(3/30/2003) The RPGing comes to a end

Back when I was younger, I use to think that I'd never tire of playing videogames, and that I'd continue enjoying them until I died or till the television screen became a blurry mess (whichever came first :P). Well, it looks like that time has come sooner than expected or at least in a different form than expected. As you may know, when I entered college my videogaming was significantly reduced because A) I didn't have a TV B) gaming is not the best social mechanism and C) it gave no excuse for my parents to fault my grades with gaming (ha! PC...). Anyway, adjusting to the sudden depletion in gaming time came rather easily since late in high-school I came in contact with the greatest thing ever, anime. However, I continued to keep tabs on the industry, read reviews, and play games whenever I came home for break, thinking nothing had changed and that my love for games was still unhealthy :)

Then along came the PS2. For various reasons, I had decided that the PS2 would be my next-gen console long before the US launch and when it came out, I decided to hold off my purchase citing that I would wait for the first round of price cuts (which was true). The price cut came, but still no PS2. Finally in the September of this year, when I was bored beyond belief (having come back to my apartment sooner than expected), I got a PS2. Now if that wasn't a bad sign, perhaps when I failed to purchase most of the games I had marked as must-buy (see Exhibit #3, LOL its empty) was a better indicator that something had changed. One game, Xenosaga, I did manage to follow through on and for better or worse (mainly worse), the brunt of my next-gen gaming expectations fell on it. Although I had purchased several PS2 games before it, this was one I bought upon release (most of my games are GHs) so expectations were rather high, plus it was an RPG, one of the three genres I was particularly fond of (other two: fighting, shooters).

Having almost finished Xenosaga, I can certainly say that I am irritated by the game, if not all the genre in general. There's just something wrong with dungeon crawling over and over again. Xenosaga works like this: cinema/cut scene, dungeon/boss, repeat and sometimes throw in one of the few towns. If all RPGs were put through a reductionist formula, they might end up like that, but I for one can no longer tolerate it. If my attitude has changed, I dont know why, but there are certain issues where I can pinpoint my dissatisfaction with the game. Let's start with the excessive battle animations, the absence of music (no boss theme!), stupid stat/skill/everything micro management (I've made it through with almost no tech upgrades), lack of towns, PISS-POOR cinema encoding (this is DVD?!), edits/censors/glitches, and you have a winning formula for disaster. About the only thing that suprised me was the decent dubbing and as far as difficulty is concerned, Xenosaga may be harder than most modern RPGs, but by no means comparable to Persona 2. Like FFX (which I did not finish or own), having to prolong a battle to do stupid things (this case: frame repair, FFX: exp switch) is just not fun. And the story, which should be its saving grace, is so disjointed, flimsy, or if you may, "epic" to the point you no longer care.

In the end, Xenosaga, and I will reiterate, annoys me. I can't help but laugh to think that the one game which I pinned such high expectations (foolish in itself) ended up destroying my interest in the entire genre. By all means I still like videogames, but my taste has shifted to reasons I like the other two genres, games that are easy to pick up and play for short periods of time (mindless anime anyone?). Maybe I lack the will and dedication as a gamer, but what the hey, playing RO 24/7 is great!

Ed. note: I ended the rant abruptly without fully expressing myself because I'm really hungry and didn't feel like typing anymore so maybe they'll be a update in the future... or not :P