I’d say overall, I really enjoyed this game, but man it sure liked to show its age. I’m not sure if it’s because of the PS1, but most everything felt so slow. Menuing, load times, and especially the text speed probably had to have made up 7 hrs of time in my about 50 hrs of playing.
The gameplay unfortunately is not too interesting. Deathblows all look really cool, but unlocking them was not super well explained, and once you got them you kinda just spam your strongest one except if you’re an Ether character. It sucks cause it makes the AP and Combo system irrelevant. Gear combat is so much worse though. It being reliant on fuel, and healing taking up so much fuel was so unnecessary and annoying. Luckily the game is not that hard, but that has the effect of making the combat boring most of the time instead of tedious. Some dungeons were pretty atmospheric and cool, but most end up being a slog to go through.
Now the main draw of a Xeno game for me is its story, and oh MAN did it have me hooked for the whole game. I won’t spoil it, but everything related to Fei and Elly was fantastic. For the first half I was really excited to see where everything was headed because of how many characters and areas were being introduced. It was also cool how natural it felt when each party member joined in. I heard tellings of Disc 2 and how infamous it was, and it definitely has a noticeable drop in quality, but it didn’t ruin the experience. Some of my favorite moments are actually in Disc 2 (iykyk). The only thing is I wish there were some side quests or something along the journey. Something to space out the big moments a little more or get some more worldbuilding, even though what’s there is really good (probably just the Disc 2 experience talking right now).
As per Xenoblade 2 and 3, Yasunori Mitsuda killed it with this soundtrack. Weirdly enough, I think the cutscene songs are some of my favorites in the game. But that’s not to say stuff like the boss battle theme, Shevat, and the late game dungeon theme are also some big standouts. Not really any misses. Still insane that Mitsuda was also doing Mario Party around this time.
It’s a shame because if the rough parts of Xenogears were fixed, it’d probably be one of my favorite games ever. It’s definitely one of my favorite stories. I’m now in the group who absolutely wants a remake of this game. I saw the Star Ocean 2 remake recently, and I think something like that would be perfect for Xenogears. It’s crazy to think that if Disc 2 was fleshed out, this could’ve easily been a 100 hour PS1 RPG. Also the fact that this is Episode 5 of what was supposed to be a 6 episode epic is so sad to think about. I’m looking forward to reading into this game's development journey and going through Perfect Works. Now all that’s left is Xenosaga and Xenoblade X.
PS. I really need some gunplas of the Gears. This game’s got me even more interested in checking out Gundam
PSS. It was SO COOL seeing how much of this game’s DNA is represented in Xenoblade 3, considering it’s still Takahashi at the helm for both games.
Also Joanne Hogg :)))))
The gameplay unfortunately is not too interesting. Deathblows all look really cool, but unlocking them was not super well explained, and once you got them you kinda just spam your strongest one except if you’re an Ether character. It sucks cause it makes the AP and Combo system irrelevant. Gear combat is so much worse though. It being reliant on fuel, and healing taking up so much fuel was so unnecessary and annoying. Luckily the game is not that hard, but that has the effect of making the combat boring most of the time instead of tedious. Some dungeons were pretty atmospheric and cool, but most end up being a slog to go through.
Now the main draw of a Xeno game for me is its story, and oh MAN did it have me hooked for the whole game. I won’t spoil it, but everything related to Fei and Elly was fantastic. For the first half I was really excited to see where everything was headed because of how many characters and areas were being introduced. It was also cool how natural it felt when each party member joined in. I heard tellings of Disc 2 and how infamous it was, and it definitely has a noticeable drop in quality, but it didn’t ruin the experience. Some of my favorite moments are actually in Disc 2 (iykyk). The only thing is I wish there were some side quests or something along the journey. Something to space out the big moments a little more or get some more worldbuilding, even though what’s there is really good (probably just the Disc 2 experience talking right now).
As per Xenoblade 2 and 3, Yasunori Mitsuda killed it with this soundtrack. Weirdly enough, I think the cutscene songs are some of my favorites in the game. But that’s not to say stuff like the boss battle theme, Shevat, and the late game dungeon theme are also some big standouts. Not really any misses. Still insane that Mitsuda was also doing Mario Party around this time.
It’s a shame because if the rough parts of Xenogears were fixed, it’d probably be one of my favorite games ever. It’s definitely one of my favorite stories. I’m now in the group who absolutely wants a remake of this game. I saw the Star Ocean 2 remake recently, and I think something like that would be perfect for Xenogears. It’s crazy to think that if Disc 2 was fleshed out, this could’ve easily been a 100 hour PS1 RPG. Also the fact that this is Episode 5 of what was supposed to be a 6 episode epic is so sad to think about. I’m looking forward to reading into this game's development journey and going through Perfect Works. Now all that’s left is Xenosaga and Xenoblade X.
PS. I really need some gunplas of the Gears. This game’s got me even more interested in checking out Gundam
PSS. It was SO COOL seeing how much of this game’s DNA is represented in Xenoblade 3, considering it’s still Takahashi at the helm for both games.
Also Joanne Hogg :)))))