Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
3-22-10
SO4 (this is the fourth installment in the series making for a decidedly easier abbreviation) is able to pull off to varying degrees most of the standard RPG genre requirements. For one it has one hell of a fun combat system that in and of itself makes the game worth playing. The combat is so fun that the standard RPG "grind" for experience never felt all that grindy...it was fun. There is enough depth to the mele combat mechanics alone to have fun with...now add magic/ranged combat to that list and you double the fun. Unfortunately this is where the games strong points end and just about every other element suffers from one or more major flaws. Character customization amounts to mere augments that is well thought out but hardly constitute making the characters "yours". The story is filled with Japanese RPG cliches which in and of itself wouldnt be that bad if it wasn't so boring. Over and over I kept waiting for the story to kick into gear and get me excited and it just never happened. This is mostly due to the episodic nature of the plot. Though the parts never fuly come together to form one solid narrative. From a technical stand point the visuals are good enough its the art direction I take issue with. For a grand space opera style adventure the environments are kinda bland...and frankly it all feels much more like standard fantasy locations than real sci-fi. Though there are some overtly futuristic looking dungeon ares all in all (like the story) it felt kind of boring. The real draw here is the fun you have playing the game and its this fun that easily overcomes the afore mentioned shortcomings but I can easily see how it might not end up like this for you.
