Xenoblade Chronicles

I'll make it short: art is excellent, gameplay is realtime-cooldown based combat that hardly gets boring, customization is relevant, music is superb, story is long and very well paced, characters are likeable, the world is huge and the game gives a lot of freedom to explore it. Plus there's a ton of optional content very well scattered though the world.

Everything is in a perfect balance on what I expect from a game that I don't know what else to say, try it for yourself and decide :P.

So a game that had me for 120 hours through the story without getting tired, enjoying every scene, fight, conversation, exploring that world and having adventures. After so many hours of this I became really fond of the entire cast, then add an emotive ending and it's just normal for anyone to cry here. Cry Count = 4 (Chrono cross, Persona 3, MGS4 and Xenoblade)

Did I like it? My 3rd favorite game ever.
I think you will like it if you:
- Like jrpg

I rate my experience with a 10 out of 10.

Xenogears

Yet another awesome Xeno game, but my mistake was waiting too much time to play it because I'm already tired of seeing princes, chicks with tendency to get kidnapped and all that usual stuff that happens in japanese rpgs.
 Leaving the clichés aside, the rest of the story is pretty interesting with some dark philosophycal tones but not as much as I was told or expected, at least until the 2nd cd, but I guess that back on 1998 this wasn't common at all.

The gameplay is like any other rpgs, exploration, towns, random turn-based combats. Combat have 2 interesting things: one thing is the combo system that requires chaining attacks and doing key combinations instead of selecting commands though its development is poorly explained. And the other is being able to ride huge mechs with a bit different fight mechanics.

Now, my main disappointment is how the 2nd half of the game is treated, most of it is done like a summary of the events that happen,  explained by the characters in past tense. Text -> battle -> text -> battle, no more exploration or rpg elements. So I felt kinda empty after the end because a lot of things happen and so fast that ruins a bit the experience throwing away the epic setup that this game have.
 The reason behind is the developers ran out of time and money and had to rush to finish the game. This doesn't mean that the game is short, its duration is the usual on rpgs.

Graphics are correct. Music is awesome, lots its tunes are still in my head.

Did I like it? Yes, but It left me a bit disappointed.
I think you will like it if you:
- Want to try an unusual squaresoft title
- Aren't tired of jrpgs
- Play it known that the 2nd half of the game is very rushed

I rate my experience with a 8.0 out of 10.

Xenosaga

One of my favorites, Xenosaga is a futuristic rpg divided in 3 games (originally 6) explaining a story, so I'm doing a quick-review for the whole experience, not one specific game.

Without loosing the "japanese touch", it explains a story darker than usual, with many references about religion and philosofy that surprised me a lot, keep in mind that I had not yet played Xenogears or any Shin Megami Tensei game, I was used to play the usual SquareEnix hero-of-justice games like Final Fantasy, Rogue Galaxy, Radiata Stories... so it was very refreshing to me.

This is a saga with a major emphasis on scenes, on telling a story, that I think I was more time listening than playing. And I was fine with it, I found the story so interesting and had me so engaged that I just wanted to keep playing to get to the next scene and know more and more about the plot.

But I wasn't forcing my way through: the gameplay is really good too, so I wasn't forcing my way through. Nice customization and using a turn-based combat system with some nice additions like boosts and Mechs with each game improving the system further and further. Exploration while short, it's still there with many excellent locations and cities always keeping the sci-fi style.

The character design is the common Anime, though it changes each game going from a bit "deformed" style to a more realistic one. Strangely I prefered the deformed style.

Also keep in mind that each game has a different pace which seems to draw back some people, specially around the second game, but I recommend to endure, try to enjoy it on its own way and keep going because it gets better.

Did I like it? So. Much.
I think you will like it if you:
- Avoid comparisons with Xenogears
- Like jrpg
- Don't mind scene-heavy games

I rate my experience with a 10 out of 10.