Why has the reception towards this game fallen off so much over the last 15 years? Nobody praises it now, whereas on old-Ganker it always popped up in dicussions with FF6, Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time and Perfect Dark. Now you see the Xenosaga games and even Xenoblade series (except 2) praised more
xenogears is literally the only good xeno game and i played them all
meme series
Why dont you like Xenoblade Chronicles?
>i spent hundreds of hours playing shit games just to post about it
where do you think we are
Have you ever had a high you felt the need to chase?
>xenogears is literally the only good xeno game and i played them all
Yes.
>this
The follow-up franchises are just so terrible with some ok games that people simply dont care for it anymore. XC2 was already pretty bad, but 3 was like a deathnail on the coffin.
Not him but XCX and XBC1 are good. Agreed on 2 being irredeemable garbage, didn't even touch nor care to touch 3.
3 was very forgettable and has a lot of similar plot beats as Gears and some nods to Gears but weren't executed as well.
I still haven't bothered to touch the DLC with the obvious Fei expy.
It's not a great game, but the scope of the narrative is unparalleled. The story eclipses the negatives.
The pacing is awful. You spend 80% of the game chasing the faced mech, who is essentially a Saturday morning cartoon tier villain and a mook. In Xenogears you're a fly on the wall for every happening, there's a huge sense of intrigue. In Xenoblade Chronicles they name drop people but never do anything to expand on their characters during the narrative proper.
You're right I guess Xenoblade needed to become a visual novel for the last hour and explain months or so of story to you so it would be "le kino" like gears.
Xenosaga 3 does that too, which is probably a good thing since important events happened between the games
No, Xenosaga does the opposite. It commits the cardinal sin of requiring (really, suggesting) supplementary media to fill in the gaps. Firstly, that's bad, and it's very bad since it indirectly set a precedent that's still felt today. It's the sort of thing that helped ideas like horse armor and an in-game dialog option in Dragon Age that opened a browser so you could buy the DLC. Awful, awful stuff. Anyway, it's also safe to say that it would be annoying to emulate Pied Piper and I'd argue simply not worth it for several reasons: Xenoblade falls flat on its face even with that supplementary material and it hinges on Ziggy, the worst character in the game anyway.
So Xenosaga 3's greatest sins is its cross-media narratives, a flat resolution as to why our MC is our MC (oh she got sadder than anyone had ever gotten before!!! - trash, utter trash), and it tried to wrap everything up at a breakneck pace, poorly. Everything about how the game wraps up with Kevin and how 90% of the cast has absolutely no impact on how the game winds down.
Xenosaga 3, while the most playable of the series, is really, really bad. But HUGE props to actually having Jesus in the narrative. That part is truly kino.
Not that anon but I always admired projects which aimed for the stars and ended up crashing and burning more than I did the fine craftsmanship types. Each disaster is unique in its own way, while a 7.5/10 game is always 7.5/10 the same way.
>So Xenosaga 3's greatest sins is its cross-media narratives
cross media worked in that era quite well though. both .hack series did it, extensively, and it was not to their detriment. thing is they went much harder on it and done much more of it though
>Xenoblade falls flat on its face even with that supplementary material and it hinges on Ziggy, the worst character in the game anyway.
Probably a typo but I don;t remember XBC ever requiring supplimentary material to understand, though what the sequels did to it's lore (Hey remember Just Fuck my Shit Up Nopon? He was there at the beginning of creation just offscreen) is unforgiveable.
Also I agree with you about required reading side material. Of all things Megaman started fucking doing that. Remember how Megaman Legends and Legends 2 tells you all it's important shit through in-game journals and dialogue? Welp not any more if you want to understand the plot of Megaman Zero.
Xenosaga Episode 3* was a typo indeed.
Megaman had been doing that shit since X4 retard
Unironically yes. At least I wouldn't have to hear that dumb bitch say "muh boody" one more time.
>You spend 80% of the game chasing the faced mech, who is essentially a Saturday morning cartoon tier villain and a mook
You spend 40% of the game, if that.
because 15 years later they finally got to the second disc
I don't think that's really been the case at all? Still see it brought up in best psx threads and best game story threads.. only thing I can think of is how the battle system has aged poorly and is pretty boring on replays and there are several parts that are just slogs like sewers
I know what you mean, but I still see pretty regular discussion about gears here hailing it as a gem. It's a great, flawed game, like most games (especially within the xeno franchise). Personally, I like saga the best, despite considering gears's setting better. Saga's voice acting is pretty great, with some stellar voice actors and better overall production value over gears. Both gears and saga combat are neat but not ground breaking and I wouldn't consider their gameplay to be the reason to play them, it's to be engrossed in the world and experience the story. Imo, if that's the main draw of the games, saga is just more enjoyable over gears, despite both having issues with pacing, the voice acting alone puts saga above gears for me.
>but perfect works
perfect works is awesome, I love both gears and saga (and XB1, but not the rest of the blade series).
(You).
What're anons favorite Gears? Enemy Gears?
Weltall, Andvari, and Crescens.
And FT Hurricane and Grandgrowl are still some of my favorite mecha.
Does Chuchu count?
It technically does.
Because Square Enix has it trapped to the PS1. If they remake it it will gain some more traction. But even now Xenoblade might give some new reception to it.
Xenogears, El-Stier, Opiomorph
Xenogears and El Crescens.
I like the big bro and the fast bro
wonder why they didn't get a powerup
Weltall-Id is just so fucking cool to me. The red is just really sleek and striking and I'm a sucker for any mecha design that has glowy wings.
As far as enemy gears I'm a big fan of Vendetta and Alpha/True Weltall. Again, it's those wings, man.
because people started to actually play it instead of just parrot the same opinions that have been spouted since 2001 of gamefaqs. Xenogears is a chore to play now even compared to its contemporaries.
I played Xenogears. I remember getting stuck in a sewer for ages.
I remember uh... getting a ship? A transport? And finding an abandoned... oil rig? Artificial island? I don't think there was anything there.
It's been so long ago I can't remember
Get a clue. The world doesn’t revolve around you.
Xenogears a shit.
30 year old boomers left the site anon
I'm 30+ boomer. Xenogears is a terrible unfinished game. The story is a hobbled mess that reads like fanfiction.
>I'm 30+ boomer.
no you're not
>that reads like fanfiction
you've never read anything in your life
No one talks about *any* of those games on Ganker because this place is a twitter and chud obsessed shithole that is constantly flooded by bots making the same dozen or so reposts daily.
Xenogears is/was/always will be GOAT.
This. Xenogears is unmatched, and this board doesn't even like video games.
It's mostly zoomers on this board now. FF6, OOT gets discussed because the franchises are still active and getting remasters and shit, so younger people get to know about it. But Xenogears is dead and buried.xdk2yk
Zoomies just have this sad crab bucket mentality. Sad and depressed the modern shit always sucks, and that nu-square-enix can't even come close to recapturing even HALF the greatness of original Square, Zoomeies try in vain effort to convince everyone the original greats were actually trash. Somehow EVEN WORSE than nu-garbage.
And it will never be true. Modern Xenoshit, starting with Xenosaga doesn't hold a candle to Xenogears AT ALL. Just like all other modern garbage games are a shadow of their 90s greats.
I'm sorry Zoomies, but maybe you can hold out hope that somehow things will get better with AI storytelling and AI generated models and animations. Lord knows the creepy queers, basedboys, and garden gnomexecutives aren't doing you any favors.
this is all true and it's obvious the second you sere the sheer amount of remakes of our 90s and 00s media out there.
This is not true at all. It is ALWAYS brought up in top games threads or RPG threads. HownewRu?
>zoomies basedboys, garden gnomexcutives
being 35 years and and talking like this. Really shows the mentality of people impressed by Xenogears.
>being 35 years and and talking like this. Really shows the mentality of people impressed by Xenogears.
the irony of an ESL trying to speak about anyone "talking like this"
>false superiority complex from someone who speaks only 1 language
When are you going to grow up?
>retard tries to pick fight over word choice on an imageboard where those words are common
>mangles the SHIT out of his sentences
>"being 35 years and"
>seethes when called out about the hypocrisy of it
oh i am laffin, Pedro you fucking retard, you. Swedish Chef sounding motherfucker LOL
You should be embarrassed acting this way at your age, but you are proud of it. ha ha
Old man website, fuck off zoomer. We're here because we were here when it was founded. It's the last site that feels like the old net. You've never experienced anything other than the current corporate controlled "everyone goes to 5 websites total" shithole internet.
Why are you here? You clearly don't speak English. You can't be nostalgic for something you never knew. It makes no sense. The only explanation is you KNOW everything about your generation sucks fat cocks and you instinctively know we had it better.
You're the only generation to be nostalgic for someone ELSE'S childhood LOL
We didn't talk like this on "old" Ganker, you fucking 4chantard.
>we
>random 4chan boogeyman shit
nice strawman but you were called out, you're underaged, and you need to fuck off back to Resetera or whatever the fuck you came from.
OLD
MAN
WEBSITE
>go back to gaia/reddit/resetera
This place is all of those things. Ganker lost. Moron.
>uhhh...uhhhhhhh.... now it's for us and ours because we shat everywhere XD
zoomers; not even once
No. We talked in a way that would make the zoomzooms go "reddit" as if they know what Reddit even is.
Imma firin mah laz0r, we absolutely did. FUCK OFF ZOOMER
I'm as oldfag as anyone, I've been here since the glory days of Ganker in 2016.
Do you still have your accent? I bet you do. No native speakers take you serious with a thick accent you know.
look how assmad they got in this very thread. Proof is in the pudding, as they say.
its idiotic fans have gotten extremely loud so now someone has to step in and say something. jrpgs in general are something that should have gotten reality checked way earlier.
imagine being this retard. He wrote this unironically while tipping his fedora and 100% meant it
LOL
cringe
Xenogears fans are mostly chill. Xenosaga fans are the bitter jaded ones and Xenoblade fans are the ironic weeb zoomers.
>Xenosaga fans are the bitter jaded ones
imagine following that game for 3 games and you get the Shion of the third game shitting on the character you liked more (since Shion was exactly nobody's favorite)
I would be mad too
Saga fans are mad about their own games, but they don't usually displace it onto other anons(At least not when chatting up xenoshit.)
Unironically, Bladies are the only ones who regularly fling shit, pick fights, and generally act like churlchoads. Even then they too were chill before blade 2.
>Even then they too were chill before blade 2.
Why do you think that is? What changed? You think it might have to do with everyone dogpiling on 2, attacking the game and its fans constantly, leading XB2 fans to get defensive and retaliate, only for everyone else to then suddenly call out XB2 fans for being confrontational and pretend like there wasn't a very good reason things ended up that way?
>all this defensiveness
Kek.
I don't RGAF what first source was. The fact remains that blade fans are often shitters now and do it unprovoked, simple as.
>DUDE BUT THEY'RE BAD NOW THOUGH
That's like blaming an entire race of people for living in ghettos and committing crimes now even though those same people were enslaved for hundreds of years and are still oppressed through legislation and backhanded political moves in order to keep them second class citizens.
It's a chinese basket weaving forum, you dramatizing piece of frog feces. You're literally comparing taking piss on a text board over vidya to slavery and repression.
Like god damn, anon, get some fucking perspective.
No one that thinks any xeno gear game isn't incredibly flawed is anywhere grounded in reality. They are unfinished wildly inconsistent games with bad gameplay and incoherent stories full of hamfisted drama.
define hamfisted. The 'incoherent' part is funny because it made sense to me and tons of other people who played it and aren't as dumb as you are, it seems.
The writing is terrible and attracts the sort of people who think eva is a narrative masterpiece.
that's not what hamfisted means. 'Terrible' also doesn't say anything meaningful.
What a cuck you are LOL
>What a cuck you are LOL
Such an incredibly chill comeback. So much for that. You totally aren't a retard, I'm sure.
Got nothing to do with hamfisted, but Saga only barely escaped from incoherent because they included that encyclopedia in the third, literally explaining a zillion different things the other two games frequently mentioned but never explained.
Early Saga fandom was a desperate movement trying to locate and translate all side material that could be could scaped up - ODM, pied piper, those little promobooks where we first saw the Abel's Ark design, etc - just to get a clearer picture of what exactly in the fuck was going on.
>No one that thinks any xeno gear game isn't incredibly flawed
Xenosaga 3 is the peak and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.
Because it's fucking boring.Im 20. I played it last year. Holy fuck it's just so unintuitive with learning new moves, having to attack to save up for combos, then having to do specific combo presses 50-150 times each to unlock them, then you hit the point where you know they ran out of money for the game. It's so fucking boring reading mundane shit then doing a couple of fights.
The mechs are cool..but everything is so bland. The character, the party, it's just too animeish.
>animeish
Wow. For an "anime game" Xenogears is the least amount of cringe you could hope for. Try to bait better next time, okay?
I'm just saying. It's overrated. Doesn't hold up to the greats of it's time.
You were a child when you beat it.
Nta, but I was older than you the first time I beat Xenogears. You're just a jaded contrarian.
>Im 20
my condolences you little worthless shit. May you never know true enjoyment in life.
>Im 20. I played it last year. Holy fuck it's just so unintuitive with learning new moves, having to attack to save up for combos, then
I was 14 when I beat the shit out of Xenogears. Never had an issue with the fight system. Sounds like a personal problem.
>Im 20
It's still kind of hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of technically adult people being born on this side of the millennium. Time sure flies, huh.
>Game gives you a fun combo system
>You use it for the 1st disc
>Rest of the time you're fighting in somehow boring mechs
That's not even the biggest problems this mess has. I'd still stick my dick in between elly's thighs though.
>mechs
>boring
Yeah, they are. Gundam is fucking dead and only reason people even watch the newest one is because lesbos. When boomers die, UC dies and the franchise dies.
UC has been around so long you will die before you reach it's current age right now. It will also outlive you.
Pic related made 2 billion yen in box office, where is the UC dead?
when's the next part anyways
didn't the director say 20 gazillion years away? I'm just excited to see a production like it that isn't marred by coof. the director is seriously talented and has some good people in his corner.
Mechs are fucking gay and lame, anon.
Fuck off tankfag
That's what your dad said when he looked at you after you were born.
>combo system
>literally spam the same combo over and over because every time you learn a new combo it's just straight up better than the older ones
lol
lmao
if you weren't alive when it came out, you cannot possibly judge the game because you will never experience it as the people who were there did. All you can do is seethe about it and boot up another blue hair chud dev'd game instead
I was alive when it came out. I was playing good jrpgs that were actually finished like Wild Arms, Breath of Fire 3, Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Grandia. I'm glad I rented Xenogears for $5 a week because it was a piece of garbage.
>I was playing good jrpgs that were actually finished like Wild Arms, Breath of Fire 3
HAHAHAHAHAHA
neither of those games were finished and I fucking love BoF 3. What a fucking LARPer this kid is
>I will complain about Xenogears being unfinished
>and then I will name drop the game the ends after a weird desert padding segment and boss fight out of left field
>whole game is about going to meet the goddess on the other side of the ocean
>go there and meet her
>boss fight out of left field
You are retarded. I know you are programmed to pretend an unfinished piece of garbage is good, but this is desperate.
You didn't play it. It's cool. You namedropped a game that even its fans admit is unfinished and poorly paced as an example of a game that is NOT that. As if the game even delved into who Myria is at all.
LOL
fucking
CAUGHT
LARPing
I've never seen anyone say those things about BoF 3. You are trying to compare your opinion the game is poorly paced to a shit game that literally ran out of money so just had text on the screen. You are fucking desperate. Even Yoko Taro fanboys don't pretend the text part of Nier was good.
>I've never seen anyone say the most common complaint about the last 2 hours of the game
LOL the only one desperate here is you, desperate to convince us you've played any of these games, zoom zoom.
All you have achieved is proving how mentally ill Xenogears fans are. Even if your trash opinion was the common one (it's not, I frequent BoF threads and never see it), acting like it is the same as the second half of the game becoming a visual novel is typical deflecting behavior I expect from a fan of such a shit game.
>it's not, I frequent BoF threads and never see it
sorry bout your eyes, zoom zoom
>BoF3
>finished.
BoF3 is my favorite BOF and it pisses me off when people try to pretend 4 is better, but lets not pretend it was "finished".
Played it on release and dropped it before the second disc
You dropped the game an hour before the end?
>if you weren't alive when it came out, you cannot possibly judge the game because you will never experience it as the people who were there did.
This is the worst argument you could possibly make for a game. A good game never ages.
name a good game that's at the very least +10 years old
Ocarina of Time, Super Mario World, Goldeneye, Super Metroid, Starfox 64, Pokemon Emerald, to name a few.
Probably because it hasn't aged well compared to a lot more prominent contemporaries and because Monolith Soft actually worked on Saga, whereas Xenogears was a Squaresoft IP.
Xenogears has aged better than FF7 because it uses a full 3d environment rather than Roblox characters superimposed on bitmaps
Ah yes, those environments have surely aged phenomenally.
Compared to FF7, yeah. 9 has aged better than XG.
No way. FF7's backgrounds have way more atmosphere and better coloring.
Looks blurry as shit, the drawn backgrounds also blend in themselves
Looks great, 3D enviornments fully modeled. XG aged way better.
Yup, soul. Shit looks SO good at 8x internal res, too. Meanwhile FF7 looks like ass upscaled unless you use some (admittedly good) mods.
>3D = good
You are a zoomer.
i feel bad for zoomer 90's to early 2000's animes/games were peak humanity then grifters and investors realized theres untapped money in this market and it was over the closest they will get to the Golden Age is Fromsoftware games
Zoomers are just furious we had maybe the best childhood all century long while they started the new millennium with probably what will be remembered as the worst time to grow up.
Generation infected with pozzed garbage and writers who can't write
The combat sucks
Because people realised Takahashi is a hack/one trick pony who mooched off his wife's talent
Because it's pure nostalgia wank. Just like Legend of Dragoon, the game itself was never actually good.
>Just like Legend of Dragoon
It's funny how people still pretend this game was ever good. It sold decently thanks to FF7 popularizing the genre at the time. Sony knew to never touch the IP again.
it was a soulless attempt at Sony wanting its own flagship RPG. Its story is soulless, its characters are soulless, and it somehow has an even worse localization than the Final Fantasy games of the time, if that's even possible
HARPOOOOOOOOOOOOOON
but unlike LoD Xenogears is actually good.
>Xenogears is actually good.
Legend of Dragoon is actually finished, so it's not as trash as Xenogears.
>if I seethe about it hard enough, a well known classic will stop being one
you can certainly keep trying
LoD is pathetic. It's a desperate attempt to out-squaresoft squaresoft in "epicness" and "matureness".
I don't disagree, but the game didn't turn into a visual novel.
Weird, because FF7 has just as much plot dump in two areas of the game but zoomers never mention that; it's so weird?
FF7 fame is the only reason Xenogears sold as well btw. Same is true for plenty of jrpgs on ps1.
But Vagrant Story is better than every game mentioned in this thread and it sold like shit
Vagrant Story is nothing like FF7. It's more like a turnbased Castlevania.
>Vagrant Story is nothing like FF7.
It's a Squaresoft JRPG released in a post-FF7 world on the PSX, it's success would be just as related to FF7 as any other game, like Xenogears or LoD
based, maybe I should play it finally and I do like Matsuno in other games
Do it. It's a good game, combat is weird at first but once you understand gems it clicks. It's not a dumb anime game like FF7 and Xenogears.
Nobody is debating that FF7 was the flood that broke the NA JRPG dam. Even FF6 didn't sell that great here. Not sure why you're bringing that up though because my point was more that one of the objectively greatest JRPGs of all time has just as much, if not more, characters standing around exo dumping in Kalm and in the Lifestream, but it gets a free pass.
The part in Kalm is SO LONG the game lets you save twice in between words words words.
My argument would actually be: words are fine in a JRPG. Learn to read, dumb zoomer morons.
This, Wild Arms even famously copied FF7 due to its popularity like how Megaman Legends copied Ocarina of Time.
FF7 spaced out its plot dumps to parts of the game where they felt relevant. Gears does it immediately after disc 1 and doesn't let up until the finale. It's like racing on a track then being stopped 10 feet from the finish line for the ref to walk out on the track and smoke for an hour, then letting the race continue.
Literally filtered plebs. Xenogears is awesome and LoD was ALWAYS good, LoD was made by Shadow Hearts and Lost Odyssey development team when they still worked for Sony/before becoming Sacnoth/Nautilus/Feelplus.
Then again, Ganker doesn’t even play or likes video games, so it’s expected that it gets filtered by anything.
>Nobody praises it now
PFFFWAHAHAHAHA. Stupid normie.
Most people have had time to reach disc 2 by now.
Xenogears is an old game in a niche genre.
It's still kino though.
It's a great story but the gameplay and the polishing are really, really bad. CD 2 was basically gutted and you can see a lot of areas that was supposed to be played that was cut. A remaster of this game (and the whole other chapters) would be great, but given the reception of Xenosaga I don't think it'll happen.
Xenosaga is kinda parallel to this game though, representing Episode 1 of the saga, IIRC. Xenosaga story, though, is completely scattered in phone games, drama CDs, there's even a part of the story in a eletronic manga in flash. The new director cut a lot of stuff and so on. All of these stuff was supposed to be part I and II of the series.
It's sad, because the storytelling of this game is something else. The gameplay, not so much.
>CD 2 was basically gutted
False
Disk 2 is a rare instance of old Square being based. Takahashi freely admits the team was new and they went over budget and over time. Square let him do Disk 2 to at least finish the story as opposed to a "to be continued", which he rightly knew would doom the game.
Because of it, we still talk about it now instead of it being forgotten like so many other PS1 RPGs. Zoomers have never played it, so they try to talk about LE EBIN CHAIR WORDS WORDS WORDS DISK 2 when it's about 2 -3 hours of text broken up by dungeons in a 75 hour RPG.
>75 hour RPG
C'mon man. I love Xenogears, but be reasonable.
Xenogears is not a 75-hour game. It's more like a 50 hour game with 10 hours of those hours being the consequence of a slow text crawl on the English version. You can literally save like 10-15 hours by playing game with the GameShark cheat to speed up the text.
Why would I use gameshark to speed up if I'm already emulating
This image an you are only proving my point. They to change what they were doing to finish it, gutting a lot of ares with a visual novel storytelling design mixed with some gameplay. They had to send a lot of stuff to the Cutting room floor. Had they had the time and the budget they'd released it as a "complete" version of it.
Still, we are missing all the the other episodes, and no one has any idea what Episode VI was supposed to be, since that's the only thing that's unplanned for any of the games.
there was nothing cut
nothing left out
it was Disk 2 as we got it or nothing. The words on the page are as clear as day, anon.
A lot was cut, they had to cut it to deliver the game. That's why the design of the of the game was changed in CD2, so they could deliver the game. There are areas, like some continents, that went unused, a lot of the dungeons were cut and we were basically placed in front of some of the bosses, the game feels unpolished and so on.
This game deserved a "completed" version, that's for sure. I'd like to replay it, but the game is so bad that I literally prefer to rewatch it on a longplay video.
That's the only thing that I wish that was complete, I mean, all the Episodes. While their original intention was to deliver the other Episodes in different medias, I still hope that, somehow, they can bring the series to its completion. By the end of the day, if they released it as a manga or books it could work, but they really should bringa Saga back to the writing team. She was clearly the soul of the games, since Xenosaga II and III felt too strange.
>There are areas, like some continents, that went unused, a lot of the dungeons were cut and we were basically placed in front of some of the bosses, the game feels unpolished and so on.
>This game deserved a "completed" version, that's for sure.
I agree, that's why they should add Fei as a character in SaGa Frontier so when you beat his scenario (it's just disc 1 of XG), you can then take him on as a client when playing as Fuse and play a full-fledged version of disc 2's story. With Fuse as the main character. You're welcome, I just saved Xenogears.
The sad thing is his mentality while not exactly right isn't really wrong either, but these days they absolutely would have ended at disc 1 in order to drag the series out as long as possible. And yes, the game does end by implying it's only one entry in what would become a series, but it intended to tell the entirety of its story in one game rather than take the FF7Remake approach by telling one game's story through multiple entries. I have to give XG credit for that much, in spite of disc 2 being such a shitshow.
Not to mention, to get the full story of saga 2 you need to play the PS2 game and a NDS game.
>fluffy instead of straight hair
Into the trash it goes.
Can't wait for a full Xenogears remake by AI.
People matured and realized that FF8 is a far better piece of work.
(You)
Xenogears is one of the few games that strived to transcend its medium and for that it will always hold a special place in my heart. Its ambition just simply isn't found in today's market. It didn't want to be compared to other video games before or of its time, it wanted to be compared to some of the greatest works of science fiction. It stands next to great literary works like Moby Dick as a flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless. Xenogears wanted to break new ground and take the medium to new heights. Whether it succeeded or not depends on your point of view but no one can argue that it wasn't trying to elevate video game storytelling. And while it's true some developers have found more creative and inventive ways to express storytelling through gameplay than Xenogears did in its time, it still isn't the norm.
Nowadays games are like the Ouroboros snake eating its own tail (ironic considering the game we're talking about), doomed to perpetually be inspired by games inspired by games inspired by games. Our modern media landscape becomes more and more dominated by social media, likes, shares, subscriptions, and people-pleasing algorithms that encourage echo chambers. With companies so risk-averse these days we're likely going to see remake after remake to come. But back then in 1998, us kids were all lucky to have experienced one young and overly ambitious new game director's unchecked ego in video game form. And what an experience it was.
I genuinely feel bad for zoomers who can't appreciate it now because it really was something.
I agree, it's story that could be comparable to literature, while I'm not an avid reader it surely surpass pulp books and some of the really popular ones, like A Song of Ice and Fire.
It's in a completely different level, touching spiritual themes while mixing it with technology in a thought provoking existentialism scenario. Sadly we'll never truly see the end of it, though.
Maybe it's better to leave it open ended, though.
>t's story that could be comparable to literature
Its overall story maybe, but definitely not its writing. I thought people were memeing about XG's script but it's worse than FF7's.
Gears' script was also mostly done by one dude and he didn't really do it well. There are efforts to fix the script being done by Gears' community currently.
>but definitely not its writing
localization, retard
>But back then in 1998, us kids were all lucky to have experienced one young and overly ambitious new game director's unchecked ego in video game form. And what an experience it was.
Yeah, you played through the game and barely understood what the fuck happened.
>I am retarded and couldn't understand the Robot RPG so everyone else must've been too
LOL
Please stop. You know as well as I do that most of the young people who played this game barely understood the story and didn't get any of the scifi fiction and psychology references until years later when they read about this stuff on the internet. It's like all the crap about it being an Evangelion ripoff, despite its story and themes being quite different from that series.
Soraya Saga turned a lot early Xeno plots into overwritten clusterfucks. She wrote an entire doujin manga series about the Figaro twins from FF6.
>Soraya Saga turned a lot early Xeno plots into overwritten clusterfucks.
overwritten soul, you mean
No, I mean overwritten clusterfucks - ones that left not one, but TWO continuities as unfinished messes.
Xenosaga is incomplete, its story is scattered throughout a lot of media, including a flash comics. You can't really blame her writing when the game lacked the resource to fulfill their full vision. Also, she was cut from part 2 and 3.
This.
If anything Nintendo's influence is the reason Xenoblade managed to be a somewhat complete narrative by Future Redeemed, left to their own devices both Taka and Soraya go way too in-depth and overcomplicate their games.
>despite its story and themes being quite different from that series.
>"shinji get in the robot" "NO I DON'T WANT TO *goes sicko mode*"
>"fei get in the robot" "NO I DON'T WANT TO *goes sicko mode*"
K
You're an idiot if you think Xenogears and Eva are the same thing because they both have a guy who goes crazy in a mecha sometimes.
>Yeah, you played through the game and barely understood what the fuck happened.
So? The things I did understand I really liked and have only grown to appreciate the game more the older I get because I can appreciate what the development team put into it.
>Soraya Saga turned a lot early Xeno plots into overwritten clusterfucks. She wrote an entire doujin manga series about the Figaro twins from FF6.
Sounds pretty based actually. Considering she was responsible for Bart and Billy's character scenarios I'd actually like to read that doujin if it's translated.
>blaming Soraya Saga for Xeno failures and not Takahashi
Xenosaga was a mess to begin with and Xenogears' failure was from seriously poor planning and Takahashi deciding it was extremely important to develop an entire separate 3D fighting game engine in the battle arena and other wasteful things a more seasoned director wouldn't do. I love your headcanon that Soraya's "complicated writing" is what ultimately caused Xenogears' downfall. Come on, dude.
>Xenosaga was a mess to begin with and Xenogears' failure was from seriously poor planning
I've never denied that or tried to downplay that. Takahashi is a great ideas guy, but a terrible director and scope manager.
>and Takahashi deciding it was extremely important to develop an entire separate 3D fighting game engine in the battle arena and other wasteful things a more seasoned director wouldn't do.
I've never read anything that suggested that the 3D fighting mini-game was anything other than the programmers and modelers having fun.
>I love your headcanon that Soraya's "complicated writing" is what ultimately caused Xenogears' downfall. Come on, dude.
I'm not saying she's the SOLE cause the series' failings, but combined with her husbands poor scope management, her complicated stories absolutely did cause problems in the development of both Xenogears and Xenosaga. And we can go further back than this. That Figaro twins manga I mentioned? That was just one part of a larger series of stories she wrote for FF6, most of which were cut because there was no way in hell they were going to fit on a tiny SNES cartridge.
>I've never read anything that suggested that the 3D fighting mini-game was anything other than the programmers and modelers having fun.
Don't get me wrong. I love the battle arena fighting game in Xenogears and I'm glad Takahashi was crazy enough to put it in there but you can't tell me that didn't take a lot of resources to develop, resources that definitely could have been better served for other parts of the game.
>Soraya Saga's stories being too complicated even dating back to the FFVI days
It's a shame her and Takahashi didn't manage resources well together because I think they make a fantastic creative team. I can't say I would have liked them to be reined in on Xenogears because I really like it as it is, warts and all, but it would be nice to see Xenosaga at least get completed the way they wanted it to.
>I love the battle arena fighting game in Xenogears and I'm glad Takahashi was crazy enough to put it in there but you can't tell me that didn't take a lot of resources to develop
I seriously think you're overestimating the level of effort put into that mini-game. It's a janky, imbalanced mess like the rest of the game and most of its animations are repurposed from ones used in the main battle system. I guess it's leagues above the dogshit other mini-games in Xenogears, but it's not that deep.
>You can't really blame her writing when the game lacked the resource to fulfill their full vision.
I absolutely can, because it means her and Takahashi didn't understand the limitations of their staff and budget and tried to cram way too much story content into their older games. Developers need to how to manage scope and when to curb their ambitions.
>I absolutely can, because it means her and Takahashi didn't understand the limitations of their staff and budget and tried to cram way too much story content into their older games. Developers need to how to manage scope and when to curb their ambitions.
I believe that's the producer part. I'm not sure if that's on the writing, though.
No, the writing definitely had an impact. Like 80% of the intended script was cut from Xenosaga Episode 1.
Yeah, but was that on the writer or the mismanagement? It has nothing to do with the writers. The scope of the project was too big, it has nothing to do with the writer, it's on the management team.
Still, they should've continued the series in multiple episodes, they aimed to be the biggest game franchise at the time. Something like the Star Wars of the videogames. I think that if the first Episode was truly completed it could've worked. We got everything about original scnario for Episode I and II. Most of the stuff eneded up in multiple media though, and in Episode II and III.
It has nothing with her, she's just the writer.
>It has nothing to do with the writers. The scope of the project was too big, it has nothing to do with the writer, it's on the management team.
That's wrong, though. Writers come up with the premise and content of the project. The management team at Namco were trying to be charitable to Takahashi and Saga's ambitions since Xenogears managed to sell like a million copies before they formed Monolith Soft. When a management team clamps down on a project's scope and budget, it's up to the writers to change the content of the story to fit those limitations. You're giving them way less credit and responsible than they realistically have.
I find it hard to believe that Saga had anything to do with that, they have a producer to manage this kind of stuff.
>Xenogears is one of the few games that strived to transcend its medium
So it's pretentious shit
>So it's pretentious shit
You're only proving my point. I'd much rather play a pretentious game that has noble aspirations than a soulless product with no artistic or creative merit.
>a game/anime is either "0 story + tits-in-your-face level of subtlety fanservice" or "hurr muh pretentious adult story for adult people like myself"
This way of thinking is probably older than you. I'm sure we were fighting over this on /a/ 15+ years ago.
>Xenogears wanted to break new ground and take the medium to new heights.
Unfortunately every game that wants to be more than a game just ends up being a game but there's a big focus on story.
>Unfortunately every game that wants to be more than a game just ends up being a game but there's a big focus on story.
Yeah, ultimately that's what happened to Xenogears, unfortunately. It pushed the boundaries with story but its gameplay is pretty lackluster compared to modern games and even many of its contemporaries. I still love it for what it is though.
>Its overall story maybe, but definitely not its writing. I thought people were memeing about XG's script but it's worse than FF7's.
This all stems from the fact that you had one poor guy translating the entire thing, bless his soul.
Even though I know that pic is not AI that left arm being hidden by her torso and still ending up looking wonky always looked really bad to me. Her hips also look weirdly proportioned. The reflection of her ass on the glass, on the other hand, is kind of nice, I guess.
damn what a CHAD
damn, someone's got a big dick
This AI stuff is getting really, really good.
>dude what if we made the most basic ass combat system
>and then made it so you need to push a long string of buttons every time you want to attack
It's one of those ideas that seems cool for the first 5 minutes but becomes intolerable over the course of 60+ hours.
It's my favorite music paired with my favorite scene:
%3D
Man, I remember buying a copy of Cried by Millennial Fair at San Diego Comic-Con back in the day. I had originally wanted Squall's necklace, but as I was reaching for it, a guy grabbed it from the display and ran off, stealing it.
I am glad he did, because I found a booth selling other Square related stuff, like the CD I mentioned and a poster that was pic related without the text.
I got off track, but that album is still a treasured possession of mine and Mitsuda is the SHIT.
Yeah, Chrono Trigger OST is awesome too.
That is true, but Millennial Fair is his Celtic band, it is like half Micks and half Japs. Creid is a Xeno album he made back in the day and it's the shit.
Standouts to me are Dajil, Lahan, and Small of Two Pieces which is missing on that playlist for some reason.
I really like this interpretation of Small Two Pieces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY5WmO5eTaU
Orchestrial remix albums were really hit or miss back then.
I feel like this version completely misses the spirit of the original song.
how far into the game is the floating salvage barge thing? I'm 36 and find it next to impossible to get through the game and that's the furthest I've ever made it. its such a slog of a game but the supposed great story is still intriguing enough that I want to try for like the 5th or 6th time
if you have to "force" yourself to play it and you weren't hooked from the very first village then you will never like it
what the fuck are you doing moron?
>5'11 and 6'
Did anyone else kind of enjoy getting dominated by Miang?
>unpainted
>1/144
>170 USD
I don't know...
wish I knew where to get a copy of this, it's seems to be rare online
I am playing it now for the first time. It seems a lot like evangelion, but it was developed before the show was released. It is a very ambitious game with all the stuff going on in it. I wonder what they could have done with it using modern technology
needs Takahashi's wife involved or it will be terrible. Takahashi has great ideas but he needs his wife to tard wrangle him or get Xenoblade 2
>or get Xenoblade 2
That's a good thing.
Just like george lucas
Yeah i heard she quit after the first one to basically become a tradwife. Very interesting background for the games, something about late 90’s japan made it a hotspot for interesting games but i am not sure what. My suHispanicion is that it was the aum shinrikyo business
>Yeah i heard she quit after the first one to basically become a tradwife.
vgh bros...
>something about late 90’s japan made it a hotspot for interesting games but i am not sure what. My suHispanicion is that it was the aum shinrikyo business
I like to think of it as them being in a severe enough economic and cultural crisis to become inward-looking and somewhat brooding/angsty but not severe enough to just destroy the industry or torpedo their creativity super hard.
Its the other way around. Takahashi just wants to have big mechs hitting each other with lazer swords. Saga is the one who creates the convoluted charactwr-driven plots. Takahashi's idea of a complex character is kosmos being a robot with soft tits because it contrats the idea of robots being made out of hard metal.
>Takahashi's idea of a complex character is kosmos being a robot with soft tits because it contrats the idea of robots being made out of hard metal.
sounds fucking based as fuck to me, lad.
It has some eva in it, but it has some gunnm/battle angel alita as well.
Some of the latter is slightly subtle to where you can still say "influenced" with a straight face, but some was as blatent as completely ripping off the manga's script for a late-game incident.
You see Eva but really Nadia had way more influence. It straight up takes scenes from Nadia in a pretty over the top way. Its cool shit.
>FF6, Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time and Perfect Dark
the only one of those games that isn't shit is oot, and it is still tough to go back to because of how deeply flawed it is
I played FF6 with Atma Weapon last year and it's still as great as when I played it back in the 90s. You're a fag.
>boring take turn hitting each other combat
>piss easy with barely any strategy
>dumb shonentard story
>random encounters
>movie game tier levels of cutscenes and dialog
>overworld is more like a level select screen than an area to explore
>dumb shonentard story
>FF6
lol
lmao even
yes? what's the story in that game again? evil empire bad. clown man bad. band of friends defeat him. magic hijinks ensue. there is no theme their. there is no bigger idea.
>there is no theme their. there is no bigger idea.
lol
lmao even
this moron somehow missed a SNES treatise on what it means to be human at its very core
>on what it means to be human at its very core
I guess i did miss that then. the only thing I could possibly think you are talking about is the girl who turns out to be a furry but they like her anyway. not a very relatable theme to me but i'm not someone suffering from species dysphoria so maybe i'm not the target audience.
>barely functional retard thinks video games are supposed to 'teach' him things
LOL
glad you concede that the story is trash
>reductive retard
Oh, what's Gatsby's plot again? Man at party loves girl, they reunite, there's an affiar, girl hit and runs someone, Gatsby gets shot, and the girl stays with the affair guy
man, what a shounen piece of shit book amirite?!
even you trying to be reductive makes gatby sound a million times better than ff6. but go ahead, tell me what makes a typical teenagers kill god jrpg slop such a deep and engaging narrative.
>Man gets cucked and shot
great story
>poor people in France are sad
This is you but Les Miserables
>even you trying to be reductive makes gatby sound a million times better than ff6.
Gatsbymorons should get shot irl, what a dogshit book
Same with Moby Dick, the retarded teenagers in the USA read that shit in year 9
You sound like an edgy zoomer saying that Die Hard isn't that good of an action movie or that the original Halloween isn't scary. You're too young to appreciate what the work did for its genre.
FFVI is remembered because it pushed the boundaries of what the SNES, and JRPGs in general, could do at the time. It had a well-developed cast of characters, an epic classic story of rebels and an evil empire, and great music. Hell, the opera scene and Dancing Mad were things nobody else was doing at the time. Zoomers laugh at how silly the singing sprites are but it broke new ground in storytelling in games. Dancing Mad is basically an epic Emerson, Lake and Palmer prog song done in 16 bit midi. Nobody else was doing that shit.
As far as themes go, it's pretty obvious that FFVI is about holding onto hope even during times of overwhelming despair and adversity. It's one of the only Final Fantasy games where the world actually gets destroyed and there are lasting consequences as a result of that. The party failed but instead of giving up, they fight on. Every main party member has dealt with some kind of loss in their life as well even before that point. You'd probably notice this if you actually paid attention to their stories but you probably skipped their dialogue because paying attention for 5 minutes was too difficult for you.
Not that anon but we westoids should keep in mind that what may have been pushing the boundaries for us did not push it at all back in japan. SMT1, I'd argue, did a lot more for JRPGs in this regard than FF6 did years later, for example. It's just that we never got any of the SNES or PS1 SMT games.
Pretty based. To add to this, FF7 did a lot for RPGs as well for its generation, and that's why I think people who are a little older and played FF6 first say that it is the best, and people who played FF7 first think it's the best one.
I side with FF6, but I understand and respect FF7 as an answer because I understand why.
Based Urushihara poster. Seriously, Langrisser III-V rerelease fucking when?
Another thing I forgot to mention in my post is how much I fucking love FFVI's setting and visuals. The industrialized world mixed with magic (Magitech) is just such a cool aesthetic.
>the game is good because muh grafix muh production values and uhh also (insert ridiculous overselling of simplistic storytelling)
That's great anon, but when you sit down to actually play FF6 it's about as much fun as hammering nails into your balls due to the atrociously badly designed combat combined with with a sky high encounter rate, which also makes exploration a massive chore (not that the areas have any interesting layouts or design features in the first place). The game is simply bad, and no it doesn't have good writing either, as it skips randomly from one disjointed setpiece to the next with no regard for tone or pacing, just like FF4. It's time to snap out of the nostalgia haze that leads people to delude themselves with the notion that Square made good games.
>atrociously badly designed combat combined with with a sky high encounter rate
Name a JRPG during this era that didn't have a high encounter rate. Also how is the combat bad? It sounds like you just don't like classic JRPGs.
>The game is simply bad, and no it doesn't have good writing either, as it skips randomly from one disjointed setpiece to the next with no regard for tone or pacing, just like FF4.
Again, nearly every JRPG at the time has this and for a lot of people they actually prefer the breezier pace and storytelling instead of getting bombarded with a bunch of filler bullshit. Would you have preferred the scene where Kefka poisons Doma to have taken 10 hours and you could have really gotten to know all of the townspeople during that time? Because that would have really helped with the "random skipping" you seem to have a problem with.
>It's time to snap out of the nostalgia haze that leads people to delude themselves with the notion that Square made good games.
I'm curious as to who you felt made better JRPGs during this time.
>Also how is the combat bad? It sounds like you just don't like classic JRPGs.
If you have to ask this, you shouldn't be talking about games, at all.
>I'm curious as to who you felt made better JRPGs during this time.
Yuji Horii
>If you have to ask this, you shouldn't be talking about games, at all.
So you don't actually have an answer. Okay, just making sure.
>Yuji Horii
Ah, so you like your games bland and uninteresting.
>So you don't actually have an answer
I do have an answer, you just aren't worth the time it would take to type it out. More importantly though, answering the question isn't necessary because everyone who actually sits down to play FF6 will realize on some level that it's unbearably dull, whether they are mentally prepared to admit it or not.
>Ah, so you like your games bland and uninteresting.
No, you're just an underdeveloped simpleton who needs the kind of storytelling that appeals to autistic 8 year olds to feel engaged.
>I don't need to explain myself cause you're just dumb and uh, uh... you just have bad taste, okay??
Glad you conceded the argument. Also I think it's hilarious that you're criticizing the story of FF while simultaneously being a DQ fan. If you liked SMT that'd be one thing but you're seriously trying to make the argument that DQ has better storytelling than FFVI does. Unbelievable.
>you're seriously trying to make the argument that DQ has better storytelling than FFVI does
Yes, because it does. The storytelling in DQ is so vastly better than it is in something like FF6 that again it's not really necessary to point out how and why. It's just a test of mental development, anyone with the mind of a functional adult will easily see the gulf in sophistication and poignancy between, let's say, FF6 and DQ5. What it comes down to is that Square's creatives are otaku autists who don't have any worldliness or meaningful human relationships to base their stories on, whereas someone like Horii does, and it shines through in his games.
everyone responsible for VI is married with kids, you are a retarded psud moron
>anyone with the mind of a functional adult will easily see the gulf in sophistication and poignancy between, let's say, FF6 and DQ5.
Yes, the sophistication and poignancy of the cookie cutter copy/pasted chosen one narrative they've done for literally every game in the series with slight variation. You are such a dunce it's unreal.
You have clearly barely touched the series, if you've even played it at all. This is the thing about Final gayry retards, they don't actually play other JRPGs, they just stick with their autism-fuel chuuni franchise and attack everything else from a position of total ignorance.
You're projecting pretty hard buddy.
What is that even supposed to mean? I've played most FF games to completion, so I actually know what I'm talking about when I say the franchise mostly ranges from mediocre to outright shit. What am I "projecting" when I say that FF fans are generally ignorant of other games within the genre? You're displaying exactly the kind of idiotic behavior I would expect from the kind of person I'm describing.
>if they don't suck off the same IP I do CLEARLY they are just ignorant and have never played another JRPG despite Final Fantasy being in a dry spell for 20 years at this point eggs dee
Really outing yourself as the sharpest tool in the shed here
>N-n-n-no you've just never played it *projection*
Again, actually unbelievable
I've tried to play multiple Dragon Quest games and I can never get past how astoundingly generic they are. I love Toriyama's art style and I'm game for some whimsy but it never amounts to a fun gameplay experience. I'm thinking they're just not for me, I guess.
Only DQs with a remotely decent story were DQV, VII and XI. Everything else is forgettable af. DQVIII’s cast is good, tho.
>He says
>When the most popular thing about DQ 5 is muh marriage
Not even that anon but you're a full on clown
member when Horii cheated on and then divorced his wife
kek
Tradition in is Dq's thing and I never want it to stop doing that but when has Dragon Quest ever gone beyond the basic "Kill ye Wizard, oh no Demon was behind Wizard all along but with a Dragon Ball twist" trope?
Yes I'm aware FFVI shits the bed on the floating continent. Yes Emeror Gestahl holds the retard ball as the two guys (Celes and Kefka) who were designed to be more powerful than him continue to gain more power and betray him in different ways, yes you can finish the World of Ruin by just picking up all your party members and ignoring the plot. But despite that I still believe that VI or well anything has more story than Dragon Quest even IF Dragon Quest is good at just telling the basic Heroes's Journey.
>when has Dragon Quest ever gone beyond the basic "Kill ye Wizard, oh no Demon was behind Wizard all along but with a Dragon Ball twist" trope?
This question is predicated on the notion that "good writing" revolves around attention-grabbing high-concept premises, which simply isn't the case. A one-sentence summary of the plot of a DQ game isn't going to sound exciting, it's the poignancy of the smaller stories contained within the game and the incredibly rich thematic texture that arises when they are all woven together that makes DQ games well written. DQ7 is the ultimate example of this, it's impossible to play that game as an adult and not feel moved by its meditations on aging, time passing, how one chooses to make use of one's life, the realization or squandering of potential, etc. This is what makes Horii a great writer, his ability to fill a massive game with consistently meaningful human stories which, while all different, all contribute to building a tone and message that leave a lasting impact on the player.
My personal favorite "human" stories in DQ are the six different times Horii ripped off The Little Mermaid and when Hero got head from that bunny girl
My posts in this thread have been pearls before swine, I'm going to go and play videogames now.
>DQkeks still eternally assblasted
29 years later and you are still fucking losing lmao
>Yuji Horii
I too, like my JRPGs to be the most bland stuff in existence because japs will set SE HQ on fire if even one thing is changed
12 is changing things
>As far as themes go, it's pretty obvious that FFVI is about holding onto hope even during times of overwhelming despair and adversity. It's one of the only Final Fantasy games where the world actually gets destroyed and there are lasting consequences as a result of that. The party failed but instead of giving up, they fight on. Every main party member has dealt with some kind of loss in their life as well even before that point.
Holy kek and I thought people were shitposting when they said 7 just straight up copies 6.
FF6 is the inferior beta so that the masterpiece that is 7 could eventually be created, yes.
>A one-sentence summary of the plot of a DQ game isn't going to sound exciting, it's the poignancy of the smaller stories contained within the game and the incredibly rich thematic texture that arises when they are all woven together that makes DQ games well written.
this you bro?
fair nuf
What is 'every Square game' for 500?
You've been a naught boy, my son.
I think it has a lot to do with people not really talking about hold games much. This game came out 25 years ago. It was old when most people that post here picked up videogames for the first time. Its a fantastic game and im glad we get to see new Xeno games now after such a weird ride, but Im not surprised it doesn't get brought up.
I'm actually more surprised the Saga games aren't brough up more. They are about 10 years younger.
most people, including me, never got to finish them. And I was a HUGE Xenogears fan.
Shame. Yeah, 2 was a bit of a "waste", and 3 was the definition of rushed, but man if 3 wasn't the most wonderfully fan servicey game I've ever played. I should play it again at some point. I still remember finishing 3 and thinking to myself "man, guess ill never get to enjoy another Xeno game again, at least this game was a great send off". Glad I was wrong.
the saga trilogy suffers from the deadly combination of being infamously unemulable both in terms of performance and bugginess (or at least it used to be thought that way back), being prohibitively expensive in physical, and to my knowledge not having any decent digital ports on later consoles.
A lot of PS2 games don't get brought up anymore. You get the occasional Xbox thread or FF thread but most anything talked about from gen 6 is tendie stuff.
It's weird. It's not there's a shortage of PS2 era rpgs but I don;t think I've seen anyone on this board ever talk about Suikoden V or Suikoden Tactics. I think once I saw a Radiata Stories thread once.
People only seem to remember FFX/XII and Persona 3/4 from that era.
You forgot Nocturne.
>Persona 3/4
Pretty much only remembered for their handheld re-releases as well
I like Suikoden, but its not as memorable as a lot of other games from that era or as memeable when i played through nearly the whole catalogue. Like Radiata Stories for example was just a pure meme game and it did it really well. Reminded me a lot of Threads of Fate in terms of writings.
https://streamable.com/kxfwni
PS2 RPGs were just not really that good
A lot are sadly bad i had to realize when i emulated them all. The worst to me were the Atlus JRPGs like Stella Deus, Eternal Poison, Magna Carta Tears of War and Growlanser 5. They for some reason get placed high on some peoples list and i couldnt beart to finish them. So badly designed it hurts. But there is some actually really great games that still play really fun like Shadow Hearts 1+2 and Grandia 1+2.
Fatlus just pick some really shit games,
>Eternal Poison
One of the weakest SRPG from Flight Plan and yet I can't fathom why atlus felt it was worthy of localization. Maybe because it was THREEDEE and Snoy were being big fags over 2D (Which was most of their other content)
Grandia 2 is a Dreamcast game. I hate to be pedantic but it's the truth.
Though some people lump in Dreamcast stuff with gen 6. Bet most people played the Gamecube Skies of Arcadia before anything else.
Dreamcast was just Sega's N64 its not known for its JRPGs (And nearly every single one got ported)
>Grandia 2 is a Dreamcast game
My ps2 case sure says otherwise anon.
Retard
Yeah I'm sure it was a masterclass of literature in japanese and not just animeschlock with actually decent lore.
>Yeah I'm sure
so you are making shit up
Right so you admit you have no idea whether the original script is well written or not.
Command Mission bros, our response?
Neither was PS1 but you have people going out about them all the time
PS1 JRPGs had more soul.
Because the video game audience today is brain damaged gays with adhd who can't read anon.
Absolute horseshit. The pinnacle of rpgs was psx to ps2 era, which also overlapped with the initial pc crpg era in there, nothing has remotely surpassed those games in the genre and likely never will at this rate.
>The pinnacle of rpgs was psx to ps2 era
Counterpoint: Disgaea games, Wild ARMs games, Arc the Lad games, Grandia games, and Chrono games.
What is this counterpoint exactly?
Disgaea was a ps2 game, wild arms 1 and 2 were psx, 3-5 ps2, grandia psx all follow ups ps2, arc the lad has about 8 million games since forever but it had predominant games released on both psx and ps2, chrono cross was psx and there have only been 2 "chrono games".
If you're trying to pretend grandia or wild arms is bad or something and I'm just missing it, you're also insane.
Nah that's not true at all. On top of the most mainstream well known PS2 ones, there's a ton of hidden gem RPGs.
What's wrong with the Chrono and Wild ARMs games?
Meant for
As someone who was born in the mid-80s, I want to say SNES or PSX was the best, but it was PS2 without a doubt. The library was massive, and that's when a lot of games really hit their stride in terms of systems and sub-systems. It's when 3D graphics began to look really nice and not just novel because it was 3D and not 2D. Audio quality increased and I'd say a lot of VAs hit their stride. Games quickly wound up cheap, and there were a lot of them since the genre was booming. There are a ton of really compelling JRPGs on PS2, man.
I was born in 1988 and as far as JRPGs go, for me, it's PSX > SNES >>> PS2.
There are only 3 PS2 JRPGs I would list among my favourites: DQ8, Tales of the Abyss and Wild Arms V for some reason.
There were some other interesting games though, like Radiata Stories, Rogue Galaxy, Shadow hearts, Tales of Destiny DC, Ar Tonelico or even FFXII, but generally the library isn't on the same level as PSX and SNES.
In fact, I just found another great PSX JRPG I've never heard about before.
>I was born in 1988
Christ you're old, grandpa.
>SNES has Chrono Trigger, FF4, FF5, FF6, BoF I, BoF II, Tales of Phantasia, Earthbound, Star Ocean, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, Lufia, Lufia II
>PSX has FF7, FF8, FF9, FFT, Xenogears, BoF III, BoF IV, Suikoden, Suikoden II, Parasite Eve, Valkyrie Profile, Tales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia, Wild ARMS, Wild ARMS 2, Chrono Cross, Star Ocean: The Second Story
And that's just off the top of my head for both. I know there's ones I'm forgetting. I can't even think of that many RPGs on PS2 by comparison aside from obvious ones like FFX and the Persona games.
>I can't even think of that many RPGs on PS2
>Xenosaga I, Xenosaga II, Wild ARMs 3, SMT Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga, Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Legendia, FF12
>I can't even think of that many RPGs on PS2 by comparison
Sequels to just about everything you just mentioned. Star ocean 3, valkyrie profile 2, xenosaga, wild arms 3, all insane banger games widely regarded as such. Then you have shit you haven't mentioned like 3 shadow hearts games, smt nocturne, dds 1 and 2, depending what you consider an rpg you have 2 dark clouds and rogue galaxy, as I mentioned to a guy up above all the .hacks.
You also list some complete shit games. I love the bof series, but bof 1 is objectively a horseshit game by almost every metric, it's really bad. Bof2 is better but still has a whole host of ass design to it, lufia 1 is godawful compared to the masterpiece that is lufia 2 in every way also.
I guess I missed a lot of the PS2 era JRPGs. In hindsight, I think I used the system mostly for Metal Gear Solid, Devil May Cry, GTA, and various fighting games.
It doesn't help that a lot of them just fell though the cracks, everyone knows about FF and SMT/Persona, good luck bringing up some of the others without without a confused look
Even SMT is kind of eh aside from Persona...as far as normies go.
Not to mention all these RPGs come with the solid library of the PS2 on a wide variety of genres, so it's basically the cherry on the top. I didn't grow up on them either since I used it for the more well known stuff, but finding out all these hidden gems later on just gave me a newfound appreciation of it.
>"I NEVER MISS LOL"
>misses and makes you do the exact same boss fight again with no recovery
Fuck this game
>Why has the reception towards this game fallen off so much over the last 15 years?
The nostalgia goggles wore off.
>Why has the reception towards this game fallen off so much over the last 15 years
More people played it, that's why. It's pretty mediocre.
>Soraya sort of implied on her twitter that she's writing again
Wonder if Takahashi decided to give her a spot at Monolithsoft again or if she's just working on random other dev team. Would make sense for her to come back to Monolithsoft considering how XB3's DLC ends with Blade being connected to Saga.
Also just want say that Tanaka is based and I hope he does art for a future Xenogame again.
>Tanaka is based
Why, because LE NAKED GURL LOL? Typical XB2 coomer.
I praise it.
Xenogears has the most boring battle system I've ever played. They somehow crafted something that was both dead simple and tedious.
>211.2 lbs.
It's the weight of humanity's sins.
Because it is a great story wrapped up in an unfinished game with horrible tanky controls, and excruciatingly slow battle system and a massive development controversy.
Because it is genuinely a complete slog to go through. Only saving graces for me were the sexy e-bois.
I'm happy I was able to use Maria and Emeralda in the final battle.
>Why has the reception towards this game fallen off so much over the last 15 years?
Because people actually played it.
It's in the same camp as games like Sonic CD and Earthbound where people have an idealized version of it in their head before actually playing it and realizing how flawed it is.
Xenogears is a neat story with a lot of flaws holding it back, like pacing issues and Disc 2.
But the actual *game* part of it? Some of the most braindead turn based combat I've ever seen, to the point where everyone I know who has beaten the game says they just started running from every battle about halfway through.
So if I want to dive into Xenosaga (lord help me) can I get away with just playing the DS one?
Yes I will be able to play it.
I'm pretty sure that there's no fan translation of the DS one. People say it's the most "complete version" but everything is scattered everywhere. The "whole" story is on XS1, XS2, XS3, Pied Piper, Freaks, flash web comic, some drama CD, Artbook and I think that there are more.
The DS xenosaga game is basically a fusion of XS1-2 (and tries its damndest to make XS2 less of a fuck up in terms of plot) its probably the best way to play it
There's still XS3 too but that'll come later
Don't ask anyone here. No one's played the damn thing.
>SMT1, I'd argue, did a lot more for JRPGs in this regard than FF6 did years later, for example.
What? SMT1 is mostly a basic dungeon crawler. You can find 80s PC WRPG that did more interesting shit. That aside, I think you're wrong. FF6 had way more elaborate set pieces, slightly deeper character progression systems, and WAY more quality of life polish than SMT1.
I thought SMT1's cyberpunk setting was a much rarer one in the SNES catalogue compared to FF6's fantasy and it also did a very similar thing thematically and also plotwise with the apocalypse happening during the plot.
I'd label SMT1 as more of a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a cyberpunk setting. SMT2 is the game that leans way more heavily into that stuff. That aside, I think you're underselling how novel FFVI's particular aesthetic was for its time. The average swords and sorcery JRPG from back then was closer to something like Dragon Quest than it was to FFVI. FFVI's mix of steampunk and magic was and still kind of is fairly unique.
>I'd label SMT1 as more of a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a cyberpunk setting.
Depends on the definition of cyberpunk you're using. Many seem to define it according to the motto "high technology, low life" which suits SMT1 just fine. It's really just Akira and Devilman smashed together.
It's not that you can only play that one, it's that you have to play that after 1 and 2 and before 3.
What are the recommended patches to make playing it less of a slog?
I think I just used the 2.0 patch, I think there's some hacks around with speeding up the text, you can probably find that online with a simple search.
Did use the emulator to speed up battles.
This one which is still in development looks pretty promising.
https://github.com/NoharOSP/Perfect_Works_Build
Maybe I'll just wait for this one if it fixes the text speed which is my biggest issue with the game.
It fixes and adds a lot more, just by skimming through it.
I'm pretty sure it also fixes up the translation too since the translation of Xenogears is very spotty and has quite a few grammatical errors from what I remember. I'm not sure how it entirely works but judging from the page it looks like you can select which patches you want to apply so you can still play the original script and just patch the QoL features, of which fast text is included.
The generation of GameFAQs-dwelling autists who worshiped Square's horribly designed guide-fodder games are dying out, and so the reputation of those games is dropping fast because people who have no nostalgia for them are playing them and realizing that they fucking suck.
The game still has a very lasting legacy and strong fanbase to this day, what you said cannot be further from the truth. The game still has a legendary status in Japan and in the west.
I'm convinced people who say this have never actually finished the game or just get filtered hardcore by the text in the second half.
The second part of the game is where the juicy part is. The potential of it could have been much bigger, yes. But the end result was still a great game.
It's fucking terrible from Shevat and on, anon. The pacing is complete shit. I played it back in the days and replayed it last year, it was VERY hard to go through the game. I replay a lot of other old games but Xenogears, along with FF9, was one of the few games I had to force myself to continue playing. The game becomes a literal slideshow and the storytelling is complete garbage. Things happen off screen and then the characters just talk about it randomly. It's terrible, it makes no sense and it's not engaging.
It's a real shame because up to the Thames it's an amazing experience.
Honestly disc 1 is pretty damn unfinished and rushed too. It just isnt memed on like disc 2 is.
Like Barts entire story being speedran in an hour because "guess its time to make you king real quick"
Because that gets overshadowed by Rico's character arc literally being left unfinished.
Did anyone even care about not Blanka? Feels like you could just leave out entirely and nothing would change
I literally forgot he was even in the party for half of the game until he spoke up right before the final boss fight, I don't think there's a more shafted party member in any JRPG. People joke about Sena in XB3 but Rico is on another level.
>I don't think there's a more shafted party member in any JRPG
Garr from BoF3.
Big slow characters getting the shaft
I love this bro. I don't care what minmaxing fags think. Put him under D'Lonzo ASAP and mostly stick to speed masters and his major weakness disappears
Nah Garrhe was still important to the story throughout, but in terms of gameplay yeah he absolutely sucked and was pretty much unuseable sadly.
Rico's character arc felt like it was just getting interesting then you can see when it's clear that Takahashi & co. had to prioritize actually finishing the damn game.
Poor Rico. He also got the short end of the stick stat/gear wise as well.
Nothing in gears is generous enough to only happen in an hour.
I think if Xenogears were rereleased with quality of life updates like the HD remasters of the Final Fantasy games it could find a modern audience. The slow text and the high encounter rate really bring the game down in a lot of ways.
Because it's complete garbage after the first half.
It's very good and has a lot of potential but it never catches up to it, unfortunately.
Wasted potential: the game.
>why doesn't everyone have the same opinion as me?
Because this isn't reddit?
>he thinks Ganker isn't an echo chamber
kek
>go to so-called "echo chamber"
>get called morongay
Because zoomers don't like old games. Xenoblade is "their" series. So expect that to be commonplace for the next few decades until more people start playing it and start saying the same things about like Xenogears (Rushed poor gameplay dull story)
Did you know there's this board called Ganker where such things are discussed?
Sorry anon, did a TotK shitposting thread get bumped off by this one?
Xenoblade 2 set the expectation that all Monolith games must be coombait
coombrain secondaries thus hate any game that doesn't fill said quota
it's a very sad fate for the devs
Yeah xenoblade 2 and not the whole xenosaga series sure ok kid
nice
Come for the game.
Cum for the Aerial Rave/Jacky doujins. Simple as.
Man you know a thread is shit when people in it can't just appreciate all the PS1 JRPG kinos like XG, FF7, FF8, FF9, and LoD. It's always a contest to call a game shit as much as possible whether you actually like it or not.
My game > Your game
I actually played it when it was new, and it sucked ass. Shitty loading times, terrible sprite graphics, even for a PS game, and really, babby's first "2deep4u" game.
Should i play saga games before xenoblade 1 for the complete story?
Saga trilogy's fairly painful to play mostly from how fucking bad the gameplay is most of the time.
Storywise I dont think theres that much connecting especially if you have played Gears so have an understanding of Zohar fuckery.
You could play to understand Kos-Mos but I feel like shes been so changed characterwise from Saga its kinda pointless.
Playing Super Robot Taisen OG Saga or X Zone honestly feels closer to her modern "personality" than anything.
No, they have nothing to do with each other.
It has come to my attention that despite Takahashi being a clear mecha fag, Xenoblade has no specific focuses on mechs, save for X. Even then they're treated more like an accessory than part of the plot.
So redpill me on some dangerously based mech games, Ganker. Once I'm done playing Days of Ruin I'm gonna finally take the dive with Xenogears. If you have anything similar (even anime wise), I'll take it.
Could also use this post as a reccomend list for others.
Gundam Breaker 3 on Vita is reasonably fun, if a bit repetitive.
How would you have solved the food crisis?
Why did they redesign kosmos in 2 bros
One thing I will never forgive xenogears for is you find that huge underground city and then the whole level is boring corridors that all look the same
Because anime is boring and so are anime style games.
The main reason why no one anymore is interested in games like FF besides some old people.
I personally feel like vagrant story visually is still peak of PS1.
Ok grafix kiddie
We have a XG thread pretty much everyday, and there's a lot of people who praise it in them. In Xenoblade threads there's always someone who will state the fact that none of XC games is anywhere as good as XG.
I'd say it's praised more than in the past. Back then, even fans would say "it's a masterpiece, but CD2...", while now CD2 is often called "kino".
>We have a XG thread pretty much everyday
The same thread still being up for weeks on Ganker doesn't count
it was tryhard midwit trash
>Nobody praises it now
they praise it more now
>muh hipster JRPG
Gee I wonder why
When did Ganker suddenly become ps2 fans?
PS2 used to be Ganker culture
You may not like it. But its the truth.
PS2 was always liked here.
emeralda is my wife
game hasnt had a re release so zoomers havent had a chance to play it so it fell into obscurity, those chrono trigger/ff6 threads you are talking about was from 15 yrs ago
>me hitting Scimbloo Chimblo, the Demon King of DARKNESS with my totally mature and sophisticated and um worldly (?) and totally not chunni Saiyan *cough* I mean "secret technique"
the name's billie
The combat looked interesting in the first 5 minutes and then was boring for the other 99% of the game when you realized what it actually consisted of.
The first half of the game is full of dead end story threads that waste your time and go nowhere
The second half of the game is a complete joke where what should be 10 hours of gameplay and ingame events get summarized in 2 minutes over and over again. It is an immense waste of potential.
While I appreciate Xeno games, I wish most of them weren’t Xenogears but worse.
Xenosaga “episodic” nature is a mess to play, the games are literaly on rails without interesting towns or places before Episode III, the dungeons suck ass and the combat in Episode II is awful.
Xenoblade 1/DE is too basic overall
Xenoblade X has mechs but the main story is boring
Xenoblade 2 has an interesting narrative and lore that’s fucked up by awful artwork/character designs and cheap shonen troupes, more than Chuchu’s cutscene in Xenogears
Xenoblade
Xenoblade 3 tried so hard to have multiple Feis and Ellys, nods and callbacks (man of the sea) but never developed them too much.
As I said, I appreciate the games but wish Takahashi stopped trying to recreate Xenogears (with 1/20 of dept) every time.