Star Ocean: The Last Hope Video Game

Square Enix, two words that embody greatness. Here's a company with accolades to its name. Actually, it's two companies, Squaresoft and Enix, that merged years ago. Nonetheless, the company has produced some groundbreaking titles, most notable the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sagas. Unfortunately, the Star Ocean franchise is often lost in the shadow of its older brothers.

On February 19, Square Enix released Star Ocean: The Last Hope, the most recent title in this line. Perhaps due to lackluster critical and financial praise, Last Hope lives up to its name. It is the last of the franchise. Oddly, though, the game is a prequel.

The plot of the game takes place about ten years after World War III, where humanity and planet Earth bear the brutal ravages of bloodshed. The only hope for the human race lies out there, in the distant stars. Enter Edge Maverick and his associates, and their ship, the Calnus.

The events set the tone for the following games in the series, chronologically. It's a decent plot with decent characters, beautiful graphics, and fluid controls. So what's the downside?

Well, nothing exactly. Critics have nitpicked it as they do with any game. Certainly, any game, let alone an RPG, contains flaws. And equally certain, this is not a game everybody will like to play. But there's nothing too unique about it. RPG's are common these days, even outer space-themed, futuristic ones. It's not a bad game, just not often considered great.

Still, the game offers many charms. Switching between characters in the party is easy, even in the middle of battle. Battles are fought in real-time. You won't have to wait for your opponent to hit you before you can strike. Perhaps the element most interesting is the blindside ability, which gives a controlled character the ability to quickly run around and strike an enemy from behind.

It's not terrible, and the RPG game should find many hours of enjoyment here. But it's no Final Fantasy. Perhaps the greatest flaw this series has faced has been the overwhelming critical and financial success of its older brother. That's a hard shadow to climb out of.

But for the last game in the franchise, Star Ocean: The Last Hope could have been much, much worse. It concludes the franchise oddly at the beginning, but leaves on good footing.