Vampyr
04-01-2004, 12:32 PM
Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht
Zachary Wright aka Vampyr
First Impression:
Xenosaga: Episode I, Der Wille zur Macht, is the prequel to the classic PlayStation RPG, Xenogears. The original Xenogears game was published by SquareSoft, and now the "Xeno" team is back again, this time with Namco, to bring you a fantastic RPG. Der Wille zur Macht is the first episode in a quartet of Xeno games. All four games are set before the original Xenogears. Xenosaga features one of the most interesting stories ever developed in the history of video games. It features an unfathomable amount of play time, and the diverse options available when customizing your characters is amazing. Read on to discover the world of Xenosaga, and be prepared to want this game.
Game Play:
The game play of Xenosaga is about as fun as a turn based RPG can be. It works almost like any other role playing game; you fight battles, take turns with the bad guys hitting each other, and then gain experience. Sounds boring, right? Well, in thinking that, you would be partially right. The battles themselves are boring, but the makers of the game have done as much as possible to make this an enjoyable experience.
The first and most logical thing they did was make this game completely turn based. You will not have to click buttons like mad trying to navigate menu's and choose an action before your opponent’s charge timer fills up. With this type of battle system, you will have all the time you need to choose the best course of action, explore your options, and even go to the bathroom.
The developers could have stopped there. They could have made Xenosaga a normal turn based RPG, and it would have still been a solid game, but they pulled out all the stops. The battle system in Xenosaga is one of the most innovative around. The order in which characters take their turns is determined mostly at random, with the added factor of agility. The order of characters is displayed in a small display at the bottom right side of the screen, called the "Group Turn Window." To the left of the Group Turn Window is one of the many battle features that help making fighting in Xenosaga fun. It's called the "Event Slot." There are four possible variables that can be displayed in the Event Slot, and they change at random through out the battle. The four possible options include the following: Critical hit rate up, Boost Gauge rate up, Point Bonus, and no effect. Critical hit rate up and no effect are self explanatory, but the other two in turn bring about another innovative battle feature. The Boost Gauge rate up option increases an important meter known as the "Boost Gauge." When the Boost Gauge is full for any character, you can use R1 to "boost" that character to the front of the Group Turn Window. Boosts are very important when participating in a battle, namely boss battles. The other option, Point Bonus, can play a vital role in increasing the abilities of your characters. Point Bonus multiplies the number of Tech Points, Ether Points, or Skill Points you earn at the end of each battle by 2, 4, or 10. This is important because Tech Points are used to purchase new, more powerful, attacks. The more tech points you have, the more powerful your character, and the more fun it is to fight with them. Ether points are used for basically the same thing, except that they purchase Ether abilities. Ether is what most veteran RPG players will associate with magic. It is used for status enhancing, status ailments, and damage. Skill points are used to refine certain skills from items.
During battle, every action you make uses up Ability Points (AP). Actions you can take are: normal attack, tech attack, guard, item, board A.G.W.S, unboard A.G.W.S, or use Ether. You will have to manage your AP wisely to be win battles in this game. For example, you will constantly need to decide whether to use all your AP for two normal attacks, or save it up for a devastating tech attack.
To top all of these brilliant features, the developers added the unbelievably cool A.G.W.S customization. A.G.W.S are giant robots that you can assign to certain characters to pilot. The A.G.W.S have attacks that use up AP like everything else, but they have a much higher attack power and higher HP. To make things better, you can collect various weapons such as rifles, pistols, shields, beam cannons, swords and axes to equip to your A.G.W.S, with the final goal of creating the ultimate killing machine.
The controls in Xenosaga are what you would expect from an RPG, simple and easy to use. You will have no problems running or walking around or navigating the various menus. The camera will never get in your way.
From what I've told you, you may expect the gameplay to be worthy of a king. You're almost right, but battles can get repetitive. Even though there are no random battles, you can rarely avoid a fight because of how fast the villains are.
The real reason why you would want to play this game is the story, because lets face it, who would want to play a game where you took turns hitting each other if it wasn't for the story? The intricate plot lines of Xenosaga will take you to the far ends of the universe, and during that time you will gain control of 6 unique and interesting characters, along with other side characters. Together they will explore various ships and planets, will attempt to discover the secrets of the enigmatic Zohar artifact, and learn the mysterious motives of the U-Tic organization. I dare not say more, for I fear I may spoil some of the story for future players of the game. But let it be known that Xenosaga has one of the, if not the, best story ever written for an RPG.
Score: 9/10
Visual Appeal:
Stunning. That one word would basically sum up Xenosaga. The character design is beautiful, and the amazing affects of the tech attacks and ether attacks is just that, amazing. You can tell that a great deal of time was put into making Xenosaga one of the most gorgeous games on the market.
The cinematic scenes are nothing short of brilliant, and the actually game play is stunning.
I will remark on some of the monster designs, though. The creatures lack texture, and you get the feeling that what you’re fighting against lacks a sense of realism that it should have. Overall, though, I will have to give Visual Appeal a 9, for shear beauty.
Score: 9/10
Sound:
Music and voice acting doesn't get much better than this. The voices of the characters are brilliant and perfectly matched up to the characters personality. The sound effects are great, I have no quirks or qualms about anything.
The music in this game is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and was composed by the very well known Yasunori Mitsuda (also did music for such classics as Chrono Cross and Xenogears). You'll have to hear it to believe it.
Score: 10/10
Replay Value:
Xenosaga is like a good book, once you play through it once, you'll want to do it again, just for the shear pleasure of seeing the story unfold a second time. Also adding to the replay value is the large amount of items and weapons to be discovered in the game, and a dedicated player will want to find them all.
Score: 8/10
Final Impression:
My final thoughts on Xenosaga is that any lover of RPG's should immediatly go out and purchase this game. With fun game play, awesome music, and an unbelievably interesting story, it's a game of legends. Be warned though: you should prepare for a lot of watching, because a full 50% of the game is played out through cinematics, but this is in no way a downfall. Xenosaga is quite possibly my favorite RPG of all time...don't trick yourself into thinking your not missing anything by not playing it.
Final Score: (not an average) 9/10
Zachary Wright aka Vampyr
First Impression:
Xenosaga: Episode I, Der Wille zur Macht, is the prequel to the classic PlayStation RPG, Xenogears. The original Xenogears game was published by SquareSoft, and now the "Xeno" team is back again, this time with Namco, to bring you a fantastic RPG. Der Wille zur Macht is the first episode in a quartet of Xeno games. All four games are set before the original Xenogears. Xenosaga features one of the most interesting stories ever developed in the history of video games. It features an unfathomable amount of play time, and the diverse options available when customizing your characters is amazing. Read on to discover the world of Xenosaga, and be prepared to want this game.
Game Play:
The game play of Xenosaga is about as fun as a turn based RPG can be. It works almost like any other role playing game; you fight battles, take turns with the bad guys hitting each other, and then gain experience. Sounds boring, right? Well, in thinking that, you would be partially right. The battles themselves are boring, but the makers of the game have done as much as possible to make this an enjoyable experience.
The first and most logical thing they did was make this game completely turn based. You will not have to click buttons like mad trying to navigate menu's and choose an action before your opponent’s charge timer fills up. With this type of battle system, you will have all the time you need to choose the best course of action, explore your options, and even go to the bathroom.
The developers could have stopped there. They could have made Xenosaga a normal turn based RPG, and it would have still been a solid game, but they pulled out all the stops. The battle system in Xenosaga is one of the most innovative around. The order in which characters take their turns is determined mostly at random, with the added factor of agility. The order of characters is displayed in a small display at the bottom right side of the screen, called the "Group Turn Window." To the left of the Group Turn Window is one of the many battle features that help making fighting in Xenosaga fun. It's called the "Event Slot." There are four possible variables that can be displayed in the Event Slot, and they change at random through out the battle. The four possible options include the following: Critical hit rate up, Boost Gauge rate up, Point Bonus, and no effect. Critical hit rate up and no effect are self explanatory, but the other two in turn bring about another innovative battle feature. The Boost Gauge rate up option increases an important meter known as the "Boost Gauge." When the Boost Gauge is full for any character, you can use R1 to "boost" that character to the front of the Group Turn Window. Boosts are very important when participating in a battle, namely boss battles. The other option, Point Bonus, can play a vital role in increasing the abilities of your characters. Point Bonus multiplies the number of Tech Points, Ether Points, or Skill Points you earn at the end of each battle by 2, 4, or 10. This is important because Tech Points are used to purchase new, more powerful, attacks. The more tech points you have, the more powerful your character, and the more fun it is to fight with them. Ether points are used for basically the same thing, except that they purchase Ether abilities. Ether is what most veteran RPG players will associate with magic. It is used for status enhancing, status ailments, and damage. Skill points are used to refine certain skills from items.
During battle, every action you make uses up Ability Points (AP). Actions you can take are: normal attack, tech attack, guard, item, board A.G.W.S, unboard A.G.W.S, or use Ether. You will have to manage your AP wisely to be win battles in this game. For example, you will constantly need to decide whether to use all your AP for two normal attacks, or save it up for a devastating tech attack.
To top all of these brilliant features, the developers added the unbelievably cool A.G.W.S customization. A.G.W.S are giant robots that you can assign to certain characters to pilot. The A.G.W.S have attacks that use up AP like everything else, but they have a much higher attack power and higher HP. To make things better, you can collect various weapons such as rifles, pistols, shields, beam cannons, swords and axes to equip to your A.G.W.S, with the final goal of creating the ultimate killing machine.
The controls in Xenosaga are what you would expect from an RPG, simple and easy to use. You will have no problems running or walking around or navigating the various menus. The camera will never get in your way.
From what I've told you, you may expect the gameplay to be worthy of a king. You're almost right, but battles can get repetitive. Even though there are no random battles, you can rarely avoid a fight because of how fast the villains are.
The real reason why you would want to play this game is the story, because lets face it, who would want to play a game where you took turns hitting each other if it wasn't for the story? The intricate plot lines of Xenosaga will take you to the far ends of the universe, and during that time you will gain control of 6 unique and interesting characters, along with other side characters. Together they will explore various ships and planets, will attempt to discover the secrets of the enigmatic Zohar artifact, and learn the mysterious motives of the U-Tic organization. I dare not say more, for I fear I may spoil some of the story for future players of the game. But let it be known that Xenosaga has one of the, if not the, best story ever written for an RPG.
Score: 9/10
Visual Appeal:
Stunning. That one word would basically sum up Xenosaga. The character design is beautiful, and the amazing affects of the tech attacks and ether attacks is just that, amazing. You can tell that a great deal of time was put into making Xenosaga one of the most gorgeous games on the market.
The cinematic scenes are nothing short of brilliant, and the actually game play is stunning.
I will remark on some of the monster designs, though. The creatures lack texture, and you get the feeling that what you’re fighting against lacks a sense of realism that it should have. Overall, though, I will have to give Visual Appeal a 9, for shear beauty.
Score: 9/10
Sound:
Music and voice acting doesn't get much better than this. The voices of the characters are brilliant and perfectly matched up to the characters personality. The sound effects are great, I have no quirks or qualms about anything.
The music in this game is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and was composed by the very well known Yasunori Mitsuda (also did music for such classics as Chrono Cross and Xenogears). You'll have to hear it to believe it.
Score: 10/10
Replay Value:
Xenosaga is like a good book, once you play through it once, you'll want to do it again, just for the shear pleasure of seeing the story unfold a second time. Also adding to the replay value is the large amount of items and weapons to be discovered in the game, and a dedicated player will want to find them all.
Score: 8/10
Final Impression:
My final thoughts on Xenosaga is that any lover of RPG's should immediatly go out and purchase this game. With fun game play, awesome music, and an unbelievably interesting story, it's a game of legends. Be warned though: you should prepare for a lot of watching, because a full 50% of the game is played out through cinematics, but this is in no way a downfall. Xenosaga is quite possibly my favorite RPG of all time...don't trick yourself into thinking your not missing anything by not playing it.
Final Score: (not an average) 9/10