I have it, and have gotten to the Second Stratum. Got some decent levels when trying to fulfill a quest where I have to stay and fight in the Labyrinth for three days (although I've not been able to complete it :/).

L. Frank Baum wrote several sequels to The Wizard of Oz so there's certainly strong story potential. I thought the book was way better than the movie by the way...

Wow this thread's gone way off-topic. Back to Star Ocean, I was a bit disappointed by the third game largely because of the gameplay, which I felt was a step down from the second game due to things like the Weak/Strong attack system (I don't have that kind of timing, sorry) and especially the awful Invention system, which was too expensive and random. Here's hoping they return to all the stuff that made SO2 good. And I didn't think the plot twist in SO3 was *that* bad; I've seen much worse.

I'll certainly be steering clear of this one.

If you're one of those people who played FF8 thinking you had to piss away an eternity drawing spells from enemies, you obviously didn't play it right.

I'm sure it would never happen since it's a Sony property, but I think Dragoon, regardless of its flaws, would be perfect for the Nintendo Wii, given the timed button-pressing aspect, which I think could easily be substituted with timed swinging of the Wiimote. Agree? Disagree?

Pfft. Game likes Tales of the Abyss had "limited exposure." FF4 had plenty.

FF12, in my book, pretty much puts all other RPG scripts to shame.

In addition to voice acting, there's also this little thing called voice directing. Bad directors can result in even good actors doing lousy performances. For instance, Grandia Xtreme had Dean Cain, Mark Hamill, and Lisa Loeb, but still had terrible voicework. The Digital Devil Saga games, on the other hand, didn't have big-name celebrities doing the voices, but still had superb voice acting.

From what I hear, Japanese voice acting really isn't all that better than English voice acting. And Japanese voice actors do tend to do a lousy job saying English words, typically adding an -oh or -uh to them, which I know has something to do with how they're spelled in Katakana, but it might be nice if they actually said them like the English-speaking world would. I personally think many think Japanese voice acting is better simply because they can't understand it.

Wow, and to think people said War of the Lions' voice acting was bad (people obviously born without ears).

You've gotta admit, it does take a lot of talent to voice-act that badly without bursting into laughter.

The first Grandia's story was just as abhorrent...

I've always been aware that Japanese takes up less space than English...

I'm not much of a hater of any kind of anime artist, although there are a few RPGs with strikingly bad art such as Beyond the Beyond and Vandal Hearts, which will make you appreciate the likes of Toriyama and Nomura *so* much more...

First game was pretty good, so I hope its sequel gets localized too.