Star Ocean is a series that's been modernized with a classic RPG system and old school over world exploration...

SO1 is the worst by far. Its such a nothing game and story.

Characters aside, 4's gameplay tops 3's. 5's gameplay is also better than 3's but it suffers from having 1's flaws.

the character design is genuinely atrocious, bordering on offensively ugly, down from the designs themselves to the actual models of characters because everyone's got giant bug eyes and a weird ET head, MP death is the single worst JRPG mechanic ever created, private actions barely exist, they made a character as cool as adray lasbard, who is essentially a red mage, possibly the worst red mage ever created because he genuinely fucking sucks in combat, the combat system itself is, as a whole, the weakest of the series outside of 5, and once you can side kick the game is already over and you've won
not to mention the absolutely retarded twist AND the incredibly lazy MEANWHILE 50000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE hackjob

Gameplay is leagues better than SO1 and better than the original SO2

SO2 is basically the ideal JRPG gameplay though

This. SO2 is still pretty fun to play, but starting with 3 the combat became legitimately meaty and good. The games also became infinitely more breakable as well.

You couldn't even do proper combos until the psp remake. The characters are too big and the AI for your party sucks so you have to either micromanage every battle or grind levels to the point where their mistakes will be minimalized.

STARING EDGEHOG AND FAZECLAN KAY?

how are you this bad at star ocean 2

Y'all really acting like Star Ocean 4 isn't the peak of gaming history both in the game itself and in its soundtrack (all hail Motoi Sakuraba)

Star ocean was never good

Can you refute my argument? It's not as if the game is unbeatable, it's just less fun because of the braindead party members

Everything about 4 was offensive to me

the party members are fine, user, I've genuinely never had the problem of having to micromanage party members because once they use enough killer moves enough times they get insanely good
and combos don't matter when you can spam hurricane slash forever and become god

This is no different than saying "it really gets good 20 hours in!"

Then you don't deserve human rights

Except Star Ocean 2 is literally 20 hours long. Even if you don't save scum early on for one of the ultimate weapons, its still a piss easy game where powerful moves show up fast and hard.

If hating bad games makes me inhuman then Im a fucking animal bud

listen, user, what I'm getting from this is, you don't like star ocean 2 because it's too hard for you, which makes me think star ocean 3 was your first game and you're mad that you can't sidekick everything into oblivion

I love SO2, but the music is a bit grating. I don't know why but it didn't irritate me as a kid, but it's kind of irritating now. The systems in it are great making it unique among other JRPGs at the time.
Funny, because Breath of Fire 3 music isn't irritating in comparison.

>20 hours long
That's skipping all the side content

Its not counting the bonus dungeon. That's all.

I didn't even know about the side kick exploit in SO3 until years after it came out. Why do you think this is common knowledge or even how most people played it?

Seconding this. I sucked badly the first time I played SO3 and regularly got my ass handed to me.

What if we made a videogame where characters learn they are in a videogame

Simulation, not videogame. I bet you jerkoff to Big Boss and agree with Kojima that Solid Snake is shit because he's a clone.

Im gonna come out and say I loved the twist. It adds a whole new context to the setting. Instead of being a third case of "we must not interfere with an underdeveloped planet" the dilemma gets flipped on its head where the universe as we know it was the result of someone taking that concept to the extreme. It doesn't invalidate the stories of the other games at all in my opinion

I enjoyed it until about 75% through the game, other than that I think it is the best one lol.

Listen. Any avid / true fan of Star Ocean knows that it's been brought out to the back field and 86'd.

Star Ocean 1 was fun. Star Ocean 2 was and still is godly. Star Ocean 3 was wonderful. Star Ocean 4 has arguably the best fighting system in the series. Star Ocean 5...well, let's not talk about Star Ocean 5.

I can't wait for the PSP remakes to come out on the PS4. Here is hoping the do the same for Star Ocean 2.

P.S. Motoi Sakuraba is god at the OST's.

My first RPGs ever were SO4 and FFX, and literally every other RPG soundtrack has been disappointing to me; I got spoiled too early by godly RPG OSTs :(

I agree with everything but star ocean 3 being wondeful
I'd really like them to get minato koio back for the art for SO2 if they do the same treatment as first departure R

I found out about side kick as a 14 year old playing this game for the first time. I remember my older brother trying to convince me to use other skills because the strategy guide said to or some shit, but nothing could stop my side kicking. That said it has far superior combat to SO2 outside of sidekick and MP death was unintuitive at first but kino as fuck later in the game. SO2 did have better characters and music though so it all kinda balances out for me in the end

Complaining about side kick, when hammer of might aoe MP death exists. Or Maria's scatter beam which is her default skill she comes equipped with.