Ahhhhh this looks good :)

My only problem... NO, my only concern about this game is that outside of the Main Character im not "digging" the rest of the cast... say whatever you want about SO4 but at least it had some cool looking and very unique characters with really unique gameplay styles, i dont see the same here...

Let me explain:

here we have 2 girl wizards (the loli is probably a healer) and the other two... well the MC and the other dude both wield swords so that fighting style is repeated there, and i havent seen anything from the trailers to make me think that the blonde dude is "REALLY DIFFERENT" gameplay wise to the MC.

And now with this GIF and the new trailer we can see the other 3 party members

The dude with the blue hair looks like another wizard im sorry but he does... (so thats three wizzards in the game), the green haired one looks like he could be unique,  (hopefully he doesnt have a sword and uses something else for combat) and then we have another loli (the one with the hat at the end..) and from what we saw from the trailer i SERIOUSLY doubt she will be fighting the enemies with a melee weapon so... what?... another wizzard? 4 wizzards in the game? i hope not but it looks like it.

So how does this compare to SO4? well here are my thoughts about that, lets start with the main Wizzard in both games

In terms of character design i like this Wizard from SO 4 more than its SO 5 counterpart (the green haired girl to be clear), and in terms of gameplay Myuria was really fast and could even teleport while dashing away, in SO5 so far i havent seen that from anyone and ive only seen the green haired girl throw spells so it doesnt impress me and i dont know how to compare her to Myuria since i havent seen her dodging or dashing through the battlefield, so i dont know if shes as agile as Myuria or not, so far at least in Character Design i like Myuria way more.

oh and for gods sake dont tell me that Myuria looks like a whore with that outfit becuase just look at what its SO 5 counterpart is wearing...

And here is where it gets complicated to compare the rest of the cast, because every character in SO4 had very unique gameplay styles and i dont see this in SO5, lets compare the second male melee character in both games

In SO5 its another sword dude just like the MC... with nothing to really set him apart gameplay wise (at least from whats shown so far of the game)

In SO4 its a fucking cool schyte wielder who both throws shockwaves with his schyte, is really fast and stong at melee and can even cast spells, and needless to say his character design also looks way better (at least to me it really does).

Now for the female character thats close to the protagonist and probably the love interest of the MC.

In SO 5 its yet but another Wizzard just look at the staff...

In SO 4 its an archer (yet another unique gameplay style), and she played GREAT, kicked the shit out of the enemies in both close combat and with the bow, just look at the gifs

And now its the moment when we cant compare the other 3 characters of SO5 because they havent been properly shown in trailers but we have seen them and two of them do LOOK like wizzards (as i said i doubt the loli who looks fragile will be fighting with melee weapons...) the blue haired dude looks like a wizzards as well and the green haired one is the only one who i have hopes of being unique and interesting.

And thats really sad to me because most of the rest of the cast in SO 4 are really unique, just look at them:

This is Meracle (the cat girl... yeah this is japanese game what do you expect), again another character with a unique gameplay style, she fights with her claws and god is she fast and extremely FUN to play as, (probably my favorite gameplay wise) and sadly i didnt found gifs to show her in action but if you are curious check youtube.

And this is Bacchus a giant android who shoots giant lazers, missiles and all sorts of artillery at the enemy (basically a walking tank) again another unique gameplay style.

Now its true that there are 3 wizzards in SO 4, the one i showcased and this two (who are my least liked characters in the game and the only ones i dont like over the SO 5 characters).

But at least al the rest of the cast in SO 4 are completely unique gameplay wise, something i cant really say from what ive seen of SO 5 (at least from the characters we have seen in gameplay so far), im really hoping that the other 3 characters that we havent seen gameplay of, turn out to be very unique gameplay wise and they dont end up being more wizzards.

Oh yeah thats variety, but to be honest its the least impressive type of variety, SO 4 also had a rapier user who got replaced by the schyte wielder and im happy about that because a rapier and a sword are not as diverse or different as having Shcytes and claws (at least for the melee characters).

i like that they use the anime portraits on the menu it looks nice, it was a small feature on the PS3 version of SO4 that i actually appreciated a lot, i wonder if this games would look better being anime cell shaded rather than being 3D based.

They could have 50 sword users, it wouldn't matter.  Star Ocean traditionally has characters that have the same exact weapon types but different attacks and different skills. Having a sword, scythe, or claws, it's a different skin with different animations and different hit boxes.  They can make two sword users have completely different combat styles and have the same effect as the difference of a sword and scythe user. 

Magic users are the big issue with Star Ocean, and until they completely change how they work, your end game party will always be a healer and three attacking characters, or if you have Opera/Reimi on Star Ocean 2/4, four attacking characters.  Magic on Star Ocean has always been a single number with a casting time, so a max of 9999.  This is the one area where the Tales games have always did it better, where magic spells did multiple hits so you could break the 9999 limit.

Chances are though, Star Ocean 5 will be a better game than Star Ocean 4 no matter how it turns out.  Star Ocean 4 was a bad game in my opinion. 

Yeah in other words they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and thats a better way of doing variety than having a bunch of sword users using their swords in different ways, thats the kind of variety that i like.

by the way im strictly talking about variety between the characters not the way the game is played, sure a healer and 3 attackers are always the good option and probably the way the game is intended to be played, but that has nothing to do with what im arguing about, to put it simple i rather see those 3 attackers having real variety to them, and having different weapons, with different attacks, and hitboxes, etc. it makes them more different and more appealing to me than a bunch of people trying to use a sword in a different way, thats all this comes down to, there is nothing else to it.

i think my point is pretty clear i dont see why i need to explain it.