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

[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?

 

[Diablo2000]

If I remember correctly Star Ocean 3 received good reviews at the time, so unless is a "Loved then, Hated now" then I wouldn't know, mostly because I never played it.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It does?

I haven't played it in a loooooong time, but when I did, it was one of my favourite games.

The story takes a turn for the strange, but the combat was deep and very solid (that's what she said.)

 

[TehCookie]

This is just my ass talking but I'd guess because 3 was released when non-JRPG fans still played JRPGs so they played it and disliked it. Now it seems if you aren't a fan of JRPGs you hate/ignore them so 4 was largely ignored.

 

[Quellist]

This is just my ass talking but I'd guess because 3 was released when non-JRPG fans still played JRPGs so they played it and disliked it. Now it seems if you aren't a fan of JRPGs you hate/ignore them so 4 was largely ignored.

That pretty much makes sense, i guess what with Inventions and such the system in 3 was pretty convoluted for someone new to JRPGs and could have pissed off anyone who didnt want to take the time to understand it all

 

[Thandran]

This is just my ass talking but I'd guess because 3 was released when non-JRPG fans still played JRPGs so they played it and disliked it. Now it seems if you aren't a fan of JRPGs you hate/ignore them so 4 was largely ignored.

That pretty much makes sense, i guess what with Inventions and such the system in 3 was pretty convoluted for someone new to JRPGs and could have pissed off anyone who didnt want to take the time to understand it all

Now you've reminded me... holy Bee - Jesus, did you need to spend time crafting, inventing, refining gear in order to beat those optional bosses.

FREYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

 

[ASan83]

I'm a fan, my second favorite in the series (Nothing can hold a candle to SO2), but it has one of the (In my own opinion, of course) most nonsensical twists in the history of video games. It was Mass Effect 3 before Mass Effect 3.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Never played it but I read nothing but good reviews about that game. It never occurred to me it was bad to begin with? Where did you see these hate threads?

 

[Quellist]

Never played it but I read nothing but good reviews about that game. It never occurred to me it was bad to begin with? Where did you see these hate threads?

Just a random search on google. I was looking for 'worst jrpg translation' but got a lot of worst jrpg threads too

 

[krazykidd]

I don't like SO3 because of the plot . The plot just went to hell 3/4 into the game . It started off making sense , the. Suddenly it did a 360 , and spun itself into a blackhole. You know when those angel things started to appear.

 

[piinyouri]

Yeah the twist really divides fans.

I personally thought it was possibly the most amazing turn in any plot to anything ever.
After it occurred, I actively could not stop playing it, just because I wanted to see what would happen next.


That aside, it's a great game. A very unique combat system, TONS of secret things to find, a crafting system, a character affinity system that affected how your ending would play out.

All that said, the game can be very verbose at times, and I seem to remember not being able to skip cut scenes.
Some of them can go on for upwards of 10 minutes.

 

[theresay]

For me it's the story. I played this after finishing Xenosaga and was fully expecting an epic SF, instead I spent most of my time on a SINGLE backwater planet fighting fantasy monsters. Plus it has probably the worst plot twist I've seen. At least Star Ocean 4 stayed true to its name and concentrated on space exploration.

 

[Launcelot111]

Never played 3, so no comment. 4 might be my least favorite game ever. The only redeeming facet of the game was that Reimi's special dodge things looked cool. I called it quits about 10 minutes after Lymle appeared.

 

[Karthesios]

I enjoyed 3, despite a friend of mine's dissenting opinion, though the item creation system was an utter mess and could charitably be called broken. Loved the soundtrack and Cliff kicked ass, however.

As for 4, the cutscenes ranged from occasionally awesome to cheesier than my nachos, but the gameplay was rock-solid in my book and it had (in my opinion) the best item creation system in the game. The disc-swapping got annoying in post-game, but the PS3 version averted that problem.

 

[Windcaler]

It recieves a lot of hate? Cant say Ive seen that. Actually come to think of it I dont see much talk about JRPGs at all. SO3 was actually pretty good IMO, different story with the same themes that came in the previous games. It also had some of the more memorable bosses, although I wish the after game dungeon would have been shorter

I actually never played the 4th one but I saw the opening on Unskippable which made me question what they were doing wit it. I did not think a reboot was neccessary and IMO it would have helped the franchise more to keep it all interconnected.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I loved Till End of Time. Granted it was the first Star Ocean game I'd ever played, but I still loved it. Most of the characters were charming and likeable in some way with the exception of maybe Peppita and Roger, but even Roger's character was well fleshed out even if he was an annoying little shit. And I loved the plot twist, which I won't spoil.

Last Hope, by contrast, was absolute shite. None of the characters were at all likeable, least of all the protagonist. And near the end of the game the plot takes a right turn at 4th and Bananas (yes I stole that line from Yahtzee, so sue me),

Spoiler

how the fuck does Faize end up being the main villain and leader of the shadow dudes when the shadow dudes appeared and kicked off the plot long before he even turned to the "dark side." In fact it was because of the shadow dudes that he even turned to the "dark side" in the fist place. So yeah, how the fuck did he end up being behind everything?

Never mind that Edge gets a nice motivational vision from a character whose only ever been in the background the entire game, during the final battle.

 

[Marik2]

Was Star Ocean 4 the one Yatzhee and the guys from Unskippable made fun off?

edit: never mind a post just said it

 

[loc978]

I thought 3 was a good game... the plot just jumped the shark toward the end. The first two were better stories, though I'd say 3 was probably a better game.