Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra
The saga ends on a high note. A VERY high note.
Published: September 12, 2006
As I mentioned before, the previous two games' battle systems have been merged. You'll still build up a boost gauge so you can "cut" in line for the turn-based battles and attack before the enemy can, and they can still do the same, but this system actually takes a back seat to the new Special Attacks, which are an order of magnitude more powerful than even the strongest main attacks, but cost multiple boost amounts to use up. You can still use Ether Attacks (read: spells), as well as Tech Attacks, which usually deliver more damage and status effects than standard blows, but both Ether and Tech moves eat up Ether Points.
Also added was a Break system. As enemies and your party members take damage, their Break Meter climbs a little. When it maxes out, the character is broken and can't move for two turns. During this time, any attacks that connect are almost guaranteed to be critical strikes. You can use items or spells to reduce any accumulated Break Meter juice, and there are attacks for both friend and foe alike that specifically target the Break Meter, so there's quite a bit of strategy to things, and unlike the last game, the rules are followed by both sides.
Enemies are far less likely to boost in and interrupt things (save for near the end where they're quite tough), but they will try to break characters, and even bosses play nice most of the time, allowing you to work over enemies to rack up boost and unleash huge attacks. If you kill off an enemy with a Special Attack, you'll register a Final Strike, and get 1.5X as much gold and experience for the kill, making for some absolutely huge boss battle winnings if pulled off right.
You'll also bag Skill Points, which are used in the Skill Line branches each character has. By choosing a particular branch, you can turn characters that start out fairly similar (you have Ziggy and KOS-MOS as tanks, who can cast Heat to draw attacks away from other party members; MOMO and chaos , who are healers; and Jin and Shion, who are mainly attackers and supporters) and make them all different enough that they fill a role.
During battles, characters can be swapped out, but it costs a turn, so it's not nearly as quick as Final Fantasy X's system. You're never locked into one branch, though, so you can choose to spend your SP anywhere -- including special side offerings unlocked through special items that allow you to further tweak your characters. By the end of the game, my party was a bit more homogenous than the middle of the game, but each still had their strengths, and it was definitely fun fighting enemies to build them up as I wanted.
The ease in battles was a collaborative effort, though, and credit goes just as much toward keeping enemies from boosting all over the place like in the last game as to the developers including these new mega-attacks. Dropping things like Action Points to unleash attacks and the whole idea of knocking enemies up or down and spamming boost to hit them makes for more straight fights, but cuts down on the "that's bullshit!" moments significantly. Since enemies and your characters no longer share a boost gauge, and your stocked boost carries over between fights, you can actually farm boost by just attacking a lot and then save it for harder fights if you choose.
Riding in the huge E.S. mechs plays differently from being on foot, since they can held themselves by forgoing a command, but they too build up their own super meters. Dubbed Anima Attacks, all E.S. craft must first kick on an Anima Awakening move that increases the amount that can be healed (Charged) per turn, unlocks the ability to use the Anima Attacks, and lowers the energy cost of normal attacks so you can do more of them in a turn. There's a combo system that allows one E.S. to unleash a flurry of low-damage but high-accuracy attacks then dump off the rest of their turn to another character to keep the attacks going with a much, much better chance of a hitting with the high-power, low-accuracy attacks, but I never really bothered to use it.
