I'm waiting for a cheap copy myself. I wished they would have spaced all the JRPG's evenly throughout this year. Too much, so little time.

I voted - Avoid at all cost.

Unless the targeting system was fixed with the PS3 version, I thought that the game had far too few saving graces and was actually quite terrible.

Likes:

• The battle system was fun overall.
• The zones are fairly expansive and, at first, fun to explore
• Lots of colour
• Experimenting with ideas was fun

Dislikes

• Though the battle system was fun, it was marred by a brutal targeting controls
• The exploration is fun at first, but wears thin due to sporadic save points
• The locations and the characters are inexplicably bright
• The story is pretty standard, though the dialogue and the voice overs rank among the worst in any game I've actually looked forward to playing
• The characters themselves are completely uninteresting and wholly shallow
• Difficulty spikes, ranging from button mashing random enemies to difficult (targeting!), yet sometimes fun, boss battles
• Animation in the characters is atrocious and takes away what little character they actually have

I'm sure there are several more likes and dislikes I could think of. Regardless, my dislikes far outweigh the likes with this game. I did, however, have more fun with this game than WKC (the other game you mention). I liked the battle system more - which is a shame, because I've always been a huge fan of Level-5's material up til now. WKC's story, characters, story and dialogue I thought were better, but still incredibly lacking. I'd recommend whatever you value you more, if you're dead set on getting either of the two, that is.

try buying it on ebay. I saved like 15 dollars on the game

So many awesome games for PS3 now - Yakuza 3, God of War 3 and the better FF13.

Star Ocean - 20 Dollar - okay

Avoid at all cost. Star Ocean 4 is garbage.

The targetting has been saomewhat fixed in the PS3 version. You can cycle through the enemies, so that much of manual targetting is there. But it cycles through their names (and outlines/shape) in upper left corner. So if there are 4 of the same it's not a huge help.

I thought most of the characters are okay (played with Japanese voices). Plot has breakneck holes that does transfer to some of the characters.
Half of the battle trophies are retarded.

But the fun battle system justifies a lot. I'm actually having fun with the game, but if you have something else to play (and there is quite a bit out now), it won't hurt to wait for the price to drop (and I got mine at £22).

SO4 (with JP VA, i cant repeat it often enough) is one of the most atmospheric Games i played the last Years. worth the buy if you like action RPGs, i bought it day one for 60 Eur, and i dont regret it.

it has good grafix and expansive worlds, lots of collectables. i would give it a shot.

dialogue is typical cheesy jap but sounds pretty good imo.

only downer is the battle music, its a sham.

i actually really enjoyed this game i liked most of the characters, ok the voice acting isnt the best but it didnt bother me in the slightest i enjoyed the game and will keep it for further plays even though ive completed it.