[360] [PS3] [PC] [PS4] Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope

[icycalm]

MS really has the JRPG market cornered these days.



At least this is one series I am somewhat interested in, after reading DeusJester's review of the second game. I wonder how the third one turned out. [Question answered here. --icy]

Comes out February 19.

[icycalm]

Trailer 1 JP (8 MB)
Trailer 1 US (60 MB)
E3 2008 trailer (34 MB)

[icycalm]

after acquiring a new party member -- a three-foot-tall girl who looked more like a horrifyingly huge-eyed, pink-dressed doll than anything human, and ended ninety-percent of her sentences in "'kay?" (in addition to referring to the protagonist, edge, as "edgie")) -- we began to make bets as to what trope-slots the game would fill in due time. with how good things were, what could possibly hold the game back?

later in the game, you're joined by an android named bacchus* who looks like sigma from the mega man x series, in addition to a seven-year-old with cat ears and cat tail** (she's an alien! (i missed the part where, i assume, they described her as being of consenting age on her planet as a generous nod towards the pedophile audience)), and a big-breasted elf with pink hair. the last thing we did was escape in our spaceship -- whose central power core was removed prior to our departure (conveniently, inexplicably fitted into antagonists' doomsday reactor) -- from the world imploding . . . and then exploding.

things: i will be surprised if every video of people playing this doesn't show them using the "dash ability" over and over again to cover any body of ground. the ability lasts for about two seconds, and there's no explanation as to what it even is (stamina? nanomachines?). you press the dash button and the protagonist boosts forward for the aforementioned time and then just stops. there's no recovery period, so you just keep jamming the button to keep dashing. i am really curious about the logic that backed up this design decision. there's no reason why you wouldn't want to use the dash all the time.

this is making me want to list titles of games where you perform a secondary movement mechanic more than the main one because the level design/main movement are joyless (though, note how star ocean's dash isn't even joyful: it's simply faster, more economic).

you can knock pretty much any enemy a hundred feet into the air during fights again and again. this means that, eventually, you will be seeing twenty-ton dragons and colossal space yetis (named "bigfoot sam") being launched into the stratosphere by an adolescent girl with neon cat claws.

one of the races you come across in your travels is a bunch of angry, bipedal dinosaurs with wavy shocks of hair sprouting out of their heads. their preferred means of combat are crawling into jittering mechs that are themselves modeled after dinosaurs.

all the dungeons have been big, hollow, symmetrical bores. one of them has you running up to particular pedestals and touching their sides to make them levitate, flip upside down, and fly up to chunk themselves into gaps in a path on the upper floor. there's no challenge to this. you just do what i said -- run around and touch these pedestals. oh, wait -- no. some of them are missing the gems that help them to levitate. so you scavenge around and open up chests and find the gems and then -- if you've gotten them on the upper floor -- run back down to the first floor and insert them and levitate the pedestals and then run back up. pretty fun!

if you open up treasure chests, everyone in the party gets experience. they might even level up.

certain treasure chests have barriers around them: for example, an ice barrier. so you use your "fire ring" and melt the barrier and open up the chest. but it's not like dragon quest, where you return to the first place in the game at the end of the game with the final key and unlock a bunch of chests. here, you get to a new area and there is a chest with an ice barrier on it. so you use your fire ring and open it. but why have the barrier on it, really? there's no instance of delayed satisfaction -- you can open it up, right then and there. this isn't annoying. it's just weird as heck.

the voice acting is poison. it's about as miserable as infinite undiscovery's. the hellfire-summoning child sounds like a twenty-five year-old that's high. edge has a scene involving laughing during the relative beginning that is one of the most awkward cutscenes i have ever seen in a video game. the general awkwardness also has to do with how everyone in your party -- barring the ridiculous enough android -- is an unnerving mesh of child and adult wearing led-crowned bionicle armor. anime has a tendency to indicate age pretty horribly in its general aesthetic, but here's a 2009 edit: xbox 360 game, and all those visual "enhancements" make it even creepier to witness.

expect a sephiroth look-alike that pilots a pink ship.

*having no apparent reason to go by re: bacchus' name, we hypothesized that he was hiding legions of wine bottles in chambers in his huge forearms/lower legs. you might think that he's a tight-ass.

**yes. cat girl does end her sentences in "meow."
also, her name is "meracle."

so, yeah, this is a really good game.

and:

BEAT System

Battle Exalted Action Type (BEAT) System (or Battle Enhancement Attribute Type in English version) allows the player to choose Edge's and active team members' preferred fighting styles [...] BEAT.S (Strike) is a type of offense fighting style [...] BEAT.B (Burst) is a type of defense fighting style [...] Lastly, BEAT.N (Neutral) is a balanced type of fighting style [...]

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopi ... 637#503637

[El Chaos]

Looks like Microsoft's exclusivity trial period has expired with this one, too.



Via http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/1 ... sold-lost/

[El Chaos]

Unlike what Square Enix would have you think by labeling a rerelease as "International" (which generally accounts for replacing the original Japanese voice track with the American one in case the game had voice acting, some tweaks and bonuses, and ironically enough being Japan-exclusive), Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope -International- will indeed "ship simultaneously across the globe".

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRelea ... 0005095441

[El Chaos]

And the debut trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/56531.html

Seeing as The Last Remnant won't be doing it to PS3 for some time (if ever), this would represent SE's first multiplatform title to actually release on both systems, wouldn't it? I hope that Digital Foundry makes a comparison of both versions to see how the game's engine performs on each one.

[ExiledOne]

STAR OCEAN: THE LAST HOPE 4K & FULL HD REMASTER ANNOUNCED FOR PC, PS4
http://nichegamer.com/2017/10/11/star-o ... ed-pc-ps4/