Three steps forward and two steps back.

The best way to describe my experience with Star Ocean four is to imagine being given a big ice cream Sunday. I really want to eat it, it's shiny, the Sunday has chocolate sauce, sprinkles and a cherry on top. There's a catch however. I have to eat it by sucking it up my nose, or alternatively, by just stuffing my face in the bowl. Instead of being given a spoon. Not a pleasant way to eat an ice cream Sunday. Star Ocean 4 is the same in that it serves up good game play, a decent story and characters, but makes the experience awkward through two problems. One, long gaps between save points, which are an archaic game mechanic in the first place and should be tossed out the window in all future games. What if I want to say, eat dinner? Clean something up, escape from a fire consuming the building? Well, too bad, you can't, at least not without pausing the console, wasting energy.
The second problem, Long arduous dungeons that get very similar, they've done a good job with designing the outdoor environments, but some dungeons are mostly the same boxy corridors over and over. If Star Ocean were to abolish save points, this would still be a problem, as you'd have to spend say an entire one hour playing session trudging through a dungeon (still not reaching the end) in some cases. Granted the game play makes up for this by the combat system, which also allows for easier power leveling than in previous installments. So even if you're going through boxy corridors you're still getting something out of it.
These two problems sadly drag down the entire experience of the game, the first is easily fixed with being able to save anywhere, the second is a matter of dungeon design. At one point in Star Ocean Four I lost an hour or so of playtime to an accidental run in with a boss before I had a chance to save, the Save point was in the same room as the boss of course, as is often the case. The only save points in a given Dungeon are at the beginning and one at the very end.

Story and game play are as usual kept apart from one another, most of it taking place through scenes between the characters, however there is some lack of character development in places, a bit more fleshing out here and there would have made it more solid. The overall story ark is a bit contrived, and seems to confuse evolution with science and technology in places. Also at one point the main character of the story, Edge, becomes depressed,apathetic and filled with angst, to the point of where he doesn't even care about his friends. Of course this also gives Reimi (Edge's first officer and long time friend) a chance to shine and actually take over command. Edge when not being angsty is rather dopey at times, and makes a few big mistakes along the way, but is overall an okay character. It'd be nice if we could strike a balance between dopey protagonist and infallible testosterone factory, it's great that Edge is sensitive and cares about things, but there are better ways to show this than angst.

There are some good moments of the story, such as when Reimi talks about her past. And a particularly well voice acted and dramatic scene towards the end of the game, but there are still a few odd points in the story. A particularly annoying ark is when you must save a rather ditsy feather folk girl, meanwhile a group of friendly and (gasp) useful people go missing and everyone turns a blind eye. Save for one character, Faize. Then later, while Faize goes through the turmoil of realizing they've been brutally murdered as sacrifices, he just holds it in, saying nothing of the others ignorance. They're too busy saving the mostly useless feather folk girl from being sacrificed next. She's saved because her specific sacrifice shall bring the world ending, fire spewing, demon creature. Yet she's painted as being likable for some reason... it leaves you scratching your head, and seems designed to make Faize turn “evil” just as a previous ark turned Edge angsty.

Faize is interesting and level headed. It's unfortunate he doesn't really share his feelings or instincts with the crew. As he's a sight less dopey than Edge (but they try to disprove Edge's dopeyness by having him get one decision right over Faize.)

Nitpicks in the story aside, I enjoyed this latest installment in Star Ocean. It's main pitfalls simply come from clinging to old JRPG conventions. Ditsy characters, save points, long convoluted dungeons, and somewhat contrived portions of the story.

Visuals in this Star Ocean are interesting and make good use of textures, I've always enjoyed the brightness and shinyness of Tri-Ace's games, it's a refreshing change from dark dingy environments of a lot of games. The brightness really lends itself to the overall feel of the game.

Dubbing in this game is okay for the most part, however a Japanese voice track would have been a nice inclusion. Also co-op split screen play for the battle, since all characters can be controlled and there are 4 of them, Co-op with at least one other person would have been a nice addition.

Here's hoping this isn't in fact the last installment in Star Ocean. If this was their last attempt to get it “right” (ie: gain mainstream approval), then a salute to them for trying.