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