Holy hell, I cannot believe it's already been over a year since I made the last one... I'm gonna be making a topic of 2050 before I know it! I won't remember what the hell Xenosaga even is but by Jove I'll make that topic.
So to kick things off, the more astute/nerdy of you might have noticed the site hosting all the cool Xeno stuff like a translation of the Episode III Perfect Guide has gone down.
Fear not! More intelligent people than I were prepared for this and have backups of all the files. If you would personally like some of this stuff, I can give you a Dropbox link. if not, me and others will be uploading to this wiki: http://xeno-underground.net/wiki/
We just started so there isn't much on there but I promise this can be your future resource for all your Xeno supplementary info needs.
The first one I know of. Plenty of Episode 1 LPs but none for the whole three games. This guy is currently making his way through the trilogy on SomethingAwful and is almost done with Episode 1. Only took him about a year which is pretty good for most LPs there. They're pretty funny guys and most of the commentators are new to the series so you get wonderful "newbie reactions."
Now...without further ado
What a bitch.
I know everyone raves about Crispin Freeman as Albedo and he deserves all the praises and then some, but my favorite villain in Xenosaga was Yuriev and his voice-actor, Keith Szarabajka, is just as good.
I can't look at the name Shion without thinking about the forum member now.
I have the first game and that's it. I played it for hours and enjoyed it immensely until I got stuck at a part and gave up. It's been too long since I played the game so I can't remember where that part was.
In a really bizarre way, I kind of Respect the changes to Shion's character over the games in how she get's bitchier and bitchier.
We are use to the heroes growing and becoming better people as trials and troubles get thrown there way, but in a sense Shion's reaction is very real. As life constantly bears down on her, and she's forced to go through so much, she just starts to turn into a bitch. And really, how many people do we all know something similar has happened too.
I don't really like her character at all, as much as I love the games, but there is a bizarre amount of respect I have for the writers going that direction with her. XD
I still have yet to play Xenogears, but the Xenosaga series might be my favorite RPG series of all time. I've replayed the first game so many times. I even really like the second game, which a lot of people seem to hate. The only thing I don't like about the series is how vastly different the character models and voice actors can be from game to game. It didn't bother me back when the games were first coming out, but it was pretty jarring a year or two ago when I played all 3 games back to back.
I hate Shion. I seriously do. I liked her okay in the first one but by the last one I just wanted to slap her so many times. I took the screenname when I was like 8 for some girly game website because it was easy to remember and short and I used it again for this forum since my usual one was apparently unavailable. But she is easily my least favorite in the game.
Favorites in order:
Jr.
MOMO
KOS-MOS
Chaos
Jin
Ziggy
shion
Anyways, I do love these games. Great story. Albedo is my favorite antagonist ever and I love what they did with him in II and III. I also loved the database which encouraged me to look in to more psychology theories and learn some stuff that way. I read a great deal of books regarding certain topics thanks to these games.
The battle system in I is the most complicated and I enjoy it probably the least. II wasn't as good as I and II but I still enjoyed it. III kind of blended the first 2 games together and it is my favorite in the series. I really enjoy playing it. Disc 2 was just non-stop boss after boss and the story all jammed in there, but I guess they were expecting to make more games, so that's sad that they didn't get to.
I have barely played Xenogears, something about the gameplay just doesn't stick for me, but I read the entire game script and I quite enjoyed it. Some of the characters were on the weaker side, but that could change with playing the game. The story was excellent, though.
Even the games detractors cannot deny - the music was amazing.
The Xenogears OST meanwhile was so good it made me think Mitsuda was better than Uematsu or Sakuraba or anyone else all on its own. It's my favorite OST ever. (and it goes well with my favorite JRPG ever) My Top 50 RPG Battle Themes #02: Xenogears - Awakening - YouTube
One of the best final boss themes in anything ever.
I agree. I have never been more disappointed with a game in my life. I loved Episode 1 so much that I expected more of the same but with answers to all the questions EP1 left us with.
Episode 2 is....nothing like the first game. It goes to great lengths to be absolutely not like the first game. I hated it so much.
Yes, 2 was rough. I still appreciate parts of it, but ... anyway, #3 was a pleasant surprise. It was so good, again. I still like the first one the most, but hey, they're all great.
2's biggest problem was that it did very little to move the main plot forward. (I do stand by the battle system isn't as bad as most make it out to be, though I agree it's not very good. )
However the story 2 did tell about the U.R.T.V's and what not was absolutely fantastic, so I can't really bring myself to hate on it much, especially with the characters involved were among my favorite of the series.