Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 33: Xenogears

(+) Yeah! (+)

Alright, its another nominated game, Xenogears. How would you rate the story on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest?
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Previous Results:
Outer Wilds - 9.63 (20 votes)
Omori - 9.6 (5 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.76 (28 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.73 (24 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.58 (12 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.35 (18 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.28 (50 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.24 (32 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.13 (37 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.91 (29 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.8 (21 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.65 (26 votes)
Bioshock - 7.6 (22 votes)
Celeste - 7.5 (23 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.38 (28 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.34 (27 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.34 (27 votes)
*Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (23 votes)*
Super Paper Mario - 7.14 (18 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (20 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.86 (19 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.77 (15 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.56 (26 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.53 (27 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.25 (12 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.1 (13 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.62 (27 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.41 (26 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.77 (24 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.39 (14 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name> <rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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9.5

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10 fuck all y'all haters

8.5/10

It loses some points for the obvious presentation issues Disc 2 has, but boy is this one heck of a wild ride. Fantastic cast that balances between silly and serious very well, and the story kept me guessing the whole time.

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Btw this reminds me to recommend this 100+ episode retrospective podcast on Xenogears called Retrograde Amnesia. It's fantastic.

8

Great villains
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10/10

Storyline is a mindblow, the characters are conflicted and fun, the pacing is tight despite the game's length, the lore is rich, the philosophy is sound... I could go on and on.

Really want to replay this one someday now that I have a better understanding of psychology and life in general. Wish Square would remaster this one with some QoL time-savers.

Oh, and Disc 2 is severely overhated.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Great villains

This too. Grahf might be the most underrated JRPG villain out there. Every time he was on the screen, he stole the show.

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9

9
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10

plasmabeam posted...

This too. Grahf might be the most underrated JRPG villain out there. Every time he was on the screen, he stole the show.

Agreed, but my problem is, every time I see the standard profile picture of his mask, I don't look at it as a mask but as a face with its mouth open. In which case it looks goofy as hell. 20 years later and I still haven't broken the mental image of "goofy open-faced Grahf"... I need to replay the game at some point and get that sorted out before then, lol.

8.5/10

balances philosophy and adventure in a way few games have ever done. takes risks and they largely pay off. subject matter often veers into mature/uncomfortable territory, but never feels like they're just doing it for shock value.

the way the story is told in disc 2 is disappointing and a little derivative of evangelion but overall excellent.

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Grahf, Id, Krelian, Ramsus, Miang

What a fucking murderers row of JRPG villains

I'll go with... an 8. It's good, but I do think it's a bit overrated/put on a pedestal in some corners. I appreciate the ambition it showed though, especially for its time.

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9.5

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10

Xenogears still remains my favorite video game story to this day.

It was the first game I played as a kid with a plot of immeasurable depth and mystery. Intrigued by every single dialogue, even with a somewhat poor translation which plagued many JRPGs of that era, I remember it fondly as one of the first times where the story and the characters in the game really gripped me from start to finish. But to fully grasp a story of this scope I had to play through the game more than twice to put together all the pieces of puzzle that I overlooked during my first playthrough.

A rollercoaster of emotions still hits me everytime I would replay the game. The nostalgia that takes me back to those years when I was a kid uncovering a great mystery. I was so obsessed with the Wave Existence concept that I used to write theories and short stories about it (which were not very good). Hence why I have a lot of negative things to say about Xenosaga when the time comes.

As for disc 2, I personally wish it was finished. The visual novel style did cover everything but I wish it was fully realized like how disc 1 was. If I am being honest I wish it was a 3-4 disc game with the budget of a Final Fantasy game but it is what it is. The golden era of Final Fantasy happened around that time so I cannot complain.

I still pray for a full remake of the game to this day and it is one of my wishes in my lifetime to see a fully remade Xenogears game from the ground up with the disc 2 segments having interactive gameplay.

Easy 10 from me. I'd give this game an 11 if I could.

10

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xp1337 posted...

I'll go with... an 8. It's good, but I do think it's a bit overrated/put on a pedestal in some corners. I appreciate the ambition it showed though, especially for its time.

I really don't blame people who fail to appreciate Xenogears' story here. It is a product of it's time and especially the gameplay can be a huge turn off for people not used to the turn-based random battles that JRPGs usually were, from that era.

Why I reference the gameplay here is because it can really break apart the pace in the game with how tedious it can be at times. The platforming sections (thankfully minimal) are also hilariously bad that I laugh everytime I imagine someone from this generation playing through Babel Tower. I think it would be an achievement in itself for them to get that far considering how all the friends that I've recommended this game to haven't gotten past the Desert area.

I admit the translation and dialogue can be rough as well. It was normal back then but certainly isn't acceptable by today's standards. Like I said in my post, a remake would do it a lot of favors.

Xenogears isn't a game you would fully understand with a single playthrough either and I realize this is asking a lot for the average gamer.

Pretty presumptuous to assume that's the reason for my score and feelings. And while I didn't play it at launch or anything, I played it back in the PS2 era over a decade ago so it's not like I played through it this past year.

My biggest issue with Xenogears as a game is indeed its gameplay and how I never liked it, even compared to its contemporaries. My "for its time" bit was praise because its ambitious in trying to tell a story of that scope back on the PS1 is commendable, but I think it has notable flaws in its telling (and some personal gripes I have with some of its outcomes/messages.)

also pretty presumptuous to assume i didn't/couldn't understand/get it.

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7

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Axl_Rose_85 posted...

stuff

You are really batting 1000 with weird posts in this topic series


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5/10

It's got a bit of Soylent Green, a bit of Kabbalah, a bit of Evangelion, a bit of Gnosticism, a bit of quantum mechanics, a bit of Battle Angel Alita, and none of my respect

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8

I love this game, but I do think its story is flawed and suffers from a little bit of pretentiousness. It has a refreshingly mature tone compared to most JRPGs especially with its handling of things like romance, sexuality, and nudity, and there are plenty of strong moments and well-developed characters, but I also feel like its smorgasbord of psychological/philosphical concepts drawing from Frued, Jung, Nietzsche and so on are thrown in kind of haphazardly at points and if we do indulge the internet's insistence on comparing this to Evangelion (I originally watched Eva because I was interested in the anime that "inspired" Xenogears lol) it doesn't really match the psychological depth that the characters in that had.

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8

Ended up going on for too long, but still remains pretty good

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What with you guys and the insane sensitivity here. I hope you people have thicker skin in real life. I didn't even wanna comment on the unnecessary jabs from the last topic but like come on. Take a chill pill.

xp1337 posted...

Pretty presumptuous to assume that's the reason for my score and feelings. And while I didn't play it at launch or anything, I played it back in the PS2 era over a decade ago so it's not like I played through it this past year.

My biggest issue with Xenogears as a game is indeed its gameplay and how I never liked it, even compared to its contemporaries. My "for its time" bit was praise because its ambition in trying to tell a story of that scope back on the PS1 is commendable IMO, but I think it has notable flaws in its telling (and some personal gripes I have with some of its outcomes/messages.)

also pretty presumptuous to assume i didn't/couldn't understand/get it.

Not being presumptuous about you if that's what you thought was implied.

I made that post because people were being pretty sensitive about my Celeste score of all the things lol. So I was trying to do the opposite for a game I love.

KamikazePotato posted...

You are really batting 1000 with weird posts in this topic series

Over the years I have come to respect how your pre-contest predictions have come to be frighteningly accurate at times almost like a fortune teller so it is disheartening to see you take part in these barrage of cheap shots.

UltimaterializerX posted...

People are more sensitive the more left they are politically. Board 8 at this point basically thinks Mao is alt right. You can figure it out from there.

I'm from a country of 800k population so I don't even care about my own country's politics much less the entire world's. So I don't know what this even means. But I take it I am being overly insensitive towards the board's feelings and I should go easy with my comments.

Gotcha

5/10

I got the "allure" of this game. It's weird, it's off the wall, and it's got that EVA style wacky "religious but not really" stench that pervades all Xeno games. Coming off of Xenosaga, playing this felt like a, "That's it?" It had characters and motivations I didn't understand, Elly/Miang, Id/Fei, and well...Krelian's whole plan is ripped straight from the sci-fi bin, and with no subtlety.

Much like FFXII, this is one of those popular games I just don't "understand." I would try again, but then I'd remember trying to do Kislev Sewers, Tower of Babel, or the final dungeon again, get lost, and fight fifty random encounters over and over before remembering, "Oh yeah, this game has a story. I remember it somewhere, but the gameplay is shit."


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People. Don't you dare mention Xenogears and Neon Genesis in the same breath when it is a discussion about story.

For the razor thin skinned people, I'm just kidding.

Go easy on Axl KP, all opinions are welcome here as long as they are genuine and informed. We can debate but thats part of the fun. If they genuinely believe that they had a 1/10 experience with Danganronpa V3s story that is valid. The Celeste take is wild to me but if it is genuinely held thats fine. I have not played Xenogears but this set of opinions from them seems fine? If I am missing something bad let me know.

Also I really dont want to derail this thread but Ulti, your hypothesis is extremely easily disproven via a five minute conversation with the average online right winger or similar with an actual far-left activist. The former are crybabies and the latter tend to be extremely hard men and women (and trust me, I know what Im talking about on this one). Lets leave it at that. No further thread derails will be accepted.

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Hey no hard feelings from my side.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

People. Don't you dare mention Xenogears and Neon Genesis in the same breath when it is a discussion about story.

lmao tru Xenogears doesn't even come close to being as good

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"You just couldn't understand the depths of the story" takes are the worst

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10

love the chair

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9.5

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10
Best story in gaming.

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Leonhart4 posted...

"You just couldn't understand the depths of the story" takes are the worst

I'm sure everyone 100% understands everything they consume, especially very complex things. I'm also sure those people will never reexperience anything and learn anything new from what they rewatched, because they understood everything there was to know already!

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I'm not claiming to grasp everything the first time because I know I don't! There are many stories I've come to appreciate more after replaying a game. It's just this idea of "the only reason you would have a problem with it is because you didn't understand it" that I object to

I think Xeno games have pretty bad takes on religious subjects. It's not necessarily that I don't understand what they're trying to convey. I just think it's dumb!

That being said, I generally don't hold that against Xenogears in particular because I played the Xenosaga games first and the ending of Episode III prepared me for the worst of it!

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I'm not really criticizing anything you specifically! I haven't played these Xeno games.

Just saying that if someone thinks another didn't understand something, it's not some bad take. Opinions can be unjustified if they come from a misunderstanding of the material.

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I mean, yeah, but that shouldn't be your gut reaction to someone saying they didn't like it as much as you did. You can come to that conclusion if you've had a conversation about it, but that shouldn't be an inherent assumption.

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pjbasis posted...

I'm not really criticizing anything you specifically! I haven't played these Xeno games.

Just saying that if someone thinks another didn't understand something, it's not some bad take. Opinions can be unjustified if they come from a misunderstanding of the material.

It's a bad take coming from Axl, considering how his comments on other stories show him continuously failing to understand them.
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Leonhart4 posted...

I mean, yeah, but that shouldn't be your gut reaction to someone saying they didn't like it as much as you did. You can come to that conclusion if you've had a conversation about it, but that shouldn't be an inherent assumption.

Sure sure, that just falls under the "don't be a dick" clause.

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The only exception I make is if someone says they hate Squall because that's a clear case of failing to grasp the depths of the character

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I thought it would be cheap to use that as an example cause its so obvious

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Mac Arrowny posted...

It's a bad take coming from Axl, considering how his comments on other stories show him continuously failing to understand them.

Care to elaborate what point exactly so I can refute? Or are you just gonna be vague and continue with your cheap shots from the previous topic. I ignored it the last time but I am sensing some hostility here.

Mac Arrowny posted...

8

Great villains

Very nice analysis here. So much depth and perception. Can you please teach me how to write?