Star Ocean: The Last Hope

[Flawless]

This is the title of SO4.

Star Ocean set for Xbox 360

At a press conference held by Microsoft in Japan, Square Enix and Microsoft announced that the next Star Ocean game will be released on Xbox 360 in 2009. The game, officially titled Star Ocean: The Last Hope, is in a playable state right now and will have a science fiction feel to it. Though a trailer for the game presented by Yoshinori Yamagishi, producer of the game, ended with the words "for Xbox 360," there was no mention of the title being exclusive to the system.

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You will be able to travel through "a star ocean," jumping across planets. The game will feature new systems in its battle system.

They're going to finish off with a new trailer for Star Ocean. A CG trailer from Visual Works. This will be included in the game as well and will be used for marketing the game.

AD 2064. Humanity made its third and most costly mistake. World War III. Weapons of mass destruction deployed with impunity, razed the land in the blink of an eye. People believed it's the end of the world. Planet earth was dying. So humanity began to search for a new home in space.

AD 2074 first contact. SD0001 first warp. SD0010 -- first official SRF mission. The first official SRF mission ventures forth into the great Star Ocean. That was all narration. The CG footage shows ships warping through space. Then, presumably the main characters (a blond haired guy and a brown haired girl) on a planet walking through a green field. The trailer ends with "For Xbox 360."

More JRPG goodness coming to the 360.

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Complete turn around from the original xbox... MS doing a great job diversifying the library... and with Square on board (as well as Tri-Ace) we should be having some great RPG treats in the near and far future

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope







Holy smokes

[Behindshadows]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

I'm buying this, I loved the first Star Ocean and the graphics on this is insane, I hope the story is just as great.

[Rainey]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Star Ocean 3 Till the End of the Time is one of my all time favorites, I hope this can build on that!

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

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[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

[Spectre]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

The 360 isn't just beating the PS3 in terms of RPGs anymore

It's taking it behind the shed and laying the smacketh down. I think Sony got complacent after last-gen when all the developers would come to it. I doubt this gets Microsoft significant market share in Japan, but its good to see them making the effort. The ball is in the Japanese public's hand to respond to those efforts.

One reason why the 360 gets the lion share of my gaming is the RPG dominance- the 360, without a doubt, is the place to be for RPG fans.

[jmood88]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Is this turn based?

[Flawless]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Is this turn based?

Real-time combat system

[bcruise]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

I can't imagine SE would refuse to release Star Ocean on PS3 in Japan, so until I see that word "exclusive" from either SE or MS I'm not going to worry about it.

Screenshots look amazing, BTW.

[jfsolo]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

We got the Western RPG's: The Mass Effect trilogy, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Alpha Protocol

The Eastern RPG's: Lost Odyssey, Tales of Versperia, Infinite Undiscovery, and now Star Ocean IV.

I don't think any of us would ever have thought that the 360 would be the Go To console for RPG's

[jmood88]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Real-time combat system

Yay!

[Spectre]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

I can't imagine SE would refuse to release Star Ocean on PS3 in Japan, so until I see that word "exclusive" from either SE or MS I'm not going to worry about it.

Screenshots look amazing, BTW.

Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi cleared things up during a roundtable interview session that followed the press conference. Asked if the game is 360-only, he said, "We cannot announce anything on that. We can say that it will be released first [on the Xbox 360]. Whether we'll release it on the PS3 is undecided. We may release it, we may not."

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/880/880434p1.html

I too think it will eventually get released on PS3, but its going to be a while.

[Flawless]

Re: Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Star Ocean: The Last Hope Preview & Producer Q&A

Interestingly, the latest game marks a distinct shift in the franchise’s approach, which has had a mix of science fiction, fantasy and intense, fast-paced battles. Yamagishi claimed that the “title will take the series in a different direction,” with a heavier slant toward the science-fiction side. The storyline has a new future coming for the human race in 2064 after near extinction from “humanity’s biggest mistake,” the launch of World War III. Ten years later, survivors take to space—“the great star ocean,” as Yamagishi described—where they encounter many new civilizations.

Despite having a ship date sometime next year, Yamagishi insisted that development of Star Ocean: The Last Hope is “almost complete.” The gameplay samples we saw showed a title with a vivid vision of anime-ish characters that are realistic enough that their hair flows and waves as they move. There was also a very dark mood generated by the game’s evil antagonists, but which explodes into action during battles.

With the game coming to Xbox 360, it’s being introduced to a new audience. What were the challenges of bringing it to a new platform and a new audience of players?

Yoshinori Yamagishi: Star Ocean 1 through 3 have been released in the States and they’ve been received well by fans—there’s a following and a fan base there. And then, obviously, Xbox 360 is a platform that’s heavily used by U.S. users, so this will be a great opportunity for fans to play this game on a more familiar platform and it’ll be a chance to get to know the game better.

tri-Ace is also a developer that’s constantly trying new platforms and challenging themselves—with the PlayStation 2 previously, and now the Xbox 360 is a brand-new platform for them, so this is an important milestone for tri-Ace as well in going to a brand-new platform.

Star Ocean 1 through 3 seems pretty complete, and Star Ocean 4 is very graphically different and advanced, but story-wise and content-wise, how has the series evolved?

Yoshinori Yamagishi: Story-wise, the Star Ocean series can be seen as a complete set—1, 2 and 3 is a complete trilogy. Star Ocean 4 takes place before Star Ocean 1, so you could almost say that Star Ocean 4 is a tale that depicts how Star Ocean came to be and how the world came to be. That’s one of the major themes we’ve taken into accomplishing for Star Ocean 4.

System-wise, tri-Ace has always been a developer that constantly develops games to test the limits to each hardware, but they make sure not to do anything that the hardware can’t handle. They use the hardware to its fullest capabilities, but they make sure that the game itself functions well and looks good as well.

In this sense, Star Ocean for PS1 only had 2-D characters. For the PS2, the characters were made in 3-D, because the hardware enabled it to evolve in that way. For the Xbox 360, this is next-generation hardware and brand-new technology, and new abilities that can be put into the game that tri-Ace has held off on prior because the hardware wasn’t able to handle it. Star Ocean 4 has become very realistic looking just because the hardware has enabled it to function this way.

Might not be until after IU ships that we got some real details.