The generic, unlikeable cast is only made worse by atrocious voice acting. The cast of SO4 is easily one of the least likeable groups of characters I have ever seen in a game. For all that JRPGs are supposedly story-driven and character-driven, though, Star Ocean 4 … well, let’s pull no punches. You play Edge Maverick (yes, that is unfortunately his actual name), a young officer on the starship Calnus, who soon finds himself in command and on a mission to track down his missing comrades while continuing his directive … but the plot quickly gets more complex from there. Humans instead look to the stars, deciding to focus on interstellar exploration, inventing faster-than-light travel, and exploring for new planets for humanity to colonize. Despite invoking an immediate comparison to last year’s Fallout 3, the two games couldn’t be more different … though that’s for a later point. Humanity has rendered the surface of Earth uninhabitable via nuclear war, with the surviving population forced to live underground in shelters.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope (also known as Star Ocean 4) is actually a prequel, taking place a few centuries (also a few decades, if you wanted to be technical) before the first Star Ocean. While playing Star Ocean: The Last Hope, all I could think about was how genuinely archaic this style of game seemed. Maybe they were the evolution of gaming – but gaming has since evolved further: With the age of the JRPG, games were indeed growing up … not to adulthood, but through an awkward, emotional adolescence.

Star ocean the last hope pc