Star Ocean: The Last Hope General Strategies
| Party Building |
| Star Ocean's party system has a key difference from most other RPGs: Inactive characters can be swapped into battle at any time, even after all the active characters have fallen. Unfortunately, inactive and fallen characters do not gain experience points from battle, so rotating and leveling characters requires some real effort.
In more challenging boss battles, having a solid second string provides a real advantage, as this change is always instant and sometimes easier than having to revive fallen allies. Because of this, you'll want to rotate characters in general. However, the extent to which it's practical to level up every single character is debatable. Most players will probably want to make a conscious decision to abandon certain characters, and these decisions should be strategic. For example, Edge, Meracle, and Arumat are all characters that favor a player control over AI, and as such they are weak support characters. Maintaining all three is a wasted effort. Others may choose to abandon Lymle whose offensive skills are eclipsed by Myuria and whose healing skills are weaker than Sarah. The decision is ultimately yours. The game can be beaten comfortably with only four characters at an adequate level, and each extra character over that should be considered a helpful bonus, not a requirement. |
| Character Building |
| Each character has certain natural strengths that can be enhanced and weakness that need to be compensated for, and keeping this in mind is one of the keys to succeeding in battle. The Characters section in this guide has more detailed tips on successful ways to use and build each character, but there's some individual preference, and you should familiarize yourself with the different ways you can enhance your characters.
Skill Books are means of adding a new ability to a character. Some of these are passive skills that will work on the map and are irrelevant to battle (for example, the Treasure Sense skill, which allows you to see chests on the map). Others have implications in combat, and these need to be equipped in order to function. Most of these skills are status boosts that will increase thinks like ATK, INT, or HP, but others may have more specialized effects. You can only have two of these skills per character, so choosing them wisely is important. They can, however, be swapped in and out between battles, so don't loose too much sleep over it. Once a skill is learned, it can be leveled up using SP. SP is gained through building levels, and there's also a pool of shared Party SP that can be allocated to any character. This is earned through finding treasure and completing quests. Different skills benefit more or less from leveling up. The HP Boost and ATK Boost skills for example offer truly massive incentives to max out, while others may only see a 1% increase from one level to the next. |
| Battle |
| One of the signature elements of the Star Ocean series is it's real-time action-based combat system. If you're familiar with Namco's Tales series, this is very similar, but it's fully 3D and a bit more hands-on with regard to party management. In this latest game the boss battles are longer and more difficult than in the past, so learning to fight well is important. The battle simulator on the Calnus allows you to practice your skills in a controlled environment, and we recommend this even for those who have experience with the series.
The two biggest additions to this latest game in the series are Blindsides and Rush Mode. By holding the jump button, to face the enemy you're targeting, you can then dodge as your foe attacks to slip around them and attack. Different characters are more adept at this than others. Edge, for example, takes a very wide arc around his opponents which leaves him vulnerable to attacks, and also requires a good deal of space to maneuver. No strategy is universal. Throughout the course of the game, you're going to find enemies like Golems and Rock Hermits that require constant use of blindsides, while others (like Phantom Soldiers) that are very difficult to even get close enough to blindside. A balanced, flexible team is a must, and learning to recognize which strategies work against which enemies will serve you far better than button mashing. |
| Quests |
| In addition to the game's required objectives, many people you meet will ask for your help. Quests are wholly optional, but many provide useful and unique items, and all of them grand EXP and SP. If you plan to spend some time leveling up or hunting for gear, taking on quests is a great way to make the process more interesting.
Sometimes you'll be given quests before you can complete them, or at inopportune times, and it's easy to lose track. Thankfully, you have a Quest Log that will show your open objectives. Those with an exclamation mark by them are quests that have been completed, but are still open because you have not returned to the quest-giver. You may at times find yourself completing quests accidentally, so it's good to check the log from time to time. Apart from the handful of missions given on Aeos early in the game, quests do not expire, and you will always be able to return to them down the line. Because of this, you should not hesitate to talk to everyone in town and open as many quests as possible. If you only complete a handful of them, then so be it. There is no penalty for taking on quests and leaving them uncompleted. |
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