Why does Star Ocean 3 get so much hate? (and why does'nt 4 get more?)

[Tiamattt]

Hm, the story was kinda meh, although it started off pretty epic. Gameplay wise I had quite a bit of fun since it was different from the turn based stuff I was used to from FF games. Dubbing was fine and overall I don't remember much to complain about. (granted this was years ago and my memory of the game is fuzzy at best)

The one thing I didn't like is how lazy they were with the character models, mainly during cut scenes. See the characters only had 1 face all the time(I think the only time it was different was when their eyes were closed), which doesn't stand out at first since most of them have neutral expressions. However a few of them smiled, no matter what was happening. Tragic death = , life shattering news = , something/someone threatening to kill them = . Yeah that was pretty darn stupid.

Oh yeah and one thing at the ending sucked too. If I remember correctly they had a huge system of raising or lowering bonds between the main character and party members through the conversation choices+other things I don't remember, and the only thing all that leads to is which character runs directly behind the main guy in the ending. Not a huge detail but I always thought it was a dumb waste of time and effort that could've been used a lot better.

Other then that though I liked it well enough.

 

[Quellist]

Ive just been looking through some 'worse JRPG' discussions and more and more Star Ocean 3 (Till the End of Time) keeps coming up though no-one actually says whats wrong with it.

Personally i loved the game, its my favorite Star Ocean by far; its got a large varied roster of characters and you have enough choice that you can steer clear of ones you hate (Peppito and Roger in my case), the combat is fast and pretty fun with each character being very different to control and player skill being a big part not just levels, the plot is well paced and interesting and throws a pretty awesome curveball at you toward the end, i just dont see anything to hate yet so many JRPG players seem to regard it as some kind of personal insult.

As an aside Star Ocean 4 (The Last Hope) i utterly hated, hideous inhuman looking characters (the main characters fixed expression, his girlfriends whiny 'I DO hope everyone is alright' at the end of each battle, the fact that they both look about 12, that horrible kid who says 'kay' all the time and the Elf guy whose clothes look like they were designed by...i dont know i give up, someone who came home drunk from a renaissance faire maybe)...

Ok, going to stop there before i start foaming at the mouth but seriously, why all the hate for 3? what was so wrong with it?

Simply put, Star ocean 3 had implications that spilled into the earlier 2 and that pissed off the fans (try uttering 4D space in certain circles and wait for the frothing anger)

Star Ocean 4 introduced alternate reality bullshit that effectively isolated itself from the other games and threw fans of the first two a means of ignoring the third game within the series cannon.
Hope that clarified it.

Yeah, along with the other posts too i get it now. I guess i would be firmly in the 'love' camp as i played 3 before 1 and 2 (which i played on PSP). I still think its pretty awesome but i get a lot of longtime fans might have felt it was pretty much destroying continuity.

Still as for 4 i will never, ever forgive Lymle (if thats even how you spell the annoying little shithouse's name)