Xenogears: When Endless Ambition Confronts Reality
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- čas přidán 10. 02. 2023
- This video contains footage from later in Xenogears, but all footage is out of context enough that if you aren't familiar with the game it shouldn't be too spoilery. Watch at your own risk.
Honestly I did rush this video a bit to have it out by the anniversary, but I really did put my heart and soul into it. Kinda reminds me of a certain video game. Was it Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2? Xeno Crisis? Eh I don't remember.
Music:
The Beginning and the End
Fangs Bared at God
Awakening
Bond of Sea and Flame
The Blackmoon Forest
Lost... Screeching Shards
Shevat The Wind Calls
Ancient Dance of Aveh
Dark Dawn
Stars of Tears
Desert City Dazil
Infiltration
The Thames Men of the Sea
Cage of Remorse and Relief
Windy Song - Hry
It’s gotta be remade someday 😭 best story driven game of all time. Story, soundtrack, art direction… amazing
facts
Hell no. It's gonna get butchered and grind to indistinguishable paste before being fed to the ignorant masses of social media. Better leave it alone.
A lot of people call it A FLAWED MASTERPIECE! And I couldn't agree more! I LOVE THIS GAME! ONE OF MY FAVORITES!
It is the greatest game ever made. It showed that games could go dark and hold a mainstream audience. It showed that a game can lean directly into a player's intelligence and make something greater than the sum of its parts. It is absolutely the reason The Last of Us and God of War today can have austere and macabre scenes and not be considered extreme.
Its development is almost as wonderful of a story as its narrative. Takahashi and Tanaka went from being told their ideas were too dark, too controversial, too extreme, to the point of removal from the creative direction of Xenosaga, to selling 1.7M of XC3 and spearheading development of two Zelda games (arguably the most mainstream series of all). It is truly one of the most unlikely success stories in the history of gaming, and proof that if you stick to your principles, don't insult the intelligence of your patrons, and believe in your creative methods, you will eventually get to define success rather than have it defined for you.
This game holds a special place in my heart and memory. I found the deathblow-based combat system engaging, though the gear combat could have used a bit more polish: it definitely emphasizes a pretty narrow range of builds when it comes to dealing with bosses - attack speed first before all else - but the ocean of random encounters you'll have to grind through are much more variable, so it's easy to lose the focus you'll need to make the bosses survivable.
As for Disc 2... I agree that they did indeed pull together the various plot threads and explain what the competing secret councils and masterminds were trying to do. And I'm glad for the story's sake that the game didn't end on Disc 1, because that would only have been a stopping point while we waited for the sequel, not an ending. But I'm not convinced that it was anything other than a desperation move: even in novels, the advice is to "show, don't tell", and the raw exposition just isn't as good as playing through the events of Disc 1. It goes from seeing Id mock Bart for dropping a battleship on him in Disc 1, to almost Shakespearean levels of abrupt, minimalist stage direction (e.g., "They fight. Tybalt falls.") in Disc 2. And, as you note, almost the entire cast was relegated to little more than NPC status, even though there must have been some fascinating things going on that they'd be involved in.
...Admittedly, Xenogears is hardly the only game to have that last problem. NPC companions who basically clam up once you've done their quest are everywhere, even in otherwise good games. I get that it's a lot of work to come up with something interesting for each character to say in every situation, especially when the focus is on two or three designated main characters. At the same time though, that's a game dev's job.
Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with what we got, but I think Xenogears fell prey to scope creep. The developer didn't set out to create a good game, he wanted to make _the best game ever,_ the final word in epic JRPGs. And he took a pretty good stab at it: I can see the grand scope he was aiming for, and it is genuinely amazing even today - but bottling that up into a single game meant big compromises, and I'm not sure he fully understood that going in.
One of the reasons why I keep looking for mecha games.
i freaking love disc 2
One of the greatest RPG's ever. Fight me
It's incomplete, its story topples under the weight of its pretention and convolution, the battle system is ridiculously mid, the art direction is inconsistent, it's psychological inspirations are misinterpreted. Music is klakla though, no shade there.
@@baconatorrodriguez4651 And Yet this Game is Easily one my Favorite games of all time!
Even though I never played this game, I'm just glad it exists mainly because it and Xenosaga are what lead to Xenoblade, which has essentially become my favorite video game franchise now. I'm really hoping that Xenogears could be remade one day
does this mean you'll buy a remake of them 🧐
@@niteriemcfarlane5285 yeah
Played xenogears, but never played xenoblade or chronicles. Which game should I start with?
@@darkness439 you could start with any, though I’d recommend going in order, so I’d say start with 1
@BulbaWhat98 And I recommend seeking out Xenogears *before* it's ever remade.
Physical copies for ps1 can be pricey, but they used to have it on the PS store.
Great Review!
Hey nice video :)
Much love to Xenogears.
I hope they at least port this game square is so stupid by not capitalizing on that and porting it to newer consoles, I love the second disc cause although heavily rushed it brings about so much info and interesting concepts and it’s just honestly better than having no disc 2 or sequel I don’t think a remake would be good cause squares more focused one NFT’s and the og team is mainly at monolith unless they wanna make it a switch exclusive I’m still hopeful 😔
Oh yeah? If xenogears is so good, then why isn’t there a game party 12?
Ryan you always present the most interesting questions
The game has aged poorly, particularly the story and random encounters. The original creators being insane grifters that float from company to company retelling the same story over and over doesn't help.
Okay
We can say the same for many others games from this era and still Xenogears comes up as a very unique awesome and charming game.