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Xenosaga III

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Long time readers probably saw this one coming down the pipe. This final chapter in the Xenosaga story was the most difficult to acquire, requiring a drive to a Gamestop located at the furthest possible point from any highway. As well, unlike the previous games which were delicious little tidbits as far as RPGs go, this immense beast of game covers two DVDs and logs a playing time that’s longer than the two previous entries combined (to be fair, this only puts at a level similar to other RPGs).

Something I forgot to mention in my review of Xenosaga II is that it was the only RPG I had ever played with no ‘store’ where you could buy healing items and upgrades. It was something of a shock to complete the first chapter of Xenosaga II and realize that I wouldn’t be able to buy a health kit or anything throughout the game, so whatever I came by during battles and whatnot had to be horded. One of the selling points on the box for Xenosaga III is that the “store is back”, and they should have added “with a vengeance”. Other RPGs have options like ‘equip with best available’ when buying new equipment but it would only roughly apply in this game since the sadistic developers put out a series of equipment and options with benefits as well as drawbacks. I began to loathe refreshed store inventories since that would mean 20 to 30 minutes of refitting characters and their battle machines with the latest available equipment and then testing it out to make sure no one was going to get ‘instagibed’ during a boss battle due to a botched configuration.

Other changes to gameplay include a pared down battle system that is the simplest of the three and a redone NPC dialog system. In another interesting change, players can now buy traps that give them an early edge in most battles. Previously one would have to rely on these traps showing up on random, often unhelpful, places on the levels. Probably the most dramatic improvement is the skill tree that actually serves some purpose. Every battle nets the characters a certain amount of generic experience points that affects their level as well as ‘skill points’ that can be spent to upgrade specific character traits. The other episodes provided stingy skill points and near worthless abilities that could then be purchased. While still inferior to Final Fantasy style skill trees, it’s a welcome improvement.

This game was even more aggressive in the ancient Japanese tradition of art over substance. The story in this episode, and thus the whole series, is…it’s really something else. Any story that takes place thousands of years in the future and features flashbacks of in-game characters watching Jesus give his Sermon on the Mount will inevitably have ‘issues’. This is a series that has spanned dozens of hours of dialog and cut-scenes with dozens of characters, most of whom have more than one name (and some with upwards of four). Despite the difficulty in keeping up with everything in the story, that didn’t stop the developers from dumping even more characters and subplots into the third game. As I neared the back 10% of the game and I could begin to gauge the end-game, I began to wonder how they were going to tie together all these plot points and characters together and wrap it up in a nice, concise package. After thinking about it for a moment and thinking back to all the ‘skilled’ writing in the game, I deduced how it was going to happen: it wasn’t going to happen, and unsurprisingly that was how it came to pass. As the jalopy of a plot came careening down the hill, whole characters and plot points bounced out, never to be seen again; and what was worse was that what issues were resolved were handled in such a sloppy manner that it makes me wonder whether they ever intended to end the story to begin with, that they would just keep making it up as they went along in perpetuity. As an example of my frustration, the question that bugged me the most at the end was that if the main character was the key to the antagonists plan, why were they repeatedly trying to kill her over the course of several years?

The story issues are nothing new for Japanese pop culture. The Japanese story building process seems to start with set pieces and then onto characters and then, if there’s time, an actual story of some sort to hold it all together. Working from this mindset the developers got the art design and battle sequences perfected, and it’s almost enough to make up for the story issues. However, when a video game sets out to make the primary differentiator for itself the story (the first episode was watched nearly as much as it was played), it would be nice if they could get that part at least partially pleasing.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

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[2020 addendum: I watched my son playing this game on a computer and the two things that irked me in my PS3 (constant loading screens, and the “crowded controller” issue) didn’t exist.  Also not highlighted in my review is how much fun the game was with it’s various glitches and how much fun it was overall.  I added another ‘star’, the three star rating was crazy low for what is one of the greatest video games of all time.]

First off, this game is amazing looking. True to its word when it first came out, this game is amazing just to walk around in and look at. This game is also HUGE, it was many, many hours before I finally made my way to the last city that I hadn’t seen. Every door in the game can be entered, all NPCs have dialog and it’s also worth mentioning the numerous dungeons, some of which I’ll probably never find.

After a certain point though, the game’s size and plot progression (the main plot line is boring and thankfully optional) start to work against it, in fact I’ve come to believe that the lack of focus (“what do I do next?”) is directly related to the size. In an effort to create an entire open-ended alternate world, the developers ran into the paradigms that make much of the real world boring and very similar in appearance. After all, how different does your house look from your neighbor’s? How many different animals do you see on your way to work? I know from my past vacation that I had the same conversation with three different groups of people, which I didn’t mind since I like the sound of my own voice, but there’s no such benefit in a video game when carrying on conversations with ‘non-player characters’.

So needless to say a few hours into the game I had seen 95% of the monsters that I was going to see in the game, NPC dialog became repetitive, and the hundreds of houses started to look the same. An emphasis is put on dungeon crawling for grinding, but even with what I think was a heroic effort on the part of the developers, a hole in the ground can only be made to be so exciting and different from other holes in the ground.

I’m not trying to take too much away from the impressive size and scope of the project which has a girth that must be seen to be believed, and I’ve long dreamt of a tolken-esque game of this magnitude, but…

For as much as it excels there’s also something very staid with the whole exercise. The game feels more like a checklist for old role play gamers than something new and original. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I saw this trailer for the upcoming Final Fantasy. The trailer is amazing looking, and otherworldly. Oblivion on the other hand features content that rehashes ideas and settings that have been around for decades. I’ll admit that this is mostly a taste issue as many people find the whole concept of Japanese role playing games unpalatable and that may be a large reason for Oblivion’s western oriented, Dungeons & Dragons themed success.

The Clone Wars

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It’s easy to say this film looks great, because it does. I love the Star Wars ‘Future Renaissance’ art style and that carries me a long way on this film. The other portion that the film has in its favor is that I cannot remember ever seeing that many laser blasts within such a short viewing. After I got out of the theater and returned to reality I mentally pegged the film as the longest ever trailer for a video game. If that isn’t your bag, then too bad for you, it’s a plus in my book.

The Clone Wars does, however, bring up issues that are inherit in the animated form: it get’s breaks that live action doesn’t, but it has to struggle to be viewed as a serious endeavor. The main issue with The Clone Wars is that the people who did the art direction and animation seemed to be shooting for the stars while the people who did the scripting seemed to dig the story out of a stack of leftover Saturday morning cartoon scripts. If one was to watch it without the dialog, one can see a film that pushes a slick, artistic style; but if one only listened to the dialog, one would envision a film pooped out by Korean animators after a weekend of work.

Overall the film did bring a little redemption for me for the Attack of Clones movie which I’ve long felt is one of the worst movies in terms of dollars per celluloid. It looks great, but it’s a shame it didn’t have something more to say.