112 hours clocked so far.

Working on the second bonus dungeon.

Finally got past the Phantom Soldiers after about 15 tries.

I have it now but still haven't start on it.

I hope to at least give my impressions soon.

Anime art style can emote better than CG. There was a big thread about this a while back. I forgot who made it.

Story and art style have never been groundbreaking on any Star Ocean. The end game and the battle system, however, are the main show points.

Has anyone here beaten Gabriel yet? This douchebag is really pissing me off. He's kicked my ass 7 times already. Every time I level up 5 or so levels beforehand, but it doesn't seem to matter. I always end up running out of revival medicine before I can finish him off. I know I've come close twice.

Gabby is easy if you do it right.

Give edge the best defense you can, level up No Guard to max, and equip an anti paralysis amulet.

Give Riemi the best attack gear available, and give her crimson squall and/or savage sparrows with critical hit on support if you have gotten it.

Make sure you use Sarah as your healer, turn off all of her spells but her healing and resurrection spells, and remove all of her chain attacks.

You can use whoever you want for the other party member, I prefer Meracle for damage, but that's up to you.

Taunt Gabby with edge, and run lap around the outside of the battlefield with Gabby chasing you, and let your AI party members attack him.

Pretty much you should be able to kite him like this until he dies.

If that doesn't work, go level more. On level 6 of the ruins you will find crabs and metal scumbags who drop a hell of alot of exp.

I beat him around level 120, but if you need to get higher there is no shame in that.

Hope this helps, and good luck. :)

Wtf is a Phantom Soldier?

@Domo-Kun: Damn lvl 120? I didn't even make it to the end of that dungeon until I was lvl 135. Anyway the 8th time was the charm and I finally beat him shortly after I posted. I think my biggest problem was that my reserve members weren't lvl'd up properly so if my party did manage to get wiped out, the reserve wouldn't be much of a help. So I lvl'd up everyone a lot beforehand, but the battle still took almost 30 minutes. Burned through all of my resurrection elixirs. Started with Edge, ******, Myuria, and Reimi. Got smart and eventually swapped ****** for Sarah and it wasn't too difficult after that. Just made sure one of my healers was always alive and spammed plenty of rush combos started by Reimi. I controlled her nearly the entire battle, except for the 3 or 4 times when she died. She pwns with Hunter's Moon and Crimson Squall. She's also fast enough to run from Gabriel and keep him at a safe distance.

GAH!! WELCCCHHHH!!!

She's like the Jar-Jar of Star Ocean!