I was reading the latest chapter in HXH and it reminded me something out of Xenogears Perfect Works where you have pages of babble about stuff nobody would care about that's supposed to show how massive the world is, which, of course, brings to the topic. I seem to remember Xenosaga was supposed to have 6 games and I have no idea if they even got anywhere with whatever they're planning, story-wise, even with the latest incarnation of X-whatever. Now I'm not opposed to have a fancy overreaching world view in some giant universe, but it seems like whoever came up with this stuff just assumes more is better. Or maybe they see dollar signs because if your world is ten times bigger than the average RPG that means 10 times the opportunity to make money. Final Fantasy 13 is another example that comes to mind, as you've to consult some equivalent of an in game wikipedia to even know what the heck they're talking about and most of the events/entities they talk about you wouldn't even know what they are otherwise, and it's obviously setup to have 3 games to cover the world. Problem is, if you don't even have the first game right there's really not much point for people to ever learn more about your world.
Interestingly enough I don't think Xenogears itself was that bad in this regard. For example you probably don't know that Big Joe came from Zeboim Civilization if you didn't read the Perfect Works but it doesn't really impact how the game goes. You know he's some guy who sells super awesome gear parts at the end for some inexplicable reason. For that matter you don't really have to know much about what the Zeboim Civilization is other than that it's where one of the Feis lived and Emeralda came from there too and they're ultra advanced in nanotechnology. If they later want to release another game based on the Zeboim Civilization that'd be fine, since whatever happened to Zeboim Civilization doesn't really impact much to Xenogears itself. But most games have fairly intruisve world view. For example let's take Megaman, which is most definitely not something complicated, but you basically have the whole Megaman Zero series that constantly talks about the Elf War which is some kind of pivotal event in the past and you never know what the heck even happened in the Elf War other than that a lot of people died. It's presumably never discussed because it's going to be resolved in one of the X games (which never happened). For that matter we know the prophecy is that X must fight Zero and yet that actually never really happened either (unless you count X5, but the point is that only one of them is supposed to remain when that fight is over). I guess it's closer to greed than complexity, since Megaman is obviously not a complicated game in terms of story. I see this kind of behavior in Xenosaga a lot too. It's like let's talk about some absolutely key event/entity without ever telling you what the heck they are so that in the future we could release another game about that so you can buy it. Well, it didn't work for Megaman and it didn't work for Xenosaga and it's probably not going to work in general. If Ganon died and he said for Hyrule's sins I doubt people are going to be too interested in the sequel The Return of Ganon or whatever.
In fact, I really do like how Nintendo handles their long running series. There is rarely any connection between the series, so we're never dealing with absurd issues like 'didn't we defeat Bowser/Ganon ten times already?' (and maybe Bowser does get defeated that many times, but not like that's important to the story). All their games are quite complete and there's no 'will Link kill Zelda like the cryptic prophecy foretold or will Ganon die for Hyrule's sins? Please send another $60 to found out in the next game!" And if there's a market for crazy things like that I'm sure Nintendo can actually release a game like that, but they're at least smart enough to realize such things aren't likely in demand.
Interestingly enough I don't think Xenogears itself was that bad in this regard. For example you probably don't know that Big Joe came from Zeboim Civilization if you didn't read the Perfect Works but it doesn't really impact how the game goes. You know he's some guy who sells super awesome gear parts at the end for some inexplicable reason. For that matter you don't really have to know much about what the Zeboim Civilization is other than that it's where one of the Feis lived and Emeralda came from there too and they're ultra advanced in nanotechnology. If they later want to release another game based on the Zeboim Civilization that'd be fine, since whatever happened to Zeboim Civilization doesn't really impact much to Xenogears itself. But most games have fairly intruisve world view. For example let's take Megaman, which is most definitely not something complicated, but you basically have the whole Megaman Zero series that constantly talks about the Elf War which is some kind of pivotal event in the past and you never know what the heck even happened in the Elf War other than that a lot of people died. It's presumably never discussed because it's going to be resolved in one of the X games (which never happened). For that matter we know the prophecy is that X must fight Zero and yet that actually never really happened either (unless you count X5, but the point is that only one of them is supposed to remain when that fight is over). I guess it's closer to greed than complexity, since Megaman is obviously not a complicated game in terms of story. I see this kind of behavior in Xenosaga a lot too. It's like let's talk about some absolutely key event/entity without ever telling you what the heck they are so that in the future we could release another game about that so you can buy it. Well, it didn't work for Megaman and it didn't work for Xenosaga and it's probably not going to work in general. If Ganon died and he said for Hyrule's sins I doubt people are going to be too interested in the sequel The Return of Ganon or whatever.
In fact, I really do like how Nintendo handles their long running series. There is rarely any connection between the series, so we're never dealing with absurd issues like 'didn't we defeat Bowser/Ganon ten times already?' (and maybe Bowser does get defeated that many times, but not like that's important to the story). All their games are quite complete and there's no 'will Link kill Zelda like the cryptic prophecy foretold or will Ganon die for Hyrule's sins? Please send another $60 to found out in the next game!" And if there's a market for crazy things like that I'm sure Nintendo can actually release a game like that, but they're at least smart enough to realize such things aren't likely in demand.
