As Anon 23:11 said, “Yes, it is bad.” It’s very bad. I …

Tags: Business, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Marketing, Remakes, RPG, Square Enix, Statistics

Comment on Square Enix Back in the Red: “Expect Even More Remakes!” by Tere:

As Anon 23:11 said, “Yes, it is bad.” It’s very bad. I know, I just tried to replay the game just last year.

I loved Xenogears, but that last disk was atrocious. They talk about “many desperate and difficult battles”, but you never experience them. They tell you about them.

The battles against the Elements are mentioned, but you only get one more fight against them. Thy tell you about how they only wanted to be reunited with Ramsus, but you never really experience those scenes.

They talk about how Elly changes, but it’s not something the play gets to witness; it’s just dropped into your lap during a long monologue by Fei and Elly.

What game-play exists is simply a series of Anima dungeons, one after the other. No over-world exploration or travel at all. Hell, you don’t even get access to the rest of the world until after Shevat falls; which signals the final phase of the game.

As for character development… There wasn’t any. At least not “on-camera”. Xenogears commits the cardinal story-telling sin of “telling rather than showing”. You get access to some bonus areas, but unless you have a guide, you won’t even know about them because the game doesn’t reveal they are there.

The game’s second disk was never finished (due to budget problems from I understand). What was released was more of a summery of what was planned, and that’s a damn shame.

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Tere made other comments on this post:

Square Enix Back in the Red: “Expect Even More Remakes!”:

I’d like to see a completed Xenogears instead of that mess of a second disk that they released. Square needs to get back to balancing their games between story, gameplay, and exploration.

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