Any tips on "breaking" Xenogears and Chrono Trigger?

[Godot102]

If you are playing the DS version of it, I believe they added a new sword to Crono that gave him an extremely high critical hit rate.

For when a sword that gives 70% crit is not enough.

Nope its not enough! The weapon is called the Dreamseeker and it gives Crono a 90% crit hit rate. Pair that with the Frenzyband(80% counter)....can you say "BROKEN"

[Yancakes]

Not playing the DS version of Chrono Trigger, probably won't play new game+. I'm playing the SNES version. I have, indeed, found it pretty easy so far.

[skyknight]

Xenogears and Xenosaga I-III are sitting next to me on shelves collecting dust. I'll try them someday, I'm not sure I can handle their epicness right now.

Woh, that's a huge plate to finish!

Depending on what are you looking for, I would try to finish CT first, which version you have? Xenogears can be slow, especially when you compare it to Xenosaga, but I do find the story much better than Xenosaga (thou saga was to be 6 eps instead of 3).

If you are just playing on a whiff with no serious need to beat the game fully, I say play saga I and III skip II - II has the weakest storyline, and the battle system is HORRIBLE!

[Xeogred]

Don't forget Xenogears was supposedly Episode 5 of that story, heh. It was planned to be remade as Xenosaga 4 or 5. Shion's story was only supposed to be two games, hence why 2 feels a bit rushed and short, all that probably should've been in 1.

I forget the rest, I want to say 3 was going to cover a Gnosis war or something maybe, 4 would be the Xenogears remake, and 5-6 were going to be another new story 1,000 or 10,000 years after the earlier events ... something, vaguely like that, buuuuuut yeah. Tetsuya Takahashi is insanely ambitious. Glad to know Xenoblade is an utterly complete story though, can't wait to get it.

[Godot102]

^^I cannot wait for Xenoblade either, for once we can play a "Complete" Takahasi Xeno game :p. It kinda sucks that up until now, every Xeno game has gotten screwed over in some way, that has not stopped them from being great games though . As for Xenosaga 2 don't skip it as you will need to know some of the storyline in order to understand 3 and plus after playing that train wreck of a battle system, you will appreciate Xenosaga 3 that much more!

[Yancakes]

But... Xenoblade doesn't have anything to do with Xenogears/Saga, beyond the name being an homage to those games?

Also, up until this thread I had never heard anything but bad about the Xenosaga games.

[Godot102]

Xenosaga is incredible. It succeeds where other JRPGs tend to be really bad at and that is characters(as a whole). Xenosaga is one of the only series where I actually cared about the characters and felt that they were ALL important. Many JRPGs fail in this category because they seem to focus too much on the protagonist and his love interest while other characters kinda get shafted to the side after their moment of fame. Hell Xenogears is actually guilty of this. I felt that the game focused too much on Fei and Elly. I am aware that they are pretty much the whole point to the plot but then again, there are many other characters who get introduced, have their moment of fame and then they are stuck on the sidelines(Rico, Maria, Chu, even sometimes Bart). I know it can be difficult especially when an RPG has a huge roster but Xenosaga pulled it off so well that even minor characters like Miyuki or Allen(especially in the third game) felt important.

[Xeogred]

The gameplay is where the Xenosaga series falters, up until Xenosaga III it's never exactly perfect, though I remember thinking the first game was totally fine. Godot102 is right though, I like Xenogears the most because it's more consistent and complete as one game, but in other ways I like Xenosaga more... one major thing is that the Xenosaga story is much larger in scope and it's universe is probably more fleshed out and detailed than Suikoden, which is very disturbing to accomplish. It's insanely rich and deep.

In terms of the big final stretch at the end of the games, I'd say Xenosaga III's was a lot more emotional and intense than Xenogears to me. That's one area where I think Xenosaga just really came out on top.

On the publisher side of thing, Xenogears was Square Soft, and Xenosaga was Namco, now Xenoblade is Nintendo, but the core team still made all these games with creator Tetsuya Takahashi at the helm. Although Xenogears and Xenosaga are not officially connected, the allusions are very obvious at times and so yeah. I hear Xenoblade is more disconnected, but I won't be surprised at all if it's got some familiar imagery, characters, philosophy, etc, so I'm sure the "Xeno" name has some weight to it.

[Jmustang1968]

The gameplay is where the Xenosaga series falters, up until Xenosaga III it's never exactly perfect, though I remember thinking the first game was totally fine. Godot102 is right though, I like Xenogears the most because it's more consistent and complete as one game, but in other ways I like Xenosaga more... one major thing is that the Xenosaga story is much larger in scope and it's universe is probably more fleshed out and detailed than Suikoden, which is very disturbing to accomplish. It's insanely rich and deep.

In terms of the big final stretch at the end of the games, I'd say Xenosaga III's was a lot more emotional and intense than Xenogears to me. That's one area where I think Xenosaga just really came out on top.

On the publisher side of thing, Xenogears was Square Soft, and Xenosaga was Namco, now Xenoblade is Nintendo, but the core team still made all these games with creator Tetsuya Takahashi at the helm. Although Xenogears and Xenosaga are not officially connected, the allusions are very obvious at times and so yeah. I hear Xenoblade is more disconnected, but I won't be surprised at all if it's got some familiar imagery, characters, philosophy, etc, so I'm sure the "Xeno" name has some weight to it.

I enjoyed Xenosaga, though I still havent made it to 2 or 3 yet. It was enjoyable game, but it has to be noted that Xenosaga takes the cake when it comes to FMV. Sometimes I really had to wonder if I was watching a Xenosaga anime or playing an RPG... lol

[Xeogred]

Yeah, which some fans seem to complain about, but I always loved the cutscenes.

If you can get a handle of Xenosaga II's battle system, it's not bad. Fairly short though. And yeah, I can't stress enough how amazing Xenosaga III is. Do you own it though? It's gotten a bit expensive.