So far, I gotta say I am really enjoying this game. To be honest, I haven't played much of the previous games, so I am kind of going in completely blind, i just needed a good JRPG for the ps4 to play when Dark Souls 3 crushes my soul.
From someone who isn't a vet, here are a couple impressions.
Sound
Music and sound are all really good, i get the feeling of Xenoblade sometimes, and the sound effects are very reminiscent of an old school rpg, really nice. There is an option for battle music to reset or just continue in the menu which I adore, think of all those games where the same 15 seconds keeps playing!
Graphics
It does look like an upres'd ps3 game, it's not bad, but not super beautiful, it's more than serviceable, but small details are wonderful, like the characters eyes moving and rolling soo naturally, they have life to them. The camera is really distracting, it does move too much for my liking, but I will mess around with settings tonight, might help with it. The lighting is nice, especially when the days cycle, it's quite beautiful.
Gameplay
Since I haven't played other games, but many RPGs, this is interesting. It feels like a real time action game, but with the MC, his actions feel more like I am loading up actions into an invisible command list, not sure if he is just slow, but will try other characters soon. I think the battle system is interesting, but I still don't understand it completely.
The core mechanics of the game are wonderful, i love being able to gather and gain experience and gold, sometimes I just want to run around a field and collect stuff, in this game, you can actually level up solely by doing so if you wanted, it's amazing. The side stuff really feels like an addition to the game, not as an afterthought or something, especially crafting and gathering.
Story
I'm not far at all, literally just got to the second town, but have played like 3 hours, but so far, nothing has happened but I like the characters so far, MC isn't angsty or anything, Miki is pretty cool, the way she speaks and manipulates MC is really realistic.
Overall, I am really enjoying it going in fresh, if you haven't played a Star Ocean game like me, don't be afraid, it's still completely enjoyable, you might just have a bit of a time trying to wrap your head around the battle system, which is a fun thing to do with any RPG anyways.
Those were just my 2 cents, hopefully no one will tear me a new one for being a noob, ww.