Currently Playing - Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope
Brett | August 9, 2009 | 1:51 am
I kind of went on a Star Ocean kick and bought the entire series, that being the PSP ports/remakes of Star Ocean I: First Depature and Star Ocean II: Second Evolution, then Star Ocean III: Till the End of Time for the PS2, and lastly Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360. It may seems strange and completely out of place to start the series with the most recent game, but the stories of each game are not dependent on one another, and in all actuality Star Ocean 4 is a prequel to the previous 3 games in the series.
After the jump is a gameplay video and short explanation of various aspects of the game!
The game stretches 3 discs, most likely due to the amount of worlds to explore and number of cut-scenes. I am about 3 hours into the game so far and it is pretty good. The game follows the story of Edge Maverick as he is deployed into space on the first crew to use a FTL drive. All goes to hell when the ship crash lands on an alien planet. Without spoiling to much, the story is interesting and hasn’t turned me off yet. I’m a fan of sci-fi stories so hopefully it isn’t to ridiculous or out there.
The game looks fine, it didn’t blow me out of the water, but it is easy on the eyes. I like the character designs and general setting of the game so far.
Here is a game play video I captured of my save file, it goes through game from the loading screen to three or four battles and little into game’s menus. Hopefully it gives an insight to how the game plays and better shows my explanation of game play below. Enjoy! ^^
Star Ocean 4 essentially plays in a way familiar to most JRPGs. You take control of the main character, being Edge, in a third-person perspective traveling around the current landscape, being a dungeon or forest, running past or into enemies. If you run into an enemy the game goes into the combat section of gameplay. The combat is exceptionally good, it is fun and addicting. I find myself fighting every battle I can. The analog stick is used to move whichever character you wish around, A button attacks, B button is used to ready the blind-side, dodge, and charge the rush gauge, Y button brings up an in-game menu, X button activated the rush gauge, the left and right bumpers are used to switch characters, and the left and right triggers are used to perform special attacks that consume MP. It may sound like a lot at first, but after a handful of battles it becomes second nature. Whether or not most people agree with me, the battles do not feel tedious or slow like traditional turn based combat games like Final Fantasy X, Lost Odyssey, or Blue Dragon. If you have played Infinite Undiscovery, the combat is nothing like it (which is a good thing). The combat in Star Ocean 4 is fluid, with very few, but some, texture pop-ins or slow downs.
I’ll keep on putting in the hours to the game, hopefully it keeps doing what it has done right and the combat doesn’t get stale. I just don’t want it to feel like a chore to do combat.
~Brett
