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| Tio
14th Post
 
New Customer
|  "I gotta disagree on FFX>Xeno."
, posted Mon 18 Mar 03:45:
After finishing Xenosaga, I have to say this game is certainly above average, but doesn't come close to satisfying me.
This is strickly personal opinion, but I have to say FFX is in many ways much better than Xenosaga.
There are several problems I'd like to address on Xenosaga.
1. Too many _unnecessary_ use of jargons.
And not just any jargons, fictional jargons.
They are necessary when making points in the background of the story, and sci-fi elements.
But the characters use jargons in situations that's completely not necessary, making the situations needlessly confusing.
A line such as "she has a deep wound in her heart." if it was in Xenosaga would be
"she suffers from severe case of PTSD."
(post traumatic stress disorder)
and the convesation will carry on without even describing what PTSD is.
This line was not in Xenosaga, but I'm just using it as an example of what it's like.
It's like listening to Jordi LaForge explain what he can do to Piccard, without any simplified explaination from the captain (^^;
Every other scene would have characters chanting jargons left and right, trying to sound "cool" and intelligent.
Now, as a geek that I am, I appreciate jargons as much as any sci-fi loving trekkies, but good god, this game is way overboard.
Also, many scenes contained conversations between main characters that seemed to be only understood by the characters, and left the audience in the dark.
Since you can't hear anything any of the characters are thinking, the meaning of the jargon-filled inside-talks are anyone's guess.
This was done to make the story more mysterious, but here's where the 2nd problem comes in.
2. They drop plot lines left and right, but does not resolve, or even converge them.
Since this is only "episode 1", I can understand the open-ended plot lines.
But DOZENS of them is too many. Many plot lines were introduced, and appearantly forgotten. And they leave these dead ends completely untouched, and it goes nowhere... much less converge.
There doesn't seem to be any sense of direction of the story. No goal, or coherent road.
3. battle system
Little into the game, you start using almost entirely your "special attacks" to attack. You set its speed on "High" and you can use it every turn. It becomes your regular method of attack.
However, special attacks are flashy, and very long. And UNSKIPPABLE.
And you use it EVERY TURN. *ugh*
Can you imagine doing "Limit Breaks" and "Summons" as your primaly attack, every single fight in a FF?
I was about to tear my hair out after the 700th time I performed one of Shion's "special moves". (>_<)
4. Music
The quality of the music is very good.
However....
There's NO, I repeat, _NO_ BGM while you're on field. Only music are during event scenes, and some dungeons. If you're walking around in the ship or town, There's no BGM.
The number of songs in the game is extremely low. Heck, not even the bosses have unique music!
It's dissapointing to hear the same old battle song when you finally get to the boss of the level.
Playing the drilling mini game is painful, since you get NO BGM... you drill in silence. Trust me, after a few hours of digging you'll lose all sanity.
I do really like the composer, and I wish there were more music used in the game.
I know the composer made an excuse on the interview that he intended it this way, but that's no excuse, IMO.
Also, some people might add another complaint to the game. The movie/event scenes are frequent and very long.
There's not enough game play, and the even the game part is pleagued by repetitive and long fight scenes.
The movie sequences in this game, believe it or not, takes up more percentage of the game than even FFX or FFVIII.
However, I didn't find this as a problem, since I do enjoy "movie-like games" just fine. But I'm sure many people will find it annoying. (imagine Bouncer, the RPG)
I pointed out these annoyances, but don't get me wrong, I don't regret playing this game.
I did have fun with the game, even with all the dissapointments. The music was good, the voice acting were top-notch, and characters were attractive. Special effects were very nice to look at, and there were plenty of mini-games and good amount of side-quests. I especially enjoyed collecting the robot parts to get the most powerful...
ooops, I shouldn't spoil the secrets (^^;
I would encourage people to play the game, but at the same time I would warn them to not anticipate too much. If I was to put this game on my personal RPG scale, I would rank it 7/10.
BTW, Grandia Extreme was a good game, but completely opposite vector. Simple and non-important storyline, not very flashy. But had the most enjoyable fighting game engine of any RPGs in a long time. 7/10
Tio
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Guild H/H on Asuka server
[this message was edited by Tio on Mon 18 Mar 03:52] |
| rid hershel 2072th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
   
| "Re(1):I gotta disagree on FFX>Xeno." , posted Mon 18 Mar 09:21
It just depends in what one is looking for in a game:
1. Too many _unnecessary_ use of jargons.
Being a William Gibson and Masamune Shirow fan, that's usual for me, and not bad, just increases the ambient of the game...
2. They drop plot lines left and right, but does not resolve, or even converge them.
A story doesn't need to close in itself to be enjoyable, sometimes an open story is interesting, just like in the real world, the good thing is that nothing ends...
3. battle system
Sounds just like Xenogears...
4. Music
The orchestrated pieces are awesome for what I heard (the complete soundtrack). And the usual field tunes are annoying... (just try DW7 and you'll understand what I mean).
BTW, I'm not arguing here, I'm just saying that this game has everything to appeal some people (like me) but it isn't for anyone. Sometimes focusing in only a part of the market is a wise choice. Try to appeal to everyone and you'll end ruining the game.
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| Chupiler 530th Post
New Red Carpet Member
| "I also disagree on FFX>Xeno." , posted Mon 18 Mar 12:29
quote:
In what is perhaps one of the very few good uses of a Gameshark, there was a code to speed up the text in Xenogears ^_^.
Too bad it's not gonna work in Xenosaga, since most of the main text is also spoken :P
And the AGWS in this one have almost no use. I beat the game without ever using it, only in the tutorial battles...
As for dropping plot left and right, it may seem too many openings right now, but I think it can't be helped. Looking on the grand scale they were making it, I don't think everything could be explained without giving away the other parts of the plot.
I didn't like the plot of FF10, but really like this one.
If you didn't like Xenogears (esp. disc 2), I don't suggest this game. I bought as a really long movie, so it worked out really good for me.
And about jargons, I personally didn't notice many of them. Maybe I'm just too used to them.
I do agree about the music and battle system. The music was great (getting the ST), but not plentiful. Personally, I didn't really mind not being any music in "towns," but bosses having the same music as the guppies was disappointing.
The battles were a bit long, but the sequences weren't half as long as FF8's GFs, so I was able to withstand it. I found it amusing (and a bit irritating) that you can skip KOS-MOS' X-Buster and Momo's transformation (and a couple other) sequences, but not others...
All in all, I liked it much more than FF10. It all depends and what you like and what you expect from this. I like novels and visual-novels, so I'm used to similar formats. I just have a feeling that I'll get episode 2 before 1 reachese the US...haha...
Oh, BTW, Tio, you're title is backwards :P
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| Freeter 2040th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "awww..." , posted Mon 18 Mar 12:36
quote:
In what is perhaps one of the very few good uses of a Gameshark, there was a code to speed up the text in Xenogears ^_^.
Too bad it's not gonna work in Xenosaga, since most of the main text is also spoken :P
And the AGWS in this one have almost no use. I beat the game without ever using it, only in the tutorial battles...
As for dropping plot left and right, it may seem too many openings right now, but I think it can't be helped. Looking on the grand scale they were making it, I don't think everything could be explained without giving away the other parts of the plot.
I didn't like the plot of FF10, but really like this one.
If you didn't like Xenogears (esp. disc 2), I don't suggest this game. I bought as a really long movie, so it worked out really good for me.
And about jargons, I personally didn't notice many of them. Maybe I'm just too used to them.
I do agree about the music and battle system. The music was great (getting the ST), but not plentiful. Personally, I didn't really mind not being any music in "towns," but bosses having the same music as the guppies was disappointing.
The battles were a bit long, but the sequences weren't half as long as FF8's GFs, so I was able to withstand it. I found it amusing (and a bit irritating) that you can skip KOS-MOS' X-Buster and Momo's transformation (and a couple other) sequences, but not others...
All in all, I liked it much more than FF10. It all depends and what you like and what you expect from this. I like novels and visual-novels, so I'm used to similar formats. I just have a feeling that I'll get episode 2 before 1 reachese the US...haha...
Oh, BTW, Tio, you're title is backwards :P
No hot lesbo action between Shion and KOS-MOS? Fei and Elly did it...
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| Tio
15th Post
New Customer
| "Re(2):I gotta disagree on FFX>Xeno." , posted Mon 18 Mar 16:13
quote:
It just depends in what one is looking for in a game:
1. Too many _unnecessary_ use of jargons.
Being a William Gibson and Masamune Shirow fan, that's usual for me, and not bad, just increases the ambient of the game...
2. They drop plot lines left and right, but does not resolve, or even converge them.
A story doesn't need to close in itself to be enjoyable, sometimes an open story is interesting, just like in the real world, the good thing is that nothing ends...
3. battle system
Sounds just like Xenogears...
4. Music
The orchestrated pieces are awesome for what I heard (the complete soundtrack). And the usual field tunes are annoying... (just try DW7 and you'll understand what I mean).
BTW, I'm not arguing here, I'm just saying that this game has everything to appeal some people (like me) but it isn't for anyone. Sometimes focusing in only a part of the market is a wise choice. Try to appeal to everyone and you'll end ruining the game.
Well, I'm a Shirow fan too, but Shirow's plot lines have a concise direction of where it's going. Unfortunately, Xenosaga doesn't seems to have one just yet. Everyone's just going with the flow.
I hope these will develop as the story goes in the following episodes.
However, I'm not too entirely confident that the Xeno team has a written script for the whole thing yet.
Worst case scenario, it'd be like X-files. Lots of plots thought up, but couldn't clean up the mess. Many anime and TV shows suffer from this disorder.
And btw, I did play through Dragon Quest VII, when it first came out in Japan. Spent 100 hours beating the game, and I was just fine with the field music thank you.
Then again, I've been playing DQ since the first famicom original, so I'm used to the style of the tunes.
Xenosaga has extremely few scores in the game. I don't remember any RPG that I've played in the last 5 years that had less number of tracks. Lack of boss music was very dissapointing, and time consuming mini-games become painful without unique tunes.
Btw, A.W.G.S were totally useless in the game... They take too much time to be able to use powerful moves, and they don't even do that much damage.
They are only useful near the beginning of the game. Towards the end, your characters are so much more powerful, and the fact that you can't use items or ether or even heal up in A.W.G.S makes it not worth it.
Then there's the existence of Eldekaizer... the altima of Xenosaga. You can nuke both of the hidden bosses in one turn with that rediculous spell. (^^;
Things I'm looking forward to episode 2 and on are:
1. organize the loose plot ends, and make a concise direction of the story rather than just coming up with scenes after scenes.
2. Give the lead character a sense of direction and motive.
3. Improve the A.W.G.S system
4. skip option for the special moves, please!
Someone mentioned that the special moves aren't as long as GFs in FFVIII. True.
however, you were not forced to use nothing but GFs in FF. The frequency of the special attacks in Xenosaga way exceed the uses of summons in FFs.
EVERY SINGLE TURN is a movie. argh...
The encount system is similar to the Lunar/Grandia type. However, because the enemies come back for every load, and the game loads every other segment of the level (every room is a load) you end up fighting the same monsters over and over anyways.
I would have liked it if it was like Grandia Extreme, and keep the defeated enemies cleared until you go into major diffrent area.
It's a better system than random encounters, that's for sure.
I do like the traps you can use against the enemies though. That was a nice touch.
Tio
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Guild H/H on Asuka server
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