I hated the anime's ending...
But anyway, Star Ocean Till the End of Time is a great starting point if you're new to the games. Word of advice: Try not to skip too many battles, you will get your butt handed to you when the time comes.
Although the battles were a load of awesome fun, the distribution of experience made leveling up your other characters outside your main party pretty difficult; even when you swap party members frequently, they seem to be under-leveled sometimes. If you're going up against enemies of pure raping like the Executioners, your weakest member(s) is likely gonna die and you end up either losing or having an uber character since he/she just hoarded all the experience that was meant to be evenly distributed to everyone else .
Though it is pretty damn funny as hell to see a level 12 jump to level 30'ish in one battle...