So, I recently bought an xbox simply because I am a Star Ocean fan. I have played all of them except for Blue Sphere. So, of course now is the time for me to play Star Ocean 4. I'm currently only about 38 hours or so in, on disk 2. I would probably be a lot farther if my 3 week old xbox didn't just freeze up on me all the time (anyone else have this problem? Stupid POS)

I'm really enjoying the game so far. I love how it completely links into Star Ocean 1, so you get way more out of i if you play first departure or a ROM. The gameplay is as usual, awesome, and makes it so tedious battles usually don't get boring. And oh god...blindsides.
On the graphical side, they made great use of bump maps to keep the poly count down, so they could add in other subtitles like jellyfish floating in water and really enhance the lighting. I do get pretty annoyed by the obnoxious amounts of details they put into some textures. It causes some serious jaggies, ad jaggies are one of the things that get on my nerves the most. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with the look of the game.
One thing that bugs me, is that Edge is like fayt's twin brother twice removed. he just has blond hair. Even his base attacks are very similar.
I'm also happy to see the return of an archer. And the fact that Reimi is pretty awesome, and not sucky like a lot of Archers.

So, what do you guys think? Have you played it? love it hate it? Favorite characters?

It's a really good game but it kinda bugs me in the battle system that changing targets just doesn't work, and some battles would be much easier if you had complete control over what you were targeting. If there is a way to change targets manually then it's not in the instruction manual. Maybe I should go back through the battle simulator.

The story didn't catch my interest at first, but it built up pretty well. I'm stuck on one boss, and it's made me mad at the game, so I haven't finished the game yet. I really want to keep going but every time I pick the case up I remember the boss, twitch and put it back down.

Well I haven't played it yet but i played Star Ocean 3 and I enjoyed the game

Couldn't say the same for the story though (I'll explain if someone is willing to hear it), I haven't played anything from the series except 3 but I'm hoping to play all of it especially 4 when I watched the gameplay footage and it looked like the same mechanic from 3 and even better with counter moves... I only wish they make a port for the PS3 instead of a MMO (its on their website or visit gamespot)

I bought the game and so far I'm definitely enjoying it, just need to finish the game xD. So far Reimi, Myuria and Lymle are my favorite characters though i have to say Faize is interesting.