Have You Played Any Star Ocean Games?

[Mirage]

Most excellent.

[Bright Shield]

And ironically a lot of people who loved SO2 hate the PSP remake of SO2.

I think they're just nostalgia fanboys though. Those people who think SO2 was the only decent thing to come out of the franchise and everything else is just stupid crap and that SO4 is creepy. Then they go run over some hookers in GTA and get paid for it because, ya know, that's American and not Japanese therefore it isn't creepy.

SO2 is the only great game in the franchise. The remake isn't bad though. It just has a worse art style, and cuts out the scene where Dias' sister is murdered.

SO1 is a good game.

SO3 would have been good, but it contains the worst plot twist ever.

SO4 is the very definition of mediocrity. It never hits the highs or lows of SO3.

[Forsaken Lover]

I don't recall SO3 having any highs.

[The Man]

You recall incorrectly.

[metagloria]

I don't recall SO3 having any highs.

It may have been hard to pick out the "highs" considering the entire game was one.

[Forsaken Lover]

*shakes head sadly*

It's that kind of talk that made me try the game in the first place. I lost valuable hours of my life thanks to this false advertising.

[Bright Shield]

^I agree. It wasn't very good, but neither was 4.

[Mirage]

I liked it and I didn't mind the plot twist either.

It might not have been the best twist in the history of fiction, but it didn't really bother me.

[Vyk]

Just raged about SO4 the other day in another thread due to Edge Maverick irritating the hell out of me for so long during his "character development" I completely gave up on the game after like 15-20 hours in. Totally not worth the headache. And from what you people are saying, I should just stay the hell away from SO3

Legend has it that there was a team of people who made Tales of Phantasia, and that they all differed in how they wanted to progress the series, and a good portion of the team left to make the tales game they preferred. They formed Tri-Ace and made Star Ocean

I should be glad they left the Tales team. The Tales series is obviously far superior. Sad that I'm using SO4 as a barometer, as I hate that game so much now I can't imagine the series being any worse, but obviously it is. And people only play it for the gameplay? Seriously? That seems brain numbing. If you want an action RPG, play Tales? I didn't think SO4's battle system was really all that entertaining. Lacking turn-based combat made it more bearable than most JRPGs, but that's little consolation for trudging through terrible plot with terrible characters

And other games in the series are worse. Dear god.. x_x;

[The Man]

Despite some of the opinions in this thread SO4 seems to be the most disliked entry in the series by the fanbase. You probably should have started with one of the other ones. Probably SO2.

[Vyk]

I remember renting SO2 as a youngster, but I don't remember anything about it. It might be telling, it might not be. I don't remember hating it. I think I played Beyond the Beyond around then. And Alundra. And Wild Arms. I remember liking and hating with them. But SO2 brings back nothing. It's kinda weird. Maybe I should give it another try to see how Tales could have been. For 2 entries

[Forsaken Lover]

Tales is not known for its writing either.

I've met plenty of people who said Tales of Graces had a worse plot than SO4.

Also Sakuraba stopped trying about a decade ago as far as Tales music goes. Prevailing theory is Namco just orders him to rewrite teh same music over and over again which is why each Tales game OST gets worse and worse.

[arenzi]

Till the End of Time and The Last Hope but didn't finish them. Well my save file for The Last Hope was lost because I was installing a new HDD on my PS3 and they had that stupid save file block so it never got transferred over. I wasn't in the mood to start all over.

[Vyk]

I'll never try to pretend Tales has stellar writing but I did find it tons more enjoyable. But beyond that their characters do tend to develop better than anything I saw in Star Ocean Four. And even for anyone who would argue that's not good enough people are saying the other star ocean games had zero character development. So I guess Tales would win by default against those. Also no stellar music but it's usually interesting and relaxing. Xillia has been a lot of comfy lounge and jazz music. I wouldn't purchase the soundtrack but I really like it. So it's not incompetent or anything at least. Then again I don't remember hating The Last Hopes music. Don't honestly remember the music at all though lol. Either way as far as subpar action role playing games from Japan I'll stick to tales. I've played other tri ace games and tri criscendo and didn't enjoy any of it very much. I think the companies are just not for me

[Freya]

I have a collectors edition box of one someone sold at GS when I worked there. I had always wanted to play it but never had it and was like "GOLD MINE" when the traded it in. I snatched that up so quick. And then it's been sitting on my shelf cause my ps2 broke.