The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>... but my point was, if you hated the game for this "interactive book" reason then you must also hate FFX. If you DONT hate FFX then you're a hypocrit, becuase i have never in my life played such a "book" since Xenogears. Does that help sum it up? I dont recall reading a previous post about your feelings on FFX so i'm assuming you dont like it, which would not make you a hypocrit. As for me, i read fantasy and popular fiction all the time. I absolutely love these "book" games and dont understand how others dont, they're amazing.

--Flip</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>"... but my point was, if you hated the game for this "interactive book" reason"

I didn't hate Xenogears, I liked it a lot. But I agreed with Eric that the second disc slowed down the pace of the game. I can usually stomach quite a bit of RPG babble, but the second disc of Xeno left a bad taste in my mouth. You'd sit there reading slow-scrolling text for half an hour, and in that respect, it felt like just reading a book... hence the term "interactive book". If I wanted to read a book rather than play the game, I would have done so. But I still liked Xeno in the end despite that.

"then you must also hate FFX."

Well, since I didn't hate Xeno, I guess this jams a fork in your point. But for the record, I enjoyed (an am enjoying) FF10 quite a bit more.

"If you DONT hate FFX then you're a hypocrit, becuase i have never in my life played such a "book" since Xenogears."

You sure you were playing the same game? The gameplay in FF10 is unquestionably better than Xeno's, and I never had to sit through any 30-minute text-fest.

"Does that help sum it up?"

No.

"I dont recall reading a previous post about your feelings on FFX so i'm assuming you dont like it, which would not make you a hypocrit. As for me, i read fantasy and popular fiction all the time. I absolutely love these "book" games and dont understand how others dont, they're amazing. "

Find a post with me saying that Xenogears was a book game, and I'll eat my own ass.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>... how could I ever have assumed a guy who disliked an entire half of the game (disk 2) still enjoyed the game as a whole very much? What was I thinking. I know I like games and then say "i found myself sleeping" all the time. Who doesnt love a snooze fest game?

As for some of the things you have said about FFX we are obviously not playing the same game. You refer to Xenogears as slow scrolling RPG babble when you have control over the text! You dont with FFX at all! Yes, you can interrupt their talking but they still finish their actions and it takes just as long. It doesnt bother me in the slightest but for someone who get annoyed with text-fests doesnt that bother you? I agree that the battle system is the best so far as is the gameplay, but how can you deny that this game has more talk and cut scenes then every before?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.theonion.com/onion3805/when_ ... dy.html</a>

This is a really cheap shot, and for that I apologize, but I just can't help it.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Oh, that's wicked cool!</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Especially Xenogears. There are games with its great storyline, and games with its great gameplay. Xenogears had one of the most enjoyable storylines in any RPGs. Being annoyed with the second disc is like watching 30 minutes of Monty Python (the greatest comedy ever invented) but saying Holy Grail sucked because it was too long. I played Xenogears for mostly the story. I really liked the gameplay, but anytime the gameplay pissed me off I thought "well, if I complete this, I'll figure out what the fuck that cool intro was all about". Cool fucking sci-fi storylines with mechs and neat religious overtones! (And combos...shit, that's the one saving grace in the gameplay was cool-as-fuck combos.)

Now, I'm playing something of the opposite: Grandia 2. I really like the neat battles, and building up the magic/skills is almost addictive. The storyline is somewhat entertaining, and I hope it picks up, but I don't have the big narrative hook like I did with Xenogears. (I swear if it didn't have that intro in XG, I'll probably wouldn't have played it as much. Sometimes the little things really matter.)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, you're right. I'll stop being a little bitch now. Sorry if I was pissing you off BL.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>As for FF10, it does have more cut-scenes... but they're interesting, and never so long that I found myself shouting "come on!" at the screen (and you don't always have to wait for characters to finish their actions after you cut off the speech).

Again, I liked Xeno a lot. It's probably got the best story of any RPG I've played, yet I'm sure Square could have found a better way to present the latter half of the story then page after page after page of text.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Try playing it again, though. I love it the first time around, but didn't have the patience the second.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I used to think that. But finding a well-told story in a RPG is like finding a golden corn kernel in a pile of shit. I can rarely be bothered to even look these days.</div>