Star trekking across the Oceanverse: Let's Play Star Ocean: The Last Hope

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Left 4 Bread: Oct 4, 2021; i sleep

Meanwhile, Covenant of the Plume's Seraphic Gate is just a fun run from level 1 through a tower of enemies with whatever party you want, nonsense comedy and lethal hamsters included. Saves and stores available between every section.

The difficulty past the first loop really starts to ramp up, sure, but eh, it's way better than this.

# ? May 25, 2023 21:10

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# ? May 6, 2024 04:19

LJN92: Mar 5, 2014

Addendum - Random Stuff

You know what's funny? In some ways, I found LESS about this game online than I did about Infinite Undiscovery. Star Ocean Last Hope was, by far, the more memorable game, especially considering it got not one but two rereleases. But can I find pre-release dev stuff for it? No. Not a single thing.

First I'm going to show off some things that are in the game, but I never really had a good place to bring up.

All is contained within this text dump.

To summarize:
-We see two rare Welch PAs, apparently only accessible on a second playthrough with clear data.
-We fight a character from Star Ocean 1 in the colosseum.
-We see what happens when a character wins the solo tier of the colosseum.

Anyway, let's dissect something juicy; that lovely jubbly guide book interview with such gems as "Lymle saved Faize by being a genius".

Here's a link to the translated text by "shmuplations" blog.

Interview posted:

�How did you decide on the title THE LAST HOPE?
Iwao: It wasn�t something we figured out right away. Could mankind really survive after the third World War? We wanted to express the idea that our last hope may lie out there in the universe.

We all know that's what they were going for at the start, but they completely derailed that plotline to focus on some silly threat to the universe that only barely fed into this original idea.

Interview posted:

�Can you explain the themes of the story for SO4?
Iwao: You can actually divide the themes in SO4 up into �big themes� and �small themes�, and the story that plays out on the surface would be the small themes. Frustration and regret with the past, how one moves on and grows from that, how that�s connected to hope, and the evolution of the heart�not in a sense of progress, per se, but in a transformation and rebirth. Those we all the �small themes� we wanted to show. The larger theme would be balance, balance in the way we see the world. It�s like the game of Othello� if there is too much white, black will diminish, and conversely if there is too much black, white will diminish. That was the nucleus of the theme we wanted to explore. All things exist in a balance with each other.

Tamura: It�s not about simplistic good and evil, but the idea that if something becomes too great, it will necessarily diminish something else.

Iwao: That�s right. Without balance, the center will not hold. Excess causes things spill over into chaos. By the same token too little of something can never lead to balance either. So yeah, that overall idea of what balance is, that forms the background of the story we wanted to tell. I guess it�s a little abstract, sorry. (laughs)

I assume they were trying to communicate this theme by having "evil" evolution, the Grigori and Missing Procedure, and "good" evolution, Edge handing over an exalithium crystal and Kenny wanting to uplift aliens at the end, being shown as extremes that needed to be moderated by something like the UP3.

It's just that they abjectly failed to demonstrate the "good" evolution as sufficiently bad. They relied on Edge making the most unbelievably stupid mistake in the world, torpedoing their point before they could even discuss it properly.

As for the "small themes", let's think about this character by character, shall we?

I guess what they mean is how he starts to regret being a dumbass on Alt Earth. We've gone over that enough.

Hers is being all hung up about that one traumatic experience involving superpowers, and then profusely thanking Edge for doing nothing much at all, and realising superpowers aren't so bad.

His would have to be Amina's death and also the deaths of his Eldarian brethren, and the fact he doesn't get over any of that is basically the crux of the plot.

Funnily enough I don't think she ever expresses frustration or regret over her past. I guess maybe that her grampa died, but they brush over that swiftly enough. Of course she does end up growing up and getting beyond her past by the end.

Bacchus is hung up about his mistake with the Stone Sickness, and feels like he abandoned his wife to go fight Grigori in space.

Uh...um...I guess she's hung up about Klaus a bit. And then she just decides not to be?

I think Sarah might genuinely have no connection to any of the themes. I guess she's frustrated about not being able to fly, but that's a present problem, not a past one. And then she just figures it out one day.

LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCIEN! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Hung up about being the only survivor of his squad as a young man, eventually decides he's just going to die.

Interview posted:

�It is indeed a grand, dramatic story. SO4 spans three discs, but was that volume something you had planned from the start?
Yamagishi: How many discs did we saw it would be at the beginning�?

Iwao: 9� no, I think it was 11�

Everyone: (laughs)

Iwao: With today�s next-gen hardware you can store almost 4 times as much data as you could just several years ago, but the scenario we first imagined, if we had done it straight-ahead, we calculated we would have needed 11 discs to tell that story. (laughs)

Kojima: Any common game data like maps and characters have to be included on each individual disc. Thus if you have too much common data, it actually really starts to limit what you can put on each disc. That�s where the 11 disc figure came from. Such is the burden that RPG developments must bear, I�m afraid.

This probably explains a lot about how the game turned out. Paring down an 11 disc "epic" to a mere 3 no doubt borked the story beyond belief. Of course they brought it upon themselves, writing up some ridiculously over ambitious plot. It's basically the same old story as with Infinite Undiscovery.

Christ, I can scarcely imagine what Last Hope would have looked like with 11 discs worth of storytelling. Perhaps the pacing might have improved, but the soul of the game would have remained the same. These characters were largely planned to be the weird stereotypes they ended up as, so I imagine it would have just been more of that poo poo.

Interview posted:

�About the name �Edge�, by the way� was that chosen just so the line �Edge no Ecchi!� could be used�?!
Iwao: We chose that name because, at three letters, it�s concise and easy to remember, so no, that was just a coincidence. (laughs) It came about from the scriptwriters messing around with wordplay.

That is official denial that Edge's name was made just for a silly pervert pun.

Interview posted:

�Well then, let�s get into how the characters were created. What was the original concept for each character?
Iwao: For Edge and Reimi, nothing in particular. Faize and Lymle were envisioned as complementary characters, two sides of the same coin. They have the same personality, but what they have, and what they have lost, are inverted. That�s why they�re attracted to each other� that was our concept when making them.

I don't know how they figure they have the "same personality". I think what they were going for was they were both cold, "emotionless" characters, but it really doesn't come across in game. Lymle spends so much time wrapped up in dumb kid tropes, and Faize rarely gives you the Vulcan vibe.

I don't know what the whole "have and lost" thing means either. Faize was a test tube Eldarian who was raised for a specific purpose, and the only thing he "loses" during the game is that hollow love interest of his. I suppose he loses a lot of his own species too, but making that specific to him seems weird. Lymle has her grampa at the start, loses him, and also lost her emotions and growth in her backstory. They certainly lost different things, but I don't know how they're "inverted", or even related. I don't know what Lymle has that Faize has the inverse of, or vice versa. Height, maybe?

Interview posted:

I guess Meracle would be what people call a �moe� character, but our image of her was simply that of a bright, cheerful girl. She�s of the Lesser Fellpool race�a less advanced branch of the Fellpool�and we wanted to show that distinction through her cheerfulness. Myuria was a character with a dark past, and we tried to depict a more mature woman with her. Her way of talking is a little strange, but we wanted to make a character anyone and everyone could love. Arumat�s concept was the silent, military, diligent worker type of human.

They wanted to show that Meracle was a "less advanced" Fellpool...by making her cheerful? Like a happy idiot, I guess?

Also they depicted Myuria as a "mature woman" when all she really did was make sex jokes and pine for her husband.

Interview posted:

Tamura: Arumat was an older man in the early drafts, wasn�t he�

Sawamura: Yeah, there�s some concept art with an older version of him, with short hair.

Tamura: It�s kind of sad, we had to have a stereotypically �handsome� (ikemen) character for our game, so the old man got the axe.

Couldn't possibly have a character that wasn't a stereotype, huh? Although I suppose if they made an "older man" they'd pump him full of stereotypes too.

Interview posted:

Iwao: I think Reimi�s expanding bust size was Kojima�s work too.

Kojima: What! I seem to recall that was Tamura�s idea? (laughs)

Yamagishi: I remember hearing it was done on your behest Kojima.

Sawamura: Yeah, we were only following orders. �Bigger is better!�

Everyone: (laughs)

Crowing over the "expanding bust" of a teenage girl character aside, I never thought Reimi's breasts were that big. Maybe I'm just desensitized by too much animu?

Interview posted:

�There�s a lot of women in the party this time.
Iwao: Actually, there was one more character we had wanted to add. He appears in the story. It�s Giotto Vandione from the En II artificial planet� he was supposed to join your party, and he would have balanced the party composition to 50/50 male-female. We ended up replacing him with a different character though.

Kojima: Yeah, he was going to be the last to join your party. That ordering sort of doomed him.

Wonder who replaced Giotto? Sarah? Perhaps Meracle, given how disconnected her part of the story is? Regardless of who, it probably would have improved the game to rid us of one obnoxious woman in favour of awkward Morphus man.

Interview posted:

�Did you ever talk about having Crowe be a playable character�?
Iwao: From the beginning, we knew we didn�t want that. Part of that was his important role as a storyteller, so we wanted him to be moving in parallel with Edge through the story. The moment he became a playable character he would lose a lot of the �cool factor�, and his farewell scene would have become something very sad. By giving him the dramatic send-off we did, we were able to bring out the anger and frustration in Edge all the more poignantly, so we opted not to make him a party member.

I don't know why they believe having Crowe as a party member would make Edge react differently to his death. His "reaction" was pretty short as it was.

It would probably destroy his "cool factor", though. After all, we would then have Crowe involved in Meracle cat shenanigans and Myuria's sex jokes all day long.

Interview posted:

�I�d like to ask about Welch next. She only appears as a hologram, but is there an actual living version of her out there?
Iwao: Well now� I wonder? It�s been said that she resides inside the Pangalactic Federation Army�s information database, but whether she actually is there or not, no one knows. It�s a mystery.

This "mystery" is mentioned only in the entry on Welch. Otherwise, she is exactly as she is presented; a vessel for telling dumb jokes. Who would honestly care if she weren't a real person? You can spend large tracts of this game not even thinking about her.

Interview posted:

�Speaking of details, why did you put so much detail into Shimada�s death scene?
Iwao: Shimada was designed to be a very simple villain, and as we made him, we gradually came to have more and more affection for his character. We thought it would be a real shame if he just gets snuffed out in instant, so we tried to give him a fitting ending for a villain.

"A real shame if he just gets snuffed out in an instant", huh? Because that's the impression the thread seemed to get from his death, if I recall correctly.

Interview posted:

�Did you ever think about a mode where the player gets to control a fleet himself?
Iwao: We thought about something where you have to withstand, maneuver, and escape an enemy ship�s attacks, but it was just completely different from the rest of the core gameplay so we didn�t do it. We were concerned it would feel like a STG game.

Yamagishi: We talk about it every game, but ultimately it always ends up being too much of a deviation.

There's lots of games that deviate from their gameplay from time to time. Why would that be such a sin? Adding a ship battle mechanic probably would have excited a lot of people.

Interview posted:

Iwao: Another Private Action that�s memorable for was the one where Edge wakes up next to Meracle unexpectedly, and Reimi walks in on them. When we did the motion capture for those scenes, we actually had them act it out just like that. (laughs) That scene was really well-directed.

Christ, they put that much effort into a discount hentai scene?

Interview posted:

�Speaking of the Eagle Rangers, there�s two post-game bonus dungeons. What made you want to make a dungeon like the Wandering Dungeon with randomly generated floors?
Ukawa: Well, first off�and this is an attitude we�ve had with all the previous games too�our mindset when making SO4 was that the main storyline would only comprise 50% of the content of the game.

Yamagishi: We�re all about the bonus content. (laughs)

Ukawa: We started off by wanting to simply make more content, volume-wise, from the previous games, and we started brainstorming on how to do that within the confines of the memory available to us. It was the programming team that suggested we try a procedurally generated dungeon. When I first heard that I wasn�t especially optimistic. �Um, yeah, sure, if you think it�s possible�� (laughs)

Their answer to "more content" was a boring, procedurally generated maze? Wonderful.

Interview posted:

�Before the final battle with Satanail, there�s an event in the other world where all the people Edge has met on his journey appear, and they give him a little push from behind. What was your intention in making that scene silent?
Iwao: Originally, there was dialogue. All they said to Edge was �That�s right.� (Note: the Japanese is �sou da na�, a general phrase of affirmation, but hard to render in English without any additional context.) In that scene the characters are speaking heart-to-heart; their minds can communicate and understand each other directly, without words or symbols. That light itself is the mind and will of the people, and by placing Edge there in the center of it, we wanted to show that they were communicating with him, so we left it silent.

So the original intent of that scene was to basically do the "Congratulations" scene from Evangelion? Because that would have been more hilariously bad than it ended up being.

Click here for a mock up of what that would look and sound like.

Interview posted:

Iwao: As for Crowe, Crowe too actually felt that his meeting with Eleyna then was fated. Eleyna has that threatening tone and way of speaking, but she�s actually a wonderful woman. I wanted to show that side of her, but perhaps some of my personal tendencies as a screenwriter got in the way and made it a little clumsy. I thought she and Crowe are destined for each other. It�s your classic love-romance ending.

Excuse me, what the gently caress?

Two characters that had never met before and have no meaningful overlap are "destined to be together"? I mean I guess they were, but only by author fiat, while Mitsuo Iwao makes it sound like there's something about them that makes them great for each other.

That's it for the interview.

Naturally, Last Hope was included in Star Ocean Anamnesis. I talked about it in my Infinite Unidscovery LP, but to summarize, it was a gatcha game where you could collect characters from various tri-Ace properties, and even some non tri-Ace properties that were included as promotions, like Persona 5 and Nier: Automata.

The whole gang is in the game, alongside a selection of side characters, such as;

Eleyna, with her shirt even more open than before.

Crowe.

Stephen D. Kenny.

Shimada. Yes, sodding Shimada. His weapons are modelled on the steak he ate before his death.

Milla Bachtein. Indeed, a character that barely had any screen time was considered important enough to include in Anamnesis. Replete with an even sluttier "upgrade" than Eleyna.

And of course Amina, as previously mentioned.

Consider who was passed over in favour of these people?

-Lutea, who had about as much screentime as Milla, and at least is a canonical symbologist.
-Heinz, who would make a more believable fighter than Eleyna, Shimada, Amina or Milla.
-Giotto, who was once considered to be a party member.
-Gaghan, because if you're going to make Shimada a character, why not Gaghan?
-Klaus and/or Trillas Bachtein, because poo poo, they made Klaus' noncombatant wife a character.
-Tamiel, who is a villain, but they included the villains from other games, so why not? And Milla was a villain too!
-Last Hope Welch, because they have two other Welches in there already, even ones that never fought or had less screentime. Although I imagine most people would be quite happy she didn't make it in.

Oh, you know who else is in Anamnesis?

Kevin Bachtein!

Yes, Klaus and Milla's son!

Wait, you ask, but wasn't he a normal human, and didn't he die at two years old?

Yes. So what the gently caress is this thing?

Someone who still had access to Anamnesis (Polsy) informed me that part of Alt Earth was blown into some space-time fuckery and ended up in another star system. This included the Bachtein's research lab, and a bunch of kids they were experimenting on, in the same vein as the whole Muah thing with Edge, Reimi and Crowe. "Kevin" was among them, having been completely roboticised. They all identified with the Bachtein's as their adoptive parents or some poo poo.

This doesn't explain why "Kevin" got his first name, although I assume it makes it clear he wasn't the original baby Kevin by any means. My guess is Milla showed up and started calling him Kevin like the batshit insane woman she is. I guess that wee nameplate thing he has looks vaguely like it says "Kev.2", but I don't know how or why he got that. Maybe a piece of the reactor Milla ALSO named Kevin?

My original thought upon finding out this guy existed was to assume he had nothing to do with the Bachteins and that Milla just started calling him this, but the explanation turned out to be dumber than I thought possible.

And then there's this girl, Vulcan S-90. She is Bacchus' daughter.

The end of Bacchus' story in Last Hope was deciding that he wanted to go back to being a normal dude, but apparently his daughter decided to get herself into her own cold, steel body. Bacchus himself appears in Anamnesis as a robot dude again, so go figure what happened to undo the end of the game.

This lady is called Eleanor. She's not very interesting on her own, but here's part of her character bio:

"Eleanor's main motivation for joining the military is because she is secretly in love with Lias Warren�a man she first laid eyes upon at the Tatroi Colosseum."

In other words, they made a whole original character just to be a simp for a side character, not to mention making a female character whose sole distinct trait is loving a man. And she's said to be born in AD 2073 and is 23 years old (I know, she doesn't remotely look it), which means she's specifically in love with Lias Warren from Last Hope, the guy whose only character trait was simping for Edge.

Speaking of Lias, he didn't even get to be in this game. Not his Star Ocean 1 version, nor his Star Ocean 4 version. No to Lias Warren, but yes to a random simp for him? loving tri-Ace.

Of course there's one piece of Anamnesis content that remains largely intact; those silly yonkoma comics they made along with the game. I detailed one of them in Infinite Undiscovery. They're as animu as you'd expect. Lots of talk about women's undies.

There's a truckload of those comics that relate to Last Hope, so I'm not going to show every last one with one of them in it. Instead, I've picked out a handful that might be "interesting";

This first one introduces Vulcan as a character. Here's a link to the page for better quality.

And here's a loose translation of what's happening (and I fully acknowledge my translations may not be very accurate):

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Narration: Main Story Chapter 7 is now open to the public! A character with a rich personality has appeared!

Vulcan: I am the Morphus warrior Vulcan S-90

2nd Panel
Vulcan: If I become one of this ship's companions, I will soon wear various costumes like Lady Caleen. (Caleen Keemosn is a Star Ocean Anamnesis original, just like Vulcan, but with no connection to one of the main games that I know of)

Eve: How interesting! (Eve, AKA Evelysse, is another original character who acts as your gatcha collector)

3rd Panel
Eve: Since Vulcan is a cyborg, does her costume look like a mecha?

4rd Panel
Vulcan: I wear the same cute outfits as everyone else! So we participate in a lot of events together! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Eve: The gap is huge. . . ! Sorry, sorry...

Narration: Please take care of Vulcan-chan, who seems to be an adult but is a little clumsy!

Indeed, when not engaging in robot tropes like her dad, Vulcan is a girl.jpg on the inside who just wants to wear pretty dresses. "Rich personality" indeed.

In this one, Vulcan talks to her father.

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Narration: Bacchus has been summoned.

Vulcan: What happened before you came here??

2nd Panel
Mr. Henri's transformation power was so unique and wonderful that I tried to imitate it a little.

Henri: I added ears and a tail to the replacement exterior parts. (Henri un Loup Henri is a Werewolf from Roak. Yes, Roak had Werewolves, they come up in Star Ocean 1)

3rd Panel
If I replace all the parts, I can completely become a Bunny.

Vulcan: Oh, cuuuute! It looks so good! I think you should stay like that for a while, really!

4th Panel
Vulcan: For your entire life!

Yrian: (I found this guy's sentence too hard to translate. Something like how Bacchus is a new cyborg, but he's not a monster?) (Also he is Yrian Luxter, another original character)

Welch: I'LL DISASSEMBLE THE CYBORG! (Yes, it's Welch, but a completely original one invented for Anamnesis. The other Welch is from Star Ocean 5)

What I took from this is that both Vulcan and Anamnesis Welch are loving insane. Although I guess Welches being nuts is par for the cause.

This one is about Edge meeting Sarah's family from Star Ocean 1.

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Ioshua: This girl is my little sister Erys. I am Ioshua. Pleased to meet you. Oh, and any man that approaches my sister will burn.

Woah, what a polite yet scary thing this handsome guy is saying.

(The purple haired woman watching them is Mavelle Froesson, who is also Erys, but she put her soul in the body of a Muah to hide her identity or some poo poo. I dunno, this isn't a thread about Star Ocean 1)

2nd Panel
Erys: No, brother. If you did something like that, I'd feel terrible. They can't suffer if you burn them to ash in an instant.

What the heck are these siblings!? I was expecting them to be like Sarah since they're family, but they're completely different...

3rd Panel
Oh, that's not correct. I have also burned something to ash.

What!?

4th Panel
Today's meal of salt-grilled saury. I cooked it too much and burned it to ash...

Oh, good, typical Sarah.

Ioshua and Erys: (So Aunt Sarah was this kind of person...)

I feel like this communicates an important distinction; Star Ocean 1 had metal characters who burned people to death, while Star Ocean 4 had dumbass characters who burned their lunches.

Of course Star Ocean 1 did have its share of dumbasses. Lord knows Pericci was the inspiration for Meracle.

In this one, Crowe and Eleyna talk to Roddick, who I mentioned is their descendant.

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Narration: An SO4 event is underway!

Your big bro will be very active ♪

2nd Panel
Crowe and Roddick have many similarities

Roddick: Eeeeh!?

Where are the similarities?

3rd Panel
When in the bath...

Roddick: Why that...!?

Coro: In the bath. . . Ah. . . Please continue this during the event. (Coro is that blue thing, and is basically Anamnesis' mascot character)

Eve: It's fun to see various relationships as their friendship metre increases, isn't it?

Fiore: I understand. (Fiore Brunelli, a character from Star Ocean 5, with a more ridiculous outfit than anyone in Last Hope)

4th Panel
Fiore: I'm at a loss as to which boy-on-boy to multiply...

Eve: Uh...People have different ways of having fun, huh? Enjoy the dialogue between characters beyond their own series ♪

Crowe and Eleyna meet their direct descendent, and tri-Ace wastes the opportunity on a gay incest joke.

In this one, you can see Faize, Amina, and Lymle. Also a golden statue of Shimada. The rest is about characters from other games, so I'm not going to bother with what's said here.

The funny thing is that Shimada is the most common side character to be used in these comics. Crowe, Amina and Eleyna show up from time to time, but I don't know if I ever saw them use Stephen Kenny or Milla at all. They seem to think Shimada is the funniest poo poo they ever made.

I've...seen things. Horrible things. Shimada in a santa bikini. Shimada wiggling his fat stomach at people with a poorly drawn face on it.

This next one comes immediately after the one above.

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Faize, Head of the Disciplinary Committee...

I'm happy to be able to greet the school in the morning together.

2nd Panel
The time we spend wearing matching armbands is my little happiness.

Amina let's go back soon.

3rd Panel
...take it off, 'kay?

Lymle!?

That armband...it really doesn't suit you, 'kay?

4th Panel
This way is better for Faize, 'kay?

I'm not a wild bunny!

tri-Ace really, REALLY liked that whole Lymle being jealous of the cloak thing, didn't they?

They also seem to genuinely enjoy the idea of shipping Faize with a character he had one speaking scene with.

And then we have this one, which I assume was made to promote some new game mechanic.

Translation posted:

1st Panel
Fayt: This time it's a three way battle, isn't it? (Fayt Leingod is the protagonist of Star Ocean 3, FYI)

Fidel: This is our first time doing something like a three-way battle, so I'm nervous. (Fidel Camuze is the protagonist of Star Ocean 5)

2nd Panel
Coro: I thought you'd say that, so I prepared something that looks like a three-way.

Eve: *Worried about something off panel*

3rd Panel
Lymle and Amina squaring off, Faize crying

4th Panel
Coro: How is it? Is it like a three-way?

Eve: I didn't realize it had become a fighting scene...

Inside Triangle: Various descriptors of Lymle and Amina's love rivalry

Their go-to example of a love triangle...is Lymle, Amina and Faize. Oy.

That's about all the stuff I felt like showing off. That means we're well and truly at the end of this LP.

When playing games like these, it's often interesting to think about what could have been done better. With the Last Hope, I honestly wonder if you could really find a way to save it without basically making a completely new game. Infinite Undiscovery had some intriguing underlying ideas that with a bit of reworking could have made a cool game. It's not like Last Hope doesn't have a single good idea to its name, but if you were to try and take the good parts and cut out the bad, it would barely resemble what the Last Hope is now.

Like the reason I call characters like Reimi "girl.jpg" is because if you were to tear out all the parts of her character that were stereotypically feminine, what would be left? Archery? And it's not like you can't have a character that has some aspect of a stereotype in their personality, but if your character is 90% stereotypes, you've done something wrong.

And if you tear out all the parts of the Last Hope that didn't work, what is left? Crowe and Bacchus? Half of Arumat? It's not even like those guys were so great, they just came off so much better compared to the animu wackjobs that make up the rest of the cast. Perhaps you might suggest reworking the cast to be less obnoxious, but I ask you, how would you do that without basically making different characters? Could you honestly imagine salvaging Edge, Reimi, Lymle, Meracle, Myuria and Sarah in ways that would leave them recognizable?

Oh, and that was basically an open invitation to talk about what you might do better if you had the chance, yes. Go for it!

Anyway, I think I'm quite done.

Thank you for reading.

# ? May 26, 2023 22:34

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Thank you for suffering through all this for us.

# ? May 26, 2023 22:42

Left 4 Bread: Oct 4, 2021; i sleep

It's been evident that the game had large parts of it's story cut away, perhaps even rushed out the door, and I think it's the resulting utter lack of foundation the game's left with that truly breaks it. Every section is rather rushed to the next, every plot beat rapid fired, and the grand themes just don't work in the end.

And sure, an RPG can exist with a rather flat main story if the characters carry it. That didn't happen here either, most characters are walking trope cutouts with vague character archetype outlines and/or are left with confusing or conflicting characterization... because this was all rushed.

The very "tri-Ace stuff" (for lack of a better word,) I'm very much not a fan of either, but that's ultimately a matter of preference. Between story, characters, and mechanics, an RPG can live on just one if it's done exceptionally, usually it needs two at least done pretty well. The highest part of the triangle this hit was... average mechanics.

... What? I'm not going to ply my hand at fixing this all myself, I already gave up on doing that with Fates. "Don't rush your game out the door" and "plan the scope better", that's all I got, I guess. Armchair advice from a random someone with no foothold in the industry. You're welcome, tri-Ace :v:

Infinite Undiscovery at least had some attempted unique takes, everything about this experience is... uninspired. It's a shame the former got undiscovered itself- I'm still (possibly foolishly) convinced IU had potential.

Anyways, thanks for the LP! At the very least, some fun was had through this.

# ? May 26, 2023 23:21

Scalding Coffee: Jun 26, 2006; You're already dead

There is a character in SO1 with a family name of Jerand and his ancestors are either of Sarah's brothers. Don't know why they have a character who exists solely as a reference to a character in another game.

I like that the ultimate boss in SO2 required certain instruments and is otherwise a random encounter you can summon repeatedly. No going through 20 random floors with no save point and 10 boss fights. So simple and accessible.

I am going through your other LPs and despite being early on, are not an immediate pain in the rear end like SO4 is.

Scalding Coffee fucked around with this message at 23:46 on May 26, 2023

# ? May 26, 2023 23:43

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

The default colosseum team name is Ocean's Eight in Japanese too, yeah. Interestingly your team name is kept per-language - if you set your team name to something in English but then change the language setting to Japanese it becomes Ocean's Eight. If you change it back to English you get your English name back.

tbh I didn't read all that much of Anamnesis while it was live because translating stuff is effort and I wasn't really invested in the game, so the Kevin stuff was just as much a revelation for me and it just kept getting weirder as I kept reading. I guess they really wanted to tie it all into the greater Star Ocean universe, I have to imagine they had a lot of ideas to join everything up in Anamnesis most of which never made it before they had to kill the game.

I actually played along in Last Hope on Earth (easy) difficulty and it was still fun enough to play, some bosses aside, though it not being hard at all and skipping cutscenes certainly helped. The thought of going back into the post-game (I thought this might be unavailable on Earth, but, it's still there, or at least the first half) instantly killed me, though.

# ? May 27, 2023 00:17

Shitenshi: Mar 12, 2013

Thanks for putting up with this game's bullshit. From the talk of the town I already knew it sucked, but I still needed proper perspective to realize just how much it sucked.

# ? May 27, 2023 06:27

Cyflan: Nov 4, 2009; Why yes, I DO have enough CON to whip my hair.

Scalding Coffee posted:

I like that the ultimate boss in SO2 required certain instruments and is otherwise a random encounter you can summon repeatedly. No going through 20 random floors with no save point and 10 boss fights. So simple and accessible.

Yeah, though you did need to finish the optional dungeon once to get the instrument.
Still way more accessible than this.

# ? May 27, 2023 15:00

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

Oh, there's also a tiny (in every sense) SO3 reference in Tatroi, it's party member Peppita who is too short to see over the counter properly and is hopping up and down constantly. This is obviously non-canon but that's ok (SO3) since she's just a MMO character there can just be copies of her whereever

# ? May 28, 2023 10:57

FeyerbrandX: Oct 9, 2012

Polsy posted:

Oh, there's also a tiny (in every sense) SO3 reference in Tatroi, it's party member Peppita who is too short to see over the counter properly and is hopping up and down constantly. This is obviously non-canon but that's ok (SO3) since she's just a MMO character there can just be copies of her whereever

Nothing compared to the SO3 call back to SO2, the hundreds of thousands of volumes written about Sulfur Dioxide.

# ? May 28, 2023 14:15

Melomane Mallet: Oct 11, 2012; I'm bad; I'm just not born that way.

Polsy posted:

Oh, there's also a tiny (in every sense) SO3 reference in Tatroi, it's party member Peppita who is too short to see over the counter properly and is hopping up and down constantly. This is obviously non-canon but that's ok (SO3) since she's just a MMO character there can just be copies of her whereever

Noooot entirely; SO3's Peppita was named "Souffle" in the JP version, so unless this NPC was also Souffle in Japan, it's not a reference.

So, I've been thinking about how to put my thoughts about SO4 into words. *ahem* It is a bad game. The characters are varying degrees of cliche and cringe. But! I think the gameplay is fantastic and the customization system for weapons/armor just scratches a min/max spot in my brain the way few other games can. tl;dr: skip the story, enjoy the gameplay.

# ? May 30, 2023 23:05

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

Melomane Mallet posted:

Noooot entirely; SO3's Peppita was named "Souffle" in the JP version, so unless this NPC was also Souffle in Japan, it's not a reference.

She is

e: technically you could argue the localisers misinterpreted this as a reference just because of the name, but she's called Souffle, is short, brown-skinned, and has an overly descriptive name, so it's pretty safe.

Polsy fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 30, 2023

# ? May 30, 2023 23:12

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# ? May 6, 2024 04:19

Melomane Mallet: Oct 11, 2012; I'm bad; I'm just not born that way.

Polsy posted:

She is

e: technically you could argue the localisers misinterpreted this as a reference just because of the name, but she's called Souffle, is short, brown-skinned, and has an overly descriptive name, so it's pretty safe.

Ha, thanks for the info!

# ? May 30, 2023 23:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Star trekking across the Oceanverse: Let's Play Star Ocean: The Last Hope

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