Star Ocean: The Last Hope

The Core Video Games Forum
#1

I love this game. I just want to say that. This is hands down, the second best current-gen JRPG, next to Vesperia. The cast is fantastic, I love the chemistry, the voice acting is pretty well done (Sarah’s not bad, but her voice is grating after a while). The battle system is addicting and quite rewarding - I can’t tell you how satisfying it felt to beat Amaros Manifest with a full bonus board with a 110% exp. increase, jacking me up two levels.

The story… it isn’t bad by any stretch, it’s just that it plays out in sort of an episodic nature, with visits to each planet containing its own story, so until the very end of the game, you’re not really sure what’s going on. The self-contained stories got progressively better, the best one being the Earth and Roak arcs.

My only real complaints are the spike in difficulty the game took. I was coasting through the game, consistently gaining levels without grinding, hit the phantom marathon battle, almost got my ass handed to me, and again with the Amaros fight. The quests smack of the Good Samaritan side quests from Xenosaga II. It’s really annoying that I need to hoof it back to the Calnus whenever I need to craft something for a quest. None of those detract from the overall quality of the game.

I’d written this off considering Tri Ace’s recent track record and my general indifference towards Star Ocean II. I’m glad I gave it a chance. Excellent game and one of the best JRPG this generation.

#2

Wow, this thread just exploded with replies!

Almost done with the story. I may do the post game shit during break or something.

#3

Done, managed to get bacchus’s ending. Bosses weren’t too bad, though I almost lost it at the last one. Considering how swiftly I was levelling up (20 levels in about 3 hours!) I’d thought I’d get my ass handed to me. Not so.

#4

I haven’t played a Star Ocean since the second. Mostly because they come out on consoles I don’t have or I just plain didn’t have the money at the time. But I really liked #2.

#5

I like the part of the game where you just pick Reimi and spam two moves back and forth and win every battle without taking damage. (I wouldn’t try it on the super bosses though.)

Also a lot of people complain about the long emo-Edge part of the story. But I mean, give the guy a break, he just accidentally killed six billion people, it’s understandable he’d be a little bothered by it. I do wish he was less mean to Sarah while being emo though. Speaking of Sarah, I wonder if she’s related to the Sarah from Lost Odyssey, they look kind of similar (besides SO Sarah’s obvious features) and both have glasses.

#6

I thought his emoness was justified, though it did go on too long. His actions towards Sarah was just uncalled for.

Never did think of using the Reimi trick though.

Oh, and I don’t think I understood Faize’s change… what caused his eyes to glow?

#7

I played it this summer. The most memorable part of the game for me was using Meracle to beat the Colosseum relatively early on, which was pretty challenging. I thought the game got pretty easy once I realized you could buff your HP with Skill Points. I used Meracle, Edge, Arumat and Sarah. The only boss fight I had trouble with was the fight before Arumat joins up, and that’s where I tried buffing HP for the first time and was really surprised at how much more you could get.

Lymle is one of the worst characters ever. She could have been strong, but they made her autistic or whatever was wrong with her and it just made no sense, and made her incredibly dull and boring. Her character really hurt the game IMO…K?

Graphics were excellent, story was ridiculous but still decent, combat system had a lot to offer but you pretty much just spammed the most powerful special move over and over the entire game to be efficient. I like the idea that you could travel to planets at will. Would have enjoyed more destinations and more cultures, but obviously there’s only so much you can do on a budget at this level of quality. It offered much more than I expected, to be honest.

Personal actions were always pretty funny. and lol @ Welch.

I was actually considering going for 100% trophies on the PS3, but figured it wouldn’t be a good use of time. Possibly the most time consuming trophy collection on the system, which is pretty lame. I played for over a hundred hours and have like a 38% completion.

No playable Crowe sucked. I believe I got the following endings: Meracle, Arumat, Myuria and Reimi. Didn’t really care for the other characters, and pretty much did private actions in that order.

All in all decent game. I think I liked FFXIII better though, as far as latest gen JRPGs.

#8

His anger at being unable to save the one he loved caused his first rage. Then his inability to save his own people and having to witness their genocide caused him to flip. His existence and hence all life became pointless because it is finite, so why not just reset everything?

at least that’s how i understood what happened