Xenosaga

[Ghostgodzilla]

I know what you mean. I hate how some games had healers with very low HP's.

Just once when I hear some enemy in a game or anime start spouting off about god and how they are the rightuous and the chosen, on of the heros responds that their buddist and thus don't really care to hear about the dogma.

Here's something ineresting that I stumbled across. And I don't recall this in one of the turorial battles either. I learned it from some random girl in some random building. You can do double Ethers. Have the charecter who has the other half of the double ether your going for boost during the primare casters turn. press trangle while highlighting and ether on the ether menu. The menu will change. If you combine Psycho Pocket and Analisys you'll perform a sure steal of a rare item!

[Jr.]

I talked to her too. I haven't tried it though.

I'm still getting the hang of the boost system. I know now that you have one boost gauge for your whole party. and if you time it right you can go through some battles without even letting your opponents get an attack in.

But unfortunatley my enemies can do the very same thing to me!!

And to top it off, the enemies seem to pick a random person and beat the hell out of only them!!! I watched MOMO get ripped to shreds by 6 straight monster attacks and all I could do was watch......and cry! ;_;

My other two members never got touched!!

DESSA! It started as a mild annoyance, but now it just plain irritates me because it has and probably never will be addressed: Why is chaos not capitalized? It is now driving me nuts!

........Because my wife has to ask me that everytime they show his name.

(I see chaos appear on screen)

Me: (here it comes I know you're going to ask me so go ahead and get it over with)

Wife: Why isn't the "c" upper-case?

Me: GAAAAAHHHH!!! I don't know!!!!

Oh and seeing the Albedo special power thing during the MOMO incident, my wife is getting hooked on the game.

[vanman]

Jr, by the end of the game, you should be able to understand why chaos's name isn't capitalized, because of *spoilers* you find out later^_^

Albedo is such a cool character though, especially by *spoiler*.

[Dessa]

chaos isn't capitalized because it isn't his real name... I had that figured out by the end of the "birds fly, fish swim, I destroy gnosis by touching them" scene in the first game. Drives my spellchecker nuts, too...

And MOMO was fine in the first game. You just had to put her in your party with good defensive items, so that she can get her tech points up so that you can power up her attacks. Her "Angel Arrow" attack does almost as much damage as chaos' "Angel Blow" attack, and that's with Angel Blow many levels higher. In my new playthrough of EpI, I'm using chaos, MOMO, and whomever is the lowest level (until MOMO threatens to catch chaos in levels, then I swap her for someone else... chaos must always be the highest level...).



As for the EpII characters, you have to know how to use them. Each character has different strengths, and if you try to make them make sense from EpI and Xenogears, it won't work.

Here are the characters' attacks and attributes:

Shion- Ether/Beam/Thunder
MOMO- Ether/Pierce
Jr- Physical/Pierce
chaos- Physical/Strike/Aura
Jin- Physical/Slash
Ziggy- Physical/Strike/Fire
KOS-MOS- Physical/Slash

Shion is your only Beam user, and Beams are highly effective against M enemies.
Enemies with weakness to Pierce damage is very common, and you have two Pierce users, one Ether-based and one Physical-based.
A lot of enemies have slash weaknesses as well, and since neither of them (nor your pierce attackers) have elemental attributes, your Ether Swords work wonders (hello, Aura x 16 attacks that do massive damage).
The only downside to this is that your only Beam attacker and your two Strike attackers are all elemental based.

However, very few enemies have the ability to heal themselves from your attacks. In fact, only 14 enemies in the entire game can heal themselves from your attacks (this doesn't count casting Medica on themselves, or stealing HP, etc.), and out of them, only 3 of them are NOT in the bonus dungeons (they're mech-only enemies, though). And that's out of 112 different types of enemies.


The only one I'm really not pleased with is chaos, and that's only because I feel that he should've remained Ether-based, instead of Physical-based, with his attacks. Especially since he has the second highest EATK rating in the game (only MOMO has higher, and it's only by 1 point. All the other characters are at least 3 points lower (surprisingly, KOS-MOS has the 3rd highest... and, not surprisingly, Ziggy's is the lowest by 33 points (at highest level).).

[vanman]

isn't KOS-MOS, one of the strike characters, non-ether-based as well?

[Lovely]

As a person who is fond of English grammar, the non captilization of chaos' name bothers me. Even if it has a reason for non-captilisation, his "name" is still used as a proper noun and it should be captilised as such!
Yes, yes, I realise that my own spelling and grammar skills are atrocious. That doesn't mean I can't be a fan!

Of course, "MOMO: and "KOS-MOS" kind of bother me too. Not the characters in this instance, just the way the names are written. Yes, I know the "reason", but it still seems kind of silly. Especially in MOMO's case where it's obvious they wanted a "cute" name and they just added the reason (techno babble) for it later .


Xenosaga 1 notes:
Yeah, with good amount of effort you can make MOMO into a pretty good character. The challenge and effort is part of the fun! That is what I was doing in my second playthrough, but... then I put the game aside for a good long while as I played other games. I tried to play again last night and.... I don't remember what I was specifically doing ;_; . I know I was trying to give each of my characters a "strength" but... It's been so long that I was having a lot of trouble trying to remember how to even play ;_; .
I was in "the mall" by the way. *siiiiiiiigh*
MOMO and chaos were such a cute team too ;_; ...

Ah well...

Xenosaga II notes:
Um... I actually don't have it yet but... I plan on going out and buying it today.

I'M SO FRIKIN' EXCITED!!!!!!!

*cough* Sorry, I just wanted to throw that out there ^^; .

[Jr.]

I tried to take my reserve group in to figth monsters and it was fine. They could hold their own, but Ziggy is unfortunatley thw worst character in Episdoe 1. i tried so hard to level up his Executionaer skill and it still paled in comparison to KOS-MOS, Jr., and Shion. Sorry if chaos and MOMO were great I never used them that much!!

chaos:

Sorry! I'm using you as much as I can in Ep.2 but they made Ziggy USEABLE!!! It's a frickin miracle!!

I'm in winter time now!! Heading for the beach!!(hint hint)

Lovely's buying the game today?! crap! I'm not going to be the last one to beat this game!!!! *runs to play it now

[Ghostgodzilla]

You may beat me too. I started my standerd "Play Most Of The Way Through An RPG Then Start Over So I Have Everything" habit. I missed an awakening.

Went to Gamefaqs and read the database. Something from Episode 1 finnaly makes sense.

Is it just me or does Chaos hair in Ep1 look like Chu Chu's?

Still getting crazy theories about how charecters in Xenogears and Xenosaga relate to each other.

You know dispite the Xeno in the title aliens have little to do with the games story.

[Dessa]

vanman- Ooops... I only use KOS-MOS in combos (Overdrive is such a nice skill... gotta love Stock x2), so I only get her slash attack.

Lovely- I didn't find it an effort or a challenge to make MOMO powerful... I just did extra battles in the Pleroma before pwning Margulis, and then kept her in my party through the Cathedral Ship, so I could steal from Gargoyle.

[vanman]

that's what I thought....so the lowdown for the characters in Xeno ep. II is:

KOS-MOS: strike/slash damage
MOMO: pierce/ether damage
Shion: beam/ether damage
Jin: slash damage
Jr: pierce damage
Ziggy: strike/fire damage
chaos: strike/aura damage

using the right characters for the right battles are essential, especially when you want to get an enemy into the air or ground status.

[Lovely]

O.k Jr, I don't know how you did it, but my electricity turned off TWICE last night! right before save points! You're soo meeeaaaan...
*laughs*

Anyhoo. WOW, this game is tough! I've already died once and ALMOST died many a time... Strategy is the key here. It's fun though. And in some cases it's like the game WANTS you to die and re do some parts (the guys in white who surround you area.)

The only thing that bothers me so far is that the "skill" system is a bit TOO customisable. Hey! I'm new to the sytem, I haven't even decided on a playing style yet. I'm not sure which talents my character should have. It's a bit of a bother since I'm really enjoying the story bits so far.

Yeah... Xeno_Jr DOES seem a bit cockier this time around XD . *after killing an enemy" "I'll send ya flowers."

So far, the voice acting seems kind of... wooden. I don't know if it's intentional or not though. I'm hoping it will improve. Besides that I don't mind the few changes too much. Shion's voice sounds almost the same but a bit more mature. It kind of works with her design change.
The whole loosing her glasses thing was kind of silly though.

I'm not very far into the game yet so don't spoil me! ... Please ;_; ....

Oh yeah Spoiler for an eaaaaarly scene in the game ***The "chase" scene where MOMO was driving was pretty awesome ^.^ !***

[vanman]

lol. The acting does get better as the game goes on, trust me. ;D
One of the biggest troubles w/the early voice acting is the fact that the 2 characters in the begining of the game are both non-emotional characters, so the first 30 or so minutes of the game set the stage of somewhat stilted voices.

As far as the battle system goes, I love it! Strategy is definitely the key, and who to use in what situations. The skills take a little getting used to, after a while, it starts to make sense as to what to give to each character.

[Jr.]

Yes. Lovely the game forces you to learn skills or die!! I died three times while facing the white soldiers that surround you!!

***I loved chaos's daring rescue of Jr. while MOMO was driving sideways! Nice save!!***

And yes. Caanan, chaos, and Jin are the three BORINGEST guys ever in the first scene!! XD I love Josh Seth and all but the guy should lay off the sedatives before going into work!! XD

Oh and ....power outages? Power outages you say? I have no idea what you're talking about!! ^_^; (hides bolt cutters)

[Dessa]

chibi-sama!!! What a mean thing to do!!! I want to be able to talk to you guys about stuff in the ending, be nice!!

[Lovely]

Dear god... Jr is ADORABLE in this game....
I constantly feel the urge to hug him XD .

This isn't about cuteness by the way. It's about Crispen Freeman ^_~ !
SPOILER (but both Jr and Dess passed this point)
***There was a scene where Albedo and Gaigun are having a "split screen" conversation. I found it really cool because they were both Crispen's voice, just different ranges/acting for each character. Crispen was having a conversation with himself XD . I think it was a good idea to give those two characters the same actor .
Of course... I'm Crispin biased....***

EDIT:
This is regarding the spoiler that SKU-Jr posted earlier
***...when young Albedo blew off his head... I am SO glad nobody was home when I saw that scene. I was screaming right along with Rubedo and Negredo.
And right after I yelled at the t.v.
STOP DOING THAT!!!!
I think I was just surprised because I was finding young Albedo to be pretty cute ^^;. ****
I JUST saw that scene by the way... so it is fresh in my mind ^^;...
Aaaah, sick days are fun ^_^ !