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Star Ocean: The Last Hope Is Creepy as Hell

Posted by Bob Mackey

Whenever I see media for Square-Enix's Star Ocean: The Last Hope (out this week if you didn't know), I can't help but feel a deep, troubling sickness in my soul as my skin literally tries to crawl off of my body to a safe place where the game's creepy anime RealDoll versions of human beings do not exist. Of course, I could just be feeling residual effects from having suffered through Star Ocean: Till the End of Time oh so many years ago, but that doesn't mean something is not very wrong about Star Ocean 4's creepy puppet people--especially when you consider the fact that the director harbors a desire to make "adult" games. I don't know if you can picture dead-eyed automatons like the one above bumping uglies, but I imagine the rape scene in Silent Hill 2 is far more arousing.

The Last Hope developer tri-Ace seems to have a serious problem with making human characters that don't want to make you jump through the nearest window; just check out their work on Infinite Undiscovery--the 1:55 mark is when you should start screaming.

There seems to be a strange set of mixed priorities at work here; namely, how developers like tri-Ace motion-capture actors who over-gesticulate like costumed theme park characters, but pay absolutely no attention to how everyone in their games have the facial expressions of corpses. I'm not sure if Japanese developers turn a blind eye to The Uncanny Valley, but the effect seems to be at work more often in Eastern games--which is odd when you think about how willingly the Japanese audience accepts a more cartoony aesthetic. I guess the only way to teach them a lesson is to not buy Star Ocean: The Last Hope, unless you feel safe about a loved one or family member possibly walking into your living room and seeing something like this:

Related Links:

Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum
Looks Are Everything
Turning Japanese: Microsoft’s Latest Ditch Effort to Win the East

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+ DEL.ICIO.US

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Posted Feb 26 2009, 12:00 PM

Filed under: uncanny valley, star ocean, jrpg, bob mackey, square enix, star ocean 4, tri-ace

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About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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