The Saga Is Complete

[Gabriel]

I just completed Xenosaga III, meaning I have completed the entire trilogy.

 

I'm a little late, and worse yet, I didn't even meet the original timeframe I gave myself to complete the saga when I determined to play through it. Regardless, here I am at the end of the journey. It took me a while, but I did finally make it.

 

All three of the games followed the same pattern for me. They had interesting beginnings which were quickly squandered. After hours upon hours of nothing interesting happening, or, in the case of Xenosaga II and III, having hours of the beginning taken up by stuff completely unrelated to the plot, I'd grow frustrated and put the game aside somewhere between the 15 and 20 hour mark. There the save game would rest for about a year before I'd get back to it.

 

In every case, about 5 hours more play through tedious side-story elements would get me back to the main story and things would become interesting again. From there forward, I'd be hooked until the end of the game. Each one was about 60-70 hours long.

 

Xenosaga III finally delivered on the epic promises of the series. It was quite a rush having all the pieces start falling into place instead of suffering one cryptic tease after another. Still, the plot was fairly random for most of the saga, and the best thing to do was just go with the flow and make the best of it. In the end, the plot turns out to explicitly be whatever you bring to it, and I was cool with that.

 

I've bitched about this series off and on over the past several years. Sometimes it was all very frustrating. However, I did enjoy myself. In fact, I find myself feeling sad right now. For these years, Shion and KOS-MOS have been my constant virtual companions. I knew the game was waiting for me to get back to it, and that was a source of anticipation as well as frustration. Like the ending of the game itself, it's a bittersweet goodbye.

 

I'm not sure what RPG I'll tackle next. I've been thinking about Phantasy Star 1, but I'm also considering getting back to Cross Edge. No matter what I pick, Xenosaga is going to be a tough act to follow. It was rare among console RPGs as a multi-game series which followed the same characters through several storylines. Although, considering how much I struggled with Xenosaga, I don't think I'd want to hop into another multi-gamer.

 

Anyone else here played all three of the Xenosaga games?

[+bennybingo]

I just completed Xenosaga III, meaning I have completed the entire trilogy.

 

I'm a little late, and worse yet, I didn't even meet the original timeframe I gave myself to complete the saga when I determined to play through it. Regardless, here I am at the end of the journey. It took me a while, but I did finally make it.

 

All three of the games followed the same pattern for me. They had interesting beginnings which were quickly squandered. After hours upon hours of nothing interesting happening, or, in the case of Xenosaga II and III, having hours of the beginning taken up by stuff completely unrelated to the plot, I'd grow frustrated and put the game aside somewhere between the 15 and 20 hour mark. There the save game would rest for about a year before I'd get back to it.

 

In every case, about 5 hours more play through tedious side-story elements would get me back to the main story and things would become interesting again. From there forward, I'd be hooked until the end of the game. Each one was about 60-70 hours long.

 

Xenosaga III finally delivered on the epic promises of the series. It was quite a rush having all the pieces start falling into place instead of suffering one cryptic tease after another. Still, the plot was fairly random for most of the saga, and the best thing to do was just go with the flow and make the best of it. In the end, the plot turns out to explicitly be whatever you bring to it, and I was cool with that.

 

I've bitched about this series off and on over the past several years. Sometimes it was all very frustrating. However, I did enjoy myself. In fact, I find myself feeling sad right now. For these years, Shion and KOS-MOS have been my constant virtual companions. I knew the game was waiting for me to get back to it, and that was a source of anticipation as well as frustration. Like the ending of the game itself, it's a bittersweet goodbye.

 

I'm not sure what RPG I'll tackle next. I've been thinking about Phantasy Star 1, but I'm also considering getting back to Cross Edge. No matter what I pick, Xenosaga is going to be a tough act to follow. It was rare among console RPGs as a multi-game series which followed the same characters through several storylines. Although, considering how much I struggled with Xenosaga, I don't think I'd want to hop into another multi-gamer.

 

Anyone else here played all three of the Xenosaga games?

 

Congratulations on completing your quest. I haven't played them, but always had them on my rainy day list. Maybe I will go out and pick up the first one now and try it out!

[Koopa64]

I'm not sure what RPG I'll tackle next. [...]

 

www.piersolar.com

 

Be sure to dust off that neglected old Genesis.

[Lendorien]

I just completed Xenosaga III, meaning I have completed the entire trilogy.

 

I'm a little late, and worse yet, I didn't even meet the original timeframe I gave myself to complete the saga when I determined to play through it. Regardless, here I am at the end of the journey. It took me a while, but I did finally make it.

 

<snip>

 

Anyone else here played all three of the Xenosaga games?

 

Congrats on your accomplishment. I have one and two. I got about midway through one before I lost interest. I'm not sure if I'll ever pick it up again. I have this sort of Love/Hate relationship with JRPGs.

[tz101]

I have I and II on my shelf, but there they sit. I mostly collect these days and RPG's just take far too much time for my busy schedule.

[Reaperman]

I tried so hard to get through #1, I really did. Then I discovered that there was an anime that seemed to follow the game very closely--that's great. I don't believe #2 & 3 have an anime though, which is a shame.

[onmode-ky]

I own I through III, but I've never gotten very far into any of them. For the first two, I just went through maybe the first hour or two before putting them on the back burner (basically, they were additions to the already substantial backlog right at time of purchase, and I was just sampling them). The same was the case with III until a week or so ago, when I popped it in initially just to rewatch the intro. I ended up rather fascinated by the vaguely comprehensible story (mind you, I chose not to read the on-disc summaries and database information about what happened in the first two episodes) and played for roughly 15 hours, only quitting when I finally drew the line because I fully intend to play this game with clear data from I and II.

 

So, I've had a disjointed experience with the story, but I really enjoyed what I did see. I've always liked the series' visual style (and the music is quite good, too; I have some of the soundtracks on CD), and it was a treat to see it with story actually going on. I don't see it happening, but I would love to get an HD collection of all three episodes on the PS3 (although, given that each non-HD game is already bigger than a single-layer DVD, an HD collection might have to be 2 BDs). This is a more cohesive trilogy than many of the HD-ified game collections out now.

 

onmode-ky

 

P.S. If you do decide to tackle another multi-game series, how about the .hack or .hack//G.U. RPGs? The former is 4 PS2 games, and the latter is 3; I think each one is rather a fair bit shorter than each Xenosaga episode, though.