Charlotte Buckingham writes:
"Not a lot happens in the plot in Episode II; it is far more bland than the first game, as so much of it is an elaboration of past events. I found myself surprised when it ended, as it felt like the story was building up to an amazing finale that just didn’t happen."
Monolith Soft president Sugiura Hirohide talks about how plans for Xenogears 2 failed to come to fruition due to Square’s investments in the film industry.
Unfortunately that movie almost killed Squaresoft, hence the reason to merge with Enix. Can only imagine (and cry about) some of the great games we missed out thanks to that movie.
Kill a sequel to a great game I would have bought day one to produce a shitty movie.
somewhat calling BS on this claim because the company went on to produced higher budget games on multiple platforms around the same time on top of making an acquisition. they went on to make the bouncer (which also flopped in reviews) then they made sequels to Musashi and FF10. which each of the games took more of their time to make than the original Xenogears. so you could have very well preferred a sequel to Xenogears instead of any of their other projects running at the same time as well.
right. they were making new IPs at that time. The Bouncer was months before Spirits within.
Kindom Hearts came a year after. i do find it more ironic that The Bouncer was more important than Xenogears 2. or even FF10-2 than a Xenogears sequel.
"Xenogears 2 Didn’t Happen Because of other "meh" projects."
sums it up.
XG wasn't a huge commercial success though. It saw most of it's popularity later after it got digital releases. Even now, i'd say it's probably more of a cult classic than a well loved mainstream game.
Back then, Square was riding high off Final Fantasy 7's success, and they were really trying to push that franchise. They sunk a lot of money into FF:SW, which they never recouped, which did indeed effect their overall game's production, but if XG had been popular, they would have milked that as well.
XG scope was huge. Even bigger than FF7. It was originally pitched to be FF7 in fact. They allowed him to make the game, but wanted to go a different direction with FF7. When he couldn't continue, he left, and made games of even bigger scope with Xenosaga. A series of 3 games which also were not a huge commercial success, and had very high production values for the time. Namco eventually cut the cord, because it wasn't making enough money.
Your point?
Spirits Within practically tanked the company. Made Square the soulless AAA remake machine it is today.
The point is that they didn't have the money to make Xenogears 2?
FF7 remake is soulless? what are you talking about?
If the remake is relying on being a remake while fundamentally changing everything its relying on, then fun or no, have to call it as I see it. Especially post projects like FF13 where they didn't know what they were doing.
They know what they're doing this time, but what they're doing is playing on nostalgia. Still could have been its own thing sans specific FF7 trace-over, and should have been self-contained rather than a new sub-franchise who's further entries will only continue to dip into a drying well.
Hell, the point is that they could probably make Xenogears 2 today as a lower budgeted isometric similar to its original style, but they wont or can't go what would effectively be backwards.
If you look at it like the creator wanted to go on and make something akin to Xenosaga, then I can see why Square would have said no. Don't get me wrong, this is by far my absolute most favorite series ever, in all it's spiritual forms, but the scope of these games is massive, complex, and the director will spend money to make the game he wants if he can get it. His resources and what Nintendo allowed him when he did the Nintendo games in this "series", was more limited, and it shows within the games themselves.
I can easily see why Square wouldn't want to spend the money on them, especially after taking a huge loss on FF:SW, but I'm not sure that the movie was the sole reason they said no, nor am I sure that SE would have said yes if it hadn't just taken a huge financial loss.
After all these years, despite the rather strong cult following of this series, it has yet to ever been reintroduced through Square, and as you say, Square is a souless AAA remake machine that is more than happy to milk a popular franchise.
This may be a blessing in the end though, because I can't imagine Xeno games without the creator of the series. He seems to have a very unique way of blending all the various themes together into a compelling and nuanced story that can also make people think beyond their own world view.
Graphically the spirits within was ahead of it's time, but it just was not a Final Fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. But I did my part to support it as I bought the dvd. So glad to know on my end I did everything possible to get a Xenogears 2
FF:SW did have some base FF themes in it. But yeah, it certainly was nowhere close to what one would expect from a FF game. It was more like a side quest. It was also kind of a dull movie, trying too hard to be thought provoking and proving they had some damn good animators and graphics artists, but not enough time being interesting or exciting.
The Xeno "Saga" spans six games and has established a legacy of being the Greatest RPG Series of All Time, surpassing even Final Fantasy
"and has established a legacy of being the Greatest RPG Series of All Time, surpassing even Final Fantasy"
I love it how some people sensationalizes everything by talking in absolutes, lol, this is according to who? Who decided that? Who made it official? Don't get me wrong, It is a great series, but so is the Legend of Heroes, FF, Persona, SMT, Dragon Quest, Suikoden, Star Ocean and many, many more.
Agreed suikoden 2 is the sht. Xenogears is one of my favorite rpgs for sure. Prefer ff7 to both of them. Slightly.
Chrono trigger..
Squaresoft is the matter of RPGs.. Xeno is okay, I hate games where I create my character, they are soulless. I prefer much more games where the story is centered around the main character who has his own personality..
Has the author never played any other RPG before? That's the only way I could see someone saying this is the best RPG series of all time.
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Can they not release it on Xbox and PlayStation?
On Topic: what boundaries did it push or new mechanics? I have not played it. I have played xenogears which was awesome
The xenosaga series on ps2 is my favorite series of all time. Gears was great. The nintendo xeno games are really good.
But despite that, I still wouldnt call them the greatest among all that exist. At least not to the point where it's not debatable.
Not only is the best RPG series of all time, but one of the best franchises in the existence of entertainment overall. Period.
From a gameplay perspective, you’d make a valid point. However the “entertainment” medium as a whole would beg to differ. Nonetheless, their deep and fun mechanics throughout as well as exploration is excellent. Where both adults and kids can get through and enjoy the experience
that's an opinion and everyone has a right to have one
RPG is a Vague term so many games come under this and we all have our favorites
I actually agree with you on this one. The term “best” or “greatest” is very subjective.
of all time? There is some stiff competition. Not to mention you say rpg so now that opens up western rpg games which is a whole different beast when it comes to the argument because vast groups of people don't even like jrpg's and prefer wrpg's
Not only that, the best final fantasy games outshine xenosaga in my eyes while the worst ones aren't as good as the worst xenosaga games so basically it all depends how you look at it. There is also the games for tales of being more consistant and dragon quest too.
I guess what i'm trying to say is maybe if you toned down your claim a little and said it was one of the best then maybe we wouldn't be arguing, but then again, you wouldn't have much of an article to bang out would you?
Tales? They are nice and yes consistent but I wouldn't put in anywhere near final fantasy or dragon quest.
Ranking the Xeno games - Tetsuya Takahashi is a master storyteller and video game director. His games are masterpieces. What is the best Xeno game though?
The Xeno games, Xenosaga in particular, are very underrated. I hope we see Xenosaga return again one day, but regardless the Xenoblade games have been great and looking at all seven games it's so hard to rank given the fact that each of them is so good in their own respective way. each one has something special and unique to bring to the table.
every game has its flaws, even the best. Xenosaga is still an incredible experience with the best story in any video game, period.
Hoping for a Xenosaga trilogy, though not sure if it'll be Switch exclusive.
Also, Xenogears will always be number 1 for me!
I feel the original 3 xenosaga have their own flaws sure but I would say the positives outweigh those negatives greatly.
I don't think I've even played a RPG that is had a Trilogy with connected story as good as xenosaga before.
@blit-it would likely be on PlayStation 4 /PC / Switch.
Namco owns the rights to the xenosaga intellectual property.
@DJ- except development teams very rarely actually create remasters or transition jobs they actually specifically go to teams that focus on this.
Look at bluepoint games it would have basically be like trying to say naughty dog would need to put Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us 2 on hold but completely ignoring that bluepoint games is the team that transferred all three of the Uncharted games...
Bluepoint games doesn't actually make Uncharted games like from the ground up their job is simply to transfer....
That actually means it would be extremely unlikely for Namco to need that team to do that because that doesn't really have anything to do with remastering in terms of transferring a game over to another system a lot of that technique is done by teams that specifically are experts in that field.
I don't even understand why they would not release it on PlayStation 4 considering the market. So they would remaster xenosaga on a system that never got the original xenosaga games? Keep in mind I don't think anything's wrong with that but the fact that you even think it would be exclusive is extremely weird because it would be more likely you would see it across all platforms that support Japanese games.
Trust me Namco is not going to be putting money for some ground up remake of a series that originally failed to sell in the first place... Did you not read that xenosaga was originally supposed to be like six games?
What Namco wants is to make money which means they're going to release it on multiple systems there is no benefit to the company to release it on less platforms especially considering the xenosaga games did not sell very well
I don't see any benefit to them limiting where it's going to appear... I simply see wishful thinking on your part that you think it's going to be exclusive despite the publisher owning the intellectual property.
Xenosaga games are definitely very underrated. Those are some of my favorite turn-based RPGs on PlayStation 2.
I think it's better for the team with the Xenoblade games of having each game be different in terms of narrative story etc, I would say xenosaga is downfall was them trying to make such a long complex story I remember reading it was supposed to be like six games or something.
I just a Xeno Warriors. Xenoblade and Xenosaga coming together, to wreck madness and destruction on everyone, and everything.
well in Project X Zone 2, which Monolith co-developed with some other companies, KOS-MOS and Fiora from Xenoblade are paired together during section, so that would actually be pretty cool. Xenosaga has some other really great characters like Rubedo/Jr and Albedo.
I would say Xeno X is the best. The exploration is awesome and the mech battles are awesome/epic. Xenogears should be higher.
X's story is decent but not as good as XBC and definitely nowhere near the league of Xenosaga. Still hoping we get that Xenosaga HD remaster on switch someday...
In the meantime I'll just flip on my PS2.
I don't think they'd work on the switch because in portable mode the cutscenes are too long. then again, the same could be said for XBC2 or the 3DS version of XBC, so who knows. probably won't be made anyway.
@nintendoswitchfan they are not nearly as bad as you think. replaying the games now I can tell you, yes some parts push it, but if they put XBC and XBC2 as portables on the 3DS and Switch, Xenosaga would have no problem at all.
Okay I thought it was just me because I really really really really liked Xenoblade Chronicles.
I didn't really understand Xenoblade X and I just didn't like it as much as Chronicles. Even though I really like the concept with the mechs.
I recently brought out my PlayStation 2 just to play through the third game lol 😂😂😂
That series just had such an epic ending.
@nin-re master of xenosaga I don't really believe would be that complex in regards to not being able to run on the switch or anything like that.
I think it would have completely no problem. Because of how xenosaga was perceived in regards to sales I don't even really believe Namco would be making some full-blown remake it's likely they would just touch up some of the scenes put the game in high-definition which would mean 100% it can still exist and work on the Nintendo switch, no problem.
@Dark Link - took the words right out of my mouth I mean is this person not realizing that Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade X far surpass anything done with xenosaga? A remaster of xenosaga is not going to look like the equivalent of what you see from Xenoblade.
The story of XBC completely failed to engage me. I got maybe 15 hours in before giving up? I don't like Shulk (I don't dislike him, I'm just not interested at all,) I don't like how Shulk plays, I don't like how the game essentially forces you to play Shulk or enemy/boss mechanics will wreck you, I don't like... any of the characters I met really. I like story driven games, I like Xenosaga for that matter, but XBC just falls flat at every turn. It's more interesting as a plot summary on wikipedia than as an actual game.
XBCX is much, much, much better. I get to pick a playstyle I actually like without the game bitchslapping me the very first time something even sorta tough shows up, I actually like several of the characters, and the actual plot is basic and minimalistic, but reasonably well executed and quite happy to stay out of the way and let me enjoy the things I really like about the game.
Xeno X didn't have the original voices included, just the terrible English dub, so that alone already works against it.
And then there was the ridiculous censorship.
THe original voice track would be nice, but the dub is good. And I have pretty high standards for what constitutes a good dub. Now, the *localization* I have no idea wether that was well done or not because I haven't experienced the original, but I actually recognize the names and/or voices of several of the people in the X specifically because they hired good voice actors.
Even with the rushed second disk the story of Xenogears is leagues above any single other Xeno game
This game was the worse in the series. 5 hours and I was already on disc 2? Are you freaking serious? Then there was the bland combat, the strange art design changes, and the boring story. Iirc, there was a lot of internal disputes which is why the story and the entire game is all over the place. Supposedly they fixed everything in Xenosaga 1 & 2 for the DS. It was so bad it almost killed all the potential it had for a 5 episode series. There was suppose to be 5 games, each game focusing on 1 or 2 characters, this one being the momo/Jr.
When I recommend people this series, I tell them to skip episode 2 simply because of how crappy it is. At least Xenosaga 3 had a bunch of Xenogears references and it was FUN AND FAST PACED. Plus the Mechs in Xenosaga 3 weren't like the metal coffins (AWGS) in Xenosaga 1.