This will be the first in a series of posts why Star Ocean 4 is not only a terrible Star Ocean game, but also a terrible RPG. It WILL contain spoilers. Also, I shall refrain from any profanity whatsoever unless I'm citing any direct quotes or pertinent material that includes that to describe plot points.
This post is going to cover the more general aspects of why it's not a very competent game, later posting will go into further specifics. This post was made based on the Steam port.
1. The voiceacting in the English version is pretty bad
The voice acting in this game, compared to all the other games, is pretty terrible. The English script is overall pretty stilted in delivery, and the game does a horrible job of syncing the dialogue to the dramatic times of most scenes, so even some of the more competent voice acting comes off sounding weird.
Worst of all is Edge Maverick, your main character. He is voiced by Matthew Mercer, and this was a role much earlier in Mercer's career. Mercer is now regarded very highly as a voice actor, but his voice work for Edge is definitely far from his best work. Edge has a halting and slightly nasal tone in many critical scenes, which does little to make him seem like an assertive character, and especially in early scenes, he delivers lines very awkwardly, which does not help. To be fair, some of the more minor dialogue is competent enough, and despite the poor script he manages to invest some scenes with actual dramatic gravitas, but taken as a whole, this was not one of Mercer's better roles and I'm glad he improved drastically. He gets slightly less cringe later on in the script, and even approaches good at times, but more often than not this was far from Matthew Mercer's best role.
Some of the other more known voice actors are pretty good, admittedly. Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham voice some of the better-acted characters and fight tooth and nail against the bad script of the game, managing to sound likable or at least competent at worst. Kyle Herbert voices Arumat P. Thanatos, and despite the fact he's got a VERY tryhard Grim Reaper aesthetic, Herbert manages to pull it off without making one cringe too hard. Everyone else ranges from unremarkable at best to rather overdramatic and corny more often than not.
The Japanese dub is still hobbled by the same basic script, but it's certainly far easier on the ears given most of the Japanese voice work has a wide range of inflection and syncs far better with many scenes. Given some of the English voices are awkwardly pitched, the Japanese dub sounds a lot better due to what appears to have better voice work direction overall.
2. Star Ocean 4 is just not very faithful to its own lore
Star Ocean 4 is, according to its script, the earliest in the series timeline, being set a few decades after humanity took to the stars via warp drive technology. Almost immediately, the script runs into serious continuity issues.
First off, the initial portrayal of the warp drive is horribly botched. For some insane reason, they describe their early subspace warp technique as using wormholes, and that is idiotic, as wormholes and subspace (or hyperspace as it's called in some works of science fiction) are two different things with different laws governing each in science fiction and current prevailing scientific theory upon which both concepts derive from. Also, it becomes clear the first scene where their warping goes horribly wrong that sets up the rest of the plot was obviously staged that way to basically set up cheap drama. Later your ship gets an "improved" warp engine and this sort of thing never happens again save one scene that was obviously set up for cheap drama again to send the characters to the next story arc.
Given Star Ocean takes pointed inspiration from Star Trek, which attempts to keep matters of technical specs within some framework of plausibility within its own narrative, Star Ocean 4 manages to get very basic facts like this wrong more than once, despite having three games of established lore to refer to keep it consistent.
A later scene with a black hole is also poorly portrayed, with the characters somehow running into it out of the blue even though such phenomena are, by their nature, easily detectable from a long way off, and your vessel is portrayed as advanced enough to pick up on gravitation disturbances. And, given black holes are super-dense areas of gravitational force that leave conspicuous differences in surrounding space detectable from a long way off, and it seems absurd you could just run into one without warning, which the plot insists you do, and the attempt to escape its event horizon serves to force the player into going to the next plot arc.
In short, Star Ocean 4 gets a lot of basic sci-fi conceits and tropes wrong, with the above just being some of the larger examples of this bizarre incompetence.
More importantly, Star Ocean 4 badly wanted to do a prequel to the rest of series timeline while not violating established canon, and on those grounds, they did a pretty poor job as well.
Two arcs, in particular, are BAD at this, the Roak arc (aka SO1 Nostalgia Arc) and the EN II arc (SO2 Nostalgia Arc)
The Roak arc (which I shall cover in more detail in a later posting) exists more or less so the writers can coast off Star Ocean 1 nostalgia. Literally, the very events that make it possible to shoehorn you into said arc without good reason, and all the events that transpire are literally by writer fiat. They find a way to advance the actual plot somewhat afterward, but it's still pretty forced.
That said, it's pretty obvious this arc was set up to explain a lot of things that did NOT need explaining anyway. Things like "why didn't Asmodeus from SO1 become a threat sooner" and the stone sickness plot of SO1 are both revisited in a very obvious manner and considering how both amount to a fat load of nothing in their resolutions, it makes the entire arc even more of a blatant walk through SO1 nostalgia.
They also use this arc to cram in the obligatory side content you'd expect to find in the previous three Star Ocean games, but that's minor and forgivable compared to the amount of continuity twisting retcons this arc does to SO1. In fact, without going into exhaustive detail, this arc tries to explain a few things from SO1 that were either adequately explained prior or didn't need explaining to begin with while introducing some new elements that never get referenced again.
The EN II arc (the place is obviously a short way of saying Energy Nede II) is literally SO2 Nostalgia, only even more pointless to the series lore, as despite their considerable story impact on SO4, they effectively disappear from the series canon after it's events, which is really bizarre given you'd think during the events of SO2 with the original Energy Nede they'd have shown up. In fact, SO4 implies they were going to show up later in the series canon, but they obviously don't, at least not the Nede descendants from EN II.
As for the overall plot, it's basically a giant justification for the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact (UP3) that later chronological games would reference. The problem is, the game has a pretty hamfisted way of justifying it, with the Roak arc especially essentially making hypocrisy of this effort (mostly because it would have been possible to have never explored Roak for plot reasons but the writers forced you to anyway despite the characters wanting to keep their potential cultural contamination to an absolute minimum), and the villains of the game are a further effort at delivering this prequel justification that basically has sledgehammer subtlety on top of bad writing giving them plot relevance at times.
In short, while I'll cover the problems with the various plot arcs later in detail, it's safe to say this game was poorly constructed for narrative reasons and makes a poor prequel to the rest of the series, to the point even Star Ocean 6 makes a grand total of two possible references to SO4, with one being a possible coincidence and the other even has the game effectively admit the connection is apocryphal.
3. The Characters and How Well They Fit (or Don't)
A. Crowe F. Almedio: Crowe is a character that is the quintessential Hero of Another Story. That said, that's not a bad thing in and of itself, as his being absent from view most of the plot does help the narrative surrounding the character of Bacchus and Myuria considerably. What is annoying about an otherwise competently written character is how the writers were obviously shilling him to the moon when even the character himself and what we do see of his onscreen actions show him as certainly capable as a warrior and as a ship captain, but still doing no more than is within the natural limits of his own skill and circumstances.
He also falls victim to the problem of how the writers so badly wanted to tie the events of SO4 to SO1, by including an unlockable stinger scene more or less stating Roddick Farrence from SO1 was Crowe's descendant, thus establishing a character who was a canon Fellpool had human ancestry. While this is entirely unnecessary, it's also to explain how Roddick got his hands on what amounts to a Star Ocean lightsaber, which SO4 establishes were Crowe's.
The thing is, this is entirely gratuitous shilling, especially given how the whole Roak arc is literally forced on the player by writer fiat.
Still, Kyle Herbert (who voices Arumat, and teams up briefly with Crowe) makes a good showing of his role and makes Crowe sound distinct from Arumat. The only thing working against him is all the shoehorned writer shilling for a character who even in-universe remains humble and reasonably self-aware of his own limitations.
Further, given the events of SO4 and SO1's Past Roak story take place within a few decades of each other, Crowe would likely still be alive during the events of SO1 and it seems absurd to think he would have not gotten involved in any way, shape or form, with those events.
B. Shimada: Shimada is that annoying, incompetent Deputy Director of the SRF (the exploration fleet by Earth to find new planets to colonize, which the Eldarian civilization knew about and supported) that is the game's Asshole Victim. True to the character archetype, he exists mainly for someone on the player's side to hate till the story deems the villains need to kill him off, so when he gets killed he will not be missed because was a total douche when he was alive.
In a better-written story, that would be a good thing, but the problem is, Shimada has a tertiary connection to the plot at absolute best, and with some very minor changes, his entire character could be minimized to an entire offscreen role, or even written out entirely, as he's shorthand for all the higher ups on Earth who are useless glory hound bureaucrats more concerned with their own skins and reputations than anything else. The only times he has any plot importance are two times. The first, when Captain Grafton calls for help, could be given to some offscreen voice or even omitted entirely, as the only thing he does is call in the Eldarians for help, which need not be done by Shimada, any higher up in the Earth military (which has oversight over the SRF) could have sent back a response to Grafton about the Eldarians being called, given the information on their existence was a closely held secret for political reasons.
The second time is when Shimada wants to burn all records of the SRF to keep the Eldarians from assuming Earth leveled their homeworld and blew up their sun later in the plot. This fails to make sense for multiple reasons.
One, the Eldarians were in contact with Earth for the longest time and have a reasonably good idea of Earthling capabilities and intentions, the invaders who were responsible are clearly not even human and their facsimile imitations of Earth tech are clearly that. Worse, in many key areas, Earth is patently inferior to the Eldarians, as is clearly mentioned earlier. How Earth could even be guilty of the act Shimada wants to cover up beggars' belief, especially when there are living Eldar who know Earth had nothing to do with it, thanks to both Crowe (who saved a LOT of witnesses to prove Earth's innocence as is clearly stated) and Eldar commander Gahgan. The story even realizes how frail their excuses are later and the Eldarians and Earth team up to help in the final arc because it's obvious whoever hosed over their homeworld was not Earth.
Now, even assuming the Eldarians were stupid enough to believe Earth would stab them in the back anyway, the message he has Stephen Kenny relay about destroying all SRF ships to Edge need not come from Shimada, he could be replaced by offscreen, unnamed Earth military higherups and the plot would proceed the same way.
Basically, Shimada only exists so the writers can kill him off later, his actual plot roles being so minor he could be written out with little to no change in the plot.
C. Edge Maverick: Edge as the protagonist has a promising start but the story fails to use him well. Established as the guy who feels inferior to the character of Crowe (who the writers shilled a bit too hard as better than he was) and clearly the "hero" of the main story, the writers fail to do well with him outside the initial Aeos arc.
To the credit of the writers, they do have Edge point out that his sudden promotion to captain of the Calnus basically fell into his lap instead of being earned, and he shows adequate competence in realizing he's in over his head with no help and duly leans on said help early on.
Unfortunately, the horrible scriptwriting makes him come off as horribly indecisive and a poor example of someone trusted with command. Later arcs immediately after reveal that while he still has some admirable heroic traits, he's also in horribly over his head and by the time of the alternate-Earth arc, where everyone's IQ took a nosedive, he's forced to act very stupidly and curses himself some time after for an event where he was basically required by the writers to be an absolute moron and cause a tragedy due to imposed ignorance.
For most of the Roak arc (itself another case of badly forced writer fiat), he's effectively useless in command, forcing Reimi to take over briefly until she's laid out of action with stone sickness, which is the first of a series of events to jolt him back into his former self.
By the end of the Roak arc, he's basically back to normal and the game effectively pretends his moments of obscene stupidity earlier didn't really happen or if they did, he has a much more subdued reaction to them. Events, one must remember, that resulted in him being a proxy to the destruction of an entire planet through naive stupidity.
Other things that work against is the writers forcing him to be the role model of Faize, despite Faize initially showing much more competence and ability to make informed decisions, and it's the later incapacity of Edge that only partially results in the events that lead Faize to be absent from the part after a certain point. Most of that is due to issues I'll cover when covering Faize.
Otherwise, Edge is the typical cliche hero archetype and cleaves to the same mold as many of the characters before him, just written less well. Like Fayt from SO3, he also has a power he was unaware of but this is very poorly explained, with key aspects of its plot importance buried in the ingame encyclopedia. Like Claude from SO2, he's forced to make some painful judgment calls, some of which result in a horrible tragedy, but unlike Claude who made his decisions of his own free will, Edge's moments of bad decision-making were forced on him by the writers. Finally, Edge is something of a prototype of Ronyx from SO1, but where Ronyx was an experienced man making judgment calls to bend or even break rules based on a far greater good, Edge is forced to make many of the same calls but with far less competence, self-assurance, or anything else going for him except what the writers mandated. His writing thus suffers from him often being their hero not because he grows into the mantle, it's more like the writers forced it on him.
D. Myuria Tionysus
Myuria is the resident Ms. Fanservice Lady of Black Magic (the sci-fi equivalent at least for the latter).
Unfortunately, the former is somewhat forced on her by the writers.
Her backstory is notedly marked by a husband she remains very devoted to even after she was left a widow by his being killed by the villains. Further, the game shows her personality is rather serious and acerbic most of the time. She does seem to derive some stress relief from some mild teasing and flirting, but it comes off more as a cope over being a widow than anything else, it never goes anywhere. The game even gives Edge a big relationship boost with her if he goes out of his way to pay respect to her husband Lucien's grave, which is a bit ironic given, canonically, the game ends with him ending up with Reimi by default and nothing happens romantically if he gets Myuria's custom ending.
Further, her fanservicey outfit comes off as a shoehorn to the basic tropes mentioned above as opposed to being a logical idea. Not only does it render many of her scenes mildly comical because she was given constant Jiggle Physics for her cleavage, she comes off far more as the big sister archetype, even mildly telling Edge off should he try to seriously return the mild teasing with what seems more a mild put down than anything else.
That aside, her role in the story is fine for what it is, even though it's established she doesn't need symbology tattoos to use it (though she could just have them for decorative reasons) and both her and Bacchus suffer from the fact their faction effectively disappears from canon after SO4 despite their SO2 referencing.
E. Bacchus D-79
Bacchus is actually one of the better characters, mainly by virtue of Travis Willingham moving heaven and earth in his English VA work to make him sound good despite the otherwise poor script. He also benefits from being the infodump character due to his being a scientist and a cyborg.
Aside from the same issue as Myuria regarding their faction, he's actually one of the better-written characters.
E. Faize Sheifa Beleth
Faize, conceptually, is actually not a bad character. He's intended to be the first alien to join your team and provide an important role in the story. Unfortunately, he's hobbled out the gate by several things the writers are responsible for.
The most serious problem is that the writers were lazy. Many pieces of plot-critical information about him were tucked away in the ingame encyclopedia, and without reading it, many scenes make far less sense about him than they should. Most critically, the entire Roak arc makes him look like he snapped like a twig after falling for some random girl and it ends in tragedy, but reading all that information the writers could not be bothered to make relevant in the actual script reveals he was having a slow-going emotional breakdown long before and that was just one of the last in a long line of events to make him come unglued. This is also what made him later vulnerable to being brainwashed by the Grigori, which otherwise, while somewhat foreshadowed, makes little sense.
Another problem is how the writers forced him to look up to Edge, of all people, as a role model, despite Faize showing much more initial competence. Worse, even after Edge's intense stupidity in the alternate-Earth arc, this remains largely intact until the writers needed it to be otherwise. Again, all the info tucked in the game encyclopedia makes it clear Faize has emotion-suppressing issues and he was subliminally trying to imprint on Edge to be an emotional anchor for him, and when Edge turned into a mopey shell of himself Faize's internal cope with his issues started falling apart hard.
Again, due to bad writing, the game is very poor at showing or explaining this in the actual depicted script.
His turn into a brainwashed minion of the Grigori threat is also a way to provide a resolution for the plot, which I'll describe in more detail when I cover the Grigori. The thing is, while Faize in this role isn't a bad choice given how the story plays out, the writer's laziness rears its ugly head here, as the way the writers wrote the plot Faize got brainwashed into a villainy role so the writers could write an ending for the Grigori, who otherwise wouldn't have a good way to tie off their plotline.
Basically, Faize makes a lot of conceptual sense, he's just cursed by lazy writing for key aspects of his own character and is used as a plot device for other writing laziness in other areas.
Reimi is actually one of the better characters conceptually and is further helped by Laura Bailey doing a good job voicing her and powering past the bad script to make her likable.
Her issues are actually, again, due to the writers doing some bad shoehorning and poor elaboration of some plot.
Her big hangup is being imprinted with symbology that gives her a nigh immunity to almost any disease, which resulted in a terrible childhood where she proved practically immune to radiation poisoning that killed everyone else and got her cursed for surviving while other kids died.
This isn't a bad backstory given this plot twist, but it only becomes relevant during the Roak arc, which was a writer-mandated excuse to flog Star Ocean 1 foreshadowing. During this, she even gets Stone Sickness from SO1, albeit in a less dangerous form than it would be in SO1 (with the implication it mutated into something far worse after). Her backstory is generally relevant to this arc only, after which it kinda drops off the map in terms of story relevance.
Some key plot details were, like Faize, left in the ingame encyclopedia, but to a much less severe degree. Thankfully, the above issues aside, she makes a good first officer for Edge, and the relationship system in the game makes them a very obvious preferred canon couple in the end, which actually is logical given their backstory.
However, one arc towards the end pulls something out of nowhere to make Reimi important despite the fact the lore does not support it, namely her fending off a psychic attack by one of the villains when even the lore behind her immunity only covers most diseases and mutagens, but nothing concerning mental attacks.
