That's probably the reason why the game sold so poorly, people are afraid to try new experiences and resort to genre they know backwards and forwards.

Everybody need get this. Its a masterpiece, i cant take off the control.

That and people hate SRPGS.

I mean even with the "action setting" moving the game is like every other SRPG.  Almost direct marches from battle to battle that take a long time, and planning... and offer little "payout" when it comes to attacking.

So ironic.  I very much disliked Star Ocean 3 so I don't have high hopes at all for Star Ocean 4.  Meanwhile Valkyria Chronicles was wonderful.  YMMV I suppose.

Seriously. I mean, I've played a lot of games over the decade and this one is pretty freakin' close to the top of that list...if not the top. I still can't get over it's poor sales. Anyway, good luck trying to find this in the future. If Sega really has cut down production for North America, I'm willing to bet you'll see copies going on Ebay and Amazon for more than any other hard to find JRPG in the future.

Also, my opinion after closely following SO4 news is that this gem will be much better. SO4 isn't the unique, refreshing game that came out of no where and blew people's socks off. I guess that's a matter of opinion though, so don't hate on me. :P

Lastly, I doubt SO4 will be hard to find anytime soon. VC will be.

@Desitny Blade

I won't lie to you there are people who played the game and didn't like it, BUT those people seem to be a very small percentage like 1%, and seem mostly to be people who swear only by FPS. If you look at Amazon reviews, 77 people out of 80 gave it five stars, 2 gave it four stars and only one had the guts to give it 3 stars but deployed fallacious arguments. RPG Land gave it the "Legendary" mark and all major sites praised the game. Look at VGC, out of 178 owners, only two have voiced their displeasure with the game.

When so many different people, even skeptics, praise a game to no end, there's no way in the world they can be wrong.