/vr/ - Retro Games

Try it if you're actually interested, see if you like it, and stop playing if you don't

It can get boring the same way most JRPGs can, due to high encounter rate with fights themselves not requiring any thinking. That makes you just want to get to the next story bit.

>>9207976
Most anons love Disc 2, because it reminds them of themselves: some bitch nigga on a speed date sitting in a chair trying to rap a load of inane crap to a girl.

>>9207990
Imagine if each and every random battle did require some thinking, though—it would be fucking exhausting
RPGs have got to be the most fundamentally flawed genre, I don't understand how people have the patience for them

>>9207976
>but is the story redeemed later in the Xeno series?
It's its own thing, it has nothing to do what's so ever with any of the later games bearing "Xeno" on their title.
There were some very vague references to it in the Xenosaga trilogy, but that series' writing had problems of its own, and in the end nothing was clearly established.

>>9208000
Have less trash fights overall in the game and it could work. It is definitely a flawed genre.

>>9207976
Disc 1 is a science fantasy with cool combat and plot. It also has some interesting ramblings on topics of "power" and "trauma".
Disc 2 is not only rushed but unfinished. Prepare for like 20+ hours of just reading about flashbacks of all those adventures your party had instead of actually playing the game and having those adventures. Majority of party members would not get ANY spotlight or development. Also, prepare yourself for a LOT of Gnosticism.
You know some RPGs like to use North Mythos, like Yggdrasil? Imagine someone doing this but with Christian terms and themes. This is Disc 2.

>>9207976
It is good and worth playing, my biggest complaint is there should have been more music tracks.

>>9207976
It's not great, and for some people it's peak missed potential, these people are very loud. For me it was peak what do these people see in this mess of ideas? All the praise they're heaping on it is done better in other games of the time. 6/10, they tried I guess.

>>9207976
I am kinda fascinated by the notion of people hating on the second disc because it was unfinished. Yeah, I would like if the narrative of the second disc was built upon organic interactions and less of a fractioned retelling, but Xenogears has such a bad gameplay so I really don't care.
The gameplay is terrible, even for it's time. Some sections require the player to go through janky platforming with the random encounters sometimes sabotaging your jumps. The combat is repetitious and boring. They tried to add variety by adding combo based attacks, but apart from the very early beginning, the player will always use his best combos right to the end of the game.
And the mecha combat has like only two approaches for each battle, both of which pre-determined by the equipment you buy.
It's not a difficult game, on the contrary it's one of the easiest JRPG's out there if you're not a retard, yet I still find it to be a very dreadful experience because of how fundamentally broken it's mechanics are.
I don't know if you'd be better just watch the cutscenes since it's an interactive fiction nonetheless, but the story most definitely didn't benefit from being crammed into a low-tier JRPG package.

It's got the best story of the Xeno games but it was ambitious to a fault, the scope was too large with a staff too inexperienced for the game to be finished in time. At the same time I've felt the later Xeno games have been too small in scope, though Xenosaga was cut 3 games shorter than intended and Xenoblade (not retro) hasn't really been a sequential story for the most part.

>>9207976
The story, characters and aesthetic redeem its dogshit gameplay. Well, the game play isn't totally horrible but it gets very repetitive. Its definitely a very good and unique experience. You won't forget it and may end up comparing future games to it.

Disc 2 has tedious plot delivery since you basically get put into. Disc 1 is mostly pretty fun but still questionably paced. Play it in hour long chunks instead of going at it for long, it can get tiring or boring otherwise. It's a game about the adventure mostly.
Combat is pretty bad and random encounters are terrible. You virtually have to put zero thought into any fight, other than a few curveballs (like 3-4 fights in the entire game that you need prep or strats for.)
I *HIGHLY* recommend an emulator to FF past the bullshit screen transitions, animations and filler dialogue because otherwise it's just tiresome. Use Mednafen or Beetle, not Duckstation. There's some problems on Duckstation.

>>9208000
>RPGs have got to be the most fundamentally flawed genre
That's not how it works. You can design a RPG and its combat mechanics in an infinite amount of ways.
>I don't understand how people have the patience for them
Play better RPGs, or play them just a bit here and there instead of playing them many hours straight.

>>9207976
Story is finished and it's basically unrelated to the rest of the "series".

>>9207976
>At the beginning of development, the game was going to be a stand-alone title unrelated to the Xeno series, bearing the title Monado: The Beginning of the World. Later, then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had the title changed to its current one to honor both Takahashi's previous titles and the effort he was investing in Xenoblade Chronicles.[43] According to Takahashi, the "Xeno" designation was more along the lines of a symbol, calling back to the previous works of Monolith Soft.[44] When describing the title's meaning, Takahashi described "Xeno" as meaning "different nature" or "uniqueness", while the "Blade" part was closely tied to the narrative, particularly the game's ending.[45]

They aren't a unified series. Several key people aren't even involved with the later Xeno games.
Timeline, multiverse, and canon autists try to confound everything, ignore them.

Xenogears a shit.

>>9208779
it's like your sole purpose in life is to wait until someone makes a Xenogears thread on /vr/ to post this. touch grass

>>9208791
Motherfucker, I mow it. And yes, Xenogears a shit, now and forever.

>>9208000
>Imagine if each and every random battle did require some thinking, though—it would be fucking exhausting
Not necessarily true, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne does it right. So does the Digital Devil Saga duology for what it's worth. You can steamroll lower level enemies from earlier areas, but most non-boss encounters as you progress are just enough of a challenge that they aren't tedious but you can easily fuck yourself over if you just go into them without thinking

>>9207976
No it is finished. The game had some budget issues in the second half but even with those issues they uncompromisingly completed every aspect of the story and allocated resources accordingly for the big finale. Most of the best scenes in the game are actually in Disc 2.

Definitely check it out, the entire Xeno series is really neat and has very unique feel to it. The whole meta series has really great scene composition which you don't find in other RPGs.

>>9209473
You don't mow it, bitch, you eat it like a bitch ass cow. Also, continue to suck Xenogears dick, because although you outwardly hate it, you secretly love it, which is why you'll continue on with your faggotry.

>>9208000
When done well they can be relaxing. You get into a groove while having room to explore builds and mechanics and such, with boss fights demanding more attention.

>>9208000
And, to be clear, Xenogears doesn't do it very well. There's just not much to explore or experiment with in combat. Just different hit combos to unlock deathless which sounds far more interesting than it actually is.

>>9208000
>Imagine if each and every random battle did require some thinking, though

Like FFT? That game rocks.

>>9211261
ayo this nigga eatin grass

>>9207976
>I've heard this game is unfinished, but is the story redeemed later in the Xeno series?
The story absolutely annihilates the other Xeno games, and most JRTPs in general. The issue is the presentation of the story on disk 2, which almost becomes a visual novel. Personally I don't even mind it because that's where the story becomes insanely interesting.

Saga is almost as good, but Namco fucked the development up. Saga 3 had to cram in a ton of the things they wanted to do across multiple games into one installment.

The weakest aspect of Gears is the slow gameplay.

>>9211618
>The story absolutely annihilates the other Xeno games

The other 7 Xeno games all have exactly the same story as Xenogears.

>>9207976
Anything is worth playing if you enjoy it

>>9212425
How dare you!
What about your 4chan's cred? Are you going to just ignore shitposts, jokes and peer pressure?

>>9212362
They literally don't though. Were you paying attention at all? The only similarities are superficial or concepts in the lore.

>>9207976
i thought it was pretty good
but its a v pretentious and the graphics have aged quite poorly

if youre ok with ps1 graphics (subpar)
and a long-winded allegorical story then try it

>>9213008
I don't think it's really pretentious at all. The only aspect that is might be the name-dropping of philosophy and religious concepts that could have been better masked for subtlety.

>>9207976
First disc is great, you'll get a few dozen hours of decent jrpg fun times out of it.
>but is the story redeemed
No. The story is complete nonsense anyway.

>>9208000
Panzer dragoon saga does this but fights never get boring in it, probably because it's easy to evade them

>>9213683
Story isn't compete nonsense.

>>9207976
Don't get meme'd by the whole "second disk" thing. The game is not "unfinished". Saying that implies that the game just stops and leaves you hanging, which it absolutely does not.

The short story there is that there's about 10 hours of end-game content that gets reduced to about 2 hours, and a monologue. It's nothing terribly exciting, but it's naturally disappointing to see story content get cut. The game is already long enough, so it's a non-issue unless you just want to shitpost.

Play the game. Join us. You shall be as gods.

>>9213770
>The game is not "unfinished"
>but it's naturally disappointing to see story content get cut

>>9214365
This is like saying the gundam movies are unfinished because they cut out the filler episodes

I am sad that they didn't have enough time to make girl pope playable but it is a good thing, because she would also get shafted by the Disc 2 like almost everyone.
Freaking Kahran got better character development and c than anyone else.

>>9214669
Hey nigger, my OP said no spoilers. Do my a favour and sniff your mother's cunt

>>9211589
Tactics games have an insane advantage by not being solely menu-based with random encounters, there's more actual gameplay

>>9213683
If you think the story is nonsensical, you're dumb. It's one of the most satisfying stories in Vidya. The second disk is better since it moves at a fast pace and doesn't have the annoying dungeons.

>>9208098
More retarded “disc 2” misinfo.

Disc 2 has the best dungeons, some of the best plot beats, and plenty of optional content. In no way does it make the game less than a 10/10.

Never forget that this game crucified a giant pink hamster. As well as crucifying giant robots with their pilots sitting comfortably inside the cockpits.

>>9215206
This, I agree 100%. Disk 2 is where my enjoyment of Xenogears always hits its peak.

>>9211618
>which almost becomes a visual novel
I wish. It's much closer to reading a plot summary.

Still a great game though, despite how rushed parts of Disk 2 were.

>>9207976
It's one of the best games Squaresoft ever made.

>>9215726
>Like reading a plot summary
Just like release Mother 3. God, I wish Itoi and Nintendo just used Namco/Monolith Soft/Sega/Square or SOMEONE As a 3D RPG workhorse to port/remake the N64 game to GC. The GBA version is so empty

>>9207976
No. Xeno games are all pretentious trash. People believe they are deep because they throw around proper nouns from judeo christian canon and philosophy, but they're all empty reference for ther sake of reference. Basically if you think they're smart it's because you're stupid.
Some of em have cool robots though, so there's that.

>>9216205
Nope, not even remotely true. They have some of the most satisfying stories of all vidya. The name-dropping is the only pretentious element.

I, of course, disagree.

It's BALLER

>>9207976
Disc 2 of Xenogears isn't Xenogears. It was everything they were planning for the sequel, but when they found out there wouldn't be a sequel, they finished it up as fast as possible and stapled it to the end of this game.

All the Xenosaga games take places before Xenogears without having anything copyright sensitive involved in them. That series was also ended early, but still managaged to wrap up all it's plot points.

Xenoblade was originaly NOT a Xenogears game, but Iwata Really fucking loved Xenogears and practically begged them to keep it going.

Xenoblade 2 has enough parallels to Xenogears that it might as well be a soft reboot

And from what I've seen so far of XB3, it covers most of the stuff in Gears that 2 didn't

>>9216391
>Xenoblade 2 has enough parallels to Xenogears that it might as well be a soft reboot
Too bad, Xenoblade 2 is the faggiest way they would have went about reviving Xenogears

>>9215584

>>9216391
They've been trying to recapture Xenogears ever since they shipped it. But that level of ambition in the gaming industry began and ended with Xenogears, and most would argue that the game itself couldn't even fulfill it.

>>9215206
I like XG but it's nowhere near 10/10.

>>9216391
>Xenoblade was originaly NOT a Xenogears game, but Iwata Really fucking loved Xenogears and practically begged them to keep it going.
Proofs?

>>9217878
>The level of ambition in the gaming industry.
You're confusing ambition with Sony injecting pure money directly into Square's veins to muscle out competition in an industry they just entered.

>>9207976
>but is the story redeemed later in the Xeno series?
Don't even think about that, whatever ties it was supposed to have were severed when Xenosaga's sales dwindled and they capped it at part 3, and Namco tried to spin it as a "spiritual predecessor" to Xenoears, despite promotional interviews for Xenosaga 1 featuring the devs outright stating there were going to six saga games, with the hypothetical Xenosaga 5 being a gears remake that never happened.

And then at some point the same devs decided they liked the Xeno prefix so much they slapped it on Xenoblade and decided to force the whole "Xeno" shit as some established franchise even though they have fuckall to do with each other.

>>9216391
>All the Xenosaga games take places before Xenogears
If this were 2003 and we were reading interviews where the devs teased Xenosaga 5: Xenogears the Remake the Game, you'd be right.

Now it's CY+7 and it's been 15 years since Namco reneged on that after part 3 failed and suddenly it's just a "spiritual predecessor".

>>9218375
Do you normally only experience a seires through promotional material and interviews, or did you just have your eyes closed at the end of XS3? Fei, Ellie, Kosmos and Chaos take the Zohar back to earth, and Jin goes back to help them and dies explaining how the Solaris Recycling system eventually made Citan

>>9208779
>>9209473
>>9211261
Xenogears is THE shit.
Xenogears is the dick you get rammed every night.
You're just another bitch nigga that do princess cosplays like sissy ass Cloud.

>>9218727
Cloud isn't a twink, he's actually massive but has overtrained his forearms, giving the optical illusion of being skinny

>>9218737
Okay Barret.

I've never played the game so I don't know whether it's good or bad, but everything I read about Xenogears makes it sound worse than it did before I read that thing.

>>9219537
Xenogears is a clusterfuck. Some unparalleled greatness alongside utter shit.

>>9215679
This nigga contrarians.

>>9208000
They're not fundamentally flawed, you can do the gameplay loop of an RPG well but a lot of the earlier ones don't. While you're right that not every random battle should require thinking, there has to be a reason for them to exist so you can get in the relaxing groove of kill a trash mob > gain stats > level up > utilize new strategies against boss.

The problem is there's SO many ways this gameplay loop can fail. If the bosses are too easy, if every boss can lose to the same easy strategy, if there is no room for strategies/builds/experimentation, if there's not enough bosses to make use of these strategies, if the encounter rate is too high, if the game is too focused on grinding because the bosses are too hard... plus ALL of these things are subjective to the player anyways.

It is a pretty difficult balance to get right and I think most earlier RPGs do not and they got by on being the only way a game was going to be 30+ hours long back then. Some my most most fondly remembered games of that era are pretty hard to go back to for me.

>>9218727
Take your meds now, you schizo, small cock nigger.

>>9220075
If you can't figure out why someone might prefer disc 2 to disc 1 you are the double nigger.

It's fun if you sit back and relax.

RPGs don't need to be zoomzoom speedran with optimal 100% clears. You only like to play 5 min FPS quick matches with 9 other randos you can screech at the entire game? Then this genre probably isn't for you.

Of course it has flaws; it's an overproduced game than ran into underdevelopment issues during a time of heavy experimentation in vidya, all of which was controlled by imperfect people.
But it's a fun magic-kung-fu-mecha-existential-crisis-sci-fi lazy river ride.

>>9207976
I'd say it's worth at least trying it out.

Pros:
- Story is great.
- Combat is generally fun (though on-foot combat being piss easy while mech combat is a tad hard if you don't know how to cheese it is annoying).
- Graphics and cinematography were good for its time and haven't aged toooo badly.
- Great cast of antagonists and the 3 main lead protagonists are even better. Some of the other party members can feel shafted though.

Cons:
- Some of the dungeons have platforming elements, and it's really crappy in some of them.
- Disc 2 is notably low budget. There's a lot of narration of stuff that was clearly supposed to be playable or at least normal cutscenes. Though to be fair the game would've been too long if disc 2 was as long as disc 1.

>>9207976
is this actually similar to Evangelion or is that just a meme?

>>9221454
not very similar, there are people with mental issues and mechas, that's about it, closer to gundam than evangelion

>>9207976
i genuniely think this is not worth playing.

>>9207976
The story is alright but damn does it drag its feet sometimes and take forever to elaborate on some plot points. The game is unfinished but its ending is still fine so if you're weary of playing it because you think you're going to get blueballed by the story right at the end then don't worry about that. It's really just the presentation rushes the plot in the last quarter of the game and it skips over dungeons you can tell were going to be in. It's a completely standalone game, any other "xeno" game is related at best thematically or sharing similar plot points.

The gameplay is pretty fucking dull, and I say that as someone who's played lots of turn-based JRPGs. You will quite literally be doing the same thing over and over nearly every battle for 80 hours. Learning new Deathblows is a cool concept but it boils down to using the strongest one you have access to every turn of every battle.

I don't know if I'd say it's worth playing. If you really love ps1 JRPGs then yeah probably but if you can't stomach basic as fuck gameplay then no.

>>9221454
Yes, just like Evangelion it borrowed elements from Arthur C. Clarke books (2001 a space odyssey, childhoods end) but outside of that they are only aesthetically similar. If you read a lot of sci-fi or watch mecha you will probably see that it references a ton of different things, not just evangelion.

How often do the mechs come up in this? Is it just window dressing?

>>9222479
It's set in Real Robot setting where mechs were excavated from ancient ruins and used in warfare, but the distribution of ruins is lopsided so one country has upper hand in the war. But Fei's mech Weltall progressively becoming something straight out of Super Robot genre, you know the drill.

>>9221454
spergs who rely only on visual information see a red-haired girl in a mecha and immediately mental-bucket her as Asuka. so it's just memes from retards.

>>9217979
He's full of shit, the actual reason is Iwata knows Takahashi is mostly known for Xeno and suggested his next game be branded as such. The official reasoning Iwata gave was to "honor Takahashi" but let's face it, with Xeno in the name it was more marketable to the fanbases of Xenogears and Xenosaga, with the original Monado name it probably wouldn't have gained the traction that it did.

>>9222295
>weary

also you probably say "adverse" instead of "averse" so please stop doing that as well

>>9223157
ok fag

>>9223157
adverse and averse are different words, weary means the same thing as tired even if it's typically used after being physically tired not mentally

>>9222681
Ah, pretty neat actually. Thanks anon.

>>9208469
What problems on duckstation? finished it just fine, just had to tone down pgxp

>>9226240
Some of Deus's attacks softlocked the game. It was on Swanstation though, maybe they fixed it in newer Duckstation builds. I'll have to try it in Duckstation and see if it's still busted, googling it some people also reported issues. If you used the undub then that was fixed, but I didn't since I already had the ROM and the entire game has like 4 lines of voiced dialogue.

>>9208469
it plays flawless on duckstation. can confirm, as i just finished it. also, duckstation is a better emulator than those others.

>but is the story redeemed later in the Xeno series?
In a large part yes. Chunks were redone from the other games in Xenosaga. Games 1 and 2 actually, rember Xenogears was supposed to be game 5 of 6. 3 is XBX in large part because 3 was supposed to be about why long distance space travel was a thing and that terraforming was neccesary, Daos was a terraforming device meant to create a rich environment almost instantly for all organic building material available. So we're missing 4 which was supposed to be about the the Holy War. 6 was supposed to be the finale but I don't know how the fuck they'd pull that off after 5's ending. Xenoblade 1,2,3 are its own continuity and is simply a Gaiden of the mainline.

That and you should play the rest. The only bad game in THE WHOLE SERIES is Xenosaga 2. All the other games are great!

>>9207976
Xenogears is good for you.

>>9226498
>The only bad game in THE WHOLE SERIES is Xenosaga 2

And that's even up for debate, because I happened to like it a lot. I feel like Xenosaga 1 starts out kind of meh (mainly because Shion takes a bit to grow on some people as a main character), but has a continual ramp up from that point throughout the whole series. The worldbuilding is top notch for the universe of that series.

>>9226486
Mednafen is still more accurate. It's not that Duckstation isn't accurate, it's just that it takes some shortcuts to up performance on low end devices by default. I still use Swanstation since I like shaders though.

>>9226498
BUT ANON

What if
WHAT FUCKING IF
Xenoblade is 6 and the space station that created the universe was Shevat?!?!?!??!?1

bump

It's a big series and we really have nothing to talk about. Only 2 of the 7 series isn't retro. There's a lot to talk about

>>9229363
There's 7 Xeno series?

>>9207976
Wished had been N64 exclusive.

>>9233035
>Blotches and smokey textures with tons of filters that would make it look like LA
>No CD quality sound
>Would have to make the FMVs 25x18 resolution
Wat

>>9231475
gears
saga
saga
saga
blade
bladex
blade
blade

So 8?

>>9233065
Games on two disc compression with sampled FM.

>>9207976
Yes it's worth playing but use a guide because you get lost easy. There are some really annoying parts where you get lost and have to random battle too much it gets frustrating. Also the stupid cave where you have to jump around is a bitch.