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| Xenosaga 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra (that title is very meaningful) by Creexul :( 09/03/2006, 8:19pm PDT | ||||
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| http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/xenosagaepisode3/review.html?sid=6156836&tag=reviews;story;1
Someone else wrote a review of this so I don't even have to bother. I forget if the writer for Xenosaga 2 killed herself or what, so it's possible they had to get someone else to write this game. Xenosaga Episode III is a fitting, if convoluted [read: poorly-written], end to the cinematic [that's where a compliment WOULD have gone if a reviewer actually liked this game] science-fiction role-playing trilogy. That definitely sounds like a great game to me. Monolith Soft's Xenosaga series is noted not only for its wordy German subtitles and lengthy cutscene exposition, but for its hugely complex storyline that's influenced by equal parts science fiction, religion, and myth. So it must be really deep and important, which is why the reader reviews average out to a 9.4 to the official gamespot 8.0 (not even a midrange 8). This review kicks off with an attempt to describe the story, but makes the mistake the game does of explaining the Star Wars ripoff storyline (evil empire vs rebellion) by the pointless cosplay nerd trivia that you'd only hear about in either an argument between mouthbreathy Star Wars things or in Star Wars episode 1 with the trade federation imposing evil tax tariffs and what about the concerns of planet Hurfblurf and their senetorial proceedings blah blah things that don't actually matter but pad out a story to make it look deeper when the fact is it makes it boring except to soulless people who don't have lives outside of Japanese video games. Meanwhile, on the erased blood: While this keeps the game happily in T-for-Teen territory, there is at least one major moment in the game where a character is obviously reacting to large amounts of blood--only the blood itself is completely erased. Instead of being a visceral, if somewhat horrifying, scene, it just looks as if the person is staring at the floor and going insane. While this isn't too far-fetched for the Xenosaga universe, it's still unfortunate, and the scenes that were made bloodless after the fact are extremely obvious. Did they basically admit that this game's writing sucks? Of course it's not Japanese without FANSERVICE (because the fans need servicing every once in a while, because I guess super deep meaningful and storylines and beautiful moving cutscenes aren't enough for fans are they?). Fanservice is the "lore" of Japanese animoo gooks. Once you've finished the game, you'll get a clear file and an unlocked swimsuit mode that lets you replay any of the game's story sequences with Shion and company dressed for the beach, provided you've already discovered that character's swimsuit in the game. You can tell this is meaningful inspection of camel toes through swimsuits, because you still have to unlock them in order to get them in an unlocked mode which really indicates the kind of "depth" this game shows off where you unlock things in unlocked things. See those two levels of unlocking have to be deep, because it's two levels. Not one! Here's another example of people with dementia mistaking ridiculous for grand. While the best music in the game is concentrated at the end--fighting massive bosses to swelling choral music feels incredibly right with this game I get the feeling it's the same effect as seeing Neo fight 50 Smiths to a guy with a giant beard and a fresh 2 month supply of meth telling some latin orchestra's vocal section that they need to scream louder until they can't even hear notes, and then turns and gives a thumbs up to a guy with crabs who takes turn scratching his nuts and hitting random keys on a synthesizer, while eating meth, all of this happening with a giant screen in the background playing that scene from Matrix 2 as a camera films all of the above for the "making of" promotional piece. And those men working the movie magic were named the wachowski brothers. AMAZING! If you're looking for some highfalutin space opera and you don't mind setting down your controller for 20 minutes or more at a time, definitely give Episode III a try to see how it all works out in the end. Wow and I thought I needed to get a life. :( |
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