6/10
I had some decent fun the first time, but the story was almost impossible to follow near the end. Battles feel a lot more stat/level driven than skill driven. Couldn't finish it a second time. I did play it before Star Ocean 2.
Maybe... but even were this the case, I don't believe that means you can't award both games a high score. Take Mother for the NES as an example: while it's completely outclassed by EarthBound in every conceivable way, it's still a B+/A- game!
I dunno about that. Mother was pretty terrible in just about every area other than "being charming". You have to spend a stupid amount of time grinding; the difficulty is incredibly poorly balanced and often jumps up wildly without warning, and your party members joining at level 1 after you've just been forced to grind to survive the last area makes it worse. The plot progression feels really random at times, as do your party members' motivations.
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"That is why war is so tragic. To win means to make victims of your opponents and give birth to hatred." - Kratos Aurion, Tales of Symphonia