
Originally Posted by
tsurara
Xenosaga?
UGH... I think a lot of people are confusing "pretentous" and "self-important" with "significant".
A great deal of breakthroughs have been made in gaming... and very few of them involve preachy allusion-heavy storylines with cheap dramatic moments and very little in the way of actual gameplay. Gamers have proved time and time again that a series can have the best storyline EVER... but if it has no gameplay to back it up: they don't care.
Maybe that's why most gamers who played Xenosaga spent more time throwing the cd against the wall out of movie-watching ennui than pushing any buttons (accounting for about 20 minutes of each game's runtime).
Even viewed as a "film" -- Xenosaga is dense with technobabble, hard to follow, full of cliches and black and white charicatures, overlong, and derivative of everything from Card Captor Sakura to Star Wars.
If it had made it to theatres as that 20+ hour bloated monster mess (or even as a 4 hour cut-down mess), critics would DESTROY it.
Asian game-makers LOVE to throw in random religious and mythological names and words. They appear everywhere and in just about everything. Rarely do any of the references used actually apply to the original meaning or context. Example: Ragnarok Online contains massive amounts of references to Norse mythology, Christianity, Japanese/Chinese/Korean mythology, etc. That doesn't mean any of it applies to the importance or emotional impact of the game at all. It's still a game about levelling up, hacking monsters to death and showing off your equipment to other characters.
Some great dramatic games that weren't specifically designed to seem more "important" than they are: Shadow Hearts(PS2), Megami-Tensei (PC), Persona 2 (Playstation), Suikoden (Playstation), the Gabriel Knight series (PC), Final Fantasy VI (SNES/SF), Final Fantasy X (Playstation), The Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess (Wii), Phantasy Star IV (Genesis/MS), Valkyrie Profile (SNES/SF), Galerians (Playstation), Metal Gear Solid (Playstation), Shadow of the Collosus (Playstation 2), ICO (Playstation 2)
Games are supposed to be FUN. I'm fine with drama, as long as it doesn't destroy the fun.
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