Xenosaga

Alright, so considering I've almost got Xenogears finished off, I'm really interested in picking this up. However, two things will greatly affect my decision.

1) Honestly, including the ridiculously long cinematics, how long does this game take to finish? I would estimate that I'll be somewhere around 80 hours before beating Xenogears and I honestly do not want to spend that much time on another RPG right now. If it's closer to 40 hours, however, I would be very tempted to pick it up.

2) Does this game do anything to remedy the most irritating aspects of the RPG genre? In other words, am I going to have to spend an extra 10 hours running around leveling my characters up? What about the random encounter rate? Am I going to be fending off baddies every five steps? On top of that, how does the random encounter system work? Can I see the enemies onscreen (and thus avoid them if I wish to) or is it Final Fantasy style with enemies attacking me from thin air? In other words, how mush effort was put into eliminating the annoying bullshit that plagues nearly every RPG known to man?

Any help I could get on this would be greatly appreciated.

I've beaten it a few times. Here you go...

1.) I got to the end boss without realizing it in ~40 hours, when it advertised 80 hours of gameplay. The problem was, I wasn't strong enough to beat him, and was missing some key elements. I had to restart.

2.) There ARE no random encounters, exactly. You see the monsters on screen when you move, and whatnot. Levelling your characters a little IS recommended, but it's not necessary to run around for 10+ hours levelling in every area. The combat system isn't nearly as cool as Xenogears' was, however.

1) Haven't beaten it yet

2) I was super-powerful for a lot of the bosses, mainly because I love to build up. (Maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment). If I didn't level up, I still could've beaten most of the bosses. Also, in the field, there is some strategy involved - if you can sneak past a monster a little, then make him see you and lure him to an explosive barrel, you'll start out with a "Critical Hit" turn, and stun the enemy on the field completely.

The only real annoying thing about the combat is the fact that there seems to be no boss music at all. Get used to the default battle theme. Oh, that and the whole "yelling your tech before you perform it" thing. Once you level up your techs (i.e. Deathblows in Xenogears) you'll be able to perform them once a turn (you normally have to save up AP for them). "Take This! Lightning BLAST!!!!!" "Take This! Spell RAY!!!"

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Alright, so considering I've almost got Xenogears finished off, I'm really interested in picking this up. However, two things will greatly affect my decision. 1) Honestly, including the ridiculously long cinematics, how long does this game take to finish? I would estimate that I'll be somewhere around 80 hours before beating Xenogears and I honestly do not want to spend that much time on another RPG right now. If it's closer to 40 hours, however, I would be very tempted to pick it up. 2) Does this game do anything to remedy the most irritating aspects of the RPG genre? In other words, am I going to have to spend an extra 10 hours running around leveling my characters up? What about the random encounter rate? Am I going to be fending off baddies every five steps? On top of that, how does the random encounter system work? Can I see the enemies onscreen (and thus avoid them if I wish to) or is it Final Fantasy style with enemies attacking me from thin air? In other words, how mush effort was put into eliminating the annoying bullshit that plagues nearly every RPG known to man? Any help I could get on this would be greatly appreciated.

I hate to bust your bubble , but xenosaga two will be out soon you better hurry (It be funny if you beat it the day xenosaga 2 shits the shelves

It be funny if you beat it the day xenosaga 2 shits the shelves

Didn't realize Namco was planning on packaging feces with the game. I'll be sure to avoid it. Thanks for the tip.

Meh, I've got a ton of other stuff to worry about at the moment. I still haven't even started Tales of Symphonia, so maybe I'll have to hold off on Xenosaga until the Gamecube-Revolution gap, at which point I anticipate I'll have a sorrowful lack of games to play.

Anyway, thanks for the info, guys. I really honestly want to play this, but if 40 hours is cutting it close, I'll just have to wait on it.

40 hours was me rushing thru the gameplay to get back to more storyline sequences.

Yeah, which is why I'm hesitant about it. If it was a leisurely 40 hours, I'd probably pick it up. But, knowing how finicky I get about finding all the extra shit in an RPG, I would probably end up taking 80 hours to beat it. I just can't squeeze that into my free time, expecially considering ToS is probably going to eat up 80 hours, then Baten Kaitos will do the same once I'm finished with that. I really want to play this fucking game. Why couldn't I have had this kind of money in highschool? I had all kinds of free time back then!!

Free time and money are equivalent to Matter-Antimatter. Where one exists, the other cannot.