Wanna play, but no idea which order so didnt bother. all games on ps5/pc or do i need an older console?
For some reason Star Ocean First Departure R isn't on Steam, but that's an enhanced port of an enhanced port of the first game. It was originally on SNES officially only in Japanese (DeJap did an english patch) and got an enhanced port to PSP under the name Star Ocean First Departure. First Departure R is available on Switch so that can be emulated fairly easily (and for some reason is the not on PC, despite new releases remasters being on PC before its release and Second Story R being on PC). It's on Switch and PS4 (and by extension PS5).
Star Ocean The Second Story, was released for PS1. There is an enhanced remaster on PSP titles Star Ocean The Second Evolution, and another enhanced port of that on PC and PS5 known as Star Ocean The Second Departure R. All of those have official English versions available. It's available on Switch, PC, PS4, and PS5
Star Ocean's third mainline game is Star Ocean Till The End Of Time originally for PS2 that got an upscaled they-admit-it-is-emulated
digital-only port for PS4 (and PS5 by extension).
Thanks to the latest in HD emulator technology, the content of the original game remains untouched in this HD conversion available exclusively via download.
In other words, don't feel bad emulating it yourself. Also, Roger is a real man.
Star Ocean 4 is Star Ocean the Last Hope which came out for XBox 360 and PS3 and originally had two entirely different artstyles for the portraits for the two consoles. With the PS3 having drawn portraits and 360 version having more westernized models. It got same-gen re-release Star Ocean The Last Hope International Edition which allowed players to pick what they wanted and added some other QoL things IIRC. That then got an HD re-release on PC and PS4. The director wanted to make a dating sim and got told to make Star Ocean instead. I'm not joking about that, and it shows.
Star Ocean 5, Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness is a PS4 game that went balls-to-the-wall and actually has your whole party in combat, up to 8 characters fighting at once. It just makes sense narratively that the whole group would participate, but it does make fights a clusterfuck and each character lacks mechanical depth compared to SO3 and 4. There was a PS3 release of Star Ocean 5, but it's Japan-only and there's no patch.
Star Ocean 6, Star Ocean The Divine Force is available on PC, PS4/5 and Xbox One/Series X/S. It's fun. But it does take inspiration from PSO New Genesis in some ways, particularly traversal of areas. The game features much larger zones than previous titles and the skill trees for characters let you actually choose which active abilities you want to learn, unlike previous titles.
tl;dr If you have a pc capable of emulating up to Switch/PS2 games or a ps4/5 you can play all the titles.
