Speaking of which, I always like to bring out this little story whenever these two games are compared: They are actually more similar than you could possibly think. Back in about 1992-93, a small development company called Wolfteam (Time Gal, Sol Feace) wanted to make an RPG for the Super Famicom called Tale Phantasia. But being so small, they needed a publisher willing to take a risk with their game. Every single publisher turned them down for their game. Enix showed some support; more on that later. As a last resort, they turned to Namco, who, after lots of negotiations, agreed to publish Tale Phantasia. This is where things get dicey. As part of the negotiations, Namco was given a lot of creative control over Tale Phantasia, which lead to the game essentially being completely redesigned by Namco; during this time, the title was also renamed to Tales of Phantasia. This infuriated Wolfteam's staff so much that they split off to join Enix, who was now eager to make a game out of their idea. This eventually became Star Ocean, the game that Tale Phantasia was originally meant to be. Some Wolfteam members even went off to join Atlus, and were rumored to have spearheaded the Shin Megami Tensei spinoff series, Persona. Finally, some time later, Wolfteam was purchased by Namco, and simply became the Tales Studio. So, there you have it; one small company was ultimately responsible for the creation of three of the most revered JRPG series of all time.
Does it emulate well, considering how "advanced" it is?