Everyone’s got their little idiosyncratic loves in life – those little things they just love despite every reason they shouldn’t. For instance, I absolutely love gas station food. Pre-packaged sandwiches, beef jerky, hot dogs on those little rollers that have been there for hours; don’t ask me why, I couldn’t explain it to you. I’m sure you have something similar, so keep that in mind when thinking about Star Ocean: The Last Hope. The latest entry in the Star Ocean series from Japanese developer tri-Ace is horrendously stale, dated, and cliché to the point of absurdity. There’s a million reasons why this game should be boring and completely unremarkable, but for some reason the game is so damn charming that players who are able to look past all its shortcomings will have a great time.
Star Ocean doesn’t make the best first impression. The game’s story and characters are all insufferably anime -- which is to say the main character’s name is Edge Maverick. The game opens with Edge and his childhood friend Reimi (whom he constantly identifies as such in casual conversation, you know, like real childhood friends do) departing on an exploratory voyage to discover other habitable planets for the human race. Upon traveling to their first destination, Something Goes Terribly Wrong which sends the cast on a fantastic adventure involving a number one-dimensional characters and a meandering, unfocused plot.
The story at large is a waste of time, filled with contrived drama and uneven tone. A character will whine melodramatically about the burden of responsibility one minute while another character will make self-referential anime jokes the next. The schizophrenic presentation of the story prevents it from ever taking a real emotional hold over the player.
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