.HACK, Xenosaga, schlock PS2 JRPGs worth playing?

Hey all, know that I'm a fan of schlocky Japanese console RPGs as long as they're not obsessively complex or difficult. I like somewhat interesting characters, I really like an interesting story (read Odin Sphere, FFX, FFX-2, Shadow Hearts 1+2, Persona series, etc). PS2 seems inundated with console RPGs, the only problem is that about half of them I'd call "worth playing', half of them I'd call "Don't even bother playing, even if you get the game for free".

I've given these titles (dot-hack, Xenosaga) a miss, because at the time they were just too franchise-y. Now I can pick them up for pocket change, the question is "Is muddling through them worth it"?

So, for those who have played either series, could you tell me what you thought of them?

If you have other console RPGs for the PS2 that you'd recommend, feel free to hit me up (although I've played a TON of them), but I'd like to focus particularly on the dot-Hack and Xenosaga series.

Also, please no J-RPG console game hate. I love fun RPGs of all kinds (recently Fallout 3), I'm exploring those PS2 franchises that can now be found in virtually every bargain bin across the country.

-Andy

I played most of the first .Hack but couldn't get into to it, so I wouldn't particularly recommend it.

Xenosaga, however, I would. You've got to have no problem with long cutscenes, but if you are okay with that, you will be glad you played the series. If you ever played Xenogears on the PS1, that would be a fair test -- if you were cool with that game, definitely hit Xenosaga like the fist of an angry god. Fair warning, though -- Episode 2 is a bit rough around the edges. Their budget was severely cut after the lack of success of Episode 1, AND they for some reason decided to completely change the art style, so the transition from 1 to 2 is tough. If you stick with it, though, I think you will find that they found their footing again with Episode 3 and that the final payoff is worth the time you will spend on the series.

Also, have you played the Suikoden games? Suikoden 1 and 2 where PS1 games, while 3-5 where on the PS2. General consensus is that Suikoden 2 is the best in the series, but I would heartily recommend all but Suikoden 4 to anyone who enjoys JRPGs (S4 is not only the weakest entry in the series, but it is also fine to skip due to it lacking the shared characters and events that link the rest of the games in the series).

I agree with with zeroKFE about Xenosaga, although I had no issue with the art style change between episodes 1 and 2. What I did have a problem with is the near complete change of voice actors - I couldn't stomach the new cast in part 2, and as such never got further than 3 hours into it.

I played through .hack//volume 1, and to be honest...that time could have been better spent on another game. It was mildly entertaining and the bonus dvd was interesting, but it was also very samey and I had no interest in continuing on to volumes 2, 3, and 4 (which also received progressively lower ratings).

.hack always struck me as an anime/game about a game I'd give a shot. Not quite so interest about the anime/game that I can actually play (other than that the anime has wonderful music). I remember being immediately turned off by what I perceived to be a multi-disc RPG with each disc sold separately and at full price. Also by the furries.

.HACK - I had to play this for a job once, and I cannot personally recommend it. It's a single-player game that tries to emulate MMOs. So it has all the joys of an MMO (grinding, mob respawns, item farming, etc.) but without the social aspect (they try to emulate the social aspect too, by giving you a friends list which contains all NPCs). You'd be better off playing an actual MMO.

Xenosaga - I never finished it, but I did enjoy what I did play. I was hoping it would be more like Xenogears, but it's really not. Just go in expecting long cutscenes and lots of story, especially at the beginning.

Just to echo everyone else, I played and enjoyed Xenosaga, though I did peter out about three quarters of the way through. For some reason, I do that with some RPGs. I enjoyed it while I played it, I think I just got distracted by something new and shiny.

I never played .hack.

Can you really find all the .hack games cheap? There are two series; the original four-part series with main character Kite (Infection/Mutation/Outbreak/Quarantine) and the three-part .hack//G.U. series with main character Haseo (Rebirth/Reminisce/Redemption). For both, the games seemed to get rarer as you got further in the series (probably due to progressively smaller print runs). At least, in the U.S.

I have a love/hate relationship with .hack. I have watched all three of the U.S.-released anime series, bought all of the books released in the U.S., and played through the entire original four-part series. In my opinion, some of it is quite good (.hack//SIGN in particular has no action, the plot is a complete MacGuffin, but it's an amazing examination of how people try to connect) and some of it is total crap. I love the concept of so many wildly different stories in different media set in the same universe (some are set in the "real" world, some the online world, some are about the game's programmers instead of the players) but I wish the implementation had been more consistent.

As far as the games go, they are cheesy and the story is unsatisfying. Something drove me to dump well over 100 hours into the linear gameplay of the first series of games, though. Frankly, I think the creators did a great job of creating a mysterious world that I wanted to see more of. There was an intangible sense of wonder and mystery in the bizarre worlds you explore. The entire experience is infused with an undercurrent of melancholy, augmented by the overarching story of The World.

This doesn't really answer your question of whether to play it, I guess, but I hope it informs your decision. I think I'm the only person I know who has even played any of the games, much less invested so much in the franchise, so I'm happy to elucidate or answer more questions. I guess I can at least advise this: watch the .hack//SIGN anime before playing the first series of games, and the .hack//G.U. anime before playing that series. You do not have to, but you will get way more out of the games if you do. The rest of the franchise you can take a pass on.

I love Xenogears. I have actually played through it multiple times. Yes, I'm that crazy about it. It's one of the classic system-defining games from the PS1 era, in my opinion.

I also have a lot of patience for jrpg's, less now than in the past, but I still had a lot of patience back when Xenosaga came out.

For reasons I simply can't quite define, Xenosaga just never clicked with me. I tried it three times before finally selling it off. I never made it further than around... hrm, how to spoiler-free this? Maybe about five-six hours in is I guess the best I can say.

Hey guys, thanks for the reccs (and other folks, feel free to share).

Sounds like Xeonsaga is a winner. I'll start looking for it, and later set aside a chunk of time to play.

zerKFE: Re Suikoden, I played a little of the first two back on the PSOne when I lived in Japan. I dug them. I did actually try Suikoden 3, but for the life of me I couldn't get into it as much (although I did love the "mass combat" system it had, that was a cool twist). I think it was the dreary "everyman Western fantasy" setting that got to me. Thinking about it further (after having played dozens of schlock RPGs on the DS), I can deal with just about every single fantasy setting in a JRPG other than "Your Basic Western Fantasy Setting". Norse? Asian? Japanese School? Modern European (SH2)? Western, but with 40ccs of Bizarro? I can deal with those, but the Basic Vanilla Western Fantasy just puts me to sleep.

.Hack ... Man, whatta waste. When it was proposed, it was genius: A truly simultaneous multiple-media storm of production: Manga, Anime, Video Games- All different, all within the world, all filling out the world a little more. The concept of an MMO which you get stuck in and cannot leave, with a background of corporate conspiracy was genius. And yet, every single branch of that franchise failed because it just couldn't keep folks interested: The games (as reported above) too bland, the manga too bland, the anime visually stimulating but otherwise poorly written and conceived (an MMO, but where we only see like 5 characters, ever). The only truly epic piece of media that made it out of the dot-Hack franchise was the anime's soundtracks: Truly excellent music, even for "anime music", which hasn't left my iPod since I first started dumping MP3s on it. A shame that such an ambitious project couldn't muster the writing skills to keep it interesting enough to follow to its end.

Thanks again! And feel free to rec more schlock J-RPGs for the PS2 if you have recommendations.

EDIT: Cross-posted with beeporama. beeporama, thanks for the deep rundown of .HACK, that really is informed! (and to be told, when I actually purchase the game I'll be getting the Japanese release of the set; in this case skipping .HACK and going for Xenosaga; looking around, I can get the four .HACK games for about the same price as the three Xeno games, about 3000 yen/$30). And even though I'm... well, kinda resigned to not get into .HACK at this point, I did have a question about the game that maybe you could answer: I heard about the whole "make NPC friends from the "real world" who message you inside the game, which helps uncover the secrets/plot of the game in further detail"... Did you think the implementation of that worked well? Was it cheesy, or did it really function well, etc?
Thanks!

-Andy

I'll chime in and say go for Xenosaga. I really enjoyed them.

.hack always seemed like four okay games that could have been compressed into one really good one.

Farscry wrote:

I love Xenogears. I have actually played through it multiple times. Yes, I'm that crazy about it. It's one of the classic system-defining games from the PS1 era, in my opinion.

I also have a lot of patience for jrpg's, less now than in the past, but I still had a lot of patience back when Xenosaga came out.

For reasons I simply can't quite define, Xenosaga just never clicked with me. I tried it three times before finally selling it off. I never made it further than around... hrm, how to spoiler-free this? Maybe about five-six hours in is I guess the best I can say.

This. Xenogears is amazing, to date the ONLY game that has brought me to tears of emotion. Xenosaga is not Xenogears, even though it tries to emulate a lot of it. But if you take it as not Xenogears, it does stand well on its own.

Xenosaga I was really good, I had a hard time getting into Pt 2. I haven't finished it or picked up III, and that'll likely never happen with MMOs sucking my soul dry.

On .Hack, I loved the first one, Infection I think it was. I never played any of the others, but I love the anime's backstory.

Zigguratbuilder wrote:

.Hack ... Man, whatta waste. When it was proposed, it was genius: A truly simultaneous multiple-media storm of production: Manga, Anime, Video Games- All different, all within the world, all filling out the world a little more...

...I heard about the whole "make NPC friends from the "real world" who message you inside the game, which helps uncover the secrets/plot of the game in further detail"... Did you think the implementation of that worked well? Was it cheesy, or did it really function well, etc?...

...And feel free to rec more schlock J-RPGs for the PS2 if you have recommendations.

I agree with your assessment. I really WANTED to like .hack because multiple-media seems like such a good way to tell a truly engaging story. I think Dead Space did it well (everything was of a decent quality level and the stories were discreet but complementary). I would argue that .hack//SIGN is good for what it is, though; it's no Serial Experiments: Lain, but I think the two have a lot of similarities.

To answer your question: both game series start by dumping you at a simulated computer desktop. (This false desktop is as much as you see of the "real world" in the game, which I think was a mistake; a game that involved doing things in both the "real world" and "online" has some cool possibilities.) Besides booting the "game" you can also do other things like read email. When you make friends in the game, sometimes they'll send you emails, and you have a choice how to reply. Give the "right" reply and maybe they'll send you another email later. It does not significantly illuminate the overarching story, but the personal glimpses into the "real people" behind the avatars might be the best writing in the games.

Anyway: have you looked into the Ar Tonelico games, Rogue Galaxy, and Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria? I've only played the latter, but we have similar tastes (I too like JRPG's in the same way I like pizza) and they're all on my "to play" list when I get my PS2 back from my sister.

AnimeJ wrote:

Xenosaga I was really good, I had a hard time getting into Pt 2. I haven't finished it or picked up III...

You can do what I did, and give up after several hours (12 maybe?) into part two due to the poorly revamped battle system and the horribly recast voices, read a synopsis of the plot, and move on to three which is actually pretty good.

But yes, Xenosaga is worth it, but never play when you don't have a fair amount of time on your hands. Some of those cut-scenes are over an hour long...the wife didn't particularly enjoy that.

Xenosaga ate it. I played maybe an hour and a half, and never worked up the gumption to go back. I still have it lying around somewhere.

Agree about Xenogears' awesomeness, although I never finished that one either. Can't bring myself to sell it, probably because I have a sweet art book and the art book without the game would be... weird.

Does Valkyrie Profile count as schlock? It's occasionally incomprehensible in terms of plot but the gameplay is actually v. fun. It's a PS1 game but it's 2D and ages well like a fine Norse wine.