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Reason SO3 brack the 4th wall.
But if you're asking about the less importants parts of the game (combats, gameplay and dungeons), then yes, it's pretty fun.
I disagree, I feel like Till the End of Time had the worst story, but that's mainly because of the stupid plot twist.
Is your caps lock stuck? I have yet to see a post by you that wasn't caps.
I'm not even a big fan of SO3 but, despite even its weird plot twist, it's a better game in just about every regard. That's not really saying much, however.
To list:
1. The game often suffers from poor pacing, take for example the massive intro where not a lot happens. From the holiday resort to the first escape, then the second escape leading to the first planet you land on. Then the third escape (notice a trend here?) after crash landing up until you journey through the mines with Nel. You don't have any real agency until after this point.
2. The overall story is a mess, late game revelations included. I partially covered this in my first point. I've heard people defending the plot twist, some even claiming it was ahead of its time due to more recent theories regarding our universe being a simulation and/or holographic projection. I can't help but laugh at these claims, they're frankly ridiculous in the context of the games plot, and do absolutely nothing to change the poor writing.
We're not just talking about discovering that your universe may be a simulation, that you're the result of zeroes and ones. We're talking about people genetically (digitally) altering their own children in order to make super weapons that can manipulate the Universe around them, which happens to be a computer game rather than specifically a scientific endeavour, and then having an entire group of digital simulations leave said game world and in doing so break the in game fourth wall.
3. Horribly annoying characters that follow countless tropes. One of the main negatives you see from people complaining about SO4 regards the cast, SO3 had one just as cliche and trope ridden and with arguably worse characters. A lot of the failings of the original western release for SO4 are vastly improved by being able to use Japanese audio + subs over the abysmal English dub. SO3 does not have that luxury, although the English dub isn't outright terrible.
I could go on here for quite awhile. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to claim that SO4 has an award worthy story as it simply doesn't. I don't think any of the Star Ocean games do, although SO2 was still very enjoyable, especially given the fact it can be played from two perspectives. I just don't think that SO3 is as good as people make it out to be, a chunk of which who for the most part are fondly remembering a game they played many years ago on the PS2.
Story aside, I felt the combat was more fluid and more enjoyable in SO4. The earlier Star Ocean games were extremely spammy, each character would have one or two abilities that you would abuse the hell out of for large portions of the game. It was simply inefficient to play in any other way. You couldn't really do that with SO4, at least not until later in the game anyway.
Speaking of gameplay, I'd also like to touch on crafting. I've heard complaints about this, often from the same people that decry the combat. In SO3 there was little point to crafting until mid-late game, there were a couple of things worth going for early on (Damask Gauntlets for example) but beyond that it was insanely expensive and required access to specific inventors. At the point you gained access to said inventors, you could become extremely over powered extremely quickly. I preferred the slow but steady progression of crafting in SO4, you could craft viable upgrades from early game up until late -- without the ridiculous spike in item quality and subsequent over powered results. I'm not keen on games that lead you by the nose into becoming so OP everything becomes trivial.
But hey, these are just my opinions. Hopefully SO3 will end up on Steam so you can play whichever one you want.
In SO3 what character tropes are you talking about..? SO3 doesn't have any tropey characters that I recall, as I've been playing the game pretty much for the last week. SO3 was developed and released in 2003, there wasn't really a video gaming industry to speak of nor established tropes that were well known, seeming everything back then felt fresh and new.
It's only someone in hindsight that could make the claims that SO3 had tropey characters. I'll agree with you on some points though, I didn't like the late game of SO3 despite loving SO3 and I didn't like the pacing that you were talking about in some parts.
For instance I'm just gonna touch on this point but there are periods in the game where you're tasked with traveling from one town to another and the characters speak of the travel as being long winded and quite a journey but yet there is only a 30 second walk between villages which can be quite anti-climatic and immersion breaking, but I think this is more due to the limitatations of the PS2. They were just testing the waters with the PS2 and testing new ways to travel between towns, SO2 had a top down field map like many of the early FF's but that changed with the PS2 and so did the SO series.
As for crafting you said that it made characters OP, I disagree. You can grind to hell and earn tonnes of FOL so that you can attain the best gear out of crafting but the amount of FOL you earn throughout SO3 is pretty restrictive until you get up to the Mosul dunes provided you make use of the bonus gauge. There is a precedent for developing OP weapons anyway in SO3 because there is alternative dungeons you may wanna explore or challenges you may want to pass.
The difference between difficulties in SO3 is monumental, there is a massive difference between Earth and Galaxy, in Galaxy mode which is normal you wanna make use of the crafting system as best you can but in Earth you don't have to use the crafting system but can rely on the weapons the game will provide you in stores.
I think SO3's strongest points are it's characters they're well established, everyone remembers them because they have memorable traits and it does a pretty good job of developing those characters throughout the 1st DISC. But the same thing you talked about with SO4 could be just as true with SO3, Japanese localization is present in SO3 like it is in SO4 and although I can't say whether improves the characters I think the Western localization worked well for me.
Tropes can exist across different forms of media, if one exists in a movie it can equally exist in a video game. Also, the gaming industry was extremely healthy for more than a decade prior to 2003. The Playstation 1 is famous for the quality and number of JRPG's on the system, including Star Ocean 2 and FF7/8/9 etc. As was the Super Nintendo before it with the likes of Chrono Trigger. Speaking of JRPG's in their modern form (by 2003 standards) you could argue that they have a history dating back to the 80's.
Regardless, to give an example of a trope found on SO3: Albel is a dark brooding anti-hero (with a tragic past no less) who comes across as a bit of an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but it turns out he's actually not that bad! Or how about Cliff? The happy go lucky jock, but wait! There's more than meets the eye, he isn't just a mindless beefcake after all! Almost every single character fits some sort of mold, the only way you can claim otherwise is if you for some reason ignore a large chunk of gaming history and/or claim tropes are for some reason platform specific.
As for the voice acting, unless Japanese audio + English subs have been added for the updated PS4 release, SO3 does not have that option. I've literally just booted my PS2 copy of SO3: The Directors Cut to check.
Regarding the difficulty, almost all of the Star Ocean games have NG + and numerous difficulty settings which ramp things up considerably. There are also lengthy post game dungeons as well as other content, it's a bit of a staple of the series.
I really loved Star Ocean 2, and Star Ocean 3 felt like it was pushing in a different direction. However, in the end, it was a Star Ocean game through and through, and I enjoyed it, even the plot twist that many people seem to hate. Generally a good game all round, with some flaws here and there.
Star Ocean 4 gave me extremely mixed feelings on first playthrough. The characters were somewhat bad, the graphics weird (they hold up today, strangely enough, but the character models have a weird "doll-like" quality that baffled me at the time), and the game took a long time to warm up. But once it did, I started to really enjoy it. I'm actually on my third playthrough now, as the game has a charming quality despite its flaws.
I haven't had a chance to play through SO3 a second time, so I can't comment on how it holds up today, but I would like to.
Faize: Wow, Edge is so amazing and inspiring.
Reimi: Yeah, that's our Edge. He really cares about everyone and everything!
Bacchus: Truly astonishing. Edge really is a remarkably special and unique person.
This is pretty much the full extent of this games idea of character development.
I'm not saying SO3 was amazing in comparison, but it definitely wasn't as distinctly hamfisted as SO4. Regardless, the actual gameplay in SO4 has been alright. Not sure if it will actually be enough to keep me invested, but it's doing the trick for now.
I really enjoyed SO3 and SO4 but my main issues with both games....>
"Cliff" SO3 he was so in your face so frustratingly annoying.
SO4 there is another character that I hate some little 5 year old girl.
I felt like punching both of them so when I had the chance to create my own team, I just removed them and had fun :-)
The characters are crazy the story is crazy but you get to make really cool items.
Yes..? I mean you just pretty explained to me why Cliff isn't just his physique and isn't just some meathead or why Albel isn't just some dark brooding anti-hero. Tropes very rarely travel from TV into early PS2 gaming because the medium hadn't really matured when I was a kid and playing those games. Now you see a tonne of those TV specific tropes in games like Call of Duty and anime tropes making their way into newer JRPG's, that isn't the say you can do creative things with that though.
Take Disgaea for instance, I love the Disgaea series, but it tries really hard to make their characters established tropesm but Disgaea is a very meta series. It's fully aware that it's being tropey and it's intentionally tongue and cheek about it.
Star Ocean in a way can be meta sometimes too, but the problem I had with SO5 was that the game took itself too seriously, it also shamlessly copied character templates of existing Star Ocean characters, Fidel for instance is just Fayt and Fiore is just Celine but they aren't nearly as fleshed out as Fayt or Celine were in their respective stories.
Yes all Star Ocean games have difficulties, I'm fully aware I own them all. Battle trophy system is pretty important in SO3 to some people and why you'd probably intend on making powerful items for no damage runs or fast boss fights for some of the extra battle trophies so getting to Peterny is one of the most vital parts of SO3 for some Star Ocean 3 players I mean you're describing why it's so important to have an open system, I'd take that system a million times over the castrated system in SO5.
But I'll give SO4 a go all the way through eventually but my intention isn't to attack SO4 but to explain why SO3 is a pretty good game and although it's flawed with one of the most controversial endings out of the series I still think the 1st DISC is one of the better experiences I've had out of an JRPG