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Post by goombastew12 on Feb 14, 2017 19:24:25 GMT -5
So I have decided to play through all the Xeno games in celebration of XC2. The Xeno series is fairly new to me, so I've only completed XC and XCX, but I have been playing Xenogears recently. I just wanted to know how the Xenosaga games fair compared to the rest of series. I always hear so many mixed opinions about them, so I'm interested to hear what the good people of Xenoboards have to say.
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Post by atomicness on Feb 14, 2017 22:08:51 GMT -5
Since it's 3 games, I think it would be best to go through each of them and talk about them individually. XS1- it's alright. The cinematics are really good, and it's directed well, but the gameplay is...servicable. The music direction is also questionable, as many areas have no music, since they tried to be atmospheric and cinematic. It didn't really work though. XS2- this game nearly killed the Xeno franchise. Enough said. You'd be better off just watching the cutscenes online. XS3 - (imo) best game in the series. Disc 2 is a great payoff for suffering through the rest of the games. Definitely worth playing.
Keep in mind, Xenosaga was originally going to be a 6 part series, but due to development problems became a butchered version of the original vision. The episodes 1 and 2 that we got were supposed to be the original episode 1, and the original episode 2 became Xenosaga Freaks and Episode 3.
Are the games worth playing? I think 3 definitely is, maybe 1 too. But don't expect an experience as polished as Xenoblade, or fulfilling like Xenogears. There's a reason Monolith was bought by Nintendo, and thanks to that they can actually make finished games and not half baked abortions.
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Post by goombastew on Feb 15, 2017 17:15:20 GMT -5
I see. Well thank you, I do plan to play through all three, but I'll be sure to adjust my expectations.
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Post by inquisitor on Feb 15, 2017 17:26:55 GMT -5
1. Good.
2. Gameplay is complete s***. Save yourself the time and effort, and just watch the cutscenes.
3. Great
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Post by Primulus on Feb 15, 2017 18:29:17 GMT -5
I don't really have as much love for the Xenosaga series as many, but I think a better explanation of what went wrong for all three games is in order so you have appropriate expectations. So, since the series is still pretty fresh in my mind (having done a full playthrough of it before XCX), let me point out some of the flaws of the games. Xenosaga Episode I - A very rushed game but probably my favorite of the three. It showed a lot of potential in its story (though little was explained and many characters were pretty bland at this point). I don't even think its combat system is bad. However, it is a turn-based game and very slowly paced, with long animations that are usually unskippable. The flow of combat is exceptionally slow by today's standards, even for a turn-based game. As long as you can forgive that, and the fact that there's no music in dungeons or towns (seriously), it's not terrible by any means. Xenosaga Episode II - The most hated of the trilogy, and perhaps rightfully so. This is the point where, during early development, Xenogears and Xenosaga I writer Soraya Saga was removed from the project, and then Tetsuya Takahashi was forced out as director due to an internal struggle at MonolithSoft. Interestingly, this game feels most like a blend of Xenosaga Episode I and Xenogears in a lot of key ways, but there are a few particular details here that sank the game in many player's minds. The battle system actually has many of the elements we're familiar with in Xenoblade Chronicles and XCX, and is something like a turn-based prototype... however, it's executed quite poorly. Enemies do ridiculously high amounts of damage and have inflated health, forcing you to use the Break-Down (Topple)/Air (Launch) sequence for every single normal fight in the game, which requires a lot of preparation to execute each fight. As a result, every fight becomes a tiresome drag of repeating the same actions over and over. On foot combat variety is absurdly lacking. However, once you get mecha in the second disc of the game, something changes significantly. Mecha combat is actually not terrible, although simplistic, it doesn't feel as terrible or tiresome, but almost no one remembers this because of how few times the player is allowed to do mecha combat. That was only the first of the details that sank the game, of course. The second detail was the story, where almost nothing happens in the first disc (it's all fleshing out other characters and backstory, usually in the form of flashbacks), and at one point you're forced to go through the same dungeon twice (almost in a row), except the first time it's warm and sunny and the second time it's cold and snowy. The second disc doesn't fare too much better, with the most interesting things happening in the last few hours of the game, and everything else up to that is kinda without consequence. There's some cool dungeons and some cool characters/bosses in the second disc, though, even early on, so I guess there's that. The third thing was the uncanny valley of the character designs. I'll just let an image speak for itself. From left to right, this is the same character in Xenosaga Episode I, Episode II and Episode III. The shift toward a more realistic look was one thing in particular I thought didn't go well. Xenosaga Episode III - I actually don't like this one as much as others do, but as a game it's the best of the three. I can't really complain about its battle system, which took what was best of I and II and combined them into something that actually worked this time. Where my dislike of it is more personal and against the consensus, toward how the story was directed. I wasn't particularly pleased where most of the character arcs ended up going - especially the main character and many of her decisions later in the game (though criticism of her apparently led to the way Shulk acted a lot in Xenoblade Chronicles) - nor did I like where a lot of time ended up being spent in the middle parts of the game. Environments and dungeon/town design weren't objectionable though, and often quite pretty. In all, however, the trilogy is a good trilogy. The issue I have with it is that it didn't get to be what it should've been, it didn't live up to its potential or ambition. But on its own, it is worth playing - it just didn't reach the same highs for me that Xenogears, Xenoblade Chronicles and even XCX did.
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Post by goombastew on Feb 15, 2017 21:53:04 GMT -5
Damn, thanks fot this analysis of the games, really put them all into perspective. The good is that I'll probably enjoy them all better, as I will be expecting the problems that some of the games face instead of just having them thrown at me with no prior knowledge.
Also, just wanted to say how great the Xenoboards are. Its great that I can get this information straight from the die hard fans themselves. No one I know is really a fan of the games, so this info is quite useful.
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Post by Primulus on Feb 15, 2017 23:07:10 GMT -5
Damn, thanks fot this analysis of the games, really put them all into perspective. The good is that I'll probably enjoy them all better, as I will be expecting the problems that some of the games face instead of just having them thrown at me with no prior knowledge. Also, just wanted to say how great the Xenoboards are. Its great that I can get this information straight from the die hard fans themselves. No one I know is really a fan of the games, so this info is quite useful. I probably should've talked about some of the positive features of each game, so I'm going to highlight some things that are often overlooked, and were each game at their best. Xenosaga Episode I - The best thing that comes to mind for me here is design. Personally, I prefer the character designs of all of the characters in this game over the others (particularly all of the party members), with probably the only exception being the character chaos (spelled with all lower case intentionally), whose Episode III's costume design looked way better in my view. The design of enemies, dungeons and even towns are all quite good here. The story of the characters central to Episode I is also where it's best, I think. This is part of what makes Episode II feel so off as well, because a lot of the elements that Episode I was building up with were purged in Episode II when Soraya Saga was removed from the staff. In particular, the character of Cherenkov is probably my favorite in the entire Xenosaga trilogy, and he's just a minor character in this game. (However, when I was a teenager I didn't like Cherenkov's story, though. It took replaying it later in my adult life to have it resonate with me.) Other characters introduced but not fleshed out in Episode I show a lot of promise. Xenosaga Episode II - This one has a lot of hidden content. Most players probably gave up after just getting the ending, but it actually has a lengthy postgame with lots of sidequests to finish, in addition to sidequests that are missable throughout the main game. In addition to the elements we see later in Xenoblade Chronicles and XCX, we also see a sidequest system that's not totally unlike what we saw in those games. I've always felt like Episode II has the most secrets, and the fewest people getting all of those secrets because they lost all interest to keep going after getting the ending (if they even got that far). Episode II has a lot of little bits of familiarity for those who played Xenogears and Chrono Trigger. They're not truly enough to make the game better than its flaws, but they're a nice thing to have. Xenosaga Episode III - I probably don't need to say much positive here, but in addition to the battle system being so much improved, and in spite of my complaints of the story, I just wanted to say that the boss fights in this game are largely pretty amazing and one of the best parts. Also, I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'm pretty fond of turning MOMO into an invincible death machine that can (almost completely) solo the game's optional superboss, which makes me turn to say that the way character customization works is pretty interesting too.
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Post by Wolfe on Feb 16, 2017 1:11:20 GMT -5
I'm glad to have some insight here, because I bought Xenosaga Episode I on a whim just to have a copy around and because I knew it was a better-regarded title of the trilogy, but I haven't invested the time to play it yet, only a bit of the first part of the game to check it out. Which was enough to catch the Xenosaga reference in XCX's intro cutscene.
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Post by Zarathustra on Feb 16, 2017 14:53:12 GMT -5
Primulus gave a decent run down of the games though I do disagree on a few of his opinions and would also like to add a bit more detail to the description he gave.
Xenosaga Episode I - This game is structured in more or less similar manner to many other ps2 era jrpgs. It's an overall linear game, driven by story, with labyrinth like environments that reward those willing to explore every nook and cranny. The "dungeons" you'll be exploring and fighting enemies in are broken up with safe havens such as towns and ships where npcs can be interacted with, side quests engaged in, and shops to purchase items. Probably the most convenient feature of world exploration in the game (and the entire trilogy for that matter) is that you have the ability to revisit any dungeon you've completed regardless of any plot events that might suggest that that wouldn't be possible. This means that you never have to worry about permanently missing any items that may be hidden in the environment.
The combat is turn based but does a good job of innovating and bringing some unique ideas to the table. You can have up to three party members at a time on the field and can be moved between a front and back row to either protect them from taking too much damage or to put them in the middle of the fight. Instead of just a simple attack command, the combat relies on a combo system using the triangle, square, and circle buttons. The input combination you use will change the type of attack your character performs. These attacks can vary in the type of physical and elemental damage they deal. A key point of the battle system is boost meter which both you and your opponents can use to interrupt the turn order. This can lead to situations where you can limit the amount of turns the enemy has and allow you to deal a large amount of damage at once. Certain characters also have the ability to summon mechs, which can be customized in ways very similar to Xenoblade X. These mechs can be very useful in battle as they have a high amount of hp and have a much higher base strength than your characters would otherwise have. Certain enemy types are very effective against your mechs though so knowing when to use them is key.
Overall I find that Episode I is very well designed, the combat is engaging, exploration is fun (though the lack of music in many environments can drag), and there is a lot of potential for character and mech customization for players willing to learn the ends and outs of the system.
Episode II and III largely follow the same world structure so I'll just comment on their battle systems.
Episode II expands upon the combo and boost system of episode by introducing a break,down, and air system and by pooling together the party's boost gauge. Enemies in episode II are now weak to specific combinations of high, medium, and low attacks. Exploiting this weakness with break their defense and allow you to deliver a ton of damage at once. Boost meter management is a necessity in this game as enemies will be able to recover from break status unless you are able to interrupt their turn with continuous character boosts. Mechs return in Episode II but are no longer summoned mid fight. Instead there are specific moments and areas in the game where you take control of your mechs, explore, and fight other enemy mechs/giant aliens.
Episode II is by far the shortest game in the series, and despite some weird changes in the art direction and voice casting, I still find it to be an enjoyable experience. I love the changes made to the combat system, throwing enemies into the air and having your entire partying flying around to combo them is extremely satisfying. Episode II also introduces the Good Samaritan side quest system. Which, in my opinion, is one of the best side quest systems I've ever encountered in a jrpg.
Episode III's combat system removes the combo system in favor of a more traditional attack, special attack, magic (either) system. This change, while somewhat disappointing, is ultimately worthwhile as the combat as a whole is still excellent. The break and boost systems from previous games return though are not nearly as central to the combat as the first game. There's still a good deal of character customization and strategy to be had in Episode III, and the pace of the gameplay, as well as it's more cinematic presentation make the combat in Episode III feel very exhilarating. The is especially noticeable during mech combat which introduces team ambushes and revenge attacks which play out with very charming animations. Character and mech special attacks are more impressive than ever and the introduction of crystallization helps to tie the narrative and gameplay together in a more tangible way.
Episode III is frequently regarded as the best in the franchise and I personally waver between whether I prefer Episode I or III. The game finds the perfect character design balance between the very stylized look of episode I and the attempted realism of Episode II. I personally find Episode III to be the best looking game of the three, followed by I and then II. As I said previously, Episode III is definitely the most energetic of the III games, not only in terms of combat, but in overall pacing as well.
Overall, I find this trilogy to be excellent, yes the cutscenes are long and the game is not nearly as open as the Xenoblade titles, but I feel that the characters, combat, and especially the narrative are more than engaging enough to commit to giving the game a shot. The sci fi and philosophical concepts tackled in this trilogy are great and will leave you thinking about them long after you've finished playing the game. I'd highly recommend this trilogy to any jrpg or science fiction fan, and definitely recommend to fans of Monolith's other titles.
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Post by ancientrune on Feb 16, 2017 18:10:34 GMT -5
Still havent played 2 or 3 because every time i try to play Episode one I never get anywhere because the pacing is awful, the worst ive ever experienced in a game, i also hate that skill take so damn long to level and dont seem to make a real difference when done so. keep in mind i never got that far because the game bores me to tears.
I refuse to play 2 and 3 till I finish 1 and I refuse to watch the cut scenes only as that defeats the purpose of playing a game
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