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.


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