Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross or Xenogears?

Goddamn I really loved that game. It was one of the first RPG's I ever finished, and it - along with Vagrant Story - hold up really well nowadays for that era.

I beat Vagrant Story about 8 times, but I only finished Chrono Cross like 5 times (nowadays I'm lucky if I beat an 8 hour game twice).

Both had great combat, excellent art, wonderful music, and an intriguing story. But the atmosphere of Vagrant Story still makes it one of my favorite PS1 games. It's stuck with me and is still great to jump back into just to see all my maxed out break arts and spells and rare weapons.

I played Chrono Cross before Trigger so I wasn't as disappointed as some people. I still think they're both fantastic games and some of the best RPG representations of their bit eras. On a side note, I own a CC sheet music book that's completely in Japanese. And I made the effort to figure out and label every song because it's got such a great soundtrack.

And hell yes, Parasite Eve was just as great when we played it a couple years ago. The setting in the beginning is super memorable and I love where that games eventually goes.

I thought 2 lost some of the magic, unfortunately (and 3rd Birthday was fun, but not a tentpole experience).

Have to go with Xenogears on this. It is something I have been meaning to replay at some point.

Chrono Cross for being the most well-rounded of the three. But goddamnit if those aren't three of my favorite games of all time.

All three of those came out during my poorest student years, when I only owned something like ten games for my PS1 that I bought with student loan money. Xenogears made the cut, Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story did not.

I never played Xenogears when if first came out, but having played it recently I would think that I would be blown away by it at the time. I still think it looks cool.

Vagrant Story has my favorite combat system of the 3 (even of the 4 if we're counting Parasite Eve now), and still stands as an interesting game to me. With so many systems at play it actually still feels somewhat deep during replays. So that one, easily.

I do enjoy Xenogears but I think some of the philosophical elements are overhyped and in some ways are actually treated rather poorly. Though I know I'm in the minority with that opinion. The scene where your mechs gets crucified is hilariously dumb, imo. Decent game all around though.

Chrono Cross seemed like your run of the mill JRPG to me, and the story is a mess.

Vagrant Story is a game I adore and still play every year or so, its a much better experience than Chrono Cross or Xenogears.

Only Xenogears qualifies on this list.

Vagrant Story has broken gameplay and a lame story. The fandom behind this game is puzzling to me.The only reason I bothered to finish it was because I paid the $50 for it, and that's all.

With Chrono Cross, I can at least understand why it was popular having been the spiritual sequel to its mediocre, yet cherished forerunner Chrono Trigger. However it was like the Inception of its time, except really incoherent and excessively melodramatic. Making something overly convoluted and complex doesn't make it cool, it's just a waste of time. The plot was crushed by its own weight. By the time any of it started making a hint of sense, most gamers no longer cared. Its so-so gameplay sure didn't help matters either. I came in expecting an expansion on the shallowness of CT, what I got was something.........else.

I've referred to Chrono Cross as Soundtrack the Video Game. "Damn, I have no idea what that game was about, but it sure had an awesome soundtrack!"

Xenogears! It's already so fucking amazing. Imagine what would happen if they actually finished the game? The world would implode from it's radiance!

@white: They did, its called xenosaga... True question is imagine what would happen if they finished xenosaga.

I'd have to agree with this. PE2 was a shitty attempt at old school Resident Evil and the results were disastrous. They totally killed everything that was cool about the first game.

BOO THIS MAN! BOOOOOOO!!!

@i_stay_puft: Xenosaga's only similarity to Xenogears is that it has "Xeno" in the title. That game is a far cry from what a true successor to Xenogears should be.

Seriously. No mechs? What?

How bout Xenoblade Chronicles than? Or maybe the new X which is suppose to be the successor to Xenoblade? What about west coast rapper Xzibit? X to the Z you know who it be, X?

Final Fantasy XII's plot was not focused on the characters. if you went in the game expecting something akin to the personal interactions of the FFX cast, you'd be in for disappointment. The game's plot is event-centric. It's about the journey that the characters take, rather than the characters themselves. To boil the story down to one character-specific plot point you don't particularly care for seems a bit disingenuous when it comes to the whole picture.

As for which of the three games is my pick for this, Xenogears. It's a slog to play nowadays, but its plot went some amazing places and set the stage for Tetsuya Takahashi's later Xeno-works in his post-Square career.

Why are people bringing up off topic games? We're talking Square/Squaresoft titles, not Square Enix.

Not quite. Vagrant Story always took place in the same world as FF Tactics and ultimately FF12. It just took place in a different area and was it's own stand alone game. It is FF12 that ret conned the world and make lizard and cat people normal intelligent creatures instead of the random monsters they were in tactics and or Vagrant Story.

Regardless Xenogears wins, period. It is the best RPG square has ever made in general counting FF or not.

All this Vagrant Story love really has me wanting to give that game another chance. That first dungeon from what I remember was so super bland and boring but that combat was great. I really want to give this game another go but in all likelihood I think I probably never will.

I own all 3 of these, but I don't think I've ever actually put the Vagrant Story or Chrono Cross' discs into a device >_>;;;

I've completed Xenogears though :)

I would fucking kill for a Vagrant Story 2, or another game set in that world by Masuno.

And you just spend so much time in a shitty desert, boo.

I have to go with Chrono Cross because I love the music and world so much.

I really need to play Vagrant Story and Xenogears. Chrono Cross is alright. Man I've been meaning to write a Chrono Cross blog for like a year...

@white: Every Xenosaga has mechs, they also have way better plots, characters, and gameplay than Xenogears.

I voted Vagrant Story because it has a cool name and also I own it. Didn't like what little I played though.

As someone who really likes the game, that does sound like a disappointing plot twist. The dude was also only mentioning one thing he disliked out of what seems to be the entire game, practically. I guess I just like the exploration, the openness, and the aesthetics most, though I think the mechanics are interesting if a little too automated.

I said Xenogears though I have to admit the writing and pacing probably doesn't hold up as well as the other two games. I just remember really loving the feel of that universe around the time it came out. I like the other two games as well. Vagrant Story's art style and writing were really sharp but I was not a huge fan of how the mechanics came together to be honest. I hated when I went into the equipment menu and ended up looking at a bunch of negative numbers on my stuff. I realize it takes time to get the affinities you want on a per weapon basis but negative numbers in an RPG makes me feel like shit. Chrono Cross was really good too but the plot is incredibly dense particularly near the end when you can have a few NPCs on a beach explain just what the actual story is. Bottom line is that these are all great games and awesome examples that Square has made cool games without the words "Final Fantasy" in the title. Also remember digging Brave Fencer Musashi, Parasite Eve, and Bushido Blade.

I never got around to Vagrant Story, so it's not entirely fair. But Chrono Cross beats out Xenogears by a long shot. Chrono Cross is awesome, I don't even care that the story is a jumbled nonsensical mess.

Vagrant. Story. Ashley Riot is the only man video games need.

It's true, Riskbreakers work alone.

@believer258:

Yeah, it was just an example. I realized it was supposed to be plot-driven, but I think the plot fumbles pretty badly in places and is poorly told though-in-though. Burying important pieces of context in a codex is bad design,(a good codex like ME's still surfaces all that's necessary for understanding the plot in-game) and the game in general has a tell-don't-show problem. Also, there's a difference between less-focused-con-characters and the wooded, static things we got- Of course it doesn't have to be FFX, but the characters have little to no chemistry with each other, two have no coherent motivation and next to no personality, Basch is boringly perfect(after such great potential set-up!), Fran and whats-his-face are fun sometimes (well, whats-his-face is) if really static. The princess has potential but noone provides the drama she needs to really surface it, its why it's such a fucking bummer they fucked up so bad making Basch a holy righteous boy scout.

So the characters are broken even beyond the minimum needed for that sort of story and the story itself is terrible about providing context or reasons to care about what is happening in it.

As to the open environments, they had the problem the original release of XIV had- An artificiality, and an emptiness, the constant MMO wandering monster field aesthetic doing nothing to help it. Some of the dungeons were kind of cool, to damn with faint praise. Xenoblade is an example of a game that does that style of world and exploration far far faaaar better than XII.

And forget the mechanics of actively battling, which wasn't great, but nothing compared to the hot steaming mess that was the double-unlock, grind-intensive mess that was the core RPG mechanics. It's like someone took out the bullshittiest part of an MMO and transplanted them in. I ended up just doing huge Quickening chains, watching the same animation over and over and over again, because it was less soul-crushing then the grind.

I mean, like what you like, no problems with that. I just think that game is rotten, and did a lot of thinking about about why I think that at the time.

While I will fully admit that Xenogears is busted and unpolished as heck from back to front (not even including the second disc, which I really don't think was that bad), it's still the most important game in my entire collection and it gets my vote with no question. No other videogame universe has ever captivated my imagination so thoroughly.

Vagrant Story's combat was just way too obtrusive; it actively worked against you at every turn. I appreciated the game's style and tone enough to complete it, but actually playing it was kinda aggravating 50% of the time.

Chrono Cross.. hm. It's a great game, but it definitely lacks all of the personality and charm of Chrono Trigger. Still one of the best soundtracks out there though.

Chrono Cross is PRIME.

But seriously, that game is really good. I wasn't a fan of the huge number of characters, but everything else was excellent.

@i_stay_puft: I voted for Front Mission 3 :)

If that was one of the choices and VS wasn't one of them I would've voted for that game as well.

I say Xenogears but, that's because it's the only one I've played and I didn't even finish it as my ps2 crapped out. Now that I have a Vita though, I think I'm gonna try to play through it again.

I'm going to go with Chrono Cross, since I never played the other ones. Plus it's the sequel to my favourite RPG of all time.

Chrono Cross by a lapping-margin.

I never got to play Vagrant Story beyond the demo in an Official PS Magazine, never clicked with me. Between Chrono Cross and Xenogears I find it interesting because Xenogears is certainly the game I would recommend first. And when recently asked to choose between the two by a friend who's on a huge retro gaming kick and playing all the stuff he missed when he was actually a kid, I didn't hesitate to say Xenogears.

Maybe it's because I played the game so many times, but what stands out about it in my memory now are all the grindy, draggy bits, particularly in the beginning of the game.Thanks to the combo system it was always one of the most engaging games to grind in, you couldn't just mash, and that's an amazing thing I'm surprised more games didn't borrow from going forward. But it's still grinding, so when I was thinking about how to answer this post, at first I thought I might surprise myself and try to argue Chrono Cross. Partially because it could be less time-consuming for non-teenage players, partially because it was a little brighter and a lot more broad.

But then I start thinking really hard, remembering some of the revelations that game had and how glued to the screen I was on my very first playthrough throughout that second disc, somewhat grateful to have mostly gotten the combat out of the way other than boss fights after experiencing some incredibly tough Gear and on-foot combat sections. I remember how many moves open up for the individual characters both on foot and in their Gears, and how fun it feels to grow powerful in that game.

Chrono Cross has a ton of imagination, in a much more aloof, sensationally appealing way than Xenogears. But a lot of that game's side stuff felt like fan service or a distraction. One could easily look at them for what they also are, excuses to keep grinding and learning sub-details about the two worlds in an amazing game with an amazing soundtrack. But the lack of focus in characters - 45 as opposed to 9 - combined with the relative obscurity of how you attain most of those characters (particularly Glenn, who I couldn't imagine playing the game without) can make for a game that's actually a much longer experience, more padded out with banging against the game's dialogue tree madness.

So I have to say the answer is still easily Xenogears, although I was a little surprised how long it took me to work it out aloud. Maybe I should play some Chrono Cross...then again, I haven't actually played Xenogears in over half a decade, and wonder what a more educated, more critical thinking me would take from that game...

This isn't a real question, is it?

Which of these games received a perfect score from Famitsu?

Which of these games received ALL of the critical accolades?

Which of these games required you to beat it three times in order to get full 100% completion, thus offering tons of replay value?

Which of these games offered a flawless combo system to master?

Which of these games offered one of the deepest weapon creation systems in game history?

Which of these games masterfully handled the Parasite Eve combat engine in a real-time fighting style?

Which of these games isn't a sweaty ballsack?

Vagrant Story, folks.

The correct answer is Vagrant Story.

Crafting in vagrant story was super grindy and convoluted and shitty. I felt like I was playing a SaGa game or something. "Deep" is another word for it I guess, hah.

He's made multiple new games on the 3DS. Crimson Shroud is probably the closest to what you'd be looking for.

Hey thanks for the reminder on Crimson Shroud. Looks pretty interesting so I went ahead and downloaded it. How long would you say the game is? I'm assuming couldn't be that long considering its like 8 bucks on the store.

And yet none of that made it a very good game.

@differenceengine: Thems fightin' words.

I will have to look into those since I recently got a 3DS

None of these games are great. Xenogears is an utter disgrace, though. People should be ashamed to admit they like that game unironically. It is the textbook example of when a creator with an over inflated sense of his creative prowess takes advantage of the complete freedom he's been given by his publisher and crams every single batshit idea he's ever had into one game. To everyone who loves Xenogears just for how insane it gets, I have some small amount of respect for you how feel. None for the people who think Xenogears is fuckin' legit.

Vagrant Story's combat and crafting systems are so arcane and tedious, it's unreal. I remember finding some kind of giant crab beast for like 25 minutes doing a minuscule damage before I said screw this game and never touched it again. Chrono Cross, while it is honestly nothing special, is probably the best Squaresoft game of the Playstation era by far and in the top 5 they ever made. The combat system is decent, the story is humdrum but inoffensive.