[Video Games] What are you playing? (Omikron Edition)

Yeah, I think the tutorials are a bit much (and I don't think XC2 did great either), though tutorials themselves don't typically bother me. I'm more bothered by gameplays systems that take 15-20 hours before they're fully unlocked (so you're still getting tutorials that deep into a game).

For anyone that cares, I did wrap up the DLC. I think I liked the gameplay of that better than the main game (though it was a smaller scope). Think I preferred the base game characters over the DLC. Story was interesting, but ultimately didn't really connect with me, and yet again I feel like I lost interest as the game tried to wrap things up. I don't know if I'm the one that's broken or the games, but yeah that seems to be a trend for me in each of these games.

I thought it was nostalgia, but I checked out some retrospectives on Xenogears and Xenosaga (Episode 1), and they just seem so much better in the things I typically care about with stories (including *much* better villains):


(yes, I watched *all* of these haha)

The Xenoblade games came close to these, but ultimately seemed to be missing some things that greatly elevated the previous Xeno games (even if they were more heavily flawed). I actually have a conspiracy theory that Monolith Soft doesn't really involve Takahashi that much in these games except for the general concepts. That's probably a good thing since he's a terrible project manager/director, but I also don't think it is a coincidence that I like these games less the more others are involved (and the less he's seemingly involved). I guess Xenosaga 2 is the ultimate form of that. His wife essentially not being involved at all with story stuff since Xenosaga 1 probably has something to do with it too (I kinda wonder what's going on there?).

I'm sure I'm 100% wrong about my conspiracy theory, and Takahashi is literally working on and approving everything that goes into these games. But with this theory, I can pretend like we can get another experience like those others in the future.


As for Wildermyth, yeah I've seen Steam recommend it to me multiple times over the last couple of years. I came close to buying it (it did look really good), but ultimately decided to hold off while I finish up some of my backlog. I've been playing a lot of lighter games anyway over that time, and now I'm trying to burn through some heavier games. I'm currently playing Chained Echoes, then I'll probably run through Sea of Stars to wrap up the big indie RPGs I missed. Once I clean up some of my backlog, I'll probably give Wildermyth one a shot.

 

Yeah, I ended up skipping that DLC, but I'll probably come back to it at some point. I only did the XC3 DLC since it ended up trying to relate all 3 games together, so it sorta felt like a general Xenoblade DLC than one specific to XC3.

I'm pretty sure if Xenogears played like Disc 2 the entire time, I'd still consider it a masterpiece. A terrible, incomplete thing you could barely call a game (and far from fun), but a masterpiece nevertheless. And until recently (because of those videos I shared), I didn't even realize some of the deeper things I completely missed (Gnosticism, lots of Freudian/Jungian stuff, etc.). Lots of significant translation issues too, though honestly the translation was pretty good all things considered.

I honestly hadn't thought much about Xenosaga until recently. Played it ~20 years ago (and maybe only played/watched a bit of the 2 sequels). It seemed worse in my memory, though rewatching playthroughs, it definitely had some special things going for it IMO. They clearly screwed up in breaking up their story, and that greatly impacted the first game (in a bad way), which then impacted the 2nd game. I think they did manage to get things sorta back on track with the third game (partly by getting Takahashi to be more involved to fix the issues from the 2nd game). So that kinda had its own form of the Xenogears 2nd disc, which should objectively make it worse than any Xenoblade. Yet I still like them better overall for stuff like Albedo, who as you mentioned is a great villain (significantly better than any Xenoblade villain...in fact there are possibly other Xenosaga villains who also fit that description).

I'm probably just a sucker for overly ambitious games. I feel like I'm being pretty harsh on the Xenoblade games, but I still thought they were great overall (better than most of its peers from what I've played). Plus they're actually finished projects that were properly managed! I think I'm just spoiled from all the amazing games we got in the late 90s/early 2000s, so if a game doesn't have a top 10 villain of all time (or something like that), I feel a bit disappointed.

Good to hear about Wildermyth. And yeah I'm trying hard to get ahead of all these SNES/PS1 style RPGs before they all come out (I backed Eiyuden Chronicle and will likely play that shortly after it launches). I've even cooled a bit on bigger budget AAA Japanese RPGs (including Metaphor: ReFantazio, which I should be eagerly anticipating since I'm a big Persona/SMT fan, but...I'm not...for now).


I'll report back later on my Chained Echoes thoughts if/when I finish it. Too early to say much except the art is pretty good. Probably the music too.

 

Yeah they changed a lot of things unnecessarily with the 2nd game. Don't know if you remember, but they changed the voice acting company, and that resulted in many of the voice actors being replaced (generally from good ones to bad ones). I think Albedo's actor and a few others reprised their role, but Shion, KOS-MOS, and others were replaced. A few went back to the originals for the 3rd game (including Shion).

And yeah they changed the visual style...for reasons. I guess the original was a bit too anime looking for some, but whatever they tried to do with the 2nd game... didn't work.

It's like the new devs just wanted to do everything their own way and can't everything from the first game. I forgot the specifics, but I guess that extends to Mitsuda too (and they dropped the ball with his replacements, though did better in the 3rd). I want to say Mitsuda barely was able to do the first game, but I'm guessing he should have been available for the 2nd. Since it seemed like Monolith was disrespecting (IMO) his buddy Takahashi (and Takahashi's wife), maybe Mitsuda wasn't interested as well (even if his services were needed).

This whole time, I thought it was Namco that pushed for these changes, but apparently it was stuff Monolith wanted themselves. Which is weird since Takahashi co-founded the company, but guess there were others in charge that wanted to do something else.

It's funny you say that. I *almost* singled out the first game and Metal-Face specifically as the villains I actually liked quite a bit (though I think some story stuff diminished their value).

And yes, I had the exact same opinion as you about the characters in the first two games, and the lack of a good villain in the 2nd. That's probably my biggest complaint about the 2nd game (at least from a story perspective).

They've actually managed to nail some specific things in each game, but can't seem to get everything quite right in a single game (at least IMO).

 

I think that subreddit might have other bits here and there not in that link. Keep in mind this is stolen data taken from who knows when, so don't judge any game stuff too harshly. It sucks for Insomniac. Thank you Bitcoin/Crypto!



Anyway, I recently finished Act 1 and put a few hours into Act 2 of Chained Echoes, which I mentioned earlier. To anyone who has played or will play this game, you should know that the game is (IMO) VERY different once you get to Act 2 (and that took ~10 hours for me). I'm actually quite perplexed at what the dev was thinking. I can't say I hated Act 1, but it did feel...pretty meh and boring most of the time, which was odd given the inspirations for the game. Then you see that stuff show up in Act 2. I'm talking gameplay mechanics (battle and otherwise), story, characters, etc. It almost feels like a different game.

 

OK, finished up the game earlier today (at least the main story). I ended up liking the game quite a bit (I will 100% check out whatever the dev does next), though there were some flaws in both gameplay, story/writing, and overall design. Generally, I'd put these above nitpicks but below significant flaws that make you absolutely hate a game. You can also handwave some of these flaws by saying "oh it was mostly made by just one guy" or "hey the game is ~$20, so no biggie." If this was a AAA game, I'd possibly be more critical, but all things considered, I think I'd strongly recommend the game to fans of these kinds of RPGs. Oddly enough, I might be in the minority about the Act 1 being...odd...but regardless, definitely try to stick with it to Act 2 if you find yourself bored in Act 1.

I'd also note (again?) that the game is heavily inspired by some classic RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy especially the Ivalice games, Xenogears, Suikoden, etc.), and there are some things that blur the lines between homages and things that were just flat out copied straight from those games.



I just started Sea of Stars. Immediate impressions are....this sure is a very pretty game. I like the looks of FFXVI/FF7 Remake/etc. as much as the next guy, but these kind of projects seem to offer much more bang for the buck. Can't say the other parts of the game (except maybe sound/music) are really impressing me, but I'm still way too early. From what I understand, it is these other aspects that seemed to disappoint some that played the game.