I might not be able to finish the game for a while, at least until I get a newer TV. Half the text is barely legible. ;_;

Three things stand out right away that I find irritating (But aren't game-breaking): They elected to NOT use motion capture for the movements of characters in cutscenes, which makes a lot of the character move around like awkward robots almost, its like... come on, this is the kind of thing you'd expect from a student learning skeleton manipulation in 3ds max. Secondly I can't pause during a cutscene, instead I get the option to skip it or cancel. The Xbox Guide button serves as a makeshift Pause. Also, despite being from Square Enix / Tri-Ace, they did not even ATTEMPT to lip sync a character's voice to their mouth movements.

On the upside of things, the enviroment is detailed and georgeous to look at sometimes, the battle system takes a little bit getting used to, but its pretty fun. I say getting used to, because the first time I tried it out in the battle simulator, they killed me ;_; However after some more practice I got the hang of things and now I don't mind running into things. The combat is a lot like Star Ocean 3, with Battle Trophies returning. The music is nothing to sneeze at, with a few really nice tracks already heard.

One thing that stood out for me was that, in the opening cutscene, the characters looked realistic, but once you started the game, well it was all "Anime generic-o character face". Also like Star Ocean 3, SAVE points and HEAL points in the field return.

Finally in this post: For those curious (And slightly spoilerish): Welsh somehow returns, and she's got a new design. That also means Item Creation is back as well, although it works a little differently then SO3.

Alright, I just started playing and right in the beginning you're introduced to a character named Stephen D. Kenny. I had to do a double take at his last name. Could this be Ronyx's grand dad or something? The game is supposed to be a few centuries before SO1..

Looks like being at the top in the federation runs through the family blood..

Not sure if this needs spoiler tags or not, since it's right there when you start the game..

Also, the mouths not matching the voices IS annoying. :(

Another thing I am finding annoying is the fact that 5.1 surround sound on this game keeps reseting itself. I have to keep exiting the game, re-click dolby digital in system settings on my 360, and then restart the game to get 5.1 going again. It makes no sense because when the game reverts to stereo my receiver still shows "Dolby Digital" on its display.

While I have to admire the whole graphically beautiful thing the game has going on, I must admit the movement in the overworld feels a bit.. "clunky". The IU engine is reminiscent and such (thus the clunkiness).

I did Battle Simulator thrice (2 in menu 1 in actual game) and fuck damn, the camera. THE CAMERA. Fuck it, the camera is a mess, holy shit. I'll probably stick to the angle lock camera because this free view setting is driving me insane. Will be hard seeing enemies, pulling off blindside attacks and whatnot.

Since it follows IU in a way, gotta also lower the glare in it. It's too bright by default (Personal issue).

Otherwise the game so far is a-ok. I just hoped the experience was a bit more fluid, from combat to overworld exploration, is all.

EDIT: Yeah, Welch. I get the feeling that yet again, she will grate my nerves. But I can't pass judgement yet on that. Her design, like DN said, took a 180 turn.. now she looks like a 13 year old boy.

I've been impressed with the depth of the gameplay in SO4 so far, but the storytelling has been lacking immensely. The plot itself seems kind of interesting, but it's told in a rather ham-handed fashion, and the pacing starts out really funky. Graphically, though, the game looks pretty good except for the awkward movements people have mentioned. Not quite as bad as Eternal Sonata's, but close.

I have a question about the Battle Trophies, actually. They're tied to individual characters this time around, and I'm curious, is there a way to tell which, if any, trophies you need to earn while controlling the character? I'm having trouble figuring out if I'll need to control everybody to get the trophies or if I can pick some of the accumulative ones (Do x hits total) while not controlling those characters.

The number of trophies is absolutely retarded, but at least the actual difficulty of them doesn't appear to approach the levels of SO3.

Let me just say, after playing for 20-some hours now, that this game had better thank its lucky stars that its core gameplay is as fun as it is, because jesus CHRIST the story is just awful. The dialogue is badly written, melodramatic to a fault, and makes characters stand around repeating the same plot points 5 times once they figure them out 15 minutes after the player did. The actual animation quality is god-awful. The environments all look great but the actual characters are animated in Barbievision. It's horrendous!

The plot itself at first appeared to be a change from the norm of "Here is the bad guy, 5 minutes in. You will see him 50 hours from now!" by basically not telling you who the bad guy was. That strategy kinda worked in SO3 but where I'm at in SO4 it's clear that the story is not written forward-thinking at all. Or if it is, it's being incredibly obtuse about it. You jump from planet to planet, solving cliched plots like "There is a sickness, please find the cure" and shit, and once you leave the planet you go back to the stars, and... nothing happens in the main plot. If there is one. So far it's felt like little snatches of bad plots strung together by a spaceship.

The voice acting doesn't help things. The budget has to have been about $5 for all the voice acting, because everyone mangles lines, reads things with the wrong emotion, and in general sounds like they read the lines completely out of order, in a complete vacuum from context.

And yet... I'm still playing the game. The battle trophies are quite addictive now that they don't go to nearly the retarded lengths that SO3's did, and the core fighting mechanics are solid and fun to play. The dungeons are enormous, and sadly, even though that's great because you get large pockets of gameplay, it's also another issue I've got with the story because the pacing is so god-awful. It's literally 30 minutes of cutscenes, 3 or 4 HOURS of dungeon, 20 minutes of cutscenes, 2 hours of dungeon, wash, rinse, repeat. I never realized just how good the pacing in other RPGs like Vesperia or Blue Dragon was until I saw the pacing in this game.

At least when you skip cutscenes you get a textual summary of what happened. I've already skipped one incredibly maddening plot development that way, I'm glad I didn't have to FFFFFFFFF through 5 minutes of whining at what EDGE MAVERICK did at one point.

If the best scenes in the game are the ones with Welch in them, who is by far one of the most gratingly chipper characters I have ever encountered in an RPG, you know you've got issues. Holy shit.

Fun game is fun, but atrocious story is atrocious.

Funny how I was talking to skills on the phone while playing this game and I was talking about how the game loves locking up on me. And then sure enough after a battle the music stops and the game freezes ONCE again. This honestly makes the game unplayable for me. Does anyone else have constant crashing issues? I installed the game to my harddrive which has made it lock up less frequently but it still occurs. Maybe disc 2 will be better?

I haven't had CONSTANT issues, but every time I go for 2 hours without hitting a save point I seem to hit a freeze. Stupid game. :(

I was having some issues with Resident Evil 5 freezing on me during loading screens (and it'd happened with SFIV too), but on a recommendation I did the whole cache clearning thing, and since then it seems to have been alright. Could well be the game though, who knows.

The whole "game is freezing up" I heard (from a friend) depends on the console. Mine is obviously older so prone to freezing. This plus the lack of a lot of save points always equal to a massive headache, especially when your characters are 5 levels ahead or the save point is like 10 areas away.

Anyway, I finished the game last night.

So... Star Ocean: The Last Hope - International Version for the PS3.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...ernational.jpg


Apparently a worldwide release on 02/09/10.


New features of course, since it's an Xbox 360 RPG being ported to the PS3 (see: Eternal Sonata and Tales of Vesperia).

Whatever that last part means.

Now we wait for the original haters to come back, saying "Oh man, this game is going to be living up to its full potential now that it's on the PS3."

Enjoy your mediocre RPG with your new shitty party members.

I'm willing to bet it means fuck all.

But anything that removes th

PLEASE CHANGE DISCS TO CONCLUDE THIS POST

ough that Bob really likes waffles

Personally, still waiting for a PS3 Tales of Vesperia announcement regarding a US release. Played both games on the 360, but I liked Tales a little more.

yeah same as SJ, I'm really more interested in the Tales of Vesperia port but at least I'll be able to try this SO4. I like that they will include both the Japanese and English voice over. Wish more game would have that option.

Dual language doesn't mean anything if the story is shit from the get-go. Expect generic voices.

Still laughing at the PS3 release though. Betting on extra content being wholly irrelevant.

Apparently one of the voice actors blogged about going back to record extra lines. It's probably going to get localised after all.

Good news, then. Hope to hear an official announcement soon.

I got my hands on a copy of Star Ocean 4: International for PS3 last night. There are slightly improvements...visuals look better, the anime look to the character instead of the sci-fi-ish seems to work much better then the x360 version.

If you are one of the douchebags who thought this game was terrible because the story wasn't complex and engaging, you still probably won't enjoy this. However if you don't mind the laughable plot (which is nothing new to any Star Ocean game as they have all been ridiculous) and are in the market for something to keep you busy for hours on end...this is worth it.

Doesn't seem to be any new content for the game...just the multi-language and new interface options. Somewhat disappointing but it does make sense..."International" could be meant towards multi language...nowhere does it imply its an extended cut or anything.

Just got Last Hope International. It's same ol star ocean for me, and I'm enjoying it just as much. (BUT WITH JAPANESE VOICES BONUS GET)

At least the battle trophies aren't redonk. I must also say it's actually really weird (but totally enjoyable) to not have to run in a straight line for hours on end compared to another game thats coming out soon which will remain nameless.

You'll retract this statement before too long.

Oh god... as long as it's not as murderous as TTEOT... Oh god...

Don't worry, tri-Ace found new and exciting ways to fuck up your chances of completing their games with everything at 100%.

I hereby retract my statement regarding battle trophies. I am filled with thoughts of rage.