Status: Completed (all of them)
The Xenosaga series is one that certainly aimed high, and ended up being completely forgettable (at least for me anyway). I loved the semi-predecessor in Xenogears, despite the utter wreck that is the second disc of that game, and this series seemed to do the same on a multi-game scale, they had high ambitions and designs, but ran out of steam/funding and ended up with much less. It certainly didn't help that all three games are very different in style and design, and their systems don't stay consistent, leading to no actual refinement, but wild swinging of things a game does well, and does poorly. The story between all of them stays consistent, but is basically inscrutable to anyone who doesn't read the supplementary materials, and likely suffers a great deal from the series being cut short(er) than the designers would have liked. I'll go through each game individually though.
Xenosaga I feels like the most direct successor to Xenogears. The combat system is very similar, in that you pick various attacks that add up to larger special attacks. The mix of mechs and ground combat works pretty well, though in general the special attacks of the characters fall far short of their normal attacks, so you generally won't use your spell abilities (not to mention the character that is focused on healing/special attacks can't take a hit). Overall game wise, the balance works out well, its fun to play, with only a few frustrations gameplay wise. The best part of the game is the side card game that is actually very fun to play and well designed, but doesn't make an appearance in any other games, and doesn't impact the main game in any way other than being an inefficient way of getting money. Overall, the first game is average, a decent RPG but nothing absolutely amazing, nor does it stand out in any particular aspect.
Xenosaga II is...much worse than the first game. They changed the art style around majorly, where the first was very animesque, the second shoots right to 'realistic' and is pretty jarring in the transition. The worst change though is the combat system. They take the 'combo' attack system, and remove most special attacks entirely from normal fighting. Your characters get only a few moves per round, and need to hit certain combos on enemies in order to start doing real damage, any damage before that is mostly scratch damage. So in any combat situation beyond common enemies, and sometimes even then, combat is a few turns of 'waiting' to build up attacks, then one huge combo boosted between characters to do as much damage as possible. It is very jarring to have to spend combat turns waiting, because if you don't get at least X number of attacks in to break their guard, you do nothing. What makes it worse is some enemies are immune to certain attack types, weak to things only one character does, and the like. In the end, you end up using a certain short list of characters because they can hit the most weaknesses and do the most straight up melee damage. If I had to score this game individually, I would put it way below par, the only real reason to play it is to see the story before the next game in the series.
Xenosaga III is a nice medium of art styles between the first two. Its not full on big-eye'd anime style, but not fully realistic either, and ends up looking the best for it. The combat system is a good medium as well, and it is quite fun to work through and doesn't make combat a bore like the second did. This game seems to be where the designers finally settled down on one thing to do, and it works out quite well as they hit their stride. The sidequest system they shoved into the game though, is completely awkward. They basically formalized sidequests, but they did so in a way that if you aren't following a guide 100% through the game, you won't get everything from the sidequests, and will spend hours looking for random characters with no hints from the game itself. Thankfully, its not required to get to the bonus bosses, so no big deal there. The bonus bosses end up being cakewalks though, and the entire game does, once you get the robot summon spells near the middle of the game. The only limiting factor there is your MP, otherwise they will utterly wreck every enemy and boss in the game. The bonus boss is specifically designed to be killed by only those summon spells, leaving the otherwise well done combat system lacking...why bother, when you can one shot everything?
So overall, the series is...ok, the biggest problem is the utterly lackluster second game, which was a big hurdle for me to get through to the rather well done third game. I feel if they had made more of these games and finished the story it would likely be a more positive memory, but the problem is that audience isn't going to keep buying games if they suck in hopes you'll get better.
These are completed, all bonus bosses wiped out the first time around, so they are off my list fully.
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