Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I sincerely can not tell how this game has reviewed as *highly* as it has. I've been a Star Ocean fan since Star Ocean 2, and JRPGs are my preferred game genre. I was looking forward to a "classic" JRPG. Some reviews have mentioned that this game is stuck in the past on some measures, but from my experience it's in all the wrong ways. This game has significant issues: - Too much running back and forth (Oh, we trudged all the way to this dungeon only to have an epiphany to *walk* all the way back to the other side of the world where we just came from!) Fast travel is sorely needed. It is available briefly only to be taken away again very quickly. - Stupid AI. There is this "Role" system where different roles can be equipped on characters, with the assumption that those characters will take on those roles as part of their decision making during battles. It doesn't seem to work for me. I end up having to play as the healer during boss battles, which take forever since my other characters only perform weak attacks. - Difficult battles. I'm all for having a tough fight, if the game is fun. But due to the dumb AI battles are tedious. - No cinematography. Who is talking? I'm not sure, I have full control of the camera and can walk around while other people talk. I can't tell who is who since the camera rarely focuses on a single individual while talking (there are some scenes where the devs decides to control the camera more traditionally, but this is rare). - Confusing story. Why are these people obsessed with helping Relia find her parent's/home in the middle of a war? Even if it comes together eventually, I am completely lost on these character's motivations early in the game. - Lazy level design. The same environments are reused multiple times, but we don't want our players wondering freely to areas they shouldn't go to yet! So lets just place an invisible barrier, and have the NPCs complain when the player tries to go past it. I mean, this could be better integrated into the story "No, we need to go this way!" but even when it's clear the NPCs aren't supposed to know which way to go they seem to magically know that it's not *that* way. - Disabled save points, and no auto-save. Sometimes save points are disabled. Typically in the middle of some story sequence, but there is still lurking danger... And some might say auto-saves make games too easy. I think saving shouldn't be an inherit strategy in a game, something one must constantly consider. I can't recall being so frustrated with a game. After saving, fighting a boss battle, ending up in an inn with a disabled save point, going out of the inn to fight some random battles until I reached the next boss, only to then die when my healer, again, decided not to heal... and then reloading the save back to that first boss since, again, this perfectly good save point was disabled for no apparent reason - I've had it. I'm not wasting any more time on this game. And I recommend you don't waste any time on it either.