[9] The story begins with a protagonist living on an "undeveloped" planet that is thrown into chaos by first contact with a more advanced space traveling race.

[7] Characters include Fidel Camuze, voiced by Max Mittelman in English[10] and Kaito Ishikawa in Japanese,[11] who is the protagonist of the game and a fencer who protects his home village; Miki Sauvester, voiced by Eden Riegel in English[10] and Nao Toyama in Japanese,[11] who is the heroine of the game and Fidel's childhood friend; and Relia, an emotionless and amnesiac girl.

[12] After Star Ocean: The Last Hope, many at Square Enix thought the series was over, due to the games producer Yoshinori Yamagishi being done with the franchise.

[13] Kobayashi forced himself to take on the project and worked on the proposal until it was ready, since he feared that a rejection of a sequel would mean the end of the franchise.

[14] Kobayashi stated in an interview that he wanted the game to draw its "essence" from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.

[17] The PlayStation 3 release was moved back from the original launch date by several weeks to give more time for optimization for the game systems hardware.

[19] Other localization adjustments were made during the quality assurance testing included a moment where Miki meets Relia, a younger girl, and reassures her by patting her on the head; this gesture, however, did not register positively internationally and was modified.

[22] Game Informer stated that the characters were cliche and underdeveloped, with long dialogue sequences looking at "nothing except the backs of your party members' heads".

[23] Further addressing the dialogue, GameSpot decried its poor quality and lack of clear reasons why the protagonists decide to join forces.

[24] Games Radar praised the fast-paced arcade like combat and a likable cast, but noted the seeming low production values, leading to dialogue filling in for seeing events like space battles and taking away the expected excitement.