Funny, I just started playing this game for the first time half an hour ago. Had to stop because the tutorial level's music, while very pleasant, was putting me to sleep. :b
Steak said: Funny, I just started playing this game for the first time half an hour ago. Had to stop because the tutorial level's music, while very pleasant, was putting me to sleep. :b
Steak said: Had to stop because the tutorial level's music, while very pleasant, was putting me to sleep. :b
"Rolling down the UMN" sure is pleasant, but I thought it was somewhat odd for cool jazz to be playing when you're surfing cyberspace, trying to hack into the largest interstellar corporation in the known universe.
The soundtrack was good enough for me to actually buy it, but I find it very odd that some of the better themes (such as one for Fifth Jerusalem or Dmitri Yuriev's theme) weren't included on the OST.
Update! I've finished the game. Done everything except pick up Ziggy's ultimate weapon.
Have to say that by the end of it, I missed Xeno II's gameplay. I do like the straight forward, fundamental style of I and III, which I find to be generally more enjoyable, but a more complex battle system allows developers to make more varied and interesting battles. Kaiser Sigma and Omega Id weren't very hard battles at all when compared to the extra dungeons and bosses in II.
Not to mention that your party's potentional is utterly wasted in III, where you can make a very strong party, only with nothing to fight.
Also...I wish T-elos had been more important/developed. She didn't do much of anything throughout the game. If she hadn't been saddled with the "Mary" baggage, she might have been an effective rival or badguy operative.
I would agree that your party members can become a bit too powerful in XSIII. If the bosses at least levelled up with you that might have been one way to address the problem.
The game does have a bit too many easy buttons, though. Must have been on the corporate agenda with the goal to sell as many copies as possible for this last hurrah of the XS series. I mean, look at how so many costumes got skimpier. A relatively easy game with two-trick or three-trick bosses certainly helps sales as well.
Ah, Xenosaga, how better things might have been if you had been allowed to truly bloom . . .
Well, I don't think there's any reason to play past the first disc of Xeno III. I don't particularly care about Yuriev (Citrine's dom attitude was amusing though), Ormus going down fighting simply because they had nothing better to do, and I really don't care about the Mary/Shion/Kevin/Chaos/Wilhiem business.
Steak said: Well, I don't think there's any reason to play past the first disc of Xeno III.
Technically, Disc 2 is when the "real action" starts, since a large part of Disc 1 is essentially an illusion made so Shion could summon one of the "eyes of God."
I did like how Disc 2 brought closure to much of the Xenosaga series. Still, I wish we could have had boss battles against ES Simeon, ES Judah, The White Testament, Joshua, and Wilhelm himself. Yuriev's ES battle was also a bit of a let-down as well--as I said many of the bosses in the game are just two- or three-trick ponies.
XenoII's main problem was how difficult it was to avoid mook battles and how difficult those mook battles were. Until you picked up Erde Kaiser, there wasn't an easy way to clear a crowd. It's understanderably upsetting that you actually get killed by mook enemies, that are both tougher and hit harder than your party.
However, the battle system was complex, which allowed for greater variation in how battles could be fought. The result is that there was more extra content in XenoII than XenoI and XenoIII combined.
And the Militia portion of XenoIII was my favorite. It was just one thing after another on the second disc, but I enjoyed the pacing of the first disc.
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