Xenosaga for Europe (Maybe)

Retr0gamer

If you were reading Gamecentral yesterday you may have read about Squaresoft and Namco's new policies of being kinder to the European market. Hope Square enix give us PAL conversions without dirty black borders and stupidly hard bosses that get in the way of subquests. About f#cking time I say. Any way amoung the Namco games mentioned was 'a big RPG'. Hopefully they are talking about Xenosaga. Well what do I care I'm off to Yankee Land very soon and will get the game there and my PS2 chipped when I get back. However it may be good news to some other people. Expect an orgasm from Disco Stu if it does get released

Shinji

It'd certainly be nice if it was released over here. I'm 30 hours into my import version at the moment... It's got more cutscene than game, but damn, when it's this interesting, I don't care. I'd happily watch this as a TV series (and indeed someone has created 24 TV length episodes using the cutscenes from Xenosaga...)

Retr0gamer

Someone had too much time on their hands. I hope they don't do what they did in Xenogears 2nd disc were there was too much story and not enough time and money so they did a condensed version with zillions of uninteractive cutscenes. Still if it's half as good as Xenogears it'll be worth every penny. Have to postpone my life when I get back because of Xenosaga and the neon genesis evangelion perfect collection.

DiscoStu

ahem, im not looking forward to playing it that much

good news but i'll belive it when i see it on the shelf in smyths given the fact that most japaneses games companies dont give a flying feck about the european market(bar konami) even when the survival of the company itself is at stake(read nintendo) im not holding much hope especially now im playing parasite eve another square classic that never made it to this side of the pond.

wow that was a long sentance

[edit]perfect collection, bah, ive got the directors cut eps. ha[/edit]

Retr0gamer

So Konami like us. What about Suikoden 3. If you beat Xenogears you would want it as badly as I do.

As for the evangelion directors cuts. I DEMAND YOU GIVE THEM TO ME! (Damn psychic powers don't work over the net)

DiscoStu

konami = good pal conversions(usually) and silent hill getting its release in europe before the us and japan

bugs

Its not as good as xenogears, sorry to dash the old hopes there. Its a great game still, but alot of the features seem pointless. The whole gears (AGWS) are not really of any use, then again, they're like the enemy bots in xenogears. They're not really gears and as a result, you'll more than likely not use them much. Probably in the region of 20 hours of cutscenes, but they are pretty enjoyable. Nice upgrade system, allowing you to take 2 totally different paths, either stats or deathblows. The combat system is still pretty enjoyable as well.

The only really annoying thing about the game is the load times, up to 10-20 seconds at times, you end up wondering if your machine has crashed!
Roll on episode 2, god knows they throw in enough hints about it in the first.

Shinji

Yeah, the AGWS are utterly pointless. I reckon they're only in there because otherwise the gearheads would have bleated.

That said, the characters are great, the plot is interesting, the music is good and the combat system is enjoyable. It's incredibly cutscene-heavy but I can't say that ever bothered me.


obEva:
When you say directors cuts, do you mean the original cuts of Ep25 and 26, or do you mean the remastered discs which just came out in Japan a few months back?

DiscoStu

i wouldnt say the cut scenes will bother me. xenogears was as close to an interactive anime as you could get and still be entertained without it turning into a night trap/x files interactive movie pile of turd, and there was a hell of a lot of talking in xenogears.

re: eva

the directors cut eps are of 21 - 24. They are re edited versions of those eps. more scenes and more background on kaworu. a lot of the new material in death and rebirth is taken from them, like the discussion between gendo and his sidekick(cant remember the name) taken on the security cam and misato after the second impact. they generally make it flow much better into end of evangelion. eps 25 -26 sucked anyway. as for the remastered ones i dont think they are out yet. im waiting till they reach the states and get the whole set in one go and upgrade these vcds ive got

retr0gamer, dont waste your money, cdwow have an r2 perfect collection box for €75 www.cd-wow.net to take advantage of the great dollar exchange rate to.