"Beauty and Brilliance, requiring a great deal of Patience and Persistence"

Reviewer Status Check:

I'm three hours coming off of completing Xenosaga, so I'm a little exhausted, a little WIRED, and still a little taken aback by the whole experience. It's safe to say that I'm sad the journey has ended, but I'm GREATLY relieved that the game is over. Going into the game, I heard various things; ''the cut scenes are SO long,'' ''the load times are UNBEARABLE,'' ''it's a total cliffhanger that resolves NOTHING.'' When only previews for the game existed, I saw the different anime styling, I saw the HUGE cast of characters, and I got the impression that the maker seemed full of himself, and his game sounded way, WAY too epic for my tastes. So now, I'll tell you what I think, after playing it.

Technical and Design flaws?

There was maybe a point or two in the beginning portion of the game that I thought, ''Wow. What is this, the (insert large number) cut scene? For the MOST part though, it was all in good tastes. First off, the story is so good, and the presentation of it is so excellent, that you're willing to put up with it. Secondly, do you really think this is anything new in an RPG? Albeit, other games have had this much dialogue and story, only they tried to blend it in with the game, and poorly I might add. Think back to when you were playing an RPG, walking up to each of the characters in your party, and getting their thoughts on what was going on. Personally, I prefer just watching all that, then having to complete the menial tasks myself.

Load times, yes, they're noticeably glitchy. You can tell what people are talking about with the battle transitions, exiting (and only exiting)the menu screen, and some of the story sequences. It's excusable to me because this isn't an action game; it won't kill you for a turn-based RPG to occasionally freeze-up at transitional moments. It's never more than 1, 2, MAYBE 3 seconds anyway. PLUS, I think they were aware that one or two seconds could be annoying with the menu screen over time, so they put the HP information of your characters on the Battle Clear screen, so as to help you avoid unnecessary menu checks in between the little peon battles.

Whew. I hope that you're still with me. All in all, there's some truth to all that you've heard, but you might not have even thought it for yourself. I encourage you to try to put it all out of your mind if you're gonna play the game.

Presentation! Mmm!!!!

The opening will help get you psyched up, the ending will blow you away, and all the bits in between will really pull you in. One of the first things I noticed about the game is that it's simply cool. That's right, ''Xenosaga is COOOL'' is a valid point in my mind. If you're at all intrigued by the sci fi flavor of it, let's just say that once you start playing it, you're just gonna get OODLES and OODLES of cool futuristic technological goodness. And it doesn't just end there, on that superficial level of technobabble and eye candy, but the characters are so well done. I was in fact, not too enthused about the anime style, but once you see it in motion, it works SO well. Throw in the really amazing voice acting, and you have a very human, touching, and entertaining story. If you're looking for a game that could make you laugh out loud wholeheartedly, and even shed a tear at times, try this.

ONE THING negative about the voice acting being so good, is that they tapped into such talents that if you are a fan of RPGs or anime, you're going to recognize some voices. This could be a good thing; personally, it took me out of the game, but the voice actors are so well chosen and peform so well, I quickly forgot about where else I'd heard these voices before. And ONE LAST THING negative about the game's pacing is that it really forces you to either watch or play, when it wants you to, and for pretty substantial amounts of time. You might be really eager to dive in to gameplay when you peel it open; or during a challenging dungeonish area, you might be dying for the story to move forward and the section to be over. Interestingly, I think that in the end, this really makes you appreciate both for what they're worth, because it really forces you into different extremes.
Right. Enough about that, you say?

Battle system. I don't know whether to be happy or sad.

They certainly have everything set up properly for fighting and customization to be good fun, but is it? At times. Let me spare you a long drawn out, in depth synopsis of the system(you've probably read one in every other review, and did it really ever sound fun and not ''oh-my-god what-is-this''). What really makes or breaks this battle system in my mind are the enemies. For a while in the beginning, the enemies are way too easy, and that makes the battle system look lame. It seems at that point, that they threw in all this interesting stuff, but underneath it all, it's just an attack-and-heal RPG. Then they turn up the difficulty to insane levels at points, so much that by your final attempt on any major boss you're totally sick of it all; or simply on your way to a major battle, you're frustrated that the normal guys are posing any threat. Expect lots of customization and preparation and boss attempts, as well as great feelings of accomplishment. There's and infinite number of possible strategies, and you're going to be forced to discover plenty of them.

Last thing I will say is about the AI. Making things a little more tense in a good way is that all enemies seem pretty smart. They will tend to go after the same person to take them out of the battle(just like you would). There's exceptions of course, but there's definitely a tendency. Similarly, bosses will always start off reasonably challenging, and when they're getting down on HP, they will do their best to halt your progress, pulling out ALL of their big guns.

Last, LAST thing is that the majority of the boss fights are NOT personal. They're usually pretty much some monster that's come in your way. It can be a touch less fun sometimes if there isn't some emotion behind your attacks, so you REALLY care, and not just want to beat it because it's the game, ya know? The tie-in to the story could be stronger here.

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So to end my review, I'll talk about whether the game ends itself. There's talk that it lacks closure; that it will leave you feeling cheated and confused. OK. First, you know that the game is intended to be multiple parts, right? So to some extent, you should expect this. Secondly, keep in mind that this story is really told in a unique way. Where other RPGs tend to give you a pretty linear story, with an occasionally thought-provoking morsel, Xenosaga is more like: at any given instant, you're being bombarded with interesting ideas and new questions. So I would describe it as constantly opening up lots and lots of questions, with the most central and immediate conflict getting resolved. As for the other many questions and mysteries, expect them to remain mysterious, with a somewhat elevated sense of what's going on with them. Somewhat.

P.S.

1. Xenosaga can be disorienting. There's always a flood of new stuff coming into the mix, that no one's really going to pick up on all of it. That's especially true when you're dealing with a real-time, cinematic presentation(one plus to having text-only is when something grabs your attention, you can think about it as long as you want, then just press X to hear the next line whenever you're ready). Another contributing factor is the lack of space and time in the game. Places are star systems apart and isolated--nothing but the void of space in between. And I have NO idea how much time the story spans--all I know is that somewhere in the middle of the game there's a ''The Next Day'' type of transition, and Shion(the main character) take two or three naps.

2. There was word a couple months before its release that the game would be censored in the U.S. Vague details were mentioned about what the deleted scene contained, and why it was deleted, but I will not enter upon that here because it is a spoiler, and it'll have you looking for it. Trust me, I have a strong feeling that said scene is still in the game. STRONG!!! If it isn't, then at least it's not noticeable that something's missing. But I think I'm right about it still being there, and THUMBS UP to whoever was responsible for keeping it in.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/03, Updated 03/07/03