Different Region, Different Star Ocean: The Last Hope Interface

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An embargo just lifted for a bunch of Star Ocean: The Last Hope media. I gave it glance and didn’t notice anything special. Pesmerga00 who has been following the game very closely did (thanks for the tip!!). It’s subtle, but it appears Square Enix is erasing anything anime in the English release of Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

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Look at these battle screenshots and focus on the character portraits. The Japanese version (top) has anime faces while the English version (bottom) has CG models.

 

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Even more noticeable are the menu differences. The Japanese version has colorful character silhouettes while the English build has a lot of… blue. The status screen and character icons use the CG models too.

 

English version menus

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Japanese version menus

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sf5 Pesmerga00 also discovered the character portraits accompanying dialogue vanished in the English version. I couldn’t find a good comparison screen in my batch of media, but going by the other changes I wouldn’t be surprised to see those removed too.

 

Why would Square Enix do this? Probably to make Star Ocean: The Last Hope look more sci-fi or something.

 

Images courtesy of Square Enix.


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