The Star Ocean Universe

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SQUARE ENIX EMAIL UPDATE

I finally navigated the Square Enix - North America website to get an email sent inquiring about The Last Hope's status as the final Star Ocean game. I don't expect an immediate response from the company, and I also don't expect an answer as to what's next in the Star Ocean series, if there are plans to continue. The best that I can hope for is confirmation on The Last Hope's status in the series and to find out if it's possible for fans to petition for more games.

The email has finally been sent, though, and that's something. 

At this point, I'm going to start browsing through guests lists for some of the major and local upcoming conventions and finding out which of my friends will be in attendance for those conventions (and whether or not I can swing going myself). I'd like to find out if any of Square's representatives will be there so I can attend those panels. I had a 2000 character limit to send my inquiry on the website, and I'm just now thinking I should have asked that when I fired off my email. Ah well. Perhaps if and when I hear back, I'll remember to ask them.

I'm crossing my fingers on that, when I do hear back (which I feel confident that I will . . . sometime next week, perhaps, but I will hear back), it'll be with the news on whether or not The Last Hope is the last Star Ocean game. I'm hoping that it isn't, but the only way to know for sure is to wait and see.
 

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Before I start to revise parts of my review for The Last Hope, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss a song that, in the last couple of days, has come across as a perfect song for a Star Ocean character to dedicate to another. I'm someone who loves to listen to music, be it the 80s pop music of my youth (I'm 34, will be 35 in a little over five months), the oldies goldies and country music my mother subjected me to in my teens (and I liked so . . .), or the musical meanderings into the JPop, JRock, current rock trends of now.

One song that's currently on iTunes (not able to upload more from my thumb drive to my sister's computer) is "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. Call me crazy, but it's something that I could see Fayt, if he knew what the song sounded like, would dedicate to Luther if they were in a bar, and it was listed in the jukebox.

What songs do you think Star Ocean characters would dedicate to each other?
 

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Game Review -- Star Ocean: The Last Hope International. Addendum

Name: The Last Hope

My Rating for the game: hasn't changed. 4 /12 Stars out of 5
Plot: Hasn't changed.
Time to beat: Hasn't changed

Likes

Despite my thoughts on why releasing this game was a bad idea, thoughts which were based more on my desire for more of Till the End of Time than for something new, I really do enjoy this game. The graphics are more than decent. The characters, with the exception of Arumat, move with a fluidity, a sign that games have come a very long way in the last twenty years alone. Arumat reminds me of a ball-jointed doll in both his appearance and his movements. There's a certain kind of jerkiness to him that's hard to explain beyond ball-jointed doll. I don't know if it's because of his armor or the fact he carries a wicked-looking scythe, but he doesn't have the fluidity about him that someone like Edge or Faize does. I'd think Bacchus would be more clunky in his movements due to being more robot than humanoid, but he's pretty fluid, too, when it comes to movement.

One thing I like about the game is how easy it is to level up a character that isn't in the battle party. Mining, harvesting, opening treasure chests, completing the side quests, delivering stuff to the stores, it all adds up in terms of experience and leveling up. It's a very nice addition, but I'm also glad it isn't in Till the End of Time, not with a battle trophy for earning up to level 20 in one battle.

I also like the fact I can turn off the voices of the characters that annoy me, at least when it comes to the battle. I can't for the animated scenes or out of battle leveling up, but it's certainly nice when I rotate characters in and out of battle for leveling up.

Item Creation:
I love the overall simplicity of item creation. Just head to The Calnus, launch the Interface, and pair everyone in as many combinations as possible to get every recipe in the book. Of course, using individual skill points to level up their respective areas of expertise ONLY increases the chances of creating an item. It doesn't improve the base stats each person starts out with, so the negative numbers never improve. The chances of not discovering a particular recipe has been eliminated. It's either done through Welch or by finding/earning recipe memos.

Other Likes:
Item duplication. While the skill manual is found in the Cave of the Seven Stars after defeating Satanail, it's a very, very, very hand skill to have, especially when you're getting the rare item drops, like moonstone and the dragon god scale at sparse intervals. This helps if some of the better weapons all require a certain number of items that are rare drops but are needed when heading into battle with some particularly troublesome fights.

Magic Points
It makes the game a little less challenging in that no one dies when their magic points hit zero, but it certainly does save on using items and spells for reviving incapacitated party members.

Party Member Rotation
The battle isn't over until all eight members are dead! Way to go Square for that!

Larger Battle Party
Granted, it's only one extra person in the battle, but having a fourth person helps when three people are dead and there's still the chance to revive them before needing to rotate someone else in to do the job.

Dislikes

I don't like the fact it's a relatively easy game to play. It's a challenging game BUT it isn't at the same time, a lot of which is more dependent on level than anything else. Seriously, it can be defeated in about thirty hours of play, and this includes the side-quests, store deliveries, and heading into the first post-game dungeon, the Cave of the Seven Stars. The game itself could stand be to longer, and more challenging in terms of enemy rotation.

Rings of Disintegration
I like having a single ring of destruction, one that will work without needing to be charged.

Post-game Dungeons
There are only two, and the worst of them is the second, the Wandering Dungeon, which you can only get to after you've defeated Gabriel Celesta in the Cave of the Seven Stars. I've managed to get to the Ethereal Queen, but I don't have enough restorative items for that particular battle . . . and that's because there are no save points in the Wandering Dungeon. The push to get to her has to be done in a single go. To leave to save puts the player back at the first level and to go through all twenty levels over again. If you're not able to game 24/7, this is quite a deterrent and is frustrating when you lose to the Ethereal Queen, losing any and all ground you gained before reaching her.

Battle trophies.
I don't mind earning battle trophies for particular things - fight X number of enemies, survive Y number of battles, etc . . . However, for The Last Hope, they went crazy with the battle trophy system. I mean, it's absolutely CRAZY. There a grand total of nine playable characters - while you lose Faize on the first play-through, if you start a second, you can keep him at the point he and Arumat switch places . . . it doesn't change the story or its outcome, but it does make it easier for earning his list of battle of trophies. Each playable character has one hundred battle trophies to earn. That's nine hundred battle trophies, which doesn't include the trophies for item creation, spaceship, monster and weapon data collection, defeating bosses, and triggering certain events and earning endings. That's insane, even for someone like me who wants to get the battle trophies because they unlock all sorts of extras, including game difficulty levels. This can be annoying if you don't like a particular character either due to personality or how swiftly the person can run around the battle field.

Bacchus
I actually don't hate Bacchus. I love him. He provides a serious figure in all of the chaos, especially when one of the better fighters becomes more comedy relief than anything else. This particular complaint has more to do with what he can do that no one else can seem to do, and that's fire a laser-based weapon at the insects on Aeos and cause damage. It was determined by the initial group of humans and Eldarians that the insects picked up on the frequencies of the weapons and altered their shields to keep the weapons from damaging them. While he is Morphus, humanoid in nature and can adapt his weapons to counter the bugs, the bugs should be able to do the same with him, especially with the yet to be discovered influence of the Grigori on the planet.

Meracle
I pointed out in her character study that, at some point, she becomes more comedy relief than anything else. That, to me, is an injustice after everything she's endured. Yes, she's a bright and energetic sort, but as soon as you meet Sarah, her sadness goes out the window and doesn't really exist until you trigger certain private actions. I feel that's very unfair to Meracle and everything she's endured.

Private Actions
There are more than what can be seen in just one or two play-throughs. I've seen a couple of clips on youtube, one that's a follow-up to Meracle sleeping in the same bed as Edge and one where Reimi gives Edge a birthday gift, both of which I never knew about because I didn't know that I could trigger them. I'm out to get certain endings, and there's just a lot to do in a short amount of time. You also can't even trigger private actions at times.

Not getting Crowe as a playable character is also a big dislike for me. He's such a lovely character to look at and possesses some sweet moves in battle, if his arrival to Aeos is any indication. We don't get to learn much about him, except through Edge and Reimi, and even then I feel it's very little.

As a woman, the end battle shots of Reimi's butt and boobs and Myuria's boobs are extremely  . . . bleh. I get that the game is geared for a dominant male audience, but guys aren't the only ones playing the games. If you're going to give the guys some eye candy, give us women some eye candy, too. A nice shot of Edge's posterior end would be more than delightful. I'd like to know as well what's up with Edge's changing eye colors. Sometimes it's blue. Sometimes it's green. Does he really have blue-green eyes? Make up my mind when I see it!

Finally, the fact that some parts are just . . . kiddy. Nothing against kids but the game is aimed at,  not only a particular age group (13 and older), but at a particular genre as well. Science fiction and fantasy has plenty of serious overtones with hints of comedy, but, when a serious situation happens, there isn't someone running around with a bib around her neck and knife and fork in both of her hands. The comedy tends to come at inappropriate moments for me, which adds to my irritation with certain characters. I'm not looking for a game to be exactly like the books, TV shows, and movies that I adore and grew up adoring, but I really don't care to see an inspection of Sarah's room after she's been kidnapped and Meracle in the room with a knife and fork in her hands saying, "It wasn't me". I do get the humor in it . . . I just don't appreciate it. Of course, I may be among the select few who don't so . . .

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