Star Ocean itself is kind of a mixed bag, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who loves the whole franchise. I've never given SOIV a fair shake. I've only played enough to know that I'll have to switch to Japanese audio if I really want to make it through the game. I didn't mind SOIII like a lot of people did. Of anything, my bigger gripes were with the new crafting mechanics and the plot is pretty slow paced which is not exactly new to the series.

SO1, or at least the PSP remake of it, is the entry I've had the most trouble finishing. It was revamped with SOII's mechanics, but it's obvious this was a cut and paste job so there is a lot of balancing issues that make it apparent the devs didn't think this one through. The story is even more meandering than usual for the series but I'll chock that up to early installment weirdness. SOII is usually everyone's favorite unless they started with the later entries. It's hardly perfect, and many of the gripes I mentioned above can easily be applied to it as well. I feel it's best strength compared to the rest of the series is that it's larger and more varied cast of playable characters make it more tolerable. I have a real difficult time picking out a favorite character from all of the other installments, but I do like a lot of SOII's cast.