After 3 whole months, I'm FINALLY done with Xenogears, and oh boy what a trip it was.
The story in-game is very very good. I will admit that it didn't really capture me for the first, like 2 dozen hours, but around Shevat is when the game really started to get me. It was a VERY wild ride from there. I will say that I actually kinda like disc 2, because i really liked the story but I will say the pacing is very odd. It just feels like things happen and it goes by so quick you don't have a chance to take it all in. I understand completely though, since they were new to game development and had serious time crunch. The story went from very good to AMAZING when I looked into Perfect Works, the Xenogears book speaking about the entire Xenogears storyline from the beginning to the start of the game, and I find it so fascinating, simple as. It's also fascinating how Perfect Works is kind of like the bible of the Xeno series, with many things from Xenosaga and Xenoblade being inspired by the original storyline of Xenogears. This story is amazing and I kind of wish Takahashi was able to tell it in it's entirety, but we might not have had saga and blade if it did so, whatever!
The gameplay is fine. It's good, but there a few problems. My main gripe is I'm not a big fan of the gear battles. I get that it's the main thing of the game, but even after finding out how to play them they're just...alright. I much prefer the on-foot battles. I think deathblows are a bit fun, If a bit hard to manage with all the characters in your party.
The music is reallll good! I really like the Shevat theme (can you tell I like Shevat?) The boss and final boss theme, very nice. It's got that PS1 twang to it. Oh, and, I don't usually talk about graphics, but I LOVE HOW THIS GAME LOOKS! The amazing pixel sprites on top of the PS1 environments looks so freaking good, I want to make a game that looks like this someday!
Overall, fantastic game. The reason why it's not a 5/5 comes with some gameplay issues, pacing issues near the end of disc 1 and most of disc 2, and the fact that it took a while for the game's story to really grab me, but that might just be because I came from Xenoblade and got a bit hyped up on this game before I actually played it.
The story in-game is very very good. I will admit that it didn't really capture me for the first, like 2 dozen hours, but around Shevat is when the game really started to get me. It was a VERY wild ride from there. I will say that I actually kinda like disc 2, because i really liked the story but I will say the pacing is very odd. It just feels like things happen and it goes by so quick you don't have a chance to take it all in. I understand completely though, since they were new to game development and had serious time crunch. The story went from very good to AMAZING when I looked into Perfect Works, the Xenogears book speaking about the entire Xenogears storyline from the beginning to the start of the game, and I find it so fascinating, simple as. It's also fascinating how Perfect Works is kind of like the bible of the Xeno series, with many things from Xenosaga and Xenoblade being inspired by the original storyline of Xenogears. This story is amazing and I kind of wish Takahashi was able to tell it in it's entirety, but we might not have had saga and blade if it did so, whatever!
The gameplay is fine. It's good, but there a few problems. My main gripe is I'm not a big fan of the gear battles. I get that it's the main thing of the game, but even after finding out how to play them they're just...alright. I much prefer the on-foot battles. I think deathblows are a bit fun, If a bit hard to manage with all the characters in your party.
The music is reallll good! I really like the Shevat theme (can you tell I like Shevat?) The boss and final boss theme, very nice. It's got that PS1 twang to it. Oh, and, I don't usually talk about graphics, but I LOVE HOW THIS GAME LOOKS! The amazing pixel sprites on top of the PS1 environments looks so freaking good, I want to make a game that looks like this someday!
Overall, fantastic game. The reason why it's not a 5/5 comes with some gameplay issues, pacing issues near the end of disc 1 and most of disc 2, and the fact that it took a while for the game's story to really grab me, but that might just be because I came from Xenoblade and got a bit hyped up on this game before I actually played it.