixaki check closely the latest edition of the infamous franchise. Well, outside of Japan, Star Ocean has never been a name of weight. But it seems that Square Enix, which distributes the game, seems to be investing in the franchise. Besides the Xbox 360 version, the company also recently launched two remakes for the PlayStation Portable.

On Xbox 360, experience is watered by a cliché story, which includes GPs in abundance, action-packed combat voiceovers terribly annoying. Despite ups and downs, the title will please fans of the genre. If you're one of them, this is perhaps even his last hope.

When I heard there was a release of Star Ocean to the Xbox360, I definitely need to get this game. I never played any Star Ocean game so this was my first and man this game is the best rpg game up to date. I fall in love with the characters art and style. The name of the characters are cool too especially Edge Maverick. The game story wasn't very compelling, but the combat was the main attraction. You can also create items and weapons. The game gets very interesting when playing for a few hours. I recommend this game to all role playing game fans who looking for a fresh new adventure and to those who are fans of Star Ocean.

Great game. If you like Jap RPG's than you will like this one. Nice cut scenes, fun story. Voice acting is a bit off, but it is quickly over looked. Graphics are amazing. Just a great all around RPG. This is the first Star Ocean I have played and it makes me want to get the others after I finish this one.

If you beat star ocean 3, then star ocean 4 is going to be a tad easier.
The game shines in its fighting system and unique skill system. I consistently found myself leveling up since I enjoyed fighting .

The characters do each have a decent story and you kinda get to know them well enough to feel their emotions however, the english voices do sound kinda crappy...

The two towns on lemuris are just plain boring. The other worlds however are beautiful and actually seem interesting.

The design and graphics are stunning for an action rpg and often I paused to wonder if the anime/cg female lead was based after a real person.

If you enjoy action rpg's such as the "Tales series or star ocean" then pick up one of the best jrpg's for the xbox 360. You can easily gain achievement points while having a game that nets about 100+ hours.