Recent reviews by FourFinger81 FF81 DxLxB

Literally a dream come true for Star Ocean fans. Honestly should be a must buy for anyone that is a fan of RPGs in general. Not only is it a remake of a great game that captures the nostalgia many of us have had stored up, it is properly updated to feel like a modern game. You can clearly see the effort put into this, and the care and attention to detail to keep things so close to the original game while reaching the perfect balance of change to not feel outdated. Truly perfection. Companies should aim for this kind of remake instead of the buggy cash grabs we often get. Overwhelmingly Positive reviews definitely earned.

Overall not as good as the absolute gems that Star Ocean 2 and 3 were, but I'd argue that its an improvement in several ways over the other games. The movement and exploration out of combat feels pretty good, and in combat movement is fantastic. I wish the opponents had more health, would definitely advise turning up the difficulty to prolong battles. The callbacks to the older games with some of the attack types was nice, though we don't get a new Shotgun Blast, Side Kick (a party member gets something similar though), or Air Raid. A lot less cringe compared to other Star Ocean titles when it comes to characters, most of them are actually decent enough that I wished we had more time with them to get more backstory and private actions. Very little complaining about breaking the UP3 and no emo arc for the main character to go through. A lot of cutscenes that are essentially characters saying the same exact thing they said in the last cutscene though, which is often conversation about a topic that was already established in several cutscenes before it. Could be great for if you put down the game for a few days while working or living life and forgot what exactly you were doing, but to me personally felt like a lot of extra padding that was unnecessary. You could skip them, but that isn't something that a majority of the Star Ocean fanbase would ever do. I'd say 7.5 out of 10 for anyone that likes an RPG with decent action, and an 8.5 out of 10 for Star Ocean fans that will appreciate the many callbacks to older games and Star Ocean's heavy mix of RPG and action.