Star Ocean: The Last Hope is not a hugely serious videogame. It strives to be, of course - and is at times successful - but it never reaches the narrative heights of something like BioShock, or contains the kind of scenes prevalent in the Team ICO games, or the majority of Final Fantasy titles. Perhaps it's because the characters' collective hair colour is that of a particularly alien rainbow, or that they all dress in attire that transcends outlandish taste. Certain characters seem to be made of plastic yet live their lives like it's an unending gravy train, and almost every cast member graduated from university with joint honours in over-acting and candy-coating speech. Despite all this, and quite emphatically, you'll come to appreciate Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and understand that it's an extremely competent JRPG.
