Will a playthrough of Xenogears revive the Enix forum!?

[NeoCracker]

I just destroyed teh gate beneath the Ethos HQ.


I got my ass kicked a couple times by the two fights there. Mostly I forgot about Areods, which are smurfing brutal. Once I remembered I had those and gave Elly a couple Ether boosting items on her gear, I two shot that fight both times.

I lost the second one once, only because appaerently both Bart and Rico in their Hyper Modes heal both enemies. O_O

This whole scenes dialogue was just awkward.
'Next time I won't go easy on you!' *Immidiately attacks*

Both figths were littered with this dialogue. o_O

A little re-adjustment of my Gears equipment (Really up until now I've just shoved defensive gear on them without paying much mind. ) and the fights were a breeze.

And this is a slightly convoluted set up the ancients had. Wouldn't it have been more practical to make the giant laser cannon mobile then set up a mirror to reflect the beam, one that if your off much it will either miss entirely, or destroy your tower or beam? And why why did they attack two different ones, when they could have focused on just one? It's not like they needed to stop you on both fronts. And why did I only have 3 people at each? I still had Maria and, god forbid, Pupu. It would have given you full parties on both, AND made sense in context of the story.

Those are all just nitpicks though.

You know whats not? Let the trolling of WK commence.

So many of these god damn dungeons are awful. They are a series of walkways with the occasional side paths. A number of times though there is no point to take the side path as the there loot is either low end or non existant. The Dungeons tend to look the same from room to room, the Nisan gate you destroy being the worst offending.

These are among the worst and most boring dungeons I have ever seen. smurfing FF XIII's dungeons weren't as painfully dull, since they at the very least they had some varience within the dungeon as you progressed. The soul think that keeps Xenogears better then FF XIII in that regard is towns and an overworld map to break the monoteny of the dungeons.

(SPOILER)Smug

The shear lack of varied enemies doesn't help. You know what other game wolf hates that does a better job with this? FF X. And FF X is smurfing shameless in it's re-skinning of creatures.

Not saying this game just re skins, it just keeps re-using the same god damn monsters. Most areas have 2-3 monsters you will fight the entire dungeon. When you take into acount how easy it is to get lost on a couple maps due to the lack of variance, you will be seeing the same smurfers a lot on some of these maps.

(SPOILER)


Wolf, I can see the good in this game, but I have no idea how you can call it one of your favorites. I'm enjoying it, but the game is bogged down by so much stupid crap at every turn.

Edit: Also Forsaken, once I finish my playthrough I look forward to taking you off my ignroe list so I can see what you've been saying this whole time. :P

I didn't want to read your apparent spoilers by mistake.

[Forsaken Lover]

I think WK will admit the Xenogears dungeons are pretty bland and boring. FFXIII at least looked nice which is more than you can say for Xenogears' horrifically outdated graphics.

But fear not! Even if you can't read this, there is a pretty good dungeon not too far in the future.

Also I guess I'm the only person on Earth who had a lot of trouble with Shakhan. I got my ass kicked by him so many times.
Then I discovered Elly and Aerods and suddenly that boss fight was not hard at all.

Also this has nothing to do with anything, but let's talk about something that isn't brought up much in regards to Xenogears.

Shipping.

I totally ship Grahf and Miang. They are "dark" versions of our protagonist lovers aftr all.
Plus they're just my fave villains period.

[NeoCracker]

Okay, the longer the game goes on, the stupider Fei seems to get.

Now that I'm on Solaris, it's easilly the dumbest he's been. "Lets Crawl in a Random tube!""Lets Charge in not knowing how to get in there!"

Once again, Citan shows himself to be the real brains here, already knowing how best to infultrate and rescue everyone.

Mind you, this is Fei's Soul inteligent thought all game, "Why are you able to Pass Security Citan?"

I love talking to the 3rd Class Citzens, and seeing the differences from level to level in this place.

I am baffled by the god aweful security. I mean really, this is smurfing horrid. I now see how these people were inept enough to trust Vanderkaum with a fleet.

Edit: My father just turned Traitor in a time of crisis! He'll totally be okay because of his record!

....smurf Elly is stupid.

Edit2: ...Is the meat people? Did I just eat People moments ago?

[Bolivar]

So many of these god damn dungeons are awful. They are a series of walkways with the occasional side paths. A number of times though there is no point to take the side path as the there loot is either low end or non existant. The Dungeons tend to look the same from room to room, the Nisan gate you destroy being the worst offending.

These are among the worst and most boring dungeons I have ever seen. smurfing FF XIII's dungeons weren't as painfully dull, since they at the very least they had some varience within the dungeon as you progressed. The soul think that keeps Xenogears better then FF XIII in that regard is towns and an overworld map to break the monoteny of the dungeons.

(SPOILER)Smug

I'm not sure if we have this category in the Ciddies, but this is some of the finest, classic gold trolling I have ever read on this forum. Reminds me of when I beat Xenogears for the first time and worked it into nearly every discussion we were having about games with Mirage jumping in, too

Trolling aside, do you really think it's that bad?

[NeoCracker]

I exaggerated some, but it is pretty smurfing bad in those regards. I can let a lot go when you take into account time and budget restraints, but it can get tedious real fast. I can only forgive so much.

I'm actually at the part where you ahve some optional stuff to do before the final boss.

I'll keep this brief, cause otherwise I'll give myself a permanent migrane, but smurf Disk 2. Seriously, smurf this disk. I get a massive plot dump of an entire games worth of events your characters have been doing. Gee, I smurfing wish I was there for ANY OF THAT. And A lot of it is very plot relevant.

The worst part? It still doesnt' give you information you would think you'd need.

This story is, at it's core, great in concept. The problem is the actual presentation is bogged down by these ungodly text dumps, badly constructed scenes like Vanderkaum, and smurfing Pupu.

The worst part? I wish this were a bad game. If this was a bad game, I could just pass this all off as the creators being inept. The problem is teh game does a lot right, it has some great Ideas, adn a lot of them are done well. But my god, when the stupid comes, its unrelenting. And it is beyond frustrating for me.

Hell, I was so frustrated at teh text dumps, I broke my original plan of no guides just so I coudl get the smurf through the fights and be done with it.

The best bits have been the History of Locan, Gharf, and Fei on this disk. My care in the council had become non existant. Disk one I loved them, but the problem is by that point you still have no interaction with them and Cain, so when Krillian usurps them it feels like such a distant event I didn't care.

So far, for me, the highlight of the game is Solaris. Specifically Citan. His helping you through, Elly Realizing somethings wrong, his 'betrayal' and the reveal of his workings with Cain. The highlight of that bit was his conversation with Id. Absolutely wonderful stuff that was.

Back with more thoughts once it's over.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's far from a perfect game. Yes I loved it and I played it in a time when trying to get a new JRPG made you really gloss over the flaws, but even I'll admit it has not aged that well, especially as a game. Though if you have the chance, I would say play through it again, as it's one of those stories where you pick on more and more of the subtleties each playthrough.

I also agree that for me the two high points of the game is Solaris and when you finally get to see the story of Krellean and Lacan. You have no idea how much I wanted Square to do Episode IV just because I knew it would be Lacan's story. Alas, unless Squenix partners with Nintendo, and thus MonolithSoft, I'll never get to see that game.

On the brightside, you can now play through Xenosaga and catch all the Xenogears references. It should make playing through the series a bit new for you.

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, I don't think I'm playing this one a second time.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oh you know you want chu

[NeoCracker]

...And with that part of my soul has died.

[Wolf Kanno]

My first forum was a Xeno forum that replaced to, too, and you with chu... Wait, I'm on staff...

[Bolivar]

The worst part? I wish this were a bad game. If this was a bad game, I could just pass this all off as the creators being inept. The problem is teh game does a lot right, it has some great Ideas, adn a lot of them are done well. But my god, when the stupid comes, its unrelenting. And it is beyond frustrating for me.

Spelling errors aside I think you get at the heart here, that this is not a bad game, but there's flaws, and not just the expected flaws the average game is likely to have, but blatant flaws that hold Xenogears back from attaining the legacy its fans wish it had. And yet despite that, it's still an important game, and must-play game that in some ways defines what the PlayStation era was all about.

smurf Disk 2. Seriously, smurf this disk.

This should be a bumper sticker, but I was expecting you were going to have the same reaction as me - that since the gameplay and dungeon design frustrated/bored you to extreme ends, you would enjoy to just sit back and have the awesome plot spoon fed to you.

But I have a question that I'm interested in some of your opinions on. Xenogears had to breeze through a lot of its plot due to budget constraints. But it took me 60 hours to beat this game, with only a couple side quests done at the end. That's a long play time, even for its time when RPGs were getting longer. My question to you all is do you really think they wanted to make a game that takes 80-100 hours just to complete its main story? Or were maybe they putting it all together since they knew Episodes I-IV wouldn't be made by Square?

[Forsaken Lover]

Some people take the view that the best thing about Xenogears was the story so Disk 2 was actually an improvement.

Of course the dreaded Plot Chair wasn't good but is it any worse than half hour dungeons that totally suck in every way?

And when you weren't stuck in the Chair you got some pretty cool story stuff. Hell, the best plot moments probably happen in Disk 2.

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel I don't mind the chair scenes from Disk 2 cause I was just getting off Neon Genesis Evangelion and I happen to be one of the few anime fans who actually feels the TV ending was the best ending to the series.

Not to mention I love the game more for the plot mostly.

[Jowy]

being in the chair was like square telling me to take a time out and play in short intervals. after a few hours that gets pretty bland!

(SPOILER)Throw your soul away and kill Hammer when you have the chance.

[NeoCracker]

So, I just did the Lighthouse....

Lacan's body resurected because he became the contact. This was established when you spoke with the Zohar highter being thing. The Entity.

This is what allowed him to survive through the different Generations as Miang and Elly could.

Explain to me how he existed as Kim 4000 years ago, when he hadn't become teh Contact until 500 years ago?

Edit: Adult kim is kind of hot though.