Xenosaga II

[Gabriel]

Yay! I completed Xenosaga II. I must say, it is the worst RPG I've ever taken the time to complete.

 

So many things about this game suck, and they don't suck in a way that makes the game completely horrible. In fact, things like the combat system are good ideas and some of the cinematics show extremely good composition. The catch is that everything is poorly implemented. The combat system turns every wandering monster encounter into a 10 minute ordeal (and that's IF you know their break zones), and the mandatory side-quests are some of the most blatant time-sinks I've ever seen. Then there's the oftentimes unintelligible plot with acronyms thrown at the player faster than they can be caught.

 

The game has a universal problem with not dealing with interesting bits. The mandatory sidequests take up the vast majority of the game, and the 10 minute wandering monster encounters are typically just 9 minutes of standing around healing and powering up.

 

There was this gem of a game waiting to shine through, and it peeks out from time to time. But it was lost underneath the ill thought out mechanics, excessive padding, and half assed storyline. But I have my game clear data I was after. Now on to Xenosaga III.

[cybercylon]

Xenosaga III is a much better experience.

[Gabriel]

Xenosaga III is a much better experience.

So far, I agree. I'm only 5 hours in right now. There's very little action so far: only one dungeon, two scripted mech fights, and a bunch of wandering from point a to point b to watch cutscenes. Any other RPG, that would be an extremely negative thing, but I've spent over 100 hours with these characters already, so all the early plot stuff can't readily be compared to any other RPG.

 

I miss the complexity of the X2 combat system a little bit. I'm happy combats are about 100 times quicker, though, and that more than makes up for it. My initial impression of mecha combat was that it had been improved. It was always odd that in a mecha focused game the mecha were always the weakest and most extraneous part of the game engine.