Topic: Games to NOT Recommend

[Sonic_Reaper]

Xenosaga is a reboot of the series, with similar themes and concepts.  Xenogears was part 5 of it's own series, or at least, part of a pre-planned series.  Xenosaga exists within it's own structure, though, yes, the Xenosaga series as it currently exists, encompasses what was originally supposed to be the first two games, and the first of three arcs that spanned 6 games.

[DragonSlayr81]

I didn't think it was a reboot more than a game sharing similar themes. I mean, all the Xeno series seems to share those themes(Xenoblade, included). Xenogears, Xenosaga and Xenoblade, all part of the Xeno series, share similar concepts, but all are different.

[Tigersmask]

I didn't think it was a reboot more than a game sharing similar themes. I mean, all the Xeno series seems to share those themes(Xenoblade, included). Xenogears, Xenosaga and Xenoblade, all part of the Xeno series, share similar concepts, but all are different.

Yes, and no. There are very clear references to the previous incarnations of characters within Xenogears such as Grahf, Kim Kasham and the existence of Billy, Rico and Bart's Animus gears that it is strongly hinted at were piloted by those characters previous incarnations. Alot of those connections are never brought up or dealt with in Xenosaga. Yes it's difficult to know for sure what the intention was and if the direct connections would ever have been made but since we only saw the first arc of what was meant to be a 6 arc series. I've read two theories about Xenosaga 1, 2, 3 however, one is that it was as Kale said, part one of an intended 6 part series. The other is that Xenosaga 1 is one half of part one of the intended 6 but after sales were less than stellar the idea was scrapped and rewritten so that part 2 and 3 cover most of the intended elements of the remaining 4 1/2 parts of the story leading up to Xenogears... Of course part of the trouble making Xenosaga fit into Xenogears is the fact that Square produced the first game and Namco couldn't have the game be a direct prequel or sequel.

[Kale]

My theory was from Gfaqs goers, who have claimed to have read the Perfect Works Book, which details the story in it's entirety. I've never read it myself.

[Rugal]

Games not recommended for this year: All of them except for Dark Souls.
All other games that came out this year fucking suck and I'm not counting HD remakes because game devs are finally realizing that all these new gen games suck so they're going back and re-releasing some actual good games.

[shelverton.]

Hm. I wasn't crazy about Dark Souls. Dunno why I couldn't get into it... I did enjoy Demon's Souls however!

As for games to avoid:

Infinite Undiscovery
This game is kind of terrible from the very start. It's one of the most clunky and cumbersome RPGs of this generation. Also, I hate the art direction. I can't believe this was made by the same company who brought us Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile...