Ys Seven Limited Edition
- Ys Seven Limited Collector’s Edition includes: Oversized 12.5″ by 34″ Cloth Map highlighting the world of the Ys series, Game soundtrack CD featuring more than 20 songs and 60-page art book showcasing artwork from the Ys series
- Epic Story Spanning Over 30 Hours of gameplay
- Real-Time Battles on the Field Map
- Limited Edition Includes “The Art of Ys” art book, oversize cloth map, and Ys SEVEN musical soundtrack CD!
- Built from the ground up for the PSP, Ys SEVEN takes full advantage of the hardware with beautiful 3D graphics presented in a widescreen format, with minimal load times
The kingdom of Altago is rebuilding their kingdom around a newfound peace after years of war against the merciless armies of Romn. The classic adventuresome duo, Adol and Dogi, arrive in the harbor of Altago City, and quickly find themselves in a scuffle with the Dragon Knights, the kingdom’s military police body, when attempting to save a local girl from harassment by one of their commanding officers. Upset by the interruption and subsequent humiliation, the commander arrests Adol and Dogi, c
Rating: 
(out of 2 reviews)
List Price: $ 49.99
Price: $ 40.79
Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
- Combines sci-fi and fantasy elements, spanning multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the STAR OCEAN universe
- Item creation and Private Actions, two hallmarks of the STAR OCEAN franchise, also make their return, allowing for players to enjoy upgraded versions of both systems
- Exhilarating combat expands upon the franchise’s dynamic real-time battle system, now featuring amazing graphics through Blu-ray Disc
- Up to four characters can take part in battles simultaneously and party members can be switched mid-battle
- New Blindside battle system fuses evasion and offense, enabling players to confuse and ambush enemies by quickly moving out of their line of sight when targeted
The year is A.D. 2087. In the aftermath of World War III, Earth has been ravaged and the population decimated by a deteriorating environment. The countries that survived have joined together to form the Greater Unified Nations and turned their eyes skyward…to space. Edge Maverick and his childhood friend Reimi Saionji are chosen as pioneer members of the Space Reconnaissance Force, which was created to seek out new worlds beyond the stars. Their ship, the Calnus, takes its place on the lun
Rating: 
(out of 30 reviews)
List Price: $ 59.99
Price: $ 40.97
Trackbacks
- Google AdSense Secrets: 4th Edition …
- Grape Vine - Caring for a Grape Vine: Seven Dos and Don'ts …
- Raised Bed Vegetable Garden - Seven Good Reasons For Raised Bed Gardening …
- Vegetable Garden Plans - Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn: First Edition …
- Raised Vegetable Garden - Seven Good Reasons For Raised Bed Gardening …
Review by Jon Lechner for Ys Seven Limited Edition
Rating:
As an over twenty-year veteran of the Ys series, I have to say that this game is awesome!
First the packaging: I bought the limited edition which comes in a rather large box with the UMD game case, Ys book, CD, and the cloth map. I love the book, all of the pictures are full-color, some I have seen before, but many I have not. There are no words, just pictures. The cloth map is really cool too, suitable for framing if I could find a frame big enough. My only complaint is the with the CD. The content is the music from the game, which is great. The cover art, however, is where they could have done a much better job with it in my opinion. It comes in a standard jewel case, the artwork on the front and on the CD itself is rather childish, and is also found in the book. The insert opens up into a list of the songs, 27 in all, and a short poem. There is no rear art at all. For a limited edition set such as this, they could have made it look a lot better with more dynamic art.
On to the game: While I have only played it for about four hours, so far I love it. The music is simply phenomenal, like the other games in the series. The load times are nothing like what they were in the PSP version of Napishtim. This game was made exclusively for the PSP, so load times are nice and fast. The story fits in with all of the other games in the series, if you have played any of the others, then you know what I’m talking about. The battle system is totally different, nothing at all like what you would find in Felghana or Napishtim. You start off with Adol and Dogi, and others join along the way. This is the first time in the series that you ever travel as a party, in all of the other games it is just Adol traveling around. All characters have very different battle styles. Adol uses the traditional sword and shield, and Dogi uses gauntlets. You also have to shift between them quite often (which is accomplished by pressing the circle) because there are some monsters that Adol can’t hurt but Dogi can, and vice-versa. There is also a special power associated with each weapon which is used by pressing the R, and whichever other button you assign the power to. It’s kind of like how the magic works in God of War: Chains of Olympus. Other features include being able to craft items with materials found along the way, such as iron ore, monster skins, or bones. I haven’t used this at all yet, so I can’t really comment on it. Also, weapons and items are bought in town, or found along the way, just like in the other games.
As I originally stated, this game is awesome, well worth the money. I’m not prepared to call in the best in the series yet (that honor is reserved for Felghana), but that opinion may change once I finish it. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re sure to love it. If you’re a fan of action RPG’s in general, then you’ll probably love it as well.
Review by Steven Bonner for Ys Seven Limited Edition
Rating:
Ys Seven (Pronounced Ease Seven), is a great exclusive action RPG on the PSP. It’s full of great graphics, gameplay, music, story, and everything else. This Premium Edition contains some awesome extras, just take a look at the picture on here. Huge cloth map, soundtrack with it’s own CD case and cover, and a hard cover art book. This is XSeed, and these are known to sell out fast. Pick this up while you still can. Unlike the Lunar Premium Edition, I believe this one will be out of print and prices will be jacked up very soon. Jump on it while you still can. It’s a great time for everyone who plays it.
Review by W3ap0n-X for Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Rating:
So this game actually only deserves four stars…but since I know some other moron will post the obligatory “Dis here game iz alredy on teh three-six-zeeero” and give the game a low score I bumped it up to five stars. That should cancel out exactly one dipstick.
On to the game!
Beautiful game. COMES WITH A FREE $(*@)(%! MOVIE!! Holy ‘effing mother of Gargonzola the game takes thirty friggen minutes to get going. I know it’s supposed to be an epic tale of survival and exploration but I MADE A SANDWICH in the time it took for the game to start. Sure, people joke and say, “…man, I could have gotten up and made a sandwich in that length of time.” Yeah, well, not only did I MAKE the sandwich, I ate the damn thing too. Beautiful movie…but when it came time to move my guy around I looked at the controller with slight distrust. “Hmmm…” Lo and behold the damn game was ready for me to play it! Battle tutorial! AWESOME! Ohh…nice and then I can explore the ship and then…AW F$$%! ANOTHER damn cutscene.
When we FINALLY have control for REAL, the camera is fluid, the controls are accurate (except when I “sprint”. I don’t know who stuck a N0S bottle up the main character’s butt to make him zip forward like that but it’s slightly retarded. At least make the damn sprint last longer. I have to keep having my guy make grunting noises like he’s plowing the remnants of Thanksgiving dinner through his colon. *sigh*
Combat is very nifty. Again, nothing groundbreaking but this is an RPG for frick’s sake, what did you expect? There’s a little battle bonus board that you can add to by meeting special conditions in battle. A bonus battle feature where you can sneak around behind the enemy…the name of which escapes me at the moment. DIFFICULTY SETTINGS!!! Very very cool. It’s one thing to have a difficult RPG…it’s another to have to get your guys to level 27 before you can fight the first boss. The Japanese are all sadistic, I think. You get used to whacking all this little stuff and THEN comes captain octopus that absolutely spanks your monkey until bananas come out of your ears. So frustrating…and this game avoids those frustrations with an easy button.
The voices…ugh. The obligatory cute asian-looking girl with perky…er…attitudes and tight pants is entertaining for the first five minutes. Then you want to go and grab that stick with a hand on it from the concorde grape-jelly character who runs the item making machine and strangle her with it. The main character dude says the same…damn…thing…every…friggen…battle. You can switch them over to the Japanese voices and laugh at them for awhile…but then it starts to feel like you’re in an airport and you’ve gotta switch back.
Menu can be changed from modern to classic. Modern being what I have heard was available on the 360 and classic being a bright anime/cartooney style. I prefer the anime style personally.
In the end, if you didn’t try this on the 360 then I say give it a go. I LOVE RPGs and this one has already provided me with hours of pleasure. Seriously, don’t be afraid to buy the game. It’s pretty damn good.
Review by Kent Albert for Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Rating:
I had never played the original Star Ocean game so I cannot judge based on that issue. However being an Old Guy (53) my desires are different than the younger generation. This is pretty good actually. I like games that make me want to move forward. Find out what is around the next corner. Hot babes maybe, who knows. I rated this a 4 for being fun and 4 overall. I like the interface, (buttons). and the fact it lets you pause in the middle of being destroyed to change your tactics at certain parts of the battle where I DIE!! because some enormous monster destroyed my party and had a good lunch. I like the mapping system to a certain degree. It has repetitive ending battle cut scenes however with these it lets you know how you did during the battle, gives me some numbers. There are lots of fun little things to do on the ship you fly between planets with. Sleep, make meals, etc. (Other than that folks if you like RPG’s I don’t think you will be disappointed at all. I recommend you buy the strategy guide. STAR OCEAN THE LAST HOPE: INTERNATIONAL Signature Series Strategy Guide (Bradygames Signature Series Guides) Your going to need it to help you plot and plan your strategy throughout the game. For me anyhow the game is worth buying new.
Review by M. A Jenkins for Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Rating:
…I’m forced to average the two. I commiserate with another reviewer about the “This was on the X-Box, so it’s worse here by definition!” reviews, but I can’t co-sign on grade inflation.
And honestly, while this game has a lot going for it, it’s flaws can be severe. The average player probably wouldn’t notice (i.e. the one that plays the game one time through), but I would guess that most people buying this game are hardcore (and the developers believe the same – look at all of the postgame extras, and the ridiculous PSN trophies associated to the game).
So anyway:
The Good:
- I really like the battle system in this game. There is one major flaw (targetting), but all in all, I’ve enjoyed fighting (which is good for a game of this length). The “blindside” and “rush combo” systems are magnificent, IMHO. The characters clearly have different personalities on the battle field (including the fighters – Faize’s rapier combos act much different than Edge’s, e.g.).
- The story. While the cutscenes are a major pain (they are too long, and poorly written), I’m a sucker for a space exploration story. No, this isn’t “Mass Effect 2,” but I think the plot synthesizes much of what is good about various Japanese sci-fi animes (ridiculous science, absurd character interactions, a universe-threatening enemy, etc.)
- The extras. Tri-Ace has ALWAYS given the player more for completing a game, and this is no different. A huge battle arena, two long and rewarding post-game dungeons, billions of battle trophies to test your skills and patience (OK – there are only 900, but it will feel like billions by the end). SO:TLH delivers. However, there is one major flaw here, as I will state below.
The Bad:
-Battle targeting is atrocious. The computer NEVER fixes on the proper target; your character will often run the length of the battlefield to attack another enemy, instead of the one in front of him. In order to change targeting, you have to use the start button (who in the world thought of that?)…but this is a pain in the heat of battle against an enemy such as, say, Kokubei (who has about 10 other small enemies constantly circling her). Ugh.
- Where are the save points? It takes FOREVER to get to one! I’ve heard that autosaving doesn’t work in JRPGs (with citations of other 360 RPGs as evidence). I don’t buy it. There HAS to be something better, and if we ARE fixing ourselves to this archaic system, at LEAST make it reasonable. At time, you will find yourself going an hour or more between save points in dungeons. At the end of the game, adding together the cutscene time, the credit time, and the battles, it took over 2 hours before I could save my game! That’s ridiculous.
Also, when you finally do save, the game asks you, “Do you want to keep saving?” The default answer is “YES” the first time this question is asked. What the heck? I guess even the game realizes that saving is a luxury that you never want to end.
- While battle trophies carry over to different playthroughs, battle trophy progress does not. What are you thinking, Tri-Ace? So, if I kill 29,999 enemies with Edge in one playthrough, and don’t get the trophy, I STILL have to kill 30000 in the next playthrough. All I can say is, if you care about these things, keep your old save files intact.
- The cutscenes. They are WAAAAAY too long. Now, I’m not a fan of cutscenes in general, but when the writing is as bad as it is for these, it’s particularly atrocious. In fact, I would suggest just skipping them entirely (the game is nice enough to provide you a synopsis of any scene you skip, and the synopsis is both short AND well-written).
The unforgivable:
- Missable trophies. OK – I can accept that some games should have PSN trophies that require work. But this is ridiculous. For example, there is one trophy for completing all the quests in the game (and there are hundreds, plural, by the way). The catch? Near the beginning of the game, some quests simply…disappear. Forever. There is nothing telling you that this might happen, but it can. Later on, other quests disappear. Forever. So, what do you do? YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE ENTIRE GAME AGAIN. Clearly, this is implemented solely to sell strategy guides. There are other egregious examples (what, I can’t make every item in the game because one of my party members left permanently?), but you get the point. Everything about the trophies is meant to anger you. I kid thee not.
Anyway, there you have it. If you are going to play through once, I would rate this from 4 to 5 stars. It’s pretty fun. But if you are like so many others that requires that platinum trophy, expect lots and lots of frustration. Happy gaming!
Review by Edwin Ng for Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Rating:
Star Ocean has been a long running franchise that many RPG fans appreciate; this being said how is the game overall?
-Xbox360 vs. PS3-
Notable differences on the PS3 version:
+ Do not need to disc swap, since everything is on one disc.
+ Includes Japanese vocals as an option.
+ Able to switch between menu layout Classic (Original JP Menus with the Animated dialog boxes) and the CG (NA/EU version of the menu, which was all done in CG, but lost the Anime feel and the portrait on dialog boxes).
+ Includes additional characters.
-I never played Star Ocean how does this fare with the storyline?-
Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka Star Ocean 4) Has very minor relevance within the other three Star Ocean games, each game are not direct sequels so each game is independent of each other and you will not be missing anything at all if you haven’t played the previous ones.
-How does the battle fare?-
Just like all other Star Ocean, you control the leader of the party and able to set the other 3 on auto while having the ability to switch between each character.
-Difficulty and depth of the game?-
The game itself can be challenging, since some of the bosses are rather difficult, I believe this is a good thing just because a lot of RPGs these day are just dumb downed. The depth of the game is amazing, also unlike other RPGs there are tons of character interactions and details required to achieve specific endings for the game. Yes this RPG requires you to grind a bit for levels and skills, but people tend to complain about this aspect of the game; honestly I think RPG gamers have been spoiled over the years. Back in the days when players spent hours and hours unlocking secret weapons of leveling for boss fights since they were too hard, I find that enjoyable instead speed running through the game not requiring to grind or skills. So if you like a challenging RPG, this would be a good bet (Nothing as challenging as Demon Souls of course).
-Length of game?-
If you try to accomplish all the side quests and not speed through the game. The game itself can easily be 80+ hours long.
-Graphics-
The game is done very well with nice visual background.
-Should I get this or White Knight Chronicles?-
Both game plays completely different, WKC would have a bigger replay value since majority of the game is online based versus SO is strictly offline. Both games are JRPG based, but some would argue that WKC does not have a great storyline and big character roster list, so if you are looking for a decent character roster and a well developed storyline I would go for SO.
-Conclusion-
Overall I would say that SO4 is a great game, just like the other SO games in the series. If you enjoy playing the other SO in the series I am sure you will enjoy this. Unfortunately PS3 does not have big list of RPG titles, but if you enjoy RPGs then this would be the game to buy.
Review by Edeyie for Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Rating:
Just got the game and am already loving it!!!! The anime and 3d concept is a great visual joy. The gameplay is fun…..difficult at times when switching between party members but very good overall! I’m 20+ hours in an voice acting isn’t too bad although I did start the game with japanese voice overs but know am using the English ones. I’ll update once I fully complete the game! Have a great day!!!