Originally Posted by yasae
Plot wise I prefer Xenogears, even though some parts of it were flawed as you mentioned. Fei being "The Contact" and Anonalbe was an interesting part, the existence of Civilization which constructed Emeralda (Kim and Zeboim Elly) was also an interesting part (although Emeralda's sudden growth had me puzzled. Not that I dislike it, infact she's one of my favourite characters in Xenogears) The truth behind Ethos Scantuary was also a good part, as for storyline concentrated on ID, most of it was appealing and thrilling except for the constant chain of more than two split personalities. Fei --> ID and then Lacan --> Grahf --> Khan. It got a little tedious and the hopes turned over for me before I got Xeno-gears for Fei as I was expecting more of a background story on Grahf which could have made a bit more sense to my ears. The Gazel Ministry and Cain were delightful parts, Krelian for being the main villian was absolutely astonishing and eccentric since he basically manipulated each and every being in the game, even Miang. The whole base plot being a biological computer named "The Mother" (otherwise known as Kadomony) giving birth to the Gazel Ministry and Emperor Cain, forth splitting into Miang and Elhaym Van Houten which was the beginning of everything. To consider this on a hyped scale it'd seem "Chaos splitting into two: Evil and Good" or so if you put some thought to it.
Now the bad parts of Xenogears were not many but quite bright. First and foremost being the story which revolves around Fei and Elly. Ever since the beginning when Abel and Ancient Elly were running away from Cain and the Gazel Ministry for defying their religion, they were hunted down. Before Elly died she said to Abel "Live on, you must" but just as she died, Abel also died. Now for Kim and Zeboim Elly, same thing. He died right after Elly's fall. For Lacan and Sophia, once again it comes down to same thing but in a different style "Live on, you must" as those words were uttered by Sophia before she gave up her life to end the war and to save her friends as well as Lacan. This in turn caused tensions and riots among Krelian and Lacan as one decided to create a God and another desired for destruction. We can imagine Roni Fatima must have attempted to stop both of them, Krelian completely vanished after that as for Lacan, he received powers from Zohar and continued to live on as Garhf. It was lame how easily "Zohar" bestowed it's power to Lacan, where as normally in both Xenosaga and Xenogears we have seen how difficult the Zohar is to approach yet alone make a contact with it. More or less the entire fuss is based on a woman, and it all ended with a woman, Urobolus: The Miang Factor.
Secondly, lets put the gameplay concepts here. Battle system was good enough and I never complained about it either, however it would have been a whole lot better if the developers added some sort of element which could invoke the powers of ID into Fei anytime or at the expense of a few this and that in a battle. Surely there is an installment called System ID in Weltall, however the affect of it is rather bland for a great character and mystery such as ID. Naturally fans would expect more. For instance you can transform into somewhat "controlled" ID in battle, however you attack your own party members at intervals for not having a complete control over him. Much as Vincent's Chaos limit break in FF7.
Chu-Chu. A complete waste of time and effort. Rather ridiculous character with extremely disgusting appearance and scripts. What she did at Shevat was totally illogical. More or less I got the impression of a stuffed doll beating someone such as Achtzehn by growing size.. Where as everyone else were freaked out to death when they saw Achtzehn approaching.
Maria Balthasar. Not a bad character, overall has decent abilities. Now..just why did they give her the appearance of a "kid"? As a grown up she would have been much much better and not to mention "sexy" looking from the stand point of a few people. I'd have liked to see her deathblows as well. Shamefully as good were her abilities and her gear, I never used her much thanks to the turn down of her physical form.
Seibzehn. Maria's gear, and a great one at that. Low speed, but highest HP among all the other gears and flawless defense. Now...does it have a cockpit..? Maybe it does but when I saw Maria standing somewhere near Seibzehn the giant's head before confronting Achtzehn, um..yeah..high up in the air without any protection for a petite looking girl such as her. Another turn down.
Regurus. Omnigear of Elly and extremely good looking one. Can someone tell me why we never got to use this good omnigear? I mean, give me a break. Vierge was actually pretty powerful gear. You can only use Regurus in Battle Arena, another big turn down.
Xenogears' story had a lot to it going on at a time, where as Xenosaga only have a few major factors. "Who is Kos-Mos and why she does this, she does that etc etc" "What does Albedo wants? Is he working for Wilhelm?" "True intentions of Wilhelm" "Why did Kevin staged his death where as he is very much alive" "What is a Zohar and what did Mizrahi do by opening Pandora's box" Some of this one can guess if we actually give it time. But parts in Xenogears were extremely difficult to comprehend yet alone approach to a conclusion or a guess.
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