The first thing that comes to mind about the Xenosaga story is that it is confusing. The first two entries give you a lot of questions and very little answers. There is a ton of mysterious conversations and the player has no idea what anyone is trying to say. Then by game three, they hit you with crazy plot twists in an attempt to blow your mind.
That is the genius of the storytellers behind this series. They did a similarly in Xenogears, and seemed intent on making something even more confusing for you to wrap your mind around in Xenosaga. Well, good job to the Xeno team there. If there is one thing for sure, it is that they know how to throw together an excellent and interesting plot.
There are many interesting characters in the story as well, but one thing is clear: the best thing to come out of Xenosaga was undoubtedly KOS-MOS. You really can't beat that. A very cool character who is fun to use, nice to look at, and has interesting character development. It is no wonder that Namco tries to exploit her for cameos.
My full playable character ratings for the series would be as such:
- KOS-MOS (for reasons I already touched on)
- MOMO: She's cute and a great support character that's surprisingly effective in battle if used properly
- Jr.: He has a very interesting back-story and personality combined with some extremely awesome-looking moves
- Shion: She has a lot of pros and cons with her story and personality, but overall, she's an average character.
- Jin: There's nothing too much special about him, but nothing bad I can really say either. He's effective in battle and a samurai type, which is always cool. Also, his battle cutscenes with Margulis are too awesome for words.
- Ziggy: Ziggy started out as a fairly boring and lackluster character with his only redeeming feature being his protective role of MOMO. However, he finally started to get some depth to his character by the third game, exploring his background a bit. He's also a tank and a powerhouse, so he's a good battle choice when you need the extra muscle.
- chaos: I never understood why the first letter of his name isn't capitalized... but besides that, there really isn't much to say about chaos. He gets the vote as the lamest character just by not really having anything cool about him. The only cool thing he ever did was dissolve a gnosis just by touching it, but that was so early into the story, you forget about it and he stops seeming special.
So there's the overall... what about each game individually? It may be all one story that runs together... but it's not all the same game each time. The system makes drastic changes each, some good and some bad.
Xenosaga I: I like a lot of the base concepts in this system, though the battles are far too slow-paced. The techs are really cool, but because of the way they're tone, it takes 100 years to fight a battle. Not good at all. I love the tech point system, though. Use it right and you can make your favorite characters unbeatable. Equipment was implemented poorly, however. The mechs also had bad implementation, having their equipment be far too expensive. I never ended up being able to outfit them, so they became too weak to actually use. Thus, I ended up using characters for everything. No need for the mechs at all.
Xenosaga II: Got rid of the equipment system... considering how bad it was done in Ep 1, that actually sounds like a good thing. BUT they got rid of shopping entirely. This means you can't buy healing items or anything of that sort. At first this pissed me off, but then I realized that you have four side characters that heal over time when in reserve. You never have to worry about HP or EP if you swap your party members around to rest and/or designate a side healer to heal up everyone between battles. In the end, this was much preferred to messy item management. As for the skill-obtaining system... the lack of unique skills took away something from the specialness of the characters, I think. Even though you could give anyone almost anything in Ep 1, it still had a more unique feel for the individual characters. I think that aspect was a bit lost here. The battle system moved a bit faster with the elimination of techs... but I missed the techs at the same time. The ability to juggle and do air/ground combos was really nice, though... so overall the battle system was fun enough.
Xenosaga III: At first glance, it seems like they dumbed down the battle system into a very traditional one. However, you still have boosting, and other little things to enhance it. I think this was a smart move. Go back to something basic, but at the same time make it special. They also brought back techs and equipment, implementing both beautifully. Not only that, but mech battles are FINALLY done well for once. Not only could I afford new parts but the system itself was not a pain to fight in. I applaud the efforts in finally getting it right by the last game. The skill lines were an interesting way to obtain moves, as well. They add some innately-learned skills to manually taught ones. I think it was well-done. It was easily the definitive version as far as gameplay goes.
Now finally, here are my ratings for the series:
Story: 9/10
Characters: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10 (some more fun than others in various aspects, but I think it all balances out)
Overall: 8/10
Recommendation: Buy.
