Xenoblade is officially coming to US, please PREORDER NOW

[noiseredux]

yeah I've fallen into a lot of fucking pits in MM9 hahaha.

[GameMasterGuy]

yeah I've fallen into a lot of fucking pits in MM9 hahaha.

We should get back on topic after this post, but try to stock up on Beat whistles. They're pretty useful on your first run.

[MrPopo]

So let's all just forget it and get back to talking about the game.

It has "Xeno" in the title. Interested.

I've actually yet to play ANY of the Xeno games. I figure I'll start (someday) with Xenogears. (That's the first one, right?)

Technically Xenogears and Xenosaga aren't connected. But there are a lot of references to Xenogears in Xenosaga.

[Flake]

I think the idea was originally for them to be connected but there was some issue with rights and what not. I don't know, the whole Xenosaga series was a mess. It was a beautiful, ambitious mess but a mess all the same. I could never get into it no matter how hard I tried, which was a shame because I really liked the aesthetic that series had.

[Jmustang1968]

I think the idea was originally for them to be connected but there was some issue with rights and what not. I don't know, the whole Xenosaga series was a mess. It was a beautiful, ambitious mess but a mess all the same. I could never get into it no matter how hard I tried, which was a shame because I really liked the aesthetic that series had.

I think Xenosaga 1 and 3 were good

[Flake]

I think the idea was originally for them to be connected but there was some issue with rights and what not. I don't know, the whole Xenosaga series was a mess. It was a beautiful, ambitious mess but a mess all the same. I could never get into it no matter how hard I tried, which was a shame because I really liked the aesthetic that series had.

I think Xenosaga 1 and 3 were good

I guess I should have been more specific. The idea of Xenosaga was an ambitious mess. A six part, hundreds of hours long RPG with first rate visuals and a similar price tag. Wowza, I don't know how they thought they would pull that off. I guess it was just a different time for RPG's back then.

[BoringSupreez]

I'll try and remember to pre-order this game at my Gamestop before April.

[lisalover1]

I think the idea was originally for them to be connected but there was some issue with rights and what not. I don't know, the whole Xenosaga series was a mess. It was a beautiful, ambitious mess but a mess all the same. I could never get into it no matter how hard I tried, which was a shame because I really liked the aesthetic that series had.

I think Xenosaga 1 and 3 were good

I guess I should have been more specific. The idea of Xenosaga was an ambitious mess. A six part, hundreds of hours long RPG with first rate visuals and a similar price tag. Wowza, I don't know how they thought they would pull that off. I guess it was just a different time for RPG's back then.

It was a bit of beautiful irony. After coming off an entire generation where JRPGs were the number-one genre for consoles and had an unprecedented surge in popularity, and upon the release of the PS2, with hardware powerful enough to support their ambition, the Xenosaga games should have been wildly successful. Not to mention the fact that they were released so early in the life of the system, it shows how eager Monolith was to start the series, and early adopters of the system should have been all over it. Maybe it just got so big that it imploded on itself. Everything about the games felt bigger than it actually was, and made it all a bit overwhelming. It's a real shame, too; it could have been an undisputed classic series for the PS2, and RPGs in general. They just didn't know their limitations.

[Flake]

I was still into RPG's when Xenosaga first came out and I too thought it would be the next big thing. I wonder if a smaller scale would have saved the series. They had so much going for them.

[Xeogred]

I just wish people would enjoy what's there. For those of you who actually checked out the series, did you actually get around to Xenosaga Episode 3 and finish it? That game is excellent from start to finish and arguably has a better final stretch than Xenogears to me. The original plan was for Shion's story to only be two games, Episode 2 is the real oddball because it's just scraps and was rushed due to Namco, and they had to salvage what they had for Episode III ending the saga prematurely. But they did it well, somehow. Episode 3 was an awesome game that unfortunately many people never even gave a chance, it's a shame that it had such a low print run as well so it's not cheap to come by. I wouldn't recommend skipping the first two games, but if you can't handle them, Episode 3 does have a Bible sized database that covers every single detail imaginable about the Xenosaga world and the events of the first two games. Episode 3 is hands down one of the best JRPG's on the PS2 to me. Probably my favorite next to Suikoden 5.

Xenogears was one hell of an overly ambitious venture as well, being part "IV" (or V, whatever it was) of some huge epic saga (and one of the later Xenosaga games was going to be a remake of the Xenogears events). I forgot what the others were going to be about, but yeah it was some massive plan to cover some thousands years worth of events into ~6 games. Hell, I think they even said 8-9 games or something originally, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

So I'm arguing for both sides obviously, but yeah. I'm happy to hear that creator/director Tetsuya Takahashi and his team finally just made one huge full game, that being Xenoblade. Now even if the story isn't as big of a focus (as they claim) compared to Gears/Saga, I'm sure it beats every other current gen JRPG out of the water in that department. Can't forget this was the team that did the Chrono games as well.

Matsuno of Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre fame is the same way. I saw in an interview awhile back that he had plans for like 3-4 more games in the Ogre Battle franchise, but ever since Square Soft (at the time) bought out his Quest team, they never bothered touching the franchise until the recent remake of the original Tactics Ogre. What a waste...

People like Matsuno and Tetsuya Takahashi, frankly should just write novels. , I do have the Xenogears "Perfect Works" downloaded though. It basically just looks like a Bible for the series. It's so overwhelming I haven't even really looked at it that much yet.