XenoSaga III

[Waspman]

I picked up II and III a long time ago used and for some reason, just started playing them. You guys have no idea how bad episode II is. It's seriously the worst RPG I've played on the PS2. I played, maybe, 8 hours before giving up. Instead, I opted to skip straight to the final game. Since you can read on the events of the other two games in episode III, I figured it probably wouldn't make much different.

Oh man, this game completely boggled my mind. I heard XS3 was pretty good but after mediocre 1 and crapfeast 2, I wasn't too sure. But holy crap, they're right. Completely out of nowhere, Monolith Soft. made a Xenosaga game that kicks arse. This game completely slaughters 1 and 2 in pretty much every aspect.
Not only does it have a fast-paced and fun battle system with minimal loading, but an actual story full of awesome plot twists. Plus, the character designs aren't complete crap anymore. Hooray!
Unfortunately it's still dubbed, though it's a little better but it's still kinda meh..
I still have several chapters to go so I'm not sure how it's going to end, but so far I'm pretty impressed.

[Fayde]

Wow... I was bombed after just the first one... The second one looked like whole wheat crap imo too, I'm glad I'm not missing out on anything.
One thing I really didn't like about the first game was there was too much "story", and no game. Even though nothing happened in the story anyway. Yay 14+ hours of CG and 6 hours of gameplay. That got really old, really fast.

I'm glad it wasn't a total waste! What kind of plot twists are we talking about? And a FUN battle system....? When did that happen?

[Waspman]

Jun 9, 2008 21:39:23 GMT -8 Fayde said:

What kind of plot twists are we talking about?

There's seriously like five billion in this game. Hell, there's some cutscenes where you're hit by a f**king barrage of plot twists.
Well, let's try to keep this simple.. Shion, as a little girl, is actually the one who destroyed militia and summoned the Gnosis, which turn out to actually be human spirits who have rejected the recycled universe. Shion's father actually worked for U-TIC and Kevin worked under Mizrahi, where he first started developing KOS-MOS. Turns out that Kevin was brought back to life by Wilhelm, as one of the masked Testaments, so he appears before Shion only to tell her that she's going to die soon because of her connection to U-DO, the same illness that her mother had and that being around KOS-MOS is speeding up the process. Later on, Shion betrays the party to be with Kevin and as a boss fight you have to fight the main character and her undead lover! f**k YES YOU ARE THE BEST BOSS FIGHT EVER! At which point, Allen who obviously loves Shion since Episode I, randomly turns into a badass.
So anyway, Wilhelm is actually the CEO and founder of Vector, the Ormus patriarch, Hymas leader and like the f**king chairman of the Federation. It's like finding out that President Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bill Gates and the Pope are the same person. Apparently he's also tens of thousands of years old and knows Chaos, who turns out to be Jesus. I'm seriously not joking. So absolutely everything was JUST AS PLANNED so KOS-MOS and T-Elos could merge and awaken as Mary Magdalene and Shion, who turns out to be Mary's maiden, could guide all the souls to Zarathrustra and recycle time because the universe is going to die in thousands of years thanks to Chaos. Oh but it turns out that time has recycled several times already and Wilhelm has to activate Zarathrustra every time otherwise the universe is doomed! So Wilhelm, the villian of Xenosaga, is really just trying to save the universe. And Kevin is trying to save Shion.
And in the end Pellegri, Margulis, KOS-MOS, Jin, Canaan and Gainun (who actually turns out to not be Gainun) die. Zarathrustra isn't activated. Shion's still dying and the universe is now going to die.

And hell, that's not even nearly all of it. I didn't even get into the whole Pellegri being Jin's lover, the stuff with Canaan, the whole Gainun and Albehdo thing, all the Miltia stuff, the stuff with Voyager and Ziggy, the stuff with Virgil, or the fact that the E.S. are powered by Chaos' power.
Holy nuts, why couldn't the other games be this good? This is Xenogears-caliber storytelling right here.

[Fayde]

Whoa, talk about dropping the load in your pants!
I really like the whole idea of the villain turned out to be the good guy trying so hard to save the world. Thats always awesome.
Sounds like a very interesting game, and a definite upgrade from the first one. Although, my main question now is wondering if there is any gameplay in the game? I remember the first game having such LONG CG scenes, and the little gameplay there was, was VERY slow and boring.

[Waspman]

There is a lot more gameplay and thankfully it'll ask if you want to save all the time but even so, there's a lot of cutscenes. And unfortunately the replay value really sucks. There's two easy optional bosses and no extra dungeons or anything of that sort.

[Fayde]

Man... I remember waiting and waiting and WAITING through the cut scenes just to save... It's like "ok, I want to be done now, but I must sit here for half an hour watching crap unfold before I can even look for a save point..."

Thats one thing I really like about SO3, SO much replay value, and the game is just fun. Still one of the funner RPGs I've played, too bad the story was kinda bleh... I hope the 4th one will be better in that aspect.

[Waspman]

I really don't understand why most people didn't like SO3.. they always complain about the "we're videogame characters" plot twist and the battle system and how MP kills you. Well, whatever.
Unfortunate for me, SO4 is 360 exclusive.