Xenosaga 3 : A Beautifully Flawed Conclusion
The Xeno franchise, from a creative perspective is probably one of the most fascinating dives into the wonders of the human imagination. If you’ve been reading my reviews so far (and thanks for doing so, I’m putting a bit too much effort for something so insignificant) you probably realized more than anything, I’m deeply fascinated by the creative process behind some of my favorite and least favorite media. This always came from a place of trying to understand why certain things click with me when others don’t. I’m always trying to understand the appeal of even the things I find little value for myself to the point it pisses me off when I simply don’t get why “kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch so much” as that one commercial said.
I’m of the belief that every piece of art has value no matter how good or bad it is, as long as it comes from a sincere place of passion from its creators and not simply out of shameless greedy exploitation. Art is the most powerful tool for humanity to communicate, discussing things through words can be good for a time, but I think if you truly want to understand someone deep inside their souls, you have to look at what they make. Each piece of art collectively forms a puzzle that transcends our mortal bodies and can eventually lead us to understand why humanity in all of its flaws and all of its qualities is actually beautiful and infinitely fascinating. But in the world of media analysis, we tend to celebrate successes and shun upon failures, why is that ? To be fair, it’s pretty self-explanatory, when you succeed at something, you see a direct feedback of progress but a failure and especially a pretty bad one can make you crawl into a fetal position and make you think like you never actually evolve. But you do evolve, constantly, even through failure, you learn, your failure leaves a trace but it doesn’t have to be a wholly negative one and if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that one man’s trash can always be another man’s treasure.
From that perspective, it’s easy to look at the entirety of the Xenosaga Trilogy as well as its subsequent side-material as nothing more than a failure. It’s a project that was too big for itself, it’s a project with a second episode so tonally inconsistent with its two sister entry that it left a mark that was hard to recover from, it’s a franchise when the main vision from its creators was taken, sliced up, diced up, mashed up and broke into pieces to create an incomplete husk of what simply could’ve been. You’ve likely seen projects like these, the most recent exemple I have of it myself being Final Fantasy XV which to this day I still think should’ve not been released due to how much of what was the core of the project got lost in translation in a product that will feel eternally incomplete. FFXV left me with a sense of frustration, a feeling of what could’ve been if it managed to actually pull off everything it set out to do.
In a sense Xenogears was in a similar situation and yet, Xenogears is still celebrated as a monument of the JRPG genre, it’s a cult classic which still remained that way years into the future and which legacy can be felt throughout other projects both from the Xeno franchise but also other games as well. Xenoblade also managed to pull its teeth out and become the first somewhat uncompromised Xeno project and I believe they still go really strong. And then there’s Xenosaga, the awkward middle child stuck on the 6th generation console that no one really talks about. I’ve heard Xenosaga being described as a failed attempt to recapture the feeling of Xenogears but ultimately failed at doing so and didn’t leave much of an impact or some people even call Xenogears the prototype of Saga.
Nonetheless, Xenosaga is in an awkward position as far as the entire franchise goes. Xenogears, although incomplete, was able to tell the whole story of the one episode they could get out to the market and thus naturally had more staying power. Xenoblade games (maybe XB3 aside) are standalone enough in their individual stories for people to latch onto them and were released in an era where the general playerbase for these kinds of games were larger than ever and on some of the most successful gaming consoles of all time. And while both managed to rise into prominence in the gaming sphere, Xenosaga still remains somewhat niche due to its lack of accessibility and the discussion surrounding the game amounts to highlighting its failings rather than celebrating its successes.
Xenosaga is a series that was dealt the worst of hands and everything points out at Xenosaga 3 being a catastrophe, I might be one of the 2 people on Earth to have enjoyed Xenosaga 2 but I can also admit this game fell short in several areas when it came to its plotting mostly because it wasn’t a Takahashi game. And since the series wasn’t going to have its 6 episodes run time (although you might consider that with the addition of Pied Pier, Freaks and Missing Year it does amount to 6 games in the end) to tell the full scope of its story Xenosaga 3 was going to do the seemingly impossible task to conclude an ambitious projects without nearly as much prep time as it actually needed.
And did it succeed ?
I’m not keeping the suspense any longer, Xenosaga is once again a crowning achievement of the JRPG genre and seemingly the most perfect conclusion one could ever hope for the story in spite of its shortcomings (which exists and we’ll discuss them later down the line). Takahashi once again manage to untangle the mess that was left from the development cycle of the franchise and manage to pull it off in the end once again, he already did with Xenogears at the time but I think it’s doubly impressive here considering that what he had to come up with Gears Second Disc was for one game and Xenosaga was for 6.
However, information on the development of Episode 3 are a bit sparse compared to Episode 1 and Episode 2, I’ve tried looking it up online and couldn’t find anything substantial, the only video essay on the subject linked it to a comment made by Bamco’s PR Division which said they were satisfied with the end product and the sales this episode made. One thing is for certain however, unlike Episode 2, Takahashi was back on the project and while he isn’t the actual director of the game, he was pretty much overseeing the entire thing from beginning to end. But it wasn’t going to take simply making Xenosaga 3 and move on to save that sinking ship, that’s why in the wait period between Xenosaga 2 and 3 several project were greenlit by Bandai Namco in order to tie-in some of the loose ends left by the plot of Xenosaga 2.
The most significant of these side projects is Xenosaga 1&2 for Nintendo, a game I unfortunately didn’t play because it’s only in Japanese and no one seems to want to work on an English patch for it. It’s a demake of both Xenosaga 1&2 and from what I heard while it doesn’t actually change much about the plot of 1 it does expand significantly on Xenosaga’s 2 script to make it closer to the initial pitch for the game by Takahashi. Suffice to say, I’m really curious about this one. It's not often you see a JRPG franchise demaking their console releases for a portable system and seemingly make it a more complete version of the original, high budget and ambitious version of said game.
The other two side projects are a bit less ambitious and a bit more questionable when it comes to availability. The first one is “Xenosaga Pied Piper”, an episodic game released for the Vodafone 6, yes it’s a mobile game, yes it’s important and yes you will be regretting skipping on this one once you reach a particular part of Xenosaga 3, I’ve already made a mini-review of it on this website so check it out if you want to catch up on the epic Cani Review lore (or don’t). Same thing for “Xenosaga II to III : A Missing Year”, a frankly forgettable and kinda bad visual novel that’s the equivalent of an hour long infodump meant to tie the previous game to the next by explaining what happened between the events of the two.
If I have one complaint about this way of handling the wider story of the game is that the games in question are not super available in today’s age, these side games were never released outside of Japan and if it wasn’t for the work of several dedicated fans, they will be lost to time and understanding some of the deeper plot of Xenosaga 3 might be almost impossible. I say almost because Xenosaga 3 actually does contextualize a bit of the stuff from those games thanks to the return of the data log.
If this isn’t proof enough that Xenosaga 3 was once again handled by Takahashi, the Database from Episode 1 returns after its surprising absence from Episode 2. In my previous review, I mentioned that I didn’t really check the data base all that often most of it being a combination of laziness on my part, a reluctance to actually voluntarily stop my progression of the story to stop and read wiki articles as well the lack of clear indication of when, why and for what said data base got updated. However, I’d say the database from Xenosaga 3 is much better than the ones from Xenosaga 1 for many reasons, one of which is the fact the game actually notifies you when said database gets updated which is definitely a welcome push towards me actually checking it out and second, the database in question is separated into multiple categories instead of being filed up haphazardly.
Takahashi’s commitment to worldbuilding once again shines through in this game, not only from the database but also the fact the game leans more heavily on talking about the broader setting and all of the moving parts of the deeper lore of the world. Since Xenosaga 3 is meant to provide answers to all the lingering questions left by the first game and try to awkwardly fit in some of the elements of the second to better fit in with the greater whole, this return to form is more than welcome. The database itself is actually much more explicit than the one from Saga 1, not dwelling too deeply on superfluous unimportant detail and just delivering the answer straight to you ! Each entries also comes with a bunch of key-words to link them to one another making navigating the gargantuan story of Xenosaga much easier than it was previously and even if I still had questions near the end of the game, I’d say Xenosaga 3 did a solid enough job at solidifying my understanding of the world it was presenting and gave me much better appreciation for the efforts that were put behind its creation.
But you can also feel this return to form inside of the game itself, NPC dialogues are heavy on contextualization and worldbuilding, there are several areas dedicated to interacting with terminals explaining to you all sorts of esoteric sci-fi stuff and in general there’s a bigger focus on character inter-personal conflict, psychology and drama, something that was present in lesser amount in Xenosaga 2 but here Takahashi just pumped everything he could into every cutscenes and dialogues the game presents.
One thing that’s immediately striking from the start is the presentation of the game, you can feel that this was a late PS2 title and as such, the team at Monolith Software really made the best use of their experience working with console games by now. There are several moments in the game where I was just kinda blown away by how good it looks for a game of this era, especially because of the game's general art direction. Gone are the days of the weird doll-like face of episode 1 or the fugly wannabe realistic character model from Episode 2, here the game has once again a new artstyle which makes a great compromise between the more anime style of the first game and the attempt at realism of the second game. The characters really haven’t looked this good and moved this well in cutscenes. Unfortunately this is where one of my main gripes with the game’s presentation comes into place, there are fewer cutscenes this time around than they were in the previous entries.
While this does help the already excellent pacing of the game as we’re gonna discuss later down the line, a lot of the big story moments are told through a series of in-engine dialogues and text-boxes the kind you see in typical JRPG. I have nothing against this on principle but considering the propension of the series for overindulging in its cinematic flair, it was kind of awkward to transition from one style of storytelling to the other in what clearly feels like budget issues. These sequences are a bit less well directed than usual but they do have the benefit of being all voice acted which wasn’t the case of similar instances of dialogue boxes exchanged in the previous entry. A quick word about the dub of the game, it’s pretty damn excellent, the voice acting in Episode 2 was a bit awkward and there were some unfortunate voice cast changes along the way, for the most part all of the characters got back their voice actor from Episode 1. This includes Shion and Kos-Mos which delivers an outstanding performance on par with what they already delivered in the first entry and since this episode in particular focuses heavily on them as protagonists it’s definitely a welcome change.
I wouldn’t be complaining about that style of dialogue-based cutscenes if it wasn’t for the fact that the game often-times have actual cutscenes and boy oh boy what a bunch of cutscenes these are. The series was already known for having excellent cutscene direction all the way back from even Xenogears and this game is probably the apex of the franchise so far and approaches the kind of cinematic quality one can expect from the later entries in the Xeno franchise. There are a couple of intense moments of action which feels like they’re ripped straight out of some dope ass chinese kung-fu movies with excellent choreography to boot, these are an absolute joy to watch every time and an absolute hype fest. But even the less actioney scenes of the game were given proper care and attention on a similar level, and with Xenosaga you kinda realize that a game mostly composed of cutscenes isn’t really a bad thing as long as the people behind it have a clear love for the craft that is cinema. So many video games these days are trying a bit too hard to not be videogames, proposing heavily cinematic experiences which almost all the time approach just a shallow understanding of what movie-making is.
But from time to time, you get to see a game director with a clear passion and love for filmmaking and it shows, I can name the Metal Gear Solid series from the top of my head for kickstarting a similar philosophy but Takahashi clearly belong to the same school of thought as Kojima does. I already mentioned the clear inspiration from Kung-Fu movies but the entirety of Takahashi’s body of work with the Xeno Franchise oozes from inspiration from the most obvious ones like Star Wars or 2001 A Space Odyssey to more obscure ones like author films that I wish I could tell you about if I was more of a film buff.
Outside of the action segments, I can think of a couple of really evocative shot that would come straight of an arthouse film, that part where Shion reflects upon herself while completely nude (a sight to behold I know), cleaning the foam off of the mirror to show her face full of doubts and interrogation for the situation she finds herself in. That one horrific scene in the hospital where the monstrous updated combat Realians enter the room and mercilessly slaughter Shion’s mom as she’s hiding under the bed followed by a cutscene of a young Shion desperately trying to put her organs back (sadly censored in the English Dubbed version). The evocative first cutscenes of the game’s intro showcasing the downfall of Michtam, an intro that much like the first cutscenes of Xenogears will only make sense in several hours from now.
I could name a couple more of theses instances but I think the cinematography of the game is truly on point, which is a shame when out of the 10h of cutscenes present in the game only 5 of them are in this cinematographic style while the rest is presented in a rather dry format of dialogue exchange. But what little we do get in terms of raw actual cutscenes are simply fantastic and a massive upgrade from the previous 2 entries which were no less impressive in that regard. This level of cinematic flair however isn’t only found in the cutscenes but also in the actual exploration segment as well, the environment design clearly had a lot of thoughts put into them this time around, and the relative dryness of the areas from the first two games are not to be found here.
The game reminded me of the works of Kitase on the Final Fantasy series, more specifically the PS1 entries. While Xenosaga 3 doesn’t use pre-rendered backgrounds like them, it keeps the locked camera angles of the original 2 games but this time uses it to really enhance the presentation of all the areas you’ll traverse. The Tutorial Dungeon alone shows how much of a technical jump we made, with lots of moving parts and lots of sprawling camera angles and cinematographic shots telling a story of its own. One scene in particular struck me as particularly hype and it’s when you enter the Merkabah on the second disc, your mechs just diving inside the enormous space fortress in something that looks like something straight out of freaking Star Wars, or the distorted yet imposing vistas of Abel’s Ark ! At several moments during my playthrough I was simply in awe at how good the game looks and holds up for a game released in 2006, thanks to this commitment to spectacle, cinematography and an absolutely killer art direction.
On average the dungeon design of the game retains most of the qualities of the dungeon design from Xenosaga 2, the same team who worked on that game also worked in Xenosaga 3 and you can clearly see the progress between the two games in terms of game design. You still get a few puzzles, some of them much more fun and less obtuse than the ones from the previous game, there’s a lot of moving parts to each areas, lots of space to avoid the enemies this time around (and the enemies themselves aren’t raging bulls rushing to you with the speed of Sonic the Hedgehog) and most important of all very little in the ways of unnecessary backtracking.
These are easily the best areas and dungeons in the series so far if we’re not counting the Xenoblade games I’ve already played which operate on a completely different design philosophy. The younger team of Monolith did an excellent job with the areas this time around and I’d say than more than just serving as set dressing for the plot to shine through, Xenosaga 3 actually feels like a properly well designed and fun videogames.
But of course, all of this would matter very little if it wasn’t for the game's impeccable sound direction, unlike the previous game, Yuki Kajiura composed the entirety of the OST for Xenosaga 3 making for a much more tonally cohesive soundtrack than that of the previous entry. And my god, she did more than an excellent job at this, no shade to Yasunori Mitsuda, the historic composer of the franchise but I think this has easily become my favorite soundtrack in any Xeno games aside from maybe X. Right from the get go, the dungeon music sounds like actual music from an RPG and not some rejected arcade shmup blurb, we go from jazz, to rock, to orchestral, to epic choir music that goes “HAHA HAHA HAHA OOH AAAH OOOH AAA LALA SALI YADIDADI DADIDI”. The soundtrack is so freaking excellent this time around and actually stuck in my mind for being used even outside of cutscenes and while there is still some moments of silence during gameplay to enhance the atmosphere of the game, these are easily more welcomed than they were previously, much like how Xenogears managed its own soundtrack.
A couple of standout track I can name from the top of my head, like Hepatica, Godsibb, Fatal Fight, Febronia, Promised Pain, Abel’s Ark and of course how the fuck can I not mention the ending song “Maybe Tomorrow” which makes me emotional every time I listen to it like I’m some 15 year old emo girl stuck to her ipod nano in 2006. I’m not a music expert of course so I can’t really go into much detail on why I think the soundtrack is fantastic but sometimes, it’s just something that you feel rather than something you can explain with words. Anyway Kajiura is a goddess and I need more of her compositions in my vein.
The only real issue I have with the sound direction however is that several areas of the game have these “alarm” sounds, which is a repeated line by some robot lady going like “Activation of the Song of Nephilim, all personnel must evacuate immediately” and while it does had an effect in the most urgent and intense moment of the story, the fact that this is a repeated occurrence in a lot of the dungeons in the game quickly start to get a bit grating. Especially when the frequency of the “alarm” is repeated probably every 5 seconds on loop, I don’t get why they couldn’t just stick that one to a cutscene and just let us enjoy the soundtrack in peace.
Which leaves me to talk about the new battle system of the game. Once again, the gameplay of Xenosaga has seen a massive overhaul but this time I must admit that I’m a bit more divided on the change. In this game, there are no combos to do with the Square and Triangle buttons, no AP’s, no Deathblows, No Event Slots and even less so Stocks and Break Zones from Episode 2. The only remnants of the old battle system is the turn order and the boost mechanic, the entire battle system has been streamlined to a frankly quite absurd degree. Now the game has a more standard type of menu based battle system, tech attacks are now just stronger attacks you can use out of a menu which costs EP like the Ether attacks which are still present in the game. The game features now a more classic “break system” you’ve likely seen from a lot of JRPG past the release of FF XIII which I was actually quite surprised to see since Xenosaga 3 was released a whole 3 years before that game (and makes me wonder which game actually did that dreaded mechanic first).
Some attacks deal “break damage” at the cost of reduced regular damage which fills a red gauge below the enemies health bar, once that bar is filled, you can initiate a “break” which leaves the enemies vulnerable and unable to act for 1 or 2 turns depending on how when you break said enemies. You also have a break gauge yourself, so you need to check that.
Boosting is back and serves the same purpose as the old games but with some differences. Just like Xenosaga 2, you and the enemies can both hold 3 units of Boost but now on top of using boost to override the turn order, you can instead use your boost units to launch “Special Attacks” which are this game’s version of Deathblow from the older titles. Using a Special Attack allows you to conserve EP but also if you happen to finish off an enemy with one of those, you get an extra amount of experience, skill points and gold at the end of a fight, so it’s always good to use them to make your characters stronger.
Now the reason I’m a bit divided towards this battle system can’t be really evident at first so I’m going to address the one positive of such a system, everything goes a lot faster than in the previous two games. Entering in contact with an enemy instantly transitions into the battle screen without any transition whatsoever and fights are usually done in a matter of seconds whereas they could be taking a couple of minutes in the previous two games. Add to that the fact that the series added a back attack where you can deal more damage to enemies for one turn if you approach them from the back and battles are generally over faster than it takes to say “Xenosaga II”. A mechanic I think I didn’t explain in the previous two reviews also get a big change that’s kinda welcome, traps, in the previous game there were some weird tanks you could shoot which sprayed an area of effect on the field which not only stopped the enemies on their track but also gave you an advantage in battle if engaged them in that state. Well in Xenosaga III, instead of these traps being installed at certain strategic points of the levels, you actually carry those traps and can place them on the field yourself and upon shooting them, they’ll act exactly the same. I guess it would be a neat tool to use for speed runners and you can carry up to 10 of them before having to restock them at a shop. I personally saw very little use for them during my playthrough as I found getting behind the enemy to be surprisingly easy to do in this one.
But anyway, it does make fights faster but I also think this streamlining kinda removes a lot of the depth and uniqueness of the series core battle design philosophy since Xenogears. Xenosaga 1 was an improvement over the original system and Xenosaga 2 was a re-evaluation of it to try and see how to make it more engaging. I will say though, that as a staunch defender of Xenosaga’s 2 battle system, I was kinda disappointed by this admittedly expected turn-over. I think that ultimately what I dislike about the new battle system is that there’s so much more that could’ve been done with at least the battle system from Xenosaga 1 for exemple and that just make the system more basic didn’t necessarily created a better or more interesting battle system, just one you can be kinda over and done with faster.
I also have a bit of a confidence to make, I’m getting a “break” fatigue as of late and even though this game predates the “break” fads we see in many modern JRPG, I couldn’t help but sigh at the new battle system for having something like this. I’m not blaming the game here, I’m blaming myself for not being able to enjoy that mechanic after so many games using it. I never found a break/stagger system to actually add anything of value to battle for the most part, it’s just a waste of time, it’s just annoying to do piss poor damage all the time until you fill up a gauge that lets you finally have fun… It’s just kind of tiring…
It’s also not helped by the fact the game is pretty damn easy all across the board. Very early on in the game, you get several options to trivialize encounters and bosses, like spamming Erde Kaiser summons which you get one very early in the game and can be casted by all party members this time and not just Shion.
Another thing I’m not too big on is the progression system, it’s a much more linear system where characters fit into tightly defined roles, but whereas the original game allowed you to switch things around and mix and match your party’s abilities this game is sadly very straightforward. Skill points can be spent on a skill tree that looks more like a skill fork than a tree, very early on you are tasked with choosing between two branches, one branch makes the character go through the path of the role they were given in the previous game and the other a sort of alternate job. If you feel especially crazy, you can pick the alternate path but usually speaking it’s better to stick to the main one and stick to it until the end to unlock the Master Skill which is a powerful ability with a variety of effects. Throughout the game, you can obtain a bunch of books allowing you to add a couple more branches to the skill tree, but this is sadly quite a superfluous addition.
Most battles in the game are going to be heavily reliant on you using Tech and Ether to make higher damage and deal with the enemies faster, so a lot of the difficulty comes from managing your EP’s, this rarely becomes an issue since you have 7 party members at pretty much all time ! However I do enjoy the fact that residual EXP and Skill points are a thing now and that the game incentivizes you to use the entirety of your party instead of a select few, much like Xenosaga 2, you can switch out party members during battle which is always a nice plus.
I won’t say the battle system is bad whatsoever, but it is flawed and rather dull at points, most boss fights play out exactly the same and it’s very easy to cheese them. Boosting is such a non-component of the battle system that I even wonder why it was still implemented anyway and they must’ve felt the same way as I did while making the game because they had to give another purpose to boosting in order to not make it almost irrelevant outside of keeping up combos and finish enemies faster. Even the main superboss designed for the battle system doesn’t manage to actually do anything interesting with it, which is kind of a shame. I think with the experience Monolith gained on the first two games, they could’ve managed to make a fast paced version of the older system too instead of making it this way.
It’s hardly a complaint since I still find the battle system effective and fun to break, but not one that particularly impressed me in the long schemes of things. Of course this isn’t the only side to the coin of the game battle system as we now have to discuss the mech fight and for once, I am much more enthusiastic about those ! Not only is there a decent degree of customization this time again but I also think this is the best mech combat in the entire series this far.
The game uses a fuel system much like Xenogears but instead of being a consumable like in that game, it just determines the number of times you can attack in a single turn which is determined by the type of weapon you’ve equipped and their cost in terms of fuel consumption. You also have the possibility to activate “Anima Mode” filling an Anima gauge by landing successful attacks on enemies, you can stock up to 3 Anime gauge depending on where you are in the story and during this mode which last for 2 turns, you can either use a powerful special move, or attack the enemies while only consuming half of the fuel necessary to use your attacks. Attacking during Anime mode can sometimes activate a random ambush which is an all-out attack of your entire party against a single target, there’s also co-op attacks outside of Anime mode where only 2 characters wail on the enemy. You can also heal in battle by charging which also serves as a guard which can come handy.
While a bit more gimmicky than the on-foot battle, I did find them to be thoroughly more engaging than them which is surprising since usually it’s the other way around. Some of the best bosses in the game like the 2nd Margulis Fight which is the apex of fiction, happen during the mech combat and I’m really glad there are a lot more of them this time around and a lot more dungeons designed around E.S exploration. I had a lot of fun with this system which is surprisingly deeper than one might expect at first glance, sadly it does suffer from the same issue as the rest of the game for being quite easy outside of a few encounters using unique mechanics you have to figure out midway through the fight (like the aforementioned Margulis encounters). Much like the on-foot battle, a lot of them are done and over pretty quickly which is actually a plus.
Overall, I’d say the battle system being fast definitely does help the excellent pacing of the game, the previous two Xenosaga games were kind of a slow burn both in terms of story and in their gameplay but Xenosaga 3 goes at a brisk pace at all time, it’s always engaging, there’s always something going on and there’s rarely anything to stop your progress. One thing that’s a bit regrettable however is the lack of side-content to engage with compared to Xenosaga 2. While the side-content in Xenosaga 2 leave a lot to be desired, the sheer quantity of them made the game quite generous especially when it comes to its post-game. Here the side-stuff has been severely downsized, there’s still a couple of mostly puzzle based optional dungeons and 2 superbosses but the bulk of the side content is in the red door/red key quest present in all previous games.
In a surprise twist on the formula however, the Erde Kaiser Quest has been nerfed a little bit in favor of integrating that silly plotline within the actual main story. It’s a surprising choice for sure to make the two comedic side-quest characters actually important characters in the plot but their contributions mostly amount to justifying narrative shortcuts when it comes to technological stuff. But I do find it hilarious that the whole Erde Kaiser thing is actually important to the plot now with Kos-Mos herself being implemented with some of Erde Kaiser’s features after being beaten to a pulp and not being able to keep her new design for long. You can still summon Erde Kaiser in battle, in fact they’re now just regular summons a la final fantasy that you can acquire through the red door/red key thing, you get access to all versions of Erde Kaiser from throughout the franchise, sadly they all share the same battle animation but they compensate with raw fire power, and they made the already trivial regular encounters even more trivial.
The ending of the Erde Kaiser plotline however, is actually peak fiction, acquiring the final Erde Kaiser demands you go through a few steps which includes a boss fight against Wel… I mean Omega Id from NOT Xenogears and another boss fight against the strongest Erde Kaiser which frankly exists to break the late game in half if you’re too tired of the combat system by the end (or if like me you’re crazy enough to finish that game at 4am and you just want to fucking sleep). The conclusion to the quest made me a bit emotional and filled me with the burning passion for giant robots (the thing chicks dig).
Last but not least, there’s Haqox which… is a lemmings clone… it’s the main mini-game available and it’s surprisingly difficult and ramps up in difficulty quite a bit, I was not big on said mini-game but after a while I got used to how it works even if some stages broke my goddamn finger. Completing the game allows you to see the cutscenes with Swimsuits which is a fun bonus for all of your effort and I mean who doesn’t wanna see Shion in a bikini heh ?
Alright enough bubbling around, if you’re playing a Xeno game especially a pre-Xenoblade era game at that it’s clearly not to talk about extraneous detail such as how the gameplay hold up or if the dungeons don’t want to make you kill yourself. First and foremost, you’re playing a Xeno game to experience the amazing stories told by Takahashi and his wife Kaori Tanaka (which I doubt actually worked on the game, like I said, I found very little info on the development of that one). And so how did Takahashi manage to save Christmas once again when everything seemed to be against this game succeeding in doing so ?
The story takes place roughly a year after the event of Xenosaga 2, after a couple of shenanigans involving Gnosis Terrorism and the uncovering of a conspiracy involving Vector Industries, Shion lost her trust for the company and decided to leave it in order to join Scientia, an anti-UMN terrorist group which also wants to know what the deal with Vector is. Meanwhile in the void of space, a floating landmass by the name of “Rennes-le-Château” (an actual city in France btw) has appeared in the middle of space, it’s said to be a part of Lost Jerusalem the home of origin of humanity. Dmitri Yuriev is also up to some shenanigans, after coming back from the dead which seems to bother absolutely no one, he took his place back in the government to start working on a new super weapon by the name of “Omega Res Novae” piloted by a mysteriously familiar looking “Abel” which will not be the only time Takahashi is bordering on copyright infringement. But wait that’s not all, a new scientist is in town and has created a robot very similar to Kos-Mos by the name of T-Elos and they’re about to scrap Kos-Mos which is unacceptable !!! Especially since we need Kos-Mos to save the crew on the Elsa after these dimwits got stuck into a pocket dimension after orbiting a bit too close to the big French rock.
From the get go, we can see one thing about the story which is pretty cool, the story is back to focusing on Shion and Kos-Mos, I had nothing against Jr. taking the lead in the previous game (especially when it was so damn raw) but the story of Shion and Kos-Mos has been the central hook of the original premise for the trilogy and it was about time we get some closure on that front. Like I said earlier, the pacing of the story is honestly quite excellent, the entire premise that I’ve talked about pretty much summarizes the first few hours or so of the story ! It’s intense, there’s tons of moving parts, an extensive attention to detail when it comes to developing the lore and the setting of the game, we’re definitely inside a story that was written by Takahashi and I love it ! The story is really thoroughly engaging from start to finish, aside from one fillerish dungeon which exists solely to make yet another Xenogears reference, every event that takes place advances the plot in some way or another !
This frantic pacing made me play the game for hours on end. We go from revelations after revelations from one powerfully emotional and philosophical moment to the next, it’s like experiencing the highs of Disc 2 of Xenogears but as if it was an actual game. Speaking of Xenogears, Takahashi really didn’t give a fuck this time around, knowing full well this might be the last chance he’ll get to direct a Xeno game, he just bombards the story with all these parallels which will certainly please older fans or people who checked out Xenogears.
I’m a bit mixed on these references and parallels because I fail to see how they contribute to the plot, aside from tying Xenosaga to the grand project of Takahashi aka “Parralel Works” but it’s nonetheless really fun to witness how much he got away with. I mean there’s a certain part in the end where I can hear the team at Monolith Software being like “We cannot pass this opportunity to get a 3D Model of Elly ! WE ARE GETTING ELLY IN 3D DAMNIT !”.
There’s also a part of the game I was a bit skeptical about at first until it turned out to be absolute kino, there’s a “kinda” time travel plot line in the middle which is the game excuses to do the traditional tour of Old Miltia this time around however, we will be witnessing the events that lead to the tragedy that unfolded on this cursed land ! It’s a really long part of the game which takes probably half of the game runtime but I think it was worth every second of it and the implications of time-travel in the series opened a few interesting things for Shion as a character.
Speaking of Shion, I’ve heard that many people hate Shion in this game and on average she’s easily the most unpopular Xeno protagonist by a large margin but honestly… I really don’t get why, I have tons of complaints about the story especially in its later half but none of these issues are Shion related in the slightest. In fact, I wish more female leads in games, manga and anime were written with the same level of pertinence as Shion is. Shion goes through a lot in this game and arguably she has been going through a lot for a lot of time, but she never actually worked on herself, she was always distant and aloof as well as brash and borderline suicidal in the first game. What she goes through in Episode III isn’t a sudden shift in behavior that was brought about for the convenience of the plot or to serve the theme of the story, it was something that was already established in the first game albeit in a more subtle manner.
Shion does a lot of shitty, awful and at times unreasonable things in this game, she acts very rashly to what’s happening around her. Shion isn’t a happy person, nobody seem to understand her and she has been carrying traumas of the past and she now sees the possibility of finally reaching happiness for the very first time in her life and she’s about to take the chance, even if that means turning her back against the people she hold dear and even turning her back against the universe. In this game, we also learn a lot about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Kevin and let’s just say not everything was as lovey-dovey as they seemed at first. Their relationship is clearly manipulative, even if Kevin claims she is doing all of this to make Shion happy. Shion, giving in to his lies, is torn apart by the avalanche of information rushing through her mind right now. Shion is a broken character, a broken human being and it’s not just something that’s shown and serves just as a cheap way to evoke a feeling of forced relatability to the player, in fact only few people will probably relate to Shion since her situation is very specific to only a couple of people. But what the game asks of you is empathy. Even though I wanted to punch Shion at one point in the story, I also think Takahashi did a more than excellent job at humanizing the character !
She is profoundly human and written so realistically that I’m sure that it could throw some people off, she’s a perfect representation of somebody falling for a toxic relationship once again, of someone willing to go back to her abuser because in the sea of her own traumas, it seems like the only beacon of hope in a hopeless world ! She is stuck, trapped, in the clutch of the man she loves so dearly despite him being the absolute worst fucking dickhead imaginable, but I also think every decision Shion takes are believable ! It’s hard to work the fine line between a caricature of a broken person and someone who is realistically and believably broken. It’s not enough to have a character display self doubts and go “boo hoo my life sucks”, for a character like this to work, you have to make a good character first and then make a good broken character second ! Making them humans instead of just a function inside of a wider narrative ! And Shion is ultimately an excellent representation of that and it makes her path to healing even more powerful and poignant (also ALLEN IS THE GOAT !!!).
Xenosaga III manages to create a powerful narrative about breaking from the cycle of pain, about how a small wave can reach to the far end of the cosmos as long as you scream loud enough for people to hear it ! Shion isn’t the only one to get an amazing treatment in this game however, I’d say that all the characters which had yet to have some level of conclusion to their arc managed to shine through and brilliantly so ! I can’t believe Takahashi managed not only to nail the Febronia plotline that was teased since the first game as well as making me care about fucking Virgil, a random guy who dies near the beginning of the 1st game only to come back as one of the Testament which are the main antagonistic group of the game. All the scenes involving Virgil and Feb managed to make me so fucking emo it’s kind of unbelievable.
In fact, I’d say that characters coming back to fulfill one last wish as Testaments is actually a pretty damn cool idea in concept, usually I’m not a huge fan of returning characters for the sake of fanservice but here it’s not for that sake and they actually do serve a purpose in the story at large. In fact, they even manage to nail the whole “true mastermind” plot line by giving it some interesting ramifications and devastating effects to some characters ! Shoutouts in particular to Margulis which boss fight is easily the best one not just in this game, not just in the Xenosaga series but in the entire Xeno franchise ! I keep listening to Fatal Fight every single goddamn day since that fight happened, the sight of this man being betrayed and left like a dog, losing everything he believed in but finding purpose in the one thing that hasn’t abandoned him yet, the one thing that won’t disappoint him, a fight to the death against his rival ! AAAAAH IT’S SO PEAAAAAAAAAAAK !!
However for how gripping and engaging the story is, that fast pacing does have some consequences especially at the tail end of the game. You can feel that the game was meant to finish around the time of your confrontation with Dmitri Yuriev but the game still had a bit more things to tell and the final dungeon kinda rushes through what little hanging plot thread was left in the story ! It’s a bit of a shame because I would’ve loved to see the conclusion to these arcs presented in a more thorough and developed way ! This doesn’t take away too much from how I enjoyed those but I can’t help but think several things about the game weren’t properly closed off. For example, I do love the final scene of Albedo in this game, but I wonder if there was even a point in bringing him back to just serve second fiddle to the main antagonist of the game and have maybe 3 lines of dialog at best (you don’t even get a boss fight against him whereas you fight every testament in the game at least once !). Deep down, I feel like the Albedo plotline should’ve been dropped or at least developed a bit better. I think Albedo already had a decent conclusion by the end of Xenosaga II so I felt the additional screen time to be kinda pointless.
The story also delves a bit more heavily on direct references to Christianity and I was a bit scared at first but it’s handled with a surprising level of tactfulness, it managed to completely avoid blasphemy and not being too chuuni which I’m always a bit afraid of when you go deeper in that territory.
Despite all of these rushes however, the ending of Xenosaga 3 is absolutely insane. From the moment Shion betrays the party all the way to the end credits I was crying not just out of sadness but out of sheer admiration for the craft ! It’s one of the most beautiful endings I’ve ever seen from this medium and even if it’s clear the story Takahashi wanted to tell wasn’t yet complete, in the end, I think the story we got was good enough !
Xenosaga 3 is a freaking generational game, it’s a game which leaves an impenetrable mark in the mind of those who play it and solidify Takahashi as a master of his craft. So many conclusive pieces of media tend to drop the ball hard with empty fanservices, awkward plot delivery with artificial stakes sometimes in favor of said fanservice, too busy with paying-off the storyline than actually saying something with the work. But not Xenosaga 3, it’s a game which does suffer a bit of growing pain that’s something we can’t ignore unfortunately, but I can excuse a lot of the game shortcomings because of how well it wrapped up everything that matters and delivered a powerful story which spoke to me as a person, with characters and a universe I had a tough time saying goodbye too by the end of the credits.
At times, I even wonder if I don’t prefer it to Xenogears, the gap is really close, but both games, as broken as they are, do deliver on their promises. Takahashi might see the Xenosaga series as a failure, heck maybe you’re seeing the series as a failure after completing it ! But as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t regret going through the series and experiencing Takahashi’s wild ride. And maybe who knows, Xenosaga isn’t over, there’s tons of stuff left to uncover, the Xeno series is not over yet, Xenoblade proves that the Perfect Works plan has still delivered all of its secrets. Maybe someday, Xenosaga will once again be brought up in the light, I really wish it does, I wish the game would receive at least an HD port if not a straight up sequel…
But this is a far off dream for now, but who knows a wave can travel the universe and change the course of history… so yes it’s a dream for now but maybe not for long, maybe one day Xenosaga will shine and ve celebrated for the cult classic series that it is…
Maybe this day…
Maybe tomorrow...
The Xeno franchise, from a creative perspective is probably one of the most fascinating dives into the wonders of the human imagination. If you’ve been reading my reviews so far (and thanks for doing so, I’m putting a bit too much effort for something so insignificant) you probably realized more than anything, I’m deeply fascinated by the creative process behind some of my favorite and least favorite media. This always came from a place of trying to understand why certain things click with me when others don’t. I’m always trying to understand the appeal of even the things I find little value for myself to the point it pisses me off when I simply don’t get why “kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch so much” as that one commercial said.
I’m of the belief that every piece of art has value no matter how good or bad it is, as long as it comes from a sincere place of passion from its creators and not simply out of shameless greedy exploitation. Art is the most powerful tool for humanity to communicate, discussing things through words can be good for a time, but I think if you truly want to understand someone deep inside their souls, you have to look at what they make. Each piece of art collectively forms a puzzle that transcends our mortal bodies and can eventually lead us to understand why humanity in all of its flaws and all of its qualities is actually beautiful and infinitely fascinating. But in the world of media analysis, we tend to celebrate successes and shun upon failures, why is that ? To be fair, it’s pretty self-explanatory, when you succeed at something, you see a direct feedback of progress but a failure and especially a pretty bad one can make you crawl into a fetal position and make you think like you never actually evolve. But you do evolve, constantly, even through failure, you learn, your failure leaves a trace but it doesn’t have to be a wholly negative one and if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that one man’s trash can always be another man’s treasure.
From that perspective, it’s easy to look at the entirety of the Xenosaga Trilogy as well as its subsequent side-material as nothing more than a failure. It’s a project that was too big for itself, it’s a project with a second episode so tonally inconsistent with its two sister entry that it left a mark that was hard to recover from, it’s a franchise when the main vision from its creators was taken, sliced up, diced up, mashed up and broke into pieces to create an incomplete husk of what simply could’ve been. You’ve likely seen projects like these, the most recent exemple I have of it myself being Final Fantasy XV which to this day I still think should’ve not been released due to how much of what was the core of the project got lost in translation in a product that will feel eternally incomplete. FFXV left me with a sense of frustration, a feeling of what could’ve been if it managed to actually pull off everything it set out to do.
In a sense Xenogears was in a similar situation and yet, Xenogears is still celebrated as a monument of the JRPG genre, it’s a cult classic which still remained that way years into the future and which legacy can be felt throughout other projects both from the Xeno franchise but also other games as well. Xenoblade also managed to pull its teeth out and become the first somewhat uncompromised Xeno project and I believe they still go really strong. And then there’s Xenosaga, the awkward middle child stuck on the 6th generation console that no one really talks about. I’ve heard Xenosaga being described as a failed attempt to recapture the feeling of Xenogears but ultimately failed at doing so and didn’t leave much of an impact or some people even call Xenogears the prototype of Saga.
Nonetheless, Xenosaga is in an awkward position as far as the entire franchise goes. Xenogears, although incomplete, was able to tell the whole story of the one episode they could get out to the market and thus naturally had more staying power. Xenoblade games (maybe XB3 aside) are standalone enough in their individual stories for people to latch onto them and were released in an era where the general playerbase for these kinds of games were larger than ever and on some of the most successful gaming consoles of all time. And while both managed to rise into prominence in the gaming sphere, Xenosaga still remains somewhat niche due to its lack of accessibility and the discussion surrounding the game amounts to highlighting its failings rather than celebrating its successes.
Xenosaga is a series that was dealt the worst of hands and everything points out at Xenosaga 3 being a catastrophe, I might be one of the 2 people on Earth to have enjoyed Xenosaga 2 but I can also admit this game fell short in several areas when it came to its plotting mostly because it wasn’t a Takahashi game. And since the series wasn’t going to have its 6 episodes run time (although you might consider that with the addition of Pied Pier, Freaks and Missing Year it does amount to 6 games in the end) to tell the full scope of its story Xenosaga 3 was going to do the seemingly impossible task to conclude an ambitious projects without nearly as much prep time as it actually needed.
And did it succeed ?
I’m not keeping the suspense any longer, Xenosaga is once again a crowning achievement of the JRPG genre and seemingly the most perfect conclusion one could ever hope for the story in spite of its shortcomings (which exists and we’ll discuss them later down the line). Takahashi once again manage to untangle the mess that was left from the development cycle of the franchise and manage to pull it off in the end once again, he already did with Xenogears at the time but I think it’s doubly impressive here considering that what he had to come up with Gears Second Disc was for one game and Xenosaga was for 6.
However, information on the development of Episode 3 are a bit sparse compared to Episode 1 and Episode 2, I’ve tried looking it up online and couldn’t find anything substantial, the only video essay on the subject linked it to a comment made by Bamco’s PR Division which said they were satisfied with the end product and the sales this episode made. One thing is for certain however, unlike Episode 2, Takahashi was back on the project and while he isn’t the actual director of the game, he was pretty much overseeing the entire thing from beginning to end. But it wasn’t going to take simply making Xenosaga 3 and move on to save that sinking ship, that’s why in the wait period between Xenosaga 2 and 3 several project were greenlit by Bandai Namco in order to tie-in some of the loose ends left by the plot of Xenosaga 2.
The most significant of these side projects is Xenosaga 1&2 for Nintendo, a game I unfortunately didn’t play because it’s only in Japanese and no one seems to want to work on an English patch for it. It’s a demake of both Xenosaga 1&2 and from what I heard while it doesn’t actually change much about the plot of 1 it does expand significantly on Xenosaga’s 2 script to make it closer to the initial pitch for the game by Takahashi. Suffice to say, I’m really curious about this one. It's not often you see a JRPG franchise demaking their console releases for a portable system and seemingly make it a more complete version of the original, high budget and ambitious version of said game.
The other two side projects are a bit less ambitious and a bit more questionable when it comes to availability. The first one is “Xenosaga Pied Piper”, an episodic game released for the Vodafone 6, yes it’s a mobile game, yes it’s important and yes you will be regretting skipping on this one once you reach a particular part of Xenosaga 3, I’ve already made a mini-review of it on this website so check it out if you want to catch up on the epic Cani Review lore (or don’t). Same thing for “Xenosaga II to III : A Missing Year”, a frankly forgettable and kinda bad visual novel that’s the equivalent of an hour long infodump meant to tie the previous game to the next by explaining what happened between the events of the two.
If I have one complaint about this way of handling the wider story of the game is that the games in question are not super available in today’s age, these side games were never released outside of Japan and if it wasn’t for the work of several dedicated fans, they will be lost to time and understanding some of the deeper plot of Xenosaga 3 might be almost impossible. I say almost because Xenosaga 3 actually does contextualize a bit of the stuff from those games thanks to the return of the data log.
If this isn’t proof enough that Xenosaga 3 was once again handled by Takahashi, the Database from Episode 1 returns after its surprising absence from Episode 2. In my previous review, I mentioned that I didn’t really check the data base all that often most of it being a combination of laziness on my part, a reluctance to actually voluntarily stop my progression of the story to stop and read wiki articles as well the lack of clear indication of when, why and for what said data base got updated. However, I’d say the database from Xenosaga 3 is much better than the ones from Xenosaga 1 for many reasons, one of which is the fact the game actually notifies you when said database gets updated which is definitely a welcome push towards me actually checking it out and second, the database in question is separated into multiple categories instead of being filed up haphazardly.
Takahashi’s commitment to worldbuilding once again shines through in this game, not only from the database but also the fact the game leans more heavily on talking about the broader setting and all of the moving parts of the deeper lore of the world. Since Xenosaga 3 is meant to provide answers to all the lingering questions left by the first game and try to awkwardly fit in some of the elements of the second to better fit in with the greater whole, this return to form is more than welcome. The database itself is actually much more explicit than the one from Saga 1, not dwelling too deeply on superfluous unimportant detail and just delivering the answer straight to you ! Each entries also comes with a bunch of key-words to link them to one another making navigating the gargantuan story of Xenosaga much easier than it was previously and even if I still had questions near the end of the game, I’d say Xenosaga 3 did a solid enough job at solidifying my understanding of the world it was presenting and gave me much better appreciation for the efforts that were put behind its creation.
But you can also feel this return to form inside of the game itself, NPC dialogues are heavy on contextualization and worldbuilding, there are several areas dedicated to interacting with terminals explaining to you all sorts of esoteric sci-fi stuff and in general there’s a bigger focus on character inter-personal conflict, psychology and drama, something that was present in lesser amount in Xenosaga 2 but here Takahashi just pumped everything he could into every cutscenes and dialogues the game presents.
One thing that’s immediately striking from the start is the presentation of the game, you can feel that this was a late PS2 title and as such, the team at Monolith Software really made the best use of their experience working with console games by now. There are several moments in the game where I was just kinda blown away by how good it looks for a game of this era, especially because of the game's general art direction. Gone are the days of the weird doll-like face of episode 1 or the fugly wannabe realistic character model from Episode 2, here the game has once again a new artstyle which makes a great compromise between the more anime style of the first game and the attempt at realism of the second game. The characters really haven’t looked this good and moved this well in cutscenes. Unfortunately this is where one of my main gripes with the game’s presentation comes into place, there are fewer cutscenes this time around than they were in the previous entries.
While this does help the already excellent pacing of the game as we’re gonna discuss later down the line, a lot of the big story moments are told through a series of in-engine dialogues and text-boxes the kind you see in typical JRPG. I have nothing against this on principle but considering the propension of the series for overindulging in its cinematic flair, it was kind of awkward to transition from one style of storytelling to the other in what clearly feels like budget issues. These sequences are a bit less well directed than usual but they do have the benefit of being all voice acted which wasn’t the case of similar instances of dialogue boxes exchanged in the previous entry. A quick word about the dub of the game, it’s pretty damn excellent, the voice acting in Episode 2 was a bit awkward and there were some unfortunate voice cast changes along the way, for the most part all of the characters got back their voice actor from Episode 1. This includes Shion and Kos-Mos which delivers an outstanding performance on par with what they already delivered in the first entry and since this episode in particular focuses heavily on them as protagonists it’s definitely a welcome change.
I wouldn’t be complaining about that style of dialogue-based cutscenes if it wasn’t for the fact that the game often-times have actual cutscenes and boy oh boy what a bunch of cutscenes these are. The series was already known for having excellent cutscene direction all the way back from even Xenogears and this game is probably the apex of the franchise so far and approaches the kind of cinematic quality one can expect from the later entries in the Xeno franchise. There are a couple of intense moments of action which feels like they’re ripped straight out of some dope ass chinese kung-fu movies with excellent choreography to boot, these are an absolute joy to watch every time and an absolute hype fest. But even the less actioney scenes of the game were given proper care and attention on a similar level, and with Xenosaga you kinda realize that a game mostly composed of cutscenes isn’t really a bad thing as long as the people behind it have a clear love for the craft that is cinema. So many video games these days are trying a bit too hard to not be videogames, proposing heavily cinematic experiences which almost all the time approach just a shallow understanding of what movie-making is.
But from time to time, you get to see a game director with a clear passion and love for filmmaking and it shows, I can name the Metal Gear Solid series from the top of my head for kickstarting a similar philosophy but Takahashi clearly belong to the same school of thought as Kojima does. I already mentioned the clear inspiration from Kung-Fu movies but the entirety of Takahashi’s body of work with the Xeno Franchise oozes from inspiration from the most obvious ones like Star Wars or 2001 A Space Odyssey to more obscure ones like author films that I wish I could tell you about if I was more of a film buff.
Outside of the action segments, I can think of a couple of really evocative shot that would come straight of an arthouse film, that part where Shion reflects upon herself while completely nude (a sight to behold I know), cleaning the foam off of the mirror to show her face full of doubts and interrogation for the situation she finds herself in. That one horrific scene in the hospital where the monstrous updated combat Realians enter the room and mercilessly slaughter Shion’s mom as she’s hiding under the bed followed by a cutscene of a young Shion desperately trying to put her organs back (sadly censored in the English Dubbed version). The evocative first cutscenes of the game’s intro showcasing the downfall of Michtam, an intro that much like the first cutscenes of Xenogears will only make sense in several hours from now.
I could name a couple more of theses instances but I think the cinematography of the game is truly on point, which is a shame when out of the 10h of cutscenes present in the game only 5 of them are in this cinematographic style while the rest is presented in a rather dry format of dialogue exchange. But what little we do get in terms of raw actual cutscenes are simply fantastic and a massive upgrade from the previous 2 entries which were no less impressive in that regard. This level of cinematic flair however isn’t only found in the cutscenes but also in the actual exploration segment as well, the environment design clearly had a lot of thoughts put into them this time around, and the relative dryness of the areas from the first two games are not to be found here.
The game reminded me of the works of Kitase on the Final Fantasy series, more specifically the PS1 entries. While Xenosaga 3 doesn’t use pre-rendered backgrounds like them, it keeps the locked camera angles of the original 2 games but this time uses it to really enhance the presentation of all the areas you’ll traverse. The Tutorial Dungeon alone shows how much of a technical jump we made, with lots of moving parts and lots of sprawling camera angles and cinematographic shots telling a story of its own. One scene in particular struck me as particularly hype and it’s when you enter the Merkabah on the second disc, your mechs just diving inside the enormous space fortress in something that looks like something straight out of freaking Star Wars, or the distorted yet imposing vistas of Abel’s Ark ! At several moments during my playthrough I was simply in awe at how good the game looks and holds up for a game released in 2006, thanks to this commitment to spectacle, cinematography and an absolutely killer art direction.
On average the dungeon design of the game retains most of the qualities of the dungeon design from Xenosaga 2, the same team who worked on that game also worked in Xenosaga 3 and you can clearly see the progress between the two games in terms of game design. You still get a few puzzles, some of them much more fun and less obtuse than the ones from the previous game, there’s a lot of moving parts to each areas, lots of space to avoid the enemies this time around (and the enemies themselves aren’t raging bulls rushing to you with the speed of Sonic the Hedgehog) and most important of all very little in the ways of unnecessary backtracking.
These are easily the best areas and dungeons in the series so far if we’re not counting the Xenoblade games I’ve already played which operate on a completely different design philosophy. The younger team of Monolith did an excellent job with the areas this time around and I’d say than more than just serving as set dressing for the plot to shine through, Xenosaga 3 actually feels like a properly well designed and fun videogames.
But of course, all of this would matter very little if it wasn’t for the game's impeccable sound direction, unlike the previous game, Yuki Kajiura composed the entirety of the OST for Xenosaga 3 making for a much more tonally cohesive soundtrack than that of the previous entry. And my god, she did more than an excellent job at this, no shade to Yasunori Mitsuda, the historic composer of the franchise but I think this has easily become my favorite soundtrack in any Xeno games aside from maybe X. Right from the get go, the dungeon music sounds like actual music from an RPG and not some rejected arcade shmup blurb, we go from jazz, to rock, to orchestral, to epic choir music that goes “HAHA HAHA HAHA OOH AAAH OOOH AAA LALA SALI YADIDADI DADIDI”. The soundtrack is so freaking excellent this time around and actually stuck in my mind for being used even outside of cutscenes and while there is still some moments of silence during gameplay to enhance the atmosphere of the game, these are easily more welcomed than they were previously, much like how Xenogears managed its own soundtrack.
A couple of standout track I can name from the top of my head, like Hepatica, Godsibb, Fatal Fight, Febronia, Promised Pain, Abel’s Ark and of course how the fuck can I not mention the ending song “Maybe Tomorrow” which makes me emotional every time I listen to it like I’m some 15 year old emo girl stuck to her ipod nano in 2006. I’m not a music expert of course so I can’t really go into much detail on why I think the soundtrack is fantastic but sometimes, it’s just something that you feel rather than something you can explain with words. Anyway Kajiura is a goddess and I need more of her compositions in my vein.
The only real issue I have with the sound direction however is that several areas of the game have these “alarm” sounds, which is a repeated line by some robot lady going like “Activation of the Song of Nephilim, all personnel must evacuate immediately” and while it does had an effect in the most urgent and intense moment of the story, the fact that this is a repeated occurrence in a lot of the dungeons in the game quickly start to get a bit grating. Especially when the frequency of the “alarm” is repeated probably every 5 seconds on loop, I don’t get why they couldn’t just stick that one to a cutscene and just let us enjoy the soundtrack in peace.
Which leaves me to talk about the new battle system of the game. Once again, the gameplay of Xenosaga has seen a massive overhaul but this time I must admit that I’m a bit more divided on the change. In this game, there are no combos to do with the Square and Triangle buttons, no AP’s, no Deathblows, No Event Slots and even less so Stocks and Break Zones from Episode 2. The only remnants of the old battle system is the turn order and the boost mechanic, the entire battle system has been streamlined to a frankly quite absurd degree. Now the game has a more standard type of menu based battle system, tech attacks are now just stronger attacks you can use out of a menu which costs EP like the Ether attacks which are still present in the game. The game features now a more classic “break system” you’ve likely seen from a lot of JRPG past the release of FF XIII which I was actually quite surprised to see since Xenosaga 3 was released a whole 3 years before that game (and makes me wonder which game actually did that dreaded mechanic first).
Some attacks deal “break damage” at the cost of reduced regular damage which fills a red gauge below the enemies health bar, once that bar is filled, you can initiate a “break” which leaves the enemies vulnerable and unable to act for 1 or 2 turns depending on how when you break said enemies. You also have a break gauge yourself, so you need to check that.
Boosting is back and serves the same purpose as the old games but with some differences. Just like Xenosaga 2, you and the enemies can both hold 3 units of Boost but now on top of using boost to override the turn order, you can instead use your boost units to launch “Special Attacks” which are this game’s version of Deathblow from the older titles. Using a Special Attack allows you to conserve EP but also if you happen to finish off an enemy with one of those, you get an extra amount of experience, skill points and gold at the end of a fight, so it’s always good to use them to make your characters stronger.
Now the reason I’m a bit divided towards this battle system can’t be really evident at first so I’m going to address the one positive of such a system, everything goes a lot faster than in the previous two games. Entering in contact with an enemy instantly transitions into the battle screen without any transition whatsoever and fights are usually done in a matter of seconds whereas they could be taking a couple of minutes in the previous two games. Add to that the fact that the series added a back attack where you can deal more damage to enemies for one turn if you approach them from the back and battles are generally over faster than it takes to say “Xenosaga II”. A mechanic I think I didn’t explain in the previous two reviews also get a big change that’s kinda welcome, traps, in the previous game there were some weird tanks you could shoot which sprayed an area of effect on the field which not only stopped the enemies on their track but also gave you an advantage in battle if engaged them in that state. Well in Xenosaga III, instead of these traps being installed at certain strategic points of the levels, you actually carry those traps and can place them on the field yourself and upon shooting them, they’ll act exactly the same. I guess it would be a neat tool to use for speed runners and you can carry up to 10 of them before having to restock them at a shop. I personally saw very little use for them during my playthrough as I found getting behind the enemy to be surprisingly easy to do in this one.
But anyway, it does make fights faster but I also think this streamlining kinda removes a lot of the depth and uniqueness of the series core battle design philosophy since Xenogears. Xenosaga 1 was an improvement over the original system and Xenosaga 2 was a re-evaluation of it to try and see how to make it more engaging. I will say though, that as a staunch defender of Xenosaga’s 2 battle system, I was kinda disappointed by this admittedly expected turn-over. I think that ultimately what I dislike about the new battle system is that there’s so much more that could’ve been done with at least the battle system from Xenosaga 1 for exemple and that just make the system more basic didn’t necessarily created a better or more interesting battle system, just one you can be kinda over and done with faster.
I also have a bit of a confidence to make, I’m getting a “break” fatigue as of late and even though this game predates the “break” fads we see in many modern JRPG, I couldn’t help but sigh at the new battle system for having something like this. I’m not blaming the game here, I’m blaming myself for not being able to enjoy that mechanic after so many games using it. I never found a break/stagger system to actually add anything of value to battle for the most part, it’s just a waste of time, it’s just annoying to do piss poor damage all the time until you fill up a gauge that lets you finally have fun… It’s just kind of tiring…
It’s also not helped by the fact the game is pretty damn easy all across the board. Very early on in the game, you get several options to trivialize encounters and bosses, like spamming Erde Kaiser summons which you get one very early in the game and can be casted by all party members this time and not just Shion.
Another thing I’m not too big on is the progression system, it’s a much more linear system where characters fit into tightly defined roles, but whereas the original game allowed you to switch things around and mix and match your party’s abilities this game is sadly very straightforward. Skill points can be spent on a skill tree that looks more like a skill fork than a tree, very early on you are tasked with choosing between two branches, one branch makes the character go through the path of the role they were given in the previous game and the other a sort of alternate job. If you feel especially crazy, you can pick the alternate path but usually speaking it’s better to stick to the main one and stick to it until the end to unlock the Master Skill which is a powerful ability with a variety of effects. Throughout the game, you can obtain a bunch of books allowing you to add a couple more branches to the skill tree, but this is sadly quite a superfluous addition.
Most battles in the game are going to be heavily reliant on you using Tech and Ether to make higher damage and deal with the enemies faster, so a lot of the difficulty comes from managing your EP’s, this rarely becomes an issue since you have 7 party members at pretty much all time ! However I do enjoy the fact that residual EXP and Skill points are a thing now and that the game incentivizes you to use the entirety of your party instead of a select few, much like Xenosaga 2, you can switch out party members during battle which is always a nice plus.
I won’t say the battle system is bad whatsoever, but it is flawed and rather dull at points, most boss fights play out exactly the same and it’s very easy to cheese them. Boosting is such a non-component of the battle system that I even wonder why it was still implemented anyway and they must’ve felt the same way as I did while making the game because they had to give another purpose to boosting in order to not make it almost irrelevant outside of keeping up combos and finish enemies faster. Even the main superboss designed for the battle system doesn’t manage to actually do anything interesting with it, which is kind of a shame. I think with the experience Monolith gained on the first two games, they could’ve managed to make a fast paced version of the older system too instead of making it this way.
It’s hardly a complaint since I still find the battle system effective and fun to break, but not one that particularly impressed me in the long schemes of things. Of course this isn’t the only side to the coin of the game battle system as we now have to discuss the mech fight and for once, I am much more enthusiastic about those ! Not only is there a decent degree of customization this time again but I also think this is the best mech combat in the entire series this far.
The game uses a fuel system much like Xenogears but instead of being a consumable like in that game, it just determines the number of times you can attack in a single turn which is determined by the type of weapon you’ve equipped and their cost in terms of fuel consumption. You also have the possibility to activate “Anima Mode” filling an Anima gauge by landing successful attacks on enemies, you can stock up to 3 Anime gauge depending on where you are in the story and during this mode which last for 2 turns, you can either use a powerful special move, or attack the enemies while only consuming half of the fuel necessary to use your attacks. Attacking during Anime mode can sometimes activate a random ambush which is an all-out attack of your entire party against a single target, there’s also co-op attacks outside of Anime mode where only 2 characters wail on the enemy. You can also heal in battle by charging which also serves as a guard which can come handy.
While a bit more gimmicky than the on-foot battle, I did find them to be thoroughly more engaging than them which is surprising since usually it’s the other way around. Some of the best bosses in the game like the 2nd Margulis Fight which is the apex of fiction, happen during the mech combat and I’m really glad there are a lot more of them this time around and a lot more dungeons designed around E.S exploration. I had a lot of fun with this system which is surprisingly deeper than one might expect at first glance, sadly it does suffer from the same issue as the rest of the game for being quite easy outside of a few encounters using unique mechanics you have to figure out midway through the fight (like the aforementioned Margulis encounters). Much like the on-foot battle, a lot of them are done and over pretty quickly which is actually a plus.
Overall, I’d say the battle system being fast definitely does help the excellent pacing of the game, the previous two Xenosaga games were kind of a slow burn both in terms of story and in their gameplay but Xenosaga 3 goes at a brisk pace at all time, it’s always engaging, there’s always something going on and there’s rarely anything to stop your progress. One thing that’s a bit regrettable however is the lack of side-content to engage with compared to Xenosaga 2. While the side-content in Xenosaga 2 leave a lot to be desired, the sheer quantity of them made the game quite generous especially when it comes to its post-game. Here the side-stuff has been severely downsized, there’s still a couple of mostly puzzle based optional dungeons and 2 superbosses but the bulk of the side content is in the red door/red key quest present in all previous games.
In a surprise twist on the formula however, the Erde Kaiser Quest has been nerfed a little bit in favor of integrating that silly plotline within the actual main story. It’s a surprising choice for sure to make the two comedic side-quest characters actually important characters in the plot but their contributions mostly amount to justifying narrative shortcuts when it comes to technological stuff. But I do find it hilarious that the whole Erde Kaiser thing is actually important to the plot now with Kos-Mos herself being implemented with some of Erde Kaiser’s features after being beaten to a pulp and not being able to keep her new design for long. You can still summon Erde Kaiser in battle, in fact they’re now just regular summons a la final fantasy that you can acquire through the red door/red key thing, you get access to all versions of Erde Kaiser from throughout the franchise, sadly they all share the same battle animation but they compensate with raw fire power, and they made the already trivial regular encounters even more trivial.
The ending of the Erde Kaiser plotline however, is actually peak fiction, acquiring the final Erde Kaiser demands you go through a few steps which includes a boss fight against Wel… I mean Omega Id from NOT Xenogears and another boss fight against the strongest Erde Kaiser which frankly exists to break the late game in half if you’re too tired of the combat system by the end (or if like me you’re crazy enough to finish that game at 4am and you just want to fucking sleep). The conclusion to the quest made me a bit emotional and filled me with the burning passion for giant robots (the thing chicks dig).
Last but not least, there’s Haqox which… is a lemmings clone… it’s the main mini-game available and it’s surprisingly difficult and ramps up in difficulty quite a bit, I was not big on said mini-game but after a while I got used to how it works even if some stages broke my goddamn finger. Completing the game allows you to see the cutscenes with Swimsuits which is a fun bonus for all of your effort and I mean who doesn’t wanna see Shion in a bikini heh ?
Alright enough bubbling around, if you’re playing a Xeno game especially a pre-Xenoblade era game at that it’s clearly not to talk about extraneous detail such as how the gameplay hold up or if the dungeons don’t want to make you kill yourself. First and foremost, you’re playing a Xeno game to experience the amazing stories told by Takahashi and his wife Kaori Tanaka (which I doubt actually worked on the game, like I said, I found very little info on the development of that one). And so how did Takahashi manage to save Christmas once again when everything seemed to be against this game succeeding in doing so ?
The story takes place roughly a year after the event of Xenosaga 2, after a couple of shenanigans involving Gnosis Terrorism and the uncovering of a conspiracy involving Vector Industries, Shion lost her trust for the company and decided to leave it in order to join Scientia, an anti-UMN terrorist group which also wants to know what the deal with Vector is. Meanwhile in the void of space, a floating landmass by the name of “Rennes-le-Château” (an actual city in France btw) has appeared in the middle of space, it’s said to be a part of Lost Jerusalem the home of origin of humanity. Dmitri Yuriev is also up to some shenanigans, after coming back from the dead which seems to bother absolutely no one, he took his place back in the government to start working on a new super weapon by the name of “Omega Res Novae” piloted by a mysteriously familiar looking “Abel” which will not be the only time Takahashi is bordering on copyright infringement. But wait that’s not all, a new scientist is in town and has created a robot very similar to Kos-Mos by the name of T-Elos and they’re about to scrap Kos-Mos which is unacceptable !!! Especially since we need Kos-Mos to save the crew on the Elsa after these dimwits got stuck into a pocket dimension after orbiting a bit too close to the big French rock.
From the get go, we can see one thing about the story which is pretty cool, the story is back to focusing on Shion and Kos-Mos, I had nothing against Jr. taking the lead in the previous game (especially when it was so damn raw) but the story of Shion and Kos-Mos has been the central hook of the original premise for the trilogy and it was about time we get some closure on that front. Like I said earlier, the pacing of the story is honestly quite excellent, the entire premise that I’ve talked about pretty much summarizes the first few hours or so of the story ! It’s intense, there’s tons of moving parts, an extensive attention to detail when it comes to developing the lore and the setting of the game, we’re definitely inside a story that was written by Takahashi and I love it ! The story is really thoroughly engaging from start to finish, aside from one fillerish dungeon which exists solely to make yet another Xenogears reference, every event that takes place advances the plot in some way or another !
This frantic pacing made me play the game for hours on end. We go from revelations after revelations from one powerfully emotional and philosophical moment to the next, it’s like experiencing the highs of Disc 2 of Xenogears but as if it was an actual game. Speaking of Xenogears, Takahashi really didn’t give a fuck this time around, knowing full well this might be the last chance he’ll get to direct a Xeno game, he just bombards the story with all these parallels which will certainly please older fans or people who checked out Xenogears.
I’m a bit mixed on these references and parallels because I fail to see how they contribute to the plot, aside from tying Xenosaga to the grand project of Takahashi aka “Parralel Works” but it’s nonetheless really fun to witness how much he got away with. I mean there’s a certain part in the end where I can hear the team at Monolith Software being like “We cannot pass this opportunity to get a 3D Model of Elly ! WE ARE GETTING ELLY IN 3D DAMNIT !”.
There’s also a part of the game I was a bit skeptical about at first until it turned out to be absolute kino, there’s a “kinda” time travel plot line in the middle which is the game excuses to do the traditional tour of Old Miltia this time around however, we will be witnessing the events that lead to the tragedy that unfolded on this cursed land ! It’s a really long part of the game which takes probably half of the game runtime but I think it was worth every second of it and the implications of time-travel in the series opened a few interesting things for Shion as a character.
Speaking of Shion, I’ve heard that many people hate Shion in this game and on average she’s easily the most unpopular Xeno protagonist by a large margin but honestly… I really don’t get why, I have tons of complaints about the story especially in its later half but none of these issues are Shion related in the slightest. In fact, I wish more female leads in games, manga and anime were written with the same level of pertinence as Shion is. Shion goes through a lot in this game and arguably she has been going through a lot for a lot of time, but she never actually worked on herself, she was always distant and aloof as well as brash and borderline suicidal in the first game. What she goes through in Episode III isn’t a sudden shift in behavior that was brought about for the convenience of the plot or to serve the theme of the story, it was something that was already established in the first game albeit in a more subtle manner.
Shion does a lot of shitty, awful and at times unreasonable things in this game, she acts very rashly to what’s happening around her. Shion isn’t a happy person, nobody seem to understand her and she has been carrying traumas of the past and she now sees the possibility of finally reaching happiness for the very first time in her life and she’s about to take the chance, even if that means turning her back against the people she hold dear and even turning her back against the universe. In this game, we also learn a lot about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Kevin and let’s just say not everything was as lovey-dovey as they seemed at first. Their relationship is clearly manipulative, even if Kevin claims she is doing all of this to make Shion happy. Shion, giving in to his lies, is torn apart by the avalanche of information rushing through her mind right now. Shion is a broken character, a broken human being and it’s not just something that’s shown and serves just as a cheap way to evoke a feeling of forced relatability to the player, in fact only few people will probably relate to Shion since her situation is very specific to only a couple of people. But what the game asks of you is empathy. Even though I wanted to punch Shion at one point in the story, I also think Takahashi did a more than excellent job at humanizing the character !
She is profoundly human and written so realistically that I’m sure that it could throw some people off, she’s a perfect representation of somebody falling for a toxic relationship once again, of someone willing to go back to her abuser because in the sea of her own traumas, it seems like the only beacon of hope in a hopeless world ! She is stuck, trapped, in the clutch of the man she loves so dearly despite him being the absolute worst fucking dickhead imaginable, but I also think every decision Shion takes are believable ! It’s hard to work the fine line between a caricature of a broken person and someone who is realistically and believably broken. It’s not enough to have a character display self doubts and go “boo hoo my life sucks”, for a character like this to work, you have to make a good character first and then make a good broken character second ! Making them humans instead of just a function inside of a wider narrative ! And Shion is ultimately an excellent representation of that and it makes her path to healing even more powerful and poignant (also ALLEN IS THE GOAT !!!).
Xenosaga III manages to create a powerful narrative about breaking from the cycle of pain, about how a small wave can reach to the far end of the cosmos as long as you scream loud enough for people to hear it ! Shion isn’t the only one to get an amazing treatment in this game however, I’d say that all the characters which had yet to have some level of conclusion to their arc managed to shine through and brilliantly so ! I can’t believe Takahashi managed not only to nail the Febronia plotline that was teased since the first game as well as making me care about fucking Virgil, a random guy who dies near the beginning of the 1st game only to come back as one of the Testament which are the main antagonistic group of the game. All the scenes involving Virgil and Feb managed to make me so fucking emo it’s kind of unbelievable.
In fact, I’d say that characters coming back to fulfill one last wish as Testaments is actually a pretty damn cool idea in concept, usually I’m not a huge fan of returning characters for the sake of fanservice but here it’s not for that sake and they actually do serve a purpose in the story at large. In fact, they even manage to nail the whole “true mastermind” plot line by giving it some interesting ramifications and devastating effects to some characters ! Shoutouts in particular to Margulis which boss fight is easily the best one not just in this game, not just in the Xenosaga series but in the entire Xeno franchise ! I keep listening to Fatal Fight every single goddamn day since that fight happened, the sight of this man being betrayed and left like a dog, losing everything he believed in but finding purpose in the one thing that hasn’t abandoned him yet, the one thing that won’t disappoint him, a fight to the death against his rival ! AAAAAH IT’S SO PEAAAAAAAAAAAK !!
However for how gripping and engaging the story is, that fast pacing does have some consequences especially at the tail end of the game. You can feel that the game was meant to finish around the time of your confrontation with Dmitri Yuriev but the game still had a bit more things to tell and the final dungeon kinda rushes through what little hanging plot thread was left in the story ! It’s a bit of a shame because I would’ve loved to see the conclusion to these arcs presented in a more thorough and developed way ! This doesn’t take away too much from how I enjoyed those but I can’t help but think several things about the game weren’t properly closed off. For example, I do love the final scene of Albedo in this game, but I wonder if there was even a point in bringing him back to just serve second fiddle to the main antagonist of the game and have maybe 3 lines of dialog at best (you don’t even get a boss fight against him whereas you fight every testament in the game at least once !). Deep down, I feel like the Albedo plotline should’ve been dropped or at least developed a bit better. I think Albedo already had a decent conclusion by the end of Xenosaga II so I felt the additional screen time to be kinda pointless.
The story also delves a bit more heavily on direct references to Christianity and I was a bit scared at first but it’s handled with a surprising level of tactfulness, it managed to completely avoid blasphemy and not being too chuuni which I’m always a bit afraid of when you go deeper in that territory.
Despite all of these rushes however, the ending of Xenosaga 3 is absolutely insane. From the moment Shion betrays the party all the way to the end credits I was crying not just out of sadness but out of sheer admiration for the craft ! It’s one of the most beautiful endings I’ve ever seen from this medium and even if it’s clear the story Takahashi wanted to tell wasn’t yet complete, in the end, I think the story we got was good enough !
Xenosaga 3 is a freaking generational game, it’s a game which leaves an impenetrable mark in the mind of those who play it and solidify Takahashi as a master of his craft. So many conclusive pieces of media tend to drop the ball hard with empty fanservices, awkward plot delivery with artificial stakes sometimes in favor of said fanservice, too busy with paying-off the storyline than actually saying something with the work. But not Xenosaga 3, it’s a game which does suffer a bit of growing pain that’s something we can’t ignore unfortunately, but I can excuse a lot of the game shortcomings because of how well it wrapped up everything that matters and delivered a powerful story which spoke to me as a person, with characters and a universe I had a tough time saying goodbye too by the end of the credits.
At times, I even wonder if I don’t prefer it to Xenogears, the gap is really close, but both games, as broken as they are, do deliver on their promises. Takahashi might see the Xenosaga series as a failure, heck maybe you’re seeing the series as a failure after completing it ! But as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t regret going through the series and experiencing Takahashi’s wild ride. And maybe who knows, Xenosaga isn’t over, there’s tons of stuff left to uncover, the Xeno series is not over yet, Xenoblade proves that the Perfect Works plan has still delivered all of its secrets. Maybe someday, Xenosaga will once again be brought up in the light, I really wish it does, I wish the game would receive at least an HD port if not a straight up sequel…
But this is a far off dream for now, but who knows a wave can travel the universe and change the course of history… so yes it’s a dream for now but maybe not for long, maybe one day Xenosaga will shine and ve celebrated for the cult classic series that it is…
Maybe this day…
Maybe tomorrow...
Play Pepsiman.
Peak fiction, what else should I say? It's worth alone to play Episode I (which itself is a masterpiece), Episode II and not to forget reading about Pied Piper and A Missing Year to experience this masterpiece. Best characters I've seen in a story, the best graphics on Playstation 2, wonderful gameplay and a story which is nearly as good as the one from Xenogears! Play this trilogy, I can't recommend it enough, especially if you like Xenoblade.
Peak of the monolith
Just in time before Xenoblade 3 for me at least, Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra wraps up the series in the way I really hope it would. It goes without saying but this is the best Xenosaga far none. Emotional payoffs you'd expect from a finale, the combat leaning into the more traditional turn based menu style was probably the best decision they ever made in terms of this game along with ES combat being extremely fun and managing to bring that puzzle element into a few of them all with an incredible soundtrack which is a true far cry from the first game which I found pretty lacking.
The story beats were great and the characters really shined here barring one major exception which I'll get into in a bit. What I love about Monolith Soft's works is they do a good job of stringing you along with a glimpse of the bigger picture until they want to reveal everything and that's what kept me going through the story itself. I will say someone I ended up really liking is Allen Ridgeley who is usually seen as the comic relief but even he has his moments and they are incredible moments. The cast is great as usual but I felt like one blemish to this cast was technically Shion herself. I won't go much into it but the way she acted throughout the game is erratic and disappointing although she does technically improve during the final quarter at least.
The gameplay is probably why I enjoyed this game a lot more than their predecessors at the time. The turn order is better illustrated here, skill trees with points you get a little of per battle which allows a bit of flexibility like before while still getting unique attacks and special attacks from leveling up too giving you a healthy flow of abilities. It honestly just feels more streamlined in good way here that I don't think many people will dislike compared to the pseudo-xenogears deathblow system of the first game and the highly contentious break system of the second. ES combat is extremely satisfying here with equipment being customization and being able to assign specific abilities to your "CPU" like counter and extra stats if needed. Combo attacks, co-op attacks and even some puzzle elements for bosses like doing something extremely specific makes a lot of the ES fights a good challenge but the random encounters are extremely easy on these things if you know what you're doing. From personal experience, if you somehow don't get bored of the game's combat during your whole run then you truly have something special here. The dungeons themselves were not too bad other than the penultimate one again being a bit long winded but it's really cool in design and mood that I didn't mind it too much.
The soundtrack is so good you would forget that the first game pretty much only had two battle themes and here it feels like every special boss has their own theme which further enhances the emotional impact they have. The overall art design feels like a mix of the 90's anime look of the first game and the realistic look they had for the second game for this ideal middle ground which I prefer as well.
Xenosaga will probably not get a remaster for a very long time. It seems that this series might be lost to the annals of the 2000's only living through the act of creating the console from software. But I digress, Xenosaga was a good ride overall from beginning to end and has improved at a great pace from each game with 3 being my second favorite title from the developer barely ahead of Xenogears. It goes without saying at this point but if you enjoyed this developer's work then you have no excuse but to play this gem of a series and this defining moment of a game from them.
Just in time before Xenoblade 3 for me at least, Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra wraps up the series in the way I really hope it would. It goes without saying but this is the best Xenosaga far none. Emotional payoffs you'd expect from a finale, the combat leaning into the more traditional turn based menu style was probably the best decision they ever made in terms of this game along with ES combat being extremely fun and managing to bring that puzzle element into a few of them all with an incredible soundtrack which is a true far cry from the first game which I found pretty lacking.
The story beats were great and the characters really shined here barring one major exception which I'll get into in a bit. What I love about Monolith Soft's works is they do a good job of stringing you along with a glimpse of the bigger picture until they want to reveal everything and that's what kept me going through the story itself. I will say someone I ended up really liking is Allen Ridgeley who is usually seen as the comic relief but even he has his moments and they are incredible moments. The cast is great as usual but I felt like one blemish to this cast was technically Shion herself. I won't go much into it but the way she acted throughout the game is erratic and disappointing although she does technically improve during the final quarter at least.
The gameplay is probably why I enjoyed this game a lot more than their predecessors at the time. The turn order is better illustrated here, skill trees with points you get a little of per battle which allows a bit of flexibility like before while still getting unique attacks and special attacks from leveling up too giving you a healthy flow of abilities. It honestly just feels more streamlined in good way here that I don't think many people will dislike compared to the pseudo-xenogears deathblow system of the first game and the highly contentious break system of the second. ES combat is extremely satisfying here with equipment being customization and being able to assign specific abilities to your "CPU" like counter and extra stats if needed. Combo attacks, co-op attacks and even some puzzle elements for bosses like doing something extremely specific makes a lot of the ES fights a good challenge but the random encounters are extremely easy on these things if you know what you're doing. From personal experience, if you somehow don't get bored of the game's combat during your whole run then you truly have something special here. The dungeons themselves were not too bad other than the penultimate one again being a bit long winded but it's really cool in design and mood that I didn't mind it too much.
The soundtrack is so good you would forget that the first game pretty much only had two battle themes and here it feels like every special boss has their own theme which further enhances the emotional impact they have. The overall art design feels like a mix of the 90's anime look of the first game and the realistic look they had for the second game for this ideal middle ground which I prefer as well.
Xenosaga will probably not get a remaster for a very long time. It seems that this series might be lost to the annals of the 2000's only living through the act of creating the console from software. But I digress, Xenosaga was a good ride overall from beginning to end and has improved at a great pace from each game with 3 being my second favorite title from the developer barely ahead of Xenogears. It goes without saying at this point but if you enjoyed this developer's work then you have no excuse but to play this gem of a series and this defining moment of a game from them.
it's peak albedo gif
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPWTEtuv74
Literally the best boss theme in gaming. Nothing comes close. Feel free to argue in the comments.
EDIT: Just heard Dancing Mad from FFVI. Fuck.
Literally the best boss theme in gaming. Nothing comes close. Feel free to argue in the comments.
EDIT: Just heard Dancing Mad from FFVI. Fuck.
I sort of feel like I haven't given Episode III enough credit because of how amazing it is compared the previous Xenosaga games.
The more I think about this game the more I realize it's a wonderful ending to the trilogy with a complex narrative enveloped in mystery. In terms of gameplay it was very fun this time around and it fixes the issues from Episode II in every way possible, a more simple battle system that isn't as needlessly complicated as the previous episode was while also still retaining the challenging elements the battle systems throughout the trilogy brought.
For a trilogy that was the reason of why Monolith Soft almost went bankrupt whilst at the same time making Xenoblade 1 and 2 the big games that they are, I was surprised to realize that after finishing it this is the game that stole the spot for my favorite Xeno game. What's even more unfortunate is finding out a collection was considered roughly 2-3 years ago but was ultimately turned down due to market analysis. Plus the trilogy was actually going to be a six-part series, afterwards was then unfortunately reduced to three after poor sales and a shrinking budget.
For this game, not a single moment is wasted in telling it's beautiful story. It sort of goes more in the direction of Xenogears in terms of ambitiousness, in which everything that the previous games had have been built up to it's fullest and my goodness it executes everything so well. Beneath the overflowing religious themes and references as the previous games have done so are the strikingly human characters that have been developed to an absurd extent in this game, Shion being the main example. It's quite taxing to explain why Shion feels so relatable to me without accidentally spoiling bits of the story, even so there's a very powerful vision throughout that leads to such a satisfying payoff for her character and the cast's natural progression throughout the games. It'd be criminal to not shine light on the abundance of new soundtracks this episode brings as well, accompanies the many moments within the game incredibly.
But yeah, that's mostly all what I have to say about this game. It's the Xeno game that appeals the most to my personal tastes in themes, characters, and the way it's told. I love it to bits and I'm sure if anything will ever hit like it again. I will definitely have to replay the Xenoblade games to see if my opinions on them have changed and in preparation for Xenoblade 3 though. Really the only unfortunate part about this is due to what I said prior about Monolith Soft during Xenosaga's production, nonetheless throughout all that it still manages to craft some of the greatest stories ever told in gaming. I deeply believe it's best to call this nothing more than a masterpiece.
The more I think about this game the more I realize it's a wonderful ending to the trilogy with a complex narrative enveloped in mystery. In terms of gameplay it was very fun this time around and it fixes the issues from Episode II in every way possible, a more simple battle system that isn't as needlessly complicated as the previous episode was while also still retaining the challenging elements the battle systems throughout the trilogy brought.
For a trilogy that was the reason of why Monolith Soft almost went bankrupt whilst at the same time making Xenoblade 1 and 2 the big games that they are, I was surprised to realize that after finishing it this is the game that stole the spot for my favorite Xeno game. What's even more unfortunate is finding out a collection was considered roughly 2-3 years ago but was ultimately turned down due to market analysis. Plus the trilogy was actually going to be a six-part series, afterwards was then unfortunately reduced to three after poor sales and a shrinking budget.
For this game, not a single moment is wasted in telling it's beautiful story. It sort of goes more in the direction of Xenogears in terms of ambitiousness, in which everything that the previous games had have been built up to it's fullest and my goodness it executes everything so well. Beneath the overflowing religious themes and references as the previous games have done so are the strikingly human characters that have been developed to an absurd extent in this game, Shion being the main example. It's quite taxing to explain why Shion feels so relatable to me without accidentally spoiling bits of the story, even so there's a very powerful vision throughout that leads to such a satisfying payoff for her character and the cast's natural progression throughout the games. It'd be criminal to not shine light on the abundance of new soundtracks this episode brings as well, accompanies the many moments within the game incredibly.
But yeah, that's mostly all what I have to say about this game. It's the Xeno game that appeals the most to my personal tastes in themes, characters, and the way it's told. I love it to bits and I'm sure if anything will ever hit like it again. I will definitely have to replay the Xenoblade games to see if my opinions on them have changed and in preparation for Xenoblade 3 though. Really the only unfortunate part about this is due to what I said prior about Monolith Soft during Xenosaga's production, nonetheless throughout all that it still manages to craft some of the greatest stories ever told in gaming. I deeply believe it's best to call this nothing more than a masterpiece.
It's worth playing the trilogy JUST to get to this game. I only beat this game yesterday but I can see this game sticking with me for a long time
This review will not contain major spoilers, though I will mark some sections with light spoilers if necessary.
Xenosaga Episode III is a game I approached with the highest of expectations. While not talked about nearly enough in the gaming landscape, especially compared to its Blade brethren, it is regarded among the finest of the MonolithSoft's Xeno titles amongst the series' diehard fans, and I was eager to see why.
Cut back to April of 2023 when I was playing through Xenosaga Episode I. Great a game as it was for its unique approach to storytelling and presentation that could only be attributed to the idiosyncracies of Tetsuya Takahashi, I wasn't digging the combat much and put the game on hold when I reached the insurmountable wall that was Doppelwogel (fuck you). I was also on somewhat of a Xeno-burnout having just finished Gears, Xenoblade 3, and its Expansion within a timeframe of a few months.
Eventually I figured the longer I put it on hold, the longer it would take for me to get to it again. I knew I would have to experience the Xenosaga series sooner or later, and so in August of 2023, I started a fresh playthrough of Xenosaga I and eventually beat it. It was a thoroughly awesome time, though admittedly not without some glaring flaws, 'specially in regards to presentation and game-balancing.
Xenosaga Episode II was a much harder sell for me the whole way through. I still beat it, riding off the momentum of Episode I, but it was the game where some of the Xenosaga franchise's issues begun to came to light, and so I became more and more worried as I slowly approached the Monolithic title (no pun intended) that was Xenosaga III). For the record, I adore a lot about Xenosaga II. Sure the combat and presentation are rough around the edges, but when it hits, it hits hard. Episode I had its moments, but II was the game, in spite of its issues, that really sold me on the storytelling potential of the series, in spite of the general issues that plagued both games.
Then we get to the main topic of this review: Xenosaga Episode III. As a result of my mixed experienced with Episode II, I now approached Episode III with equal parts astronomical expectations and the lingering feeling that it might fail the expectations it so highly set up for itself. It was only inevitable.
(Spoilers for the first cutscene in the game)
Then I saw the opening cutscene. I don't want to exaggerate too much, but this may be the best first cutscene I've ever seen in a game. We see a boy and mother walking through a ravaged planet, ushering him to safety and giving him a chance to escape while she transforms into a Gnosis. Yuki Kajiura's beautiful score emphasizes a palpable sense of tragedy that continually echoes throughout the game. Everything about this opening was beautiful. The moment I saw this scene, I knew this game was going to be special.
(spoilers end)
The first thing about this game that becomes apparent the moment we gain control of our characters is how it re-centers the story's focus on Shion Uzuki. Episode I's second half and Episode II admittedly endeared me a lot to Jr, who I still consider one of the series' best characters, so the change back to Shion is a good way of re-acclimatizing us to her shoes, especially since Episode II did a ton of damage to her character.
More so than Jr in II, or Shion in I, Shion's role in Episode III is of absolute importance, more so than any of her contemporaries, KOS-MOS aside. It doesn't take long for the game to make Shion endearing again, which is especially important considering the fact that we spent several hours with no combat whatsoever, following Shion's story as she reconnects with her friends on Fifth Jerusalem.
A lot of this game's structure is heavily reliant on Shion. Everything from her character interactions to the progression of the plot to the main conflict is so Shion-centric that it tends to overshadow every other plotline in the game. It's here we get to the game's first major flaw, being that anything that isn't adjacent to Shion's character or journey tends to feel like an afterthought. Ziggy's subplot with Voyager suffers the most from this, as we only get around 2 or 3 whole scenes dedicated to the conflict before it is resolved. Alas, the point of this review is not to linger on such things.
Discussions have been had about this game, and this series' in general, poor pacing. It applies mostly to the gunshot pace of disc 2, though the first disc does suffer from this as well, particularly in regards to the Miltia arc, which happens to be highly Shion-centric. Perhaps we spend a little too long here, though it doesn't bother me much.
On the complete other end of the spectrum, everything that is adjacent to Shion in this game is explored to a damn-near masterful degree. Once again, the game tends to keep Shion herself at arms-length from the player, only giving us bits and pieces of her psyche, that is, until we reach Old Miltia for the first time. Though the Miltia arc's pacing is not quite perfect, it re-emphasizes the game's aggressive focus on Shion's character and opens up her past for all to see.
It is from Shion's mind where the game really begins to click. Shion's past is ugly, unsightly, unfathomable, all of it. From her mind and experiences, we are allowed to examine much of the game's central ideas from a closer angle. Trauma, cycles, the nature of waves and how we can influence each other, the whole lot. It's a travesty that Shion is as disliked as she is by a good number of people, because her character and the way it links the games core ideas in a way that is equal parts cohesive and emotional is pure artistry in video game storytelling.
(minor spoilers for the best cutscene in the game)
All of this culminates in one moment, being Allen and Shion's confrontation with the Red Testament in Michtam's core. This is not the first video game to make me cry, although it is the very first to make me sob like a lost child. This cutscene in everything to me. Once again, Kajiura's masterful score only serves to strengthen my already potent emotions. Watching the resolve of Allen, KOS-MOS, and later Shion brings more than a couple of tears to my eye, all of them warranted.
(minor spoilers end)
And all of this beautiful writing around Shion doesn't say anything about Jr's mini-arc and his conflict with Yuriev, the masterful dynamic of Jin and Margulis and their perfect duel in the Zohar facility, which stands as far-and-away my favorite boss in any turn-based RPG and a reaffirmation of the game's stellar mechanics, the heart-wrenching pain of KOS-MOS and everything she's had to go through, and the game's beautiful presentation, most of which holds up to this day.
With this, I can say that in spite of the flaws that plague it, Xenosaga Episode III not only met, but surpassed my astronomically high expectations and then some, and absolutely lives up to the Xeno mantle that Xenogears had started. GOAT, raw, fire, Peak Motherfucking Fiction.
Xenosaga Episode III is a game I approached with the highest of expectations. While not talked about nearly enough in the gaming landscape, especially compared to its Blade brethren, it is regarded among the finest of the MonolithSoft's Xeno titles amongst the series' diehard fans, and I was eager to see why.
Cut back to April of 2023 when I was playing through Xenosaga Episode I. Great a game as it was for its unique approach to storytelling and presentation that could only be attributed to the idiosyncracies of Tetsuya Takahashi, I wasn't digging the combat much and put the game on hold when I reached the insurmountable wall that was Doppelwogel (fuck you). I was also on somewhat of a Xeno-burnout having just finished Gears, Xenoblade 3, and its Expansion within a timeframe of a few months.
Eventually I figured the longer I put it on hold, the longer it would take for me to get to it again. I knew I would have to experience the Xenosaga series sooner or later, and so in August of 2023, I started a fresh playthrough of Xenosaga I and eventually beat it. It was a thoroughly awesome time, though admittedly not without some glaring flaws, 'specially in regards to presentation and game-balancing.
Xenosaga Episode II was a much harder sell for me the whole way through. I still beat it, riding off the momentum of Episode I, but it was the game where some of the Xenosaga franchise's issues begun to came to light, and so I became more and more worried as I slowly approached the Monolithic title (no pun intended) that was Xenosaga III). For the record, I adore a lot about Xenosaga II. Sure the combat and presentation are rough around the edges, but when it hits, it hits hard. Episode I had its moments, but II was the game, in spite of its issues, that really sold me on the storytelling potential of the series, in spite of the general issues that plagued both games.
Then we get to the main topic of this review: Xenosaga Episode III. As a result of my mixed experienced with Episode II, I now approached Episode III with equal parts astronomical expectations and the lingering feeling that it might fail the expectations it so highly set up for itself. It was only inevitable.
(Spoilers for the first cutscene in the game)
Then I saw the opening cutscene. I don't want to exaggerate too much, but this may be the best first cutscene I've ever seen in a game. We see a boy and mother walking through a ravaged planet, ushering him to safety and giving him a chance to escape while she transforms into a Gnosis. Yuki Kajiura's beautiful score emphasizes a palpable sense of tragedy that continually echoes throughout the game. Everything about this opening was beautiful. The moment I saw this scene, I knew this game was going to be special.
(spoilers end)
The first thing about this game that becomes apparent the moment we gain control of our characters is how it re-centers the story's focus on Shion Uzuki. Episode I's second half and Episode II admittedly endeared me a lot to Jr, who I still consider one of the series' best characters, so the change back to Shion is a good way of re-acclimatizing us to her shoes, especially since Episode II did a ton of damage to her character.
More so than Jr in II, or Shion in I, Shion's role in Episode III is of absolute importance, more so than any of her contemporaries, KOS-MOS aside. It doesn't take long for the game to make Shion endearing again, which is especially important considering the fact that we spent several hours with no combat whatsoever, following Shion's story as she reconnects with her friends on Fifth Jerusalem.
A lot of this game's structure is heavily reliant on Shion. Everything from her character interactions to the progression of the plot to the main conflict is so Shion-centric that it tends to overshadow every other plotline in the game. It's here we get to the game's first major flaw, being that anything that isn't adjacent to Shion's character or journey tends to feel like an afterthought. Ziggy's subplot with Voyager suffers the most from this, as we only get around 2 or 3 whole scenes dedicated to the conflict before it is resolved. Alas, the point of this review is not to linger on such things.
Discussions have been had about this game, and this series' in general, poor pacing. It applies mostly to the gunshot pace of disc 2, though the first disc does suffer from this as well, particularly in regards to the Miltia arc, which happens to be highly Shion-centric. Perhaps we spend a little too long here, though it doesn't bother me much.
On the complete other end of the spectrum, everything that is adjacent to Shion in this game is explored to a damn-near masterful degree. Once again, the game tends to keep Shion herself at arms-length from the player, only giving us bits and pieces of her psyche, that is, until we reach Old Miltia for the first time. Though the Miltia arc's pacing is not quite perfect, it re-emphasizes the game's aggressive focus on Shion's character and opens up her past for all to see.
It is from Shion's mind where the game really begins to click. Shion's past is ugly, unsightly, unfathomable, all of it. From her mind and experiences, we are allowed to examine much of the game's central ideas from a closer angle. Trauma, cycles, the nature of waves and how we can influence each other, the whole lot. It's a travesty that Shion is as disliked as she is by a good number of people, because her character and the way it links the games core ideas in a way that is equal parts cohesive and emotional is pure artistry in video game storytelling.
(minor spoilers for the best cutscene in the game)
All of this culminates in one moment, being Allen and Shion's confrontation with the Red Testament in Michtam's core. This is not the first video game to make me cry, although it is the very first to make me sob like a lost child. This cutscene in everything to me. Once again, Kajiura's masterful score only serves to strengthen my already potent emotions. Watching the resolve of Allen, KOS-MOS, and later Shion brings more than a couple of tears to my eye, all of them warranted.
(minor spoilers end)
And all of this beautiful writing around Shion doesn't say anything about Jr's mini-arc and his conflict with Yuriev, the masterful dynamic of Jin and Margulis and their perfect duel in the Zohar facility, which stands as far-and-away my favorite boss in any turn-based RPG and a reaffirmation of the game's stellar mechanics, the heart-wrenching pain of KOS-MOS and everything she's had to go through, and the game's beautiful presentation, most of which holds up to this day.
With this, I can say that in spite of the flaws that plague it, Xenosaga Episode III not only met, but surpassed my astronomically high expectations and then some, and absolutely lives up to the Xeno mantle that Xenogears had started. GOAT, raw, fire, Peak Motherfucking Fiction.
she's just like me fr
she's just like me fr
(shion uzuki)
she's just like me fr
(shion uzuki)
God where do I begin. Massive step up in all the mechanics of the previous entries (Combat, exploration, presentation, etc.). The build-up to this game from the previous 2 had me genuinely more excited than I expected, even more so as a fan of a certain other entry in the franchise.
Beautiful game and a beautiful conclusion to a flawed, but ultimately amazing trilogy.
Beautiful game and a beautiful conclusion to a flawed, but ultimately amazing trilogy.
"The future is overflowing with hope. And we have infinite paths to choose from."
I really did not expect to get hit this hard by this game's story as I did, even though I felt the same way when I played Xenoblade 3 and should've expected this one to be the same.
This game takes all of the themes presented in the last two episodes and present them in an even stronger way, the feeling of loneliness, existentialism, religion, relationships, failure, longing for the past, etc, each of these themes unify and form such an amazing story, everything feels so real despite how fantastic and sci-fi the world may be, it's genuinely amazing.
And despite me being completely hypnotized by how good the story of this game is the gameplay is also pretty good, it's really fun, idk what happened in XSII where the gameplay wasn't fun at all excluding when you were in the E.S. which was pretty fun, but this game changes the whole gameplay but keeps the fun of the E.S. and also makes the normal gameplay fun too.
Definitely one of the best games I played period, it's up there with Xenoblade 3 and Future Redeemed if not better, but I can't truly bring myself to compare those games when all of them are in reality just amazing.
This game takes all of the themes presented in the last two episodes and present them in an even stronger way, the feeling of loneliness, existentialism, religion, relationships, failure, longing for the past, etc, each of these themes unify and form such an amazing story, everything feels so real despite how fantastic and sci-fi the world may be, it's genuinely amazing.
And despite me being completely hypnotized by how good the story of this game is the gameplay is also pretty good, it's really fun, idk what happened in XSII where the gameplay wasn't fun at all excluding when you were in the E.S. which was pretty fun, but this game changes the whole gameplay but keeps the fun of the E.S. and also makes the normal gameplay fun too.
Definitely one of the best games I played period, it's up there with Xenoblade 3 and Future Redeemed if not better, but I can't truly bring myself to compare those games when all of them are in reality just amazing.
shion grew to be one of my favorite jrpg protagonists of all time. now if you excuse me, i will forcibly take her to a therapist <3
YES this game is so good! The story hits hard, it somehow manages to salvage the mess episode 2 left into something brilliant, and tie off the series wonderfully, while also having two of the best turn based battle systems I've ever played, in both it's mech and ground combat. Absolute must play if you can get yourself through episode 2.
A great conclusion to the series,i was honestly afraid of this might be a fast wrap up of the story kind of like Xenogears Disc 2,but thankfully that's not the case.Story is deep,thought provoking,tragic,beautiful,and incredibly well told.There was never a moment where i was getting bored of it,and when it reaches it's pinnacles,amount of emotion it conveys is on another level in anything else i've ever played,this game has so much character development and character moments,along with an extremely fleshed out worldbuilding,it's just insane,it's close to Xenogears with amount of ambition it has.It's not just an incredible story on it's own,but also the perfect ending the series could've had after the planning 6-game series has reduced to 3.Every single payoff is satisfying,and ending,while leave things open for more to follow,might be my favorite in any game ever,i'll just say it has i was in tears by the times credits have rolled
Gameplay is polished to the near perfection,everything feels fast,snappy and fun,regular battles doesn't really does something unique unlike Xenosaga 2, you have your party members,and variety of actions they can perform,which includes regular attacks, tech attacks, which are more powerful physical attacks, and ether attacks, which is magic.Along with a refined boost system,which now you can use special attacks in exchange of the boost,and that's it,but it does all of these in the most polished,fun and balanced way.Maybe with the exception of the break system,which is a gauge both you and enemies had.When that gauge fills,character knocks down and more vulnareble to attacks for 2 turns.And unfortunetly it's kind of useless agains the bosses due the how gigantic their break gauges are,especially compare to your party members,you're better of focusing on raw damage rather than break damage.But that's just a minor problem compare to what the gameplay does right
E.S fights are improved a lot too,you have a fuel gauge to perform variety of attacks,a better generator you have,more fuel you have, and therefore more attacks you can perform.You also have an Anima gauge,which is like boost, but just for special attacks, and unlike boost each party member has an individual Anima gauge. Regular E.S battles doesn't offer much in terms of challange,but most of the time you combat in E.S are for bosses, and all of them are pretty strategic and satisfying fights, especially in the endgame.
Music is both a massive upgrade and kind of a downgrade,enviroment music is a bit dull and forgettable compare to Xenosaga 2,but there are so many incredible combat musics it makes up for it,just look up Godsibb on Youtube.
Overall,Xenosaga 3 offers a complex,emotional narrative,deep and likeable characters and super fun gameplay.It stands right next to Xenogears as THE masterpiece in the videogame medium in my opinion
Gameplay is polished to the near perfection,everything feels fast,snappy and fun,regular battles doesn't really does something unique unlike Xenosaga 2, you have your party members,and variety of actions they can perform,which includes regular attacks, tech attacks, which are more powerful physical attacks, and ether attacks, which is magic.Along with a refined boost system,which now you can use special attacks in exchange of the boost,and that's it,but it does all of these in the most polished,fun and balanced way.Maybe with the exception of the break system,which is a gauge both you and enemies had.When that gauge fills,character knocks down and more vulnareble to attacks for 2 turns.And unfortunetly it's kind of useless agains the bosses due the how gigantic their break gauges are,especially compare to your party members,you're better of focusing on raw damage rather than break damage.But that's just a minor problem compare to what the gameplay does right
E.S fights are improved a lot too,you have a fuel gauge to perform variety of attacks,a better generator you have,more fuel you have, and therefore more attacks you can perform.You also have an Anima gauge,which is like boost, but just for special attacks, and unlike boost each party member has an individual Anima gauge. Regular E.S battles doesn't offer much in terms of challange,but most of the time you combat in E.S are for bosses, and all of them are pretty strategic and satisfying fights, especially in the endgame.
Music is both a massive upgrade and kind of a downgrade,enviroment music is a bit dull and forgettable compare to Xenosaga 2,but there are so many incredible combat musics it makes up for it,just look up Godsibb on Youtube.
Overall,Xenosaga 3 offers a complex,emotional narrative,deep and likeable characters and super fun gameplay.It stands right next to Xenogears as THE masterpiece in the videogame medium in my opinion
This game came out in 2006 and remains the gold standard for turn-based JRPG's. Every game should have Allen Ridgeley in it.
A fitting end to a complex + beautiful series.
I have to say, I really struggled with the gameplay for these 3 games. I felt like I couldn't get the hang of the combat systems and ended up getting frustrated with some of the tougher bosses throughout the games. But the story this trilogy manages to weave together more than makes up for those difficulties. After Xenogears I knew I wanted to dive deeper into the Xeno universe, and Xenosaga delivered a narratively complex story that was very satisfying. While I think Xenogears had the stronger ending, I think the build-up and payoff for many of the moments in Xenosaga were excellent. I also thought Xenosaga 3 in particular was by the far the strongest entry; the combat was simplified but very rewarding, the music was dope as shit and the exploration felt a bit better.
Although I had my ups and downs with this series in the gameplay department, I absolutely loved the story it told over the course of these three games. I'll definitely need to revisit the trilogy sometime in the future to re-experience it once again.
I have to say, I really struggled with the gameplay for these 3 games. I felt like I couldn't get the hang of the combat systems and ended up getting frustrated with some of the tougher bosses throughout the games. But the story this trilogy manages to weave together more than makes up for those difficulties. After Xenogears I knew I wanted to dive deeper into the Xeno universe, and Xenosaga delivered a narratively complex story that was very satisfying. While I think Xenogears had the stronger ending, I think the build-up and payoff for many of the moments in Xenosaga were excellent. I also thought Xenosaga 3 in particular was by the far the strongest entry; the combat was simplified but very rewarding, the music was dope as shit and the exploration felt a bit better.
Although I had my ups and downs with this series in the gameplay department, I absolutely loved the story it told over the course of these three games. I'll definitely need to revisit the trilogy sometime in the future to re-experience it once again.
It has come to the end of this niche little PS2 trilogy lost to its creator's wild ambition. It was a long journey to get here, one full of ups and downs and many hours of external research, but we have finally reached the climax.
...
And DAMN was it worth the journey.
Xenosaga Episode III is quite simply unbelievable. From the very first episode, all the necessary pieces were there for Xenosaga to be something truly amazing, and Episode III finally capitalized on them in extraordinary fashion, and with hardly a change in staff from Episode II! The story delivers on all the setups that had been planted across the first two games and Missing Year in an emotional rollercoaster of twists and turns that had me gasping for breath by the end. The characters are some of my favorite in all of fiction, with particular mention going to Shion, whom I absolutely fell head-over-heels for after seeing all the payoff from her mental health journey over the course of the series. The gameplay is vastly improved from Episode II, with the battle system now lightning-fast and much streamlined and the overall game experience far smoother overall. And all is punctuated with awe-inspiring cinematic cutscences and a mindblowing soundtrack that ranks easily in the top 3 video game OSTs of all time.
Utterly incredible experience. Xenosaga is the best space opera ever created.
...
And DAMN was it worth the journey.
Xenosaga Episode III is quite simply unbelievable. From the very first episode, all the necessary pieces were there for Xenosaga to be something truly amazing, and Episode III finally capitalized on them in extraordinary fashion, and with hardly a change in staff from Episode II! The story delivers on all the setups that had been planted across the first two games and Missing Year in an emotional rollercoaster of twists and turns that had me gasping for breath by the end. The characters are some of my favorite in all of fiction, with particular mention going to Shion, whom I absolutely fell head-over-heels for after seeing all the payoff from her mental health journey over the course of the series. The gameplay is vastly improved from Episode II, with the battle system now lightning-fast and much streamlined and the overall game experience far smoother overall. And all is punctuated with awe-inspiring cinematic cutscences and a mindblowing soundtrack that ranks easily in the top 3 video game OSTs of all time.
Utterly incredible experience. Xenosaga is the best space opera ever created.
Well, after replaying Xenosaga Episode III, I can definitely say that this is my favourite game of all time. Everything about it is just so damn good. The gameplay, the graphics, the story, the characters, everything is fantastic. I can hardly put into words how much I love this game.
So first, let's talk about the battle system. Most often, I’m not even the biggest fan of turn based battle systems, I definitely don’t hate them, and with most of them, I have very much fun. But mostly, I would prefer action-based battle systems over them, but there are always a few exceptions where I absolutely love turn-based systems. Xenosaga Episode III is one of those cases. It’s so fast, the battles have barely any loading times, it feels like I’m going instantly into an encounter. I love the break system, the boost system and how you can really get broken in this game. The dialogues in between the battles are also fantastic, really love them. And the Mech battles are also great and fun. I don’t know how they did it after the battle system of Xenosaga Episode II, but with Episode III, they created one of my favorite battle systems. It still feels so modern, and probably the only criticism you can give it is that it can be too easy, though I don’t have a problem with that at all. But it would, of course, be nice if there were more difficult options.
Oh, and the menus of the game are fantastic too, there aren’t really loading times, it’s fast and easy to navigate. They really nailed that aspect of this game too.
Next, I want to talk about how great the graphics of this game are. No, really, this is probably the most beautiful PS2 game that I’ve seen. It could even be an early PS3 game, and it still looks so good. As an example, Fifth Jerusalem is such a fantastic looking area that I could just look at these wonderful environments for hours without getting bored. Probably the only thing that holds it back is the resolution, but if you were to put it in HD, imo it still holds up with many modern games.
Especially the character models are gorgeous, and overall, the artstyle is my favourite of all Xeno games. I would love it, if they were to use this artstyle of the characters in the next Xeno game. I definitely love the character models of Episode l too, but they really delivered with those of Xenosaga Episode III.
The title screen of this game is also gorgeous, I love how some of the cutscenes are playing in the background, and the music always makes me really emotional, especially after beating the game. So yeah, even the title screen is my favourite of all Xeno games.
The amazing aspects of the game just don’t stop, and next there’s also the excellent soundtrack of this game, composed by Yuki Kajiura. There are so many fantastic tracks, and overall, it’s probably one of the best videogame soundtracks that I have heard.
Here are some of my favourite tracks:
“The Battle of your Soul”; “Rolling Down The U.M.N.”; “Promised Pain”; “She’s Coming Back”; “Beach”; “The Harsh Truth”; “Godsibb”; and of course; “Maybe Tomorrow”.
I could mention many more, but then I would probably just list the whole soundtrack. It would be great if Yuki Kajiura were to again make a soundtrack for a Xeno game.
So now let's talk about the story. After they had to end the story with this game and with Episode II barely moving the plot forward, they did a marvellous job, it’s incredible how well they concluded the story of this arc. Probably the main problem is still disc 2, where it can feel kind of rushed, but considering how much they had to bring to a close here, they probably did the best. At least, I wouldn’t know how you should’ve done this better, considering in which position they were after Episode II. And I can totally live with how it is now in this game.
Though it’s a bit unfortunate that in this game not all the cutscenes are completely animated, I totally loved all the cutscenes in Episode I, and the story was really immersive with those. So having a lot of them “just” as voiced text boxes is a bit of a shame. It’s definitely not bad, and I can live with it, but I would’ve 100% preferred it if all of them were completely animated, especially because the characters look so good, and even all the animated cutscenes we’ve got are awesome.
Considering that they certainly didn’t have the same budget as for Episode I and II and that they probably didn’t have that much time, I can’t really criticize that, at least I’m certain they would’ve presented the whole story of the game with completely animated cutscenes if they had the needed time and budget. Not to forget that the game overall has 9 hours of cutscenes, which would’ve needed a lot of work to completely animate all of them.
The characters overall are also still great, and I love all of them. The main party is so good, and I really care about these characters. Shion and KOS-MOS are still my favourites, but I also love characters like Ziggy, chaos, Jin, and so on. Not to forget, the antagonists are also great.
Regarding the voice acting, it’s gladly again really good, opposed to many moments in Episode II. Overall it’s, at least in my opinion, not as good as in Episode I, which had excellent voice acting, but it’s still very good. And it’s so good to hearing Shion’s and KOS-MOS original voices again, after what they sounded like in Episode II. Lia Sargent as Shion and especially Bridget Hoffman as KOS-MOS have again done a great job. Probably, Bridget Hoffman has with KOS-MOS delivered the best voice acting throughout the entire series.
So most of the characters in Episode III sound again really good in the English dub, with some of the original voice actors from Episode I back. Sadly, I can’t really say that for chaos. I don’t like his new voice from Episode II, as much and for Episode III he still has the same voice actor as for Episode II. In Episode II, he sounds like an edgy teenager, which doesn’t fit to chaos and his personality at all. It doesn’t feel like he has any emotions there, and all his quirkiness is gone, which is really a shame. At least in Episode III, he sounds a lot better, but I think it’s still very unfortunate that they didn’t use his original voice actor from Episode I. I really loved his performance as chaos in Episode I.
So yeah, I think you can really tell that I love this game and don’t have a lot to criticize about it. I definitely would call it Peak Fiction, and I just love Xenosaga. This series means a lot to me, and I already would like to replay Xenosaga again. I can totally recommend Xenosaga, if you want great characters, a fantastic story and excellent worldbuilding. It’s really a shame that these wonderful games to this point still haven’t got any re-release or remaster on a modern platform.
But I think after all of this, the only thing there is left for me to say probably is,
Let the saga take you
So first, let's talk about the battle system. Most often, I’m not even the biggest fan of turn based battle systems, I definitely don’t hate them, and with most of them, I have very much fun. But mostly, I would prefer action-based battle systems over them, but there are always a few exceptions where I absolutely love turn-based systems. Xenosaga Episode III is one of those cases. It’s so fast, the battles have barely any loading times, it feels like I’m going instantly into an encounter. I love the break system, the boost system and how you can really get broken in this game. The dialogues in between the battles are also fantastic, really love them. And the Mech battles are also great and fun. I don’t know how they did it after the battle system of Xenosaga Episode II, but with Episode III, they created one of my favorite battle systems. It still feels so modern, and probably the only criticism you can give it is that it can be too easy, though I don’t have a problem with that at all. But it would, of course, be nice if there were more difficult options.
Oh, and the menus of the game are fantastic too, there aren’t really loading times, it’s fast and easy to navigate. They really nailed that aspect of this game too.
Next, I want to talk about how great the graphics of this game are. No, really, this is probably the most beautiful PS2 game that I’ve seen. It could even be an early PS3 game, and it still looks so good. As an example, Fifth Jerusalem is such a fantastic looking area that I could just look at these wonderful environments for hours without getting bored. Probably the only thing that holds it back is the resolution, but if you were to put it in HD, imo it still holds up with many modern games.
Especially the character models are gorgeous, and overall, the artstyle is my favourite of all Xeno games. I would love it, if they were to use this artstyle of the characters in the next Xeno game. I definitely love the character models of Episode l too, but they really delivered with those of Xenosaga Episode III.
The title screen of this game is also gorgeous, I love how some of the cutscenes are playing in the background, and the music always makes me really emotional, especially after beating the game. So yeah, even the title screen is my favourite of all Xeno games.
The amazing aspects of the game just don’t stop, and next there’s also the excellent soundtrack of this game, composed by Yuki Kajiura. There are so many fantastic tracks, and overall, it’s probably one of the best videogame soundtracks that I have heard.
Here are some of my favourite tracks:
“The Battle of your Soul”; “Rolling Down The U.M.N.”; “Promised Pain”; “She’s Coming Back”; “Beach”; “The Harsh Truth”; “Godsibb”; and of course; “Maybe Tomorrow”.
I could mention many more, but then I would probably just list the whole soundtrack. It would be great if Yuki Kajiura were to again make a soundtrack for a Xeno game.
So now let's talk about the story. After they had to end the story with this game and with Episode II barely moving the plot forward, they did a marvellous job, it’s incredible how well they concluded the story of this arc. Probably the main problem is still disc 2, where it can feel kind of rushed, but considering how much they had to bring to a close here, they probably did the best. At least, I wouldn’t know how you should’ve done this better, considering in which position they were after Episode II. And I can totally live with how it is now in this game.
Though it’s a bit unfortunate that in this game not all the cutscenes are completely animated, I totally loved all the cutscenes in Episode I, and the story was really immersive with those. So having a lot of them “just” as voiced text boxes is a bit of a shame. It’s definitely not bad, and I can live with it, but I would’ve 100% preferred it if all of them were completely animated, especially because the characters look so good, and even all the animated cutscenes we’ve got are awesome.
Considering that they certainly didn’t have the same budget as for Episode I and II and that they probably didn’t have that much time, I can’t really criticize that, at least I’m certain they would’ve presented the whole story of the game with completely animated cutscenes if they had the needed time and budget. Not to forget that the game overall has 9 hours of cutscenes, which would’ve needed a lot of work to completely animate all of them.
The characters overall are also still great, and I love all of them. The main party is so good, and I really care about these characters. Shion and KOS-MOS are still my favourites, but I also love characters like Ziggy, chaos, Jin, and so on. Not to forget, the antagonists are also great.
Regarding the voice acting, it’s gladly again really good, opposed to many moments in Episode II. Overall it’s, at least in my opinion, not as good as in Episode I, which had excellent voice acting, but it’s still very good. And it’s so good to hearing Shion’s and KOS-MOS original voices again, after what they sounded like in Episode II. Lia Sargent as Shion and especially Bridget Hoffman as KOS-MOS have again done a great job. Probably, Bridget Hoffman has with KOS-MOS delivered the best voice acting throughout the entire series.
So most of the characters in Episode III sound again really good in the English dub, with some of the original voice actors from Episode I back. Sadly, I can’t really say that for chaos. I don’t like his new voice from Episode II, as much and for Episode III he still has the same voice actor as for Episode II. In Episode II, he sounds like an edgy teenager, which doesn’t fit to chaos and his personality at all. It doesn’t feel like he has any emotions there, and all his quirkiness is gone, which is really a shame. At least in Episode III, he sounds a lot better, but I think it’s still very unfortunate that they didn’t use his original voice actor from Episode I. I really loved his performance as chaos in Episode I.
So yeah, I think you can really tell that I love this game and don’t have a lot to criticize about it. I definitely would call it Peak Fiction, and I just love Xenosaga. This series means a lot to me, and I already would like to replay Xenosaga again. I can totally recommend Xenosaga, if you want great characters, a fantastic story and excellent worldbuilding. It’s really a shame that these wonderful games to this point still haven’t got any re-release or remaster on a modern platform.
But I think after all of this, the only thing there is left for me to say probably is,
Let the saga take you
A triumphant slam dunk of a conclusion to a troubled yet beautiful series, Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra serves not only as the final entry in the sci-fi epic Xenosaga series but also as a laser-guided missile aimed directly towards your heart. This is a game that just hits all the right notes, managing to smooth and iron out several issues that were prevalent in the previous two entries, while also building upon the multiple layers of storytelling and tying up an incredible amount of loose ends for the time given to this overly ambitious project. Everything is at its apex here, an extremely polished game that is intense and heart-wrenching, culminating in an incredibly heartfelt and deeply empathetic ending that acknowledges our shortcomings and weaknesses as human beings, yet has an unrelenting hope for humanity and the future.
Although it should come as no surprise, Xenosaga Episode 3 once again delivers a major overhaul to its gameplay. Gone are the days when encounters would last for 8 minutes as the combat has been reworked to offer fast, snappy and largely streamlined gameplay compared to the previous entries while establishing itself as something different through the introduction of the break gauge, which when filled will result in fatigue for either you or your enemy for two turns. Combat in Episode 3 is my favourite and pick for best in the series, as I really like the freedom you have over it, the break gauge never feels like it imposes itself upon you, the player, but rather acts as another angle to approach fights from. E.S fights also see changes, as they are much more exciting and operate very differently from ground combat. Although lacking in depth, the E.S combat visually is incredibly clean as the attack animations are very fluid and the constant alternating camera angles coupled with the music make them feel very intense and hectic. My only gripe with the combat would be how beefy the E.S bosses can get towards the end of the game, having such insane HP along with gimmicks that serve to further prolong fights can be a pain, but other than that it's all positive with the changes.
The inconsistency of Xenosaga may be apparent on the surface, looking at its frequent gameplay and visual changes, but it makes sure to never let go of is its ability to deliver on its characters, narrative and setting. Drifting abroad the Woglinde, the vast emptiness of space is the first introduction to the world of Xenosaga, with no knowledge of our surroundings or what is out there in the vast cosmos. Showing how far we've come since then, Episode 3 begins with a now masterfully detailed and fully realised world, with narrative weight behind its planets, numerous factions and history. The setting of Xenosaga is incredible not only in concept, as it is brimming with so many unique ideas, but also in the way it is managed, as it knows its place to never overshadow or intrude on the plot-driven and character-driven narrative. The reintroduced database is a testament to the setting and worldbuilding of the series, consisting of over 450 entries relating to all things like characters, culture, factions, events and weapons, from an entry about Shions curry to entries detailing the mechanics of hyperspace travel, it covers absolutely everything in the trilogy leaving no stone unturned.
Furthermore, not only is the setting very detailed through the narrative, but its also visually stunning as in typical Xenosaga fashion the setting is constantly changing throughout, and the way the environments are designed and look is nothing short of meticulous. An incredible amount of work has gone into even the furthest reaches of large, sprawling areas like the cities to really bring these places to life. You might look through a window in a space station, only to then see just outside a gigantic spacecraft docked nearby, or look deep into the backdrop of a city and see the thousands of people going about their lives, visible only as dots from your high vantage point. This sense of scale is truly impressive, present in every area of the game, and is extremely fitting and well-done for a sci-fi setting. The dedication to the world of Xenosaga doesn't just stop there, as Episode 3 scatters NPCs around its different areas, each with their own unique dialogue, introducing a system where almost every NPC has a word that you can hold the square button on while they speak, opening up a whole new conversation related to that word and contributing to the world. The great visuals and new additions that add to the world go hand in hand with the already pre-established lore of the environments to give a distinct look and feel to them, leading to one of my favourite parts of the game being just stopping to observe and take in everything about each area, as the team really did go to bat with the details and design of each location.
The main cast of Xenosaga is exceptional, and one of the pillars of the series as it explores its myriad themes through its characters. From Shion to KOS-MOS, to Jr, Ziggy, MOMO, Jin, Chaos and Allen, the main cast are just so well fleshed out with their own personal motivations and arcs, but also have such great interactions together as a group. If you haven't played Episode 3, you may be questioning why Allen's name is mentioned, and with full confidence I can say that this game manages to somehow turn around Allen into one of the best characters in the series, finding his resolve and giving him possibly my favourite moment in the trilogy. It's clear that some characters were destined for more development across the series, namely the antagonists, as without Albedo as the main villain anymore there is a pretty big void to fill, yet Episode 3 goes above and beyond - filling this void and then some by committing itself to providing impressive characterisation to all of its cast throughout, ingeniously building up characters who previously had an absence of screen time into some of the most compelling in the series in just 1 episode, while also giving an extra push to pre-established characters, leading to an emotional but fitting conclusion for all of them.
One character in particular who really comes into their own in Episode 3 that I'd like to talk about is Shion; if Episode 1 was focused on Shion and KOS-MOS, then Episode 2 takes a slight detour and puts both Albedo and Jr in the spotlight instead. Episode 2s shift in character focus never bothered me as it works really well by basing its narrative around those two, but its Shion who remained as one of the most interesting characters and whom we started our journey with. Episode 3 follows up on this, placing Shion back front and centre in the story this time around as it thoroughly inspects everything about her character, from her past to her feelings, emotions and relationships along with her psychological struggle to comprehend the rapidly unfolding events around her, leading to her acting as the driving force for Episode IIIs narrative from beginning to end as one of the most fascinating and deeply explored characters I have seen.
Originally the series was intended to be made up of 6 games, but much like its predecessor Xenogears, it simply was unable to support itself under its overflowing ambition, and because of this Episode 3 is given the short end of the stick, having the daunting task of wrapping up the series in a meaningful and satisfying way, tying up the deeply layered plot and its unanswered questions. My feelings on whether Episode 3 succeeds or doesn't should be pretty clear from the intro, but I'll say it again. Xenosaga Episode III is a slam dunk, a home run, whatever reference you need me to make to get across how well this game is able to take Xenosagas story and create something beautiful out of it I will do, since it succeeds in all areas, never wavering as it provides a consistently fantastic plot.
For how much Episode 3 has to cover, Disc 1 paces itself quite leisurely at the start, offering more questions than answers before the halfway point, where the game begins to pick up its pace as it continually reveals more and more as the major revelations start to drop. Everything in disc 1 is leading up towards its final segment, the best dungeon in the series purely from a narrative point of view due to it being the culmination of 2 games worth of worldbuilding, delivering on an incredibly cathartic and oppressive atmosphere that left me completely swept away and speechless throughout. Coming straight from the cliffhanger ending of Disc 1 we have Disc 2, and this is where Episode 3 really shines for me, as the gloves come off and the story picks up at a rapid pace, taking you through boss fight after boss fight with story moment after story moment. Episode 3 will lift you up with an incredibly motivating and hype moment, before immediately tearing you back down constantly through Disc 2, as it capitalises so well on everything it has created up until now, whether that be its characters conveying their incredibly human and real emotions or the most insane plot thread you've ever seen reach its conclusion that you can only find inside of a Xeno game.
And then, the final stretch as we approach the ending. By describing these games as esoteric you would be completely right, consisting of countless religious undertones and philosophical themes, and to say that I understand everything about Xenosaga would simply be a lie. And yet in spite of this I was able to take so much away from such an abstruse piece of fiction that left me completely devastated by the end. The last 30 minutes of Episode 3 are incredibly touching, consisting entirely of cutscenes, and they hit me like a tidal wave. I bounced back and forth between intense sadness and happiness before those feelings were gradually replaced by a combination of everything as the game began to play its ending song, Maybe Tomorrow, which I still struggle to listen to without my mind wandering off to the final monologue of the game and being swept away by emotion. I love everything about this series, and Episode 3 is more than I could have ever asked for from it. A story that shows the effect that a single ripple can have on shaping the world, overcoming the fear of death, the importance of choice and breaking free from repeating cycles of pain and trauma. A story with such believable empathy and optimism due to its acknowledgement of our shortcomings and failures of humans, and yet one that believes in a future overflowing with hope.
Although it should come as no surprise, Xenosaga Episode 3 once again delivers a major overhaul to its gameplay. Gone are the days when encounters would last for 8 minutes as the combat has been reworked to offer fast, snappy and largely streamlined gameplay compared to the previous entries while establishing itself as something different through the introduction of the break gauge, which when filled will result in fatigue for either you or your enemy for two turns. Combat in Episode 3 is my favourite and pick for best in the series, as I really like the freedom you have over it, the break gauge never feels like it imposes itself upon you, the player, but rather acts as another angle to approach fights from. E.S fights also see changes, as they are much more exciting and operate very differently from ground combat. Although lacking in depth, the E.S combat visually is incredibly clean as the attack animations are very fluid and the constant alternating camera angles coupled with the music make them feel very intense and hectic. My only gripe with the combat would be how beefy the E.S bosses can get towards the end of the game, having such insane HP along with gimmicks that serve to further prolong fights can be a pain, but other than that it's all positive with the changes.
The inconsistency of Xenosaga may be apparent on the surface, looking at its frequent gameplay and visual changes, but it makes sure to never let go of is its ability to deliver on its characters, narrative and setting. Drifting abroad the Woglinde, the vast emptiness of space is the first introduction to the world of Xenosaga, with no knowledge of our surroundings or what is out there in the vast cosmos. Showing how far we've come since then, Episode 3 begins with a now masterfully detailed and fully realised world, with narrative weight behind its planets, numerous factions and history. The setting of Xenosaga is incredible not only in concept, as it is brimming with so many unique ideas, but also in the way it is managed, as it knows its place to never overshadow or intrude on the plot-driven and character-driven narrative. The reintroduced database is a testament to the setting and worldbuilding of the series, consisting of over 450 entries relating to all things like characters, culture, factions, events and weapons, from an entry about Shions curry to entries detailing the mechanics of hyperspace travel, it covers absolutely everything in the trilogy leaving no stone unturned.
Furthermore, not only is the setting very detailed through the narrative, but its also visually stunning as in typical Xenosaga fashion the setting is constantly changing throughout, and the way the environments are designed and look is nothing short of meticulous. An incredible amount of work has gone into even the furthest reaches of large, sprawling areas like the cities to really bring these places to life. You might look through a window in a space station, only to then see just outside a gigantic spacecraft docked nearby, or look deep into the backdrop of a city and see the thousands of people going about their lives, visible only as dots from your high vantage point. This sense of scale is truly impressive, present in every area of the game, and is extremely fitting and well-done for a sci-fi setting. The dedication to the world of Xenosaga doesn't just stop there, as Episode 3 scatters NPCs around its different areas, each with their own unique dialogue, introducing a system where almost every NPC has a word that you can hold the square button on while they speak, opening up a whole new conversation related to that word and contributing to the world. The great visuals and new additions that add to the world go hand in hand with the already pre-established lore of the environments to give a distinct look and feel to them, leading to one of my favourite parts of the game being just stopping to observe and take in everything about each area, as the team really did go to bat with the details and design of each location.
The main cast of Xenosaga is exceptional, and one of the pillars of the series as it explores its myriad themes through its characters. From Shion to KOS-MOS, to Jr, Ziggy, MOMO, Jin, Chaos and Allen, the main cast are just so well fleshed out with their own personal motivations and arcs, but also have such great interactions together as a group. If you haven't played Episode 3, you may be questioning why Allen's name is mentioned, and with full confidence I can say that this game manages to somehow turn around Allen into one of the best characters in the series, finding his resolve and giving him possibly my favourite moment in the trilogy. It's clear that some characters were destined for more development across the series, namely the antagonists, as without Albedo as the main villain anymore there is a pretty big void to fill, yet Episode 3 goes above and beyond - filling this void and then some by committing itself to providing impressive characterisation to all of its cast throughout, ingeniously building up characters who previously had an absence of screen time into some of the most compelling in the series in just 1 episode, while also giving an extra push to pre-established characters, leading to an emotional but fitting conclusion for all of them.
One character in particular who really comes into their own in Episode 3 that I'd like to talk about is Shion; if Episode 1 was focused on Shion and KOS-MOS, then Episode 2 takes a slight detour and puts both Albedo and Jr in the spotlight instead. Episode 2s shift in character focus never bothered me as it works really well by basing its narrative around those two, but its Shion who remained as one of the most interesting characters and whom we started our journey with. Episode 3 follows up on this, placing Shion back front and centre in the story this time around as it thoroughly inspects everything about her character, from her past to her feelings, emotions and relationships along with her psychological struggle to comprehend the rapidly unfolding events around her, leading to her acting as the driving force for Episode IIIs narrative from beginning to end as one of the most fascinating and deeply explored characters I have seen.
Originally the series was intended to be made up of 6 games, but much like its predecessor Xenogears, it simply was unable to support itself under its overflowing ambition, and because of this Episode 3 is given the short end of the stick, having the daunting task of wrapping up the series in a meaningful and satisfying way, tying up the deeply layered plot and its unanswered questions. My feelings on whether Episode 3 succeeds or doesn't should be pretty clear from the intro, but I'll say it again. Xenosaga Episode III is a slam dunk, a home run, whatever reference you need me to make to get across how well this game is able to take Xenosagas story and create something beautiful out of it I will do, since it succeeds in all areas, never wavering as it provides a consistently fantastic plot.
For how much Episode 3 has to cover, Disc 1 paces itself quite leisurely at the start, offering more questions than answers before the halfway point, where the game begins to pick up its pace as it continually reveals more and more as the major revelations start to drop. Everything in disc 1 is leading up towards its final segment, the best dungeon in the series purely from a narrative point of view due to it being the culmination of 2 games worth of worldbuilding, delivering on an incredibly cathartic and oppressive atmosphere that left me completely swept away and speechless throughout. Coming straight from the cliffhanger ending of Disc 1 we have Disc 2, and this is where Episode 3 really shines for me, as the gloves come off and the story picks up at a rapid pace, taking you through boss fight after boss fight with story moment after story moment. Episode 3 will lift you up with an incredibly motivating and hype moment, before immediately tearing you back down constantly through Disc 2, as it capitalises so well on everything it has created up until now, whether that be its characters conveying their incredibly human and real emotions or the most insane plot thread you've ever seen reach its conclusion that you can only find inside of a Xeno game.
And then, the final stretch as we approach the ending. By describing these games as esoteric you would be completely right, consisting of countless religious undertones and philosophical themes, and to say that I understand everything about Xenosaga would simply be a lie. And yet in spite of this I was able to take so much away from such an abstruse piece of fiction that left me completely devastated by the end. The last 30 minutes of Episode 3 are incredibly touching, consisting entirely of cutscenes, and they hit me like a tidal wave. I bounced back and forth between intense sadness and happiness before those feelings were gradually replaced by a combination of everything as the game began to play its ending song, Maybe Tomorrow, which I still struggle to listen to without my mind wandering off to the final monologue of the game and being swept away by emotion. I love everything about this series, and Episode 3 is more than I could have ever asked for from it. A story that shows the effect that a single ripple can have on shaping the world, overcoming the fear of death, the importance of choice and breaking free from repeating cycles of pain and trauma. A story with such believable empathy and optimism due to its acknowledgement of our shortcomings and failures of humans, and yet one that believes in a future overflowing with hope.
A brilliant JRPG. Where the ending is rushed and there were a few aspects of the writing I disagreed with, Xenosaga 3 acts as a phenomenal conclusion to a trilogy that, while rocky, ends on quite the cathartic note.
Feminist Science Fiction in a medium in which there is basically none. Outstanding companion game to Xenogears. The Yin to its Yang as it were. Thank you Tetsuya Takahashi, Kaori Tanaka and all of the rest of Monolithsoft for one of the greatest videogames I've ever had the pleasure of playing.
This review contains spoilers
The real lesson here is that Erde Kaiser Sigma can kill god thus making Erde Kaiser Sigma the strongest mech in ANY video game.
ive thought about this game every day in the month since i beat it, i will likely be thinking about it for the rest of my life. story is an emotional rollercoaster and just really fucking good, main cast and antagonists are the best of all time along with plenty of fantastic side characters, best soundtrack ever fucking composed (Yuki Kajiura, I miss you), a turn based combat system from fucking 2006 that has aged beautifully by not wasting a single moment of your time, decent amount of things to do outside of the main story to keep you busy for 50-60 hours if you want, amazing world fucking beautiful art style i really can't say enough about xenosaga 3. this game excels in every way and i genuinely feel like it has zero flaws. it's the best game ever made.
Even though he hasn't had an orignal idea since 1998, damn that nigga takahashi can cook!
but seriously this game is amazing. Great story, fun combat system. Incredible conclusion to a trilogy
but seriously this game is amazing. Great story, fun combat system. Incredible conclusion to a trilogy
It's a JRPG about killing your shitty boyfriend and having the ultimate girl's night. Also Jesus is kind of there. They don't make em like they used to.
This game has made improvements in all aspects, including graphics, gameplay, and soundtrack.
However, the battle is still a bit long and monotonous, ES combat is good visually but too simple.
For the story, there were no pacing problems anymore, and most of the mysteries were also solved.
Great series as a successor to Xenogears. And may be the jewel of SF JRPG. (at least on the story)
However, the battle is still a bit long and monotonous, ES combat is good visually but too simple.
For the story, there were no pacing problems anymore, and most of the mysteries were also solved.
Great series as a successor to Xenogears. And may be the jewel of SF JRPG. (at least on the story)
What exactly are words? How do you differenciate the word Happiness and Sadness? That is right, the word, is by itself
is an empty box just itself, we use the memory banks in our brain to call out what happiness is and what sadness is within
those word cages, you do be able to differentiate them because each of those words are containing a certain "Wavelength"
unique to each other, You do know what happiness is because you are calling out that certain wavelength that's been
encapsulated within that cage, you do know what "knowing" is, because "knowing" has a wavelength and that wavelength is
bumping into the humans from the higher dimension, we're using the hilbert effect, using those word cages to encapsulate
those waves, if we didn't had done that too many unique wavelengths would come into our dimension from the "higher above
dimension" and would make our universe to go in a complete chaos that would in the end become just like what was like in
the higher dimension, in order to prevent that, we're using the hilbert effect, the word cages with the aid of our critical thinking,
"Program Canaan" to eliminate those unwanted waves, and weave our dimension with the "Zohar flow of waves", eliminating
the other half, and making this dimension, be able to become the dimension where each of the wills are able to exist freely
with billions of split Wavelengths Zohar flow of waves. With the invention of the internet, the U.M.N, we're both at the
same time advancing and further reaching to the dissipation of our universe, more and more waves are coming in contact
together, causing more and more unique wavelengths to appear in our universe and that is bad because that is also allowing U-DO
wavelengths to come in contact with our world, because of that, our greatest weapon to save our universe...
the hilbert effect, words we use to encapsulate the waves, have been becoming a little outdated, hard time catching up
because so many new wavelengths that are appearing due to the U.M.N requiring more and more words needed in order for
the encapsulation of those waves to turn our dimension into the place where we, all the wills can be with the split flows of Zohar waves, billion shades of the Zohar wave flow,
but because of that, that has led we, the wills to our ultimate realization, it was only natural that our greatest weapon
was just going to fall behind by normal means ever since the U.M.N's been invented. We, the wills shall had to do this...
there was only so much amount of waves that our brains can handle at a single time and our greatest weapon was lacking behind
because the word "sorrow" wasn't enough encapsulate the new wavelengths that were appearing, we needed more words to
encapsulate the more unique wavelengths and that has led us to "develop a new weapon to eliminate U-DO waves lurking
behind more and more complex waves" we learned to use the stone tablets, parchments, papers which allowed us to inspect more
on the unique wavelengths... And we had just become AWARE. and so we began to use the weapon, and I do know that, by inspecting
one after another all those wavelengths we will eliminate the U-DO waves from our dimension, and we shall reach the place where we,
all the wills can be with the billion shades of the Zohar Waves, We will put an end to the cycle of Zarathustra and we will reach
the Lost Jerusalem...
Humans came down with "very genesis" which we don't really have an idea on... Waves...we don't know where exactly they came from, but each of us sense their burning inside our hearts, if it is happiness then happiness it is, the reason we're able to differentiate happiness and sadness is because each of those words's containment of unique wavelengths, and for some reason that is I think a deception of a some sort caused by something, some of those wavelengths are constantly conflicting with each other no matter which era comes and passes and that is going to be like that unless all humans just all become really careful of that deception, and from my observations humans still have a really really long way to go. I have a strong sensation that the key to resolve this deception lies in looking at the cause of this deception which takes us all the way back to the beginning, what lied in the "very genesis" of our reality. What I believe is, if we uncover that, we will be putting a stop to these conflicts. we are slowly advancing there, but unless we all do not get decepted and try to uncover that, we will be advancing at a slow speed, that is presumably not going to happen during our lifetime, because humans still have a long way to go... I do still gonna make my own contributions, furthering as much as I can, but again I can't stop to the deception of every soul, because humans have a long way to go...I need of your assistance too. Because I want all humans to feel the Life on the Earth, The Zohar's wavelengths I'm gonna keep on doing my contributions while I also be with split Wavelengths of Zohar Waves during my time here...Gazing at the sunset in the middle of a summer from a beach, or another unique wavelength when you're being held at the arms of the one you love, and so many other unique wavelengths. I wanna be with the Zohar waves's split wavelengths I want. Let's enjoy life... Let's live...
All humans came down with the "very genesis" we don't really have an idea on, So does this wave energy, we don't know where exactly do they come from, no matter what lied in the "very genesis", the fact that desire to still be with the Wavelengths of Zohar existed in the beginning is the evidence that it's humans's birthful liberty to be with the Zohar and it's wavelengths, If you've wanted to take that away you shouldn't have implanted the Waves in this reality in the firstplace. And as that desire's exisence is confirmed, it can never be destroyed as it always exist.
I wanna live those Zohar wavelengths that I love, sometimes the same ones and sometimes exploring brand new wavelengths, live with your most desired Zohar wavelengths, these are your colors, and also everyone can live with their own desired Zohar wavelengths aswell, Create a beautiful world with beautiful wavelengths so you may can live in a beautiful paradise...
i cant take it anymore
P.S. miyuki is the greatest character in fiction
P.S. miyuki is the greatest character in fiction