Your Top 5 Games You Played in 2024

[Leon]

I'd say it depends what you want in a game but I really don't see any area where Ep 2 exceeds Ep 1, and there's many areas where it falls short.
3 compared to 1 is more of a mixed bag because it really does do some things better than 1 even if it does others worse (1 has better writing and cutscene direction/budget, but 3 has better paced combat and dat Yuki Kajiura soundtrack).

Xenosaga ep 2 has a good soundtrack and the battle system is better, especially when it comes to the mechs, xenosaga ep 1 suffers from a severe lack of music and where there is music half the time it either sucks (the battle theme for everything but the final boss) or has no music at all (like half the dungeons), that said when ep 1's music is good it's really good, as for the battle system it felt less of a proper battle system in ep 1, like it was trying to be xenogears but fell behind what made it good in the first place, also xenosaga ep 1 had that "porcelin doll" effect which made it kinda uncanny, also not much really happens in ep 1, this isn't necessarily unexpected in the first game in a trilogy but it's still very noticable, not to mention how utterly useless A.E.G,W,'s were, unlike the E.S.'s from 2 and 3.

What ep 1 does better than ep 2 imo is at least the first half of the game is better paced, ep 2 spends a good portion of the first half of the game in the dreamscape, which drags on, ep 1 has a proper shop system and also has minigames even if they kinda suck or are irrelevant, ep 1 also has ff8 and ff13's biggest problem though where most of the story is told through a primer, though i'm not deducting this as ep 3 also suffers from this to a extent, when it comes to story however, that really depends on the person, i personally find ep 2's story more intriguing than ep 1's but i can see how others might think the opposite.

Full miserable experience???? I really need to play Xenosaga too...!!!

Miserable is subjective, i'd say it just has not aged as well as people want to admit, though i still enjoy it, if i can get past ep 1.

Suffering builds character


RS2 is excellent. I wonder if that recent remake was any good.

From what i've heard RS2's remake is amazing, better than the original but is a actual remake, not a upgraded graphics game, aka the feef is different,

 

[Jotaro]

 

[homesforgnomes]

Xenosaga ep 2 has a good soundtrack and the battle system is better, especially when it comes to the mechs, xenosaga ep 1 suffers from a severe lack of music and where there is music half the time it either sucks (the battle theme for everything but the final boss) or has no music at all (like half the dungeons), that said when ep 1's music is good it's really good, as for the battle system it felt less of a proper battle system in ep 1, like it was trying to be xenogears but fell behind what made it good in the first place, also xenosaga ep 1 had that "porcelin doll" effect which made it kinda uncanny, also not much really happens in ep 1, this isn't necessarily unexpected in the first game in a trilogy but it's still very noticable, not to mention how utterly useless A.E.G,W,'s were, unlike the E.S.'s from 2 and 3.

What ep 1 does better than ep 2 imo is at least the first half of the game is better paced, ep 2 spends a good portion of the first half of the game in the dreamscape, which drags on, ep 1 has a proper shop system and also has minigames even if they kinda suck or are irrelevant, ep 1 also has ff8 and ff13's biggest problem though where most of the story is told through a primer, though i'm not deducting this as ep 3 also suffers from this to a extent, when it comes to story however, that really depends on the person, i personally find ep 2's story more intriguing than ep 1's but i can see how others might think the opposite.

Personally I'd say the mech fights were the only time Ep 2's combat was tolerable. I found the on-foot combat to be the worst part of the entire game. Fights last far longer than they should because you have to waste time building resources, getting pounded on by the enemy the whole time because they don't have to have resource to do decent damage. ~5 minute long battles where most of it is spent getting hit is not my idea of fun.

I like Ep 1's music and the lack of music for some areas (the whirr of electronics on the spaceships is pretty atmospheric). Ep 2's music is a mixed bag. On one hand a lot of the zone music is really good, but much of it fits the game incredibly poorly. You also have some Yuki Kajiura tracks for the cutscenes, which are great, but rare. The combat music on the other hand is incredibly dull and repetitive and it's what you'll be listening to for most of the game.

I agree on 1's visual style being weird, but it grew on me, and 2's visual style is worse imo (gross plasticky uncanny valley). 3 gets it right for everybody but Shion.

I wouldn't say not much happens in Ep 1, and certainly not compared to Ep 2 which you could probably skip and miss very little other than Jr. and Albedo's backstory and character development.

For me the main thing I liked about Ep 1 was the quality of the writing, and that went down the toilet in Ep 2. Ep 3's writing is a mixed bag but much better than 2. Pied Piper (lost media cellphone game that covers Ziggy's past) has the same writer as Ep 1 and is excellently written as a result, too.

Combat wise I think the DS demake of 1 and 2 was actually the best. If they ever revisit Xenosaga to "finish" it I'd like to see that system used.