Star Ocean: The Last Hope is one of Square Enix and Microsoft's key games at the Tokyo Game Show this year. Microsoft is showcasing the title in its own booth. We finally got our hands on the game to get a feel for the battle mechanics.

The Last Hope is Star Ocean's origin story. Previous games took place in space after World War III destroyed the Earth. This game tells how people developed the technology to leave the planet and live in space. Pesky hostile aliens will impede the player's progress, however. Unfortunately, Square Enix doesn't want to reveal much about the story at this time. Right now they're showing off the basic gameplay mechanics and visuals, which are pretty impressive.

It's an action RPG, but you have to encounter an enemy and enter a battle instance before you do any fighting. Along the way many characters will join you but only four can be in your party at a time. Once in a fight you can switch between each character with the right bumper. You can freely run around the battlefield attacking, jumping, and casting spells. The game almost has a button-mashing feel to it. Some weapons perform differently depending on how far you are from the enemy. The triggers are used for casting spells and performing special attacks, many of which are suitably impressive. If an enemy is off screen, an arrow will point in their direction. You can tell when you are being targeted because a big yellow crosshair will show up on your body.

In our demo there was one environment available to run around and get into fights in. While the character designs and animations are quite impressive, this one area was pretty bland and monotonous. It was hard to tell where we could go because the tiles all looked the same. An area map luckily appears in the upper right corner of the screen indicating your destination.


The level led up to a boss fight with a humanoid dragon chap. A fun little cutscene preceded the action, showing the young girl in our party summoning a red lion to attack the dragon. It didn't do the trick, though, and we ended up fighting him. And pwning him.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is set for an early 2009 release in Japan with a North American launch shortly thereafter. While there is still much to learn about the game it should definitely be on RPG fans' radar

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