Star Ocean: The Last Hope



A fourth game in the Star Ocean series, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, was released for the Xbox 360 in 2009 and got an Updated Rerelease for the PlayStation 3 in 2010. It is a prequel to all three previous games about how Earth first made contact with other worlds.

Set after a nuclear World War III, mankind is looking for a new home and take to the stars. Edge Maverick is an idealistic but impulsive young man who volunteers for the mission- alongside childhood friend Reimi Saionji- and quickly ends up as the captain of his own ship following a terrible disaster. From there, Edge and Reimi explore different worlds to search for not only a new homeworld, but for the direction that mankind will take as it embarks on a new age of universal exploration.

"Yahtzee: "That girl has a really deep voice"."
 * Accidental Pervert - Edge, on at least four separate occasions. Naturally, Reimi never reacts well. There is a PA where he calls her out on it though.
 * Although one of them wasn't completely accidental.
 * Action Girl - Myuria, Reimi, Meracle, Lymle.
 * Not Sarah, though. She's the Staff Chick.
 * Alien Non-Interference Clause: The Underdeveloped Planet Protection Pact was formed during the ending sequence for very good reason due to Edge's well intentioned actions, though he was not punished for them, and was the driving force behind it.
 * All in The Manual - A particularly bad use of this, as the in-game encyclopaedia explains many important facts that aren't even hinted at in the main story, such as the reason why Lymle looks six when her profile says she's fifteen, and.
 * All the Myriad Ways - Though it also carries a heavy subversion:
 * A Nuclear Error: We see in the opening sequence that World War 3 started when an unmanned stealth drone was caught in the discharge of an EMP fired to inconvenience communications. Its nuclear payload inconvenienced a densely populated city (the ultimate in accidental friendly fire). This caused a worldwide thermonuclear war that left the surface of the Earth almost uninhabitable, making all eyes turn to space for a lasting solution.
 * The Archer: Reimi plays this perfectly straight.
 * Aren't You Going to Ravish Me? : When Edge tries to express sympathy to Myuria in one cutscene where she is mourning the loss of her husband, she suggests that if he were a real man he would "stop her tears". This understandably makes Edge a little uncomfortable.
 * Attack Its Weak Point: Many of the bosses battles require this.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Symbology. Nice effects, big explosions, many colors and decent damage. However, without Fast Cast casting takes forever and the high-end spells can't be chain-combo'd which means you don't get bonus damage via the chain-combo damage multiplier.
 * Awesome McCoolname: "Edge Maverick"? Really?
 * Also, "Arumat P. Thanatos". If having the name of the Greek God of Death isn't awesome, I don't know what is.
 * Badass - Arumat fits this trope down to the letter. He is a massive and rather intimidating man while wearing just a vest, wields a energy scythe, and also has an obligatory scar from being a battle-hardened veteran that was part of an elite military group.
 * Crowe should be under this section as well for he to beat the crap out of those Phantoms.
 * BFG: The Blessed Buster support mech.
 * Big Damn Heroes - Arumat and Crowe when the two of them cut through wave after wave of Phantom Soldiers like they were nothing, despite the horrendous boss battle you just went through against eight waves of them.
 * Arumat does it earlier
 * Big No -
 * Beware the Nice Ones:.
 * Bishonen

""You will be bound in eternal silence!"."
 * Black Mage: Lymle and Myuria function as this, although they both have basic healing abilities.
 * Myuria May count more as a Red Mage since she has more healing spells than Lymle but still less than Sarah, who is the resident White Mage.
 * Blind Without'Em: Sarah. This is a running gag and used to play up her ditziness.
 * Bonus Dungeon: The Cave of the Seven Stars and the Wandering Dungeon.
 * Boss Rush: You fight all the Grigori again before fighting  in his One-Winged Angel form. They can be avoided if one is careful though.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Welch is absolutely fucking insane.
 * Calling Your Attacks: It's no surprise that everyone in the game is an offender, given what this game is like. You can even unlock additional voice clips via battle trophies, so the characters will start saying different things when they use skills/symbology.

"Myuria: Is she doing that on purpose?
 * Catgirl: Meracle.
 * Chainsaw Good: The Godslayer support mech is a giant chainsaw that attaches itself to Bacchus's arm Ash Williams-style.
 * Chekhov's Gun - Near the beginning,  Also.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Sarah. Not exactly the greatest judge of character.

Bacchus: Sometimes I find myself truly hoping that is the case."

"COMET IMPACT! SEE YAAAH! * Inflicts 99999 damage on the enemy*"
 * Continuity Nod: The Last Hope serves as a prequel to the entire Star Ocean universe. About 336/36 years before Star Ocean 1.
 * The entire planet of Roak is the home of the main characters from Star Ocean 1. Not to mention that the normal battles while exploring the planet have a rather nice remix of the battle theme from the first game as the battle BGM.
 * The story even lampshades the fact that a local cult is trying to summon a being of Ultimate Evil. Your party is told that you will only prevent his summoning, but he will inevitably be unleashed, and only then will be destroyed
 * Even the encyclopedia points out this fact.
 * Furthermore,
 * Stephen J. Kenny being the first human to travel faster than light  does neatly explain how Ronyx and Claude never, ever get punished for breaking the laws they mention breaking.
 * Sarah Jerand has the same surname as two characters from the first game. Her dictionary entry makes a point of mentioning that she has two younger brothers.
 * EN II has remixed themes from the second game, the physical similarities between the Morphus and the Nedians, and the presence of the four jewels in EN II's sactuary. The dictionary entry states that EN II was created after the Morphus destroyed their homeworld in a civil war 3.7 billion years ago, and we already know that Nall's description of Energy Nede's history was not accurate.
 * Creepy Child: Lymle occasionally comes off as this. Because of her Creepy Monotone and general lack of emotions, she falls into the Uncanny Valley for some.
 * Cursed with Awesome: The Seeds of Hope.
 * Cute Bruiser: Meracle.

"Reimi: "Only true friends would fight like that.""
 * Cute Little Fangs: Meracle, again.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Arumat. Although Good Is Not Nice.
 * Disposable Woman.
 * Damsel in Distress: Reimi and Sarah in The Last Hope..
 * Doomed Homeworld
 * Of course, in previous conversations, it's mentioned that Eldar is running out of time, as it's sun is dying.
 * Also,  Also, the Earth might qualify as one since it being "doomed" is the reason Earth gets into space exploration in the first place.
 * The Ditz: Sarah. Oh so very very much.
 * Encyclopedia Exposita
 * Evil Sounds Deep:.
 * Experience Booster: Blue bonus board tiles boost your gained experience by 10% per tile.
 * Face Heel Turn:
 * Fat Bastard: Director Shimada in The Last Hope, the only overweight character in the game, is also a total bastard and Corrupt Corporate Executive, albeit working for the military.
 * First Contact
 * Fluffy Tamer: Lymle.
 * Fragile Speedster: Meracle.
 * Guns Are Worthless: At the very beginning of the game, when the alien wildlife appears, the SRF's railguns are promptly proven completely useless thanks to the electromagnetic energy shields which somehow wildlife on this planet and presumably every other planet evolved with. This is actually par for course with Star Ocean, and the premise of the entire game series revolves around sci-fi heroes in a fantasy-esque setting.
 * Gainaxing: Myuria. Reimi has Jiggle Physics as well, but they're only noticeable if you squint at the right time.
 * Gatling Good: The Justice Saviour support mech.
 * Genki Girl: Meracle.
 * Glass Cannon: The best way to do any notable damage, especially post-game is to turn a character(s) into one of these. A maxed out Berserk will double the character's attack but cut their defense in half. Add in the Spriggan monster jewel and you can double their attack again at the cost of cutting your max hp in half.
 * Myuria and Lymle.
 * Global Currency Exception: The colosseum, which requires the player to spend "Fight Tokens".
 * Hello, Insert Name Here: You can change the first name of your party members, and the dialogue subtitles follow suit. But the dialogue audio doesn't.
 * Heroic BSOD: Edge has one
 * Hero of Another Story: Crowe for the most part.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords - Edge plays this straight, despite the majority of the SRF using energy rifles. This is explained in the encyclopaedia:.
 * This is also part of his backstory: Edge's father was killed by a bioweapon, and he was unable to prevent it in spite of having a gun due to poor aim. However, when he used a knife to defend himself from the creature, he was able to fight it off.
 * The first creatures encountered in the game possess natural defenses against the weapons used by most of the SRF, as they are able to detect the electromagnetic fields (and possibly generate such fields as well) generated by the rail guns used by the SRF, and thus are able to evade and/or deflect the projectiles. However, since swords and other "low-tech" weapons don't rely on such things, they are much more effective.
 * I Believe I Can Fly: Inverted with Sarah. She's the only one of her species who can't fly.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal:, stemming from a childhood incident where.
 * Idiot Ball: What's that, psychotic military scientist I just met? If I give you my ship's fuel source that we need to go home, you'll save the world, and not trick us and blow it up with a Wave Motion Gun? You've got a deal!
 * Idiot Hair: Sarah.
 * Inevitable Tournament: On Roak.
 * Interface Spoiler: If you go around collecting all the spaceship data you can, you'll notice a couple odd gaps early on.
 * Jiggle Physics: Presumably present for all the women, but only slightly noticable on Reimi and very obvious on Myuria.
 * Jerkass: Shimada.
 * Karmic Death:.
 * Kill Sat: The Irradiation skill.
 * Large Ham: Edge, due to his inconsistent voice acting..
 * Lethal Joke Item: The Tri-Emblum. At first glance, it's like the Tri-Emblem, the best unmodified accessory in the game... except with 1/100 of the stats and none of the cool factors. However, it has a particular hidden stat whose worth doesn't become apparent until the post-game: A Synth limit of 8. This allows you to synthesize up to 8 other items onto it to beef up its power. The regular Tri-Emblem has a limit of only 3, but transfers 100% of its stats when synthing. If you synth some Tri-Emblems together, you can get one awesome one with 4x the stats. Or, you could synth 8 of them to a Tri-Emblum, getting an accessory with 8x the stats of a regular Tri-Emblem, three of the four awesome factors found on the Tri-Emblem, and best of all, able to be duplicated for the dirt cheap price of 1 Magical Clay, allowing you to outfit your whole party with them. What's not to love?
 * Magic Knight: Edge, Faize, Arumat and Myuria in certain situations.
 * Male Gaze: The post-battle camera seems to really love Reimi's butt, and long pans all the way up Myuria.
 * Particularly funny if followed by one of Edge's level-up lines: "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"
 * Marathon Boss: The final boss has around 2 million HP on Galaxy (Normal) difficulty.
 * That is nothing compared to the bonus bosses. Gabriel Celeste, the first one, has about five million on Galaxy - in his weakest form. In his strongest one, he has three times that amount. And then? We have the Ethereal Queen, who has that amount of HP in her weakest form. In her strongest form, she has yet again three times that! And let's not get started on the higher difficulties. On Chaos, she has 64 MILLION HP in her strongest form!
 * Meaningful Name: Arumat. His last name is "Thanatos", the Greek God of Death. Goes well with his thinking of himself as the incarnation of Death himself.
 * Meganekko: Sarah.
 * Welch too, and she is aware of it.
 * Mighty Glacier: Bacchus.
 * More Dakka: When things get ugly and rockets, kill sats, laser cannons, chainsaws and elektro shocks are just not enough to get the job done, Bacchus whips out his two friends Justice and Saviour and goes wild.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: The world leaders in the cinematic opening when they witness the untold destruction of nuclear war. Edge when.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Myuria is quite the busty lady. She even has Jiggle Physics.
 * The camera specifically pans and rotates around her from the ground up, focusing on her butt and breasts before reaching her face during her victory poses.
 * Reimi to a lesser extent. Her butt is huge, and shoved into the camera constantly. Those thigh-highs don't help.
 * Multi Mook Melee: The fight against the Phantom Soldiers on Aeos consists of one normal battle followed by seven ambushes.
 * New Game+: After you beat the final boss, you can reload with a "clear" save file.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
 * Non-Indicative Name: Bacchus. Named after the Roman god of getting drunk and partying, this Bacchus is the exact opposite.
 * Not What It Looks Like: Edge just can't get a break.
 * Never Live It Down: Because the first time, it was what it looked like.
 * Older Than They Look: Lymle is 15, but physically and mentally stuck at the age of six after an inadvertent trip to hell.
 * Only Mostly Dead: Depending on how you interpret his ending,.
 * Only Sane Man: Believe it or not, Edge. Not only does he frequently deadpan the insanity of his other party members (and Welch) but.
 * Optional Party Member:
 * Peek-a-Bangs: Arumat.
 * Plot Hole: Okay, so the Earth has become uninhabitable due to all of the nuclear fallout and polluted skies. Yet, at the end of the game, the earth is suddenly cleansed with absolutely no mention of what fixed it!
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: 's eyes turn red whenever he's trying (and failing) to suppress emotion.
 * Religion of Evil: The church of Sydonai.
 * Rock Beats Laser: Only one character uses futuristic weaponry in battle. The rest use swords, bows, spears, and various other weapons.
 * Roswell That Ends Well: The timing and the location of her recruitment heavily imply that Meracle was the Roswell alien.
 * Running Gag: For one (innocent) reason or another, Edge always ends up in the female shower room while Reimi is taking a shower. Or he's caught with one of the other female characters in an awkward position.
 * Satan: Or rather, Satanail.
 * Scarf of Asskicking: Faize gets one on Roak from a shepherd girl he is smitten with..
 * Sentai: The Mighty Multi-Colored Bald Eagle Rangers.
 * She's All Grown Up:, turning   in her ending. And a hot one at that.
 * Shout-Out: This game references previous games in the series with music: basically the entire planet of Roak has remixed themes from Star Ocean I, for instance.
 * En II has remixed themes from Star Ocean II.
 * Faize's basic combat stance is taken from Jayle, of Valkyrie Profile.
 * At one point on Lemuris, the party has to go to a place called the Rinoa Mountains.
 * The default name for your tournament team is Ocean's Eight.
 * There are teams in there called The World Ends With Two and Darkstalkers.
 * There's an attack called "Rolling Stone"?
 * Sinister Scythe: Arumat uses a gigantic scythe in battle. In fact, one of the first special attacks he comes with actually increases the size of his scythe.
 * Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: The game is all over the place, really. It mostly takes itself seriously, but in other places, it reverts completely. Especially in the bonus dungeons. Between meeting the Mighty Multi-Coloured Bald Eagle Rangers (who ask Reimi to become the pink Eagle Ranger), greeting the Armaros Manifest II with "Trick or Treat!" (and the thing actually responding in kind) and meeting Santa of all people to sell you some of the game's most powerful items at pretty absurdly high prices.
 * Something Only They Would Say: Or rather, something only they would wear..
 * The Spock: Bacchus.
 * Stepford Smiler: . The in-game encyclopedia reveals that his emotional suppression is a side-effect from genetic modification..
 * Stripperiffic: Myuria, and how!
 * Meracle. Also a mildly disturbing case, as she doesn't look much older than 12 or 13, even if her profile says she's 16.
 * Survivor Guilt: 's Dark and Troubled Past stems from this.
 * Arumat also suffers this.
 * Sword Beam: Edge's Aura Spark skill.
 * Talking to Herself: Any interaction between Reimi and Welch.
 * That Man Is Dead:  says this to   after   tries to.
 * Tsundere: Despite showing very little emotion, Lymle is this to Faize. Although she outwardly hates him and they argue often, they definitely share a connection. She cares very much about his wellbeing,.
 * Talking to Herself: Any interaction between Reimi and Welch.
 * That Man Is Dead:  says this to   after   tries to.
 * Tsundere: Despite showing very little emotion, Lymle is this to Faize. Although she outwardly hates him and they argue often, they definitely share a connection. She cares very much about his wellbeing,.


 * Also, Reimi herself. To Edge of all people.
 * Twenty Bear Asses: Almost all of the side quests are of this variety.
 * Verbal Tic: Lymle, 'Kay? And don't forget Meracle meow!
 * Victorious Childhood Friend:.
 * Wave Motion Gun:
 * Weapon of Choice: Each character has one.
 * Edge uses swords.
 * Reimi uses a bow.
 * Lymle, Sarah and Myuria use staves.
 * Faize uses a rapier.
 * Meracle uses claws.
 * Bacchus uses an Arm Cannon.
 * Arumat uses a scythe.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * There was also Millia Bachtein, who truly had the best interests of Earth in mind.
 * Wings Do Nothing: The winged White Mage character Sarah has huge wings but is described both by the game and in her own words as being incapable of flight.
 * Winged Humanoid: The Featherfolk race.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Arumat.
 * Yes Men: Deputy Director Shimada's assistants play this trope completely straight.
 * You Killed My Father - Myuria towards Crowe..
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Reimi and Meracle wear thigh highs, although neither is wearing a skirt per se, just clothing that sort of resembles one from certain angles.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Reimi and Meracle wear thigh highs, although neither is wearing a skirt per se, just clothing that sort of resembles one from certain angles.