jambert
2000
I have 100%d this game and as such have been given the ultimate honor and that is BEING THE GRINCH, I AM THE GRINCH.
First level is cute enough and quickly devolves into nonsense, love those classic Grinchy locations like the Who summer camp and the Who dump! I love those grinchy abilities such as the Grinchcopter! Thank you Grinch! Grinch!!!!! Grinch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First level is cute enough and quickly devolves into nonsense, love those classic Grinchy locations like the Who summer camp and the Who dump! I love those grinchy abilities such as the Grinchcopter! Thank you Grinch! Grinch!!!!! Grinch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Takahashi didn't learn from Gears at all huh.
Xenosaga Episode I is an odd one to talk about as its own game, in a narrative sense at least. Takahashi wanted to make sure his six part epic got completed this time so he started right at episode 1 rather than 5. Ironically, episode 5 would turn out to be a far more digestible single narrative, probably because Takahashi knew it'd likely be the only one he could put out.
Much of Episode I is big exposition dumps and setting up the general setting for whats to come later, so much so that they even have to throw it into the credits because the game has so much to get through. I honestly don't mind this too much, to a point. I love the dedication to making this world feel truly real and messy, with a wide variety of different factions and characters each with unique goals interacting together. You get a real sense of history here, like the best moments of Gears.
Where I think it begins to harm this individual chapter is that I don't think as a singular narrative what happens here is very satisfying. You save the day and blow up the big superweapon but in terms of any character work even by the end of the game you still feels like you are waiting for their arcs to really get moving. MOMO and Jr. get some forward momentum, and the Shion/KOS-MOS bit at the end is good but it doesn't feel like enough. In a world where this is the only Xenosaga game I think it would stand as a massive failing of the game. Thankfully there will be more, less than the 6 that Takahashi intended so I really can't wait to see how compromised those get, and how things could have been prevented by a more economic first part.
In terms of presentation however, I think it's a pretty massive win. For a 2002 JRPG with 7 hours of fully voiced 3-D animated cutscenes it says a lot that they still look and sound good. Crispin Freeman as Albedo is obviously the stand-out role but it's a very strong job from everyone involved. Making this even better is the Mitsuda score, which has a true sense of scale in its sound that utterly dwarfs his contemporaries.
One aspect of the score which I find to be a mixed bag is the lack of it in exploration. I actually find it for the most part to fit the tone of the game, but I think it needed a few more moments of contrast to truly sell that. The single battle theme (until the literal final boss) on the other hand, as good as that song is, I could do without hearing it for the next long while.
Gameplay wise I actually think it's a pretty solid system! Allows for lots of strategy, each of the six characters feels distinct and actually could be of use, allowing replays to be distinct. I'm usually rather impatient but I think my only critique of the speed of this combat is that I wish I could skip over some of the longer tech attack animations, as cool as they are.
There's two aspects of this system that I think hold it back from being truly strong. The first is the boost system. I think it mostly works quite well for your characters doing it, but the ways in which enemies boost feel like they are playing an entirely different game. They are able to boost at will, overriding your boosts while you cannot override theirs. You also can't see the enemies gauge so it feels particually cheap if they chain them together.
The second one is one part of the leveing system. While I actually really enjoy that the points are split into 3 distinct parts so you can give each aspect of the characters you level up a higher level of strategy, it is absurd that you cannot see the full path of abilities each character can level into. With how expensive the ether abilities are to unlock, you can spend a long time leveling up E-points to just end up with a skill less good than one you could have had earlier for cheaper in the tree. Being able to see the full tree and full range of tech attacks would allow for better planning. As it was I ended up saving all my point boosting items till the end just because I didn't want to waste them on stuff that wouldn't be useful to me in the end.
These are both very fixable problems however, and I would say I am excited to see how future games fix these but everything I have heard about Episode II puts the fear of god in me.
tl:dr takahashi you gotta hide your influences a bit harder you cannot just name the guy who invented androids "tyrrell" you hack
Xenosaga Episode I is an odd one to talk about as its own game, in a narrative sense at least. Takahashi wanted to make sure his six part epic got completed this time so he started right at episode 1 rather than 5. Ironically, episode 5 would turn out to be a far more digestible single narrative, probably because Takahashi knew it'd likely be the only one he could put out.
Much of Episode I is big exposition dumps and setting up the general setting for whats to come later, so much so that they even have to throw it into the credits because the game has so much to get through. I honestly don't mind this too much, to a point. I love the dedication to making this world feel truly real and messy, with a wide variety of different factions and characters each with unique goals interacting together. You get a real sense of history here, like the best moments of Gears.
Where I think it begins to harm this individual chapter is that I don't think as a singular narrative what happens here is very satisfying. You save the day and blow up the big superweapon but in terms of any character work even by the end of the game you still feels like you are waiting for their arcs to really get moving. MOMO and Jr. get some forward momentum, and the Shion/KOS-MOS bit at the end is good but it doesn't feel like enough. In a world where this is the only Xenosaga game I think it would stand as a massive failing of the game. Thankfully there will be more, less than the 6 that Takahashi intended so I really can't wait to see how compromised those get, and how things could have been prevented by a more economic first part.
In terms of presentation however, I think it's a pretty massive win. For a 2002 JRPG with 7 hours of fully voiced 3-D animated cutscenes it says a lot that they still look and sound good. Crispin Freeman as Albedo is obviously the stand-out role but it's a very strong job from everyone involved. Making this even better is the Mitsuda score, which has a true sense of scale in its sound that utterly dwarfs his contemporaries.
One aspect of the score which I find to be a mixed bag is the lack of it in exploration. I actually find it for the most part to fit the tone of the game, but I think it needed a few more moments of contrast to truly sell that. The single battle theme (until the literal final boss) on the other hand, as good as that song is, I could do without hearing it for the next long while.
Gameplay wise I actually think it's a pretty solid system! Allows for lots of strategy, each of the six characters feels distinct and actually could be of use, allowing replays to be distinct. I'm usually rather impatient but I think my only critique of the speed of this combat is that I wish I could skip over some of the longer tech attack animations, as cool as they are.
There's two aspects of this system that I think hold it back from being truly strong. The first is the boost system. I think it mostly works quite well for your characters doing it, but the ways in which enemies boost feel like they are playing an entirely different game. They are able to boost at will, overriding your boosts while you cannot override theirs. You also can't see the enemies gauge so it feels particually cheap if they chain them together.
The second one is one part of the leveing system. While I actually really enjoy that the points are split into 3 distinct parts so you can give each aspect of the characters you level up a higher level of strategy, it is absurd that you cannot see the full path of abilities each character can level into. With how expensive the ether abilities are to unlock, you can spend a long time leveling up E-points to just end up with a skill less good than one you could have had earlier for cheaper in the tree. Being able to see the full tree and full range of tech attacks would allow for better planning. As it was I ended up saving all my point boosting items till the end just because I didn't want to waste them on stuff that wouldn't be useful to me in the end.
These are both very fixable problems however, and I would say I am excited to see how future games fix these but everything I have heard about Episode II puts the fear of god in me.
tl:dr takahashi you gotta hide your influences a bit harder you cannot just name the guy who invented androids "tyrrell" you hack