^camera distance can be adjusted and is freely controlled. The flexibility of the camera is actually one of the nicer things in my opinion, especially since SO3 was usually a bird's eye angle at all times. You can definitely get in close enough to see characters faces. Gonna have to agree with you for the most part on story presentation but... Star Ocean has always been bad about that in some respect and I forgive bad story handling for the series. Honestly, I think the story handling is better in this game than it has been in others. I respect that they chose to minimize the amount of cutscenes and focus primarily on the game itself. It really helps the pace of the game, and is much preferable to ten minute cutscenes. The biggest problem is when characters talk and a battle is going on. There are other cutscenes, and they mostly serve the story well; I actually didn't notice there were any cutscenes until someway through the game, lol. I'll have to disagree with about the voice acting. I think it's just fine for what it is. The mono-moods are probably due to the storytelling, and the fact that this series aims to capture anime aesthetic.

Emmerson and Anne are easily my favorite characters. Of all of them, these two are the most interesting. There's a cutscene with the two of them on the space ship that's very reminiscent of Star Trek, and it was really good. I was loving every moment of it. And Anne in her uniform...

The gameplay is really growing on me. Everything about the skills, roles, and specialties is done well. Roles are particularly interesting, and it helps tailor the AI of the party. Still experimenting with that. Item creation is way more convenient than it has been in other games. Side quests are abundant (maybe overly so), and purposely encourage revisiting already cleared areas. I love that they chose to work with the SO3 battle style; it translates really well on the new gen consoles. Definitely makes magic easier to work with also.

At this point I can safely say that this game has far surpassed SO4 in quality. From the story, the characters, the gameplay, the voice acting, everything is already better. I'm holding my judgement to determine if it'll compare to the pedestal I hold SO3 on, but I definitely appreciate this game so far.