61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

(RSS)

The 61FPS Review: Star Ocean The Last Hope

Star Ocean 4 is a tragic creature. It’s not a great game, nor can it even see greatness from where it is now. Instead, it feels like it was dragged, kicking and clawing, away from greatness by wicked beasts that feed only on the worst excesses of Japanese pop storytelling.

So its story is almost unfathomably bad. Here is one Edge Maverick, who goes against what his parents wanted for him by being neither edgy or a maverick. Born on a post-apocalyptic earth, he is but a cog in the government division tasked with finding a new home world for the remainder of humanity. A coincidental calamity sees him promoted to captain of his own ship, with his mission clear: mankind is choking on fallout, so go find a new planet for them. Preferably one without giant man-murdering insects.

He immediately loses the plot. Long before he finds himself embroiled in a conflict for the fate of the universe, Edge is compiling his ragtag team of horrifying cosplay clichés: there’s a winged girl in there, and an embarrassingly clad catgirl, and at least two different varieties of space elf. He takes this merry band of awfully voice-acted annoyances across a series of nearly non-sequitur adventures, none of which have anything to do with colonizing the galaxy. Perhaps because he has confused being the universe’s most incompetent space captain with being a maverick, he messes up nearly all of these missions, which apparently excuses him to spend hours and hours as a mopey drama queen.

Posted Mar 10 2009, 06:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: xbox 360, 61fps review, jrpg, joe keiser, star ocean 4, star ocean: the last hope

The One Thing Games Should Take From Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Perhaps you recall that one cutscene that was posted here a week ago from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It was a beastly thing from the darkest depths of the uncanny valley, writhing grotesquely in vibrant 720p. Well, it’s even worse in English—I have embedded that version after the jump, and if you think that I did that because I hate you that is completely fair.

I’m playing the game for a forthcoming 61FPS Review, and thirty hours in the good news is that so far this wins the battle for the “Worst Cutscene in Star Ocean: The Last Hope Award”. The bad news is that the battle for that award is titanic in scale—this game is packed densely with cutscenes, many of them twenty minutes long., and eventually they all combine into a single Lovecraftian horror of wild gesticulation and ear-wrenching voice acting. The producer of the game recently talked about games surpassing film as a storytelling medium. I hope he was speaking in general terms, because his team sure can’t do it alone.

I’m off topic. “Make sure your cutscenes are consistent in their ability to cause pain” is not the lesson the industry should take from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Instead, it’s the elegant way the game lets you skip them.

Posted Mar 06 2009, 04:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: xbox 360, cutscenes, jrpg, joe keiser, star ocean 4, tentacled horrors from the depths of madness

Star Ocean: The Last Hope Is Creepy as Hell

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.

Posted Feb 26 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments

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

Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum

After literal years of anticipation on the part of geeks across the world, Square-Enix will finally release Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360 on February 24th, 2009. It’s a momentous occasion for the genre. Star Ocean is the first A-list JRPG franchise to make the leap to HD consoles. You can argue that Tales of Vesperia earned the honor first, but Namco’s Tales franchise is more a brand/masthead than a bonafide franchise, one even more diluted than the Final Fantasy heading. I’ve never cared for the Star Ocean series’ battle system – Penny Arcade said it best when they described Star Ocean’s battles as “deciding which character gets molested by lizard men” – and its science-fiction narrative has always been more interesting in concept than in execution. I want to be excited about Star Ocean 4, but not because I feel like I’m missing out on a series that so many other gamers seem to love. I just want to be excited about an HD-JRPG.

JRPGs have been enjoying a renaissance on the DS, not unlike the one they had on the PS1 some twelve years back, but the genre has been woefully underserved on the 360 and PS3.

Posted Jan 14 2009, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments

Filed under: john constantine, little big planet, playstation 3, nintendo ds, xbox 360, final fantasy, lost odyssey, hironobu sakaguchi, infinite undiscovery, tales of vesperia, call of duty 4, persona 4, persona 3, Playstation 1, The last remnant, star ocean 4, blue dragon

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.