Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope - 4K & Full HD Remaster

 PlayStation 4
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 46 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 46
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 46
  3. Negative: 8 out of 46

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  1. Adreankael
    May 23, 2018
    7
    After playing every Star Ocean game available (and loving 90% of them) I can honestly say this one is a bit of a let down. I seriously expected more from this series. I wish I could rate it higher then 7 but several things take the score down quite a bit.

    Problem #1 is the english voice acting. Reimi was the only voice actor who didn't make me cringe during dialog. The rest are    After playing every Star Ocean game available (and loving 90% of them) I can honestly say this one is a bit of a let down. I seriously expected more from this series. I wish I could rate it higher then 7 but several things take the score down quite a bit.

    Problem #1 is the english voice acting. Reimi was the only voice actor who didn't make me cringe during dialog. The rest are borderline atrocious, with one character decimating that line altogether. I'm not sure what to make of Lymle. If the voice actor was going for a lobotomized, traumatized child then they're spot on. Seriously, she sounds like she has suffered massive head trauma. Acting lessons are good, kay?

    Problem #2. The special arts of one Edge Maverick (seriously who came up with these names? Cliche much?). Many do less damage per second then just spamming the basic attack. While they do more damage per button press, when you spread that damage over multiple hits and you factor in the time it takes for each skill to finish they do less damage and take more time then pressing the basic attack button 5 times. Not to mention how they leave you more vulnerable during the time it takes to execute that skill. Making them more risk then reward.

    Pros: Beautiful graphics. Although the land could use a bit more foliage the character models and many of the textures are beautifully rendered. The addition of being able to swap between Anime or "Modern" style for the artwork is a definite plus. The ability to swap VO languages and to experience the game with Japanese VO is a definite plus as well. Especially when you take into consideration Lymle's annoying English VO and the poor overall quality of the English VO.

    If you're going to play this game swap it over to Japanese VO. I expected more from this series, I really did.    … Expand
  2. 17_jrpg
    Dec 21, 2017
    7
    Star Ocean The Last Hope is a very interesting JRPG but requires a great number of hours to complete it 100 %. I just played this game for the story and to unlock all the endings. I was not going to gather all the battle trophies, spaceship data, weapon data, monster data, possible items and treasure chests because it takes a lot of time. Also, I did not finish all quests, colosseumStar Ocean The Last Hope is a very interesting JRPG but requires a great number of hours to complete it 100 %. I just played this game for the story and to unlock all the endings. I was not going to gather all the battle trophies, spaceship data, weapon data, monster data, possible items and treasure chests because it takes a lot of time. Also, I did not finish all quests, colosseum challenge, bunny racing, and I did not try to defeat two superboss because it requires a great level (Lv. > 160-200) to defeat them. To complete this game 100 %, you should take more than 200 hours. All this is very interesting but still a little too much.

    I will not talk about the graphics because the graphics was also good on the PS3. I do not judge the game according to the graphics. I will actually talk about story and battle system.

    Story: The story of this game first begins with the exploration of the universe and then is directed towards saving the universe. I like this game beacause the exploration of the universe. In previous games, the story usually takes place on one or two planets, while in this game the story takes place on several planets. Through Private Actions, you learn the individual stories of each character and their interaction, which additionally complements the main story. Generally speaking, the story is very interesting, in some parts it is funny and in some parts it is serious.

    Battle system: The battle system has advanced far enough from the predecessor. The characters no longer die if the MP comes to zero, and new functions such as Blindsiding and Rush Combos contribute to improving the battle system. In this game, also it is much easier to fill out the bonus board than it was in Star Ocean Till the End of Time. All these new functions make the battle system much more interesting, and I think this is the best battle system in Star Ocean games.

    Conclusion: I gave this game 8 out of 10 for the story and battle system, while for minigames and sidequests I give 5 out of 10. My average rating then would be for this game 6.5 out of 10, so I will round the score to 7 out of 10.    … Expand
  3. Gamingsince1977
    Feb 12, 2022
    6
    I played the International version on PS3, loved it - so a looked forward to the remaster for ps4. How disappointed was I? Ok, the graphics were a little cleaner, but the main difference seemed to be the over-over-abundance of black. Looked rather like a child had gone to town with a black marker pen, thin lines of black are now thick and prevalent everywhere.
    But the re-do of the    I played the International version on PS3, loved it - so a looked forward to the remaster for ps4. How disappointed was I? Ok, the graphics were a little cleaner, but the main difference seemed to be the over-over-abundance of black. Looked rather like a child had gone to town with a black marker pen, thin lines of black are now thick and prevalent everywhere.
    But the re-do of the character in battle is very strange - random streak in their hair (yes - black) and ridiculous facial shadows, causing most of the characters to have 'nose ring shadows' .
    I played several locations, but saw no significant changes other than that - so glad i didnt spend good money on it, rather play it on PS3 (played it through share play via my son).
    If you are new to the game & you love grinding ridiculous trophies etc (which, sadly, I do) and the potential for hundreds of hour of play - give it a go. It may not be an all time great, but its trophy system alone is an experience, which sets it apart from many others i have played in the jrpg genre (my fave).    … Expand
  4. Torreyes
    Jan 23, 2018
    10
    This is the best game I've played in more than a year. It's much more than i was expecting and just fall in love with it. I wood have paid full price knowing what i know now but for 20€ ? It's the best game I've ever bought for that money. If you like RPG games and games like Nino Kuni or White Knight Chronicles this is a must buy.Everything in this game it's to like but the only detailThis is the best game I've played in more than a year. It's much more than i was expecting and just fall in love with it. I wood have paid full price knowing what i know now but for 20€ ? It's the best game I've ever bought for that money. If you like RPG games and games like Nino Kuni or White Knight Chronicles this is a must buy.Everything in this game it's to like but the only detail wood be AAA new generation graphics, graphics are descent still. If your looking for an incredible Adventure and a magnificent Story, this is your game besides the combat it's awesome .… Expand
  5. chad_pattan
    Nov 30, 2017
    8
    This game has a bad rap. And it's undeserved.

    Background: this was originally released on the Xbox 360 as an exclusive. After that expired, the International version was released on PS3. The 360's main issue was the disc swapping that was necessary between planets - a throwback to Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. PS3 version fixed that but introduced other issues. Largely though it    This game has a bad rap. And it's undeserved.

    Background: this was originally released on the Xbox 360 as an exclusive. After that expired, the International version was released on PS3. The 360's main issue was the disc swapping that was necessary between planets - a throwback to Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. PS3 version fixed that but introduced other issues. Largely though it was the easier overall experience.

    If you never played this game, it is (canon) the fourth Star Ocean game, having nothing to do with the previous except Captain Kenny who has a partial cameo from older games. It's the first Star Ocean to really focus on space exploration and visiting new planets. The remaster (not a remake, mind you), doesn't change the underlying story. It's a great game, but temper your expectations.

    Many of the complaints from people online are people preferring the third Star Ocean: Till The End of Time, because of the battle engine. In my opinion that's all it had going for it; the story was terrible, the graphics laughable, the music forgettable. Also, people complain about Lymle, a childlike character, and Edge's English voice actor. Neither are worth skipping the game over. Lymle's a kid...who acts like a kid. Edge's English VA isn't great, but certainly not the worst (I'm looking at you, Tidus). Turn on Japanese if it bothers you.

    What made this game great was really 4 things:

    - The remaster graphics are EXCELLENT. Everything's much cleaner, easier to see, draw distance, performance, etc. Especially on a PS4 Pro.

    - The music was always good.

    - The Private Actions in this one far surpass any of the other Star Oceans by far. Just Reimi/Meracle/Edge alone will have you cracking up, and Welch is a star by herself, but watching Lymle fail to kick her is awesome. Meracle and Reimi are basically the anti-feminists, especially Meracle, who has absolutely no problem flirting.

    - Planetary exploration is what made Mass Effect 1 better than the rest, and it's on full display here. Some of it is "rails-ish" but in general, it's an absolute treat.

    So why an 8 and not a 10? Well, they didn't address the excessive bloom lighting that's been there since the beginning. It's annoying, because you can't fully enjoy the graphical beauty. Also, they nerfed the effectiveness of some of the characters; used to be that controlling Reimi alone with her special attacks would allow you to breeze through the game; she was significantly overpowered. Now she's still strong but not a tank like she used to be. Why change this? Let the player choose whether to use certain overpowered characters or not if they want their challenge ramped.

    Games like Disgaea, a game severely lacking anime cutscenes, have gotten people to this "I just wanna fight" and "I want obscene difficulty" mentality. If you don't care about story in a game, this game isn't for you, but if you want to feel like you're playing a book, complete with cutscenes (like the GOOD old days), great graphics, and characters, be sure to give this a try. It's well worth the $20 or so. More so than Integrity & Faithlessness BY FAR.    … Expand
  6. sapphireglaceon
    Mar 26, 2022
    0
    this game is complete trash and should have never been made hate this crap the only good ones are 1,2 AND THE REAL 4 THIS IS 5 YOU DIDN'T EVEN NUMBER THEM CORRECTLY SQUARE ENIX. YOU ARE SO FRIKEN STUPID AVOID THIS GAME AT ALL COSTS YOU WILL RAGE QUIT
  7. Phuz
    Feb 27, 2022
    8
    I'm really early doors with this game I have been pleasantly surprised but I am on the fence.

    1st. I'm near the start and it is not clear where I should be going. The run speed is too slow. It feels over complicated. Bad borders, looks like I can go somewhere but can't. For the good. This game is gorgeous. I don't mind things not looking perfect as long as it works, and this works.    I'm really early doors with this game I have been pleasantly surprised but I am on the fence.

    1st. I'm near the start and it is not clear where I should be going. The run speed is too slow. It feels over complicated. Bad borders, looks like I can go somewhere but can't.

    For the good. This game is gorgeous. I don't mind things not looking perfect as long as it works, and this works. OST, so far it is perfect. I'm really loving the music and it is definitely enhancing the experience. Now I'm going to do some comparison's. Recently I have been playing Ys 8 and Tales of Arise. Ys8 is digital and after a lot of hours, quite frankly, I'm damned bored and won't be playing again. Tales of Arise was so bad I traded it already. Now this is the weird bit. I'm a big Ys and Tales fan and a big Square Enix hater. This game for me is totally smashing Ys8 and Tales of Arise. It is fun, the characters are much better than those irritating Yankee idiots. Even the fan service has been done better. So SO4K (I'm playing in 1080p) looks good, sounds good and feels good. It has much better characters and story telling. Arise was boring and Ys8 felt like it was written by children. The game world is nicer. The whole thing is just better.

    I think in the few hours I have had with this I enjoyed it more than the 15 - 20 hours spent with the fore mentioned games.

    This is my first SO and if I continue enjoying it then I think I will soon be a new fan.

    I am currently playing Fire Emblem and Xenoblade X on my WiiU, Persona 5 Royal on my PS4 and a ton of stuff on my Switch and Steam and this feels absolutely up there with the best of what I'm playing at the mo'.    … Expand
  8. ale12
    Nov 23, 2018
    10
    buen juego, buen jrg, se dedica a la interaccion y conversacion entre personajes, existe accion rpg, un buen trabajo y un juego entretenido
  9. VendonJura
    Jun 13, 2018
    10
    Star Ocean 4 was in my opinion one of the best rpg games ever made. You had allot of hidden stuff you could explore. Many characters and an arena. I can't tell how many thousands of hour I've been playing this game but it was allot. The only 3 things I did not like in this game was

    1. Very complicated questing when you've done 1 thing wrong and you failed in a huge amount of other    Star Ocean 4 was in my opinion one of the best rpg games ever made. You had allot of hidden stuff you could explore. Many characters and an arena. I can't tell how many thousands of hour I've been playing this game but it was allot. The only 3 things I did not like in this game was

    1. Very complicated questing when you've done 1 thing wrong and you failed in a huge amount of other quest, achievements and so on. Without any information it was very hard to not mess something up so you didn't had to start all over.

    2. Some very long dungeons did not have any Savecores where you could save your progress. Very huge dungeons had a very high chance that the game freezes or something else so you've done all the hour of work for nothing. This happened to me billion times.

    3. Sadly Square Enix messed up the Remaster version so you are not able to set the volume, sounds like you would wish to. So playing this game on PS4 while having a party conversation is a pain. The dialogs volume is like 60% and music and the rest is at 100% that's make it hard to understand what the character are actually talking about. So I stick with the 360 version.

    But after all that Square failed with the Remastered Version just because of the volume sadness the game itself is just godlike. Star Ocean games for ever.    … Expand
  10. ShinyShinii
    May 30, 2021
    2
    I really am annoyed by this game Kay.

    Item creation sucks in this game. who in their right mind thought 20 was a reasonable cap and require things that take over 6 to craft a single item. And that item multiples are needed to craft quests items, synthesis items, and more items needed to be used in crafting. To make it worse far too many of those basic resources can not be bought and    I really am annoyed by this game Kay.

    Item creation sucks in this game. who in their right mind thought 20 was a reasonable cap and require things that take over 6 to craft a single item. And that item multiples are needed to craft quests items, synthesis items, and more items needed to be used in crafting. To make it worse far too many of those basic resources can not be bought and need to be farmed. Coal for example cant be bought kay. Coal needs to be mined for a specific world and when you do, you are not guaranteed a single piece of coal kay. you have to wake around the map spanning that entire world to find all the spots and those spots do not respawn unless you go all the way back to the Calnus......

    There is a character in this game you get relatively early and her catchphrase is Kay. It is the most annoying thing I have ever heard and I have heard trump speak..... If I could kill off this character I would pay to do so. Kay KAY KAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Combat is subpar but tolerable. The bonus system is a neat idea but the execution isn't. there is a surprising lack of monster types. you will fight the same monsters that are recolored the entire game. This is worse than many old RPGs on the SNES and NES. The beat system is boring and doesn't enhance the game at all.

    The story is Ok but many of the characters are just stupid and break any immersion you will have in the game.

    The Quests system is just terrible. It provides no info that would help you complete it. Go find my cat, deliver a letter, item required, etc. Where do I go, do I craft an item or grind it????? Frustrating at best.

    The world maps are boring and have areas devoid of any planning. Like on Lemerus there is a long track of land without plants or monsters or anything....... The mini-map is nearly useless.

    Save yourself the stress and avoid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (kay)    … Expand
  11. Juliosouza1988
    Oct 26, 2022
    9
    Jogo perfeito em 99% para mim. O único defeito nele é o anel da luz ,que podia ter no mínimo 3 cargas ao invés de apenas 1 .

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 22
  3. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. GameOver.gr
    Jan 19, 2018
    80
    Although the game remains virtually the same, the upgrade on the graphics and the fps deliver a better pace and, overall, a better game. If you are looking for a good JRPG, this edition of Star Ocean: The Last Hope is highly recommended.
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  2. GamingTrend
    Jan 4, 2018
    75
    Star Ocean: The Last Hope HD and 4K Remaster is a beautifully rebuilt hidden JRPG gem from prior era of gaming. The game plays slow, and that drags the action down during battles, but adds depth and purpose to the world exploration. The upscaling is thorough and very well accomplished, and with a high quality soundtrack to accompany you, Star Ocean: The Last Hope is bound to provide hours of quality fun.
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  3. GameGrin
    Jan 2, 2018
    80
    Star Ocean: The Last Hope looks and performs great on PlayStation 4. With an incredible story, great graphical options, stunning visuals, this is a game for new and old fans alike.
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