STAR OCEAN
Star Ocean is actually a pretty easy game to explain, if you've ever played Tales of Phantasia, you've essentially played the prototype for Star Ocean. I ended up playing the original for the SNES seeing as I find that all these PSP remakes have terrible art changes(it's that blobby big eyed anime style with no substance that really gets to me). I also noticed the PSP remake seems to change a lot of what makes the world of Star Ocean as beautiful as it is. Inspired by games like Ultima and series like Star Trek, Star Ocean seems to function entirely as something less complex than it's origins while still managing to be a marvel of technology that you just don't even see in games today.
The plot(and why I have no section dedicated to it) is essentially very thin, most of what you do is actually related to how the game goes for you each playthrough. If you look it up, you'll see just how many different factors are at play when it comes to your game, ensuring this title as one of the most highly replayable games I've ever seen. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a game in which your choices change the experience on this fine a level. Everything from your party to random world events to characters somehow understanding the passing of days is fascinating. The hardware is utilized for everything from a crafting system(which functions more as a dice roll) to a full page of skills at your fingertips in which you can create every character's stats/abilities from the ground up. It's truly a game where you have maybe a little too much autonomy in what you do, it can almost get overwhelming at times. The world is also lovingly put together. Originally, the plan was to create two worlds(as the sequel would later go on to do with...varying results) but they used up so much effort in making this one that they no longer had any more space for another. It shows. Another reason for my distaste of the remake is that the world is now missing the beautiful details of how hand-drawn it is. Clouds pass overhead, cicadas crying in the distance, shadows cast like scribbles on the backdrop; it's really quite something to see. In short, the story is about a boy named Ratix and is friends trying to cure a disease that has begun to plague his land. They accidentally come across an off-brand version of Kirk and Spock beaming down in order to fix the same plague. Since they ended up breaking the prime directive, they then bring the three youths aboard their vessel- one now heavily infected. They conclude that another group(essentially their version of Romulans) released this illness in order to use the people, themselves, as a way to build their war machine. The Federation, however, gives them the command to pull out. In a risky decision, they decide to take the last two remaining youths and head out toward the Guardian of Time, thinking that the only chance they had to stop this virus would be to go back in time and find patient zero in order to create a vaccine. From here on out, most of the story consists of finding your companions, tracking down patient zero, and meeting(or missing) a colorful cast of characters along the way. There's actually a fantastic site dedicated to this game which I will link here. You can find the translated patch here.