Star Ocean: The Last Hope [360]

17 Jun 2009 at 10:32:26 by
Systems used to review this title: (360)

Publisher Square Enix, the daddy of all things Japanese and role-playing, are back along with devs Tri-Ace to bring us the fifth instalment of their sci-fi RPG franchise, Star Ocean: The Last Hope (SO:TLH), and this time an Xbox 360 exclusive. Anyone who has felt that there has been a distinct lack of quality JRPG's in recent times can feel rejoiced, SO: TLH albeit flawed is actually rather enjoyable, due to some great battle mechanics and good old monster grinding.

Although set in space, SO: TLH does not escape the trappings of other fantasy inspired JRPG's: The main character is a cute wide-eyed, young man on the brink of manhood, who has many tough choices to make before gaining hair on his chest. Check. Cute wide-eyed young girl who is the love interest of said boy, who is both shy and very wise. Check. Loads of chests (although set in space) containing treasure to find and open. Check. Your party member's turn green and emit bubbles when poisoned. Check. Well you get the picture, SO: TLH does not break the mould here and I found it all really comforting like a nice hug rather than an over familiar slap in the face. The story itself is actually quite interesting, but unfortunately how it's told that is one of the games major flaws. When a game comes on three discs, you know you are going to be in for a lot of cut-scenes.

In the SO: TLH universe, Earth has been rendered pretty much useless by World War III. The warring sides, having kissed and made up, embark on a space program in order to develop space craft that can travel to and investigate distant worlds in the hope that mankind can one day colonise them. The main character Edge Maverick (not quite Luke Skywalker) and his childhood friend Reimi Saionji are introduced as crewmembers of one of these deep space reconnaissance craft. Pretty soon Edge takes command of the ship and sets off on an epic journey , realising that Earth is just a tiny drop in a very large star ocean, and that there is a lot more at stake than just the fate of mankind. The whole of the universe is in some pretty deep sh*t and you and your burgeoning party are the ones that are going to have to save the day. There is a lot to like here, freaky bad guys, arch-demons, false religions and prophets, even time-travel. At one point you get to travel to a pre-space flight 1950's Earth and unwittingly help... (sorry no spoilers). The problem is the execution of the story through the unnecessarily long moralising and philosophising cut-scenes. There were times that I wished I was on board the Calnus (your space ship) so I could give Edge Maverick a good kick up the arse to get things moving, particularly at the times that he thought he had let his team members down and was doubting his abilities as a leader (poor Edgie! Jesus just get on with it you knob!).

I know it is a cultural thing, but the emphasis on team building and friendship became tiring after a while, although the bizarre sex references did not. I lost count of the times Reimi called Edge a pervert, still she did stand up naked in front of him, oh and you do get the option to spy on her whilst she is showering, nice! However I did find the amount of time the in-game camera spent lingering on Reimi's bottom and the gravity defying breasts of another party member somewhat disconcerting. Another frustration was the endless repeating of the same plotline within the cut-scenes, you have to bear in mind that some of them run for longer than 30 minutes and could easily have conveyed the same message in 3.  All of these cut-scenes wouldn't be so bad if the voice work was up to par or an original Japanese dialogue option had shipped with the game. Sadly the voice work at best is mediocre but mostly utterly crap and extremely annoying. I seriously think that Square Enix and Tri-Ace raided the local crack house for the actors. Take Lymle for example (one of the first characters to join your party), a weird, porcelain doll like looking little girl, who quite possibly has the most f*cking annoying voice in video game history. No seriously, even more so than Slippy the (high-pitched) Toad from Star Fox 64. I removed her from my party as soon as humanly possible, just so I would not hear her voice when she stated up, and much to my chagrin as her symbology skills are none to shabby. Why a company as big as Square Enix could not have invested more cash in the voice talent for the localisation is beyond me, why not just leave the original Japanese voices in place?

All ...

Comment