Will a playthrough of Xenogears revive the Enix forum!?

[Wolf Kanno]

MAJOR XENOGEARS SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T REACHED THE FINAL DUNGEONHe was always the Contact, he gained that term when his first incarnation of Abel made contact with the Zohar/Wave Existence aboard the Eldridge 10,000 years ago, Abel reincarnates because he made a deal with the Wave Existence to destroy the Zohar. so Kim was already the Contact because he's a later incarnation of Abel. Just by existing in an incarnation, Abel's reincarnated selves are the Contact. Remember how in the flashback of Ramsus' past, Miang told Krelian she had already found the Contact, in the form of Fei as a child. So Contact is pretty much a term signifying the person was a reincarnation of Abel. Whether Kim ever made contact with the Zohar in his life is unknown.

The Contact you are referring to is that Fei's incarnations can re-establish Contact with the Zohar to gain their full power to destroy it. In Lacan's case, his mental state made doing this not work quite well and he basically became insane and used his knowledge of past lives to activate the Diabolos Defense units aboard the wrecked Eldridge remains to exterminate all life on the planet. The planet's major powers actually had to band together and use the Omnigears to fight them off and stop Lacan. This was the "ancient war with god" that Old Man Bal spoke about. Lacan didn't regain his sanity until he was about to be executed and so his soul reincarnated as Fei (presumably) and his will lived on as Grahf. Grahf wanted to destroy both Deus, the Wave Existence, and all human life in hopes of his and Sophia's souls could escape the Wheel of Reincarnation. Fans speculate that Miang helps him cause she too would also like to stop reincarnating but it's debatable if she even has a will of her own like Elly does. So it gets very Buddhist as well...

[NeoCracker]

And only just now did I figure out what building up AP was actually good for.


And alright, that just means some of the dialogue there read really funny. The Existance made it sound like it wasn't until Lacan that he was reincarnating.

Mind you, this opens all sorts of oddities up when you ask how just the body is reincarnating when Lacan's Spirit/Will is what Gharf is, but you know what? That is the least of this games worries, so smurf it.

[NeoCracker]

smurf this last dungeon. smurf it right it's its gaping asshole.

This is a large ass maze, and everything looks identicle.

And no real Landmarks.

....smurf you Xenogears.

[Bolivar]

I'll admit I used a nice GameFaqs guide for the final dungeon, as I was done with this team's dungeons at that point.

I'm looking forward to a final, end-all, be-all, all-time great Xenogears trolling. It's all been leading up to this!

[Forsaken Lover]

Miang helpef Lacan 500 years ago for two reasons:

1. The Gazel were actually going to revive Deus then and there. They are a very egotistical lot and were chomping at the bit to be gods. Miang said it wasn't the right time but they said no screw you and sent her to Shevat. She thus had Lacan make Contact and lent him the Diabolos so he could eliminate all of Deus' necessary parts(96% of humanity was wiped out) while also eliminating the Gazel who betrayed her.

2. She 'resets" humanity whenever she thinks it will make more refined parts for Deus. Ether was a rarer gift 500 years ago and the Days of Collapse was a nice practical application of Social Darwinism where only those with these special Ether powers would survive. Thus their descendants would be stronger and better parts because of it.

By the time of the game she only works with him because it's convenient. Her, Krelian and Grahf all wanted Deus resurrected. After that however their objectives were radically different.

I like to think Grahf sometimes just teleported into Krelian's lab and went "doth thou desire the poon? i was tappin' dat every night".

I hate Krelian.

[NeoCracker]

Firstly, now that I can see it, Xenogears bingo is smurfing awesome.

Secondly, you want Trolling? Well I'll give you trolling.

1) The most Grandoise plots ever? Really Wolf? What we have here is some Alien entity (In this case a machine) Landing on the planet and forever effecting the growth of this planets life, so that it may one day harvest them all. This in no way shape or form sounds like the plot from Chrono Trigger, surely. And clearly it didn't also rip off a bit of the plot line of Chrono Cross, where someone came in contact with the Frozen Flame, I mean Zohar, with the plans of Lavos's Ressurection, I mean Deus's Ressurection, in mind.

However, no Zeal you say? True there is no Zeal, as clearly we can't have a past Civilization in here, at least not as Chrono Trigger did. So lets instead rip off the church from Breath of Fire 2 and make the Ethos.

(SPOILER) Okay, I do think the game made enough use of the story elements to create an original plot going on, and I don't actually call what this game did ripping anything off. But I don't think it's such a uniquely epic Plot. Really I'd put it on par with Breath of Fire 2 in that regard.

2. This game really didn't make much use of the Rebirths of Abel. The only life past Fei and Lacan you really know about are Kim, who really doesn't add anything to the story. Lets just say Emeralda was written out as a playable character, and it was just the pasts NanoTechnology he grabbed. Does anything change? If He really did first become the contact as Lacan does ANY of the plot elements change in this game? Only the Idea that Lacan and Sophia were destined to love eachother for all of time. And Really I think it's a better story if it started with Lacan and Sophia. It's a hell of a lot more genuine that way. The whole Rebirth thing was just a wasted concept on Fei.

(SPOILER)It did work very nicely with Miang and Elly however.

3. Asside from his stupidicy of 'I am the seeker of power. Dost Though desire Power' l line, I really like Gharf. He had a constant pressence, and the sense of some Grand plan involving you. Yet the final bit with Gharf at the end is so underwhelming. And it's over so fast. The Idea he possessed your father was interesting, but comes the smurf out of nowhere. I can't think of any build up this twist had, not that it would matter because of how fast it all goes by. It barely mannages to leave an impact.

(SPOILER)I have no non trolling spoilers here, that's exaclty how I feel about it.

4. smurf Krellian. Firstly, I don't buy his motivations. They are worst then Sephiroth figuring out Jenova was his mother and that he was experimented on, then deciding the logical discourse was to devour the planet and become a god of world eating. 'My Woman is dead and loved someone else' becomes 'Well, I guess it's time to end all human life and stop Sophies Cycle of Rebirth.' ANd worse yet, they try to make you feel sympathetic with this guy? Say that he has more love in his heart then anyone else? That everyone will understand and forgive him for trying to kill humanity, and causing countless years of suffering among the populace? Are you smurfing kidding me?

4. Okay Wolf, you enjoy the Disk 2 plot dumps? Clearly you would enjoy, rather then playing a game, giving you entire games Plot SYnapsis, which is exactly what those were, a plot Synapses, instead of playing your games. So no need to waste money on certain games wolf, just wait for me to get them and I can stop you from wasting your money.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yes, Krelian is terrible. My hatred for him is actually quite odd as I almost always like the "did not get the girl" character.
But everything about his personality rubbed me the wrong way. The fact he was introduced so late ddin't really help either.

But enough about that. What about the ending? What about one of the most beautiful ballads in JRPG history?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6By7akRUYM

[NeoCracker]

The games music was anywhere from average to above average. I woulnd't call it the most beautiful ever, but it was nice.

Really had the game not already made me stop giving a smurf about how it was going to end, the bit with Krellian would have done it. So I didn't really get any real response from the ending outside of Krellian pissing me off.

[Forsaken Lover]

Nope, sorry. The game's OST is one of the best scores in the history of video games.

[Del Murder]

Really? I can remember 1 song from this game. And it's the boss music that goes 'Xeno Xeno Xeno Gears Gears Gears'

[ShinGundam]

Really? I can remember 1 song from this game. And it's the boss music that goes 'Xeno Xeno Xeno Gears Gears Gears'

I don't even remember that, i need to check it now.

[Bolivar]

lol wtf Del is this some kinda joke!????? And I guess we'll all just have to disagree, I thought it was one of the best scores I've heard, probably one of Mitsuda's finest.

Anyway, since the playthrough is over, my thoughts are that Xenogears is one of the most incredible PS1 RPGs and a must-play game for fans of the genre. But it's also one of the worst thing to happen to JRPGs because it reinforces a stereotype I mentioned earlier.

It reminds me a lot of what Wolf said (that Yahtzee said) about Silent Hill. It's an amazing story that could only be told through video games. The way the scene is captured, the style of music, the artwork, this is JRPGing at its finest.

... but the gameplay. Some JRPGs have great dungeons, some have great puzzles, others have awesome customization or deep strategy. Xenogears has none of these things.

One weird thing about it that never clicked for me is how much content would have been in the full game. It's already longer than almost every other RPG on the PlayStation, and that's flying through a ton of segments with no gameplay at all. I just don't understand what went wrong on that front...

[NeoCracker]

The problem is there is a lot of stuff in there that you simply don't need.

1.) Gazel Ministry
Just right them out of the plot. What would change? Instead you have Krellian, whose risen to the top of Solaria, and his plans are being halted by Emperor Cain. I loved the council honestly, but they have virtually no effect on whats going on then Krellian could have without them. Your completel lack of dealing with the Council makes their involvment, and eventual destruction, kind of meaningless.

2.) Abel.
Just say he became the Contact with Lacan/Gharf. You've cut out the Emeralda bits, which added nothing to the plot, and really the fact Abel has been around pre-contact doesn't really seem relevant to anything.

3.) Pointless planning sequenced.
This goes for both the first attempted coup of Aveh. There is a lot of time and build up for a plan which just bombs out entirely. This also goes for Citan getting you into Solarian to remove the inbred fear from your parties DNA. Both involved good scenes, but really accomplish virtually nothing. The scenes can work on a hole, but the developers put them in with a game that had way to much plot to get out on too short of time constraints.

I mean all the build up in Aveh goes to smurf when Kahr discovered your plan. Awesome. You get a couple bad pay offs, then Gharf comes in, makes you go mad, and just smash everything and everyone. We are now back to exactly the square we were on before in terms of Aveh in general. Essentially all we get from this is that actually moves plot forward is the scene with Cain and Citan, as well as Rico and Hammer joining. (The relevance of the later two characters is rather pointless though, with all that got dropped.)

This game tried to indulge in way to many luxuries it didn't have time to indulge in.

[Wolf Kanno]

Firstly, now that I can see it, Xenogears bingo is smurfing awesome.

Secondly, you want Trolling? Well I'll give you trolling.

1) The most Grandoise plots ever? Really Wolf? What we have here is some Alien entity (In this case a machine) Landing on the planet and forever effecting the growth of this planets life, so that it may one day harvest them all. This in no way shape or form sounds like the plot from Chrono Trigger, surely. And clearly it didn't also rip off a bit of the plot line of Chrono Cross, where someone came in contact with the Frozen Flame, I mean Zohar, with the plans of Lavos's Ressurection, I mean Deus's Ressurection, in mind.

However, no Zeal you say? True there is no Zeal, as clearly we can't have a past Civilization in here, at least not as Chrono Trigger did. So lets instead rip off the church from Breath of Fire 2 and make the Ethos.

(SPOILER) Okay, I do think the game made enough use of the story elements to create an original plot going on, and I don't actually call what this game did ripping anything off. But I don't think it's such a uniquely epic Plot. Really I'd put it on par with Breath of Fire 2 in that regard.

In the game's original planning stage, it was actually meant to be Chrono Trigger 2 hence why it carried over so many themes and ideas and why Lucca made a guest appearance in Lahan. Also Xenogears predates Chrono Cross by a year (roughly the same team though) so Chrono Cross actually copied Xenogears. Also it's not an alien entity, it's actually from the real humanity. In the source material, Deus System is being transported caused it's initial activation destroyed planet Michtam. Sound familiar?

2. This game really didn't make much use of the Rebirths of Abel. The only life past Fei and Lacan you really know about are Kim, who really doesn't add anything to the story. Lets just say Emeralda was written out as a playable character, and it was just the pasts NanoTechnology he grabbed. Does anything change? If He really did first become the contact as Lacan does ANY of the plot elements change in this game? Only the Idea that Lacan and Sophia were destined to love eachother for all of time. And Really I think it's a better story if it started with Lacan and Sophia. It's a hell of a lot more genuine that way. The whole Rebirth thing was just a wasted concept on Fei.

(SPOILER)It did work very nicely with Miang and Elly however.

Sadly a lot of Abel's stuff was cut from the game with a lot of it paraphrased for space restrictions. He's really important but the game just couldn't fit it all in but I would argue his causing this whole mess in the first place makes him pretty relevant. Kim is important for the nanotech design, but also to let the player really see the Zeboim era which is the era that many of the mass produced Gears came from as well as showing the player Miang's role in the "Ancient Conspiracy". I also like the coincidence of the tool needed to complete the villain's goal is actually created from a past incarnation of Fei. I also like Emerelda but I'll concede she's not very important after her initial intro, though we can say that about Rico and some of the other cast members as well sadly enough.

3. Aside from his stupidity of 'I am the seeker of power. Dost Though desire Power' l line, I really like Grahf. He had a constant pressence, and the sense of some Grand plan involving you. Yet the final bit with Grahf at the end is so underwhelming. And it's over so fast. The Idea he possessed your father was interesting, but comes the smurf out of nowhere. I can't think of any build up this twist had, not that it would matter because of how fast it all goes by. It barely manages to leave an impact.

(SPOILER)I have no non trolling spoilers here, that's exactly how I feel about it.

I never really cared for the whole "I am your father thing, the way Grahf is designed it always felt more like a shout out to Star Wars than something practical. While I agree that the scene could have been done better and had more build-up I actually like the idea of Grahf/Lacan finally rediscovering his lost humanity and finally letting go so he can leave everything up to his modern incarnation. I found the scene pretty touching considering he's in third place behind Id and Miang for complete monster of the villains roster. He's honestly one of my favorite villains ever written to be honest, at least in my top 5.

4. smurf Krellian. Firstly, I don't buy his motivations. They are worst then Sephiroth figuring out Jenova was his mother and that he was experimented on, then deciding the logical discourse was to devour the planet and become a god of world eating. 'My Woman is dead and loved someone else' becomes 'Well, I guess it's time to end all human life and stop Sophies Cycle of Rebirth.' ANd worse yet, they try to make you feel sympathetic with this guy? Say that he has more love in his heart then anyone else? That everyone will understand and forgive him for trying to kill humanity, and causing countless years of suffering among the populace? Are you smurfing kidding me?

Actually, Krellian simply lost faith in everything. Sophia's death was traumatic but it also made him lose faith in god and the world and thus he spent the rest of his time trying to find meaning. Some point he was captured by Solaris and I'll assume his skills with nanotechnology was what probably saved him from slave labor and made him prominent. His goal was really to find god and end human misery by forcing humanity to evolve into higher beings to be with the Wave Existence. So he's actually a well-meaning extremist. Though on the other hand, I also like that the writer's don't make him too sympathetic. I honestly feel Krellian was sort of meant to be a divisive figure for fans, and I kind of like that he sort of plays at that religious argument of an all-loving, forgiving god who would allow someone like Hitler or Charles Manson into Heaven despite everything they did.

5. Okay Wolf, you enjoy the Disk 2 plot dumps? Clearly you would enjoy, rather then playing a game, giving you entire games Plot SYnapsis, which is exactly what those were, a plot Synapses, instead of playing your games. So no need to waste money on certain games wolf, just wait for me to get them and I can stop you from wasting your money.

I didn't mind the way it was done but I already said it was probably because I was getting off the high from Evangelion so giant robot shows about religion just needed to end with characters giving the viewer exposition while sitting on chairs, or at least I assumed that.

This goes back to something I said about story driven games. If the plot is the main focus then it better be good otherwise he game is hell for some people. I didn't mind the 2nd Disc cause I honestly just wanted to know what was going on cause I was hooked into the story by this point.

lol wtf Del is this some kinda joke!????? And I guess we'll all just have to disagree, I thought it was one of the best scores I've heard, probably one of Mitsuda's finest.

Anyway, since the playthrough is over, my thoughts are that Xenogears is one of the most incredible PS1 RPGs and a must-play game for fans of the genre. But it's also one of the worst thing to happen to JRPGs because it reinforces a stereotype I mentioned earlier.

It reminds me a lot of what Wolf said (that Yahtzee said) about Silent Hill. It's an amazing story that could only be told through video games. The way the scene is captured, the style of music, the artwork, this is JRPGing at its finest.

... but the gameplay. Some JRPGs have great dungeons, some have great puzzles, others have awesome customization or deep strategy. Xenogears has none of these things.

One weird thing about it that never clicked for me is how much content would have been in the full game. It's already longer than almost every other RPG on the PlayStation, and that's flying through a ton of segments with no gameplay at all. I just don't understand what went wrong on that front...

This is largely my feelings on the game. It's certainly not aging as gracefully as I had hoped but I still feel it's grandeur is still there. I do feel the game had a lot of really good gameplay ideas ( movable camera in true 3D environment, jumping/platforming, interactive turn based battle system) but I was also agree that Xenogears didn't do any of them very effectively and some downright terrible. Funny enough, it's probably because Xenoblade incorporated so many of these elements that I felt it was Xenogears spiritual successor.

Honestly, I feel the game was really meant to be four discs long and there is evidence on Disc 1 and 2 of of several places, enemies, and scenes that were dummied out cause they didn't have time to complete them. My guess is that it was going to be 4 discs long but as time constraints kicked in, the team decided to go with the idea of expanding things with prequels but the prequels were never greenlighted and so that's why you have to read Perfect Works to get more of the story. P[art of the reason they created Monolith Soft was so they could finish Xenogears, but that also failed. I feel Takahashi has great vision for an epic story but it's obvious with how both Gears and Saga were handled that he really didn't know how to effectively tell these stories while dealing with real life problems like money, development time, and other director issues. He may have finally figured it our with Xenoblade Chronicles but I doubt very much Monolith Soft will ever revisit any of the previous Xeno titles. Which is a shame cause Xenogears really needs a remake.

The problem is there is a lot of stuff in there that you simply don't need.

1.) Gazel Ministry
Just right them out of the plot. What would change? Instead you have Krellian, whose risen to the top of Solaria, and his plans are being halted by Emperor Cain. I loved the council honestly, but they have virtually no effect on whats going on then Krellian could have without them. Your complete lack of dealing with the Council makes their involvment, and eventual destruction, kind of meaningless.

Not really, they are the main villains until Krellian shows up, in fact, the Gazel Ministry is to Fei's party what Grahf is to Fei, your whole party basically being the reincarnation of the Gazel Ministry's bodies lost in the war. The Gazel Ministry drive most of the story as being the main bastards that caused most of the problems, once they lost their human bodies and became machines, they truly lost their humanity and I really liked how this story echoes Leji Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999 in the theme that it's out mortality and physical weakness that makes us human. This in itself ties back to the teachings of Nisan who say that humanity was made to be imperfect so we can learn to love and work together to achieve perfection. The allegory here is actually quite amazing in my opinion and it's things like this that I feel makes Xenogears' story much better than other games.

2.) Abel.
Just say he became the Contact with Lacan/Gharf. You've cut out the Emeralda bits, which added nothing to the plot, and really the fact Abel has been around pre-contact doesn't really seem relevant to anything.

Except it explains everything, I mean without Abel you can't have Deus and that's the crutch of the game's entire plot. The entire epic scope of the game is Abel's story to stop Deus from reviving and fulfilling his contract with the Wave Existence. I can see Kim being written out or relegated to a simple flashback but even then I like that it shows more of Fei's heartache and how his reincarnation with Elly has been tragic. It makes the ending much more sweeter when you realize that Fei and Elly might finally pass on for good or at least reincarnate with less bulltrout to deal with.

3.) Pointless planning sequenced.
This goes for both the first attempted coup of Aveh. There is a lot of time and build up for a plan which just bombs out entirely. This also goes for Citan getting you into Solaris to remove the inbred fear from your parties DNA. Both involved good scenes, but really accomplish virtually nothing. The scenes can work on a hole, but the developers put them in with a game that had way to much plot to get out on too short of time constraints.

Well chances are these scenes were done before the game really hit the wall with it's development problems so they probably wouldn't have been so bad had the rest of the game panned out like the developers wanted, so you're basically whining about more time being spent on an early part of the game despite the later parts not adding up cause one scene was made before the producers stepped in and told them they needed to have the game done by a holiday release.

I mean all the build up in Aveh goes to smurf when Kahr discovered your plan. Awesome. You get a couple bad pay offs, then Grahf comes in, makes you go mad, and just smash everything and everyone. We are now back to exactly the square we were on before in terms of Aveh in general. Essentially all we get from this is that actually moves plot forward is the scene with Cain and Citan, as well as Rico and Hammer joining. (The relevance of the later two characters is rather pointless though, with all that got dropped.)

Not really, I feel the Aveh scene much like the scenes in Lahan are there to show the player this isn't going to pan out like your typical JRPG where things mostly go in your party's favor. The way the early Aveh sequence pans out shows the player that the villains are more competent than you think (Vanderkaum being a red herring to trick you into thinking this will be a typical JRPG) and saving the day is going to be an uphill battle. The switch over to Kislev also creates a sense of discouragement for the player, and allows you to sympathize with Fei more as you both squandered your time to help people and utterly failed. A lot of RPG do that moment where everything goes to hell but that;s usually either in the middle of the game or towards the end in order to raise the stakes. Very few totally pistol whip you early in the game, with FFIV and DQV probably being the most prominent early examples. I like that this was done cause I feel it not only sets up a better tone for the rest of the game but makes you more weary of your victories as you wait for it to go to hell. It throws the players expectations off and I appreciate that.

This game tried to indulge in way to many luxuries it didn't have time to indulge in.

Bottomeline: your issue is that the game is unfisnished and it's a travesty that it is so, so get in line with the rest of us.

[NeoCracker]

Firstly, I said the ripping off of elements of Trigger and BoF2 wasn't really an issue, just pointing out the incomplete plot as it was presented wasn't as amitious as you were originally making it sound. As intended perhaps, but not as it was presented

With so much of Abel's bits cut, it makes just as much sense that the contact Lacan had with The Wave Existence was when the agreement between the two was made. Had more of Abel's plot been left in I would agree with you, but without it the little bits they do have are completely pointless. Especially we have the scene where Miang speaks with Lacan and leads him to the Zohar.

We shall just have to disagree on Krellian then. It seems like way to much of a stretch from what he went through to where he ended up for me, especially the attempt at sympathy in the end.

And the me reading you the plot synapsis was purely me poking at you. Personally, while a bit unrelated, I don't think the last two episodes of Eva and the Movie work without eachother. On their own they are incomplete, but together they for a more cohesive finally.

In Regards the the Gazel Ministry, they aren't needed to be the driving force of the douche things that happen to you through the game. We already have Krellian for that. The hole premise works amazingly, but the simple fact you ahve no real interaction with them, and their whole story resolves without you ever laying eyes on them, or so much as reading a post it they left behind, makes them irrelevant. We could have had the same story with Just Krellian and Cain, the PC's could still be the reincarnations of the original humans, and we could have cut a good chunk of time devoted to the council. (Mind you, I actually really liked the Council, and I thought they made for a great bunch to have around for some more symbolic reasons, but the game just didn't have the time to spend on that luxury.)

I already stated why Abel was irrelevant, since we could just have the agreement with The Wave Existance made with Lacan. I also expressed why I disliked the constant revival's of Fei and Elly. Them being destined to love eachother life after life doesn't resonate with me like if there loved started with Sophia and Lacan, and when Fei returns during that life wakes up the memories and feelings she had during her life as Sofia. That just comes down to personal opinion though.


And if you want to boil down my argument to whining, then any bad thing you have said about Xenosaga 2 is nothing more then whining, since we both know there was a lot of bulltrout going on involving the making of that game. So you don't get to bitch about me bitching. ;P