Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope
Released: 2/24/09 *Coming in Europe: June 2009
System: x-box 360
Player(s): 1 Player
Story:
Star Ocean 4 takes place before the original Star Ocean 1 game. Starting with hero Edge Maverick the crew takes off for a special expedition on their team known as the SRF Project. Specially chosen ranks to out-go space exploration with the goal of finding a planet where humans can live on. Since their current Earth is no longer safe and radiated after WW3 they are the future of humankind.
After a troubled warp-out with their Calnus (Space ship) they end up landing on a planet which inhabits strange creatures. After being attacked Edge managed to save their crew by fending off the monsters. With that their Captain requests him to go out and find another nearby Unit that also crash landed like them. Reimi Saionji (a heroin...another crew member and Edge's childhood friend) requests to accompany him.
Their the team regroups with other units and manage to find one another. It's then that Edge is given the Calnus and labeled Captain for the first time. He then travels the "Star Ocean" with his new crew to find a inhabitable planet for humans and a missing SRF unit that was led by Captain Crowe (a friend of his and Reimi).
Gameplay: RPG Based.
You run around and play as Edge (the hero). However you can change who you want to fight as during battle modes. The game is your typical RPG however it has slight differences from your normal star ocean games. You get to jump from different planets with the calnus (choosing a destination though. You don't actually get to fly it around).
There is a main storyline to follow. Along your journey you can wonder around a world map and travel to towns or cities in a planet or even head back to your ship. Private Action is sadly not the same as your typical Star Ocean games where.
The ending of the game changes counting on each characters relationship (affinity) with one another.
Item Creation: You can still create items/food/smithing...ect.. using characters you have. The difference is that you can combine special groups of characters now!
Private Action: PA's only take Place on the Calnus. PA's are events that characters interact with one another. On the ship you can also make certain characters roommates which makes them get along more. Certain character's won't agree though unless Affinity is increased to a certain level. Pa's effect character relationships.
Battle System:
Battle Team- 4 Characters
You can choose you want to fight with as party leader (It doesn't have to be Edge. He doesn't even have to be in the battle at all).
Switching Characters during Battle:
You may know also change characters even when in a fight. The player can choose from the menu who to switch in so it's more team based fighting style now. You don't have a limit on how many times you'd like to switch characters in and out.
Fighting Style: Each character has their abilities so it would count on who you are. Some are mages while others are fighters and some are in between. Everyone has special attack which you can use when targeted close enough by a monster which is a special stunt that allows you to attack the enemy blindside. All characters can also use special attacks (which uses mp).
Battle Menu: Can use Items/Magic/Skills/Change Member/Escape here.
Character Emotions: Counting on how close they are characters will become outraged when other characters get really hurt or even faint. Rage mode makes them all take away more with attacks/magic. (This isn't as good as Star Ocean 2 was though if you ask me. I was a mage and running around forever before the other characters realized and went to save my character. Unlike Star Ocean 2...the characters would already be out to protect supporting characters).
Rate: 8/10
Star Ocean 4 is defiantly one of my recommended games but as a Star Ocean fan I'm just a bit disappointed in it. The good points were that the story wasn't that bad and I like their idea of traveling from one place to another using the calnus even though it was more of a 'choose your destination and we'll teleport you there' method. The graphics weren't half bad either to be honest. The voice actors for some were fine while others made you wonder why they choose them to be voice actors in the game at all. Edge (main character) got annoying around the end of disk 1 and in a bit of disk 2 even though I understood why he was so depressed. But plain logic made me frustrated with him.
Now actual Bad Points that made me give it a lower rating?
1. PA system Change (Private Action). The fun of private action was traveling from town to town and being able to split up in a town with characters and various things can happen. That was changed to being only in the space ship which you're not in for a long period of time anyway! Secondly....their PA was terrible. The outcome was most the time good or you have no options at all.
2. Characters AI in battle: What happened?! I loved how in Star Ocean 2 counting on your relationships/friendship with characters would affect how they did in battle. If you got hurt they would run to your aid and not leave you to die. They also can fly into rage mode as well and become stronger. The characters just seemed less 'realistic' in a sense even if they did better team play in SO4 by giving you the switch option. When a supporter was being attacked many times it seemed that rarely characters would run to my aid unlike previous Star Ocean 2 in particular.
3. Less voices? They did their job in hiring Voice actors even if some weren't the best. But seriously...it got a bit annoying hearing the same winning phrase after each battle. In this game each character only has 'two phrases' at the end of the battle of winning and always the same when they level up. I have yet to here someone scream out a characters name when they faint AND fall into rage mode...nothing like before. It's sad.
4. Towns aren't that great to wonder around as before. Why does Edge pause when he opens up a door for a few seconds? o_o'
Sadly...I think they were thinking more on graphics than the small things here and there that made their previous games fun.
The complete round-up is this: The game is worth the buy. If you played something like Star Ocean 2 (I never played SO3 which is why I compare to that one) you might be disappointed in a few things here and there (like what I mentioned) but it's still a recommended game. If you never played Star Ocean before these few things here and there might not bother you actually. I just hope a Star Ocean 5 would be better and they bring back their classic options....
