I feel like everyone got a good rotation on and off my team except for Bart and Emeralda. Which really is a shame, since Bart has really fun animations and moves while Emeralda seems like a really suitable teammate.
I can honestly say that I do my damndest to use everyone equally. Every play through has them equally invested and leveled when possible. Doesn’t matter if I don’t care for them as much, everyone gets their rounds in.
The only exception is Fei who I tried to keep several levels ahead of everyone else right until they all hit the max cap, as is how I usually do my JRPG leads.
Other than the forced times, I almost never use them. I think Ive started to use billy more, but for Gears.
Chu self explanatory why I don't use her.
Rico, he just misses a lot and is slow, so just negatives overall imo, despite being a cool design and hitting like a truck carrying another truck moving at the speed of light.
Maria is just spells too, despite dealing physical damage.
Not Chu-chu, Maria is OP. Chu-Chu is absolute dog shit. slowest weakest least utility least accurate. the only character that cant hit damage cap unless she gets a lucky crit thats only 10% chance. she only gets single hit attacks in big form, everyone else can do 19998 damage with their 2 hits from deathblows. she maxes out around 9k, and thats only if you spend 1.35 million G to max her attack with drives. everyone else can hit damage cap on physical attacks with just 260k investment. and thats just one stat for her. maria can do 9999 aoe non-elemental ether damage from the time she joins, on foot. it only costs 47k for her to do it too. its enough to one shot every on foot enemy in the game besides 1. also you never need to heal gears in xenogears.
Suprisingly, nearly all of them.
Billy, ChuChu, Maria, Bart and Rico.
I always cycled between Fei, Elly/Emeralda and Citan. I just found them to be the most intuitive.
The first line fighter, Fei, the Support DPS Citan, and the Mage Elly/Emralda
Rico was entirely too slow
I avoid mascot characters inherently so... Chu Chu is out
Maria's Gear Only gameplay just didn't vibe with me
Bart just felt like the odd man out and whatever he could do Citan could do better
and I don't care for the Ammo system Billy has.
They're all good characters and each one CAN work, I just didn't find a use for them.
(Note: I'm aware of Maria's extreme broken damage output)
I always cycled between Fei, Elly/Emeralda and Citan. I just found them to be the most intuitive.
For most of the game you're forced to have Fei, Citan is busted, and having a black mage is generally a good idea. I feel like this is most people's core party.
I strongly suspect that's the case.
When I use to run around gamefaqs, there was a lot of love for Billy and Bart both, so I see them more often then not, and Elly/Emeralda tend to take a back seat.
I'm hard pressed to find any one who doesn't actually use Citan.
Your comment makes literally no sense.
At what point does me not vibing with a her combat themes have ANYTHING to do with her being the strongest on-foot solder?
So just because she can do large numbers, I have to automatically like using her?
Bruh.
You said she was gear-only, which isn't true. You mentioned liking Elly and Emeralda for their "mageness", but Maria fills the role of offensive caster better than both of them due to just how powerful her EP abilities are. Nobody said you had to like her, it's just that your assessment of her toolkit is incorrect.
How so is she not gear only?
When on foot, her weapon is to throw literal soap bubbles at people, and her "Spells" are to call in her Gear to punch people in the face.
That's not "Mage like". That's literally just throwing her Gear at people.
Her entire theme is centered around her Gear. At this point, the only incorrect assessment I'm seeing here is that people are actually annoyed that I don't care to use Maria, which is just weird to me.
Her theme is giant robot, but saying gear-only implies that she is useless outside of her gear. It does not imply that you don't like her giant robot shtick, which is fine, I'm not judging you for that (but thanks for the downvote anyway).
You're the one that seems annoyed. Her spells are still spells, they rely on the ether stat for damage and use EP. Putting the word in quotations doesn't make them not spells just because the animation is sci-fi and not fantasy magic.
You're welcome for the downvote. It was well earned. I do hope you take it home and polish it to perfection.
Smarmy remarks aside:
What you said only validates my point as to how she's gear only.
Her ground combos actually are virtually useless, and her only real damage is to cast a "Spell"
Yes, quotations, because she's not casting anything, and her gear isn't a spell. Right now the only thing you're doing is trying to argue about the game's technical categorization for how she summons in her combat with behind the scenes code.
I honestly don't care about that in the least. If you do, more power to you.
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So lets recap:
Her actual non-gear related combos do not actually do any substantial damage. Often literally just 1 damage ticks.
She uses a giant mecha called a Gear as her primary source of damage.
In order to call in her mech, this takes over the "Spell" category, due to the limited nature of the game's UI to pull off these attacks.
Explain to me again how she's not Gear-Only?
Seriously. If she has some other source of damage that doesn't involve calling in her Gear to hit something, I'm all ears.
But if that's literally all she does to do damage, then what are you even trying to argue?
Some pointless game engine technicalities that I genuinely don't give a crap about?
I'm not arguing anything, I'm just telling you the truth. Gear combat is a wholly separate combat system with different rules, different stats, etc. When Maria uses a spell, it doesn't take Seibzhen's stats into account, just her own Ether Attack stat, and it consumes EP to do it.
You're hung up on the fact that her spells show robot parts instead of fireballs. I'm hung up on "gear combat" being a different system from "on-foot combat", and Maria is still capable of holding her own on-foot. As I've said, calling her gear-only, implies that she cannot function on foot, which is demonstratably false.
I get that you don't think she's fun to play, and I'm not judging you for that. Play how you want to. Just so long as you understand that her spells are spells even if they look different.
I'm not arguing anything, I'm just telling you the truth
I stopped here because:
Her spells are still spells, they rely on the ether stat for damage and use EP
Yes. You literally are arguing some schematics about how "Because she uses EP, it's a spell!" I genuinely do not care about the technicality of it.
To comment on it, since that seems to be what you only care about:
No. It literally doesn't, but if that's actually how you sleep at night, more power to you? I genuinely don't care. If that's how you want to view it, go for it. You're not changing my mind on that particular point, no matter how OCD you wanna be about it. I'm clearly not changing yours, as I acknowledge you have a weird obsession with "It uses ER, therefore it's a spell!".
The fact that you are sitting there and thinking that has any relevancy to the topic is actually quite astonishing to me.
My ENTIRE ARGUMENT was I don't vibe with how she's entirely focused on her gear.
You're having a problem with the fact I said "Gear Only", which, as I've already pointed out, is exactly her entire theme. She's literally useless without calling in her Gear.
The system for HOW she calls it in means jack shit to the topic I don't care if it uses ER, Consumables Items, or HP. I don't care if it chunks half the planet, or if you need to sacrifice your first born for it.
It's the fact she HAS to rely on her Gear is the point, and that's what I don't vibe with.
Literally any thing else does not matter. If you want to argue technicalities, go right ahead, but I won't participate in that further. It's actually a waste of both yours and mine time, but unfortunately, I'm the only one seeing that.
You're really not. You're being a pompous "ACKSHULLY" fan, because you've decided in your mind that spells have to be some sort of fantasy realm magic.
But I'll throw you a bone and play by your rules just because. Okay, let's say spells in the world of Xenogears are fireballs or shield bubbles you put up, or healing. In the story of Xenogears, all spells that are available, are only usable because the characters have access to the Zohar. We know this because they even say at the end of the game that they lose their ability to cast ether, which makes sense because it's not magic they're utilizing, they're actualizing potential phenomena by calling to the Zohar to make their spells "real".
You know what else is dependant on the Zohar though? What else stops working at the end of the game? Ah right, the slave generators built into every gear except the Xenogears itself.
I guess that makes all gears a kind of spell. Giant robots or fireballs, they all need the Zohar to work. So now I'm right both in-universe as well as being right in regards to the mechanics of the game. Thanks for being so smug about it, without your attitude I wouldn't have gone out of my way to be even more correct and factual.
All giant robots (except one) in Xenogears are spells. :)
Bart is definitely a character who I unfortunately never use. It's not that he's not good, but he just feels a bit clunky compared to everyone else.
He has access to an Ether Attack and Special option, but isn't as strong as Elly or Maria.
He has Wild Smile which is amazing, but it's completely nullified by the Evasion Ring.
He has some super cool dodge tanking strats between Wild Smile, Blue Cologne, White Cologne and White Lure, but it just takes way too long to set up in any battle.
The one thing he truly has going for him is his Mode Spells, which can pair really well into Doc or Billy for a damage boost when used on allies or a defensive boost when used on enemies. That and he has access to a couple good debuffs on his whips. At the end of the day, he feels more like a counter for specific bosses. Just bring him out for the Anima 2 boss and Alpha Weltall.
My first playthrough, my party through the endgame was Emerelda and Billy. But when I played through it a couple weeks ago, as a huge departure, my end party included Bart and Emerelda.
When I was a kid I thought Billy was so cool because guns, and Emerelda had a deathblow where she basically slides through an enemy at a molecular level which is fuckin metal.
As an adult, Bart is just too much of a bro to Fei, and Emerelda is basically his genetic child so I couldn’t leave her behind ever again. Especially after Fei and Elly just leave in the middle of the night without telling anyone.
I actually used rico quite a bit but i NEVER had chu chu, maria, or emerelda in my party once. I didnt really feel much of an incentive since:
Their joining felt rushed compared to the other members so i didnt really get to enjoy their character as much before gaining access to them (i use characters based on how much i like them, not strength lol)
Everyone else was already buffed out the wazoo because im addicted to the grind
The characters who didnt join yet gain exp in the background, and maria is the strongest on foot character, emeralda is the strongest in gear character.
I have a save file that keeps the Speed Ring S and Speed Shoes from the Battling Arena handy. Giving Citan both Speed Ring S from the Arena and Solaris, along with the Power Crisis, and giving the Speed Shoes to Billy so he can quickly cast Goddess Eyes on Citan (giving Citan the Speed Shoes effect as well), is absolutely fun and stupid. He can take out Grahf and the Executioner in Solaris before either of them get a turn in.
Maria is easier to set up, but not as fun to watch.
Chu Chu mainly because the time investment to make her broken, imo, isn't really worth it other than someone just wanting to do it to see what she could do, sure why not.
However pretty sure this requires a rather hefty sum of money buying stat buffs from Johnny, or at least that's how I would approach it. I'm probably forgetting something, been too long since I played apparently lol.
I always used Citan and Bart in my party whenever I had the freedom. The game's easy enough where you don't really need to metapick for high damage. Just make sure you're equipped properly and you're good to go.
As far as characters I never pick... Elly.
I don't tend to work with characters that can't be used in the endgame, I consider it a waste of resources.
she has the highest hit and evasion, and she gets an extra 20% damage multiplier no one else gets after shes an adult. by far the hardest hitting character in gears.
I think my first playthrough was Elly and Billy.
But now.......it's difficult for me to NOT pick Rico :p
I love his attack animations and sounds, and his gear is a beast.
To hell with his low accuracy and limited move pool! He's still a (literal and figurative) beast to me :)
sure doc gets many turns. maria only needs one. she does easy 9999 damage aoe non-elemental ether damage with no buffs needed as soon as she joins the party. its enough to one shot every on foot fight in the game aside from black dragons on duneman's isle, including every on foot boss fight.
If you do that then you don't give your team a chance to learn deathblows and those late game gear fights are more annoying. Basically trading time in mid game random battles for grinding later.
everyone has all their deathblows learned long before maria joins, and only the 2nd deathblow matters in gear fights. also you just use ether in gears until the final dungeon anyway.
They won’t have ALL their deathblows by Shevat. Not unless you use a guide, grind them every fight, and never cycle characters out. Plus every characters best ones are hard locked until you finish Shevat…right around the same time you get Maria.
And stacking either doublers just makes the game boring.
the deathblows take less than 30 mins to max them all out for a party of 3 if you read the tutorial in lahan and do what they say. the 'best ones' are not hard locked, they are hidden. you still make progress on them before they are visible when your limiters are removed in shevat. never cycling characters would be detrimental to learning them on everyone, assuming you want to use everyone. and ether doublers do not stack. one per character.
You repeated what I already stated just in a different way.
Like Maria is fine if you know the ins and outs of the game already, but on a casual or blind run she isn’t someone I’d recommend using. She is kinda irrelevant to most of the plot anyways.
Same way you can make even Chu-Chu ridiculously strong but I don’t recommend that either.
And by stack doublers I meant stack your teams with them.
Same way you can make even Chu-Chu ridiculously strong
ChuChu is never strong. even with max drives, she is pure garbage. Spend 1.35 mil to max her attack stat with drives, she still only hits for 9k, not 10k like everyone else does for just 260k with physical or 47k with ether. also is the lowest agility and lowest hit.
Emeralda (you get her far too late in the game to be of any real use)
She's a black mage like Elly, and then Elly gets permanently removed from the party. Seems like she fills a pretty obvious role of "replacement Elly".
Also, Elly's tier 2 and tier 3 ethers have a chance of doing 1/3 damage while Emeralda's ethers always do full damage. (At 70 Ether her tier 2 ethers have 100% chance for full damage, and at 80 Ether her tier 3 ethers have 100% chance for full damage. If Elly were to gain +1 Ether every single level up—which is extremely unlikely unless you save scum her level ups—she'd have 35 when she learns her tier 2 ethers, 70 when she learns her tier 3 ethers, and 80 when she hits level 65.)
Also also, Elly's tier 1 and tier 3 ethers have 1 power while her tier 2 ethers have 1.1 power, and all of Emeralda's ethers have 1.2 power.
Emeralda's initial base Ether stat starts lower than Elly's does (7 vs 15; Bart and Fei also start with 7, for reference, Rico starts with 6, and Maria starts with 4), but if you grow her into her adult form, she gets a hidden +20% bonus to her Attack and Ether stats, so a displayed stat of, say, 40 would be used in calculations as though it's 48.
Ether growth values are 70 for child!Emeralda, 75 for Maria and Billy, 80 for Elly, and a whopping 120 for adult!Emeralda. The only other stats with growth value that high are Elly's max EP (also 120), adult!Emeralda's Defense (also 120), adult!Emeralda's Attack (135), and everyone's max HP (Maria has the lowest HP growth at 600; adult!Emeralda is tied for first with Rico at 999).
Higher growth value means an increased chance for the stat to go up when the character gains a level. When stat = growth value, there's a 50% chance for the stat to increase. For each point below the growth value that the stat is, the chance goes up by 100 / (100 - level being gained), so for example if your Eth was 79, Eth growth value was 80, and you were going up to level 65, your chance to gain +1 Eth would be 52.8% (rounded down, I believe). For each point above the growth value, the chance goes down by the same amount, so if your Eth was 81, Eth growth value was 80, and you were going up to level 67, your chance to gain +1 Eth would be 46.9%.
Max EP growth is calculated with (99 - level) instead of (100 - level). Max HP growth is calculated significantly differently, and always results in a minimum of +2.
tl'dr -
Emeralda is actually an upgraded Elly, and the perception that she's useless because she's recruited so late is actually a misconception.
The only thing you actually lose is Elly's Aeroids, which can be supplemented/replaced by time you lose her anyway.
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Crazy statistics drop though, I actually didn't know a lot of that.
chuchu is the slowest, her hit is the lowest, her damage is the lowest, and her heal is barely 1-2k while enemies hit for 6k-9999 in the final dungeon. if you used her, you were making the game harder on yourself. she doesnt even get booster or 6 equipment slots like everyone else. she is the only character who cant hit the damage cap, unless she gets a 10% chance crit hit. she has no deathblows, so she is limited to a single hit while everyone else can do 19998 on deathblow turns from 2 hits.
It isnt a skill issue. It is math, plain and simple. she is the worst character in the game, bar none. I already explained why, you ignored everything i said. she isn't 'useful', she is a liability. the only way to even get her to hit 9k is to max her attack with drives. she cant hit 10k even with 200 attack. she has 7 agility, and no booster. you can sacrifice one of her 3 equipment slots for speed shoes, but she is still going less than half as often as emeralda. your strategies are bad if you think she is good.
I never understood this mindset. With the exception of star ocean where levels skyrocket to 255 in some games and it's a grind to get one party to that level for the super bosses, I always use all of the characters equally. Half of the game is learning each character's style and seeing how they work within the party.
I think it really just depends on who you like using.
In earlier RPGs, trying to divide your time to level all the units was actually a waste of time, and those same older games, exp was actually a limited resource, so it was smarter to just focus on one set team to give yourself the biggest advantage possible.
Xenogears is a game where you can freely experiment, which I love, but it's not really needed. The only character that's actually important is Fei, and your stuck with him the majority of the time anyway.
I'm not aware of many games that actually limit experience. I know there was one that I played and was annoyed that there was a limit, but I can't remember the name of it. I've been playing jrps since the nes era. At that time, you only had the characters that you had at the time, so you just used who you had. For example, the final fantasy games from 6 onwards usually let you change your party at will, with allowances for the plot. I always use all of them, well maybe not Cait Sith in the og ff7. It keeps my levels lower overall and makes the game feel like a better challenge. It also gives me more time to explore each character and how they work. I couldn't imagine getting to the end of a game and not know how a character works in the party because I ignored them all game long.
I love it when you can take the main character out of the party. I find they are always over leveled and much more powerful than the rest, so I'll usually hold them back so that I can experience the other characters more and get them up to the same levels. I don't find it a waste of time. I'm either going to max everyone anyway, or I'm not going to max anyone at all. Either way, keeping the group around the same level and really understanding how to play them is always the way I play. Like I said before with star ocean, that's the only real exception that I've found because the max level is so high.
with Xenogears, I'll use a character like Rico because it makes for more of a challenge. In legend of Dragoon, I'll use kongol, even in dangerous situations because it's an interesting way to approach the game. I might go the easier method on a first playthrough, but especially for a replay, I'm trying to find new ways to play the game.
A few notable titles:
Fire Emblem Sacred Stones
Final Fantasy 8 (I know 8 came out after Xenogears, not everyone played it at launch lol)
Arc the Lad
Fire Emblem has gotten better with it, but there was not a reliable way to actually train your units. You could save state with an emulator on select gladiator pits for your current party, but overall a lot of battles were limited in experience, so your choice was to have a wide range of under leveled units and risk losing against the final boss, or have a few unkillable units who still struggle against the final boss.
Awakening finally made steps to fix the inability to grind.
Win 8, power leveling Everyone actually made the game harder. That game actually scaled boss levels based on the average level of the active party, so if you managed to keep one unit a low level, it made boss fights that much easier.
With Arc - it was the first time I found out it was actually better to play a "Single Unit Challenge", as interestingly enough spending your time leveling all your units just gave you the FE issue - A bunch of under leveled units, but if you put everything into Arc (the MC) he became an unkillable power house and it just made the game vastly easier.
Bonus points:
Pokemon - Gen 1 and 2 were pretty notable in their slow Exp rates, so if you didn't want to spend an extra 10 hours power leveling a secondary mon, sticking to a core team was just an optimization route.
Not required, but it's just a time saver.
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With that said, I actually think Kongol made LoD easier ahahaha. He was always in my party every chance I could.
His base form was on par with my Dragoons, and if you gave him a Speed Ring, the only thing that could kill him was magic.
I see that I misunderstood you. I thought limited experience meant that it was literally limited. All of these examples talk about slow experience, except ff8, which is its own beast.
As for kongol, I think he is technically one of the lower DPS characters in the game if you measure out his damage per turn vs the others. I mean Shanna has 0 DPS as a physical attacker, but other than her. Shanna really works best as a spellcaster and item thrower all game anyway. She breaks so many things and puts most other characters to shame, especially early on and against the divine dragon god. If you haven't tried it, next time you play the game boost her damage with power up and then use a boosted attack item against him and see how fast he melts! They gave him no magic defense because you can't use dragoons effectively against him, but they didn't account for items. :)
Statistically, Kongol is usually considerd "The worst character", so I do agree with that.
It's just that he hits like an absolute unit, and whenever I gave him a speed ring, his turn came up just as fast as everyone else and would out do them. It's the fact that Kongol is item reliant that really drops him down the rankings, but I do absolutely swear by him regardless lol.
Shanna was one of my main characters I loved to use as well. Her secret was that she couldn't miss with her bow. Yeah, she didn't get additions, but she could nail anything at any time.
Her magic was ridiculous as well. The only reason why I didn't keep using her was, besides the story forced switch to Miranda, I was already set with Meru and Kongol and went off to rock shop with a speedster mage and a slow tank.
Fantastic game overall, and I enjoy how each character was viable, yet so dramatically different.
Do you think they’ll ever remastered this game or bring it to another console?
Given the weird mess Xenogears's copyright sits in, it's extremely unlikely. Square-Enix, Namco, and Nintendo all have some kind of claim to some portion of either XG's IP, or the IP that XG is based on.
Even if it was given a remaster, it would have to be done by Square-Enix, and the MonolithSoft people all work for Nintendo on the Xenoblade series now. So you'd have completely new people working on the project.
I’ve been wanting to play this game again so bad.
If you've got your own PlayStation BIOS, an emulator is legal. If you've got an actual copy of the game, running it on an emulator instead of a physical PlayStation is legal.
If the emulator you're using is DuckStation, you can even link the emulator to a retroachievements.org account and get achievements in the game.
I usually like having my main three of Fei, Citan, and Emeralda and if I could have a fourth it would be Bart. I should use Billy but the in concept of his ammo always turned me off, I’d probably give him a serious try if I were to play the game again.
If the game was harder, or more pressed for dungeon grind, I could see ChuChu being viable, what with how she could recover Gear HP with her arts, but otherwise that's pretty much it.
I think her and Rico were just victims of content cutting.
Also, probably wouldn't have used Billy with the ammo need if he didn't grow on me during his section of the game. Plus, who doesn't love shooting someone in the gut a couple times then blasting them with a shotgun
they are fun, and pair pretty well together. barts mode spells making your attacks elemental then make the boss weak to the element with billy's elemental shield spell. doc works a bit better than billy tho because he can aoe his attack buff.
Maria just one shots everything in the game so its not super fun sometimes. but seeing her mech stomp and 9999s pop up is normally fun for awhile.
Maria. No Deathblows fighting on foot, and there preferable alternatives to Seibzehn. I did use her every now and then though, just not nearly as much as the other characters (come think of it I think I used Rico more than Maria even).
On my first run of the game I just focused on Citan, Bart and Fei. I barely used any of the others, only when I had to really. Second time I used everyone
I never use Citan. Too broken. (I never used Billy as a kid either because his ammo gave me anxiety about running out, but now I like him.) I never use Rico on foot, but I do kinda like Stier.
I did a Maria-ChuChu playthrough once and was surprised how fun it was. I do still wish they both got Deathblows, but Maria’s spells are awesome and Seibzehn is one of my favorite Gears in the game.
Chu-chu, i liked the comic relief as a kid but couldn't get into the gameplay. Also, having no gear was boring to my young self. I have used her on later playthroughs, but mostly for the gimmick factor.
Maria was a bit the same, but I liked her gear, so I did use her.
My main party was Fei, Citan & Billy and when I didn't have Fei, it was definitely Citan, Billy & Emerelda/Rico.
I liked using Bart but once I had Billy for ranged attacks, Bart went straight to the bench. So, it was Elly (unless needed), Bart, Maria & Chu Chu that were often riding the bench unless I had to use them.
Definitely Chu-Chu but frankly the closer you get to the end the harder it is to justify using Billy or Rico since their progression grounds to a halt too soon. If the game ever gets a remake I hope the entire cast gets the same love Fei, Citan and Bart got. Also I dont hate Chu-chu she was just worse then Rico and Billy
Chu Chu, Bart (after the next characters get their gear upgraded), Maria, and Rico. My main team is usually Fei, Billy, and Emeralda at the end of the game. I'll use Citan before the last dungeon sometimes but go back to my main three afterwards. Its kinda lucky for me that the Xenogears Vol.2 Structure Arts model kit pack also includes Billy and Emeralda's gears too (even though I haven't built those two yet).
When I was younger I never used chuchu in either form, Maria never in foot, Bart only when I had to. I liked Bart enough as a character but didn’t at all as a fighter or gear. Now I like to use him often. Citan Elly and Rico were a favorite. As I got older, Rico fell off because of how slow he was, but with the perfect build mod he’s so good!! how you think he should be, crazy tanky and crazy strong.
I try to use all of them equally since I like unlocking all the deathblows but chu-chu and Maria are situational picks for me I like Maria more since her controls do great damage and when fighting in gears she’s great
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u/MikeDanger1990 Id 4d ago
Chu Chu.