Star Ocean: The Last Hope Full HD Remaster
From the creative minds of Square Enix and tri-Ace, STAR OCEAN – THE LAST HOPE takes place at the very beginning of the Star Ocean series. This action-packed RPG takes players on the epic journey of mankind’s last stand, with exploration and battle across some of the most mysterious, dangerous and fantastical worlds of the universe. Explore the galaxy on your quest, make allies and enemies among the alien races you encounter, and uncover a danger so great that it threatens all of creation. Earth has been decimated by World War III and now humanity must turn to the stars in search of a new home. Explore the galaxy on your quest, make allies and enemies among the alien races you encounter and uncover a danger so great that it threatens all of creation. Spectacular New 4k and Full HD Visuals Exhilarating Real-time Battles A universe of adventure and danger await in the great Star Ocean!
Steam User 22
SO4 is a fine game with mechanics that you can expect if you've played any of the previous entries in the franchise.
Forewarning though, if you cannot learn how to blindside consistently, perform rush combos, perform critical hits, and synthesize items then you will have a bad time with this game. It also does not help when the game tries to skill check you 2 times in the beginning of the game with Barachiel and Sahariel, 2 bosses in the beginning that will most likely wreck you.
Compared to other RPG's like the Tales series, it does however lack the nice little extras like: Party Banter, Unlockable Skins, More room for ship upgrades, New Game+, Setting the party leader should change the in-game model
The worst aspects I would say is that item quantity is capped to 20, meaning that you will have to waste time traveling to previous locations to buy materials or farm them again to reach the required efficiency for mass item creation.
Unlike other similar games, you cannot issue commands to your party members without actually switching to them and then going back into the menu to issue the command.
Tactics are lackluster as there isn't really much explanation on the subtle difference between each one, the best system would be something like from Tales or Dragon Age where you can fine tune the AI behavior.
It's a good game underneath with features lacking from other games you can find on Steam, however if you can get past Barachiel and Sahariel then everything else is cakewalk, even Satanail.
Steam User 11
This was the 1st game i bought for my Xbox 360, totally at random, and I have never looked back! There's so much content to the game, I've lost hours of time to it! A must play for any RPG/JRPG player!
Steam User 12
A Star Ocean game where the story is really good and the gameplay is pretty bad...not what I was expecting at all. Like if I told myself 3 years ago the one thing that kept me from dropping a Star Ocean game (aside from the fact that I rarely do that) was the story, I would be dumbfounded. Unfortunately it's hard to talk about this game's story without spoiling anything. So I'll try to write it out in a general sense.
This game takes place before the first Star Ocean, First Departure, and answers some questions you may or may not have had such as the reason why Earthlings decided to take to space, how they did so, and the creation of the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact. While all interesting questions aside from the last one, the answers aren't really given that much depth. But that's fine this series is about space travel after all. It does both good and bad with this.
You see the universe through the eyes of Edge Maverick, contrary to his name, his personality isn't just being edgy or moody all the time. He's a hot headed passionate person who wants to help others without a second thought. But that leads him to do more harm than good through his journey. And with his new found friends, he is able to build the courage and strength to make the hard hitting choices and decisions. Sounds kind of plain when I write it out but I really do like Edge a lot. The cutscenes from early to mid game were just great, I was intently watching them because I enjoyed them so much. Edge’s arc in this game was great too, I seriously can’t believe people disliked it. It helped serve so much purpose that it still affected him even by the end of the game. I know a lot of people hate the models and animations in these cutscenes. But I just love how weird and unnatural it was. Like how in every cutscene Reimi literally never stops moving or having constant eye contact with whoever is speaking and that one scene where Faize is talking real fast about something and the girl who gave him the cloak had no idea what he was even talking but was smiling and shaking her head in acknowledgement (that made laugh since it was so unexpected I missed out on what the scene was even about). The voice acting was honestly great, I can't believe people were saying it was bad. Either I've heard worse or I've heard good for too long, no clue which. Don't really care for the “bad” guy all too much like I rarely do but the final boss was interesting and surprising. I wish they had developed them a bit earlier but I get why they did it this way.
Interesting thing about The Last Hope compared to First Departure and Second Story (haven't played the 3rd one yet) is that all your party members are chosen for you. I was a bit miffed about it at first but I became okay with it because at the very least each character adds something to the story/dialogue. It probably helps that I just recently finished Second Story R and was wishing the other party members interacted more in the story. But I really do like the characters in this game but only because they're in a game like this. I know that's kind of weird to say but I think if they were in any other game I don't think I would like any of them. Like Faize, Edge, Bacchus, Crowe, Sarah, Lymle, Eleyna, and Klaus just to name a few, who just wouldn't have worked in any other game. Except for Welch, I just really like her a lot more than I should for some reason. She is honestly really good in this game, every scene with her is just great. It may be really corny but it fits Welch to a T. Some designs suck though like Arumat, Myuria and Meracle, no reason to make them look like they did. It was so weird because there’s no way anyone liked it…right? But some designs were really good like Sarah, Lymle, Faize, and Welch (I actually warmed up to it, but blue and blonde are still the best combo for her). Private Actions still exist (they're great btw) and I saw a few of them but it looks like I missed a bunch since I only got one character's ending which sucks because it wasn't the one I was most looking forward to, oh well maybe next time. I will say though I think the female cast was done dirty in this game. A bit too much direction in fetishizing characteristics (something a bit different from the random mill of fanservice imo) on them and making them not too smart or too strong in the story compared to the female cast of First Departure and Second Story. But it's not like they were awful or bad, it was just a step in a different direction than I expected for this series. Which I can honestly say for this entire game to be honest.
The gameplay is not great, luckily though it's not horrendously bad either. Just nowhere near as fun as the first two games. Combat animations and hitstun/delay are way too slow for me to truly enjoy it. Bonus Board is alright but it breaks too easily since every enemy can just crit super easily. I wish being in Rush mode helped such as ignore crits but it doesn't. Quests are a bore since they're active within Item Creation which yes....is bad too. I can't believe the made IC bad like how do you make one of the best subsystems ever in the first two games and then ruin it in the fourth, that's just crazy. You can only do IC in the Calnus that require items from stores/vending machines and enemies that for some reason took forever to drop. I was grinding these mushroom enemies for at least 45 mins just to get some 10 Tasty Mushrooms. It should never take that long to get any items, especially when field skills like Botany are maxed out. Then you'll have to slowly dash all the way to the quest givers and/or Calnus between these long stretches of uninteresting terrain and enemies. No fast travel until the final areas, which is lame. Don't know why fast travel had to have a plot reason to exist; all it did was waste my time throughout the beginning. I got over 56 hours in this game and I’m sure a good chunk was going back and to the Calnus and towns.
Regardless, I still had a fun time. I’m glad I was able to experience this game. Now Square Enix please put Star Ocean 3 and 5 on Steam so I can play them, thanks!
Steam User 10
Star ocean – The last hope is a JRPG, with an OK story and likable characters. Eventually you will have access to a full roster of 8(+1) characters, out of which any 4 can be selected as the starting members for a fight.
The graphics of the game are good, with vibrant colors. The images in store focuses mostly on the interior of the ship, but most of the times you will be exploring the landscape, and fighting the enemies there. Also the UI in those images is the classic one, while the game defaults to the modern one, using pictures of the actual characters instead of hand drawn sketches, and a differently colored menu / UI. I would highly recommend switching the Battle camera movement to Fixed from its default of Active, playing a few fights with either will make the difference clear. During fights fully 3D models will be shown, with decent animations and a huge variety of monsters, each with their own animation set. You can move around the battlefield, and melee characters must close the distance to the enemy.
The save system is based on savepoints. They are set up a bit far (or I could say that the maps are large). In case of a wipe, all your progress is lost since the last save. Later there will be standalone refresh points on the field, entering them will fully restore your party's health and mana. The same thing can be done by returning to the ship and sleeping there, or more likely entering a town and sleeping in an inn there. Strangely, you can exit to desktop only after loading a game, as in the main menu there is no option for exit in full screen mode.
You can expand the map to cover the full screen, but you cannot scroll it, seeing only a fixed portion where you are still present on it. As such you generally cannot determine at the start if there is a savepoint further on, or where are the exits to the adjacent areas.
There are quests in the game, but there are no quest markers. Talk to everyone, and you might initiate a quest. Similarly there are no markers for quest completion targets, you better remember who gave that obscure quest for you several hours before (duh). For example unlocking the colosseum requires a two step questline. I just missed / left unfinished most quests. Some quests will become available only after progressing the main story, so even if you spoke to someone and they didn’t gave a quest, later they might just do.
The game is quite cutscene heavy. Apart a few exceptions, these are rendered in the in game engine, they aren’t movies. After the phantom soldier fight for example there was a full 30+ min segment, and there will be at least one another of such length towards the end. During the travel between planets, around 30 min worth of banter can be initiated involving the various party members – but only for traveling that path for the first time. These ones are optional (I suppose it is allowed to sleep through the whole travel), but I enjoyed this content too. As far as I know the cutscenes are fully skippable, still watching them is part of the intended experience. However when retrying boss fights, I always skipped the repeated intro narratives, as I already saw them just before. Thankfully there are always savepoints close to the boss fights till the very final segment. If you see a savepoint don’t make the mistake I made the first time, skipping it to prevent monster respawn. Boss encounters can and will happen in otherwise seemingly normal mob territory.
As usual, I played the game with the Japanese voices, and English subtitles. The voice acting is great, as expected. However by sticking to the Japanese voices, the fight exclamations and the victory reactions will be in Japanese – without subtitles. Those parts will be much better in English, so you will have to make a choice which is more important, the cutscenes or the fights. The background music was good.
The difficulty level of the fights is very uneven. Most mob fights are trivial, a few are somewhat demanding. However the boss fights can and eventually will get ridiculously hard. I wasted days for the phantom soldier fight, even grinding out levels and the colosseum weapons didn’t help much. To make things even worse, if/when you obviously lost, there is no way to exit to game over in a lengthy boss fight. You will have to manually swap in the rest of the team, with a cooldown on the swap in, and let them each die, to finally exit the boss fight. Even Alt-F4 won’t work, and that with a subsequent restart of the game would have been still a much faster option. The final part after the last available savepoint took me more than 2 hours to finish. Should I lost at the final boss fight, I might had to repeat the whole thing from zero. Sure, I would skip the cutscenes, but repeating all those fights would be grating. At least 2 more savepoints should have been added, with a warning to save to a new spot (as entering the final fight with already depleted consumables would make that encounter very hard).
The targeting in the game is abysmal. The game automatically sets a target for you. You can lock to it if you want. You can pause the battle, but during that there is no way to manually select a new target. During battle you can cycle between the enemies with the options button, but that is only in one direction, and you stand there idle during the whole process in the middle of a hectic fight. For example my healer was pummeled by mobs, Edge stood near her facing those very mobs, and when I pressed attack Edge just run to the other side of the area, because the target was set on some earlier fought enemy – no option even to target nearest.
There is a combo rush option. If you press X and RT or LT when rush level is 100, an uninterruptible sequence of combo starts. If you are successful with the button prompts, several combo attacks will carry out. For a given attack type, those prompts will always be the same, generally either several rapid button presses or one slow press. That is if the game decides that you initiated the whole thing at a “rest” phase between your attacks. Otherwise you merely enter rush state, which basically just wastes the entire rush bar – and most of the times this was the outcome for me with Edge. It was much easier to initiate it with casters, as there was a much easier way to observe that they were in a resting stance.
If you want to extend the game life with grinding out various things, this game does offer a lot of options for them. You can grind out monster knowledges to 100% for one. If you have 100% knowledge of a monster type, a powerup item can be made with monster stones based on that monster. Each character has 100 deeds, not all of them are easy to obtain (for example land a hit on an enemy that reduces its health to exactly 4 – good luck with such ones). You can craft various things, though some materials will become available only after finishing the main story. There is a colosseum, where you can fight solo or in team (though most enemies can be fought only with levels / equipment available after the main story). You can even grind out a bunny race rankings - think of horse race, but with bunnies that you control and level up through consumables. There are two dungeons available after the main story, but they require quite a high level, at least 130 was recommended for the second one, most of my characters were below 60 at the end of the game.
I enjoyed the game enough to give further titles in the franchise a chance. As of now it is only The divine force that is available on Steam, and despite its mixed reviews, based on The last hope I will give it a chance on one of the sales.
The game was stable, it didn’t crash. However if the focus was switched to a different program (for example a summary popup for backup), the game exited full screen mode, and become windowed, with the title bar and borders visible. I had to switch back to fullscreen each time.
Steam User 13
I don't really feel like putting a thumb down to SO: TLH, this game is very mistreated, but it's not THAT bad.
To me, the most noticeable flaws are the characters: they're all extremely stereotyped.
If you watched plenty of anime (and I assume you did, or why the heck would you be here), you will probably feel indifferent to all, and I mean ALL, the characters of this game.
We have the brave protagonist, the girl who is secretly in love with him, the cat girl, the clumsy angel girl, the robot, an Elf-like boy, and probably somebody else I forgot.
All flavored with some fanservice here and there.
The fights are...ok, they are barely ok.
I read many reviews that bashed them, but I personally found them manageable, and while they weren't anything original, you still need to fight if you want to level up.
The cutscenes take forever, each cutscene could be watched while you have lunch/dinner/breakfast, they are literally neverending, and sometimes uninteresting even.
There are subquests, but you're not encouraged in the least to complete them, and actually you don't need to do any of them.
Impressively, despite finding all these flaws, I can't for the life of me put a thumb down to Star Ocean: The Last Hope.
Game is not great, but it has its moments and overall it works.
If you dislike the english voices, just put the japanese ones, they never fail to deliver positive vibes, and they frankly add value to this game.
I'd say "mixed" is exactly the kind of ranking this game deserves, 50/50.
Steam User 8
A Stellar Remaster of a Beloved JRPG
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Star Ocean: The Last Hope Remaster is a welcome return to an iconic JRPG title that captivated fans when it originally released. This enhanced version brings the game to a new generation of players, providing improved visuals, updated gameplay mechanics, and a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
One of the standout features of this remaster is the upgraded graphics. The Last Hope was already visually impressive, but the remaster takes it to another level. The character models, environments, and special effects have all received a noticeable boost in detail and clarity, breathing new life into the game's stunning sci-fi world. The vibrant colors and beautiful landscapes truly immerse players in the intergalactic adventure.
The gameplay enhancements in the remaster make for a more enjoyable experience. The combat system, already a highlight of the original game, feels smoother and more responsive. The introduction of additional control options and improved camera angles allow for more strategic and dynamic battles. It's a joy to unleash flashy combos and devastating special attacks against the game's diverse array of enemies.
The Last Hope Remaster also benefits from the inclusion of additional content and features. New side quests, dungeons, and items have been added, providing extra depth and replayability. The inclusion of voiced dialogue in previously silent scenes further enhances the immersion, bringing the characters to life in a more engaging way. These additions complement the already substantial main story, which offers a rich narrative filled with compelling twists and turns.
The game's soundtrack remains a standout element, as the music beautifully complements the epic scope of the adventure. The emotional melodies and energetic battle themes perfectly capture the essence of each scene, further enhancing the overall immersion and creating a memorable audio experience.
While the remaster succeeds in many aspects, there are a few minor flaws that prevent it from achieving a perfect score. Some technical hiccups, such as occasional frame rate drops and minor graphical glitches, can be a bit distracting. Additionally, the character models, while improved, still show some signs of their original age, especially during close-up cutscenes.
In conclusion, Star Ocean: The Last Hope Remaster successfully revitalizes an already beloved JRPG. With its enhanced visuals, refined gameplay mechanics, and additional content, it offers a nostalgic journey for returning fans and a captivating adventure for newcomers. Despite a few technical hiccups and minor visual imperfections, the remaster does justice to the original game and reminds us why we fell in love with the Star Ocean series in the first place.
Steam User 4
Mixed feelings on this game honestly.. I'm curious with the story and it plays pretty fine (albeit clearly showing it's age)..
BUT:
The battle camera can get a bit of a while to get used to, and the save points which can get pretty scarce makes me scared since I prefer being able to save anywhere and like very 5 minutes or so.. In this one you could be playing for an hour or more without a save point.. You also can't see boss HP numbers and their HP bars don't reduce or change colors either so you can't really gauge how close or far you are to defeating them.. There's also no fast travel so there's quite a huge amount of backtracking to do..
If those aren't a problem for you then you'd probably like it.