should i play this?

Yeah.

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Should you play the best RPG on the PS1? No shit

It's pretty good but definitely rough around the edges. You won't be happy with disc 2.

>>3686516
Did faggot Sevenleaf change its name?

>>3686534
>the best RPG on the PS1
That's hardly a rpg to begin with.
More like an unfinished VN with some fights.

>>3687035
That only describes the second disc. The first disc is a fully functional RPG with one of the most unique systems of stringing attacks together for its time. I think

>>3687048
>The first disc is a fully functional RPG
>No choice on anything
>Can't even customize characters or mechs
>No actual exploration since the game railroads you 90% of the time and when it doesn't you've already visited most of the world anyway
It's a VN with some vague RPG battle system.
You play Xenogears for the /m/ references, as a game it is rather mediocre, not offensively so but nothing to write home about
>with one of the most unique systems of stringing attacks together for its time.

It's a souped up version of Legaia's system with terrible design and balance, basically Citan Uzuki: The Game.
Not to mention that attack strings are only useful to learn the next one, after you got through them there's no reason at all to input strings when you can just charge up characters(read Citan) and unload a combo from a menu, there's not even much meaningful fighting on foot either.

>>3687198
brutal

>>3687198
That's a great review and all that, but at the end of the day it's a good story and the combat is fun. From an enjoyment standpoint, isn't that all that matters?

Your criticism of the lack of customization is somewhat valid, but you don't play Xenogears for the deep class system, you play it to go through the story first and foremost. Characters also have more room to grow their personality when they're locked into a class archetype.

Too many RPGs shovel in sandbox exploration at the cost of good story narrative and a feeling of urgency. Xenogears may seem linear when you're used to that, but many of us prefer a story that moves itself along while we play through it as opposed to having to talk to 20 different NPCs in order to piece together what to do next via vague lines of dialog.

The things you complain about the game missing lead to better world ambiance, memorable characters that grow, and a good story that tells itself well.

The fact that you've only talked about the battle system while calling it a VN shows how little you care for the story. If what you're looking for is random battles every 2-3 steps, class changes, and a huge open map, go play DQIII or something.

>>3686514
Only if you enjoy RPGs mainly for the story and not for the RPG elements.

The story, world, lore, and characters are great, but while the combat is somewhat fun, it's not particularly deep. It's very similar to Chrono Cross' battle system, which is also lacking depth and character customization.

Basically, the game tosses you some 'gameplay' between its bouts of storytelling, when most RPGs do the opposite and toss you a story cutscene or forced NPC dialog every now and then between dungeons.

>>3687251
>it's a good story
Maybe for you, it's a really rushed pastiche of G-Gundam, Evangelion and Giant Robo, not exactly original or good for my standards. The combat being fun is also arguable.
>Characters also have more room to grow their personality when they're locked into a class archetype.
That's something you pulled out of your ass and I won't entangle myself in a made up argument, it only leads to shitposting.
>Too many RPGs shovel in sandbox exploration at the cost of good story narrative and a feeling of urgency.
Exploration is a part of narrative.
What does Xenogears offer other than 10 hours or more of forced cutscenes with walls of shallow exposition and lore infodump? The fact that you can't even explore on your own only hurts the narrative more.
>lead to better world ambiance
Hahaha, what?
The world is empty and dead, NPCs exist to point you to the next story segment and don't even mesh into the world well, they're plot puppets, maybe the only good NPCs in the whole game are Joe, Franz and Bart's butler, at least they don't completely exist to push Fei's story down your throat.
>memorable characters
Dude, not even Midorikawa remembered who Fei was or that he even voiced him, Grahf is Darth Master Asia and Emeralda is lolibait, nobody cares about the others.
>and a good story that tells itself well.
No RPG should force 10+ hours of cutscenes of plot exposition, no game should do that, if you do so you've failed at storytelling using that sort of media.

I like RPGs because of the worlds I can interact with, exploration and adventure, Xenogears offers none of this and forces you to listen to the pseudo philosophical ramblings of a mecha otaku, his OP self insert with a vegetarian agenda and a DEEP, incoherent plot with more holes than swiss cheese, AND on top of this it's unfinished.

Enjoy it all you want, but to say that this is the best "RPG" on the PS is just preposterous, it's barely a RPG to begin with..

>>3687363
why are you so mad at the game faggot?

you haven't even played it. other wise you'd know there's not that many cut scenes or that it borrows story elements from about 20 more things than the 3 you listed.

have fun not enjoying this great game that got a fun battle system a medium amount of exploring and a really great story that borrows from lots of things but is ultimately very original.

>>3687378
>you haven't even played it. other wise you'd know there's not that many cut scenes
t. only played on disc 1

>>3687378
>why are you so mad at the game faggot?
>Criticizing a mediocre game makes me mad at it

Why are you so passive aggressive?
Does it disturb you that people point out very evident flaws in your favorite videogames?
I don't get mad at mediocre games, I get mad at good games that fuck something up. Xenogears is a poor pseudogame at its core, I have zero incentive to get riled up about something that didn't have any ambition as a game to begin with.
>other wise you'd know there's not that many cut scenes
Nice lie.
In the first section of the game, as in the very first village you're into there's a grand total of five forced cutscenes of dialogue, one scripted boss fight and one animated cutscene, that is literally before you even exit the first village in the game.
Then you have 3 seconds of a bottlenecked map portion that leads to a three screens dungeon that, surprise surprise, has another animated cutscene and about three if not four long dialogue cutscenes and one boss fight.
Then you get out and what do you have? Another bottlenecked portion of the map that forces you into a city where there's another cutscene, that in turn leads to an empty desert corridor with another cutscene and a boss fight, and this is the average pace of the game, the gameplay to cutscene ratio is something like 1:15, even segments like Nortune or the part of the game where you have to play without Fei, which are some of the more gameplay focused parts are chock full of longass cutscenes.
>a medium amount of exploring
You mean a non existent amount of exploring, once you get the Yggdrasil you've already explored most o the world and you can't even enter some locations before certain story cutscenes, shit, you can't even go back to the slums in Nortune because they were conveniently bombarbed, let's forget about disc 2 altogether.
>>3687378
>and a really great story that borrows from lots of things but is ultimately very original.
Xenogears is the epithome of unoriginality.

>>3687363
God it must be shit to have your mind.

>>3686514
Nope. It's unfinished. The first disc is cool but it's a waste of time once you hit the second disc. The writing is a gigantic clusterfuck and the story doesn't start until about 40 hours in and by that stage they try to cram it all in and it makes no sense at all. I know most jrpg writing is bad but this is some next level horse shit.
>>3687251
>it's a good story
Jesus Christ.....

>>3686514
It's worth trying, though it isn't one of the better RPGs on the console. Much like SaGa Frontier, the game had a ton of potential, but the actual product is held back quite a bit by how unpolished and blatantly unfinished it is.

>>3687198
I played through the Xenosaga series this years (and both Xenoblade games), Xenogears is the only one I'm missing. That being said, all three Xenosaga games were absolute shit. I'm scared of playing Xenogears and realizing it's the same shit as Xenosaga, and it really sounds like that from your opinion.

Have you played Xenosaga? What did you think of it?

>>3686514
If you don't like games then jrpgs are right up your alley

It's... a Squaresoft RPG... barely/mostly

I owned it but I actually watched an obsessed friend play it.

Right now, my 3 year old and I have been fooling around in Xenoblade Chronicles how related is it?

>>3686514
It's quicker to watch Evangelion

>>3687606
>Have you played Xenosaga?
Yup
>What did you think of it?
Xenosaga was meh, it was pretty much a setup game though so it can be forgiven, I guess. Same thing that happened to the first Arc the Lad game, it's not good but it was supposed to be a prologue of sorts.
Xenosaga 2 is one of the worst games I've had the displeasure of wading through. I don't think there's anything salvageable besides maybe the soundtrack.
Xenosaga 3 is the only decent game of the bunch and it was still mediocre, combat on foot is barely better than 1 or 2 and combat on mechs is still boring and too focused on stacking multipliers instead of applying real tactics. A real looker though, that's for sure, it's one of those games that make you think wizards have been working on it, at least on the technical side, it had some very clever design decisions.

Storywise, they're a huge, longwinded mess full of unnecessary melodrama, nonsensical and rather distasteful symbolism and some of the most unnervingly stupidly written villains I've seen, like Wilhelm, fucking Margulis is a better character than him, it's the same shit like most VN series like Fate, but in "videogame" form, and what's worse is that it lacks Xenogears shitload of references that at least put a smile on your face.

Xenogears is more of the same, it has arguably more gameplay than Xenosaga games, except maybe 3, we're more or less on that level, but again, it's basically a VN with /m/ references.

If you want to play some PS game that suffered from cut budget and development time I'd borrow anon's>>3687514 reference to SaGa Frontier, at least that is an actual RPG with 90% gameplay, and still a nice one despite all the butchering it suffered through.
Or just watch Evangelion, Giant Robo and G-Gundam.

>>3687620
Evangelion wishes it had a story as incredible as XG.

>>3687646
>a story as incredible as XG.

Dude, like, god is actually an alien superweapon fueled by the actual god who's sealed in a stone slab despite being a thing beyond human understanding and it's also the Shroud of Turin.
And like, there's this guy who wants me to destroy god and he's my father, but he's also me from the past but he destroys robots with energy waves from his fists and shit.
And this chick is some kind of artificial woman god created for me because I'm lonely and we've been through a loop for thousands of years but we don't remember because amnesia and then we remember and have sex offscreen but then she dyes her hair blue and dumps me for this other dude with a tiara.
And holy shit I just killed everyone in my village and now everyone hates me and my doctor makes me eat weird cans of meat while I have identity disorders, maybe I should wear that bandanna that old guy gave me, ahhh I feel better already.
Where were we? Ah right, and listen, the church guys are baaaad dudes, like, pedophiles and shit and one of my party member sold his ass to random dudes for money LMAO, he also shot his dad in a bullet using a giant revolver but his dad is still alive somehow.
And this ramsus guy with his power ranger girls comes up and says he has a fight to pick with me and I'm all like "dude, WTF? I don't even know you", and he's like the clone of some ancient dude with a mask or some shit.

Also nanomachines and shit.

>>3687198
>>Can't even customize characters or mechs
This isn't skyrim, it's a PSX jrpg from 1998, and you can customize equipment loadouts on characters and mecha.

>>3686514
I'd say so, I finally got around to it this year and I had a lot of fun.

If you like mecha and jrpgs then it's definitely a must play.

The second disc is really divisive though.
you see the director had a greater scope for the game, but because of funding, and possibly scheduling issues he ended up having to cram what he could into the second disc ,and tie it all together with cutscenes.
this is where the "Xenogears is a VN" meme comes from.

But the second disc still has gameplay, it just takes more control from you in terms of exploration.

iirc the second disc had 4-5 dungeons, a handful of standalone bosses, and an open world section near the end.
It's shorter than the first disc though, so it should be easier to get through.

The rest of the game is pretty solid, and I'd even go as far as to put it on par with stuff like FFVII and CT

>>3686514
>get past the fucking prison sequence
>lose save data
>want to replay but realize that it involves trudging through 15 hours of cutscenes/walking and only 3 hours of actual fighting to catch back up
>everyone says the later part of the game sucks anyway


is it even worth it

>>3687726
>This isn't skyrim, it's a PSX jrpg from 1998
SaGa Frontier had an infinitely better system despite being just as butchered and it was from 1997, there's tons of other PS games that had actual customization and gave you control over your characters.
>and you can customize equipment loadouts on characters
Literally fixed stat sticks with not even something as meaningful as damage types or built in effects. The only things that give you some meaningful degree of difference are accessories, all the rest is stacking up one stat number.
Characters have fixed growth as well so there's no customization or control at all to be had, so much for roleplaying, why can't Fei use swords or whips?
>and mecha.
Buy upgrades in the next town, rinse and repeat, no reason to use older equipment, no actual customization either since the mechs are just stat beatsticks with no real unique ability of their own, and ether spells are the same as the characters on foot.

Shit, SNES RPGs had gameplay that looks like rocket science compared to Xenogears.

>>3687752
It's funny, the story gets 20 times better but 20 times worse in the second disk, essentially the opposite of disk one.

Considering how most people would be playing Xenogears for the story and 'verse, I'd recommend trudging through the first one disk if those aspects are what matter most

>>3687736
The second disc had only 3 dungeons
>Anima Dungeon 1
>Anima Dungeon 2
>Final Dungeon
all of them are much shorter than any dungeon from disc 1.

>>3687905
Technically 4 because of the Esmeralda one, and the desert thing with the dragons

>>3687632
Well... then I will pretty much hate Xenogears then. That makes me kind of sad. I might play it eventually just to laugh at it then. Thanks for the opinion, anon.

>>3686514
If you mostly value story and music in your RPGs then you'll like it a lot anon, and don't listen to the dumb faggots who insist that it's an evangelion rip-off because they're NOTHING alike aside from the mecha and christianity parallels. EVAs about finding connections with others especially if you're an autistic faggot like shinji where xenogears is primarily invested in the search for God in a hopeless world where prayers go unanswered and succeeds as it's own work

>>3687615
>Xenoblade
Not related at all, even the Xeno in the name is bait, it was originally meant to be called Monado: Beggining of World.

>>3686514
PLay it, hate it and then come to /v/ and /vr/ and shitpost about how crappy it is and how awful our taste is while you revel in your divine patrician taste.

>>3687632
evangelion is utter shit. good art and animation, but its truly overrated. EoE is the best thing about it, hardly salvages the series

>>3688479
this may be the most limp dicked criticism I've seen in my life

>>3687797
It ain't worth it, in that case

Thanks for the heads up. I'm sure years from now I'll try it again.

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>>3687198
>Can't even customize characters or mechs

lolwut. Is this a troll or some retard who thinks he can comment on a game he hasn't played?

Yes you can. In fact you have to be constantly upgrading your mech/gear in order to beat the game. Certain bosses almost require you having specific parts slotted to stand a chance. Like what the actual fuck are you talking about.

>>3686514
No. You should read an LN and fwap to the h-doujins.

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It's got the best /vr/ waifu.

>>3689315
Gamesaves at gamefaqs or some other site? Should find a spot close to where you started at.

>>3688506
fuck off autist, stop projecting with your phallic obsessed/repressed sexual commentary. It reeks of self-hatred, lol
go shit post about ur kawaii waifu asuka or rei at /a/

Also ill put it painly, Eva is garbage, the movie is better but overall so much hype for very little payoff.

>>3689491
he is a true meme-master, he keeps pages of documents of copy-pasta so he can bait for (You)s because nobody talks about his cherished but shitty games during the 20 hour 7 days a week he spends browsing 4chan. So in retaliation he goes postal when someone even mentions the Xeno series. Not suprising coming from evafaggots.

>>3687198
>No choice on anything
No choice in the vast majority of RPGs at the time
>Can't even customize characters or mechs
Mech parts are customizable. Your active party is changeable.
>No actual exploration
Enough to get you from point A to point B. Also a product of the times

>It's a VN
It's a game and is classified as a game. No amount of exaggerated generalization will change this, anon.

>It's a souped up version of Legaia's system with terrible design and balance
It's fun. Pretty sure that's all that matters.

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A lot of JRPG's that I have played on the Playstation have overworlds that encouraged exploration. I felt like I could just side track from the story for a bit to do some cool side quest stuff.

So far I'm near the end of disc 1, and I have yet to stray from the story. Maybe I'm missing something, I don't know, but what I do know is that there is a large overworld, that I can freely explore by land, air and sea, yet I don't find anything out of the ordinary or interesting on it bar the places I'm supposed to be heading next. Granted I can go back to the battle arena and duke it out with bots, but that seems about it.

Stringing together attacks is only good for learning death blows, and once you have them, you can simply combo from the battle menu, and that takes the fun out of it, plus there is a bit of a learning curve on DB's when you're first starting out. As for gear combat, that to me feels a bit tedious. You perform very weak attacks, that do little to no damage at all, which after a couple of turns powers up a meter for doing slightly effective combo attacks, and I hope you don't mind an inability to restore gear health, because you can only do that with gear add-ons, which use up way more fuel than I feel is necessary, and you don't have them for most of the first disc. If you otherwise want to restore gear health, you have to do it in a shop or via the occasional random encounter with a medic bot in dungeons. Ether Machines (a gears version of traditional magic) is mostly useless until you start to get ether buffing add-ons too. Most of these complaints make me understand why people say it feels a bit rough around the edges, because most of my complaints, are with issues I feel that could be easily fixed with a little touch and polish.

Beyond those complaints, I do like the game. I enjoy the characters, story, and atmosphere, and if you don't mind a more linear JRPG, with more emphasis on storytelling, this one is definitely up your alley.

Parasite Eve is linear as fuck yet everybody likes that game so much.

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>>3690485
Yeah well Parasite Even doesn't give you a large, traditional overworld akin to Final Fantasy, yet with literally nothing to do on it.

If a game just wants to push the story along, then an overworld is a waste of studio money and my time.

>>3690504
An overworld is necessary to game immersion even if it's not filled with shit. When you have nothing but a system of maps it takes away from the world dramatically.

In recent memory a game that does this and as a result, fucks everything up, is Exist Archive. Not having a consistent overworld feels dirty.

>>3689491
>In fact you have to be constantly upgrading your mech/gear in order to beat the game
Upgrading=/=Customization.
Learn to read, or better yet, play good RPGs.
>Certain bosses almost require you having specific parts slotted to stand a chance
Those specific parts are literally the ones you find in the shops before said boss, the game goes at such lenghts to enforce this that it makes old man Balthazar conveniently have upgrades in a fucking underground desert cave before you fight Calamity, same thing about all the others, buy your upgrades, rinse and repeat.
For gears you don't need anything else than elemental resistances for the monster of the week that uses those, HP Restore Modules and eventually protection from fuel drain for those rare bosses who can drain your fuel such as Marlute, there is no specific part you need besides the best stat sticks you can find in the latest shops, which means engines, frames and whatever else you need.

On foot it's not any different, there's exactly three pieces of armor in the whole game that aren't just upgrade stat sticks, other than those you have accessories which are largely stat sticks, elemental resistances and those rare items with some other effect, none of which actually matter besides speed shoes because speed is king in Xenogears and Citan, the fastest character in the game, can also buff your elemental resistances on all characters anyway, making elemental accessories useless.

And to return to the actual issue I've raised, you can't customize anything, Fei will always be Fei no matter what you do, the most you can get to make it any different is to use whatever drive you find or buy in the game to slightly change his stats, and even then the difference is irrelevant, because the characters themselves and the general mechanics are ill designed and don't give you any choice.
>>3690323
Man, you must be a really sad individual to project your angry self so much onto others.

>>3690323
>using another save

i'm too weird for thaf

>>3690461
>No choice in the vast majority of RPGs at the time
False. Even SNES RPGs had better customization and gameplay than Xenogears, not like it takes much, but it's simply a fact you can't ignore.
>Mech parts are customizable.
False again, Engines and frames are strictly upgrades with no other function which makes 50% of the gear's equipment an upgrade, all the rest is other upgrades to the point that only things with elemental resistances such as Magnetic Coat and HP restore module matter as "customization".
Basically the same degree of customization you'd get by playing an old ass DQ game, by the time Xenogears came out RPGs were far more complex than that, even on the playstation. Fact is Xenogears is a game made to tell a story more than playing a game, if some faggot didn't get all riled up by a mere observation of this simple objective fact things wouldn't have devolved in this way.
>Enough to get you from point A to point B
That's not exploration that's running through a corridor, which makes the world map useless, might as well make what Legend o Dragoon did at that point.
>Also a product of the times
Empty buzzword from someone who evidently doesn't play enough videogames.
>It's a game and is classified as a game
And it fails as such.

In regards to being fun, that's up to you to decide, I'm merely arguing that it's a bad RPG and a mediocre game design wise like it successor Xenosaga, which is why it's not even remotely deserving of being called the best RPG on the playstation.

>>3686514
Yeah, its a great game despite its flaws, the combat is fun outside of gears, the music is great, and the story is good, albeit a bit confusing at times.
Disc 2 is a real drag, and some parts of disc 1 have too much dialogue, but as I said, despite its flaws its still a great game that's a lot of fun to play overall.

>>3690549
>Even SNES RPGs
Some did such as Bahamut's Lagoon and (if you count the sage system) BoF 2, Many didn't.

And speaking of, I don't know why you're pulling up SNES RPGs like it's a standard when it's not. If we're using "more than Xenogears" as a standard.
Treasure Hunter G didn't
Star Ocean 1 didn't
Tales of Symphonia didn't in any way that mattered
Then you have, for example, (arguably Final Fantasy1 and 2
Secret of Mana
Terranigma
Secret of Evermore
Super Mario RPG
Earthbound
and if it weren't for the pets Lufia 2 (but including Lufia 1)
and lastly, Chrono fucking trigger
All of which are great games but don't offer obscene levels of customization.

But let's assume they weren't. Just because one thing does something does not mean everything else must follow suite

> elemental resistances
Are a form of customization. Or are we going to be obstinate and say nothing short of a full system counts. To which that's fine; see above.

> by the time Xenogears came out RPGs were far more complex than that
See above.
That said, you're right, there were many RPG's released that did offer more customization.

But Xenogears as a game did not feel wanting when weighed in terms of gameplay against it's competitors.
It was fun. It reviewed as well as its brothers. And peopled enjoyed it.


>which makes the world map useless
see>>3690510
Breath of Fire IV uses map points and that's fine. Wild Arms 2 uses a world map with locations and that's fine too. Menus take away the immersion of traversing a large overworld.
It's also a product of the times.

>Empty buzzword from someone who evidently doesn't play enough videogames
We gonna stoop to the insults m8ty. At 27 I've played as many or more RPGs than you.

>And it fails as such.
Nobody thought so at the time. And a product is a reflection of the times.

> the best RPG on the playstation
I didn't say it was the best but I said it was fun. And fun goes a hell of a lot further then whatever you're doing.

>>3690589
Half of the games you mentioned are not even RPGs, I don't know why you put Symphonia there but I'll take it as a lapsus for Phantasia and let it go, the other half of your list is casual, story focused games for kids with next to no customization or control.
If those are the RPGs you would mention when it comes to the SNES I'm afraid you should play more RPGs, because you're nothing more than entry level.
Where are the Metal Max games? Where are the SaGa games? Where's Dark Law or Starlight&Prairie, you didn't even mention Rudra no Hihou, Inindo or Mystic Ark.
>Are a form of customization
No, they're not. They're a secondary item everyone can equip without any sort of requirement or drawback, that's not customization, that's universal equipment everyone can use freely in a system with locked weapons, abilities and stats.
>But Xenogears as a game did not feel wanting when weighed in terms of gameplay against it's competitors.
It did, actually, it did felt lacking in mostly everything considering it's not even one of the better, not best, better selling RPG on the system.
>It reviewed as well as its brothers
Who cares about reviews?
>see>>3690510
That's your own opinion which I largely don't agree with.
>Breath of Fire IV uses map points and that's fine.
BoFIV was born with map points in mind, and it's actually functional and works well with that, Xenogears gives you an empty world map with the illusion of freedom when it bottlenecks you to locations 90% of the times, at that point even BoFIV gave you a bit more freedom.
>At 27 I've played as many or more RPGs than you.
No you did not, your obvious ignorance of the SNES library alone proves that and also suggests you don't even know japanese.
So no, you're younger than me and you most certainly did not play as many or more RPGs than I did. And even if you did, your points would only show a rather serious cognitive dissonance.
>I didn't say it was the best
I'm not talking about you in fact.

>>3690649
>If those are the RPGs you would mention when it comes to the SNES I'm afraid you should play more RPGs, because you're nothing more than entry level.
I listed some of the most widely recognizable and acclaimed titles to help prove a point as that's how those work. You got me on Metal Max (probably) but the SaGa games can not be listed as an example given that they differ wildly from every game in any era they've been in period.


>They're a secondary item everyone can equip without any sort of requirement
An item that you can choose to equip? In other words, a form of customization. You can be as unmoving as you want but I'm not budging on that. Even changing accessories or bangles is a form of customization.
I'm not even sure why you're fighting this so one particular thing so hard.

>It did, actually, it did felt lacking in mostly everything considering it's not even one of the better, not best, better selling RPG on the system.
It still sold well, and it was still successful.
>Who cares about reviews?
Lots of people back when EGM and PSM were how you got your gaming news outside of word of mouth.

>even BoFIV
Even? There was a ton of optional shit for you to do inside of that map, the least of which being talking to the dragons to teach Ryu his dragon breath magic.

> And even if you did, your points would only show a rather serious cognitive dissonance.
cognitive dysfunction

The main goal is still fun. I found Xenogears fun. The presentation was fun, the combat wasn't so easy that I could Chrono Cross mash my way through, and the story was. The world map and locations helped give meat to the world. And sure I like a game that rewards fool exploration and the lack of a lot of extra shit to do is a fault, but it's not a deal breaker.

Certainly not worth skipping entirely like you're suggesting. I can't even fathom why somebody would say to just flat out not even try the game.

>>3690659
I'm no philosopher. I could argue game play mechanics, story, and characters, but I couldn't give you a point by point breakdown of each and every pro and con of a game, or argue the flaws and merits of each individual character as if I was critiquing fine art. All I know is that I play a game, and I either like it or I don't. Sure I occasionally check out reviews, but really only to see whether or the game in question is a broken or buggy mess, everything else I take at face value, because only I can decide for myself whether I like a game or not. And let me tell you, I enjoyed Xenogears. I'm not going to argue with anyone, because if they don't like it, then I at least have enough civility to respect another's opinion on the matter.

That being said. >>3690649 This guy is a complete asshole.

I'll be saving this thread. Once Square decides to release Xenogears on steam I'll have a scathing critique ready.

>>3690747
>on steam
So never?

>>3690659
>I listed some of the most widely recognizable and acclaimed titles to help prove a point
You can't prove a point by appealing to the lowest common denominator to make something else look good though.
And disregarding SaGa games entirely because they feel too different is simple dishonest, especially since they've been not only influencial, but also because they've been doing things decades ago that most RPGs are doing just now, they weren't the only ones at that time doing their own thing by the way.
>In other words, a form of customization
Is equipping golden boots in Druaga a form of customization to you? Because if it is then we're simply disagreeing on what customization in a game and a RPG is on a fundamental design level and I won't waste any more energy on this point either.
>Lots of people back when EGM and PSM were how you got your gaming news outside of word of mouth.
I'm sorry for them if they trusted reviews on magazines at the time.
>Even?
Yeah, even. Even a game with a map that forced you into rigid paths had better exploration, freedom and contents than Xenogears' seemingly more open map. The world was richer, locations offered you more on average than Xenogears' locations, there was more stuff to do and see and more freedom while also being more or less linear game focused on story, and it also had more customization than Xenogears with the Master system. As a game, BoF IV is leagues ahead of Xenogears.
>Certainly not worth skipping entirely like you're suggesting.
When did I suggest that Xenogears is worth skipping entirely? I simply said that if you're a person more interested in gameplay you're gonna find next to none in Xenogears, because it's a game almost exclusively focused on plot and telling a story, the gameplay to cutscene ratio is overwhelmingly in favor of the latter and the gameplay itself is largely uninteresting.
Your "fun" isn't my "fun", so stop pushing that as fact, fun isn't an objective factor.

>>3690840
>by appealing to the lowest common denominator
Since when is generally acclaimed good games the 'lowest common denominator'
>And disregarding SaGa games entirely because they feel too different is simple dishonest
Alright. 10/11 games in a widely known list on the SNES weren't customization fiends. Well done, anon.

>they weren't the only ones at that time doing their own thing by the way
>>3690659
>I listed some of the most widely recognizable and acclaimed titles to help prove a point as that's how those work

>Is equipping golden boots in Druaga a form of customization to you
Depends. Do you think boots are equivalent to accessories which are optional but have wildly differing effects that are situational?

>I'm sorry for them if they trusted reviews on magazines at the time.
I'm sorry for you if you were so 'aware' that you didn't use reviews and word of mouth as a point of reference when influencing your rent or buy decision making process as many people did at the time.

> As a game, BoF IV is leagues ahead of Xenogears.
Xenogears is equally fun to play.

>locations offered you more on average than Xenogears' locations
What metric are you using to make comparisons on locations point for point?

>When did I suggest that Xenogears is worth skipping entirely?

When somebody asked this
>>3687606
You responded with this
>>3687632

>Your "fun" isn't my "fun", so stop pushing that as fact, fun isn't an objective factor.
>objective
Opinions are not objective. You have nothing but opinions. So do I. Difference is I'm not going to pretend they're not opinions.

>the gameplay to cutscene ratio is overwhelmingly in favor of the latter
Sure because it was a game that was created to focus on the story.

>and the gameplay itself is largely uninteresting.
Gameplay felt new and fresh at the time. The presentation and sound was top notch. The boss fights weren't brain dead easy. It was an enjoyable game.

Sorry you couldn't enjoy it. I recommend it to everybody.

One of the reasons I personally have fond memories of Xenogears is that as long as you took your time and played through the game, you would be able to beat it.

There were no times in the game that I hit a point where I would have to restart the game or go back to a very old save file so that I could advance. There are many other RPGs at the time that would punish you at the very end (or near it( for not doing something correctly during the game.

FF8 was notorious for this as I knew so many people, including myself, who could get to Ultimecia, but could not beat her (or any of the boss like characters in the final castle). We didn't understand that we needed to essentially break the game in order to succeed.

Even recent RPGs have this issue. Lost Odyssey on Xbox 360 is a fine retro-type RPG until you get to the last bosses and realize how fucked you are for not leveling the immortal characters "correctly".

I loved Xenogears because the final dungeon and boss was challenging, but not impossible. If you could make it to the final boss you could beat him - even if you had to take time to weaken him by engaging in the optional battles.

That is the main reason I loved the game and still hold it in high regard.

Xenogears was definitely good for it's time but not without complaints. This is all imo of course but:

>Long ass textscenes that were unskippable
>Game gave you 9 characters but three of them were so fucking overpowered you would be retarded not to use them
>Citan was the biggest Mary fucking Sue I've ever seen in any game. He makes Orlandeau a peasant in comparison
>Rico is about as relevant as Umaro
>Gear battles are unintuitive
>Items/Accessories are not well explained and it can be difficult at times to know what you have exactly

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>>3686514
It's a mess, but it has charm. Think EarthBound.

>>3691186
How can the gameplay of Xenosaga feel new and fresh if it was just a recycled Xenogears?

>>3686514

Honestly, no. You'd be better off just reading a script of the game and/or watching a let's play on youtube that cuts out all of the tedious parts. Xenogears isn't really all that great of a game, it's more of an anime/comic-like story.

>>3691828
You are correct that the gameplay sucks ass, but the environments are unique, and the story with all it's problems is interesting.

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Sure go ahead.

>>3690539
Yeah i feel the same way, but I dont see much option to resuming without slogging through the game again.

>>3690535
Your generalizations are endearing, obviously you hate xenogears so much you are willing to put so much effort to dismissing it. But you obviously played the game to such a degree you know better than everyone else here. Why associate with scum like us? We arent not at your level of gaming. We cant even comprehend your brilliance.

what games do you even like? if the mere mention of xeno gets you like this then I wonder how your favorite game discussion turn into once someone disagrees with you.

we get it, xenogears is garbage and lauded more only because it never made the clamor and money the FF series did. it not a gem, it is shit. anything else you care to add? the reiteration is fine and all but what else am i supposed to get from your argument?

>>3692262
Look, for the umpteenth time, I do not hate Xenogears, nor any other game for that matter.
I played it many times, in english and japanese, and it's a game that definitely does have some good stuff in it, but the gameplay is just bad, especially if you're someone like me who's more interested in actual gameplay first of all and decent gameplay secondly.
The music is great, not one of Mitsuda's best records but certain pieces like The Jaws of Ice, Flight, Wings, Shevat is calling you and others are great and give the game a great atmosphere, the graphics are pretty great, the Gear design is amazing down to the worker gears, even the cuts during most cutscenes isn't bad at all, especially for its time and there's many characters who I personally found endearing and had some decent story.

But the gameplay itself is not just sparse, it's mediocre no matter how you slice it, once you get past the novelty of stringing(which is largely useless) there's little else to the game, you don't even have damage types besides elements, it calls itself an RPG but there's no choice to be had in anything you do, your characters are completely and utterly locked and the only thing you can control is weight and stats if you want to grind enough money to buy drives from Joe, and this is without considering how unbalanced and ill designed everything is in general.
Then you have no actual exploration, more than half of the places you visit are one time only because they get destroyed and in disc 2 there's nothing but a destroyed Shevat, Nortune and two dungeons you can visit more than one time.

I don't care about popularity or how successful a game is, I care about good games that are fun to play and Xenogears has next to no gameplay to begin with and what little it has is extremely simplistic and terribly designed.
What I argued was that it can't the best RPG on the PS, because it's hardly one to begin with, if that means I hate the game for you grow the fuck up.

just got done reading the thread and it really is exemplary for the unavoidably terrible quality of this board. the only thing it seems to attract other than pixel fetishists is blind fanboys who construe every critique of their childhood favourites as a kind of personal attack, and thus conduct their "arguments" in this despicable, overly emotional, passive-aggressive manner (in that sense it's the same as in any fansite). an alternative to /v/ and the cancerous generals of /vg/ on this site is welcome, but /vr/ doesn't cut it, neither in idea nor in execution (and no I'm not the guy who was arguing the contrary point ITT, though I'm sure this will be believed anyway).

this game legit made me quit RPGs for more than a year, didn't even get to disc 2
terrible pacing, slow text crawl, simplistic combat, high encounter rate and a poorly told story
but the platforming was the worst, I finished the tower of babel and just dropped the game

OP, just download the OST

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>>3692496
Its better to play with a friend. Game has cool moments and when it was new it was the best. Fuck you Terranigma posters from 16 years ago. You were worse then FF7 kids.

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>>3690096
Why not both?

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>>3692526
It was a mistake that she was only an NPC.