Star Ocean 5 is the very definition of an average game. It doesn't have some of the really awful stuff that's been a problem in some of previous entries in the series, but nothing at all stands out either. The combat tutorial talks a lot about strategy, but you can basically just spam special attacks in almost every battle. The graphics are alright, better than a lot of JRPGs, nothing special. The characters aren't too bad, but there's barely any characterization at all. The story feels really bare-bones so far, and what is there is just standard JRPG stuff and two kingdoms at war. The cities mostly look pretty good at first glance, but they're super small. The bulk of the sidequests are handled through a message board, so you don't even get any interaction with NPCs for them. There's a lot of just running back and forth between various locations. It all just feels like they made sure to check off all the boxes on the list, but then didn't bother to go beyond that.
All in all, I'd rather just be playing Star Ocean 2 right now.