Not a bad sci-fi fantasy game. Well conceived and quite good all-round. I enjoyed The Last Hope immensely more.

Beautiful visuals, music, voice acting etc.
Story has a grand sci-fi theme
fluid realtime combat

Negatives:
I thought the game loop was just not super engaging.
Most battles and fights in general through out the game were underwhelming did not make good use of all the available skills and mechanics.
Crafting was not that interesting
The mini-game seemed boring.

In the end I think it just needed a bigger budget, more polish, and fill out the extra-game systems (minigame and crafting) and it would have been a much more serious Action RPG.

Had to refund it, couldnt get the controller working... it was absolutely horrible...

It's pretty ok. The last act was weaker than the rest of the game, which left me with a less positive feeling overall when I finished it, but it still holds it together better than SO2 disc 2 did.

The story isn't anything amazing (and a lot of it is stuff Star Trek did better years ago), but it's good enough, and a lot of the characters grew on me the more time I spent with them. The battle system got less interesting the closer I got to the end of the game, but the nyoom button never stops being fun and makes combat and exploration feel a lot faster and more fluid.

One of these days maybe they'll make a Star Ocean game where I'm having just as much fun at the end as I am in the middle when they seem to be at their best, but this still isn't quite that day. It's still alright overall though.