Episode III is one of the best JRPGs ever, either way. Ep. I and Ep II were pretty much fail, but if they were anything like III, then it would have been an amazing series. Episode III in my opinion matches up with classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI in terms of quality. And of course, the original XG.
By the way, I don't really get the gameplay complaints. I thought the combat was really fun, and generally more interesting than your average "press attack to win" combat systems that were popular at the time.
Sure Xenosaga EpII battle sucked compared to the others two... but the Break system was so amazing and fun to do, cut a lot of times in long bosses fights.
i never understand when people say the gameplay is terrible in xg and to only play it for the story
sure the jumping is awful, but i think xenogears has one of the funnest battle systems. not to mention two of them.
Eh, the battles systems are just kind of boring by today's standards. Especially the mech battle system. They aren't bad, just really dated. XS ep1's battle system is dated in the same way.
Muckin' through the Kislev sewers now. Remember dying so many times on the fucking Redrum back in the day, but this time I learned all my deathblows in the desert and I am gonna pound that bitch.
Maybe I'll do it in a pro's and con's breakdown like some people on GAF like to do. I'll cover story, gameplay et al. I'll stick in some Spoiler tags, don't worry people who haven't played it yet. WARNING: TL;DR ahead:
PROS:
-One of the best video game stories I have ever had the pleasure of sitting through
-
In terms of stories/subplots, just about every "arc" plays into the bigger picture so it doesn't feel like you're wasting your time with certain goals
-A cast of great characters with some great development when necessary
-While few in number, I really like the animation style of the anime cutscenes. I believe Production I.G. was responsible for most of them which is awesome.
-Some character deathblows in battle look pretty cool...
-The soundtrack is great. A lot of outstanding tracks
-Cool Gear designs (the mecha anime nerd in me was crying tears of joy)
CONS:
-In terms of the story, some of the pacing is out of whack: If you were to stick everything into an anime, it would work perfectly. As a game, having to play through large and horrible dungeon sections (more on this later) before your next plot reveal is annoying as hell
-The way the plot unravels forces you to remember things that you may have forgotten (again because the gameplay sections between are very long)
-Walls of text! I didn't mind it but others might not be so forgiving
-Some minor plot points never really get fleshed [e.g.
Rico's lineage
] out while others were unfortunately predictable [
like what really happened to Billy's mom
]
-
Surely the game wasn't condescending enough to think we didn't know that Id was Fei. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was made obvious. Wiseman being Khan was a little less obvious but I guessed that fairly quickly too
-
What the hell happened with Disc 2? Cutscene --> Small dungeon --> cutscene --> small dungeon. Was this a low budget game? I hope that's the case. The world map is non-existent in disc 2 until just before the final battle. That is FFXIII-esque bad.
-
Did people really just not point out that thousands of people died in the destruction of Solaris? Not just Solarians but all those captured land-dwellers? I think they jsut mentioned Id did it and that's it...No recollection of it. No feelings of real remorse. There were children in that place. Are we not supposed to feel sorry for them?
-The battle system is extremely boring. Maybe this was fun back in 1998 but it didn't hold my attention at all.
-Even mech battles were pretty bland albeit more challenging (e.g.
Omiomorph or trying to kill Hammer without him self-destructing
)
-Battle music itself (normal, mech and final battle musics) were all pretty lackluster. Mitsuda has done better
-Aside from maybe 2-3 boss battles, I coasted through this game (but more on why will follow)
-The final boss battle is EXTREMELY anticlimactic.
Might be due again to the art directino of the game but it honestly just looked and played like another boss battle but with different music (there's at least some build-up to Urobolus but the battle is damn-near un-losable)
.
-The WORST DUNGEONS in any JRPG I have played are found in this game:
Stalactite cave, the path leading to Krelian's lab in Solaris and parts of Deus
--> Unnecessarily long, boring as hell to look at (just a bunch of corridors and easy to get lost (and have to backtrack). That's normally fine in a JRPG except for:
-Shitty platforming (seriously, keep your shitty platforming out of a jrpg) --> Miss a jump, fall, random battle, back on platform, try to adjust camera, jump, somehow manage to fall, random battle on the way back to platform, repeat
-An incessant number of random battles. This made those dungeons I pointed out (
especially the path to Krelian's lab
) EXTREMELY excruciating
-CAVEAT: The only thing I can see that this helped with is that if you chose NOT to run from like 99% of these battles, you leveled up efficiently. I think this is the reason why I never found myself overwhelmed by bosses or enemies further into dungeons. You can almost call it in-built grinding. Made it easy to amass experience and earn deathblows.
-Side quests in this game were generally subpar to non-existent (
The Lighthouse and Duneman Island being the only things with real meat, I found[/spoliers])
-No optional superbosses? A bit disappointing.
-Speed is an extremely stupid mini-game
-Battling is also really stupid. The game was clunky as hell.
I didn't even bother with Special Mode 1 too much. Went right to Special Mode 2, Gear Level-02 with Xenogears and won the Bart and Fei Jr. Dolls and never went back)
-The worst part is that both Speed and Battling give you good items but are terrible game modes. The fact that
Battling was a part of the storyline that you had to do had me rolling my eyes
-The anime and CG cut scenes were scattered so haphazardly. This again reeks of a very low budget so I can forgive it.
-The game just doesn't look good. Again I'm pointing to low budget on this but it does not hold up visually compared to even Final Fantasy 7 (which came out before it). Might be unfair to compare it square jrpgs that came after like FF8 or Legend of Mana so I won't. It just was not a pretty game to look at as you played through it.
I'm going to assume that this game wasn't as big budget as say a Final Fantasy. Maybe that's why they chose the art direction they did, with a constantly moving camera (instead of fixed set pieces), had to "truncate" Disc 2 and cut back on CG/animated cut scenes. That still doesn't excuse much of everything else.
Again keep in mind that I forgave what seems like a huge laundry list of problems for the story. That should tell you how great I found it and again, the game warrants at least one play through. That is unless someone animates the entire story from beginning to end properly. Then you don't need to play this game at all. =D
Kudos to you for seeing it through! If I replay this, I'm getting out my old PSX, transferring my save to it temporarily, and Gamesharking no random battles for that part.
Edgeward said:
Do not play episode 2, whatever you do. It's just awful and the battle system there is tedious for regular enemy encounters.
I can totally understand this point of view. How heavily you weigh the importance of story should probably determine whether you play all three Xenosagas or not. As tedious as the non-boss battles were in Xenosaga II, the game really sets up the story in III. I'm a story fiend -- and I loved all the gnostic/Jungian references throughout the series -- so I thought it was worth it. (Plus, it was only about 20-25 hours long)
I don't suppose this version supports analog sticks, since it's a straight port? My girlfriend wants to play it but couldn't deal with the d-pad movement when she tried my disc copy.
I don't suppose this version supports analog sticks, since it's a straight port? My girlfriend wants to play it but couldn't deal with the d-pad movement when she tried my disc copy.
I really hope the person responsible for this camera system and the lack navigation options for this game is out of the industry, oh god, moving around a town is the most disorienting and terrible experience and it's almost impossible to find anything (Searching for Aveh sewer key)
the Xenosaga series is a disgrace in every conceivable way. it's obvious that Masato Kato had nothing to do with the story from the get go.
that being said, i would give absolutely anything if this game was remastered in 1080p, or even a downloadable HD texture pack. it's a true classic.
Dynedom said:
Maybe I'll do it in a pro's and con's breakdown like some people on GAF like to do. I'll cover story, gameplay et al. I'll stick in some Spoiler tags, don't worry people who haven't played it yet. WARNING: TL;DR ahead:
PROS:
-One of the best video game stories I have ever had the pleasure of sitting through
-
In terms of stories/subplots, just about every "arc" plays into the bigger picture so it doesn't feel like you're wasting your time with certain goals
-A cast of great characters with some great development when necessary
-While few in number, I really like the animation style of the anime cutscenes. I believe Production I.G. was responsible for most of them which is awesome.
-Some character deathblows in battle look pretty cool...
-The soundtrack is great. A lot of outstanding tracks
-Cool Gear designs (the mecha anime nerd in me was crying tears of joy)
CONS:
-In terms of the story, some of the pacing is out of whack: If you were to stick everything into an anime, it would work perfectly. As a game, having to play through large and horrible dungeon sections (more on this later) before your next plot reveal is annoying as hell
-The way the plot unravels forces you to remember things that you may have forgotten (again because the gameplay sections between are very long)
-Walls of text! I didn't mind it but others might not be so forgiving
-Some minor plot points never really get fleshed [e.g.
Rico's lineage
] out while others were unfortunately predictable [
like what really happened to Billy's mom
]
-
Surely the game wasn't condescending enough to think we didn't know that Id was Fei. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was made obvious. Wiseman being Khan was a little less obvious but I guessed that fairly quickly too
-
What the hell happened with Disc 2? Cutscene --> Small dungeon --> cutscene --> small dungeon. Was this a low budget game? I hope that's the case. The world map is non-existent in disc 2 until just before the final battle. That is FFXIII-esque bad.
-
Did people really just not point out that thousands of people died in the destruction of Solaris? Not just Solarians but all those captured land-dwellers? I think they jsut mentioned Id did it and that's it...No recollection of it. No feelings of real remorse. There were children in that place. Are we not supposed to feel sorry for them?
-The battle system is extremely boring. Maybe this was fun back in 1998 but it didn't hold my attention at all.
-Even mech battles were pretty bland albeit more challenging (e.g.
Omiomorph or trying to kill Hammer without him self-destructing
)
-Battle music itself (normal, mech and final battle musics) were all pretty lackluster. Mitsuda has done better
-Aside from maybe 2-3 boss battles, I coasted through this game (but more on why will follow)
-The final boss battle is EXTREMELY anticlimactic.
Might be due again to the art directino of the game but it honestly just looked and played like another boss battle but with different music (there's at least some build-up to Urobolus but the battle is damn-near un-losable)
.
-The WORST DUNGEONS in any JRPG I have played are found in this game:
Stalactite cave, the path leading to Krelian's lab in Solaris and parts of Deus
--> Unnecessarily long, boring as hell to look at (just a bunch of corridors and easy to get lost (and have to backtrack). That's normally fine in a JRPG except for:
-Shitty platforming (seriously, keep your shitty platforming out of a jrpg) --> Miss a jump, fall, random battle, back on platform, try to adjust camera, jump, somehow manage to fall, random battle on the way back to platform, repeat
-An incessant number of random battles. This made those dungeons I pointed out (
especially the path to Krelian's lab
) EXTREMELY excruciating
-CAVEAT: The only thing I can see that this helped with is that if you chose NOT to run from like 99% of these battles, you leveled up efficiently. I think this is the reason why I never found myself overwhelmed by bosses or enemies further into dungeons. You can almost call it in-built grinding. Made it easy to amass experience and earn deathblows.
-Side quests in this game were generally subpar to non-existent (
The Lighthouse and Duneman Island being the only things with real meat, I found[/spoliers])
-No optional superbosses? A bit disappointing.
-Speed is an extremely stupid mini-game
-Battling is also really stupid. The game was clunky as hell.
I didn't even bother with Special Mode 1 too much. Went right to Special Mode 2, Gear Level-02 with Xenogears and won the Bart and Fei Jr. Dolls and never went back)
-The worst part is that both Speed and Battling give you good items but are terrible game modes. The fact that
Battling was a part of the storyline that you had to do had me rolling my eyes
-The anime and CG cut scenes were scattered so haphazardly. This again reeks of a very low budget so I can forgive it.
-The game just doesn't look good. Again I'm pointing to low budget on this but it does not hold up visually compared to even Final Fantasy 7 (which came out before it). Might be unfair to compare it square jrpgs that came after like FF8 or Legend of Mana so I won't. It just was not a pretty game to look at as you played through it.
I'm going to assume that this game wasn't as big budget as say a Final Fantasy. Maybe that's why they chose the art direction they did, with a constantly moving camera (instead of fixed set pieces), had to "truncate" Disc 2 and cut back on CG/animated cut scenes. That still doesn't excuse much of everything else.
Again keep in mind that I forgave what seems like a huge laundry list of problems for the story. That should tell you how great I found it and again, the game warrants at least one play through. That is unless someone animates the entire story from beginning to end properly. Then you don't need to play this game at all. =D
Heading to Shevat, and for the first time in any play through I've done, All characters know all deathblows before going (though, not all are at 46 so USE them)
Time to start playing on the PS3. Man with PE coming next week my PSP gets more and more use during the commute. Granted you need to first play at home and get a save file that's paste the openings and tutorials. You don't finish a Squaresoft one of those in a normal commute. lol
Does anyone else not realize that there are very few spots with random battles in the Babel Tower? The bits where platforming is a concern have ZERO random battles. There are a few battle hotspots littered throughout, which trigger a battle. But random they are not.
It's always odd to hear review complaints about random battles messing up jumps there, because it really shouldn't happen. Other places in the game, possibly, but not in Babel Tower.
The bits where platforming is a concern have ZERO random battles. There are a few battle hotspots littered throughout, which trigger a battle. But random they are not.
Oh yeah? What about the section where you have to jump on those oval elevators thingy, which is full of non-escapable random encounters. Plus the fight that triggers when you jump on each of those elevators.
Looks decent enough on my 50" Plasma, just bought the game today its going to be my first playthrough. I hate stretched images so I have the aspect set on normal (black bars on sides).
Oh yeah? What about the section where you have to jump on those oval elevators thingy, which is full of non-escapable random encounters. Plus the fight that triggers when you jump on each of those elevators.
Oh yeah? What about the section where you have to jump on those oval elevators thingy, which is full of non-escapable random encounters. Plus the fight that triggers when you jump on each of those elevators.
Yes, that's exactly the part I'm talking about. The battles only occur at pre-determined spots. If you fail to make a jump here, you really have no one to blame but yourself.
The battles are cake anyway, especially with Ether Doubler on Elly.
Just bought the game. Never played it before. I will post impressions every once in a while, for all of the GAFers that are interested in knowing how this game holds up today.
Episode III is one of the best JRPGs ever, either way. Ep. I and Ep II were pretty much fail, but if they were anything like III, then it would have been an amazing series. Episode III in my opinion matches up with classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI in terms of quality. And of course, the original XG.
By the way, I don't really get the gameplay complaints. I thought the combat was really fun, and generally more interesting than your average "press attack to win" combat systems that were popular at the time.
Just got out of the first village. Pretty cool game. Aged very well. Anime cutscenes and the use of sprites definitely helped this game stay fresh. Really liking the art style so far. The music is awesome. The first village track reminded me of something out of Chrono Trigger, which is DEFINITELY a huge plus. Battle system is very quick. Much quicker than FF7-9, that's for sure. Not as quick as Chrono Trigger, but I don't see that as a downside. I'm hoping the battle system will become a little more strategic soon. I really have no clue what the point of having 3 different attacks is, when using all your points pretty much means doing roughly the same amount of damage.
I really have no clue what the point of having 3 different attacks is, when using all your points pretty much means doing roughly the same amount of damage.
I see that you learn different Deathblows by trying out different combinations of commands, but it seems like in a boss battle, it would just be best to do a single weak attack each time to build up AP and then do a huge deathblow combo.
I see that you learn different Deathblows by trying out different combinations of commands, but it seems like in a boss battle, it would just be best to do a single weak attack each time to build up AP and then do a huge deathblow combo.
Ah that makes sense. Guess I was getting a little ahead of myself. Was running around in the desert, solo, and decided to look at the software manual to see if I was using the combat system in the right way. Glad to see it's a case by case kind of thing.
Ah that makes sense. Guess I was getting a little ahead of myself. Was running around in the desert, solo, and decided to look at the software manual to see if I was using the combat system in the right way. Glad to see it's a case by case kind of thing.
You can start learning deathblows as soon as you have the AP for it. And if you grind though and learn all the 6 ones, you'll have a decent progress into the 7 AP ones when they show up on the skills list.
About 20 hours in right now (on the Thames right now).
Continued impressions of a first timer:
-I wish the game explained the battle system. I realize that everything is in the manual, but I didn't care to read it before jumping into the game. I only realized what "combos" were a few hours ago, accidentally pressing right during battle and clicking X on random things (had no clue wtf that menu was for). Gear battles are MUCH simpler, but 20 hours into the game, I still have no clue what the "Special options" button is for. Battle system is definitely a "fresh" take on ATB though
-While I'm absolutely loving the story, some parts of the game felt a little rushed and poorly translated. The beginning of Kislev was the biggest clusterfuck in gaming I've experienced. Thankfully, they spelled everything out for you eventually, the pacing, exposition, and writing for that section were all incredibly weak. I'm fairly forgiving on grammar (after all, this is a 1998 Squaresoft game... "This guy are sick"), but there are just some really ridiculous mistakes in the translation. I wish this game got re-translated for the PSP like FFT. Another thing I'm not a big fan of is the random cutaways throughout the game to things in the plot that won't be explained until later. "Yes, that was part of the -Klurubaruanooxeronalowoes Experiment-. How could 'he' be the -Bearer of the Ancient Qxckkkklqwe Aprupudorupu-?! The -Booblijooblies- prophesied the -Tumblawambla Kerpow-!" It adds nothing to the story, it's frustrating, and it just seems like something the writers threw in so the player wouldn't be completely surprised when the story takes a plunge into bizzaro territory. Grahf and Wiseman are ominous and mysterious enough to not have to introduce all that crazy stuff before the big reveal.
-Art style is an absolute winner. It is so aesthetically pleasing. I especially enjoy Grahf's design. So unique. The music is also wonderful -- though I wish there was a little more diversity in the tracks.
-This game is quite comical. This is the most I've laughed playing a jRPG since Persona 4.
About 20 hours in right now (on the Thames right now).
Continued impressions of a first timer:
- Gear battles are MUCH simpler, but 20 hours into the game, I still have no clue what the "Special options" button is for. Battle system is definitely a "fresh" take on ATB though
It doesn't into play until disc 2 were you can basically go into overdrive at the high cost of fuel for a short period of time. At disc 1, the one real use I remember is equipping Frame30/50/(70?) which allow Gears to heal HP back in battle is located there.
I'm sorry I thought that one of your favorite games was largely an overrated piece of turd that could have been so much more. I may have rambled but my post being "inaccurate" is purely your opinion. Nice try though.
DrForester said:
Just did this part. There was a high occurrence of random battles but it never hindered my jumping progress.
The random battles didn't hinder your jumps (the clunky platforming controls and atrocious camera would do that). It's just that at the very beginning of your first visit to Babel, if you missed a jump, you could plummet all the way down and on your way up, there would be random battles in certain parts. That's the issue that I had. This could have been avoided if platforming controls/camera were not so awkward or random battles so frequent. It's not like those battles were DIFFICULT (at least not for me). They were just time consuming and annoying.
The other parts of Babel had pre-determined battles, yeah (when you had to kill monsters to activate rising platforms, for example). Screwing up platforming sections there were not unforgiving here.
You need to provide some more info. Who's your party, what are your stats, armors, specials, etc. Also, as mentioned before,
did you take out any of his sub-bosses before going after the main body?
It's probably in your best interest to take out a few of the sub-bosses, unless you want to be boss and kill Deus at full power, haha. I'm afraid I can't really help you with the latter (I followed the game's "advice" and took out those sub-bosses first although I did it with my main party (against the game's advice), which made Deus a little tougher than he should have been.)
So, yeah. Babel Tower is the most atrociously designed dungeon in a video game ever. Thank god it was short, and thank god there are no random encounters.
Now I remembered why I stopped playing this game: Platforming and ton of random encounters. Uggh, lets see if I can finally make it out of the forest. That said I'm playing with some maps loaded on the iPad next to me (next gen strat guide lol).
At the end of disc one. This game is amazing. Minus the crappy platforming, it's right on top with FF6-9 and Chrono Trigger Really sad I missed this one when it came out.
At the end of disc one. This game is amazing. Minus the crappy platforming, it's right on top with FF6-9 and Chrono Trigger Really sad I missed this one when it came out.
On recommendation though, if you have a SDTV in your home, try connecting your PS3 to it and play XENOGEARS, it looks 10x better in a SDTV over a HDTV.
