This is basically how I beat the game:
- Undertrained (levels 56 Fayt, 34 Nel, and 38 Maria at Luther)
- No item creation (I never unlocked item creation)
- No skill points (I never increased any HP, MP, attack, or defense with skill points for any character, they are all still level 1)
- Using almost completely only Fayt (Fayt was my only party member alive for almost all of disk 1, and there were only a few fights that I used allies for on disk 2)
- The big one... my Fayt used only the Broadsword (+50 attack) and Heavy Armor (+20 defense) from the moment I got them in the game until the end, never coming unequipped. My allies also had really bad weapons and armor, but it didn't matter much since they almost never attacked and were dead most of the time.
- No player's guide or online guides/walkthroughs at all
- 50 hours to beat the game
- Yeah, it was on Galaxy mode too

Why I did this:

Three of my friends, David, Jose, and Jeremy all got Star Ocean before me. All of us have beaten at least several RPGs before. When I got Star Ocean, David had already beaten it, Jose was on disk 2, and Jeremy was slacking and didn't play it until after I got it, so was behind me the whole game, but at equal level. Anyway, before I got the game, Jose knew how I like to play RPGs without guides and training, and he told me Star Ocean would force me to train because it would be that hard. David talked about Star Ocean all the time, and somewhere around the middle of disk 1 I told him that my characters were something like levels 18, 12, and 10, and my Fayt was using the broadsword still. He told me there would be no way I could continue the game like that and I would have to train or get annihilated. After ignoring the bragging by David and Jose about their beastly characters, I continued the game with the broadsword and without training, item creating, or skill point usage. Then what do you know? Some few weeks later, I was facing Luther with broadsword in hand, and beat that fool Luther's face with it.

Who are you?

I figure most of the people reading this have beaten Star Ocean, and there are two kinds of you people. The first kind is those of you who have 100+ hours on your game, are level 100+, never use the shield, mastered item creation, have a players guide, rely heavily on your allies, use Sophia, and have minimal strategy. Your strategy probably consists of either repeatedly pressing circle (like David), using combos that start with hitting the opponent in the air with circle at long range (like Jose), or spamming side kicks (like jeremy). You think you have a lot of skill because your characters are so strong and you beat bosses fast, but in reality, every single other person who beat Star Ocean has characters just as strong as yours. You people probably think it's completely impossible to beat the game in the way that I did and might think im making this whole page up.
The other kind of person is very similar except they have more strategy. Meaning, in battles they watch the enemies moves and learn how to dodge and counter the moves effectively. Some of you people might find it hard to believe how I beat the game, but the better of you people might not see it as that much of a big deal. You might even be able to beat it the same way as me if you tried, because I am saying it wasn't that hard.

Through the game:

There were three battles in this game that I would consider were hard for me to win. This is the order:
1. The 3 Chimera Hawks when rescuing Blair
2. The 4 rifle soldiers before Azazer
3. Belzeber and Berial
This means that every other fight in the game was easy for me to win, and I would probably win on the first try if I played them again right now.

Now lets start from the beginning (click the name of the boss for pictures of the status screen of my characters I used to beat that boss):

Everything before Robin Wind - The entire game before Robin Wind was no challenge at all using only Fayt and the broadsword. I used Cliff and Nel until I got Maria, who replaced Cliff, until I got Albel, who replaced Nel. However, before Robin Wind, I used completely only Fayt. The only time I used the other characters is when they were revived by something in the game (like those healing circles), but they usually died in the first battle anyway. When I got to Robin Wind, I think Nel was level 10, Cliff was level 12, Maria was level 20, and Albel was in the 20s.

Robin Wind - For the first time I used allies to help me win. This is the only boss fight I used Albel in.

On disk 2 I think I only fought bosses and forced battles by the storyline. Also, I used Fayt, Nel, and Maria in every fight except against the 3 Chimera Hawks.

Biwig

Proclaimer (at Moonbase)

4 rifle soldiers and Azazer - The 4 rifle soldiers were the second hardest fight in the game, and I beat Azazer on the first try (because there was no way I was going to lose and fight those soldiers again)

Belzeber and Berial - The third hardest fight, only because there were two of them and I had to dodge hundreds of attacks without making a mistake. A direct hit from Berial's strong missiles was instant death to my Fayt (even if I had full HP, two clone generators, and got a fury). I also got petrified a bunch of times by Belzeber's cheating whip. And if you don't know, you get a game over when you only use one character and he gets petrified.

Crystal Paladin (second visit to Shrine of Kaddan)

Chimera

Battlecopter - Can they make an easier boss for near the end of the game?

Pseudo Blair - I guess they can, it's called Pseudo Blair

3 Chimera Hawks - The hardest fight in the game. This was also my last battle before fighting Luther. None of you probably realize why they were so hard, because you killed them too fast. They get 4 special attacks. It changes to the next one each time you do a certain amount of damage to them. Their normal weak attack can confuse, and getting confused sucks really bad. Their first special attack is nothing. The second one can freeze you, which killed me several times when I was only using Fayt, but this is still easy because it is a weak attack. Their third special attack is the real problem. It is called Heat Impact and it is a strong attack. It did about 2k damage to me per hit, and can hit about 1-4 times (I had 6.5k HP). It is nearly impossible to dodge, and they like to use it a lot. They can also use it at any distance and fly across the entire stage in less than a second. So if I had Nel on the complete opposite side of the stage to heal Fayt, even if she wasn't doing anything and Fayt was attacking all the Hawks, if one got Heat Impact, it would use it across the stage to kill her, and use it across the stage back to kill Fayt. Their fourth special attack is very powerful too and attacks a radius, but it's still easy to avoid. I had to unleash all of my strategy to win this fight. Against the 4 soldiers I had to unleash a portion of my strategy, but against these 3 hawks, I had to break the limits and unleash all my strategy. I don't have pictures of the status screens for when I fought these because they aren't actually a boss, but I did tape the fight and status screens to VHS. So... I guess I could play back the VHS and take pictures of the status screens... if I wasn't lazy. For this one fight, I replaced Maria with Mirage. Mirage was exactly as she came, never before used in a battle. She was level 30 and I left whatever weapon and armor she came with. Her tactical skills were 3 Sphere's of Might and whatever support skills.

Luther - I was very scared going into the fight against Luther because it would be really bad if I got through the entire game how I did, but Luther ended up being impossible to beat. However, I fought him, and he was a joke. It took 6 tries to beat him. The first time I went in with my allies dead and didn't revive them, I was testing his moves. After I knew all his moves I fought him seriously the next 4 times. Each of these 4 times I got to when he uses Insanity Prelude, and that is the move that killed me all 4 times. The first few times I got scared and ran around frantically, which is why I died. But by the 6th time I fought him, I figured out exactly what Insanity Prelude does and I can dodge it every time. And he probably used it at least 30 times against me. Fayt was the only character that did any damage to Luther, and the finishing blow to Luther was the best skill in the game, Aerial.

Battle skill levels and symbology levels at Luther:

Fayt:
Aerial - Level 10 - Exp maxed
Blazing Sword - Level 2 - Exp 10
Blade of Fury - Level 7 - Exp 1431
Side Kick - Level 2 - Exp 147
Lightning Blade - Level 2 - Exp 9
Air Raid - Level 2 - Exp 138
Dimenion Door - Level 2 - Exp 118
First Aid - Level 3 - Exp 244
Standby Healing - Level 6 - Exp 871 (yeah 38 exp to the next level)
Deep Freeze - Level 2 - Exp 27
All other skills and symbologies level 1

Nel:
Increased HP Damage - Level 2 - Exp 59 (??? I don't know how)
Shockwave - Level 2 - Exp 106 (I don't remember her using this, maybe at the beginning of disk 1 or something)
Standby Healing - Level 2 - Exp 68
Healing - Level 6 - Exp 507
Fire Bolt - Level 4 - Exp 81 (I don't remember her using this either)
Ice Needles - Level 2 - Exp 28
All other skills and symbologies level 1

Maria:
Standby Healing - Level 2 - Exp 97 (I just realized that she didn't have anything set to either support skill when I beat Luther)
Power Up - Level 3 - Exp 146
All other skills and symbologies level 1

Cliff:
Sphere of Might - Level 4 - Exp 298
No Guard - Level 3 - Exp 204
All other skills and symbologies level 1

All other characters all other skills and symbologies level 1

That's right, Aerial is the only skill mastered, because it is the best skill in the game.

Still don't believe me?

Download and watch this video of me loading my clear data of my 50 hour file and going to the menu, where you can see there is no item creation in the menu, and going to the status screens of the three characters I beat Luther with:
RyukaidersSuperiorStarOceanFile.wmv

I also recorded to VHS my fights against the 4 rifle soldiers, Azazer, Belzeber and Berial, the Chimera, the 3 Chimera Hawks, and Luther. I am planning to get an ATI TV Wonder VE and will probably capture those videos sometime.