I want to get into this series. Where should I start? What

I heard 2 was by far the best while 4 is shit and 5 is even worse. 3 is fun but has a pretty dumb tweest.

>>387249747
5 is pretty okay. 4 is still abysmal shit, though
>EDGE MAVERICK

>>387249747
>>387249805
What's wrong with 4 and 5?

>>387249634

Play 1 and 2. If you want more content and a dumb story play 3, if you want more combat and an even dumber story play 4, if you want to kys play 5.

>>387249634
Start with 1. The SNES version is dated but there's nothing particularly wrong with it, while the PSP version changes it to be like 2.
Play the original PSX version of 2 and avoid the PSP version because the changes it made were for the worse.
3 throws out a lot of the game mechanics from 2 but has great dungeon design to make up for it.
4 is a mess in terms of writing and pacing and the only good thing about it is that the combat is more interesting than in 3.
5 is absolute garbage, avoid at all costs.

So basically this >>387249747

>>387251241
psp 2 was fine and its the better choice if your emulating

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>>387251485
Go be wrong somewhere else.

>>387251241
>>387250387
But what is specifically wrong with 5?

>>387249747
Second Story is okay but honestly I'd say Till the End of Time.

>>387250338
They both have crap stories with poor casts and terrible dungeon design along with poor attempts at bringing back 2's skill system while forgetting everything that made 2's skill system good. They both have incredibly bad animation but 5 is also painfully low-budget and the presentation of the entire game suffers for it. 4 at least has decent combat but 5's combat is an absolute mess.
A way to describe the difference between the two is that 4 has higher highs and lower lows, with some offensively bad parts, and 5 plays it a lot safer but is consistently mediocre.

>>387249634
>What should I avoid?
The entire series.

>>387251546
Artwork is awful too. I looked at the Eternal Sphere in the PSP remake and they changed it's model to a generic overused Levantine knockoff instead of that sweet rainbow looking sword.

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>>387251832

>>387251241
>>387251969
4 is okay but in terms of story it suffers heavily. Gameplay more than makes it for it though.

Post game dungeons are okay but fuck the Wandering Dungeon. FUCKING GEOSTONES!!!

>>387249634
If you really want to play it, 1 is fine, 2 is good, 3 is good, 4 is okay but don't do english dub or expect depth, 5 idk since i haven't gotten around to it.

>>387249634
Never
Play
4
mmm'kay?

>>387252271
3's dub is also horrendous. It's a shame they didn't add in dual-audio for the PS4 release.
Also worth mentioning that 4 is only dual-audio on the PS3.

>>387252325
Lymle isn't that bad. I'd rather listen to her than play 5.

What's really weird is how she's like 15 despite looking like an 8 year old.

>>387252407
Lymle is significantly easier to tolerate with Japanese audio. The closest thing she has to a verbal tic in the Japanese script is "nano yo" which isn't used anywhere near as often and is far less intrusive. I don't know what the localisers were thinking.

>>387252357
3's dub is way better than 4's. It isn't great, but it isn't terrible either.

>>387252407
She was with the English dub. I will admit that there was some pleasure bevause the game was so fucking bad I didn't know if I would finish it or not, but I still never want to touch it again.

And yeah. Its just all sorts of fucked. The other cat girl and Angel were also quite kiddish. I felt like they were trying to do some harem shit but could never go thriugh with it.

>>387252683
I never really had a problem with dubs of 3 or 4.

Gameplay in 4 was so good, it actually makes me sad that 5 sucked. Item creation in the star ocean games is really fun and some of the descriptions make me chuckle.

>>387252718
>but it isn't terrible either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5XOerPxqHU

>>387249634
2 is all you need to play, it's lightning in a bottle and they failed to properly hit all the same points that made it great in any of the other games in the series.
There aren't a lot of other games where as a source of income you can have your characters write novels, which are determined by the characters innate talents, then bring those novels to a publisher and later come back and collect royalties based on how well the book sold, or games with an extensive cooking system that gets used in an Iron Chef mini game, or games where you can pickpocket YOUR OWN PARTY, or any of the other number of things that make Srat Ocean 2 an outstanding an charming experience.
If you REALLY want more Star Ocean after that, play 3 or 1.
Beyond that, 5 is meh, avoid 4.

>>387253127
The pickpocketing party members thing is great, it's a shame that pickpocketing in general is so fucking annoying since good items take millions of reloading saves to steal even with level 10 pickpocketing and magicians hands.

>>387252718
>I felt like they were trying to do some harem shit but could never go thriugh with it.

Funny story, someone at the company actually wanted to make Star Ocean 4 a full on dating sim, but everyone else said no, that's retarded.
However his desire why you can chose room assignments for your crew in the final version.
I'm serious

>>387249634
Avoid all except 3. 3 is amazing, one of the rpgs in existence.

>>387249634
>Where should I start?
from the beginning

>>387252718
Meracle was okay, and I wanted to drown myself in Myuria's breastmilk, but Lymle and Sarah are fucking ear cancer.

>>387252956
Okay well you posted fucking Farleen. I can't argue with that. But ignoring that, it isn't terrible. Its just anime tier otherwise

>>387253327
That does explain alot. That you have this blonde haired guy with the the weight of the world on his shoulders travelling through space on his somewhat phallus shaped spaceship with various girls from different planets.

>>387249634

Literally just 2. 1 is ok if a bit dated, 3 has that classic PS2 JRPG sequel thing of being a ok game but not nearly living up to the last game. 4 is a total piece of shit in every way and 5 is twice as bad.

>>387253653
Lets be real here, 5 is better than 4 if only for the simple fact that it isn't full of cut scenes that you're ashamed to watch in front of your friends and family.
Oh, and there's also no disc changing bullshit whenever you want to enter or leave the final dungeon
And the item creation (Synthesis) system is better.

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>>387249634
2 is the best but it is also unstable and randomly corrupts your saves / freezes
you should avoid them all

>>387252069
>I can't form my own opinion so here's the hivemind's

>>387254601
You ever think that maybe he wrote all the to begin with and just doesn't want to wait out the post cooldown multiple times in every instance it comes up?

2 is the best. 3 is good for gameplay. 1 is alright. 4 is pretty fucking awful. 5 is trash but has fappable characters.

>>387251546
More or less feel the same. I was so hyped and bought it blind. Gave up at the mine, just couldn't play it anymore. Such a disappointment.

>>387255480
Fuck, meant to quote the SO5 pasta.

>>387249634
Just play 2 and 3

Don't play 4. 5 is trash

>>387254939
I want to play 3 again, tempted to buy it on PSN. Yeah yeah, the twist but all that postgame content and that fun fucking battle system.

>>387251241
>there's nothing particularly wrong with it

Outside of being obviously unfinished, consisting mostly of running from A to B on the overworld and then track back the same paths three times and the dungeons being nothing but mazes with maybe one puzzle if you're lucky.

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>>387249634
Synth at least 12 Boots of Prowess.

>>387249634
Play 1, 2, 3 and 4. Avoid 5.

>>387254032
The PS3 version solves the disc changing issue and 5's story is still worse than 4's. 4 is a much better game.

>>387254276
I've played through 2 literally dozens of times and I've only had it freeze on me four times, three of which were in the same dungeon, and I've never heard of it corrupting saves before.

>>387254875
The filename should have told him as much; it's obviously easier to repost the cap than to type all that out every time.

>>387256261
That description applies to 4 and 5 as much as it does to 1, and it's not like the PSP version fixes that.

>>387258880
>only four times

>>387259592
>Four times
>You will hit at least 1000 battles in an average playthrough, probably 2000 if you do everything
>An average playthrough is a good 30 hours, and again longer if you do everything
>Literally dozens of playthroughs
Yeah, I'll take an incredibly small risk of freezing after a battle that is easily mitigated by emulators allowing you to make savestates in exchange for being able to play one of the best JRPGs of the era.

>>387258684
>Guy on backwater planet accidentally stumbles across a living weapon and gets caught up in someone else's much bigger conflict, which culminates in bringing down the leader of a military coup and earns the Pangalactic Federation another ally.
vs
>Frontier explorer fights off mysterious and poorly defined enemy force that's somehow lead by your friend, and beating him up fixes everything? (even though it existed just fine before he was leading it?) and makes him your friend again. Also, you accidentally travel to a parallel reality and blow up alternate Earth, justifying the creation of what's basically SO's version of the Prime Directive.

There's definitely less going on in SO5's story, but I wouldn't say it's "worse"

>>387259964
The freezes don't just occur randomly after a battle (that too)
They occur because doing certain things silently corrupts the game state until it eventually freezes
And you never know when exactly your game state got corrupted so even if you roll back to an hours old save you may still freeze in the same spot later on

I tried to finish this game 3 times on a real console and on emulators but never could because of reproducible freezes

>>387261475
I have never once been unable to progress because of a consistent freeze issue like you're describing and I've played through the game on the original PSX, on a PS2, in ePSXe, in PCSX-R, and in mednafen. Once again, this is the first time I've ever heard of such an issue.

>>387249634
The Second game is good. The remake of the first game is decent too. The rest are ass.

>>387261750
The issues were somewhat well known back then
Some magazine/guide even recommended finishing the Hoffman Ruins as quickly as possible because it can crash or corrupt your save

You're probably not doing the things that cause corruption or at least doing them less

>>387262421
If the things that can corrupt your save are not properly known and are so uncommon that I've never once run into them through all the time I've put into the game then they may as well be a non-issue, and they absolutely shouldn't be something that deters someone from playing the game at all.

Star ocean till end of time
Best star ocean game imo

>>387262632
>I didn't encounter those well-known issues which affect Star Ocean 2/3/4 so they aren't a problem and shouldn't keep anyone from wasting 100+ hours

>>387263216
How would someone waste 100+ hours when the game is at most only 40 hours long?
The point is that telling someone not to play a game at all because they might encounter an incredibly uncommon issue is retarded. And it's also clearly not well known or we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

>>387263216
Since when does it affect 3 and 4 as well?

>>387263338
>speedrunning one of the best ps1 rpgs
Also it still is well-known enough to have lots of search results

>>387263465
I only played 2, but 3 and 4 can freeze as well according to Google

>>387263690
>Playing the game at a completely average time is speedrunning
Ok buddy. No one is going to sink 100 hours into a single playthrough of SO2, there just isn't that much content.