It finally arrived...the game has been out for some months but I was waiting for other items, so I got it today and immediately played the bonus DVD...but first...
Front cover:
Back cover:
Included bonus disc "Alle spezielle DVD":
I wasn't planning on playing it in japanese, but after seeing the bonus DVD (more on this later) I couldn't resist. I went almost three hour deep into the game and then forced myself to stop because I didn't really knew what the characters were saying.
Upon inserting the first game disc, if you chose either "new game" or "data", it looks for Xenosaga II savegame. I think that the "data" option is to update characters EXP after starting the game and no, unfortunately XenoIII JAP doesn't load Xeno II US save data.
The first hour of play is dedicated to Shion, Kanaan and surprise surprise Miyuki (a rather obscure XenoI chapter and almost unseen in XenoII), and acts as a fast walkthrough for beginners and a reminder for seasoned Xenosaga players. The game feels much more like the first Xenosaga than the second chapter, as even this first dungeon has more (easy) puzzles to solve to advance, as well as more secrets and alternate routes. Graphically the game is stunning, even more than XenoII and above else, everything loads A LOT faster: battles stream with almost no delay onto screen and the dungeon reloads just as fast. Combined with somewhat smoother movement animations, the game feels extremely good, even when the console must load cutscenes: everything is faster without sacrificing detail. Also, "artistically" speaking the game seems more inspired than both previous chapters, and from the little I've understood, the game immediately dives deep into the story.
Characters look to be more similar to the "realistic" look of Xenosaga II rather than the original Xenosaga, with some exceptions (MOMO above all...and her costume is way better than the previous game. I wonder if there will be alternate costumes for her aside the usual bathing suits) and at a first glance they don't really look alike the art distributed to advertise the game: I personally think it's a good thing, these drawings were too much "manga-like" and you can't really change artistic development in each game of a saga complex as this.
Returning to dungeons, now every item (even gold - oh yes, it's back, and enemies drop it) is described with a small icon and an onscreen descritption of what you've found; this goes for new database entries - Xenosaga III features the same huge database as the first chapter, an extremely good thing to recap the whole story, characters and enemies. As with the previous games enemies are visible and wander around the battlefield. Approaching them from behind will give you an edge in the oncoming fight and various mines that were scattered on the field in the previous two games are actual items that can be deployed as the player sees fit...as these mines were somewhat rare and hard to activate in the previous chapters, this is a welcome addition.
The combat system features things from all Xeno games, including Xenogears, and there isn't the much criticized "zone system" of the second chapter, substituted by a "break system" based on attack types (slash, smash, electrical, fire based, ether...). The boost gauge is still there and works in the same way, and although both the language barrier and the small amount I spent with th game limited how much I've played, the combat system feels better, less "mechanic".
Mecha combat system has been refined too, not by much but now mechas appear to follow a "random boost" logic that allows some characters to perform consecutive attacks based on certain terms, just like a boosted fight with characters, but completely random. This combat system appears to be somewhat more complex than with characters, so I can't really explain all hows and whys.
Cutscenes, as said before, load as fast as the game does. I still haven't located the AC3 option (if there is one) or simply haven't stumbled on an AC3 cutscene (and, believe me, between the introduction and those three hours of gameplay there have been many of them).
Musically speaking, the game features a soft-jazz track for the first dungeon, and nothing memorable for anything else (well, after the dungeon you've got to play as Shion on a tropical island and she dresses the same bathing suit found in XenoII and then there are a lot of shiny-looking cutscenes...), but I hope to listen to more and more XenoI-like tracks and less and less XenoII-tracks.
So far the game is a standard JRPG with a fantastic technical side, I really hope the story will keep up with...XenoII was too much of a transition and for being the final chapter I expect a lot of story development...if you watched the trailers you probably saw a familiar looking boy interacting with Shion, so...I really can't wait to play the US version to unfold it.
The bonus DVD (a region 2 NTSC disc) contains informations about XenoI, XenoII, XenoIII, Xenosaga Freaks and Xenosaga: Pied Piper (a mobile game). Nothing about Xenosaga I & II for DS. Sections for XenoI and II contains interviews with the staff and presentation meetings, the XenoIII section all trailers distributed by Namco.
Front cover:
Back cover:
Included bonus disc "Alle spezielle DVD":
I wasn't planning on playing it in japanese, but after seeing the bonus DVD (more on this later) I couldn't resist. I went almost three hour deep into the game and then forced myself to stop because I didn't really knew what the characters were saying.
Upon inserting the first game disc, if you chose either "new game" or "data", it looks for Xenosaga II savegame. I think that the "data" option is to update characters EXP after starting the game and no, unfortunately XenoIII JAP doesn't load Xeno II US save data.
The first hour of play is dedicated to Shion, Kanaan and surprise surprise Miyuki (a rather obscure XenoI chapter and almost unseen in XenoII), and acts as a fast walkthrough for beginners and a reminder for seasoned Xenosaga players. The game feels much more like the first Xenosaga than the second chapter, as even this first dungeon has more (easy) puzzles to solve to advance, as well as more secrets and alternate routes. Graphically the game is stunning, even more than XenoII and above else, everything loads A LOT faster: battles stream with almost no delay onto screen and the dungeon reloads just as fast. Combined with somewhat smoother movement animations, the game feels extremely good, even when the console must load cutscenes: everything is faster without sacrificing detail. Also, "artistically" speaking the game seems more inspired than both previous chapters, and from the little I've understood, the game immediately dives deep into the story.
Characters look to be more similar to the "realistic" look of Xenosaga II rather than the original Xenosaga, with some exceptions (MOMO above all...and her costume is way better than the previous game. I wonder if there will be alternate costumes for her aside the usual bathing suits) and at a first glance they don't really look alike the art distributed to advertise the game: I personally think it's a good thing, these drawings were too much "manga-like" and you can't really change artistic development in each game of a saga complex as this.
Returning to dungeons, now every item (even gold - oh yes, it's back, and enemies drop it) is described with a small icon and an onscreen descritption of what you've found; this goes for new database entries - Xenosaga III features the same huge database as the first chapter, an extremely good thing to recap the whole story, characters and enemies. As with the previous games enemies are visible and wander around the battlefield. Approaching them from behind will give you an edge in the oncoming fight and various mines that were scattered on the field in the previous two games are actual items that can be deployed as the player sees fit...as these mines were somewhat rare and hard to activate in the previous chapters, this is a welcome addition.
The combat system features things from all Xeno games, including Xenogears, and there isn't the much criticized "zone system" of the second chapter, substituted by a "break system" based on attack types (slash, smash, electrical, fire based, ether...). The boost gauge is still there and works in the same way, and although both the language barrier and the small amount I spent with th game limited how much I've played, the combat system feels better, less "mechanic".
Mecha combat system has been refined too, not by much but now mechas appear to follow a "random boost" logic that allows some characters to perform consecutive attacks based on certain terms, just like a boosted fight with characters, but completely random. This combat system appears to be somewhat more complex than with characters, so I can't really explain all hows and whys.
Cutscenes, as said before, load as fast as the game does. I still haven't located the AC3 option (if there is one) or simply haven't stumbled on an AC3 cutscene (and, believe me, between the introduction and those three hours of gameplay there have been many of them).
Musically speaking, the game features a soft-jazz track for the first dungeon, and nothing memorable for anything else (well, after the dungeon you've got to play as Shion on a tropical island and she dresses the same bathing suit found in XenoII and then there are a lot of shiny-looking cutscenes...), but I hope to listen to more and more XenoI-like tracks and less and less XenoII-tracks.
So far the game is a standard JRPG with a fantastic technical side, I really hope the story will keep up with...XenoII was too much of a transition and for being the final chapter I expect a lot of story development...if you watched the trailers you probably saw a familiar looking boy interacting with Shion, so...I really can't wait to play the US version to unfold it.
The bonus DVD (a region 2 NTSC disc) contains informations about XenoI, XenoII, XenoIII, Xenosaga Freaks and Xenosaga: Pied Piper (a mobile game). Nothing about Xenosaga I & II for DS. Sections for XenoI and II contains interviews with the staff and presentation meetings, the XenoIII section all trailers distributed by Namco.
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