Xenosaga

[Shin Ballory]

I didn't see a topic about Xenosaga "trilogy" so I decided to open one
Surely this is one of my favourite games among all, really long, deep story, good music specially 2nd and 3rd (well Yuki Kajiura's works) neither the one was so bad ^^
Every character is in-deep analyzed, specialy the relationship between Shion-KOS-MOS

I like every quote about famous works like their title taken by Friedric Nietzsche works

My favourite characters are Shion KOS-MOS MOMO and chaos ^^
I sometimes find myself similiar to chaos
Battle system is like most rpg, but the 2nd one is more original, I also like to use E.S. the big robot, well I think is a gooooooood game
Most of you like this game...right?? xDXD

 

[Nick Hunter]

KOS-MOS was my favourite from the moment I saw her.
I'm looking forward to a chance to play these games, although I'm really hoping for an undub (the English voice acting here hurts my ears).
There's Xenosaga I+II DS, of course... but somehow I doubt they used Yuki's music there.

 

[Rafael-sama]

I only got the first one and won't play it until I manage to find II and III...

I suppose they really didn't use Yuki's songs on the DS version.

Yeah, English dub in games are, some times awful!

At least Gust let's us choose the original Japanese voices in their games.

 

[KP-X]

Xenosaga...hum, what a person with an username like mine can say about it? lol
Xenosaga I was a pain in the ass. With a bad pacing and story development, it's easy to give up on it. Also, the OST was badly used, to the point that no dungeon in the whole game (apart from the LAST one) has a background song. The battle theme is the same as well, apart from the last battle (thank God, the last battle song is amazing). The cutscenes were too long, and that made the game seem even more boring than it really was. The battle system...in the beginning it was nice, but latter in the game it becomes boring as well. It's too slow, and Xenosaga II takes this to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. As for characters...Shion was already bad here (nothing like 3, though), MOMO was a Sakura copy/parody/whatever, Jr. ... god. KOS-MOS had some interesting moments, though. Well, she used to disobey Shion back then, that makes she gains some points with me.
Then...Xenosaga II...Can't even believe in what they did here. OST was a tragedy (I'm talking about the game one, not the one made by Kajiura), and many of the songs composed by Kajiura were badly used (no matter how good a OST really is, if the songs are not well used it will mean nothing). Characters...which characters? This game was almost solely for Jr. and Albedo (if it were just Albedo I wouldn't complain, though. Few antagonist manage to cause such an impact as he did), Shion was almost forgotten (Good point, actually LOL), among other things. Battle system was even slower and more boring than the one from the first game.
Xenosaga III...now here's where Monolith surprised me. After two failed attempts to follow in the footsteps of Xenogears, they somehow managed to create an entertaining game that was able to link all the previous games into one good conclusion. The battle system brought no innovation at all, but it was fast and entertaining, something they never managed to do (and I include Xenogears here as well). Music was splendid, since they actually used it in a good manner (there were what...more than 10 battle themes?), the plot flowed well (with a little drop in the second DVD, but they managed to recover from it). THE problem of it was...Shion Uzuki. Never will I meet such a dreadful, ridiculous character such as her. If they wanted to make me hate her, they sure did it.

As for the dub, I'm quite the opposite. I enjoy both versions from KOS-MOS (Bridget Hoffman here, not Megan Hollingshead), and some characters are way better in English (Jin Uzuki, Allen Ridgeley, Wilhelm...). The problem was that they had many problems throughout the series, so the best dub is in the last game.

Overall, Xenosaga had a good plot, but Monolith never managed to deliver it in a nice way. The series lost many fans along the way, they had many production problems and in the end the series didn't turn as good as it could have turned out to be.

On a side note: ES Reuben and ES Dinah are just too delicious!

 

[Kerahna]

i enjoyed the series, and 3 was my favorite XD
I bought episode 1 because the cover was nice and it was on sale
watching the Japanese XS2 trailer was the first time idecdied to search for the name YUKI KAJIURA XD

I had a huuuuuge crush on chaos during high school! and then jin

 

[KONIcchi]

^ LOL! Kerahna, we're same!
XS2 trailer was the reason i became Yuki fan!
I bought XS1 because i love futuristic game. ES Dinah is cool~
My favorite is XS3
Fav character is KOS-MOS!

 

[Nick Hunter]

Also, the OST was badly used, to the point that no dungeon in the whole game (apart from the LAST one) has a background song.

Call someone like Yasunori Mitsuda to the stand... and don't even have him compose dungeon BGMs. And here we thought PMMM's music usage was weird.

Xenosaga III...now here's where Monolith surprised me. After two failed attempts to follow in the footsteps of Xenogears, they somehow managed to create an entertaining game that was able to link all the previous games into one good conclusion.

Whereafter Namdai goes and sells the studio away. I'll never understand these guys.

 

[Maha Jyotiṣa]

Maybe I'm the only one who isn't satisfied with this game...

Yes the series as a whole is indeed superior. How they execute the game is beyond me.

Xenogears is nearly perfect until the second CD, which is...tooooo short and a very abrupt change from disc 1.

Xenosaga 1... i find this one is okay... strange pace and a lot of coincidences. I guess the writer shouldn't take the position as the director... masato kato would do the script better. Still I like all the presentation. Music is good, but lacks of the execution... repeated again and again.

Xenosaga 2... totally abrupt change of graphic... it gives me the feeling of discontinuity. Even the musics which lacked of gregorian chants and males... Oh well, the OST is still great.
The BGM is totally low.

Xenosaga 3, graphically good, music is good, not better than 2, but ok. That damn annoying FOOTSTEPS and SFX! ...
While they finished the story, but still... the pace is tooo abrupt, sudden, and fast! ... and somehow I see Xenosaga now as a shounen game. not seinen. Even the OST >__>

 

[Shin Ballory]

Well, the only thing I hate from that game were some censored parts -.-

Spoiler

Eg: Albedo who shot on his head, or Jin killed by a sword (in the usa version both without blood) Ok the mistery in most jrpg is that in battle nobody die really, but during a cut scene yes : D

 

[Nick Hunter]

People USED to perish in battle in old JRPG days. Magic allowed to bring them back anyway. It was not until mid1990s, I think, that the Phoenix Down paradox became conspicuous (i.e. characters killed in cut scenes were immune to revival items and magic). To solve this, over time JRPGs started marking battle caualties as simply "knocked out". Some even went further and introduced recovery concept where the KO'd character would always regain consciousness after the battle, but with 1 HP left.

 

[Tsiih]

Re:

i enjoyed the series, and 3 was my favorite XD
I bought episode 1 because the cover was nice and it was on sale
watching the Japanese XS2 trailer was the first time idecdied to search for the name YUKI KAJIURA XD

I had a huuuuuge crush on chaos during high school! and then jin

Game 3's my favorite too! Xenosaga evolved so much from the first to last game! T.T I have trouble with the battles of first game here and there. Sometimes the number of monsters to fight are ridiculous. >____<;