Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 297: Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

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Todays game is Xenosaga Episode III. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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. Games need at least four votes to count for the list.

Previous Results:
Clannad - 9.75 (4 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.61 (22 votes)
Silent Hill 2 - 9.5 (20 votes)
Planescape: Torment - 9.5 (13 votes)
Higurashi When They Cry - 9.5 (9 votes)
Deus Ex - 9.32 (12 votes)
428: Shibuya Scramble - 9.27 (9 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - 9.2 (20 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.19 (35 votes)
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - 9.15 (10 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.06 (11 votes)
Yakuza 0 - 9.03 (13 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 8.95 (31 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Mother 3 - 8.91 (15 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.89 (14 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.88 (21 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Suikoden II - 8.8 (11 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.76 (22 votes)
Nier - 8.75 (18 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.75 (14 votes)
Xenogears - 8.73 (24 votes)
Tales of Berseria - 8.71 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.67 (27 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (28 votes)
Pyre - 8.64 (7 votes)
Portal 2 - 8.64 (19 votes)
Bastion - 8.63 (12 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.63 (32 votes)
AI: The Somnium Files - 8.59 (13 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.58 (6 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.57 (28 votes)
Persona 4 - 8.56 (32 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (17 votes)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - 8.53 (18 votes)
SOMA - 8.5 (6 votes)
Fate/Stay Night - 8.48 (12 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.47 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Dragon Quest V - 8.44 (16 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.44 (29 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - 8.43 (12 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice - 8.42 (17 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.4 (41 votes)
Shenmue II - 8.38 (4 votes)
Snatcher - 8.33 (6 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.31 (56 votes)
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door - 8.31 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.29 (38 votes)
South Park: The Stick of Truth - 8.25 (18 votes)
Dead Space - 8.25 (8 votes)
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - 8.23 (6 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 8.21 (19 votes)
Parasite Eve - 8.19 (9 votes)
Dragon Quest XI - 8.19 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VI - 8.19 (43 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.19 (43 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.16 (22 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies - 8.15 (17 votes)
Wolfenstein: The New Order - 8.14 (7 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 8.12 (14 votes)
Conkers Bad Fur Day - 8.11 (9 votes)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals - 8.11 (9 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.11 (15 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
Silent Hill - 8.04 (14 votes)
Portal - 8 (26 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 8 (18 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.98 (28 votes)
Hades - 7.96 (22 votes)
Tsukihime - 7.94 (7 votes)
God of War (2018) - 7.93 (14 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - 7.92 (13 votes)
Persona 5 - 7.92 (27 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.92 (32 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Kid Icarus: Uprising - 7.86 (13 votes)
Psychonauts - 7.79 (7 votes)
Deadly Premonition - 7.77 (11 votes)
Final Fantasy IX - 7.77 (26 votes)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - 7.75 (14 votes)
Mario & Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story - 7.75 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 3 - 7.75 (8 votes)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future - 7.75 (6 votes)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - 7.75 (4 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.73 (32 votes)
The Last of Us: Left Behind - 7.73 (11 votes)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor - 7.73 (11 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Bioshock - 7.65 (24 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.63 (15 votes)
Paper Mario: The Origami King - 7.63 (6 votes)
Radiant Historia - 7.62 (13 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.61 (28 votes)
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox - 7.57 (6 votes)
Celeste - 7.56 (26 votes)
Half-Life 2 - 7.55 (10 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.51 (31 votes)
The Last Story - 7.47 (6 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Marvels Spider-Man - 7.43 (16 votes)
Tales of Symphonia - 7.42 (30 votes)
Dragon Age: Origins - 7.4 (10 votes)
Phantasy Star IV - 7.37 (6 votes)
Earthbound - 7.37 (20 votes)
Ghost of Tsushima - 7.36 (7 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.33 (29 votes)
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 7.33 (23 votes)
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - 7.27 (20 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.25 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.21 (30 votes)
Devil May Cry 3: Dantes Awakening - 7.21 (12 votes)
Resident Evil 4 - 7.19 (25 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (25 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - 7.11 (23 votes)
The Stanley Parable - 7.11 (14 votes)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 7.1 (30 votes)
Broken Age - 7.1 (5 votes)
The Last of Us Part II - 7.09 (16 votes)
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal - 7.08 (6 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
INSIDE - 7.06 (16 votes)
Warcraft III (overall) - 7.06 (8 votes)
Assassins Creed II - 7.04 (13 votes)
Final Fantasy VIII - 7.01 (31 votes)
The Last Guardian - 7 (6 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (6 votes)

9

The highlight of the trilogy. Very consistent

I don't really know how to rate this because 90% of the game is pretty good, but the final 10% is so horrendously awful that it basically ruined the entire experience of the series for me.

Let's go with a 3/10 just out of respect for those good times.

Not voting but, I'll leave this here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MehpPCxt0pA

LeonhartFour posted...

I don't really know how to rate this because 90% of the game is pretty good, but the final 10% is so horrendously awful that it basically ruined the entire experience of the series for me.

Wow. Heard nothing but good things about XS3 till now.

I'm generally the exception when it comes to this game, but there's probably a reason for that.

7

To put it charitably, this game's plot is extremely goofy. Even by Xenosaga standards it barely makes sense, it ties up hanging plot threads in very uninteresting ways (while still ignoring a lot of them), and a lot of the new stuff it introduces is just. Completely stupid.

It also has a lot of character anti-development, with Shion just being completely irredeemable as the most obvious example.

I agree with Leon that the ending is awful.

3/10, definitely the trilogy's low point story-wise.

9.5 / 10

Look back on it fondly, ending and rushed Disc 2, warts and all. Love it and felt very satisfied and would recommend it and the trilogy to everybody. Great character moments and story wraps up well enough for a hexalogy cut in half.

6

It was good but it definitely had a lot of issues mainly Shion's character assassination.

All of the xs games had inconsistent pacing, and the bad parts of xs3 were almost as bad as the worst of xs2. The tutorial is especially awful. They also went the route of "fill in the important plot with long encyclopedia entries in-game" which is never great.

All that said, i think the highs of the story are still pretty high, and given what they had to work with they could have done a lot worse!

8/10

9.5

Ending is rushed as hell so I have to knock off something for that but otherwise it's an amazing ride.

The end of Disc 1 and start of Disc 2 are top-tier jrpg

8/10

It's good but not any better than the other games

8.5

Really wish we got to see these games as they should have been. I think Episode II showed that listening to your fans too much is a bad thing. I really enjoyed Episode I and they should have stuck with the designs because the game actually sold pretty well ;(

7.

Its the weakest of the three as it is messy, but still good.

Up.

6.5/10

-1 for Wilhelm being a wet noodle primary antagonist.

-2 for everything involving Shion that is so batshit dumb, only Star Ocean 3 tops it for all time stupid. Shion has deadly headaches from U-DO, a thing that only Jr. has any plot relevance to as a concept. She does the about face BOSS FIGHT because Kevin exists. But more than anything, the balls of this franchise to claim the Gnosis, an omnipresent extraterrestrial threat from god knows where, the thigns that have terrorized the party all three games, came because Shion's mom died? Even if it was an alternate reality bullshit explanation to exert some power or control over some weapon or whatever, that is pretty dumb. It also doesn't save Shion goes from overworked and snarky, but likeable in 1 and sorta 2, to completely bitchy and unlikeable in III.

Now that I think of it some more, -.5 points for being forced to resolve EVERY plot thread in about one dungeons worth of a boss rush because "final game of a trilogy." They did a way better job of trying to give everyone stuff to do (cause they had way more game time to actually work with), but fucking hell. Margulis and Pellegri get practically shit on for fuck all they got to do in the first two games. NOPE! We gotta finish the game.

Nominate Judgment

9.5/10 love everything