Should I Get Star Ocean?

So I played it just a little on the PS3 and the only notable thing I didn like was how simple the battles where (I was mashing X and texting) and you can't place it on hard until you beat the game. And the characters, with the exception of edge, I was almost indifferent to (I only got up to the part where you're trying to get a cure for the people plagued with that rock virus). So if I haven't warmed up to it yet, should I drop it or give it more time? It tooke the part at Halure and Ehmead hill in Tales Of Vesperia, then I couldn't get my hands off it. I also read some where that the 360 version was "unfinished". Any big differences between the two? Although I know the 360 version doesn't have the anime portraits

The game is alright. The only issue I really take with it is the fact the game feels very "samey" in comparison to Till the End of Time. As you progress through the game, you start too see more and more similarities to the point that it is obnoxious.

Other than that I had a lot to nitpick: crappy camera controls, overused character archtypes, bland soundtrack, etc. I still think the overall experience was solid as an entry into the Star Ocean franchise, but might have been the weakest of the main series as well. I usually am hesitant to recommend it to anyone who isn't already a fan of the franchise, or at the very least a diehard fan of the JRPG genre.

The gameplay is rather monotonous and simplistic as a button masher, but whether we choose to admit it or not, all action JRPGs suffer from the exact same problem. It is just something you either have to choose to ignore, or you have to get over it.

As for the 360 version there is nothing wrong with it, and it is certainly "finished." It's nothing more than fanboy horseshit that tries to state otherwise. Yes, there is more content and dual-audio soundtracks for the PS3 version, but the 360 version is by no means incomplete or hindered when put up against the PS3 version. If you have a PS3 get the PS3 version, if you have both systems get the PS3 version, but if one only has a 360 then they shouldn't feel "jipped" by getting the 360 version.

Well it's almost like he said ^ . Let me just correct some things a bit.

What makes this game a solid buy *for PS3 that is* is the fact that PS3 doesn't have that huge of a market of jRPGs if you like those over RPGs. If you know japanese that's a different story though.

Things that i found good:
Battle system was updated since TToT *Blindsides sure add to the gameplay enjoyment*
Story while being nothing special *common thing in jRPGs of this day and age* it's still a MAJOR improvement from TToT *sorry but when i buy a video game, i don't wanna hear a story about a video game. that's just bullsh*t*
The graphics looked way better for me than in FF 13 so much beautiful greenery lol*Yeah haters will hate but, FF13 had just Too much interior locations like factories etc etc. and they all looked kinda lined up with no real work done*
Classic side missions *like Cave of Wonders with Iseria Queen* are present which is allways a good thing.
Item creation/customization while not so interesting like in SO1,2. It's still better than TToT and very enjoyable to fool around with.
If i remember correctly, the game has 8 endings.
Lastly it has a huge and challenging trophy/achievments set which will keep you occupied for some really LONG time *if you're a trophy whore that is.


Now thing's i found annoying are.
Bad targeting system *it looks ugly when i wanna hit this guy here but i'm targeted to that one dude on the other side of the map. My chara just runs to it....*

No real character customization *like in SO1, 2*

Some bad voice acting *now not everyone but some specific characters like Sarah's jp VA, she's horrible*

Can't remember more atm sorry.

My final answer is this : If you played SO 1 and 2 and liked those,you might wanna consider SO 4 at least for the story since it's a true prequel to SO 1 and 2.

P.S. if you think that the game has boring battle system......check out Eternal Sonata and you will know what's boring.

Yeah, I guess I should have been clearer by pointing out the fact that I adore Till the End of Time. It seems to be a love or hate relationship with most people. Till the End of Time is one of my all time favorite JRPGs. The issue with the story that most people have I found to be endearing, while it may be odd, it was at least unconventional and I give it huge kudos for that fact alone.

So naturally while I progressed through The Last Hope and found little homages to Till the End of Time I smiled, but homages started becoming far too frequent to the point where it felt like they didn't want to make a concentrated effort on making the game stand up on it's own without relying on the critical success of Till the End of Time.



You sir, have forfeited all opinions regarding JRPGs. :P

That's great but i'm not sure how to react to this statement due to my lack of english knowledge.

*since i'm Russian*

Honestly I bought the game used, beat it once and don't really ever plan to play it again. That's not to say that it was a bad game, hell I picked up the previous Star Ocean game and I don't think I ever made it past the tutorial to be quite honest. It was a fun game for me, although the storyline was a bit lame and I saw most things coming from a mile away(I'm looking at you final villian of the game) whenever I was actually ABLE to figure out what the fuck was actually going on. The characters of the game....well uh, I guess they're just chock full of cliches and stereotypes to be honest. Someone's typecast as this type of character, they're playing that role HARD for the rest of the game, there's little changes and such but honestly everyone's either to cutesy or boring for me to like pretty much any of them.

Battle system wasn't anything exceptional but it's something that I didn't exactly come to find boring surprisingly, once you started to unlock all of the different little abilities and moves it picked up a little bit especially when you went into that little burst mode thing and started doing like 30k damage at a time with single specials. I'd compare the game to other RPGs but honestly I don't even feel like going into it since everyone above me seems to have done so already lol

As for whether you should drop it or not....I would say drop it, but since you just got to that planet I'll say to give it a bit more time. If I remember correctly that is when the game picks up a little bit and you start finding out some new little bits of information that pulls the story together a bit and the game gets a bit more fun. I'd say if you haven't warmed up to the game by the end of the planet, ditch it.

It was a joke. I was implying you had bad tastes since you apparently don't like Till the End of Time and Eternal Sonata, while I like both of those games.

Well I haven't finished the 4th myself. But it's a worthy play if you're into prequels and the whole Star Ocean story.

One of the things that I like about the 4th is (non technical)
-There's a Kenni in this game ... lol although old and non-playable.
-It's still has connection with the 1st and 2nd. The 3rd was just too far away, till the point you can play without it playing the 1st and 2nd. 4>1>2>>>>>>>>>>>>3... lol

I just wished they incorporated the same Party recruitment like 1st, 2nd and 3rd where your Available recruits are more than you can actually recruit.

So, in short I'm simply playing this just for the prequel. Just finished Roak though, too many games too play...

Sounds like I should at least try it. I haven't played any other Star Ocean, so repetition of story line won't appear to me.
@Pozertron: Yes, I agree, I don't like turn based games on consoles, (although Resonance of Fate was pretty cool) and the loli shota fest bothered me.
I'll just buy it used from GameStop and return it if all you guys are wrong.