Let's Talk About Xenosaga

[Forsaken Lover]

So I've been in a Xenosaga mood of late.

I bought Episode 1 way back when it was first released in the States. I saw a commercial for it on Adult Swim one night and was like "wow. That looks epic!" and well..there ya go. I got every game since then as soon as it was released. here.

But yeah this is gonna be just a general topic about what you think of Xenosaga. I'm trying to get a few ideas rolling though.

I would say the "popular" view nowadays is that Episode 3 is the best. No doubt 3 is great in many ways but I think Episode 1 had a lot of things over it.

Dialogue
Yes, they got pretty much all the original English cast back for 3 but that didn't fix everything. I blame the inclusion of the dialog boxes but pretty much every VA delivered a couple lines very poorly. This in contrast to Episode 1 which I hold up as the best voice-acting in gaming history. Perfection in every sentence, word and syllable.

EP3's script also had some...dubious lines in it.

Kevin: it was all done for you.

Shion: For me? This? Are you saying all of this was for me?

Kevin: It was all for you.

I don't know if I'm understanding this right but I think it was all done for her.

Of course I do appreciate the fact they got Yuri Lowenthal (Kevin) and DC Douglas (Voyager) onboard. They both were great additions to the cast.

Design
I prefer the very anime-ish look of EP1. But even getting away from that, most of the characters new outfits are just inferior to the original.

KOS-MOS in EP1 = Perfect look. Her Version 4 outfit in 3 was just awful.

Shion in E1 = Wore a somewhat practical outfit which is very rare for main females in JRPGs. In EP3...her shorts don't even have a zipper...
I also miss her glasses.

And why did they feel the need to get rid of Jr.'s Badass Longcoat?

Now all that being said, 3 had a lot of things over 1. The mech battle system was by far the best in the series. AGWs were crap in 1 and E.S.es were boring in 2. But they turned all kinds of awesome in 3.

And while Episode 1 has a very nice soundtrack, it's also very limited. 3 had far more variety and it was just as epic still.


And another topic of discussion I'm curious of is, do you "ship"? As in support a pairing of two characters in Xenosaga?
For instance, do you ship Jr. X MOMO, jin x Pellegri, etc..?

I myself support Shion x KOS-MOS. There's a ton of subtext for it and I just recently learned that what Shion and KOS-MOS do at the end of EP3 is a common gesture used for lesbians in fiction. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IntertwinedFingers)
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg216/NikKingMan/ShionKossy.png

So I think that's a good enough couple of topics to get the thread rolling.

[Marshall Banana]

So far I also miss Shion's geeky, cartoon-ish appearance in the first game.

Still haven't finished the second game! I hope its ending is as good as that of the first game.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yeah. in the first game, Shion is more cute than beautiful. Which I like.
In addition to the glasses and hair, you may notice she has...well, a prominent rear-end. Which I like. >>

But before this gets creepy, the ending of Episode II was pretty nice. Can't say I like 2 that much all things considered but the ending definitely had its moments.

Each Xenosaga game has such a beautiful ending theme.

Episode I had Kokoro. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPX-uGv3Lv8)
Episode Ii had Sweet Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prKiOX6T0EA)
Episode III had Maybe Tomorrow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J589xMgo9gw)

[Clo]

I liked/disliked this game all at the same time. The storyline was interesting, and I liked the encyclopedia/codex thing that came with it, but sometimes it got a little too infuriating and bizarre. I wanted to smack Shion. Why did they have to make her so wishy-washy annoying?

Liked the bad guy though. I can get behind someone who rips their own head off.

The battle system drove me BANANAS. You don't want to watch me play this game.

[Forsaken Lover]

I have come to appreciate Shion because I think she was supposed to be like that. Why else do you think they even included a bit where you, the player, actually get to beat her up?

She's also remarkably unselfish in the end. If I was in her position and the love of my life said "come with me and be happy forever or stay with them and die lonely" I'd have gone without hesitation.

[Shadowdust]

The series really could've been epic. It's just a shame that there were so many issues with development. I blame that for why the third game felt so rushed. The first game was the one I really enjoyed the most. Then again, that's because it was setting up the pieces for the rest of the episodes. It's just a shame that the second game ignored most of this. I can only wonder how the series would've turned out had they kept the original story that Soraya Saga had written for Episode II.

[black orb]

>>> I tried to play it a couple of times (xenosaga 3) but the game was unplayable, I love that KOS-MOS girl but it wasnt enough to make me like the game..:luca:

[Necronopticous]

And another topic of discussion I'm curious of is, do you "ship"? As in support a pairing of two characters in Xenosaga?
For instance, do you ship Jr. X MOMO, jin x Pellegri, etc..?
I "ship" MOMO X me.

[Rostum]

Call me weird but I loved all three. :p Even though I only found out how to use Episode 2's battle system in the final boss fight, lol.

[Wolf Kanno]

I love the whole damn series even if Episode 2 has some serious problems.

I love Episode 1 cause it had some awesome moments and despite what people criticize about the pacing, I felt it was really good cause the build up to scenes like the end of Cherenkov or the Song of Nephilim with Albedo are just amazing. I also adored the combat system, even if the AGWS did suck but it never stopped me from collecting all of them anyway. I also adored the anime style character designs and felt Mitsuda made an awesome soundtrack for the game even if the Sound engineer didn't utilize it well since he relegated all but like five tracks to one time events and played the other five tracks over and over again...

Episode 2 suffered from a pretty awful transition, the "realistic designs" did no one any real good with most of the cast looking pretty ugly or suddenly jumping in age by a decade. The revelations of the URTV's past is explored but sadly reveals very little for the player that he couldn't have already guessed by playing the first game. The game ends on a pretty good note even if the combat system is otally screwed up by a poor scaling system that makes random encounters feel like boss fights. Seriously, the last battle takes less time to finish up than the battles against a full unit of soldiers in the same dungeon just because it takes smurfing forever to kill anything off in this game.

The music is 50-50 Kaijura's pieces are really good if a bit repetitive but are a godsend compared to the generic dungeon/town music by the other composer. The removal of proper towns and the overall "meh" customization system that only allows the player to build a party of semi-clones was a serious downgrade from the awesome customization systems from XS1. At least the Mecha fighting was a lot more fun even if it was bare bones as well.

Episode 3 pretty much drops everything that is Episode 2 (in fact it retcons a lot of it) and goes back to the first game in terms of design. Anime'ish designs (though not as hardcore as Episode 1) and the return of a better customization system for everything makes gameplay a dream come true. The plot is pretty good and resolves most of the issues beautifully and the game is filled with so many Xenogears shout outs you would almost think the team was deciding to actually make Saga canon with the Gears series. Music was excellent and it really is the best in the series.

My favorite part of Episode 3 was the fact I got to fight Shion, who has been nothing but a total selfish bitch for most of the games and has nearly gotten the party killed more than a few times to protect KOS-MOS (who doesn't need smurfing protection) and so it was nice to finally let my party and myself take my frustration out on her. Good times. :D

Mecha combat is excellent and the game brings back all the RPG elements stripped away from the second title. They even brought back most of the voice cast except chaos but I actually liked his VA from Episode 2 (Digimon!:jess: ) than his original VA from Episode 1 (smurf you Love Hina! :mad: ). Overall Episode 3 is just a masterpiece compared to the rest of the series though I still hold Episode 1 in high regards and had no issues with it being Cutscenes: The Game.

As for shipping... I am way too logical for this. I would say Jr. and MOMO but there is a whole bunch of wrong going on here cause while Jr. is certainly an adult trapped in a child's body, MOMO is pretty much permanently made to be a child and may never grow up. So I can't see them working out as a couple though I'm sure if they ever showed up again, they would still be together in some way. I liked Allen but feel he's an idiot for pursuing Shion and feel the two deserve each other. Can't say much about Pelligri and Jin seeing how their story ended. In fact I feel sorry for Jin cause I feel he sorta got the shaft in character development, its obvious he played a large role in the plot and has a huge background story but very little is revealed compared to other characters.

I also can't say I was really happy with the revelations of chaos and KOS-MOS but I blame this on The Da Vinci Code kinda ruining the allure of Gnosticism at the time. I really need to play through Episode 3 again.

[Forsaken Lover]

LEAVE SHION ALONE!
*cries hysterically*

Seriously I was as glad as anyone to beat her up my first playthrough of Episode 3 but I've come to accept the way she is in all subsequent runs through the series.

And yeah, on chaos and KOS-MOS
the Yeshua and Mary thing is kinda ruined by Da Vinci Code but at the same time, it also makes more sense because of it. I mean, had I not learned about what other theologies thought of Mary, I would have taken a look at her being this great spiritual being and gone "huh?"

Also Mary is very pretty.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/6105/margulis.th.jpg (http://img716.imageshack.us/i/margulis.jpg/)

Oh and finally, on the note of Jr. and MOMO, I'm pretty sure the end of Episode III database states she can get pregnant.
So...yeah. I wonder why they put that in there. [/sarcasm]

[Wolf Kanno]

Well since Ziggy isn't equipped and god knows if the URTVs can even reproduce I feel her ability to give birth isn't going to be useful anyway. The series never really states if Realians can actually grow old or not or maybe its just been so long I forgot if they mentioned it or not. Though it seems kinda silly to implement something like that but then again... Its not like MOMO is normal...

[Forsaken Lover]

Well since Ziggy isn't equipped and god knows if the URTVs can even reproduce I feel her ability to give birth isn't going to be useful anyway.

Perhaps it's my perverted mind but the way you phrased it made it sound like she'd be getting pregnant from Ziggy if he had a penis.

Here's what the EP3 database says about her growing up:

"Though she was given the bodily appearance of a child by Joachim Mizrahi, this is only a temporary measure until the final adjustments can be made to her functionalities. She was designed to be transferred from her current body once its capabilities and central nervous network are completed, allowing her the possibility of growing into an adult woman in the future."

Also, for Wolf and anyone else who may be interested, here are official profiles for characters and stuff as of Xenosaga 1.
Xenosaga - Official Design Materials (http://odm.xenotensei.com/)

What I found most intriguing was each character has a personality type listed and it's based on the actual real life Enneagram Institute's classification system.
For me, it makes the characters feel more...real I guess.

[Wolf Kanno]

Yes, you guessed my implications correctly. Its not like Ziggy's going to age and god knows MOMO's mom will bite the dust before either of them. ;)

The database entry seems to imply MOMO's "growing up" would involve her consciousness being transferred to a new body. I'm not sure she would do it though, chances are she would remain in her current form to help ease Jr.'s plight.

Oh man, that site brings back memories of the Ethos Sanctuary. I miss that site. Should I be concerned I rank the same as Albedo on the Ennegram as type 8?

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I never thought about ZiggyxMOMO... It's an interesting idea at least.

As for having similar personality types, I'm pretty sure each type is fine. It depends on how healthy or unheatlhy you are.
For instance, Sellers, the fat paralyzed scientist, ha sa personality type that is all about learning and curiosity. Yet he takes it to a unhealthy level.

Curiously, Margulis is a very healthy personality type while some of the heroes are unhealthy.

[Rodarian]

To be honest I liked all three ..But I did feel episode 2 was the worst....

If its one thing I liked is the level of detail they put in everything. I mean I would love to live in their future...Except without having the Gnosis..

One thing has been bugging me though.... The layout of Elsa in episode 3

Honestly it doesn't make sense.. To clarify

Aside from the bridge and the diner lounge which are basically on bow and stern respectively the exit stations of ES and passenger airlock do not match up...

Can someone explain to me about this oversight, cause it always drives me batty.