This title is a bit beyond scaled down, when you are just running back and forth through the same areas for most of the time with little to no feeling of adventure and such. Then there is an obvious lack of any sort of real effort with the amount of palette swap enemies that just adds to it.
If it wasnt for the characters, voice acting and story I most def would have shelved this title already.
In short the game totally feels like its lacking any sort of effort put into it gameplay wise. Which is a damned shame as while there were some irritating things here and there the game still seemed to be ok early on. Then everything falls apart once you get far enough to see just how lacking it is overall. Game does have good music though that most def keeps the SO feel.
At least this should be cleared by today and can shelve it.
Some of your complaints are basically complaints about Star Ocean in general. Like the combat system stuff, and the enemy stuff. Yes, it's all fair criticisms, but tri-Ace is also putting out a game in an established franchise with fans who want certain things to be like they are in other games. A Star Ocean game is always going to have the funny thief enemy, the witch on the crescent moon, the bunny with the boxing glove, the slime with the weird metal stuff sticking out of its face, and so on and so forth. And then it's probably going to have each of the colored versions of those that are even in SO1. The yellow thief, the blue thief, the gray thief, the blue slime, the green slime, etc. It's always going to have the long/short range skill system, because it's been a staple for four games now. Bringing Star Ocean out of retirement to make a game that feels like something completely different wouldn't have gone over well with the fans.
As far as the small scope goes, I understand completely. But Star Ocean 1 is my favorite SO, so the fact that it reminds me of it so much is a good thing. I seem to be enjoying the game a lot more than most of you. Part of it might be because it comes at a time in my gaming life where I'm tired of traversing gigantic empty fields for a while. The novelty of that has worn off. I could do with some more unique areas, no doubt about it, but for now I'm content.
At any rate, yes, they clearly didn't have a big budget for the game, but from what I can tell, they made the best of it. It doesn't feel like a buggy/janky game. What's there is polished, which isn't something one could say about SO4. *shrug*