Good Buy
Having played 3 of the last 4 Star Oceans I definitely have to say that this one was my favorite. The game felt more like a movie that I was watching and also participating in. This made for a great experience. In addition to that, the combat system was great. The combination of attack and evade options and the ability to string combos together added a new dynamic to the battles and kept them interesting rather than repetitive like in many other RPGs. I especially liked the "blindside" ability in the battles that allows you to get in the enemies blind spot.
One thing that I did not like about the game however is that the English voice acting to me was terrible and in many cases it seemed they were overacting and also the English was in many cases totally out of sync with the characters mouth movements. Luckily there is an option to have the voice in the original Japanese with English subs with drastically made things better and felt more natural.
In conclusion this game provided me with hours of entertainment and in addition to the story there are lots of extra things you can do in the game. I highly recommend this purchase.