Ohhh those Square days, how is it that two companies that were heaven apart merged and suddenly the golden era finished...

-Square: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Secret of Mana, Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, Romancing SaGa, Super Mario RPG...
-Enix: Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, ActRaiser, Robotrek, Soul Blazer (although they outsourced almost every IP)...

Honestly only god knows. Me thinks its because of the competition that Enix and Square gave eachother that kept them on top of their game. No competition means they dont even have to try anymore.

I posted on another forum about a month ago in a very similar topic of discussion that would, surprisingly, support ApolloCloud and his 'weird' Messianism. After first writing out some criticisms I have for the game that I hope will demonstrate it is not worthy of some hyperbolic perfection but can, with a little hyperbole of my own(due to it being my favorite game), holds its own against Planescape: Torment.

Xeno's faults, briefly, off the top of my head:

-supposed lack of financial support and time to fully develop the game, specifically the last disc
-inappropriate or superficial use of philosophy or philosophical themes expounded primarily by Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, & Jung (possibly more)
-boring or repetitive gameplay in dungeons that require platforming (air bug that allows you to fight midair only to fall to your death after battle)
-boring or repetitive fighting in the sense that the combo system requires memorization that can prove tedious several hours into the game, or after a long cutscene (lack of use for SQUARE button, Combo system not as effective as pure blows of death)
-typical JRPG "overwrought"-ity, large themes lost in translation, wishywashy plot, immemorial characters that are too pixelated, terrible overdubbing during cutscenes (lack of cutscenes, even), poor dialogue, poor juxtaposition, plot holes, plots you can guess (Hi Id, Meet Father, I wanna do Mommy with an anima before Elektra comes, etc.), characterization that is what I'll loosely call "not overtly self-reflexive," or, "hentai porn not being the overall jist of this silver star ocean dragoon mech saga," the long cuscenes, the repeating itself without a point that's as clear as Antigone,... did I mention the Mechs? or the fact that some posters actually compare it to Neon Evangelist Gayon?
-not as easy as Chrono Trigger
-am I repeating myself if I say "the translation?"
-the spriteless sprites
-diverse towns that all somehow look the same inside
-ambiguity, lack of joking skull that gives one clues into the mind of those who call themselves Nameless Ones (let me emphasize the hyperbole of that One... if I could get him to move across the screen any faster, or get that horrible soundtrack to keep people from attempting to talk in what may have been cool voiceovers back whenever this came out years ago but are by now clearly unbearable to those who are going back to play games again because they don't beat off to Mass Effect but prefer the naivete of developers who actually thought console games could do something that didn't involve the homoeroticism of the AD&D system because isn't a bunch of text and you clicking just so much fun?


    Hollingdale wrote...

    Nietzche doesn't make a good RPG seriously.



Sure he does- Xenogears regularly tops most lists as not only the best RPG of PS1, but of all time and genres.

What people have said about the philosophy/psychology/theology being forced... there is some truth to this. Likewise for the "rushed" feeling of the second disc. Although very far from a Lynch film (who often parodies the type of Freudianism Xenogears emphasizes), I would put it on par with Dostoevsky. I believe the questions Xenogears poses find their first expression in his treatment of Nietzsche. The -Ethos- story functions quite similarly to the Grand Inquisitor. Billy Lee Black was once called Alyosha, Fei Fong Wong Prince Myshkin, and Krelian Raskolnikov or some other demon. I see Xenogears attempting to come to terms with Nietzsche in a way akin to Dostoevsky. It may just be a function of my drawing parallels between pleasures (like ME2 & FFVI), but I think in spite of itself the game is deeply philosophical and will be in high demand as time passes.

In fact, it may be the reason why I stopped playing video games: its plot is unparalleled in video games and still fails to be as complex as a novel. I realized the literariness I was so enamored with in Xenogears was best expressed, well, in literature, and that holding up other games to Xenogears' literary standards would inevitably leave me empty-handed. If everyone I know holds Xenogears to be the best RPG (and other SNES/PS1 generation games), why are they not making games like this anymore? On the one hand it makes sense: shootemups and sportsmashers appeal to a wider audience, more revenue.. blah blah blah. On the other hand, I don't really feel like playing video games that don't provide that 'depth' I found so deep in Xenogears... so I stopped. Maybe video game joy is flying through Mario without dying or thinking, no scope headshots, clickandloot 12 hour raids, screen passes on third down, collecting them all, super combos, maxing out, bloons, pwning, etc. etc.  and I just can't get it up anymore. I'll go ahead and tell you that I'm not so sure this is the case. Fake breasts don't do it for me. Neither do airbrushes.

All this to say that principles in video games are pretty much self-defeating and the banter of forumposts like this one. That I wish they still made video games like they used to. That I've decided to read books instead of attempting to find a game that could rival Xenogears. That I should probably stop...


    txgoldrush wrote...

    Depth is overrated. Having depth is great, but you need great direction to back it up. Many stories have much better direction in the video game medium than Xenogears and Xenosaga. In fact, the very simple Shadow of Colossus has a very effective story.

    While far from my favorite story, Planescape Torment may have the best written one.




First: Xenosaga is awful, and shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence as its predecessor (except oblique references like these, which are allowed!). Second: the ICO team is phenomenal and I wholeheartedly agree about its effectiveness. Third: what might your favorite story be?

I didn't mean to overemphasize what we are loosely calling "depth" as the de-facto quality for a good RPG. As has already been mentioned, FFVI & Chrono Trigger both execute their tales with a concision that calls into question the necessity of Nietzsche or Freud in the parsimonious medium of video games. Rightfully so- if direction implies a certain degree of entertainment then Mario's Übermenschity should probably be left unsaid and we, as players, better leave his tyrannical plumbing unchecked (nothing more is asked or left for us to question). We press A and then tap B more than necessary in order to skip past the parts that skill forbids us from completing: such secret portals have been set up for us to find and exploit. There is much joy to be had in such fluid coordination between hands and eyes, as if the machine were both at one with our minds and at their command.

By requiring little more than scrolling through text from its very hand-eye coordinated players for hours at a time, it seems clear to me that its aims are different from games that aim at direct effect. Especially when this type of pleasure, this basic instinct that enraptures players in a 'childlike perversity' whose worst expression takes the form of WoW guildmasters, the borderline unconscious clickcandkill action the player feels in combat, is an actual character that attempts to make the player aware of her own culpability in taking part. Psychomantis breaks into reality through his ability to read memory cards... Xenogears is much more subtle.

I do enjoy the sheer openendedness of RPGs like Elder Scrolls, of seemingly infinite depth, and Vagrant Story, a depth of delicate nuance. I wish I knew Japanese so I could experience these games in better language. As for me, you may be able to hear the welcoming bell of my playstation booting up right now...

To put things, perhaps, a bit more clearly:

I have heard the only story to rival its overwhelming predecessor in the video game genre (Xenogears) is Planescape: Torment. I have played this game and I will tell you it has not aged well. One of the challenges to this game is actually playing it in the year 2010. The music sounds like it was composed in two weeks (it was). It sounds like it had pre-arranged times it needed to fill pre-arranged places that were already complete before a soundtrack was created (also true) [source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=257552] PT also had/has several bugs. Also, the novels Zelazny wrote that inspired the story's plot are much better than PT. We could also posit the influence of Final Fantasy and probably other SquareSoft titles like Xenogears and Parasite Eve as influences, as these were both roughly a year before PT's creator, out of his love for the genre, decided to turn it in completely new directions.

Don't get me wrong, Planescape: Torment is a phenomenal game, but it does not surpass Xenogears for me (citation of personal opinion HERE). Besides what I posted above in response to some other posters, I will also reply to my criticisms in a way that circles around what I'm saying, eternally recurring like the haughty references that don't refer to anything, i.e. my precocity.

The Don'ts and the Do's that Out-Do Them

unfinished/incomplete = isn't always a bad thing, especially if it's not exactly what was intended that gets across, plus whoever has enough time or financial support?

long cutscenes = different gaming experience than one that requires constant distraction or interactivity, where interactivity means something the video game medium has to offer that is not found elsewhere in other media... not quite one thing and therefore never fully one thing... vague, ambiguous, full of holes... but is this a bad thing? is there a lost presence we are being nostalgic for here, as if completeness and lack of faults were really the telos of a game on which you ascribe that very lineraity with which you condemn it; its superficiality and "overwrought"-itude?

bad translation = question of "right translation" or the Role of the Translator, dethrones agent's ability to see through translation and signify what that might mean, which is to say: does a good translation exist?

boring, repetitive: why play if this is the case? so you can come on borums or other online borehouses and bear your teeth ready to defend your choice as if this were the only thing that mattered, as if your criticism had any meaning other than the one that Xenohaters, or Xenophobes, can garner and stroke one another with because isn't that more interactive than the "volleyball-sim" turned "1-on-1 fighting game" we call Xenogears. Bashing Xenoqueers is easy because they are always ambitious like the game they love, especially if the game you cite as better (see: PT, see: Panzer Dragoon Saga) is ridicuously overpriced, enough to make it rare and its lostness forms a mystique of its own. Xenogears is just like, so trendy, so cliche, so repetitive, it doesn't say anything on par with Moby Dick or Dickens or my Dick (which are all just so interesting), doesn't provide any beneficial, interactive use like THE VERY INTERACTIVE mouseclicking and screenloading that never disrupts the pace of an aptly named Torment.

plotholes, poor overdubbing = lack of any in the narrative that goes: Planescape: Torment is best RPG ever, better than Xenogears, even,... because PT has many faults that are looked over for the 1337 story.

I can understand why many people that may or may not be smarter than me, especially the type that hound forums, would prefer Planescape: Torment to Xenogears. I listed several reasons in my last post before this that I think are all valid. However my subsequent post and this post here are my attempt at justifying Xenogears in lieu of the attacks I noticed in a thread that was closed from the flames it revived in Game Discussion forum, and some of the earlier posts. The fanboys can ruin anything you let them. I would hope Xenogears wouldn't be one of those things whose cult status will only perpetuate unwarranted claims for bestness on its behalf, thereby turning you away from the fun I experienced playing it. I may prefer some books more than Xenogears, but there are no games outside of a few that I prefer.

Buy this game. Play Planescape: Torment, too, but know that Xeno gets my vote for best of all time, ever.

Here is the original post I refer to in both my posts about whether Planescape: Torment is better than Xenogears or not (it was closed):

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=22428