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Xenosaga II

Started by kpjam, July 06, 2005, 02:25:39 PM

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kpjam

An epic story and a forgettable game.

Let's start with the good. The story is solid and enjoyable.  A wonderful, full-scale, space opera is woven into your box. We witness twists and turns as the curtain opens up to what happened 14 years ago. More of the high-level players enter (and some leave) the stage as betrayals and heartaches abound. Most occurring in the past, but a few current day ones as well. Without giving too much away, most of the current story deals with MOMO, JR, SHION, and her brother, Jin. The other characters exist, and take some part, but they really are minor. The end leads me to believe ZIGGY and Chaos will actually see some stage time in the next part of the story.  

The graphics are wonderful. It's obvious they spent a lot of time on the story and the pictures. I'm still curious as to why Shion received a heavy makeover, while none of the other characters did. Little tweaks were performed, but I didn't need outside confirmation for any of them.

Gameplay. They made changes. For better or worse, is for you to judge. The character battles are tactical. Turn based where it's broken into rounds and turns. Each round the game shows you the initial order of turns. Boost returns, so you can cut in line. However, so can the enemies. I noticed that they enemies tend to either use boost a lot, or not at all depending on the type. In addition, they tend to use it if you take too long to go (assuming they have one).

Now, on each turn, there's an event slot. Skill up, assigns a random multiplier for the skill bonus after victory, boost, and increases the speed, which your boost gauge increase, 6 others that are almost worthless). The skill-up only counts if you defeat an enemy on that turn. This brings most of the tactics into play. You need skill points. They are the only thing of any value in the whole game. You don't have equipment. You don't have money.

 You gain skill points and class points to buy skills. That's it. So the battles take forever, because it's takes less time to extent a battle a minute two get a (2, 4, or 10x) skill bonus than to find other battles. Which take a long time regardless? By the time you get through with this game, you should have moved from thinking this a decent and interesting battle system to object horror that you even picked it up.

They have also returned the mechanical battles to this offering. Unlike the previous game (and this actually makes more sense), you're forced to battle in the awcs or as characters for different segments. It only makes sense that if you're walking in space or a space dock you're in a mecha. In addition, that if you're in a building, the mecha won't fit. Unfortunately, the mecha battles are pretty cut and dry. Some tactics and accessorizing is advantageous. Also knowing that MOMO is the only one that can use ether(magic) inside a mecha makes it important to make sure she's in one and you know where she is.

Considering all this, there aren't a lot of fights in this game.  No random encounters at all.  The dungeons are small and puzzle filled (some fun, some super annoying).  There are almost as many puzzles as encounters in the second to last dungeon.

Through all this, there were only two battles I came close to loosing.  One in a mecha as I tried to figure out what worked against him.  And the final boss. If I don't loose a battle, the game is way too easy.

The side quest take up a good 45% of game time.  If you choose to finish them  Which you should because since you can't buy anything, you need to rely on skills.  Some of the skills which are most useful are hidden until you find a key. Keys are located behind the red-doors, in dungeons, or through side quests.  Some of the decoders for the red-doors, where you find the keys are only available through side-quests. 36 in all, 4 can't be completed till after you win the game.  Some are straightforward, go solve this puzzle in the electric plant.  Some bring new meaning to the word tedium, in a game which is tedious already.  You need to run between different locations(not all on the same map), multiple times. A couple annoying ones require you to find homes for cats(no other clues offered) and another where you have to find a place to hang 18 posters in one of the towns.  Some inside...

The true fault with gameplay is they take the fmv cut-in to new lows.  There are three sections where all you do is run from place to place to watch a scene! In between the scenes, you don't fight, you don't solve puzzles, you just run to the next spot.

If at all possible, avoid playing this, unless you like the tedius, and wait for them to make an anime of this part or see if someone will make a movie of the fmv sequences.  

This was cathartic for me, back to atelier iris.  A fun enjoyable game
he secret of tomb has been revealed, do nothing!

Dracos

Hmm, I've generally ignored this game so far.  Haven't felt like I missed much, though I believe olg enjoyed it.

Dracos
Well, Goodbye.