The rumors about limited budget, as well as the rumor that it had less funding because of FF8 or something, are urban myths though. Afaik it was only the time that was an issue

finish the game the best that the team could so they could release a complete story. So yes, he chose for Disc 2 to be that way, but the limited time was the reason for it. I'm glad he did it though, otherwise we might have never gotten the second half of the story at all.

From what I know, it actually is from an interview. At the time, Square had a 2-year limit of development time, and the Xenogears dev team didn't have enough time to fully finish it. Takahashi was told by Square that he should release the game as it was with just disc one, but he decided to

A lot of Hosoe's tracks don't really fit the series well but they aren't necessarily bad songs.

It feels like every JRPG is fated to have good music regardless of the actual quality of the game lol. I wonder if there are any terrible games with amazing music out there.

I started thinking about this because of Xenosaga 2. Even with its mess of having two different composers who didn't even talk to each other during development, its soundtrack is actually still pretty good on both sides.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSld...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSld...

Xenosaga II is definitely the most interesting one to think about... I honestly kind of enjoyed it for the first half, but the cracks started to show more in the second half where the story started to get a lot weaker. The comeback they had in III is really unbelievable.

Tbh I'm not sure what else to say... This game is so crazy that I can't really do it justice with just bsky posts. If any Xenoblade fans are interested in Gears, don't hesitate to play it for yourself. It's really amazing to see how it set the foundation for the Blade games.

The music was also amazing, as expected from Mitsuda. My favorite track is definitely the credits theme, but in terms of instrumentals my favorite is October Mermaid. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPaa...

heard a lot about Disc 2 before starting it, but it wasn't as bad as I expected tbh. The story was still communicated effectively, at least the most important parts, and honestly I enjoyed the gameplay taking a backseat to let the story take over fully.

The gameplay... Isn't the best, but it's not the worst either. It's overall a pretty easy and straightforward game, and I didn't mind it too much once I got used to it. Definitely not the selling point of the game though.

I don't want to talk about the story too much to avoid spoilers, but it really is a masterpiece and incredibly ambitious both for its time and even by today's standards. Even when it was held back a bit in Disc 2 I still absolutely loved it.

I first started the game in 2020, and have been playing it on and off ever since. I never exactly quit it or anything, just took my time with it and took breaks throughout my playthrough. But tonight I finally rolled the credits.

It's a different experience from XIV but still great. You'll want to have a walkthrough pulled up at pretty much all times if you want to progress at a reasonable pace though