If you don't want to see either of the following, look away now
a) Spoilers in that lovely yellow colour
b) A game loved by many getting a good kicking. Yes, that means you Ady
60-odd hours on an RPG. Why do I feel like I've wasted my time? It's difficult to know where to start, but seeing as the game opens with one, I'll start on the cut scenes.
The anime ones are rare, and they don't look that bad. The dubbing however, is dreadful. Completely and utterly dreadful. I'll let that slide however. The in-game cut scenes I will not. Never before have I 'played' such a passive game. There is so much talking, and most of it is along the lines of 'You will read this and enjoy it'. I'm fine with long cut scenes, but seeing as most of the ones in this game don't make a lot of sense, and don't have much in the way of stuff happening means they seem overlong and boring.
The game doesn't look too good. Yes, I know, it is a PS1 game, and yes I did play it straight after finishing Chrono Cross (probably the best lookig game on the system) but it does look a pixellated mess. I got used to it mind, and once I had it was perfectly acceptable. When I could see it. The camera is appalling. You can only swing it around the character, and the environments seemed to be designed to obscure your view at all times. Many times I spoke to a character, only for the camera to be directly behind my lead, meaning I couldn't see the animation on the NPC.
Even worse were the times when I couldn't see where I wanted to go, and as I'm fumbling with the camera a random battle starts. The battles themselves aren't too bad. The deathblow system is different, but it seems totally random exactly how you learn them. Pressing triangle always seemed the best way, no matter what the actually end combination was. The combo system was largely a waste of time (I noticed little in the way of extra damage from it, so I ignored it). Xenogears is also yet another game where offensive magic is largely useless. Why give a character area effect spells, when most of the time they miss. Similarly with Fei, why give him offensive spells when they do bob all damage.
Gear fights are also a change from the norm. Having fuel as an extra resource to manage was a good idea, but when you have to take on battle after battle, without refuelling, then have to fight a boss, it just seems very cheap. I only learned how to go into hyper mode later on after looking through a walkthrough.
The problem with the battles is the frequency. They happen far too often. Skies of Arcadia is supposed to be terrible for them, but you play this and wonder how people can say that. Every few steps you get into one. Not only that, when the game decides it is time for a battle, it freezes the jump button, but lets the game carry on for a few seconds. This means you'll try to make a jump, hammer the button, and as you are falling off hit a random battle. The same happens with doors. Go into a door, and if the game wants a random battle, you'll fight one then go through the door, rather than just letting you through. It's sloppy and there is no excuse for it.
Maybe this next point is all down to me, but I couldn't feel any real sympathy for the characters. They all seem to have some flaw that makes them really annoying. Even worse, later on some of them seem to have complete personality changes, which grates even more.
The next part is about the plot. This will be relatively spoiler-ific, so if you want to read it, highlight it.
WTF? Seriously, WTF? Did I miss something, or did that make no sense at all. It starts well enough, with some death, the Ygg and fighting an evil empire, but it slowly starts to peter out into some tripe about god, or something. It seems very similar to the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even more so when it gets to disc 2.
Ah, disc 2. Much like Eva's last two eps, it smacks of a game running out of time and money. It is patently obvious that they wanted to include many, many more adventures in the game. It's why they highlight some scenes with the chair technique. I'm pretty sure the only reason you get to play some of these is that these are the ones that were finished. Not being able to level up properly, not being able to use the map screen, and being led by the hand through various non-interactive guff annoyed me no end. In fact, it was shortly after the 2nd disc started that I found the characters changed for very little reason (a fact I put down to the game skipping over some major scenes to get the game out).
The part where Citan pretends to defect, where Elly suddenly starts being nice, where Sigured reveals himself and then it isn't mentioned again, they all smack of either bad translation or a sloppy plot. Bart slips from being an aggresive twit to a tactical genius and back again far too often. The half decent characters were largely non playable. Jessie and (who seems woefully under-developed) Sigurd deserved more screen time. At least Emeralda and Maria had some decent scenes. The fight with Maria's dad was probably the highlight of the game. Helps her gears just looks fantastic, especially when she sits on it rather than piloting it. Emeralda doesn't really get much screen time, but if you find the sub-quest where she grows up, it finally hits you. She's a hottie
The ending at least ends it, but it was more of a question of 'Oh well, it's over' rather than being something to write home about. I thought it was a little cheeky putting Xenogears Ep 5 on the end though. Still, at least I can be certain I won't be getting Xenosaga.
At least the game did show some difficulty. It does peak at a certain point (Murder as an enemy skill, which is a 1 hit kill, and is used without warning is very, very cheap) but once through that it's simply a question of putting the time in.
The music is decent, and the gears do look the part. I just wanted more 'hero-ness' stuff to happen. It seems a waste of a good scenario. I'd still say it was better than Chrono Cross, but it isn't one of my favourite RPGs, and it certainly doesn't hold up well today. Shame. Both of the reasons why I bought a PS1 turned out to be duffers.
a) Spoilers in that lovely yellow colour
b) A game loved by many getting a good kicking. Yes, that means you Ady
60-odd hours on an RPG. Why do I feel like I've wasted my time? It's difficult to know where to start, but seeing as the game opens with one, I'll start on the cut scenes.
The anime ones are rare, and they don't look that bad. The dubbing however, is dreadful. Completely and utterly dreadful. I'll let that slide however. The in-game cut scenes I will not. Never before have I 'played' such a passive game. There is so much talking, and most of it is along the lines of 'You will read this and enjoy it'. I'm fine with long cut scenes, but seeing as most of the ones in this game don't make a lot of sense, and don't have much in the way of stuff happening means they seem overlong and boring.
The game doesn't look too good. Yes, I know, it is a PS1 game, and yes I did play it straight after finishing Chrono Cross (probably the best lookig game on the system) but it does look a pixellated mess. I got used to it mind, and once I had it was perfectly acceptable. When I could see it. The camera is appalling. You can only swing it around the character, and the environments seemed to be designed to obscure your view at all times. Many times I spoke to a character, only for the camera to be directly behind my lead, meaning I couldn't see the animation on the NPC.
Even worse were the times when I couldn't see where I wanted to go, and as I'm fumbling with the camera a random battle starts. The battles themselves aren't too bad. The deathblow system is different, but it seems totally random exactly how you learn them. Pressing triangle always seemed the best way, no matter what the actually end combination was. The combo system was largely a waste of time (I noticed little in the way of extra damage from it, so I ignored it). Xenogears is also yet another game where offensive magic is largely useless. Why give a character area effect spells, when most of the time they miss. Similarly with Fei, why give him offensive spells when they do bob all damage.
Gear fights are also a change from the norm. Having fuel as an extra resource to manage was a good idea, but when you have to take on battle after battle, without refuelling, then have to fight a boss, it just seems very cheap. I only learned how to go into hyper mode later on after looking through a walkthrough.
The problem with the battles is the frequency. They happen far too often. Skies of Arcadia is supposed to be terrible for them, but you play this and wonder how people can say that. Every few steps you get into one. Not only that, when the game decides it is time for a battle, it freezes the jump button, but lets the game carry on for a few seconds. This means you'll try to make a jump, hammer the button, and as you are falling off hit a random battle. The same happens with doors. Go into a door, and if the game wants a random battle, you'll fight one then go through the door, rather than just letting you through. It's sloppy and there is no excuse for it.
Maybe this next point is all down to me, but I couldn't feel any real sympathy for the characters. They all seem to have some flaw that makes them really annoying. Even worse, later on some of them seem to have complete personality changes, which grates even more.
The next part is about the plot. This will be relatively spoiler-ific, so if you want to read it, highlight it.
WTF? Seriously, WTF? Did I miss something, or did that make no sense at all. It starts well enough, with some death, the Ygg and fighting an evil empire, but it slowly starts to peter out into some tripe about god, or something. It seems very similar to the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even more so when it gets to disc 2.
Ah, disc 2. Much like Eva's last two eps, it smacks of a game running out of time and money. It is patently obvious that they wanted to include many, many more adventures in the game. It's why they highlight some scenes with the chair technique. I'm pretty sure the only reason you get to play some of these is that these are the ones that were finished. Not being able to level up properly, not being able to use the map screen, and being led by the hand through various non-interactive guff annoyed me no end. In fact, it was shortly after the 2nd disc started that I found the characters changed for very little reason (a fact I put down to the game skipping over some major scenes to get the game out).
The part where Citan pretends to defect, where Elly suddenly starts being nice, where Sigured reveals himself and then it isn't mentioned again, they all smack of either bad translation or a sloppy plot. Bart slips from being an aggresive twit to a tactical genius and back again far too often. The half decent characters were largely non playable. Jessie and (who seems woefully under-developed) Sigurd deserved more screen time. At least Emeralda and Maria had some decent scenes. The fight with Maria's dad was probably the highlight of the game. Helps her gears just looks fantastic, especially when she sits on it rather than piloting it. Emeralda doesn't really get much screen time, but if you find the sub-quest where she grows up, it finally hits you. She's a hottie
The ending at least ends it, but it was more of a question of 'Oh well, it's over' rather than being something to write home about. I thought it was a little cheeky putting Xenogears Ep 5 on the end though. Still, at least I can be certain I won't be getting Xenosaga.
At least the game did show some difficulty. It does peak at a certain point (Murder as an enemy skill, which is a 1 hit kill, and is used without warning is very, very cheap) but once through that it's simply a question of putting the time in.
The music is decent, and the gears do look the part. I just wanted more 'hero-ness' stuff to happen. It seems a waste of a good scenario. I'd still say it was better than Chrono Cross, but it isn't one of my favourite RPGs, and it certainly doesn't hold up well today. Shame. Both of the reasons why I bought a PS1 turned out to be duffers.
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