Xenosaga III

[Lovely]

Some Information has recently been released on Xenosaga III.
Magazine scans and translations

My thoughts:
According to this, Xenosaga III will be the LAST installment.

Actually, I can believe this. Xenosaga II didn't sell all that hot from what I've heard. And also, while I have enjoyed the first two games, I think the pacing has been pretty awful.

There's getting people interested by not realeasing ALL the information, and then there's not releasing ENOUGH information.
Well, what can do.

There's new character designs (by a new artist) for XenoIII, as you can see.
I think Kos Mos looks cute, but Shion looks God awful >_< .
I didn't mind Shion's slightly more sexy look in II (she had a cute and practicle outfit there,) but this time they over did it.) It's not only that am I complaining about the outfits sexiness (predictibly .) I'm also complaining because the design of that outfit is just plain ugly.
The shoes look comfortable though.

Now the real question is, will the game still strive for "equal opertunity fan service?" Or will all the guys be wearing snow parkas or something .

Game play wise, who knows WHAT they're gonna do ?



There's also some info on the DS versions of Xenosaga 1 and 2. The game looks 2-d, but kind of cute.
I thought the interesting thing is that both games will be using a modified version of the Xenosaga1 system. I guess the system in 2 wasn't very popular huh?


Well, that's all the info for now. Thoughts? *pokes Dessa from her hibernation*

[resurie]

D: Tch. And I haven't even gotten a chance to try out Xeno II. >\ *hasabsolutelynomoney*

:D Guess I'll just have to sit around and watch you all ramble about it.

[Lovely]

I think Xeno 2 has had a pretty good price drop recently. You might want to see if you can aquire it for the cheap .

Anyhoo, Rpg fan has put up some more info on Xeno3 (and The DS 1 & 2)

[Pinkechidna]

God, I hope they COMPLETELY redo III. If it's anything like the crap that was II I am staying far away from it.

*prays for Derek Steve Prince to reprise chaos* I love Seth too, be he was on drugs in II, lots and lots of drugs.

God, I hate II so much.....

Looking at the new character designs I am still dissappointed in the way they chicks are portrayed. If girls are going to look like that, then let's have the guys in permanent swimsuits. ^_^

[Lovely]

What did you specifically hate about two? The battle system?
I'm actually curious.

And yes, I agree that person who did the directing for Seth did a horrible job. (Freeman and Jr sounded GREAT though.)

[StrawberryInuPie]

Eh...>_> I never finished I. ..Hell, I never got past the part where Ziggy was trying to rescue MOMO... .__.; Yes, I suck that much at games..

I heard from Pink II was bad so..XD; I gotta wonder about III.

[Pinkechidna]

What did I hate about II? On man, where do I start?

There a number of things I didn't like about II, but to avoid this post becoming a childish rant I'll stick with the things that bugged me most.

Yes, the battle system. Oh how I hate the battle system! The batttle system in I was fun and unique, fairly easy to understand without being overly-simplistic. There were strategy elements too.

But the battle system in II is glaringly different. In the past, you could do a normal amount of damage to an enemy with a basic attack and, after you had gotten enough Tech points to upgrade, a large amount of damage with a Tech attack. In II the bacsic attacks do next to nothing in damage. It would be more effective to throw marbles at the opponent. And the tech attacks can be used only if you stock power, (I'll get to that in a bit) and they no longer call their attacks. And even when power is stocked, the Tech attacks barely make a scratch. Now, in order to cause any real damage you have find their break point. Oh man, I hate the break points.

For those of you who don't know, each attack you launch hits a specific area of your target. Head, torso, legs, and a letter is assigned to each region, A, B, and C respectively. By hitting the target in a specific sequence, you can hit their break point, either knocking them into the air or throwing them down. If you are able to boost and chain attacks you can cause damage anywhere from a decent amount to a huge amount. So, now instead of leveling up teach attacks and causing a good amount of damage you have to hit the enemy in ABBCCCAAABBBRQXZYWAFFLE. From my experience playing, I see no particular pattern in the break points of enemies in a similar group. It's all trial and error. >_<

And stocking. I really hate stocking. In order to attack more than once or twice you have to stock power. You can do it 3 times. In I when you were accumulating AP to use tech attacks you could actually benefit from it. You could attack or you could guard, both were helpful in the battle. And later you could eliminate the need for that be gaining enough tech points to set them in the high slot. In II, to stock you glow briefly and the stock meter goes up by one. No damage done to the enemy, no defensive position for you. You stand there like an idiot. And you have to do it THREE TIMES before you have enough to perform more than one or two attacks! The enemy get 3 free hits on your ass while you stand there! >_<

There was also something that bugged me about the new Boost system, but I can't quite remember. Also there was the edition of, like, 4 new events to the event slot.

The ether attack system was dfferent too. What happened to the ether attacks unique to each character? I realize that you could pass most of them on to other characters, but a lot of them were very character specific.

The next gripes are fairly minor. At least to everyone else. ^_^;

I know everyone thought the graphics were great, but I was not crazy about them. I liked the cute, animeish look much better.

And the voices. *shudders* They seemed to keep the voices of the minor characters the same but change the voices of almost all the major characters. And most weren't for the better. *coughchaoscough*

The list goes on, but I'll spare you all. Heh, I may post in LJ at some point.

Orgulla continues to haunt my nightmares......

Sorry to bore you Lovely! ^_^;

[Lovely]

Yeah, I can see the faults in the battle system in II, having to wait so much got annoying, especially in the later battles. But I DID enjoy II regardless. And strike zones, once found, were kept in the systems memory, so it wasn't bad.
A thing I DID enjoy in the battle system in that game was that certain characters had a greater effect on some enemies than others. So basically, it was nice to have the majority of my teamates as being usefull instead of just sitting back and not being used much.


Concerning voice acting, They didn't really change THAT many voices in II ^^;. Mostly just the girls. Shion sounded mostly the same, KOS MOS is a speaking toaster in my opinion so I don't care, and Momo... eh... It took some getting used to, but she got better as it went along. (but I MUCH prefer Sherry Lynn to voice her!)
I thought a lot of the directing for certain characters was awful though. *cough*chaos*cough*.

As I've already mentioned bunches of times, Crispin Freeman as Albedo and Gaigun was PERFECTION. And I was really impressed by Jr's Voice actor .



That said.... More about 3!

MUCH better Screenshots

Looking at these Screen shots, though I still don't like Shion's outfit, I have to admit that her face is extremely cute. And somehow, in CG, the outfit doesn't look THAT bad (though it's still not great.)
Actually, all the faces are rendered in a cute style. The faces actually look better than they did in I (which sometimes looked slightly creepy ^^;. )

Another intersting thing is how Ziggy still remains looking exactly the same *laughs* (I suppose that's the point.)

Jr's lost his trenchoat though V_V ...

Judging by the screenshots, it looks like Jin is going to return. At first, this kind of saddened me, Jin turned out to be a pretty boring character in 2. BUT, then I took a second look at the screenshots, and I couldn't help but smile.
Jin's outfit is REMARKABLY similiar to Citan's outfit in Xenogears . Now if only he had more of the character traits...


Story wise, something that I REALLY want from Xeno3 is FOR KOS MOS TO DEVELOP A DAMNED PERSONLITY.

I would LOVE to like KOS MOS like everyone else loves her, but in order for that to happen, she actually has to give me a reason .


EDIT: Ooh, more info from RPG Fan.
I found this quote in that info the most interesting...

Almost all playable characters have received new costumes and some characters will even change theirs during the course of the game.

Basically the fact that costumes will change during the course of the game. That just seems kind of cool.
Of course, if this costume change just involves MOMO changing into a dominatrix outfit or something, I may have to kill myself .

[Dessa]

**dances** the tuft is back! the tuft is back! **wishes she were at home so she could make a new avatar**

Anyway, Shion and KOS-MOS look stupid. I'm 50/50 on which is worse.

I LOVE chaos' new outfit. Much better than episode 2 (a lot closer to his episode 1 outfit).

Jin = Citan. No way around it now.

ES Reuben looks cool. IIRC, I believe that Reuben was the name of Citan's Anima Relic...

SPOILERS! *It looks like Gaignun (probably controlled by Yuriev) at least tries to kill Mary and Shelly. There's a shot of Shelly holding a collapsed Mary in her lap, and Gaignun has a gun in his hand.*

Jr's new outfit is cool, but I like episode 2's better.

**checks time**

eep! Off to find more shots (and hopefully video) before I have to head to work!

[Lovely]

Hey, when you find more shots, make sure to share .
In the shots I found I could hardly see chaos ^^; .... So I can't really comment on his outfit ^^; .


EDIT: I enjoy making stupid things .

(It's a gif, so keep watching it.)

[Dessa]

The best collection of shots I've found so far are at RPGamer.com. You can't see chaos all that well, but you can make out enough of his outfit to see that it's similar to his Ep. 1 outfit (as opposed to his Ep. 2 outfit).


...that was hilarious, Lovely... and does everyone like my new avatar?

[Lovely]

....heh heh, those picks are tiny ^^;. After some staring though, I did notice the tuff. But still ^^; ... *backs away from Dessa* .
That Avatar is kind of small too ^^; . But it's cute, it's cute!


Anyhoo, here's some video.

Heh heh, I'm getting kind of excited.That was a cool video. Looks like a lot of focus will be put on KOS MOS this time around. *prays that they make her interesting*
I know the original team of writers and all is gone from the project, but I hope this game is good regardless.

Oh, I noticed the music in the trailor used music from Xenosaga 2. Does this mean Yuki Kajiura will be doing the music again? Or will... um... (forgot his name...) Xenogears and Xenosaga1 composer dude come back. The IDEAL soundtrack would be if they worked on the music together. But that's probably not cost effective. Ah well.

[Jr.]

I too like my II garb better.

And Lovely, just be glad Pinkechidna didn't start reading her list!!! @_@....*twitch*

[Dessa]

namco-ch.net/xenosaga3/popup/img/system2b.jpg

I reitterate... chaos' new outfit is awesome (so is MOMO's).

[Kyone]

I still haven't gotten around to playing the second game. Apparently, that's not a bad thing...? I'm on my second playthrough of the first game, and I was dumb enough to keep MOMO in my battle party. Which is probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, seeing as she has a bunch of Tech Attacks (but still can't fight), and my other characters are too wimpy to stand a chance against any monster that comes our way.

But I'd get the second game, just to understand what's going on. The third game...doesn't seem to suck as bad, right? XD