Monsters are visible on the world map, and Edge can sprit in order to reach them from the back, thus initiating a pre-emptive strike. This way, monsters will take time to react and usually they are long dead before they even know it. However, they can also surprise you and give you a fair run for your money if they attack from behind.

The Battle Exalted Action Type (BEAT) allows you to choose the specific fighting style for each character. There are three types of BEAT: S, N and B.

BEAT S is an offensive attacking style, based mostly on blindspot attacks. Executing a special key combination at the required time will cause your character to slow time and circle around its enemy. He will deliver a critical backstabbing blow for increased damage.

BEAT B is a defensive style that is well suited for casters and ranged attackers for example. Special abilities are unlocked as they take damage via the Rush system. They also sustain less damage from attacks.

BEAT N is the regular combat mode, and doesn't give any particular weaknesses to a character, but no attack or defense bonuses either.

As you take damage or hold B to concentrate, a Rush bar fills. Once full, you are able to unleash your character's full fury in a series of special attacks.

When finishing an encounter, several colored jewels will be added to your right bar. These aren't random, but depend on what action you took during combat. For example, cleaving and killing more enemies at once will result in a golden jewel, increasing gold received from monsters by 10% on the next fights. In a similar fashion, more experience can be gained, or mana and hit points can be regenerated by a percentage after each fight. There are quite a few jewels that are obtainable through various means, so you will have to experiment and see what they are and what is best for you at a certain point in the game.

Unfortunately, if you get critically hit at a moment you risk losing some or even all of the jewels. So this will keep you on your toes even when fighting relatively easy enemies.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope prides itself, just like its predecessor, with a complex and advanced weapon crafting system where you will create not only different weapons depending on what materials you add to them, but weapon bonuses will also be related to the crafter's personality and skill. Yes, there is a crafting skill, amongst many others, that can be increased in order to be able of obtaining the greatest weapons known to man.

Characters level up individually, and gain stats automatically: hit points, mana points, attack, defense, etc. They also gain skill points, which can be spent by you to improve various skills or spells. Some skill points are collective, and you have to choose which character is worthy to spend them on, and some are bound to each character, to insure that no one falls behind and is too weak...

Save and load often, or better yet as soon as you see a save point, because not only they are rare, but something might surprise you throughout your adventures. Same goes for weapon crafting, because you have a chance of failing.

Once you've learned a bit how to play, you are granted access to a ship and are able to explore several planets. The item creation skill can also be used to build various things that will help you customize the interior of your ship.