A very unique and fun experience with a handful of little flaws. This was my first experience with the Star Ocean series, and I'm glad I gave this a shot. I loved all of the characters, the combat was super fun, and the story was engaging for the most part.

I knew I would like it when I saw the trailer and artwork, but I knew I would love it when I opened the menus. This is one of the crunchiest JRPGs I've ever played, next to the Octopath Traveler series and Xenoblade Chronicles series, and this is a good thing. There is SO much customization for your character builds, and a ton of different crafting menus to create new gear. You get 2 level up currencies, one to spend on battle skills that trigger during combat, and another to spend on field skills that add overworld abilities and give stat increases. Figuring out what to specialize each character with was super fun and added a lot to the game. It was overwhelming at first, but once I got used to it I loved it.

The combat rules- it's fast paced and has extremely volatile momentum swings. I played as Rena, and using her in combat was actually pretty enjoyable. She's a healer/support character, but they made it fun to kind of be the taskmaster of your other offensive characters and manage the battle from a distance.

I loved seeing the party members interact in the private actions mode. It reminds me of the Xenoblade Chronicles heart-to-hearts. Each time I progressed in the story, I would check for new cutscenes and back track to watch them all. This really made me fall in love with the cast.

The story is fine, pretty typical for a JRPG. It was good, but was predictable aside from the end of act 1, which was a good twist. My first critique is that I feel like it meandered a lot though, especially in the second act. I had more fun doing side stuff than the main quest, which usually isn't the case for me. Felt a bit like a DnD campaign rather than a tightly-woven narrative in that sense. My second critique is that Rena's route felt a little unpolished. The tournament arc felt like an afterthought and was the least enjoyable part of the game. It felt incomplete, and two party characters addressed me as Claude during this stretch of the game. That took me out of the experience but Rena's story really shines in act 2 which mostly made up for it.

There are some things about this game that are just a little bit annoying, but they stack up. Firstly, combat can end up being shorter than the victory screen, which is annoying if you're in a dungeon packed with enemies. I also wish you could swap equipment in battle, because a lot of end game bosses have immunities that can make a party member useless if they have a specific element on their main weapon. The AI also does not recognize weaknesses very well, and I once had to tell Claude to run around and do nothing so that the rest of the party could beat something that absorbed fire without him negating our damage. The last annoying thing is that the final boss is insanely difficult, and I cheesed the fuck out of the last two fights with bloody armor and healing spam. Felt a little anticlimactic, but it basically required immunities I didn't have.

Overall this is an extremely good JRPG, and any fans of the genre should play it. I had a great time with this game, and I will definitely come back and play it again as Claude in the future.

A little too easy, but a fun experience. It was nice to revisit this game with a fresh coat of paint, I loved this series as a kid. I really like each of the different worlds, the space one is my favorite but they all feel unique and have fun gimmicks. I enjoyed going for all the collectibles, I got all of the letters and mazes in every level. I also enjoyed how the mazes reflected the gimmicks in each of the worlds, that kept things interesting. The music was unexpectedly banging as well.

I do think this was too easy. I remember the original being much more challenging, but I was also like 7 when I played it so who knows. I also ran into more than a few invisible walls and guard rails, which kind of took away from the experience. Coming from Pseudoregalia recently, going where I wasn't supposed to is something the game assumes I will do and rewards me for it, but here it kinda forbids that- which mostly makes sense, but felt disappointing when I eyed a potential shortcut and was denied that chance.

If you enjoyed this series back in the day, definitely pick this up on sale. It's a pretty faithful remake, and a lot of fun for what it is