Talk about Xenogears

[Wolfscythe]

I got a bit obsessed about this game when I finished playing it some time ago and now that my next goal is to begin the Xenosaga trilogy my interest in Xenogears was reborn, so I decided to begin a topic about this, some people think that it's not only better than any of the FF games, but is maybe the best game of Square (Soft/Enix) ever, even above titles like Chrono Trigger. I`m not sure about those bold affirmations, but Xenogears is really a great game and some would say an incomplete artwork, so I would like to hear the opinions about this of you people :3

[solidbatman]

I beat the Xenosaga series and it is my favorite series of games to date (or at least impacted me the most). That being said, I cannot seem to get into Xenogears. I play for about 3-5 hours and just lose interest. I don't know what the problem is, granted Xenosaga took about 10 hours to hook me.

[Wolfscythe]

I beat the Xenosaga series and it is my favorite series of games to date (or at least impacted me the most). That being said, I cannot seem to get into Xenogears. I play for about 3-5 hours and just lose interest. I don't know what the problem is, granted Xenosaga took about 10 hours to hook me.

Somehow I understand that feeling, initially I played Xenosaga ep I and long time after that I started Xenogears, the first impressions are really different although Tetsuya Takahashi worked on both of 'em, but beyond the fact that the two stories take place in the same universe, the settings don't let them be connected. The only real thing that appears in the two is the Zohar, but in Xenogears it appears almost at the end.

Anyway, considering that you can't take Xenogears and Xenosaga as the same, still the two of them are worth a shot.

[Tay]

Sorry to intrude, but I've long-wanted to play these games but have never tried them. I realize this only compounds the current discussion, but where would you suggest I start? I own a PS3, so digital downloads thru the PSN are ideal, but if necessary I can drag out my PS2 and play games on that.

[solidbatman]

It really doesn't matter where you start. Xenogears and Xenosaga while technically sharing the same universe, really don't have any relation to each other. Xenosaga is a series of 3 games none of which are on the PSN. So you'll have to get your PS2 and buy all 3 games. Xenogears is on the PSN for $10 I think, so it's fairly cheap. Gears has those typical mix of PS1 sprites and 3-D scenes so it looks far worse than Saga. Also Gears translation is pretty funky though game play wise, it uses an ATB while Saga uses slower paced turn based battles in all 3 games. Sooo in short.... it doesn't matter where you start. I guess if you don't want to start 3 games, go ahead and play Gears. I hear the second part of Gears was heavily budgeted and suffers from a massive quality drop. Maybe Wolfscythe can confirm that.

[Wolfscythe]

Agree with solidbatman, doesn't matter where you start, there's no real connection between them, the battle system is different and the graphics are psone for Xenogears and ps2 for Xenosaga, about the quality drop in the second part of Xenogears is right, apparently they got out of money, so they had to cut a lot of story and is almost entirely cinematics for disc two, the only compensation for that that I could find is the Xenogears Perfect Works artbook, that explains all the story settings that remained unlocked, and if you want to go for Xenosaga there is some info about the universe, some history about the zohar, and things that you could actually relate to Xenosaga, but just for enrichment on the story beyond the plot.