Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a prequel to Star Ocean 1 (for the SNES, or it's remake for the PSP - Star Ocean: First Departure). The game comes in 3 DVDs for the Xbox360, in a very poor case (they are all stacked! I know you gotta cut costs and such, Square Enix. But can't you give us proper packaging at least?). I'm gonna start talking about the things I didn't like in the game first, and save the better for last. First thing - many people had trouble with the game freezing, myself included. The funny thing is that what worked for some, didn't work for others. In my case, I started playing from the DVD until it started freezing on me on the first disc. The game does not have a lot of save points, which means that the game could freeze on you in a long dungeon and thus making you have to redo it all again. My solution then was copying the game to my 360's HD, and after I started playing from the HD, I never had trouble again with this issue.

Another thing that didn't please many was the storyline. It was very superficial, average at best. I cannot chose a "favorite" character in this game, because although some efort was made to develop them through Private Actions, it was very uninspired. The character designs didn't help either; doll-like faces as Lymles' made it hard to make you feel any connection to those characters. In my opinion, the NPCs in the game were far more interesting than the main cast, for whatever reason. At a major plot twist in the middle of the game, many people gets annoyed with a certain character's depressed mode... myself included!

Although the Item Creation part of the game isn't bad (I liked it was very easy to make new items and such, very straightforward), I didn't see much use for it. The best weapons can only be made after you finish the extra bosses, and after you do face them, why bother making those items?! Seriously.... And speaking of extra content, the game does offer quite some. Personally, I liked it especially the extra bosses Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen. The one thing that really ticked me off was the lack of save points at the Wandering Dungeon, in which you face Ethereal Queen. It is ridiculous going through that 5+ dungeon without being able to save, then having your behind handed to you by her and losing all those hours in vain. My blood boils just remembering that (YEAH, I got pwned my first try, and I had taken 7 hours to get to her. UGH!).

Now, into the really good stuff. The music of the game is amazing, as you would expect from Motoi Sakuraba. There are many tunes from previous Star Ocean games, including my favorite battle themes like "Don't Be A Hero" (it is SO EPIC!) and "Stab The Sword of Justice" (from SO2). The game's graphics were outstanding until you'd start a battle. The framerate drops a lot because of the franctic battle system. For me, it didn't matter as much because I was more into the battle system than paying attention to the battle's graphics, but many people didn't like. Oh well! I also liked a lot some of the background designs and such.

The greatest thing in this game though, IS the battle system. It is very fast paced (and to think I'd only play turn-based RPGs a few years ago!), many cool abilities including the awesome Blindside attack, which is pretty much like the slow motion effect in Matrix so to speak - you press a certain button when attacking the opponent, then it will show in slow motion your character going behind the opponent and striking it. So awesome! You also have the Battle Trophies, like in Star Ocean 3, however this time, you have plenty more - 100 for each character. If you don't know, Battle Trophies are like "achievements" (not in the Xbox360 sense) for fufiling a certain requirement in battle - say, Edge needs to do 10 Blindsides.

Overall, it is still an enjoyable game if you are into RPGs and fast-paced battle systems, or of course, if you are a fan of the Star Ocean series. Otherwise, I'm afraid you may not enjoy this game at all, making yourself drag to finish this game. Personally, I liked as an overall product - I just wish the didn't have the ridiculous character design and average storyline. This is a game that could have been so much more and had a lot of potential that went to waste.