Current Events > Xenogears, my thoughts on the game SPOILERS

(+) Yeah! (+)

ive always been a huge xenosaga fan and for years i was told "how can you not have played xenogears? its so much better than xenosaga"
well earlier this year i finally gave in and played it for the first time
now was it actually better than xenosaga? not really. better than xenosaga episode 2 for sure at least.

it had an amazing story. it took awhile for me to get invested but once i was i was hooked
the point the story finally got me into it was when fei fought elly on evil steroids in their gears.
its combat was ok.

but there are 4 main issues i had with the game that held it back for me

ISSUE NUMBER 1 - it has some of the worst dungeons ive ever seen in a game. multiple dungeons were visually unappealing and just long similar looking corridors incredibly easy to get lost in which isnt exactly fun. the worst offenders being the sewers, the mines, the flying city maria lives in, the tower of babel and the final dungeon.

ISSUE NUMBER 2 - underutilized its supporting party members, miang and ramsus were great villains, fei elly and citan were great heroes. but the other party members each had like 20 minutes of relevance and then became part of the background which left them feeling bland. billy and bart got a few more moments ot shine but still fell flat. rico and maria were the worst though. pretty much no reason to actually have them be party members considering they might as well be part of the background after their introductions are over. its shame that such a strong narrative dropped the ball with more than half its central cast.

ISSUE NUMBER 3 - This one is just more of a personal issue but i do not like the mech combat in these games. i never use the AWGS in xenosaga episode 1, the ES sections in xenosaga episode 2 are pure hell. only xenosaga episode 3 really got mech combat right and even there i still prefer the character combat. and i dont think gears mech combat is all that good either only it gets so much focus. even the final boss is in the mechs. i went out of my way to get emerelda's adult form and it didnt matter at all because by that point there are no boss fights left that are fought outside of the gears.

ISSUE NUMBER 4 - Chuchu exists.

so all in all im not going to say its a bad game like that other topic about it because its not
its unfinished and in need of a remake for sure but its not awful
just as a few issues that held it back for me personally and i do not think it lived up to the hype
but then again people acted like this game could heal the blind so it had a lot of expectations to meet.

out of all the xeno titles ive played i would rank them saga3 > saga1 > blade > gears > saga2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/9/5/AAYofGAACqI_.jpg

My biggest issue that turned me off is the map design. I only made it to the desert before I hard quit the game. I lost more time jumping across gaps than playing the actual game. Rotating the map trying to see where to go along with that god awful compass they give you, just made me feel like it wasn't worth my time.

If they ever do a remake at the very least give us a digital minimap so I'm not guessing where I need to go next time.

maria's battle sprite also looks really goofy and its hard to take her seriously
i get that you are only meant to use maria in her gear but she already sucks on foot why make her look ridiculous at the same time?

Chu-Chu was the focal point of one of my favorite cut scenes of all time. That alone justifies her existence.

As for the secondary party members having small roles, I agree, but was that really any different from most other RPGs at the time? I will concede they were sort of bland and I memorable compared to some other games.

I tried to get into it a month or two ago. I was enjoying pretty much everything except the dungeons. They just don't look good, and even if you could ignore that I had real issues trying to figure out where I should be jumping because you just couldn't tell. It also really needed a map system for the dungeons.

Meh, once you realize you really don't need to explore as much as other JRPG games then the dungeons become a lot more bearable. One of the most annoying shit is Bart's ship theme music.

Alright but did you see the part where ChuChu gets crucified. Best thing ive ever seen

Seaman_Prime posted...

Alright but did you see the part where ChuChu gets crucified. Best thing ive ever seen

yes thats great

i still need to play xenoblade 2 and 3
i heard that the xenoblade 3 DLC references xenosaga so blatantly that nintendo had to credit namco in the end credits

I love Gears and agree with all of your points.

Like when Disc 2 becomes a visual novel, I was pretty happy because I was so burnt on the dungeons by the end of Disc 1. Same with the Gear gameplay, being more puzzle fights than anything since you sure aren't healing off any damage fast enough to matter.

I think I mostly just like the story and music, huh

i saw gears had a character named hammer and i thought he was gonna be a loveable side character like xenosagas hammer
then i said "fuck hammer" out loud multiple times during my xenogears playthrough

I havent played it since when it came out. Liked it well enough at the time.

citan is kind of a jerk

There's this dude I watch who did a long video on it. I just watched that.
Didn't have to play it, still got to like things about it.

just watching someone play it isnt the same experience IMO

yusiko posted...

citan is kind of a jerk

He's not just a dick, he's a literal space Nazi from his time in Gebler. He might actually still believe in some of the spiel that Solarians believe in by the game's start, though I have to believe that marrying someone from Shevat may have softened him a bit.

Xenogears15 posted...

He's not just a dick, he's a literal space Nazi from his time in Gebler. He might actually still believe in some of the spiel that Solarians believe in by the game's start, though I have to believe that marrying someone from Shevat may have softened him a bit.

im mainly talking about the time he let fei and elly eat a dead body without telling them thats what they were eating :P

yusiko posted...

im mainly talking about the time he let fei and elly eat a dead body without telling them thats what they were eating :P

He does so much more than that to make him an ass. Sooooooooooo much more. Someone in the other Xenogears topic posted a link to the incidents of Citan being a dick, and they're pretty on point.

Xenogears is still a masterpiece don't care what anyone says.