Oh, I do agree. Which is why I kind of plan to implement a certain twist that will make the races a bit less conventional.
I generally prefer more human centric characters and stories, but I felt it would be nice to add some flavor to the world.
Cool, I'll send you a mognet later. This is all pretty hush hush for now It's good to hear that you're doing races, though! A lot of fantasy nowadays goes with just humans
Sure, we do that.
ooh, I actually made races for my new world. I can tell you all about them if you want
It would have been interesting to see Saga's take on Gears. The idea that Citan is a reincarnation of Jin alone would be interesting to see how that unfolds. With that said, I would still prefer getting a playable version of Lacan's story if I ever could but it will likely never happen. Though SE has been teasing Xenogears stuff a bit lately. I'm still not sure how I feel about XC2. It looks interesting, but not quite "Oh my god I need to play this now!" and I was amused to learn that they somehow got to use KOS-MOS as a Secret Blade, but I'm still not quite impressed enough to care just yet. I've been jotting down notes as I play through Tactics Ogre and XII: TZA. I'm actually going to do something I have done in forever, and that's make up fantasy races for my world. I usually stick to just human characters and while I am hesitant to do so for this story, I feel like it will be a richer experience.
Oh yeah, I did actually end up going neutral in the end. It's just that you can't choose Neutral from the start, your chapter 2 is always one of two paths, not three. So I did end up having most of the cool characters. I still wish I could get Dame Ravness, but alas. Though at first I had reservations about listening to Ronwey at the end of chapter 2, in the end it did seem reasonable (even if Catiua disagreed). Still, choosing between goals and compassion seems to be a thing with Matsuno, and I like how even on the Law path (or really, Delita's entire story) you aren't really treated as evil. It's easily the thing I love the most both in his games and SMT. To me, the interesting thing was how they planned what we got to initially be two episodes - I had heard the whole Xenosaga as it is was supposed to be one episode. And yeah, i had no idea they actually planned to reimagine Xenogears - dunno how I would have felt about that, what with it being split into two games, and the fact that the Xenosaga Abel is a completely different concept than the one in Xenogears (and tbh, I find the concept of it being just a human who happened to come into contact with a deity by proxy be the main catalyst for the story far more compelling than him already being an aspect of a deity from the beginning; kind of takes away from the message of the original if you ask me). Too bad we never got those sequel episodes. I wonder if Takahashi will slip the concept they had for that story into one of Xenoblade's sequels. I actually heard that XC2 is the most Xenogearsy game in the series yet. It's honestly hard for me to believe when I look at it, and part of me kind of violently refuses to accept it. On another note, as I finish the Witcher books again, I can't help but try to recommend to you again :P Especially now that I know you have a background in history, since Sapkowski really likes to play around with that, making a huge world with a rich history, and kind of defining your expectations in many ways. The narrative is peppered with various flash forwards of historians and people telling fairy tales of the events you've been reading about, and it really casts doubt on what the real events were, if they really happened that way, and if that really matters in the end. In general, I actually really like the fact that I have the drive to return to media I've consumed already. No book is the same on the second read, as no game is the same on the second playthrough. I know a lot of people, my wife included, who reads a book/plays a game/watches a show or movie once and is done with it forever. But I believe every story has a whole lot more to offer than just what you get on the first time. Which is why I love to revisit stories that have moved me. Which is why I'll play Xenogears again right after I finish Chrono Trigger (so, probably today or tomorrow). ... I just need to remember to write my thing in the meantime
I've heard the Chaos path is kind of the most boring in terms of narrative. Not helped by the one thing it had going for it (recruiting Arcyelle) being lost in the PSP version that now makes it possible to recruit her on any path. I think the one thing that bothers me about Law so far, is that you're stuck with it, whereas in Chaos you can eventually switch to Neutral. I have to clear a amp I forgot to save after, but my next goal is actually to take over the Wallister Resistance. It's pretty fun being the Delita character. Yeah, it was a great read, and I could be mistaking it for a different article in terms of being a bit mean spirited towards Saga and Blade. Saga is a pretty good series, it just kind of suffers from the same issues as Gears of being overly ambitious and the final act feels a bit rushed, but hereas I felt Gears found a creative way to package in the important bits of the plot. Eps.III of Saga feels a bit like a rush job, not helped by being kind of a jarring experience since the web series was never made available in the West and the Datalog entry for it is very lackluster.
I only read the history of Gears and Saga sections and didn't really notice them being particularly critical of either series. It was an interesting look at the creation of the series. I remember thinking that Takahashi actually had an opportunity to make a more complete game with Xenosaga, but it turns out that Xenogears was actually a much more complete product, even if the gameplay of the second disc got gutted. I really need to give Xenosaga another shot since I kind off fell off that with Ep. II. Xenogears, on the other hand, has kind of steadily been building up in my head and if I were to make a top games list today, it would be much higher. And I've come to the conclusion that I actually really dig disc 2 as a design decision. Yeah, I heard. I definitely like how your decisions really determine which way Denam's character goes. Mine was pretty much a proto-Ramza. Still interesting, though he kind of lacked the rich character backstory that Ramza had which made him far more compelling in my view, since he wasn't a pure paragon of justice just because. It's kind of shame though that Chapter 4 is the same regardless of route, if I remember correctly
Oh yeah, I have that one on my bookmarks. Good read if a bit nasty about Saga and Blade towards the end, but they do bring up points I didn't consider like Episode 3 and 4 being merged into Gears. When I said I was going to play as Delita in Tactics Ogre, I am standing true to that. You can become quite the piece of work in the Law path. I'm also happy that these games are reminding me of all these great Queen songs I've forgotten about.
