Support NeoGAF

[ErasureAcer]

I'm suprised more people aren't talking about their play throughs. For me, I made it into D-Block today. About 12 hours into the game. I could have been here earlier but I've been talking to every NPC there is. Plus the game doesn't exactly tell you where to go next on a few occasions. Sitting around 12g too. Wish I had more...Holy Pendants cost 8G and I guess I should deck every character out with one by games end.

 

[Hesemonni]

Just began my playthrough on PSP. 2,5 hrs in, just made it past the forest, totally forgot about RPS in Lahan and well, really looking forward to what's about to come.

The lack of autorun or rather me being annoyed by the lack of autorun was a surprise, but it's been a while since the last time I played this.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

In the forest, pretty interesting game. Outside of FFVII, I haven't seen a game that used multiple animations styles in the same cinematic, which is kind of interesting. Story is pretty cool and weird as well, the scenes with Fei and the girl fighting and then the flashback that follows afterward using the same words was pretty cool. Gears are kind of ridiculous, but surprisingly imposing.

 

[shwimpy]

Noob question: Do deathblows have unlimited uses?

 

[B.K.]

Noob question: Do deathblows have unlimited uses?

Yes. You don't want to rely on them too much though. If you use deathblows every turn, you won't be able to learn new ones.

 

[The Antitype]

I love this game so much. Best written Japanese RPG ever. Epic storytelling, genuinely interesting themes, and legitimately moving characters.

Hell, I love it so much I took my neogaf name from the game.

 

[SolidusDave]

During my train rides this week I still managed to take my time exploring and I'm now in the desert city after the forest (that's already 2 SD towns right at the beginning of the game.. and a worldmap! )


Thoughts from a person playing this for the first time and with today's games in mind (= no nostalgia bonus):

- The 3D environments surprisingly hold up well, kinda unusual for a PS1 game. They are detailed and have a nice style (natural color palette etc.). By default you turn the camera with L1/R1 so playing the game on the PSP feels natural.
I like the detail work they did, like making some sprite effects to mimic the reflecting light of the fire on the fireplace itself or the lightbeams in the forest.
- due to the free camera and the ability to jump/fall, you have an high level of exploration (jump over a gap to reach a secret treasure chest etc.)
- game is quite easy so far (which I consider a plus here)
- Story is interesting, you also get regularly some anime cutscenes with (english) voiceover which hold up better than any CGI from back then (though they didn't even try to lip sync ). Not really impressed by the writing/translation (nor the emo phases of the characters), but it's very solid. Text speed is actually not that slow, but I'm not a native speaker either.
- fighting system is probably a bit more fun than your usual classic turn based JRPG as you basically click attack but then you enter whatever combo you want (plus of course specials abilities, magic etc.).

oh and yet another JRPG that gives stuff German names. "Weltall" ^^

 

[Sophia]

I like the detail work they did, like making some sprite effects to mimic the reflecting light of the fire on the fireplace itself or the lightbeams in the forest.

There's a lot of little details like this all over the game. Off the top of my head, Bart and Sigurd's eyepatch is always in the correct spot, as is the hand of Elly's weapon. (Elly is left handed, and yeah, they actually sprited her as such. )

Get used to the German too. Takahashi appears to be in love with it. =P

 

[LProtag]

Yes. You don't want to rely on them too much though. If you use deathblows every turn, you won't be able to learn new ones.

Yeah, use deathblows all the time for bosses and stuff, but try to develop new ones when you're doing regular battles. I guess take out the bigger enemies with deathblows, or soften them up.

Then again, I haven't played in a while. Waiting until Spring Break so that my life isn't consumed while I have work to do.

 

[Cell_Biology]

If any of you guys are playing on the PSP, what screen mode looks best?

 

[Pinko Marx]

I'm really interested in seeing what some of your first timers say about some of the game's major plot points and twists.
I'd start another playthru but I leave for boot camp in ~2 weeks, and Tactics Ogre + Radiant Historia are taking up all my time anyway.

 

[computers putin']

Incredible game, the first c.d. that is. The second c.d. is still good, but so much of the story is told rather than played, it just feels like a wasted opportunity.... but y'know, translating some of the story into additional gameplay would be perfect for a remake, if one ever comes. Doubt it but still* crosses fingers *

I'm still mad at myself for selling the game years ago, $20 and a copy of Final Fantasy 10 was not worth it.

 

[Pinko Marx]

I found a copy of Xenogears at a gamestop some years ago. I had lost my first copy that I had when the game first came out, and when I saw that shit at GS I damn near shat myself.

 

[RPGCrazied]

I'm downloading now. Even if I don't play it, it needs to be bought at this price. I'm just fearing how it'll look on my HDTV.

The only PS1 classics I have is the Arc the Lads, and they don't look bad with the smooth option enabled.

 

[Daante]

Best J-RPG ever made and also one of my favorite game of all times.

I loved eveything that Disc2 was, and thought it made the game even more special and uniqe.

So many "shit just got real" moments in this game.. , the experience i had the first time i played it trough all those years back, and how moved and touched i was would probably be equal to only one game and that is MGS3.

Music is fantastic and certainly up there as one of the absolute best OST:s ever made.

 

[Celcius]

Hmm, I'm tempted to pick this up again. I even still have my ps1 memory card with all my saves on it...

 

[RPGCrazied]

Yeah. My discs look better in the epsxe emu than the PSN on my TV. ;/

Oh well, least I showed my support for the game! I'll not waste $$$ though, I'm going to replay it, on the emu though.

 

[Edgeward]

If any of you guys are playing on the PSP, what screen mode looks best?

I just go custom and increase the screen size till it fills up vertically, I can deal borders on the side but not black bars on the top and bottom. It's a little blown up so going with original mode works best if you want to have the best crispness but it will be in a small box

 

[Synless]

I just go custom and increase the screen size till it fills up vertically, I can deal borders on the side but not black bars on the top and bottom. It's a little blown up so going with original mode works best if you want to have the best crispness but it will be in a small box

That's exactly what I did for mine as well.

 

[Blue Submarine No. 6]

Well, I was trying to dig into Tactics Ogre, but since Tuesday the idea that I had this game on my PSP Go kept gnawing away at the back of my brain, and yesterday I broke down and set aside TO to play through Xenogears again... I'm just out of the stalactite cave with Bart on the Yggdrasil... I still have my PSX discs, but I haven't played it since it was released; I even ripped the PSX discs to play on my CFW PSP1000 I never got around to starting again! Now that I have, it's a combination of the familiar and the new, as certain scenes trigger old memories, but I really can't remember that much about the game's specifics, so much of it feels new again, but with an edge of Deja Vu... Anyway, I'm loving it! Sorry T.O. - I'll get back to the SRPG thing after I put this one to bed... see ya in a couple weeks...

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

I'm saving the replay from the very beggining for my PSP but continuing from a save from half a year ago or more on the PS3. The thing is, I don't remember what to do. In an effort to contribute to the thread and not look up a guide, can anyone help?

I'm

Spoiler

playing as Bart while Fei is in the tournament. When I booted it up, I was in the sewers with some old lady walking around and I can open and close a gate in the water. Every time i try to go in, the lady says i can't. If i remember correctly i either already made my way through the sewers or maybe I have to now? When i climb the ladder to the surface, I'm in a court yard of the castle and I feel like I explored every area last night to no avail. I've fought guards, entered empty throne rooms, a King's quarters and what not. Fei had already fought Dan and I feel like the rest is waiting on Bart to do what he needs to do... which I forget haha.

Maybe I should have looked that up when I was refreshing the story so far for myself....

edit: shift + i FTL

Oh, nevermind I guess. Looks like when I fought

Spoiler

Dan, I wasn't supposed to attack. I kept defending myself because I remember something like that from my original playthrough way back but I decided to attack. While looking up the script, the conversation with Dan was nothing like what I got so I'll go ahead and reboot it from where i started yesterday. Still doesn't help me with what Bart should be doing haha.

 

[witchedwiz]

i've got a huge collection of psx title ntsc/uc.... but i'm eu and my ps3 is eu, hence i'm.. sort of fucked up... In the end guess i'll have to rebuy all of 'em on psn....

 

[fart town usa]

Downloading it as I type this. Gonna play it for the first time. As a kid I was a huge nintendo fan, I held out with the N64 and didn't buy a psx till after the fact, missed out on a lot of great games.

 

[Various Artists]

One of my favorite games ever. Probably would be my favorite if the full 6 games ever came out and the budget wasnt cut on the second disc. Truly a masterpiece.

 

[Red Blaster]

Playing my disc copy. I've completely forgotten how to learn deathblows. Are they just based on random button mashing?

 

[Clevinger]

Playing my disc copy. I've completely forgotten how to learn deathblows. Are they just based on random button mashing?

You have to be at a certain level, and I believe attacking with the deathblow combo before you've learned it will help you learn it faster.

 

[Gilgamesh]

I've never played this game, despite being in love with SNES/PS1 era RPGs. I should really correct that sometime...

 

[ErasureAcer]

In an effort to contribute to the thread and not look up a guide, can anyone help?

You gotta go up to the second floor for starters. Then you open the big door between the 2 stairways to get to the second floor courtyard. From there you go past all the side doors to the next set of doors and take a right(from the left hand side) or a left(from the right hand side) and you'll end up at a door...go through it. From there you should be in another place with stairs...or maybe not, regardless, there should be a side door that guards are guarding...they'll run after you when they see you...after you beat them you go through the door. That should get you to where you want to be.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

You gotta go up to the second floor for starters. Then you open the big door between the 2 stairways to get to the second floor courtyard. From there you go past all the side doors to the next set of doors and take a right(from the left hand side) or a left(from the right hand side) and you'll end up at a door...go through it. From there you should be in another place with stairs...or maybe not, regardless, there should be a side door that guards are guarding...they'll run after you when they see you...after you beat them you go through the door. That should get you to where you want to be.

Thanks but I just did that and ended up dying at the boss battle but i didn't mind because somethign didn't sit right with the conversation between

Spoiler

Dan and Fei where he offers the wedding dress

. I've read the script and that is not happening in my playthrough. I'm just getting the frustration and him leaving the battle. What gives?

 

[MechaX]

You have to be at a certain level, and I believe attacking with the deathblow combo before you've learned it will help you learn it faster.

It's slightly like that. What it comes down to is that every attack "animation" has its own hidden experience. Thus, you can do certain button combinations that would give you experience to like five deathblows overall at once.

Here is the guide for Deathblow learning and it is definitely not as complicated as it may initially seem.

Also, Deathblows are also tied to levels (as in, you might have 100% experience in a Deathblow but can't use it because a character is not at a certain level).

 

[Red Blaster]

Okay now I've gotten my bearings straight. Forgot that every character's deathblows are all the same button combinations.

Handy tip for those starting out: In the stalactite cave, have one character get out of their gear. Enemies will pretty much always attack the gear user so the guy on foot can just work on maxing out deathblows.

 

[DrForester]

So basically you have to do the deathblow combination again and again until you learn it. So many playthroughs and I never really got it.

 

[Dead]

So basically you have to do the deathblow combination again and again until you learn it. So many playthroughs and I never really got it.

Back when the game came out, I actually called the Squaresoft game hint hotline because I couldn't figure it out when I first started playing and kept getting reamed by a boss :lol

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Back when the game came out, I actually called the Squaresoft game hint hotline because I couldn't figure it out when I first started playing and kept getting reamed by a boss :lol

Yeah, I remember when fighting Redrum and getting killed. Only after dozens of deaths did I discover the combo technique (where you don't use the max deathblow count and let it build up so you can string many dathblows together for a max combo).

 

[sammy]

If any of you guys are playing on the PSP, what screen mode looks best?

I like getting to play PSP1 games at their original pixel.

 

[Community Forum]

So awesome that you can buy the PSN code off Amazon... I'm using credit from physical games I traded in a while back. We truly do live in the future!

 

[McLovin]

Anyone else having trouble with the game recognizing a ds3 controller?

 

[ErasureAcer]

I'm up to the Man of the Sea. 18 hours in or so.

 

[Draft]

:lol Deathblows.

Man, what an era of gaming. Or maybe, what an age to be gaming. I remember doing that shit. Grinding, for maybe a couple hours at a time, doing nothing but running in circles, getting in fights, hoping to learn deathblows. That's insane. Utter craziness. If a game required me to do that today, I would simply turn it off.

But back then, it just seemed... awesome.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Is this 5.99 or 9.99? Also if I have CFW on my PSP (not PS3), will buying it via Media GO and then copying it to my PSP screw up my account at all?

 

[Cell_Biology]

Thanks for all the advice with the screen modes on the PSP.

I'm about 13 hours in now and I am making much better progress than the first time around when my PS1 memory card formatted itself. Also playing now makes me read more into the game then I did before when I first played it.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Anyone else having trouble with the game recognizing a ds3 controller?

Mine works fine. You should note that it has no analog support though.

 

[lobdale]

I got the RPS badge in the first five times I played against the guy, didn't lose a single one. I could hardly fucking believe it.

Surely the balance of karma swinging in my favor after all the dozens of resets and the time he stole from me back in '98.

WHO IS THE RPS MASTER NOW, SHIT HAT

Spoiler

(gonna kill you soon)

 

[BentMyWookiee]

Quick question for anybody who switches off between playing on PS3 and PSP. I've been playing Xenogears soley on the PS3 so far, but I wanted to transfer my save to my PSP so that I could play while taking a crap or when I'm not at home. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to actually transfer my save file (when I hit 'triangle' when highlighting the save file on my XMB, the option to 'copy' was grayed out). I'm sure that I'm just being retarded and overlooking some simple way to do it. Could somebody shed some light on what I need to do?

Is this 5.99 or 9.99? Also if I have CFW on my PSP (not PS3), will buying it via Media GO and then copying it to my PSP screw up my account at all?

9.99, and worth every penny IMO.

 

[DrForester]

Always wondered if Paramount ever called them out for using several Star Trek Sound FX in the opening video (Comm badge noise and TNG door chime)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDBNR114TpY#t=4m10s

 

[lobdale]

Quick question for anybody who switches off between playing on PS3 and PSP. I've been playing Xenogears soley on the PS3 so far, but I wanted to transfer my save to my PSP so that I could play while taking a crap or when I'm not at home. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to actually transfer my save file (when I hit 'triangle' when highlighting the save file on my XMB, the option to 'copy' was grayed out). I'm sure that I'm just being retarded and overlooking some simple way to do it. Could somebody shed some light on what I need to do?

I do this all the time with lots of games, and have been doing it with Xenogears lately too since I play on my PSP during the day but like to play it a bit on the TV instead when I'm home. The really nice part is that if you have made your own custom eboot from your own disc-based PS1 games and you've played them on your PSP already, and then they later release them to buy on the PSN store, you can actually buy the game on the PS3, then copy your save over from the PSP and continue where you left off.

First you need to have at least started up the game on your PSP before--this will create the PSP system's virtual memory cards ("Xenogears-1" and "Xenogears-2"--a card for each memory card slot when that game is "in the drive".

All you need to do is connect your PSP to the system in USB mode, then go to the option at the top of game on the XMB (Memory Card Manager, PS/PS2 I think?). Wait a second to make sure the system has read some of your PSP data, then select the virtual memory card that your game is saved on on the PS3. Select the game's specific save data, hit triangle, hit copy, it'll say the data needs to be converted, choose OK and then pick the destination memory card on the PSP (if you have a lot they'll take a sec to load up, wait for your Xenogears-1 to appear). Copy it over and you are golden.

Copying it back works similarly, except instead of choosing Memory Card Manager, pick the very top of Game section, which will be your PSP, and wait for the memory cards to pop in, then just click them and copy them over.

I actually copied over my seven hour file from a custom eboot of Front Mission 3 a while back, and once that got a PSN release I was able to just start it right up with that file. Pretty slick.

 

[Red Blaster]

Has anyone tried this on a PSP with 5.50 GEN? I'd like to buy it on PSN but if it still does the black screen hang then it's 10 bucks wasted.

 

[mt1200]

Im playing for the second time, but never got to the ending because I lost my memory card.

great game, the plot is amazing, if you dont have an expensive copy, get it in PSN.

Sometimes it glitches when played in a ps2.

 

[lobdale]

Has anyone tried this on a PSP with 5.50 GEN? I'd like to buy it on PSN but if it still does the black screen hang then it's 10 bucks wasted.

I'm playing a copy on 5.50 GEN using the 3.71? popsloader plugin. No problems, no freezing or black screens. I heard once that the only problem is that the game will stop responding if

Spoiler

Deus

does a certain attack after a few rounds later on in the game. I plan on just transferring my save to PS3 and getting through the part that way if it is indeed the case.

 

[Lafiel]

Back when the game came out, I actually called the Squaresoft game hint hotline because I couldn't figure it out when I first started playing and kept getting reamed by a boss :lol

I actually remember beating the game with limited deathblows, I didn't grind them out until i got to the last dungeon.:lol