Xenosaga Episode II Impressions: Difference between revisions

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WOW.  I played another hour last night, and... well, OK, I played for about 20 minutes, walking around a city checking stuff out.  The other 40 minutes was story.  Some people think the [[PlayStation]] [[Final Fantasy]] games are too movie-like, but [[Xenosaga]] is on a whole other level.  In terms of how much time is spent on gameplay, Xenosaga makes [[Final Fantasy VII]] look like [[Pong]].
WOW.  I played another hour last night, and... well, OK, I played for about 20 minutes, walking around a city checking stuff out.  The other 40 minutes was story.  Some people think the [[PlayStation]] [[Final Fantasy]] games are too movie-like, but [[Xenosaga]] is on a whole other level.  In terms of how much time is spent on gameplay, Xenosaga makes [[Final Fantasy VII]] look like [[Pong]].
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[[May 6]], [[2007]]
OK, I really don't believe it.  I played another hour and a half tonight... still no more battles.  My timer isn't quite at 6 hours, and it's been half that length since the last time I actually had a battle.  Now, as I said when just starting the first Xenosaga, as a fan of both interactive and noninteractive media I don't mind a blurring of the lines... I just wasn't expecting it to be so tilted.  It's a bit of a shame, as I was starting to figure out how the system for gaining skills worked, and I want to put some of them to use in battle.
There will probably be some point later in the game when I'm in some longass dungeon and wish for a story sequence to break things up; it happened a time or two in the first game.  If only they could get a proper flow going on without overwhelming one aspect at a time.
There is something else I miss from the first game.  At any time you could use your portable computer device (name escapes me) to call up information on a long list of names and topics.  Really useful for keeping track of things or seeing further detail not presented elsewhere.  Gone.  It would be especially helpful in a sequel, too, to remind one of various things that are no longer fresh in the mind.
Tangentially, the concept of Xenosaga being split up into episodes makes me think that Xenogears would've worked better in two parts.  It's been so long since I played it that I'm not sure exactly where the split should occur, but by fleshing out the horribly rushed contents of Disc 2 and combining it with some of Disc 1, they could easily have had two 50 hour games.

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