Xenosaga, sadly, is more bark then bite.

User Rating: 6 | Xenosaga Episode I Reloaded: Chikara e no Ishi PS2
Xenosaga is a series I had looked forward to for a very long time. I love sci-fi and RPGs so what could go wrong? I even named half my GS user profile after one of the characters and imported a US PlayStation 2 and the first game to be able to play them. And sadly, while not a terrible game, Xenosaga is ultimately flawed on many levels and was a sour disappointment for a game I had been looking forward to playing for so long.

The main problem with Xenosaga is not only it's story but the way in which it is told. It's essentially a convoluted mess full of jargon and plot points that are never really explained. Xenosaga also has a main bad guy that is so unbelievably awful with as far as i could tell, the most laughable motive for any character i have come across. To top this off, like all JRPGs the game is full of cutscenes, however unlike most they are the sort of cutscenes that simply won't die. They go on for what seems like forever in places, usually taking 40 minutes to give maybe 5 minutes worth of information. Simply put, i found the story amazingly boring and when an RPG is fairly centered around that point, it's not a good start.

The battle system to Xenosaga is in itself pretty fun though needlessly complicated. When a system has the standard HP and exp then also EP, SP, AP and TP, you know there are simply far too many ingredients to not be overwhelming. Even towards the end of the game it was a struggle to remember in the menu where i needed to go to use which type of point and even worse there are skill extractions from items, stat increases and things to micromanage and while it may sound fine on paper more often then not less really is more.

During combat Xenosaga runs a turn based system where turns are allocated by the characters or enemies speed. When having attacked enough, a character can "boost" and jump to the next in line cutting off an enemies attack, though they can also do it. Each character has various attacks that can be equipped to either high or low attack slots each of which are effective against certain enemy types and use a set amount of action points to be used that refresh at 2 points a turn. So for some attacks that take 6 points a character would have to guard for some turns to build up the points to use that attack.

Certain characters also have access to giant mechs known as AGWS (Anti-Gnosis Weapon system) that are far more powerful then the normal characters and can be jumped into at any point in battle and can be upgraded in various places like towns or with parts found in dungeons.

Visually Xenosaga is actually surprisingly good looking for a fairly early PS2 game. All the character models are fairly solid with a very anime feel and the cutscenes all look nice using the in game engine to great effect. Some of the animation is a bit wooden in places though and the camera angles when running through dungeons are normally quite high up so it's hard to really get a feel for the detail.

The audio is a bit hit and miss however. The voice acting is all performed well with each character standing out from the rest with some fairly well known game / anime actors playing parts like Crispin Freeman. The music however doesn't quite stand up to the voices though, the problem with it is it's easily forgettable and at no point will you find yourself excited or moved by it, kind of like elevator music, you acknowledge it's existence but that is as far as your care factor goes.

Xenosaga's lifespan is quite hard to actually judge. By the last dungeon i was level 26 yet had "played" the game for over 40 hours. If you take the cutscenes out i suspect the time i had actually spent doing anything was closer to 15. There is plenty to do though with a fair amount of side questing, VR training and hidden items to collect. Like any RPG really now days Xenosaga is if anything, good value for money.

Overall i really can't recommend Xenosaga to anyone but really hardcore RPG fans, and even then there are many better games around. It's surprisingly overly complicated to start and has a boring nonsensical story that unfortunately hold it back from the potential it had with some nice graphics and characters. Here is hoping the next two parts improve on the start der wille zur macht has set.

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+ Pretty good visuals.
+ Tactical combat system.
+ Kosmos.

- Overly complicated upgrade system makes leveling up things a chore.
- The story is full of convoluted nonsense.
- Insanely long cutscenes.
- Main villain is terrible.