Old RPG Pickup

[geno]

I've just finished playing through Xenogears again, god I love that game.
With that said, I can't help but spend a lot of time during the second disc thinking about what could have been. Not to get into any spoilers but, all the potentially awesome dungeons hinted to during cutscenes of the second disc have me wishing there was a quality remake of this game. The second disc goes through so much time and so many events in the same time it takes you to get out of Lahan in the first disc (at least, if you are after an RPS badge!!). The monologues explaining events that they had to use really changed the pacing of the game a whole lot more than I liked, which really only made me mad because the story was a lot better than most RPGs you will find.

I've never played any of the Xenosaga series, but after this last Xenogears play-through I'm considering it. For those of you who have played the games, is the pacing similar to Xenogears (first disc of course)? I need someone to sell me on the series!

[Lazaruz]

its hard to sell crap geno. Dont expect xenosaga to be anything like xenogears. Id only recommend xenosaga if your bored and have nothing to play or if your just a hardcore fan who doesnt care if it cant live up to xenogears.

[geno]

really? i often see people mention it in their fav rpgs and i doubt all are just diehard story-fans.

[Charismatic]

really? i often see people mention it in their fav rpgs and i doubt all are just diehard story-fans.

They are.
I haven't played Ep.III but compared to Xenogears Eps I & II are a major letdown if you're going in expecting something like Xenogears.

The Xenosaga storyline is good on its own, but you kind of have to forget about Xenogears (which was impossible for me) if you want to truly enjoy it.

[Kaylia]

Story is on par with Xenogears. If you don't mind rpg with a ton of cutscenes and liked Xenogears's story, do yourself a favor and complete the whole saga. The events cover the time period around Omega creation (Omega was Deus's core) and give you a good idea of the event that could have lead to Xenogears, even if both games arent directly connected.

If you want gameplay, Xenosaga might not be the best choice for you. The games aren't bad, but it's basically a traditional rpg that doesnt have much to do beside main story. You can beat all 3 games in 25-40h (each), and you will be done with it completly after 40-50hours.

Most people who complains about the story never gave it a chance imo. They wanted to see a carbon copy of Xenogears right from the beginning, and gave up soon after unsastisfied. I dont know many people who completed the series and hated it, even the one who hated ep1 and ep2.

Two reasons to 'watch' Xenosaga.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=KbnmENEvhZE
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3We9E5Eas

[Kaelan]

It was presumably supposed to be something like a continuation (or maybe a jump into the future) of Xenogears. Hence a bunch of similarities beyond just the storyline (like how the combat in saga I is so so so similar to what xenogears had). It went sort of in a different direction though, which isn't necessarily bad, but it's just a different game now. Like others said, you're not gonna get much gameplay out of any of the saga games(it's not bad, it's just....run-of-the-mill, mediocre), but it's still worth playing for the storyline.

If awesome, complicated storylines don't give you an RPG hardon, then I'd skip the Xenosaga games unless you really have nothing else to do. If they do like they do for me, by all means pick it up.

[Kaylia]

**XG/XS spoilers**


I would write a longer post and get all the source (interview, odm, perfectwork, truths of Xenosaga), but I need to study badly for tomorrow exam.

We didnt know much about pre-crash era in Xenogears, but what we know match almost perfectly. Xenosaga is the game Takasashi intended to write long time ago, before he decided with Soraya Saga to write about the post crash era (he wanted to use the genesis symbolism and thought it would be interesting at the time). He created monolith soft later to start his story over, but it still remain close enough to his original idea.

2001: Zohar discovery in Xenogears (homage to 2001 space odyssey monolith)
20XX: Was pushed back for obvious reason in Xenosaga (released in 2003).
Following the discovery, mankind had to run from Earth. Wiped their calendar around 2500 (new calender start at 0 TC after ) and founded Neo jerusalem.
In both case, it's a group of religious fanatic who are in a possession of the Zohar, but not much is said about it in XG.


Copy paste from perfect works

4743 Thanks to the efforts of a group of archeological researchers and some 'others,' an
artifact dating back to the times of Lost Jerusalem is discovered. Known simply as
'MAM' (Magnetic Abnormal Matter), it is found in the cargo room of a derelict spaceship
belonging to the "Pilgrimage Fleet," a group of vessels bearing holy men who traversed
the void of space countless centuries ago.

4744 At approximately 5,000 years on the timeline, analysis the MAM restarts.

4750 From the analysis of the MAM, the "Phenomenon Alteration Theory" is born.

4751 The discovery of the "Phenomenon Alteration Theory" makes the MAM a top-priority
research project and because of this, the main research group supervising MAM research
initiates "Project Zohar."

4752 The Interstellar War intensifies.

4765 Due to an accident of an unknown nature, the planet hosting research on "Project Zohar"
was instantly annihilated, leaving nothing behind but the MAM itself-later discovered
and recovered within the disaster zone.

4766 The supervision system, 'Kadmoni,' is acquired and with it, the "Zohar Response System"
is completed. Kadmoni's main element, "Persona," is built directly into the MAM.
Persona, much like the MAM, remains veiled in mystery-its details and origins being
completely unknown. The interplanetary stratagem weapon, "Deus," created with the
intent of ending the intensifying war, was finally completed during this year after
a lengthy amount of time spent under development. Zohar was adopted as Deus' main
source of power.

4767 March, after Deus had acquired Zohar as its primary engine, a connection experiment
between the two systems was to take place on NGC6744 (Note 1), immigrant planet
Miktam04B (immigration began on geostationary satellites while the main planet was
being terraformed). It is uncertain as to what accident caused both systems to go
berserk during initial connection but whatever it was, it caused Deus to recklessly
drive through one of Miktam04B's peripheral colonies and invade locally. Deus managed
to cause colossal damage within a very short amount of time and the military, feeling
threatened by Deus' superior combat abilities, shutdown the runaway Deus at a great
cost. Afterwards, all of Deus' core components were disassembled and sealed off from
one another. In order to investigate the nature of the accident, the titanic
interstellar warship, "Eldridge," owned by the 'Enterprise,' was requisitioned by the
military. Deus was loaded aboard the Eldridge along with 1.2 million survivors from
both the immigrant planet and various other outlying colonies.

Truth of Xenosaga It's a book that came with the SE in japan that add lot of explanation
Xenosaga database ingame database in 3
Perfect Work Book that contain every info about Xenogears


4744 is when Mizrahi started his experiment on the zohar, +/- 1 year. One difference is that Zohar was recovered 30 years before in Pied piper (Ziggy's game)

4752: Miltian conflict ended 1 year later, so we can assume it started around that time as well

4765: /cue to Ariadne. Happened 6 months before (not 2 years), but the description is the same for both (project zohar went wrong and planet was destroyed). 4765 also correspond to the year Kos-mos went berserk.

4767: Merkabah is activated, Omega is activated and terraform a planet, they go on Mitkcham in 3rd game. Enterprise sound awfully like Vector.

There is 2 major differences between Xenogears intro and Xenosaga ending. First one is Abel. It's said he is human in XG, but he has divine origine in XS. However, chaos does give him his power in the ending (like the Wave Existance did), and he is nothing more than an innocent kid. Also, Abel by definition (jewish mysticism) is the son of God (proto-adam). In my opinion, it works even better with Xenogears's symbolism.

The other big difference is the Eldridge vs Abel's ark. They both carry all important elements for Xenogers (Zohar, 12 anima, Omega, Abel, Elly), but the whole thing is still different. If they wanted to continue with something similar to Xenogears, they could easily use one of the 5 planets stuck in the Ark (one actually has a dust halo and the same greenish color than Xenogears planet), but I doubt they planned to.


Long story short, Xenosaga is just an enhanced version of what happened before Xenogears, with an alternate ending. >_>

[Jabberwocky]

Saga and Gears are both good, but I would have to rank them Saga > Gears > Saga III > Saga II. The only thing "epic" I find in the third one was Allen FINALLY doing something.

Other old school games though:
Super Mario RPG
Earthbound
Wild ARMS (1 and 2, 3+ is meh)
Chrono Cross/Trigger



And side note:
Star Ocean: Till the end of time, wtf. That game was among one of the worst games I've ever played. The plot went way down hill, I hated the music, and the final boss was just fucking stupid.

[Zilong]

Did you just rank Der wille zur macht as first?

What the fuck man.

[Charismatic]

Well, he also said SO3 was one of the worst games he'd ever played.
That alone was enough for me to stop caring what he had to say.

I just wasn't going to respond to that post at all.

[Jabberwocky]

Did you just rank Der wille zur macht as first?

What the fuck man.

Yes, I loved the battle system. The VAs were good, and I liked the art.

But then again, I opt for FF IX or X, and I hate VII and VIII.