• 19Apr 09

  Star Ocean: The Last Hope - A Point of View

  

  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.

  • Posted Apr 19, 2009 6:54 pm PT
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• 12Apr 09

  Happy Easter! Final Fantasy VII International and more!

  

  Now I'm back again! Who saw another blog post coming, heh? After roughly an year, I have finally decided to make yet another post on this gaming blog. I hope everyone is doing great and have been playing lots of cool games! I myself played many games while I was away (even while I was at "A" School, the Navy training school). As some of you know, last year I had been gone for several months because I joined the US Navy and had gone to boot camp and the training school. As you can see, I made it back alive (lol!). I even managed to get advanced to Petty Officer 3rd c lass because I was among the top 10% on the graduating c lass

  

  There is so much to talk about, but I will refrain from writing a whole new testament for now. I'm gonna talk about some games I've been playing lately, instead. Two days ago, I went out of my way to get a hold of Final Fantasy VII International, which was released on the Japanese PSN. Since I do not own a Japanese credit card, I had to go to Ebay and buy one of those point cards (I got one with 3,000 pts) so that I could use it on my newly created Japanese PSN account.... The game's size is huge (1.7GB) and since my memory stick is only 2GB, I pretty much had to delete all my media and games from the American PSN (glad I can download them back later). I have been playing it since, and you know, it is nice to be able to play FFVII on my PSP instead of having to plug my PS2 and hook it to my monitor in order to play the game. Obviously, I wish the game had English option, but nonetless, it has been the same old fun time I had with this game. Still, I wished they had included some sort of extras, especially for the price (the PSN games cost 600 PSN pts, but FFVII costs 1500 because they know stupid people like me are willing to pay it... yeah, shame on me).

  

  Besides playing FFVII, I finished a few games earlier. The most recent, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, was an amazing journey. It was a very dark game, but the plot was handled well in my opinion. I loved the game's battle system - it combined our beloved VP combat s ystem with strategy concepts - , I love the character designs and of course, the soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba. I may write a review for this game later on, time permitting! I also finished another tri-Ace game, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and my opinion is a bit different from VP. True, I liked the game a lot - the battle system is simply addicting and very fast-paced; I got owned by both Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen (the extra bosses) on my first try at them. But the story and the character designs... ugh. The story is average for the most part, but the characters are barely likeable. Chances are that if you play this game, you are gonna get annoyed by Lymle's "kay". lol. As with VP, I might spend some time later on to write my review of the game. Aside from that, another title I played was Street Fighter IV; a few years ago I had written here on my blog an article about the awesome moments I had playing SF II, so I was very pleased and happy playing years later a new and revamped Street Fighter!

  Now, games I'm looking forward to. Honestly, right now I'm more interested in playing and finishing my HUGE back log of games, which include a few Suikodens for the PS2, Dragon Quests for the DS and continue playing FFVII International while learning more Japanese. I'm happy that I have finally been getting to play a game finishing it till the end instead of just stopping in the middle of it and then going to play something else. It has given somewhat sense of accomplishment in my gaming life, lol! I hope to going back to participating more around here as I used to, as well as contributing for unions or whatever. We'll see!

  Thanks for reading, and again, Happy Easter if you celebrate it; if you don't, I wish you peace and hapiness!

  ---

  PS: Gamespot HASN'T fixed those c.lass / s.ystem problems YET?! WOW... 1 year and this is still the same! That's insane GS, what a shame!!

  • Posted Apr 12, 2009 7:11 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 24Mar 08

  Square Enix Reunion - The Birth!

  Hi there you all! How are things going?

  I'm here to introduce my new project. Yesterday, Celes,Full_Metal1923, Kryu88 and I (and my Brazilian friend Destroya, and waiting on Oblivion's reply! XD) opened a new union, Square Enix Reunion. Do I need to say what it is about? XD

  First things first, some of you know I had been leader at SEE for quite some time last year until I had to leave for a while for personal reasons. Due to some circumstances, I decided to permanently relinquish my leadership at SEE last week.

  I am very proud of the things I have done to SEE last year, many of them which wouldn't have been able to exist without the help of the wonderful officers I recruited last year. I remember when Fantasy_Gamer invited me to take care of the newly stabilished union; there was hardly anyone posting there due to some events that happened and which made SEE coming into existence. I also remember Fantasy_Gamer giving me my first "duty": to clean up the archives sections!

  This had been my first real experience taking charge of such a big union (at least if only by number of members, but not of activity). And it was a challenge that I had decided to take and see how far could I go. Because deep inside, as a SE fan just like any of you, I knew what was missing there.

  Well, months came by and eventually, we started coming up with many different things that made SEE be what it has become right now; we implemented various activities and the union started to ignite. We went over the 4,000 members count, and more importantly, we grew to know each other better in the process and make friends. It wasn't anymore just about Square Enix games, but the PLAYERS, the COMMUNITY in it. My idea in creating the Character System was to give us a "nudge" to become more informal with each other, to be more friendly. And I believe that at least on that matter, I succeeded.

  At any rate, things happen and now here I am. Last week I gathered some very nice people and asked their help to form a brand new union. We are going to thrive to excel on the same concepts we had in mind for SEE, and of course, add more things to it. Because I believe in always changing. We can't allow things to stagnate, or else they lose their glow. We have always to keep improving, trying to figure out ways to make things better - because the possibilities are endless if you look at the right way and with the right intentions.

  That being said, I invite everyone who reads my blog and who would be interested in a Square Enix community, to join us!

  Square Enix Reunion

  I hope you enjoy it there. We will work hard to make that union have the shape and content we have in mind, and keep the community growing not just in numbers, but in building strong friendships. And on a last note, thank you very much for everyone at SEE who gave me their support during the time I was the leader, and thank you very much also for those supporting it now at Square Enix Reunion! We can make it through!

  Thanks for reading my blog, as always! Oh, and coming up next, my Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion Wars review!

  PS: We had quite a discussion as for the name of the new union.... two options were fought over with all heart and mind - "Reunion" and "Republic". Unfortunately Celes and I were minority with "Republic", thus "Reunion" became the union's name. I am curious as to what you guys would have chosen? Square Enix Republic, or Square Enix Reunion? Please feel free to comment on this!

  • Posted Mar 24, 2008 5:39 pm PT
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