Xbox 360 is usually left out of the weekly top ten lists from Japan, but that's definitely going to change later on this month. Star Ocean: The Last Hope hits Japan on the 19th just a few days before our release, and we're pretty sure gamers over there are going to eat it up like natto mixed with soy sauce.
How can we be so sure? We're actually going by a little bit of anecdotal evidence that evidenced itself at a weekend demo event. Square Enix gave Star Ocean 4 its first retail showcase on Saturday at the giant Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo's electronics capital of Akihabra. Despite the rain, the wait to get onto the eight available kiosks was about two-and-a-half hours. Square Enix reps had to hand out tickets to control the lines.
Since we haven't had a sampling of the game since the Tokyo Game Show, we decided to stick around for a short play test.
The demo build of the game, presumably based off the final retail copy, started players off at a different save point from the Tokyo Game Show demo. Our character levels were all at 45 and up, and the in-game clock listed a 22 hour play time. Presumably, we were starting towards the latter part of the game.
While the save file started us off outside of a shrine on the planet of Rokutoroppu (please note that this is not an official English translation of the planet's name), there was no requirement that we actually venture into the shrine. Instead, we decided to explore the outerworld.
And what a big outerworld it is. This planet, whatever its real English name may be, is huge, spanning mountains, forests and beaches. Midway through our attempt to trek from one end of the main map to the other, we came upon a small town with stone buildings and just a few residents.
Based off this little snippet, it's pretty clear that Star Ocean 4 will offer players plenty of freedom to explore its multiple planets. There are few hurdles, with only a couple of loading points here and there, and even then the load times are pretty much non existent. Exploration shoud be one of Star Ocean 4's charms.
For those who occasionally get the urge to skip out on battle and just run around freely, the game seems to have you taken care of. You have access to a dash move which lets you dash past enemies in short bursts. We were able to avoid any enemy we encountered.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Star Ocean 4 battle system that would make us necessarily want to avoid battle. The game's battle system offers plenty of variety thanks in large part to a flexible party system. The demo had Edge, Reimi, Faize, Lymle, Backus, Meracle, and Myuria all as playable characters. While you can only have four in your party, you're free to swap them in and out even during the heart of battle. This should allow you to customize your party to match the battle at hand.
There's quite a bit to the battle system, including new system with such only-in-Japan names like "Beat System," "Site-In/Site-Out System" and "Rush System." It's tough to get used to these systems in only fifteen minutes of play time, so you'll have to hold off for our upcoming review of the final version.
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How can we be so sure? We're actually going by a little bit of anecdotal evidence that evidenced itself at a weekend demo event. Square Enix gave Star Ocean 4 its first retail showcase on Saturday at the giant Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo's electronics capital of Akihabra. Despite the rain, the wait to get onto the eight available kiosks was about two-and-a-half hours. Square Enix reps had to hand out tickets to control the lines.
Since we haven't had a sampling of the game since the Tokyo Game Show, we decided to stick around for a short play test.
The demo build of the game, presumably based off the final retail copy, started players off at a different save point from the Tokyo Game Show demo. Our character levels were all at 45 and up, and the in-game clock listed a 22 hour play time. Presumably, we were starting towards the latter part of the game.
While the save file started us off outside of a shrine on the planet of Rokutoroppu (please note that this is not an official English translation of the planet's name), there was no requirement that we actually venture into the shrine. Instead, we decided to explore the outerworld.
And what a big outerworld it is. This planet, whatever its real English name may be, is huge, spanning mountains, forests and beaches. Midway through our attempt to trek from one end of the main map to the other, we came upon a small town with stone buildings and just a few residents.
Based off this little snippet, it's pretty clear that Star Ocean 4 will offer players plenty of freedom to explore its multiple planets. There are few hurdles, with only a couple of loading points here and there, and even then the load times are pretty much non existent. Exploration shoud be one of Star Ocean 4's charms.
For those who occasionally get the urge to skip out on battle and just run around freely, the game seems to have you taken care of. You have access to a dash move which lets you dash past enemies in short bursts. We were able to avoid any enemy we encountered.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Star Ocean 4 battle system that would make us necessarily want to avoid battle. The game's battle system offers plenty of variety thanks in large part to a flexible party system. The demo had Edge, Reimi, Faize, Lymle, Backus, Meracle, and Myuria all as playable characters. While you can only have four in your party, you're free to swap them in and out even during the heart of battle. This should allow you to customize your party to match the battle at hand.
There's quite a bit to the battle system, including new system with such only-in-Japan names like "Beat System," "Site-In/Site-Out System" and "Rush System." It's tough to get used to these systems in only fifteen minutes of play time, so you'll have to hold off for our upcoming review of the final version.
source