Quote Originally Posted by Edge7 View Post
I haven't been following Xenoblade. Is it linked to Xenosaga or Xenogears in any way? What about the philosopher Xenophanes?
No, Xenoblade was originally (and still registered in the U.S.) as Monada: The Beginning of the World, Monada also being the name of the sword the main character wields and the plot revolves around. Nintendo renamed it Xenoblade in honor of Takahashi (pretty much the mastermind behind Xenogears and Xenosaga) previous works that he is remembered for. Outside of having a lot of the same people working on it as the other games, the story has no real connection to his other projects. In fact, he's pretty much stated that Xenoblade is kind of an anti-Xenosaga in terms of game design, with the team focusing on gameplay over the story.

Gears and Saga themselves are not connected either, Saga was kind of a re-imagining of what Perfect Works stated Gears was to be, but obviously due to Xenogears IP belonging to Squenix, he could only at best use some characters and ideas as mere cameos. The Red Gear is even an uberhard optional boss fight in Xenosaga Episode 3. Think of it like the FF cameos in Kingdom Hearts.