[OssMan]

Oh my fucking god I could go on for ages about this game. One of the most truly baffling games out there, pound for pound, all things considered, when you get down to brass tacks.

There was a petition to get this game localized in English - along with The Last Story and Pandora's Tower - in a surprisingly successful petition called Operation Rainfall aimed at Nintendo. Obviously, it being a Japan only game that's being taunted to my face made me want it. But I hadn't even played Xenogears at that point.

Shortly after, I did end up playing Xenogears, I found it to be the most thematically engrossing and challenging game I'd ever played, biblical in fact. To me, the Xeno tag now resembled gospel, holiness, I wanted to consume everything Xeno. Though I knew I'd eventually get around to XenoSaga, I picked up Xenoblade when it came out, but just let it sit for a while. I think I had played The Last Story first and was left really underwhelmed from it and realized that maybe the Operation Rainfall games weren't all that.

I think around 2016 was when I finally started Xenoblade. I was hyped for the game because the setting and plot seemed interesting and creative, about how worlds exist on the two husks of the giants. I think I saw someone on Youtube say they liked the battle system, and I'm always looking out for a good RPG battle system.

The battles were... okay. The system took a while to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, it's kinda fun although a bit tedious. I remember something about being able to see into the future and having to wait for your skills to regenerate. But everytime you'd use a move you'd hear your characters say some dumbass shit like "IT'S REYN TIME!" or "THIS IS THE POWER OF THE MONADO!" I swear to God, by the end of this game, if I ever heard the word "Monado" again, I was gonna puke. It's Star Ocean 2 levels of voice acting.

That is mostly the feeling I have on this game. It's cool, and it's dotted with little touches that are stupid as shit. Some of them are funny like your guys yelling "To you! To me! AWESOME!" when crafting items, and some of them are maddeningly childish, making me straight up embarrassed to be playing the game in someone else's presence (everything related to Hero-Pon Rikki, for example).

The music is gorgeous, the environments are jaw dropping, the overall story was laughable, side quests were mind numbing, the day and night system was done well. The story just wasn't executed the way I wanted it to be - it was much more a generic tale about a group of people sticking together than it was about challenging the moral implications of organized religion, which was what I came to expect after Xenogears. At least this is what I remember. Honestly, the biggest impression the game left on me a veritable imprint on my brain of the main guy going "DUNBAN!" "Shahlah!" "RIKKI!!!!!!"



...and that about did it for the Xeno series for me. The stuff that was charming in Xenogears, like the Chu guy who gets big, was totally throttled when they moved to voice acted cutscenes. The religious overtones took a backseat, the game was like 100 hours long, and I just felt annoyed half the time I was playing it. But I did feel oddly content while playing it also too. At this point I have no interest in the remaster, or Xenoblade 2 or 3, Xenoblade X was boring as shit and I didn't get out of tutorials until 10 hours in, I've had a file in Xenosaga for a couple years and its moving REALLY slow.

I can't imagine more than three people on TPWW will ever play this game. Destor and maybe Fignuts. But let's press on, and on, and on.