Tetsuya Takahashi's Xeno franchises

[Formalhaut]

I think he means the combat is very... unmanoeuvrable? Clunky? Hard to get to grips with?

[Mirage]

well from what i've heard, the general consensus is that XS1 had bad combat, XS2 had worse, but XS3 actually had good combat.

I'd buy a HD port on PS4 if they improved on the first two games, but not until the price dropped by a lot.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I actually quite liked Xenosaga 1's combat. It's been a while since I've played though, and I didn't have much rpg experience when I first played it so that might contribute to it. Why do people usually see the first game's combat as bad?

The Xenosaga series is probably my favorite of the Xeno series, although Xenoblade is close behind. That could change if I ever actually beat Xenoblade. I still haven't ever beaten Gears and really need to get around to doing that.

Xenosaga is extremely linear compared to the openness of Xenoblade. It's kind of surprising how much I like it compared to FF XIII (which I enjoyed). I think I just really like the more sci-fi setting of Saga, and I just really enjoyed the overall story.

[Forsaken Lover]

Jesus Christ, the most activity I've ever seen in a thread on here in years and I miss all of it.

Gear combat sucks, plain and simple. It's not too bad to start off with but it gets very tedious, especially by the end where they force you to only use gears. On foot combat was infinitely better.

Xenosaga III had the best robot of any Xeno game I've played.

Xenosaga 1's combat is decent. It's very reminiscent of Xenogears ie. you spam Tech Attacks just like you spammed Deathblows. But I don't see any reason to call it bad beyond that.


P.S.
Transformers was never actually good or deep, Bay didn't change anything there.

[Fynn]

I was never a fan of transformers and I never claimed they were deep. I just heard it has nothing to do with the feel of the source material Transformers Animated was pretty fun tho

[Mirage]

Jesus Christ, the most activity I've ever seen in a thread on here in years and I miss all of it.

Gear combat sucks, plain and simple. It's not too bad to start off with but it gets very tedious, especially by the end where they force you to only use gears. On foot combat was infinitely better.

You know something's true when Forsaken Lover and Mirage agree on it.

[Fynn]

Nah, you're the two weird controversial opinion guys, so that's not saying anything

(Jk I love you both)

[Mirage]

well, someone's gotta look past the surface of things.

and it's always just one of us that has a controversial opinion while the other doesn't, so this time it's definitely not controversial

[Wolf Kanno]

Here's the games in a nutshell. Pardon grammar because I'm in a hurry.

Xenogears is an ambitious classic PS1 game that was one of the first RPGs to utilize an actual 3D world with 2D spites. The game revolves around Fei Fong Wong, an amnesic man brought to the little country town of Lahan under mysterious circumstances. When a battle being waged by the two neighboring nations spills into his town, Fei makes the choice to jump into one of the Gears (giant robots) which ends up being pretty disastrous for everybody. Fei is forced to leave and goes on a journey to discover who he is which it ends up connecting to the 10,000 year history of the planet and God. Honestly the story and characters for this game are the main selling point and I do feel it's one of the best stories from the genre.

The gameplay comes in two flavors, ground combat and mecha combat. For the most part they work the same in terms of UI but function differently. You character has ability points that can be spent on a combination of Light, medium, and heavy attacks (if you've played Chrono Cross you'll understand) which can unlock special finishing moves called Deathblows when used enough. AP not used can also be stored to create strings of deathblows as well. In addition to this, you have traditional magic as well, though buff/debuff is more useful than offensive. Gear combat works the same except your Gears have fuel instead of AP and their combo/deathblow system is much simpler. Fuel has to manually be recharged unlike AP and Gears can't be healed by magic (well with one exception) unless you use a special accessories that heals your gear in exchange for a certain percentage of your fuel. So Gear combat requires a bit more strategy works more like a traditional RPG resource marathon. Gears also utilize deathblows but they are based on the ones your characters have actually learned. Dungeons are fully 3D and do involve some platforming which is where Gears age really comes in. As an early 3D title by Square, it hasn't aged as well and there is a particular dungeon that tends to make people swear this game off. Also combat falls into the "easy random encounters, ridiculously hard boss battle" formula as some of the ground battles involve pretty monstrously overpowered villains and Gear combat loves marathon boss battles, whereas random encounters can often be too easy. Still I appreciate the use of platforming as a mechanic and the game has some really clever puzzle and dungeon layouts that use the 3D aspect well even if I'm a minority on that opinion. The game is just a bit clunky compared to modern standards.

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Xenosaga is bit harder to break down, the trilogy offers different quality depending on the entry. Xenosaga is a sort of reimagining/prequel to Gears, set about 5000 years in the future of our world. Mankind has conquered space but lost Earth in the process and mankind is now dealing with a strange alien presence called the Gnosis. They are intangible beings that exist on another plane of existence but they have the means to interact with human and harm them. Luckily science has prevailed and humanity is poised to be able to fight back. Shion is the head of a special R&D division for Megacorp Vector Industries who is building the first fully robotic android named KOS-MOS, and anti-Gnosis device the Federation hopes touse to fight back the Gnosis. When the planet Ariadne mysteriously disappears, Shion and her staff have to go along with the Federation ship to investigate in hopes KOS-MOS will be ready for something... it soon becomes clear the whole mission might be the work of different organizations and special interest groups as the ship is poorly armed for the mission and the mission changed it's objective once a mysterious monolith was recovered. Shion and KOS-MOS journey leads them across the colonized galaxy and deals with political intrigue, the nature of humanity and even God. This is pretty much all I will say about the story since the trilogy continues the same story. The game has good characters and strong themes but the writing is a bit off depending on entry. Episode 1 has a really slow pace and ends abruptly, Episode 2 has mixed pacing and writing with the first half of the game being slow but tells a good story and the second half feels rushed. Episode 3 has pretty strong writing but kind of rushes through the whole plot giving one bombshell after another as it tries to complete the story within the games time frame.

Gameplay differs between entries. Episode 1 involves a battle system that takes its cues from Gears. Characters have AP and can perform combination of attacks to perform Techs which are the games equivalent of Deathblows. Differences come from combos being split by physical vs. ether/magic instead of the light/medium/heavy of Gears and Cross, also Tech/deathblows are assigned to certain combos instead of just being specific combinations. Techs can be upgraded as well and unlike Gears, they have the ability to target groups instead of being purely single target. It sounds complicated but it's actually pretty easy once you start using them. Characters also learn magic abilities and their is a customization mechanic with high abuse factor that allows you to learn the s[special bonus effects of armor and accessories which you can then equip in addition to your one accessory slot. There are mecha in the game called AGWS which have a very lite-Front Mission/Armor Core feel to them with different parts being able to be mixed in and weight actually being a factor. Sadly, AGWS can be quickly outshine by abusive character customization. Dungeons are more linear but add a cool mechanic where your character can destroy special containers on the field around enemies that allow you to avoid fighting them or conferring up bonuses during battle.

The games best mechanic which thankfully is retained in most entries is the Boost/Turn System. Basically every round of battle cycles through four or five bonuses such as raising critical hits, raising Boost Gauge, double XP, etc... so it's important to make sure your characters get their turns during a beneficial bonus while the enemy turn lands on a less useful turn. Like FFTactics or FFX, you can see turn order and see where these bonuses land for each characters turn. You have a boost gauge which when filled up be allowed to let that character to take their turn next so you can effectively control turn order and make sure the enemy never gets too many advantageous in battle, of course the bad guys can do this as well and they even get a special counter-Boost which can override your own so it becomes important to make sure the computer doesn't get the Boost+ bonus too often or they'll take multiple turns in a row which is bad news for your party. This system gives all of the games a very cool strategic element to combat.

Episode 2 combat is similar to FFXIII, in fact I'm pretty sure Toriyama's combat team pretty much lifted the entire concept of their battle system from this game. Basically we're back to combos like gear but their are no deathblows and attacks are separated by High and Low attacks. Every enemy has a specific combo they are weak to and if performed properly, the enemy guard is broken allowing the party to deal extra damage to them. In addition, certain character attacks can actually create a Down or Up effect that either launches the enemy into the air or smashes them into the ground allowing you to deal even more damage. So combat revolves around breaking enemy guards and then launching or smashing them to get maximum dame. Of course these effects only last until the end of the round but you can make the round last longer by utilizing the Boost system mentioned above, allowing your whole party to string together group combos on enemies. It works really well in boss battles, especially since they're built around countering these types of strategies and requires some planning but the system doesn't work too well in random battles due to enemies having high health that just drags the battles out longer than necessary. Customization is also a downgrade as the game not only removed equipment, but characters now all share a skill pool and lose most of their individuality in combat. There are Dual-Techs in the game that serve as Tech/Deathblow expires but they require too much set-up and in the end are not as useful as a good use of combos much like how Full ATB Bar moves are kind of useless overall in XIII.

Mecha are replaced with the E.S. units which serve a story and game purpose like the Gears but they have little customization and they are pretty basic. They're only nice element being that their combat works a bit more like Episode 1 combat giving you a break from the combo system.

Episode 3 is a bit odd and basically tries to merge the combat mechanics of the previous two games into one which ultimately makes for one of the best systems in the series. You still break guards but no longer need to perform multi-party combo/boost moves to scratch off 10% of an enemies health and characters are again individualized with magic and skill based attacks returning and actually being useful in combat. Each character also has two skill trees to go down that makes them functionally different like making chaos either focus on breaking guards or becoming more of a black mage type character. E.S. combat is more robust with better customization and works closer to Episode 2's basic combat system but damage algorithms make combat less of a chore and keeps the boss battles pretty epic. Sadly, it's been ages since I played this entry so I can't remember the specifics of gameplay as well as I used to.

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Xenoblade Chronicles is an MMO-style single player RPG set on the bodies of two dead giant gods, one organic (Bionis), the other machine (Mechanis). Since their fateful battle that killed them, life has emerged on their bodies and have continued the war between organic and machine. the Monado, is the sword the god of the Bionis used in the fateful battle but now shrinked down to human size. It is the only weapon powerful enough to destroy the Mechon that invade their world. In the past a hero named Dunban fought off the last Mechon invasion into the Bionis using the Monado but lost the ability to use his right arm. Year later, Shulk grows up in Colony 9 and studies the Monado. He's friends with Dunban and his sister Fiora and they live peacefully at the foot of the Bionis. When the Mechon attack Colony 9, Shulk takes up the Monado and fights back but loses many people he loves, making him vow revenge and go on a journey to stop the Mechon. In his journey he discovers that the Monado grants many powers, most important, the power to see the future. These visions haunt Shulk who learns he can change the future by denying the vision but it makes his journey more hazardous as he races against time to stop the worst outcome. Shulk's journey will lead him through political intrigue, the true history of his world and the ancient war between the gods and to God itself. Noticing a theme here yet?

The gameplay works like an MMO with characters all having particular roles in combat and skills which use cooldowns instead of standard MP. Skills confer bonuses based on where you attack the opponent making positioning a core mechanic to combat. Each character also plays rather distinctively making it pretty fun to try out all of the party members. The game has a heavier reliance on exploration and MMO-style fetch quests which is a welcome change from the very linear Gears and Saga. Each town has people you can befriend through quests and helping them unlocks more quest which involves some fun story quests that help flesh out the world. The Visions also play a role in combat, as Shulk will gain visions of a super attack a Boss or Mark will perform that will kill a party member; at which point the player has a certain amount of time to prevent it from happening. I'm sure someone will give better details because this is all just the most fundamental aspects of the gameplay.

In terms of gameplay, from best to worst

Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenosaga Episode 3
Xenosaga Episode 1
Xenogears
Xenosaga Episode 2

In terms of story
Xenogears
Xenosaga series
Xenoblade Chronicles

Not to say that Xenoblade doesn't have a great cast or story, but it's a much lighter affair to the more heavy handed mature themes tackled in Gears or Saga. Even Takahashi has said that XC was meant to have a simpler Shonen Jump feel to the story whereas Gears and Saga are more philosophical and character driven.

Likewise, Episode 2 and Gears are hardly unplayable messes like some people would argue, but they won't be winning any best gameplay awards and age has certainly not be kind to one of them unlike with say the FF series.

[Fynn]

Wolf Kanno: in a nutshell
*posts 40-page essay*

[Wolf Kanno]

Wolf Kanno: in a nutshell
*posts 40-page essay*

Hey, I'm trying to describe three series that span five games while actually giving an informative description. You don't sell games saying the gameplay is good or story is great without a little enticement.

[Fynn]

Wolf Kanno: in a nutshell
*posts 40-page essay*

Hey, I'm trying to describe three series that span five games while actually giving an informative description. You don't sell games saying the gameplay is good or story is great without a little enticement.

I never said it was a bad thing

Let's just hope Formy reads it

[Forsaken Lover]

I too saw the similarity between Break/Stagger but that's really the only similarity between XS2 and FFXIII's combat systems. I cannot stress this enough because the two are night and day.

Xenosaga II makes FFIX look like a nonstop thrill ride in terms of gameplay. It has to be the slowest smurfing game ever. FFXIII meanwhile is a twitch-fest that hurts my fingers after a while.

IT TAKES TEN SECONDS JUST TO LOAD ALL THE BATTLE MODELS AT THE START OF EACH FIGHT IN XENOSAGA EPISODE II.

Then of course there's XIII's Paradigms and the like which is way different from XSII.

ALSO YOU CAN'T BUY ITEMS AT ALL IN XENOSAGA II. No weapons, either.

-gibbers-

[Formalhaut]

Looked at all three, thanks Kanno!

Honestly, you ranked the story of Xenoblade Chronicles as the worst, but I read the description and it seems interesting from where I'm standing.

And the combat sounds compelling - the 'death vision' sounds an interesting mechanic, if done well. Would you say Xenoblade Chronicles is a good game to start the series with?

[Mirage]

the death vision is probably the only annoying mechanic in the game

but you can avoid it by not sucking in the first place

it is not a series, btw. barely even a metaseries. Xenoblade has no connections to Xenosaga has no connections to Xenogears. Except being from the same group of developers and having some philosophical and thematical similarities. They are maybe a spiritual series, but that's it.

But you should play Xenoblade first because it's objectively best.