Star Ocean The Last Hope Remaster Review - Like a shooting star

Square Enix has been doing well lately as far as remasters are concerned. In many cases this works out fine, but sometimes a game can not stand the test of time. In this Star Ocean The Last Hope Remaster Review you can read that this game belongs to the latter category. But does the game still entertain?

Square Enix was mainly busy with remasters of existing games in 2017. Some Final Fantasy games have already been and now it's Star Ocean's turn: Last Hope. A game that on its release was received fairly well, but did not really stand out. And that while the game contains all the elements to make it a very cool experience.

Looking for a new world

For example, the story in Star Ocean: The Last Hope is fairly original. The Third World War has destroyed the earth and humanity can no longer live on the planet. That is why we are eagerly looking for a new planet to live on. And there you come, as Edge Maverick, into the game. You travel through space in search of planets.

But of course this goes wrong, which in the first instance leads to a crash on an unknown planet. You discover that there is a being who wants to take over all life and starts your adventure to stop it. During this adventure of about 30 hours (if you only play the storyline) you will create different planets with their own ecosystem and their own inhabitants. At least, that's the way it should be.

Lifeless environments in a new look

The planets are indeed different from each other, but they do not feel any different. Every planet has a number of large environments that you can walk through. But the environments are often pretty empty and are lifeless. Also in this remaster of the game from 2009 .

Yes, the colors are bright and cheerful and the textures have been adjusted to a 4K resolution, but the lifeless thing the game had in 2009 is still present in this new version of the game. The game just does not look like this time, although everything is a lot better than in the original. In addition, you almost always encounter the same enemies on every planet, which creates a grind.

The remaster is mainly limited to the graphical part of the game. Take for example the shadow work in The Last Hope. That was not really good with the original release, but in this version it looks a lot better. The animations in the game have also improved a lot, but during the cutscenes you notice that you really have to deal with an outdated game that did not reach the stars at that time.

Amusing, despite the necessary misses

Everything moves unnaturally and stubbornly, but especially the movement of the mouths is terrible. Even with the original Japanese voices. Fortunately, the soundtrack of the game is pretty strong and the same goes for voice acting. In addition, the animations during the walk around the worlds and during the fighting have been very well addressed. But here too, the remaster of the game rattles .

Star Ocean: The Last Hope Remaster includes pop ups that can be quite annoying when you walk around the world. And during the fighting you often want to get stuck between two enemies, which you then give one by one blows. And if you get a hit you can not do anything and do not even avoid it.

The fighting itself works very well. The Last Hope has an active fighting system, where you have to hack an enemy with various attacks and special skills. It works smoothly and offers enough variation. The latter is made even more extensive because you can switch between the characters that are in your party. This is definitely the strong element of the game.

The only other downside that comes up during the fighting is the state of the camera. You can adjust this, but while you are busy fighting it will turn around automatically so you will not see anything anymore. Not so convenient.

A strong and accessible XP system

At the end of a fight everyone gets XP, which makes the characters stronger and stronger per level. As befits a good RPG, this is not the only thing that characters perform better. You can buy or find better weapons and clothing that help you during your adventure. And the necessary skills can also be purchased and developed per characters.

Your characters themselves develop further because you assign them a certain fighting style. You can actively let them fight with them, manage MP wisely or let them fight in the background by simply offering support to the rest. A system that requires some attention, but that, once you realize it, it feels very varied.

In this area, Star Ocean also did almost everything very well, and that has not changed in this remaster. This gives the game a bit more dimension, where the other elements scream so loudly. Together with the fighting system, it is this element that keeps the game entertaining until the end.

Conclusion

Star Ocean The Last Hope has become a remaster, but this could have been a remake. Now a lot of things have been picked up in the graphics area, but they do not hide these things that the game is outdated. This is noticeable during the films, but the environments are also lifeless and there is not a lot of diversity in the enemies for an RPG.
As for the soundtrack of the game and the fighting system, the game was already very good and not much has changed. These are immediately the best points of the game, also in the remaster and also directly the points that keep the game entertaining, despite the many misses. Yet Star Ocean The Last Hope Remaster is a failed mission that is not worth a purchase between all the strong RPGs of today.

➕ Graphically improved
➕ Fights run very smoothly
➕ Interesting XP system

➖ Camera often works against
➖ Animations in movies are very wooden
➖ Worlds pretty lifeless
➖ No diversity in enemies
➖ Feels outdated almost everywhere

Thanks for reading.

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