Poll: Is Xenogears worth playing?

[Fox12]

Xenogear's seems to be a cult classic that gets brought up regularly as a highlight of Square's renaissance. Inventive, and deeply complex, many of its fans consider it "the best thing ever." However, I've also heard a lot of criticism about the game, and many of its fans even admit that the game ran over budget half way through and began to fall apart. This makes me wonder if its just wasted potential, as I don't want to pour time and money into a game that fails to deliver on any of its promise. Is the ending good? Or does it all feel rushed?

On another note, I'm also curious about Xenosaga, since I understand that it's a spiritual successor. Now, the series looks ugly as sin, but that's never stopped me from enjoying a game before. I just want to know how good the writing, characterization, and gameplay is, and whether it's better or worse then Xenogears.

So, what say you? Is the series worth playing? And if it is, what are its strengths and weaknesses?

 

[SoreWristed]

Haven't played it yet, but i'm looking at a stream of the game right now, and i'd play it if i can dig up a copy somewhere.

 

[beastro]

I never liked Xenosaga's story. While similar it was too different and had many loopy things going on. I didn't like connecting it directly to real history. While Xenogears set that up in a way (mostly through Perfect Works, mind you) it was off in it's own world and that allowed it to really toy with it's grounded, Sci-fi take on Gnostic theology.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Xenosaga, frankly, is a worst version of Xenogears, also plagued by having one of the most unlikable protagonists I have ever seen in a game. Gears is a very interesting tale about fate, identity, God, philosophy, and features a genuinely interesting cast of characters from all sides, though admittedly the plot can get REALLY convoluted at times. It also has problems with difficulty curve and the second disc turns into a visual novel for lack of a better term due to the budget running out during that time. Still, if ya wanna see one of the best games from Square's golden age, go for it. Just skip all of Xenosaga. I wasted too many hours on that series since I wanted it to be better, but it ended up being a bunch of pointless BS.

 

[Objectable]

Haven't played either, but you should totes play Xenoblade.

 

[Ieyke]

Xenogears is awesome.
Bit cutscene heavy at the end, but whatever.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've only played Xenogears and gave Xenosaga a miss after I heard how each of the games has...well, issues. Apparently each sucessive game would create two new issues for each one they fixed from the previous game, so I've read.

But anyway, I liked Xenogears, even if the plot gets a ridiculous after a while. At some point, even before the second disc, the twists send the plot into so many left turns that it goes from insane to just pure awesome.

And frankly, while the whole second disc becoming Cutscene-fight-cutscene-save point-cutscene-fight, at least they tried to squeeze in the rest of the plot, even if the gameplay pretty much ceased to exist in the process. I much perfer that to Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit just pulling a 30 day time skip and never telling you what happened or explaining much of anything that happened or why the two main characters(one of whom was pursuing the other to arrest him).

There's also a book called "Perfect Works" that pretty much gives you the background for the game, tech and the world just in case you wanted to know more.

 

[NPC009]

I recommend Xenogears, but only if you can get into the right mindset. Not just because the game looks pretty dated, but because I feel it's best experienced as a late nineties adolescent who's really into Neon Genesis Evangelion. On the other hand, just being interested in old RPGs is very helpful. Despite its flaws (yes, disc two does have a lot of 'characters sitting in a chair and narrating events you wish you could have seen or played') it's still one of those games that tried to push storytelling in games.

Xenosaga is harder to recommend, mostly because it's a trilogy of three 30+ hour games. The first two games are certainly flawed. Slow pacing, awkward battle system, and, my personal pet peeve, some headdeskingly stupid character designs. Anime beanheads, young girls in way too short skirts, petit female main character running around in heels and thinking she needs to go on an apple diet... Back when I played, the third episode did make me glad I played it the whole thing, but that was back then.

Now, the game you really need to play, if you haven't done so already, is Xenoblade. It actually uses more than a few themes and ideas from the other Xeno-games, but it's a much more polished game. It's af if they finally found a way to balance ambitions and reality, and the result is amazing.

 

[Vlado]

Both are great, though Xenosaga is not quite on the level of Xenogears.

 

[go-10]

So, what say you? Is the series worth playing? And if it is, what are its strengths and weaknesses?

Xenogears is still fairly good, I say fairly because when I first played it I was 13 and I thought it was dark, edgy, and well written. I replayed it again when the PSN version released and... it's still good but man is that game slow, the conversations take forever and are over explained to hell and back. Still the over all experience is an enjoyable one once you get to the game's speed which is anywhere from slow to REALLY slow. If you've never played it though I would highly recommend it.

as for Xenosaga, many people claim that the games are just one long movie, but I played through all 3 last year and to be honest in today's gaming world when you compared to games like Metal Gear Solid 4 Xenosaga was just the first of this style of cinematic games. The games do suffer from some bad dialogue, everything is a reference to the bible, and badly cliche characters, the battle system is still great though, so that alone I would argue is enough to make it worth the while... that and KOS-MOS.
All 3 games are good but 3 is by far the best, 1 is the slowest one and 2 is just bad all around, but kinda necessary for the story, 3 is great from beginning to end, hell my only complaint with 3 is how easy it is.




now I would hate myself if I didn't tell you this so for the purpose of mecha jRPG's that are good you should check out Wild Arms 5, If you like anime and/or mecha; specifically Gurren Lagann, you'll love WA 5

 

[Ryotknife]

So, what say you? Is the series worth playing? And if it is, what are its strengths and weaknesses?

All 3 games are good but 3 is by far the best, 1 is the slowest one and 2 is just bad all around, but kinda necessary for the story, 3 is great from beginning to end, hell my only complaint with 3 is how easy it is.

0_0

dude some of those bosses in Xenosaga 3 take like 45 minutes! And they have one shot moves that can wipe out your entire party, nor is it obvious when they are going to do it (you basically have to translate from the different taunts what he is going to do)

 

[BlackBark]

Well, I didn't like Xenogears at all really, but to be honest, I didn't give it much of a chance. I might revisit it one day. I played the opening and thought the introduction to the characters was a ridiculous setup, so I decided to stop playing.

Overall, I thought Xenosaga episode 1 was really good and definitely worth playing, even though there were a few characters that I really hated. I found the story and (most of) the characters really captivating. One thing to note is that it is a very cutscene heavy game. I started playing episode 2, but I couldn't really continue, because they had changed some of the voice actors and had massively changed some of the character models, which basically made the characters completely different people. I found this quite hard to accept for such a story oriented game, especially for the characters that I liked. I will probably go back to it eventually and look for a version with Japanese audio. I looked up the voice actors for episode 3, and it seems that they went back to the original cast, so I am looking forward to episode 3 once I have forced my way through 2.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I played Xenogears for the first time ever late last year, so it's reasonably fresh in my memory.
It's really freaking WEIRD.

The last third of the game is obviously unfinished, just compared to everything that came before it (and the very end).
There are entire segments where you just watch one of the characters sit in a "Space-Stage" and NARRATE events to you.

Yes. Literally. They break "Show, Don't Tell" about as flagrantly as you can.

It's not a bad game, but it's a wonky one. And looonnng.

 

[Prince of Ales]

Oh man, Xenogears... I'll say it straight, it's not a good game. It does the basics so wrong. But it's one of those games I like talking about from the context of "why do I like this game so much when it's so obviously bad?". And I do like it. It's one of my favourite games from that era.

Yes it's true, the game wasn't finished. Most of the second disc is just this trippy monologue without any real gameplay. There's elements of that in the first disc as well though. For instance when you first get to Shevat there's this bit where the screen goes grey and this message comes up saying "And then you met with blah-dee-blah who took out all your limiters" and it was obviously supposed to be a real scene which they never got to finish.

Even when you have the real gameplay, it isn't great. The combat system is fundamentally broken. There's this input based combo system which creates the illusion of complexity, but you're basically just using the same combo each time in every fight. Nothing is actually added over the Final Fantasy style "Attack" command. The gear combat is even worse with its rudimentary attrition system, just so you feel like you have to rush your way through the dungeons.

The good... well, while the game isn't exactly pretty, the cut-scenes are still amazing. It's the cinematography that does it. One scene that'll stick in anyone's mind that's played the game is this one here:

Spoiler

Not really the same thing as a still so you'll have to get to that point and witness it for yourself; I'll invite everybody who's played it to rewatch that scene in full to grasp just how good it is. All the shots are designed to give you that sense of size and power. There's no point in the scene where you see a mech standing next to a person, like a proper point of reference. You just get cameras way down below looking up at them to make the look bigger, or from far away to get all the scenary in. The bit where the Yggdrasil flies, it comes straight at the camera, and you can feel the momentum it has behind it. Not a pretty game, but visually very clever.

Captcha: "I want control". Go away, Id.

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

It's been years since I've played Xenogears, but I remember it being pretty good. I forget most of it, unfortunately, so I'm not sure if it was good in a relative sense or an absolute one. There were a few dungeons that were longer than they needed to be, and as others have rightly pointed out, the "have some narration since we ran out of money" part is a bit annoying (although by then I was ready for the game to be over anyway, so other than a bit of cognitive dissonance I wasn't much perturbed).

 

[Tilly]

Lol can we have some kinda rule about the options in a poll need to be a genuine dichotomy!??

I haven't played Xenosaga yet. Xenogears I got about half way through but was really struggling to enjoy the gameplay. The story was certainly interesting though. Felt like the writer had just finished an undergrad degree in philosophy and just went mad with it.

 

[go-10]

0_0
dude some of those bosses in Xenosaga 3 take like 45 minutes! And they have one shot moves that can wipe out your entire party, nor is it obvious when they are going to do it (you basically have to translate from the different taunts what he is going to do)

I didn't run into any major road blocks, some of the early bosses are difficult but once you learn skills that stagger enemies it's rather easy to pretty much dominate most bosses. Half way through the game you an unlock Dark Erde Kaiser and once you get him... I dunno man I really found the game easy

 

[Winnosh]

It's Xenogears. Of course it's worth playing. This is one of the benchmarks of the genre.

 

[LordLundar]

Lol can we have some kinda rule about the options in a poll need to be a genuine dichotomy!??

I haven't played Xenosaga yet. Xenogears I got about half way through but was really struggling to enjoy the gameplay. The story was certainly interesting though. Felt like the writer had just finished an undergrad degree in philosophy and just went mad with it.

Find a Translated copy of Perfect Works and you'll probably think the writer got a doctorate in it.

 

[Snotnarok]

I thought Xenosaga's characters were uninteresting and Xenogears? Well that's far more complicated.

The praise it gets is entirely unwarranted because it's literally unfinished. You see signs of corners being cut some way in then suddenly there's nothing- entire walls of text that describe what is going on, what the characters and nations are doing while a character is sat in a chair with a giant necklace swinging back and forth in the bg. I mean they are showing paragraphs at a time here not just text boxes, then randomly you're plonked in a dungeon after ages and then 2 corridors later, boss, then resume text walls.

Major events happen in this, you'll find characters suddenly have entirely new mechs/Gears and such. They ran out of money and for some reason didn't cut the game off at an acceptable point, it was already planned as a multi-part series but the game straight up lost it's budget and kept going and it's insufferable at this point. They could have had a big major event and then cut, done but no they had to finish this in the most embarrassing way.

Games today get railed for being unfinished or unpolished and this game, half incomplete sits a top a pillar as one of the best RPGs ever made and while I will say it starts great, has a great idea and concept and loads of interesting things going for it at the end of the day it's largely unfinished and it's incredibly disappointing.

Yes, I know someone's going to want quote me and say the story makes up for it, or the game's budget was robbed by a Final Fantasy- I don't care, it's game and it very much stopped being one and became a novel with little gameplay. Even though many hours of it are very good- and they are, Mass Effect 3 was called a pile of shit for 20 minutes of shitty ending vs Xenogears that has several hours of unfinished crap. So what amount of justification can someone present when presented with that? I played it through with a friend and thought it was great till a certain point and it became awful, and it doesn't deserve a top 10 ranking anywhere.

Frankly no matter how well written an argument- I played it and for all the praise it gets it falls apart when the game falls apart so miserably. That said, if you enjoy it- then good I'm glad you like it but I will never see what makes this 'one of the best RPGs' ever.