It's really hard to make a review for this game. Like it has the best gameplay so far (haven't played Arkham Knight yet) and the worst story out of the first three. The visual and color grading of the cutscenes were great but some of the actions and reasons felt so bare. Like if this was the first or only Arkham game it would be fantastic but having played 2 amazing games before this kinda makes this feel meh which disappoints me. I enjoyed the overworld more here than in City, it felt bigger, more fresher. And I think I enjoy collecting Enigma's stuff a bit more than Riddler trophies because there's a story behind it rather than a bunch of text files. But aside from that I really don't have anything else to say. It makes me kinda worried since I really like this series, hopefully it just the third game curse and Arkham Knight will lock in and be phenomenal.

The Deathstroke fight was the best fight this series will ever have....probably.

The start of a journey with the Dragon of Dojima.

I played this with the Restoration Patch cause I wanted to see how this game originally was. I'll probably play the English Dub on day just see how silly it is. But yeah the combat is very poor and limited, many fights are just won by spamming square then triangle and others were annoying with constant near speed of light quicksteps and invincible frames. Some bosses were just not that fun and many of the arena fights were a slog to get through. I had to just skip Jo Amon because grinding to get the weapons to beat him took forever and I just wasn't having any fun at that point. Also I have no idea if it was the game or me but when I try punch forward it would sometimes turn me around the other way. It happened so frequently I think it was just the game itself. But there were also moments of clarity where you'd but doing your square combo and square/triangle combo and there was something soothing about brutality beating down whatever enemies were in front of you.

That's something this game is a masterclass in; the vibe this game offers. It basically is like watch a B movie gangster action flick. I know I just threw out a gargle of buzzwords but I think they all fit this game to a T. The story was good it did lack in some areas (Jingu's Scenes -_-) but there were something it did really well.

I know I mostly just complained at the battle but I'd say to give this a chance just to see what the game was originally like. I literally wasn't even planning on finishing this game when I first started I just wanted to see how different it was from Kiwami and why certain people liked this more. I just was gonna play a few chapters in but then I got into it a bit and now were here. I get it now though, personally I'm either or since I'm not that crazy about the first game.

Also why is the end credits song Amazing Grace, what a weird song to put in this game.

A Star Ocean game where the story is really good and the gameplay is pretty bad...not what I was expecting at all. Like if I told myself 3 years ago the one thing that kept me from dropping a Star Ocean game (aside from the fact that I rarely do that) was the story, I would be dumbfounded. Unfortunately it's hard to talk about this game's story without spoiling anything. So I'll try to write it out in a general sense.

This game takes place before the first Star Ocean, First Departure, and answers some questions you may or may not have had such as the reason why Earthlings decided to take to space, how they did so, and the creation of the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact. While all interesting questions aside from the last one, the answers aren't really given that much depth. But that's fine this series is about space travel after all. It does both good and bad with this.

You see the universe through the eyes of Edge Maverick, contrary to his name, his personality isn't just being edgy or moody all the time. He's a hot headed passionate person who wants to help others without a second thought. But that leads him to do more harm than good through his journey. And with his new found friends, he is able to build the courage and strength to make the hard hitting choices and decisions. Sounds kind of plain when I write it out but I really do like Edge a lot. The cutscenes from early to mid game were just great, I was intently watching them because I enjoyed them so much. Edge’s arc in this game was great too, I seriously can’t believe people disliked it. It helped serve so much purpose that it still affected him even by the end of the game. I know a lot of people hate the models and animations in these cutscenes. But I just love how weird and unnatural it was. Like how in every cutscene Reimi literally never stops moving or having constant eye contact with whoever is speaking and that one scene where Faize is talking real fast about something and the girl who gave him the cloak had no idea what he was even talking but was smiling and shaking her head in acknowledgement (that made laugh since it was so unexpected I missed out on what the scene was even about). The voice acting was honestly great, I can't believe people were saying it was bad. Either I've heard worse or I've heard good for too long, no clue which. Don't really care for the “bad” guy all too much like I rarely do but the final boss was interesting and surprising. I wish they had developed them a bit earlier but I get why they did it this way.

Interesting thing about The Last Hope compared to First Departure and Second Story (haven't played the 3rd one yet) is that all your party members are chosen for you. I was a bit miffed about it at first but I became okay with it because at the very least each character adds something to the story/dialogue. It probably helps that I just recently finished Second Story R and was wishing the other party members interacted more in the story. But I really do like the characters in this game but only because they're in a game like this. I know that's kind of weird to say but I think if they were in any other game I don't think I would like any of them. Like Faize, Edge, Bacchus, Crowe, Sarah, Lymle, Eleyna, and Klaus just to name a few, who just wouldn't have worked in any other game. Except for Welch, I just really like her a lot more than I should for some reason. She is honestly really good in this game, every scene with her is just great. It may be really corny but it fits Welch to a T. Some designs suck though like Arumat, Myuria and Meracle, no reason to make them look like they did. It was so weird because there’s no way anyone liked it…right? But some designs were really good like Sarah, Lymle, Faize, and Welch (I actually warmed up to it, but blue and blonde are still the best combo for her). Private Actions still exist (they're great btw) and I saw a few of them but it looks like I missed a bunch since I only got one character's ending which sucks because it wasn't the one I was most looking forward to, oh well maybe next time. I will say though I think the female cast was done dirty in this game. A bit too much direction in fetishizing characteristics (something a bit different from the random mill of fanservice imo) on them and making them not too smart or too strong in the story compared to the female cast of First Departure and Second Story. But it's not like they were awful or bad, it was just a step in a different direction than I expected for this series. Which I can honestly say for this entire game to be honest.

The gameplay is not great, luckily though it's not horrendously bad either. Just nowhere near as fun as the first two games. Combat animations and hitstun/delay are way too slow for me to truly enjoy it. Bonus Board is alright but it breaks too easily since every enemy can just crit super easily. I wish being in Rush mode helped such as ignore crits but it doesn't. Quests are a bore since they're active within Item Creation which yes....is bad too. I can't believe the made IC bad like how do you make one of the best subsystems ever in the first two games and then ruin it in the fourth, that's just crazy. You can only do IC in the Calnus that require items from stores/vending machines and enemies that for some reason took forever to drop. I was grinding these mushroom enemies for at least 45 mins just to get some 10 Tasty Mushrooms. It should never take that long to get any items, especially when field skills like Botany are maxed out. Then you'll have to slowly dash all the way to the quest givers and/or Calnus between these long stretches of uninteresting terrain and enemies. No fast travel until the final areas, which is lame. Don't know why fast travel had to have a plot reason to exist; all it did was waste my time throughout the beginning. I got over 56 hours in this game and I’m sure a good chunk was going back and to the Calnus and towns.

Regardless, I still had a fun time. I’m glad I was able to experience this game. Now Square Enix please put Star Ocean 3 and 5 on Steam so I can play them, thanks!