An Ode to Xenosaga II

Ah Xenosaga II, how I loathe thee, let me count the ways...

One is for the way you litter your gameplay with meaningless, worthless side-quests whose sole purpose is to keep you running all over the world, suffering through your painfully slow loading screens in the vain attempt to earn some insanely useless double technique. While I realize that in real life it may take some time to get from location to location, I truly do not need such realism in my life.

Two is for the way you let me glide safely and easily through a dungeon's enemy encounters and then ABSOLUTELY SLAUGHTER me with the dungeon's final boss; only allowing me to defeat him by either referencing a walkthrough or banging my head against the way until I succeed through dumb luck. An extra thanks for pretty much forcing me to have the correct teammates and skills available for the task.

Three, and last, is for the way you absolutely will not let me finish you, no matter how badly you know I want to so that I can move on to Makai Kingdom. Why do you insist on letting me get to the very last enemy enounter before a boss and then destroy me utterly by some fluky sequence of events? I love how, even though I can't even reach the boss, I am assuming he/she/it is going to kick my ass nine times from tuesday way before I have even reached them.

Ah, Xenosaga II, I have always been the type to forgive and forget in a relationship, but this time you have gone too far. I have never dropped out of a gaming relationship because of difficulty, but you are making this a very hard decision. I have decided to give you one more chance to redeem yourself. If, by chance, I can clear the rest of the game in a manner of time befitting a polished video game in this day and age, I may reconsider my point of view. Until that time, however, I must stress that you are on very thin ice with me when there is a perfectly good copy of Makai Kingdom who is looking a lot more promising...

Unfortunately Yours,
Disgruntled Gamer, Lee Babin

Lee Babin | 8.16.2005 [return]

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