Star Ocean: The Last Hope

The Last Hope is plagued by a number of problems, but if you can invest the time needed for this game to blossom (that's a big if), the combat system and mysterious plot reward you well for your time. [Mar 2009, p.90]

Unfortunately, many of these positive aspects are undone by the game's presentation: bizarre design choices, overly long and deeply uninteresting cut scenes, creepy and off-putting character models and an extremely lackluster dub. It's not a bad RPG; it's simply a mediocre one with a lot of uninteresting filler between enjoyable, if not particularly challenging, gameplay segments.

Despite its flaws, Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a solid, gameplay-oriented fling that most fans of RPGs should still be able to enjoy.

The Last Hope offers a pleasant looking and reasonably playable JRPG experience, no more and no less.

The customisation options add depth and variety for those players willing to invest the time, and the immense, sprawling storyline will keep you playing for literally weeks, with the fact that it's a prequel surely giving fans of the series even more reason to play it to completion.

Star Ocean has got nice graphics and dynamic fights, but the old checkpoint-system and the flat story and characters narrow the fun you'll have with this game.

Rock solid RPG has a very slow start and couple of design flaws but patient gamers are rewarded by tens of hours of great adventure. [Aug 2009]

Star Ocean: The Last Hope brings appealing sci-fi imagery to the Xbox 360 catalogue of RPGs. It’s not the best JRPG on the system, but what it does is give players a game with an addictive battle system.

I can happily and honestly recommend Star Ocean to any experienced players of RPGs of the Japanese persuasion and fans of the earlier iterations of the series. To new entrants to the genre, I proffer a warning: you might find it difficult to wade your way into the heart of this game at first, but if you feel determined to get to grips with the genre, Star Ocean could prove to be a big ol' bucket of gems for you.

Star Ocean contains an interesting plot buried in its depths, but it's incredibly demanding of your time and your patience. The long-winded, poorly conceived dialogue, and formulaic cut-scene, dungeon crawl, cut-scene, dungeon crawl design isn't getting any fresher. I still enjoyed the game and its comforting, monster-slaying grind, though.

Pretty, but flaws stop it touching the stars. [June 2009, p.86]

An excellent and fairly innovative combat system find itself hamstrung by a frustrating cast and grinding that...well, grinds. [Issue#46, p.85]

The best science-fiction pays equal attention to the direction of its fiction as to its detail but Star Ocean: The Last Hope succeeds only in the latter area, and even there, only in part.

There is simply no getting around the sheer awfulness of the main characters. From their unoriginal looks to their irritating dialogue, they serve to spoil the game from start to finish. [July 2009, p.122]

This game had the potential to bring the Star Ocean franchise back to the forefront of great Japanese RPGs. This potential has been hampered by an apparent lack of innovation and ambition on the developer's behalf. The battles rely on a really solid battle system that could have been truly engaging, had most of the other not been as horrendous. Dialogue in the game is embarrassingly bad, cinematic sequences are dull and bland and the voice acting performances are laughable. Patient gamers willing to overlook the major flaws will be treated to a decent adventure.

Like a reversed Lost Odyssey: loads of ideas, totally dump story. A chore. [July 2009, p.84]

Star Ocean: The Last Hope's drawing power is really its battle system and little else. Despite a solid plot and strong item creation, the shoddy localization and terrible level design mar the experience beyond salvaging.

If you have the patience to put up with some very slow plot points, have never been bothered by an overuse of clichés in the JRPG genre, and are more interested in a JRPG with refreshing combat than a refreshing narrative, you'll get a kick out of The Last Hope.

At a time when science fiction has never been handled with more vim and vigour, Star Ocean threatens to miss out on all the fun of the genre resurgence through its total lack of ambition. [June 2009, p.92]

While the addictive battle system makes up for some of the flaws, Star Ocean: The Last Hope still suffers from familiar issues and lack of innovation. Though there is a lot of room for exploration and content which makes the game feel rich, and will certainly keep fans of the genre right on spot for a period of time.

The combat is excellent but everything else disappoints in this overblown and unlikeable role-player.