Star Ocean: The Last Hope - International reviews

Star Ocean is a game that you enjoy. Its beauty, its entertainment, its opportunities. You will probably fall in love with this game pretty fast. If you don't have this game, I strongly suggest you buy it, especially if you enjoy RPG's. The game play, graphics and audio are all high quality. I have enjoyed this far more than the new Final Fantasy game which surprises me saying so, as i have always been a FF fan.

The game on a whole is good – characters that draw you in, graphics that look pretty sweet (just don't play FF13 first!) and the game-play and controls are quite fun (combination of real-time action and traditional RPG style menus). Just be warned: lots of grinding! (repetitive fight scenes). If you don't mind this one bit, then click the buy button and enjoy!

Star Ocean The Last Hope International. Story is interesting as always. Although the Last Hope is set before star ocean first departure, everything is still pretty advanced. High level cap makes users to play on and on for a very long time. Collections and optional battle trophies also hooks people into the game. (plus trophies feature on ps3) Also, international version gets more extra contents than the Xbox version so I think this game is worth playing.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is Classic Japanese RPG, with all the usual formulas, an over-dramatic protagonist, A girl he kind of, maybe, likes but hesitates to fully realize their romantic potential :-)

Where all the kids have more experience than the adults, because hey… what the heck do adults know.

Where a cut-scene will show you eliminating a creature with three deft strikes but in-game it takes your whole party of four people and if you're not careful it will kill you!

Where there is no such thing as quick saves and you're stuck in the middle of trek through 3 dungeons, a desert and a mountain range, you've obtained great gear/skills and you have to have to go to work, or have dinner… Do you leave the machine running?

Yes Star Ocean is a Huge throw-back to the the old RPG styles. The game is fun if you like trekking from A then have to go to L just to get to G so you can eventually wind up at E to go back to L so you can pick up the key that will let you open the door at B… But you still cannot get to B unless you've traveled through M,N,O and P!

Ok Are you confused! Well then you might not like this game. LOL

Star Ocean is definitely old school with updated graphics The combat is well done though real time they have instituted a board which give bonuses dependent on how you battle. This means you actually invest yourself in combat as the board can be broken and the bonuses lost if you're not careful.

There is a lot strategy in building your party and the skills they can develop, both combat and miscellaneous. For those micro-managers you'll have something to tinker with :-)

The game is long-winded, I suggest you set some time aside when choosing to play… Enjoy :-)

Set before the first Star Ocean game, Star Ocean: The Last Hope puts the player in challenging real-time battle, amazing skills usage and intense boss fights. The story revolves around Edge Maverick and his party as they travel the Star Ocean exploring new worlds, meeting new friends, all while saving the universe. Side quests and interacting with characters also the player to form deep connections with the character, understanding their story and them as a person. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International provides the player with extra features like changing from English to Japanese dialogue and chancing the menu to a Manga-style while all on one disc, unlike the 360 version or having three disc for this amazing game. If you like a great story and strategic battles, this game is for you.

I am totally blown away by this game. Game play is amazing, storyline is amazing, graphics are AMAZING this game is too amazing! This has my approval

I have loved the Star Ocean series for a long time. Collecting most games even still have the PS2 and games. I noticed that if you dont have a HD tv for this game it will be nearly impossible to read and enjoy the game to its full potential. I am transitioning over to a new HD tv with HDMI capability. Other wise the game is great to play. I have so far clocked 5 hours and am already enjoying the game so much that it is hard to put down (but we need sleep) Im looking forward to finishing this game and giving it a proper 5 star review :D

I love my JRPG's, especially those that have both elements of sci-fi & old world charm and this game has both.

The battle system is easy to master and quite user friendly, and some boss battles (limited) were challenging. I found the blindeside functionality to be great in particular.

My issue was with the defects further into the game – if you layer or chain too many arts or actions and spam them as quickly as possible the screen froze right at the moment of defeat, the controller would shake for a few seconds and the whole game would lock up forcing the need to restart the console. Drove me nuts!!

The camera angles would also be chaotic the quicker the battle actions were preformed.

The design in all aspects was quite dual in nature – some characters, background stories and cut scenes were fantastic, yet others were seriously lacking – I am unsure if this was due to both Square Enix and Tri Ace working on this together, as you could see some aspects from both, or whether it is was due to a desire to not take it to another level and take the development of the series slowly for hardcore fans, or if it was a mix of the staff working on the production (old school comfort versus mod cutting edge design ideals).

The main character in particular left a lot to be desired.

English voice acting was sometimes good (Laura Bailey as Reimi was great but wished they had tweaked the characters voice to not not be identical to Serah's from FF13 + 13–2), sometimes bad.

I really enjoyed the premise, and am looking forward to another in the series, but do hope that they move with the times here and try to excel at bringing a new dimension to a future game if there is one. I also hope the programmers can be a little more thorough with the testing to prevent these lock ups during some battles.

One chapter I looooovvveeeed which was funny and witty and the only moment I was moved during a level ending (I can be a bit of an emotional fem gamer) in the game – was in one word – 50's – and I wont go into it more than that in fear of posting a spoiler.

If you're looking for a light hearted JRPG and wish to take your time with it (which will most likely prevent the annoying lock up bug), then this is for you! I enjoyed it but hope that any future releases in the series focus on being a bit more dynamic to truly exploit the potential that is possible with the premise.

6.5 (Would have been higher without the faults)

Amazing graphics drive this J-RPG. There is alot to do, not an easy platinum to get, expect to drop a decent 300+ hours. Pretty good story line, the voice acting isn't great but you do have the option of turning on the original Japanese voices with English subtitles. Solid battle system, Star Ocean fans will feel right at home. If you like J-RPGS, give this a go.

The updates in the international version is a welcome one. For one, the option for Japanese voice-over is a God-send. The game's story and script is very, very JRPG, so listening to English-dub can feel very out of place. The game also have great real-time combat that is engaging and very fun to play.

It has great re-playability with bonus dungeon and new game plus after you beat it first time through. So you will be making your money worth no problem with this.

Bottom line is, if you are looking for a good JRPG on the Ps3, this is one of them.

The PlayStation 3 version of this intergalactic quest has a few extra surprises that fans of Japanese role-playing games will appreciate.

Awesome combat system Intermittent moments of visual beauty Lots of extra stuff to do

The Last Hope is a solid and mostly fun JRPG with a few character flaws that don't ultimately sink the ship. The international version is condensed onto a single disc, so there's no irritating swapping to deal with. Aside from the optional additional language tracks and the menu design tweaks, it doesn't hold any vast improvements over the Xbox 360 version. If you're hankering to suit up and go rid the galaxy of evil, you'll find this intrepid jaunt into the unknown packs enough danger and excitement to satisfy your sci-fi fantasy thrill-seeking urges.

Enjoy : )

Really slick graphics and interesting, original story, great gameplay, however, the characters voices tend to grate on the senses

Its a fun and challenging if you try and get the trophies. But Its a must if you like your RPor Square Enix games. Lots of play time on this!!

This is definitely a must have. Not only you can set the PS3 version of this to Japanese but also all content are in “ONE” disc which saves lots of hassles of changing.

Obviously the PS3 version is cramped into Blu-ray disc. X-Box 360's would had use three DVD-9s (dual layer DVDs). So this a big bonus for PS3 RPG fans.

Once again, no disc change = no hassles!!!

I decided to purchase this game as i was a big fan of star ocean: the second story in my childhood and it turns out that this investment was more than worth it.

Stunning graphics and character development. The story is so addictive that i looked forward to getting home from work so i could resume playing. Definitely the next step up in the Star Ocean series.

I agree with the previous reviewer NOT to play Final Fantasy first as that puts poor Star Ocean to shame.

Got through the first 20 hours of this game and went away for a week. Came back and couldn't be bothered picking it back up again.

It does look very nice but the characters voices get on your nerves after a while since you have to grind a lot at the beginning so you won't die quickly when you try to advance.

Don't know why they put that annoying little girl in it – she drives you nuts and her voice is like nails on a chalk board.

The game also kind of drops you in the deep end so if you aren't used to previous versions there is a lot to learn very quickly or you will fail fast.