These Video Game Checkpoints SUCK!

So, when it comes to Star Ocen: The Last Hope, I often feel that there's a great game that is buried in so much needless blubber that it's got its Doctor on speed-dial. For example, the combat system is incredibly fun, and at the time it was one of the more hands-on approaches to battling that recognized the oft-dry nature of its peers.

However while the battles may have been fun, even they were pushed to the limit of enjoyment thanks to the games absolutely !*$% checkpointing system, if you can even call it that because in many dungeons there wasn't any! To better explain we need to take a look at the incredulous way that The Last Hope handles it's narrative and pacing, whose ebbs and flows only ended up making Star Ocean look like it'd pissed itself. Forty-five-minute cutscenes after short bursts of action, or boss battles that dropped without warning or preparation are totally commonplace, as was having the next plot point explained to you about three or four times in succession in increasingly more simple terms like you were a !*$% moron.

As I said, it's a good game just wrapped in absolute thick ham and a lack of checkpoints.

I say this because some absolute berk over at Square Enix thought it would be a great idea to make some dungeons nearly two hours long and not put a single checkpoint in them. That's right you get one at the start and one, maybe, MAYBE, before the boss.