Terrible RPG Dungeons: Part 2

Hmm, I thought of five awful dungeons, but they are all in the same game. A game that ends up being rather overrated in the grand scheme of Playstation RPGs, but is honestly not all that good from a point of view I played on. I honestly should've titled this post terrible RPG Dungeons: Part Deus. See that last word? It's from Xenogears. Therefore, I will go over five awful dungeons in Xenogears. Of course, I can't say I hate this game, because it does have fantastic moments, but there's a lot of bad outweighing the good, especially in dungeons, so here they are below.

Zeboim

This isn't entirely that bad of a dungeon, but thanks to Xenogears' overall encounter rate, this mostly long dungeon feels pretty darn sluggish. It's got a few unique enemies to its name, like the Shellbelle, which puts everyone to sleep at first, rather annoying, as well as Phobia, which absorbs all attacks, meaning that you have to heal it to kill it, an out-of-the-box tactic. So what are some other reasons it's here besides it being long and arduous? Hmm, how about a boss fight at the end which isn't that tough, but backtracking all the way to the surface? Yeah, that's pretty boring. And then you fight Id at the entrance, and he's easily another of the toughest bosses in the game by far. Just yikes.

Solaris/Krelian's Lab

I guess I'll put these two together. The good news is that much of the stuff involving Solaris is pretty darn epic. But there's still plenty of bad things too. I mean, the stealth segments are unique, but stupidly annoying since unlike other games, even when the cube's back is turned, they can still spot someone on the same path they are on. There's much more waiting when that's involved. Going through Solaris once you're on the run means you'll fight nothing but Security cubes later on, and all they do is change their defenses, which means either physical or magic works, but not both, making you constantly strategize. Upon reaching Krelian's lab there's a few more interesting enemies, like the self-destructing Wels, a palette swap of Phobia, and the Bloody Bros, all of which qualify as "Demonic Spider" type enemies due to their overall natures. Yeah, I'm not a fan of this one, nor the elongated cutscenes either.

Babel Tower

Oh come on, you know this one would be on here. It's also the only Gear dungeon mentioned in this post. Babel Tower emphasizes verticality, especially in its early moments. You'll be jumping quite a lot, even rope swinging. The random encounters will make life hell though, as they can take precedence over jumping and can make you fall all the way to the bottom. It works so strangely here, and your camera angle can't be changed sometimes either. Somehow, when the game loads a random encounter, it allows movement, but not jumping. So you end up kinda silly just running off. But it certainly was enough to make Babel Tower a rather pissy dungeon. On the plus side, the enemies aren't tough, and the bosses are a nice but not too annoying challenge.

Shevat Corridors

Oh boy, THIS in front of Babel Tower? Hell, this is in front of a lot of other dungeons. This is easily the second worst Xenogears dungeon. It's sheer monotony in what you'll be dealing with, nothing but stairs, stairs, and more stairs as you descend during an emergency. Add to it that Maria is a party member, and she's absolutely nothing special on foot at all (apart from calling Siebzein in battle for god-knows-what reason). Really though, we've mentioned the random encounter rate, but ALL THREE enemy types you encounter here can be annoying enough. Gimmicks are probably the least and most annoying simultaneously. They can't be taken down by ether attacks, and they only take 1 HP of damage overall. Add up six weak attacks, and each one goes down though, so that's good enough. Tears will increase their attack should their partners be killed in battle. Finally, the Forbiddens are nothing to scoff at and should be killed quickly, as they can break free and unleash Mighty Blow, a percent-based attack that does the exact damage that they have so far lost, which can be deadly. Add all these things up, and you will see exactly why Shevat Corridors belongs on the worst RPG dungeons ever.

Nortune D-Block Sewers

And so we come to the worst of the Xenogears dungeons. Yeah, sewer dungeons are really REALLY bad in RPGs, and there's only one here. We're lucky there's only one, though. There's a map which helps quite a bit, since this'll be the longest and most tedious part of the game. You've got Rico, which is the big but slow guy, except slowness is an absolute boon in this game and makes him almost useless. The enemies like to give you annoying statuses, one of them likes to leave a character at 1 HP and run away. There's even sewer drains that hurt you if you touch them. Yeah, you can jump over them and all, but god, this dungeon is misery enough. And then there's Redrum, yes, an often memorable boss with more HP than two previous gear bosses combined and a whole slew of attacks, from a hit-all move, to poison and confusion, and his signature Murder, which is more than just a standard insta-kill but one that heals him the characters entire Max HP value. This guy was really bad news for many players, and making it worse, Bloody later on, as well as the Bloody Bros I mentioned in the Krelian's lab all use the same tactics. For these reasons, the monotony, Redrum, the annoying enemies and traps, and the actual fact that this whole thing is just one long subquest delaying the awesome battling mechanic, this dungeon tops the worst out of all the Xenogears dungeons.

Up next on Terrible RPG Dungeons, probably more Playstation crap.