We could always use 'THAT'

This post is about the recent release Xenosaga III for the Playstation 2.

Now normally, it takes between 30 and 60 hours to play one of those charming turn-based RPG style games that I like to play. If it takes me less than 30 hours to solve it than I feel like it wasn't really worth the money. But at the end of those precious 30 to 60 hours, I expect two things. One is a kickin' end fight that leaves me jumping on the carpet (because it was SO not easy) and the second thing I demand is a good satisfying ending. Now, because this is a trilogy, I did not expect a good ending for the first two. I knew they were going to keep going, so I held off on deciding whether or not Xenosaga was worth my trouble to play until the very end of the THIRD video games (that means 30 to 60 hours THREE times - that's a lot of time to spend with one story line ... 180 hours of one story). So, here is my verdict.

SO NOT WORTH IT!

I had such high hopes for chaos (my favourite character) and once all the aspects of the plot were revealed ... he turned out so lame. I was expecting a plot twist equal to Xellos in Slayers, and instead I got a sissy little boy who never turned out to be anything more than that. Well, to be fair, there were a few plot twists in the game that were worth while, but there was also a large amount of cheese. Just when I thought something had been cleverly executed they turned around and did something stupid - so unbelieveably stupid that I couldn't even take the intense moments seriously.

There's this one part near the end when the one of the characters says, "We could always use THAT'. Well, once they use it - it is perfectly clear why they would hesitate to use THAT - even in an emergency. I'd die before I'd show THAT to anyone. EW! Seriously - totally ruined any feelings I might have had for the game.

So, there were lots of different endings because there were so many different plotlines. I'll break it down by character to say how satisfying they were.

Shion - Completely satisfied. I wasn't much of a Shion fan, but I thought she really improved in the third game (she was really cool in the first and crappy in the second, so I was expecting even crappier in the third), but she surprised me and pulled through. Good for her!
chaos - Completely dissatisfied. Since Dirge of Cerberus came out there is hope for this. Maybe he'll turn out to be such a good character that Namco will have to make an entire game just to salute him, since they totally dropped the ball in Xenosaga.
Kos Mos - Completely dissatisfied. Three words - and they don't even begin to describe my confusion - WTF?
Momo - Satisfied. I wasn't really expecting much, but it was pretty good. Her plot line gets really undeniably corny in the second installment. I think I took a break during her plot line.
Ziggy - A little weirded out. I was so charged about Ziggy when they introduced him in the first game. I was totally jazzed to play him and when I saw how he looked for episode two - he nearly stopped my heart. I love Ziggy. But I felt that the ending was so HUMAN - and weird - like if Robocop had had an ending where he got to go home and live with his wife. Maybe that's what they intended, but it was still weird.
Rubedo - Completely satisfied. Actually, I felt like the creators really took this one to the hoop. Good work!
Jin - Bored that they made me watch it. I never liked Jin, and I almost choked on the cheese he left behind. So cheesy. So very very cheesy.

Okay, so I'm not going to write up any more characters.

Some of the game was good. A lot of it was confusing. I kept on asking Jak if he knew what the heck they were talking about and he didn't. It seemed sort of like Evangelion. As in, you'd have to watch it 50 times and make it part of your daily routine, like eating breakfast, in order to truly digest the plot. However, I have sore digits from typing and I can't play a game over and over again like that. My hands can't take the stress. I can only play stuff once, so it better be good and understandable on the first play. That might make me a 'casual gamer' and if so - so be it. I'll be a casual gamer then.