10/10. My favorite game of all time. I suppose I could get really technical and point out some flaws in it, but I could do that for any game I've played really, so...
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
How the hell did Ep 2 get 8.5, there is so much wrong and unsatisfying with that game which Ep 3 pretty much all clears up. Other than the rushed ending, it's pretty great throughout!
I'm going to say it now, so everyone feel free to throw proverbial sticks and stones at me, I'm used to it for these kinds of opinions. The whored-out attire in Episode III, vastly over-the-top compared to the previous two installments, is actually the reason Episode III rests in so comfortably mediocre a position as the other two in my ranking.
Shion, zip up your pants. Shion's new boss, Jesus Mercy, where do I begin. T-ELOS, you and KOS-MOS are now the ultimate Sexbot duo. This is all so incredulous and it's distracting me from taking you people seriously. In the words of MOMO,
"Why are you doing this?"
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
I'd agree that Episode II was the weakest, but almost entirely because of Disc 2. Before that it's not too far from Xenosaga I, if only because Xenosaga I might suffer from the reverse problem, where the beginning is probably the weakest part. If you toss in Xenogears's various issues, that might make Xenosaga III the only Xeno-game to not run into this kind of problem for me. Although I suppose you could argue it starts running into it during the final chapter, but I can never quite tell if it's just because I'm comparing it to Chapters 7 and 8, which IMO, are probably the best stretch of any game.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
It's been a long time, but wasn't the second disc like 75% of Episode II?
Eh, tough to say. If you divide it up by dungeon count, I think it really is about halfway, or maybe just before it. However, if you go by gameplay time, 75% might seem kind of accurate. ...Which is the point I was getting at. My main issue with Xenosaga II is what I consider to be the increasing length of encounters (which I personally attribute to the HP of enemies going way too high, though it's been a while for me too, so maybe this isn't quite right), which doesn't really start cropping up until maybe the end of Disc 1/mostly in Disc 2.
Really, I view Xenosaga II's quality of actual gameplay as decreasing throughout the game, finally reaching the depths around the final dungeon, whereas the quality of the plot seems to steadily increase as the game goes on. Something I almost became thankful for because it provided me some extra incentive to continue on even as encounters started becoming increasingly tedious.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
I could have sworn disc one was only a few hours long though.
If you know what you're doing, it very well could be. For practically all of Disc 1, you can get through it without understanding the battle system, and if you do understand the battle system you can crush everything in your path with almost no effort. By Disc 2 though, this same style of play becomes a lot harder to maintain, and even if you do understand the battle system - at least in my experience, it eventually becomes an almost mindless repetition of the same basic strategy (which, IIRC, is basically "Stock and Boost up, apply elemental weaknesses, air/down the enemy and unleash everything you have on it), however, as the game goes on, you find you have to repeat it multiple times in a single encounter. To the point where I basically had the same strategy for every encounter, and it made encounters in the final dungeon "harder" than the final boss, because I was pretty much doing the same thing in both battles, only you can have more enemies in normal encounters.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Interesting stuff. Maybe I'll bust out the trilogy at some point. I wish there was a way to go with Japanese VAs sans importing, though. They were all mostly the same throughout, weren't they? It really bugs me when they switch things around a lot in such a short period of time like they did with Xenosaga.
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0/10. Simply awful at everything. Okay, that's a lie, I liked some of the disc 1 plot (Virgil stuff mostly) but the disc 2 plot ruins -everything-. And the battle system sucked too.
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NeoElfboy posted... 0/10. Simply awful at everything. Okay, that's a lie, I liked some of the disc 1 plot (Virgil stuff mostly) but the disc 2 plot ruins -everything-. And the battle system sucked too.
And stingers is trying to sting me!
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
I am strongly in the "XS2 is the only good game in that series" camp. I mean the plot isn't great but there's some decent stuff mixed in there at least and its ending at least has -some- closure (removing two major villains) unlike 1's. And it actually had an original battle system.
-- The RPG Duelling League: www.rpgdl.com An unparalleled source for RPG information and discussion
NeoElfboy posted... I am strongly in the "XS2 is the only good game in that series" camp. I mean the plot isn't great but there's some decent stuff mixed in there at least and its ending at least has -some- closure (removing two major villains) unlike 1's. And it actually had an original battle system.
It's pretty amazing how divisive XS2 is. There seem to be two viewpoints on it: "The first and third episodes of this trilogy are great but that shall not be spoken of!" and "The first and third episodes of this trilogy are so bad but at least they produced this, I guess!"
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
See, I'm torn on this. I think the battle system certainly had a lot of potential, but it just wasn't executed well. I give it credit to the extent that it's probably one of the few games I've played where you pretty much need to understand it at some point and can't just brute force your way through the game like you can in a lot of other RPGs. I just feel that towards the endgame they just started dialing up the enemy HP instead of trying to think of other ways to really challenge the player, and all of a sudden the fact that you can't brute force your way through almost turns against you because now you're forced to suffer through the increasing length of battles. By contrast, in Xenosaga I you can practically break the battle system (Bravesoul + Angelic Requiem is kind of hilarious) towards the later stages of the game to compensate for a kind of similar effect that takes place there.
Really, Xenosaga III has the "simplest" battle system, in that it's basically a FFX-lite system IMO, but FFX probably has one of my favorite JRPG battle systems, so this is a positive to me.
But really, I can understand the differing opinions on this. I just personally prefer Xenosaga III's to it. Alternatively, there's a much more efficient way to play Xenosaga II than I used, which wouldn't surprise me all that much, though I like to think the system I devised was pretty good overall.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
It's pretty amazing how divisive XS2 is. There seem to be two viewpoints on it: "The first and third episodes of this trilogy are great but that shall not be spoken of!" and "The first and third episodes of this trilogy are so bad but at least they produced this, I guess!"
Yeah, it's kind of amusing, really. I'm probably closer to the first viewpoint, but in reality, I'm more like, "Xenosaga I is a pretty good RPG, but nothing to go too crazy over, Xenosaga II had a lot of potential, but kind of squandered it fairly badly, but Xenosaga III? Greatest of all time."
Which I think is probably a bit "out there" for Xenosaga opinions. It probably gets even worse if we throw in my Xenogears views.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
^ Not exactly sure what you mean by that. You mean to say can you rate games which are previously done? If so no. If you meant can you take back your score and re-rate the game then sure why not.
Jeff Zero posted... Interesting stuff. Maybe I'll bust out the trilogy at some point. I wish there was a way to go with Japanese VAs sans importing, though. They were all mostly the same throughout, weren't they? It really bugs me when they switch things around a lot in such a short period of time like they did with Xenosaga.
All three episodes have readily available undubs. And yes the Japanese voice actors are the same throughout, while the English ones do tend to change around a little too much. Some characters have a different voice in every one of the three games.
xp1337 posted... Really, Xenosaga III has the "simplest" battle system, in that it's basically a FFX-lite system IMO, but FFX probably has one of my favorite JRPG battle systems, so this is a positive to me.
The battle system is very derivative of FFX's, yes, but I don't see how it can be called a lite version of it. If anything it's FFX-improved. Boost and Break systems totally increase the strategy value and make the battles even more enjoyable than FFX's imho.
Either way, those two games have my favourite turn-based battle systems in any RPG. Some people might criticise Xenosaga III's for being a little too derivative of FFX's perhaps, but hey, if you're gonna steal then you might as well steal from the best there is.
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And yes the Japanese voice actors are the same throughout, while the English ones do tend to change around a little too much. Some characters have a different voice in every one of the three games.
Oh god, which characters were so brutally victimized? I gotta wonder why Namco let that kind of thing happen.
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
Well, in retrospect I might've been exaggerating there with the word "some", seeing as the only noteworthy character I can recall that was in all three games and had a different voice in each was Helmer.
But still, the vast majority of the cast had two different voices throughout the series. The only characters that were in all three episodes and had the same voice in each were the URTVs, Ziggy, Allen and Margulis. Everyone else changed at least once. Hell, the two most important characters, Shion and KOS-MOS, got different VAs for Episode II, only to change back to their original ones for Episode III. >_>
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The battle system is very derivative of FFX's, yes, but I don't see how it can be called a lite version of it. If anything it's FFX-improved. Boost and Break systems totally increase the strategy value and make the battles even more enjoyable than FFX's imho.
I was thinking more along the lines of Skill Line and Sphere Grid when I said that, I kind of consider those involved in the battle system as well, if only because I'm not sure how else to classify them. If we stick purely to what occurs in actual battles, you're right about it having more options than FFX, IMO. Either way, they're some of my favorite battle systems in any RPG, so I don't mind!
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX