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Xenogears

DriacKin

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I've never played this game -- I always just assumed it was nothing more than typical overly-pretentious anime-inspired Jap garbage. And yet, this thing consistently seems to draw praise across the interwebs. And even some of my fellow Codexers enjoyed it... Dicksmoker even claimed it to be the greatest video game story evar (I'm too lazy to look for the thread where he made this claim, but I know that he did.).

I usually roll my eyes anytime I hear people claim that a Jap anime/game is 'deep' or 'artsy' or 'thought provoking'. In my experience, these tend to be the silliest and most painful variety of anime. They're almost always incredibly overwraught -- constantly beating you over the head with blatantly obvious symbolism. Not only that, but they usually come off as being completely devoid of any subtlety while also being incredibly preachy. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate all jRPG stories. I haven't really played very many of them, but I've still enjoyed some of the Final Fantasy games in a so-bad-it's-good way. They're usually incredibly cliché, have tons of plot holes, and moronic characters -- but that's what I like about them. Imo, the jRPGs that don't take themselves all that seriously can still be enjoyable because of their inherent campiness.

On the other hand, JRPG combat is always shit. I almost always find them to be overly simplistic, boring, and just too damn grindy. And although some tactical jRPGs have solid combat systems, traditional jRPGs almost always are just way too shallow and repetitive to be fun. Still, I am willing to play these games if the other components make up for it.


So, that being said, what about Xenogears? Is it as good as Dicksmoker claims? Is it shit? And If so, is it atleast shit in a somewhat entertaining way?

:discuss:
 

Jaesun

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You could always watch a youtube LP and just see if it is something that might interest you?
 
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I rank it as one of my favourite games of all time (in fact I ended up buying it 3 times thanks to chaotic moves and shitty roommates who steal shit), and I think one of the reasons I enjoyed the story so much was due to the fact that there was no clear cut 'bad guy' that you spend the majority of the game running around after, or rather when you reach the bad guy of the current situation you learn that they're being played just as much as everyone else. I also personally found the characters throughout where a little more defined than the standard jRPG, and I enjoyed the mix of battle systems where the 2d characters fighting was the usual grindy fare of Squaresoft and the Gear combat was a little more fixed (they improved stats only when buying new parts.)

That said, there's really one thing that keeps it from being my top favourite: Disc 2.

I'll spare the rant about it, but that was a nasty surprise for the majority of it because it became the most linear thing I've ever played that I nearly quit on the spot (heard it was due to Square wanting it released before the development team could properly finish it). It's still a good play though, as it came out around Squaresoft's experimental phase on the PSX (a phase which included a Racing RPG of all things).

I'd say it's still worth a play, I started a playthrough on my PSP not too long ago which reminded me why I liked it so much.
 
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Interesting battle system for a jrpg. Didn't think much of the story, but dicksmoker said I didn't get to the good part. Shitty dubbing, the VAs don't seem to be trying, and there's no lip synching whatsoever.
 

Forest Dweller

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Well the combat is nothing special. You'd basically need to enjoy the game for the story. Dialogue isn't all that great like all jrpgs but the story IS very deep and convoluted and awesome. And like all jrpgs there is silly shit but it's kept to a minimum in this game.
 

I.C. Wiener

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It sucks. Shitty battle system, story is a convoluted pretentious mess. It goes from boring to horseshit partway through, once they ran out of time or money or something. You could do a lot worse, though.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Better than FFIX at least. The gearless combat system is cool (if corny). With gears it's lame. Weird ass story i still don't understand after playing 3 times. Should have cut all cutscenes except the first (almost no talking).

Heard game was fucked because it came out at the same time as parasite eve and FFVII.
Disc two is linear, but at the very end it's possible to explore some places you might miss, if you go directly to the end.

Story wise it's a strange mystical almost gnostic reincarnation setup in a science fiction setting. Confusingly, some incarnations don't die when reincarnated so apparently there are some alternate personas flying about.
 

DriacKin

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Andyman Messiah said:
Xenogears is a very bad game.

Since you're the Codex expert on jRPGs, I'll ask you this: I kinda liked FF7 and FF8 in a campy-so-bad-it's-good way. Can Xenogears also be enjoyable as such?
 

ecliptic

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I couldn't get myself to finish it.

I did however enjoy watching Xenosaga.
 

Forest Dweller

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DriacKin said:
Also, how pretentious is this game?
A lot of times pretentious is just a catch-word for "this is too deep and shit for me." If you're one of those people you'll think the game is very pretentious.
 
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Dicksmoker said:
DriacKin said:
Also, how pretentious is this game?
A lot of times pretentious is just a catch-word for "this is too deep and shit for me." If you're one of those people you'll think the game is very pretentious.

To put a little more detail on it, story wise it's technically the 5th episode of a series that concludes about 15000 years worth of backstory.
 

lightbane

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DriacKin said:
Also, how pretentious is this game?

I don't know the exact details but:

To say some examples: The most prominent villains are some sort ascended humans that were technically the original ones, actual humans were created by some sort of super machine/device called Deus (aka God) to be used as a fuel when necessary, the protagonist is some sort of weird guy that reincarnated several times and has a evil side and such.
 

Andyman Messiah

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DriacKin said:
Andyman Messiah said:
Xenogears is a very bad game.

Since you're the Codex expert on jRPGs, I'll ask you this: I kinda liked FF7 and FF8 in a campy-so-bad-it's-good way. Can Xenogears also be enjoyable as such?
Xenogears is one of very few jrpgs that have made me actually rage. FF7 is stupid, but it's still good. When it's bad, it's funny. When Xenogears is bad, you're going to feel like murdering someone. And Xenogears is bad all the time, from beginning to end.
 

mediocrepoet

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Dicksmoker said:
DriacKin said:
Also, how pretentious is this game?
A lot of times pretentious is just a catch-word for "this is too deep and shit for me." If you're one of those people you'll think the game is very pretentious.

This game is pretty pretentious. It only seems deep and awesome when you approach it from a "I don't know anything about first year philosophy/psychology but think I'm really quite the deep thinker" perspective generally held by younger people. ;)

Anyway, I enjoyed it when it first came out and thought some of the ideas were interesting but it's pretty overwrought and has a ton of anime style cutscenes. Also, the second disk turns into monologue land with long discussions about all the stuff the characters did interspersed with boss battles that relate to the crap you've just been told about. Personally, I didn't mind this too much but I know a lot of people raged pretty hard at it.

I don't think I'd go back and re-play the game, I suspect the things that I gave a pass as a young man would make me snap the disk now.
 

Serious_Business

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mediocrepoet said:
Dicksmoker said:
DriacKin said:
Also, how pretentious is this game?
A lot of times pretentious is just a catch-word for "this is too deep and shit for me." If you're one of those people you'll think the game is very pretentious.

This game is pretty pretentious. It only seems deep and awesome when you approach it from a "I don't know anything about first year philosophy/psychology but think I'm really quite the deep thinker" perspective generally held by younger people. ;)

Anyway, I enjoyed it when it first came out and thought some of the ideas were interesting but it's pretty overwrought and has a ton of anime style cutscenes. Also, the second disk turns into monologue land with long discussions about all the stuff the characters did interspersed with boss battles that relate to the crap you've just been told about. Personally, I didn't mind this too much but I know a lot of people raged pretty hard at it.

I don't think I'd go back and re-play the game, I suspect the things that I gave a pass as a young man would make me snap the disk now.

Agree with you there old chap. I played this crap too when I was younger, it leaves quite the impression, but of course at this age any kind of fancy wordplay will blow your mind if you're thirsty for intellectual stimulation. The story's form is bad and even with all the useless clutter that gets in the way of whatever points it tries to make, those points aren't even that interesting to begin with. The conclusion is pretty pedestrian if I remember right : man must find meaning by supporting each others (i.e. the power of love).

As far as the word pretentious being used in a defensive way by those who don't approach rational efforts favorably, well that might be quite true, however we seem to have the case of a budding superiority complex here and I'd rather not feed that, so for your own good Dicksmoker, here's the punchline : you are a faggot and not elite, go read books instead of parading like a stupid little punk with your animu bullshit
 

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