Xenosaga III is good

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:54 pm

Really really good. Yesterday was my day off, and I ended up playing 10 hours straight - only stopping because I had work today.

Awesome things about the game:
- the soundtrack is excellent, much more like Matsuda's work in 1. There is a lot of ambient sound and the music fits the mood of the game much better
- animation and environments are fucking beautiful. It's been a while since I've just sat back and stared at the artwork in a game
- voice acting is excellent - they brought back Shion and KOS-MOS from the first game, and the script is very well written
- the battle system is a ton of fun - boss fights have been very difficult so far, but not frustrating. They've made some tweaks to the regular system too that make regular battles go faster and add more depth - commands are responsive and quick
- menus are a breeze to navigate through, and everything in the battle menu is streamlined - if you don't want to watch it count exp and skill points, hit X and you're back to the game almost instantly
- no load times for battles
- they changed a lot of the character dialog to Valkyrie Profile style, where you get a closeup drawn image of the face. It works a lot better, because there are no lips to be horribly out of sync. For important scenes though, they go back to Xenosaga style, only they did a great job of syncing the lips.
- the story is just amazing so far - it's tying back to Xenogears WAY more than I expected, and the presentation, acting, and cinematography are all superb, making this a really great experience so far. Highly recommended so far

Vault Dweller · Post by **Vault Dweller** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:08 pm

Even at the end of the game, Ziggy still has the most HP by over 1000 points...

Oh, and some of the voice actors(namely chaos'), make me want to maul infants at the end.

The most powerful enemy has 999,999 HP...YAY ES BATTLES!

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:08 pm

I can't wait for this. I also don't like to bash XS2, since that was the first Xenosaga game I ever played, and I liked it. But I guess you yanks are entitled to hate XS2.

Good to hear that XS3 seems to be a huge improvement.

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:19 pm

Agozer, did you play the first Xenosaga, or at least watch the DVD?

Lizking · Post by **Lizking** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:25 pm

does xenosagaIII come with a DVD that sums up the previous two games? I played about half of Xenosaga, but I just couldn't find myself to like it enough to finish it. Then I heard that XenosagaII was random battle hell, where any battle could take upwards of 5 minutes.

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:42 pm

Lizking - no it doesn't. Xenosaga I had the official DVD you got for preordering Xenosaga II. There was no official DVD for 2, but I bought a good one on eBay. I'll rip them both tonight and host them.

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:28 pm

casualsax3 wrote:Agozer, did you play the first Xenosaga, or at least watch the DVD?

I have the DVD but I have only watched roughly half of it.

Vault Dweller · Post by **Vault Dweller** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:26 am

If you don't mind alot of reading, theres summaries of the first two games, and a HUGE in-game database.

On a different note, I actually started to cry at one point during the game.

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:23 pm

Which game, and how far in (instead of saying what part in case I haven't seen it)

Also, DVD rips of the movies are up.

Vault Dweller · Post by **Vault Dweller** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:32 am

Third game, around half-way through disk two.

Post by **Agozer** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:42 pm

Second game. Just arrived at the Submerged City.