Says Unsupported, but worked perfectly fine on Steam Deck. Controls map fine, graphics, etc. Maxed out settings at 1280x800 resolution at a solid 60 fps.

Just wanted to point that out as people may be wondering how it performs on Steam Deck.

I played this way back on the PS3 (one of my first games on it) with the International release and enjoyed it.

This ain't bad, but:

Squenix needs to remaster/release Second Story aka best JRPG ever made.

they should have all starocean games

It's actually not the best, don't get me wrong this is a fun game. I just wish they would give us Star Ocean The Second Story on steam because that was the game in this series that I never forgot about.

This is by no means a great game. It's a decent game that has a weak story, kind of weak character roster, some excessively long bits between save points...

However, it's enjoyable. Combat is fun, if you get familiar with it. You can just mash x to win in the beginning, but a lot of fights (including mook encounters) will make that brain dead strategy hard to progress with. I've beaten it once on PC now, and twice on 2 different difficulties on PS3. It was an great deal of fun playing it again, so long after last touching it on my PS3.

This is the 4th game in the mainline Star Ocean game, but is a prequel. You don't need to have played the previous games to understand what is going on, but it can help with references to previous games as well as staples of the series as a whole.

Performance wise - it's a pretty damn good port. I'm running on slightly below spec hardware and getting really good framerates. It doesn't have a litany of options to modify performance and display settings, but even on the lowest detail the game still looks decent enough as to not be distracting.

Control-wise,, you'll probably want to use a controller versus keyboard and mouse. The camera is a little dumb at times, overworld and in combat, and there is no pause during cutscenes (unless I an somehow mistaken, since I could not find a way to do so).

I played this on PS3 when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. This is basically that version with better textures (dual audio is a nice thing to have, sometimes). Really, the enjoyable bits in terms of challenge aren't unlocked until after you beat the game the first time. A series of dungeons are available after that, as well as the ability to replay the game at a higher difficulty. While I'm not entirely the biggest fan of rebuilding my party from scratch to play anew at a new difficulty, having the option is a good thing.

Crafting is great, though for some progression may be slow. You need specific characters to join before you can craft certain types of items. You don't get the most useful, Synthesis, until pretty much the end of the game. Once that unlocks, it makes the game significantly easier if you know what you are doing with that skill.

Many have reported issues launching this game (ASKA error). I didn't have this problem until I tried to install a new USB device. Once I unplugged it and rebooted, the game ran fine for me. Keep that in mind that some people can't even run the game after buying it. Hopefully these problems get fixed by SE in due time.

Hopefully this rambling is somehow informative. Don't go in to this game expecting a masterpiece; that's not what this game is. Like most Star Ocean games, it's a flawed experience propped up by a good combat system and some interesting character moments and a not too great story. Considering the launch price of this game, it's pretty easy sell for me.

This game is a guilty pleasure of mine. I have put in hundreds of hours here on Steam and on the Xbox 360 version. I adore this game, and it is for all the wrong reasons. The characters are generic cutouts, the story is trying so hard to be deep, the gameplay movement is a bit rubbish and tedious, and so many more flaws that I just can stack up on here. But there's just this charm to the game that I can't break from. It is so likeably unlikeable that I honestly compare it to being a JRPG version of The Room. If you are looking for something with a story with exceptional writing, character investment, and intuitive gameplay, this is NOT your game. But I've grown to love all of it, even down to the silliest flaws.

I have heard other reviews saying there is some gameplay issues, but for me, I have no such problems on my 2070 Super or my 3070 Ti upgrade. I have also played it on my G14 Zephyrus laptop (Ryzen 9 with a 2060 mobile GPU) and it ran that comfortably at 1080p (with baited breath I might add, for those who remember the dreaded softlocking days of the 360). I personally have not experienced these issues on multiple system configs is my point.

I do genuinely love the combat and the equipment / crafting system. They can be tedious to deal with, but once you get an understanding of what you're doing, I feel like I could grind for hours with it. It's a joyous time for myself, blindsiding enemies and blasting enemies on a jumper jet (Bacchus, anyone?). Even rolling around as Lymle was a blast. I have no idea who was sadistic enough to put Battle Trophies for each character. 100 trophies. For ALL OF THEM. But hey, I like doing them.

All in all, solid game if you are willing to just indulge this game and be charmed by the bad stuff. Because trust me, there is bad stuff in this, but if you're like me, you'll get so much more than you could have signed up for. Turn off your critical side and hop on this goofy little JRPG.

Buy at Your Own Risk:

I actually like this game. The Star Ocean series is basically Anime Star Trek.
The difficulty spikes, mediocre voice acting, inconsistent textures, backtracking, etc. don't bother me. What does bother me is that the game will crash at seemingly random intervals for some people (myself included). It wasn't much of a problem for most of the game (only got hit twice in non-critical areas), but it's really frustrating when you've attempted to beat the last boss SEVEN TIMES only for the game to crash mid-battle for no apparent reason. I've tried all of the troubleshoots I can find (including uninstalling and reinstalling) and the problem persists. I'm sure I'll get lucky and finish the battle one day, but I'm done with this game for the time being.

Unless a patch or mod fixes the crashing issue (unlikely at this late stage), I can't in good conscience recommend buying it.

As a fan of the Star Ocean series, I was truly psyched when I saw this remastered edition come up during the summer sale. After having invested quite a few hours of gameplay, as well as having defeated the end boss, I felt now was a good time to write up a review. So, here are my pros and cons for this game.

Pros:
-Graphics are nice
-Full controller support
-Enjoyable storyline (there are a lot of cinematic sequences, I personally enjoy this)
-Characters you can relate to
-Combat system was familiar, and thank the gods wasn't clunky
-Great soundtrack

Cons:
-Some of the most annoying enemies I have ever went up against (most notably the Aeos Phantom Soldier fight)
-The English dub was absolute trash, thank god for Japanese w/ English subs
-Insane amount of times the bonus board would break with just one hit from an enemy
-Not quite long enough for my personal tastes, would have loved to have had more places to explore

All in all, I did enjoy the game very much. The pros definitely outweighed the cons in my personal opinion. You should also be aware that you need a decent computer to run this game at a playable level. I've seen people complaining about how the game is laggy or they can't run it on higher graphics, but I didn't have any trouble with running the game. Before buying, I would advise you to check the recommended specs and make sure you have a computer that will handle the game.

Not as good as the first 3 star ocean games. Square Enix should re-release them on steam or Android so they can be enjoyed too. I don't have a playstation and don't plan on buying one, so i would prefer a steam version. I'm sure others would agree.

i didn't really like the protagonist, he seemed like a loser. the visuals are good, the game play is alright. i had issues with remote play. it's worth playing if you like Star Ocean and don't have a PS3 or XBOX anymore.

Square Enix still should release the other games on steam as well!

After playing for almost 20 hours I've decided I wanted to talk about this game, as someone who isn't a fan of the series and is just having her first impressions. Honestly I think this game has flaws and it's definitely not the best thing I've played this year, nor it's the worst... I'd say it's pretty mid and that's okay, because I know it's not supposed to be at the same level as fan-favorites like SO2 and SO3. And I'm enjoying it a lot anyway, or else I would have dropped it by now.

So let's talk about the good: graphics look great, combat system is pretty simple (and could be better) but it's efficient and it works, and story is actually very intriguing and probably the thing that keeps me going the most. I'm always looking forward to whatever's next and I think that's very important for this genre. There's also a lot of diversity in races and creatures which is very cool.

But now it's time for the bad... the characters. I will say and I'm not even exaggerating, that they might be the worst characters I've ever seen in a JRPG. Think of the cringiest anime tropes you can imagine... they are probably in this game. And it's such a shame because characters are so important in JRPGs but sadly, they failed here (except with Faize, he's a good boy). I believe that if only they were better, this game would rank higher in everyone's lists.

Despite this however, I'm still having a good time and I recommend it to anyone who can tolerate these kind of anime characterization. If you can't then... probably don't play it, but it's still a fun experience and I think the story is worth it.