These quote/spoiler boxes are going to look like hell when all is said and done here. :(

I never meant to imply that the links weren't intential. They are. However, it's also obvious by the rather numerous inconsistencies and various quotes by Monolith that they are not the same timeline. I said it before, and I'll say it again, it is ALL in the details. With rewriting, like oyu're doing here, it could fit. But as it stands, it's too much to just assume "this is that" and go with it.

I'll agree than the quote is anbigious in how one can interpret it, but when I read that all it says to me is that there is plenty of fanservice but the game isn't a direct prequel.

I have finished the game.

The only thing I failed to do was defeat Erde Kaiser Sigma without having all three Erdes. About 15% HP left and he used this attack that wiped us all out. I can't beat Omega ID so..whatever.

The final boss wasn't too hard, but he wasn't easy either. The key to my victory was keeping up Defensive, Quick and Balance, using Shion, KOS-MOS, and Jin, and switching in MOMO for nuking.

The boss before the final was way too easy and I made some of the most silly mistakes ever. Mistakes that would normally get you killed. He absorbs fire damage but I didn't know this until I used KOS-MOS's final teck attack, healing him for 5000 points, oops.

Allen owned Kevin hahahaha.

Guess I'm going to shoot for lvl99 and get payback against Sigma.

I want to add that if Shion can keep the rest of her past, good and bad, but that is one memory I would not allow to exist.

My respect for both Kevin and Jin went up during the final moments of game.

Colonel Skills: I believe we both made our points and I'd rather not argue/discuss it anymore. I just want you to know I do understand and respect your viewpoint.

Winter Storm:

Erde Kaiser Sigma



Omega Id

Now that's very clever. I was level 67 when I fought Sigma. My strat was very much in disarray. He goes into uber mode when he's at half health. It turned into everyone of us having to cast Revert almost every round until only KOS-MOS was left -.-. I will try what you advised above. For ID, I have like 40 All repairs from that insane leveling fest I did on the Merkabah lol and like 99 halfs and mediums :D.

Simple question on the Xenogears tie-ins:

That's stupid. Why leave anything open-ended? What about the countless movies that are open-ended? What about FF7?

Open-ended endings =/= a reason to tie it together. It's open-ended because the ending would have been fucking lame and lost the whole meaning and feel to it if they just spelled out every single thing to you.

Plus Takahashi made it pretty damn clear from the get-go that XS != XG.

Is it just me or did they make wilhelm not as powerful as he was set up to be?

LOL, oh Wilhelm is powerful. The way he used his power at the end was to match his personality no less. I mean damn, nothing really bothered this guy and he shows no anger(mildly at the end).



lol

He really had no impact at the end though.

He really should have been the final boss.



...

What?

wilhelm is great an all but

but other then that i love the music also, my favorite being the one when you enter the ruins in the cave of the floating landmass..of course i like others too..

I managed to finish the game earlier this afternoon.

Just a few thoughts about the final battle and the game in general:



Overall, the game was enjoyable. It seemed that the difficulty in this one decreased compared to the previous two though. Oh, and I also thought the unlocked features after completing the game were a nice addition.

I started on Disc 2 this week, and I currently just finished the battle with Black. Things are progressing well, but I have some dissappointments that I'll get into when I finish. But I will say right now my biggest dissapointment by far.



Edit: Just wanted to mention that "Godsibb" is currently my favorite song in the OST. Nobody beats Kajiura when it comes to dramatic battle themes. This game is full of some of the best fight tracks I've heard anywhere. It's nice to see her being used correctly, unlike the previous episode. It'd be reason enough to continue the series just to hear her compose more tracks.

I don't have the game yet,but the OST is really really great! It's the best of the Xenosaga.
It's ashame I want to see the co-work between Yasunori&Yuji in the last episode. When the beginning and endinng work together :)

I just finished the game a few minutes ago. Big post coming up, so be ready.

The ending was beautifully well done, in both length and emotion. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I nearly cried when

That being said, I'm afraid to say that I'm still very dissapointed by much of the story. Two things in particular nearly ruined it for me.

For one, I hate Shion now. Well not really, but I've seriously lost a lot of my admiration for the character. She was a real bitch in EPII, and while she's less bitchy in this one, her inexcusable stupidty didn't help redeem her.

In the first disc, she constantly responds to the villains' comments with "What do you mean? I don't understand!". Then there's her bullshit decision in the 2nd disc.



At least on the upside, Allen has risen high above my list as a real hero. Then again he was always likeable, but it was still fun to watch him grow while his stubborn love interest only got worse.

Then there's my second beef with this game; the lack of any real interaction. Pretty much all the supporting characters got shit for dialog, and none of them ever interacted with each other. The reason I've always loved MOMO as a character is the way she seamlessly established a close relationship with all the other characters; Ziggy's like a father, Jr is her love interest, Shion's like her older sister. But these relationships are completely, utterly ignored in this game. MOMO and everyone else only says plot-relavent dialogue, and never anything personal or unique.

This becomes a major problem for the major moments in this game. For example,

Basically, things were rushed. It's understandable thanks to EPII's piss-short runtime and the smaller budget, but that doesn't justify things. There are some great scenes here, but they would have benefited much more with extra exposition and dialogue.

Well in short, the Xenosaga series was very good in the end, but it had the potential to be fantastic. I feel cheated seeing my favorite characters getting screwed out of the spotlight just because they had to make room for Shion (and it's even worse if you don't like Shion). It's just bad design to cast aside the supporting characters like that, ignoring the relationships and personalities they established. Although despite the apocalyptic finale, there is room for a sequel. I just don't think I'm willing to get my hopes up all over again. I'd prefer if Takahashi started fresh with a new series or setting, and get things right from the start. But even so, I'll always wonder what could've been.

And speaking of the possible connection between Xenosaga and Xenogears...



And finally, regarding the big, big revelation on who KOS-MOS finally is...

They already did that, it's called Xenosaga. Xenosaga was already a fresh start, and Episode I did do things right from the start. Takahashi's ideas are just too ambitious for his own good. I'd prefer if he just gives up, because his vision will just get raped and left for the hounds just like it always is.

Yeah, that's certainly the major problem with XS; it was just too big for its own good. I found the database in EPI nice and informing, but I just sighed sadly in the database in EPIII. It was basically all the leftoever ideas that never came to pass.

Should've stuck with anime.

But still, if he sets his sights smaller, and makes sure to make the next game longer, there's a chance he could get things right. Xenogears was unfinished, and that still kicked ass.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that MOMO's Swordfish is the funniest special move I've seen in a while. I know she's a Realien, but damn.



EDIT2: I also just read the post-game database, which sort of hints (or maybe just gives a final resolution) what the characters will do after. MOMO's made me ill.

I didn't much care for Shion in Episode I, and outright hated her in II ("Jr., calm down! Don't you want to make peace with your brother?" Ugh, shut the fuck up.), but I actually found her tolerable for the most part in III, despite fits of idiocy -- the ones you listed, plus her refusal to listen to KOS-MOS whenever she was trying to protect her.

I actually found Allen's final scenes to be pretty damn laughable ("I'M GONNA PROTECT SHION RRRAAARRGGGHHHH!"). We all knew it was coming, but the way it was handled was embarrassing. From zero to hero in under 2 minutes? Come on...

That's because they really didn't need to focus on Jr. or MOMO anymore. Jr. especially was... overexposed this entire series -- I actually dreaded when the focus briefly shifted to him on disc 2, if only because I was sick of him (still, his part of the story WAS awesome, I'll admit). MOMO's little scene with Mizrahi was actually quite touching, but it was enough for her. She's really nothing more than a secondary character with a cliched character arc, and is only really around for the loli factor.

The only character I felt got royally screwed was Ziggy, having most of his story relegated to a damn cellphone game. And from what little we see of it in XSIII, it looked pretty damn awesome.

Overall though, I enjoyed the hell out of XSIII and can easily say it's the best of the series. Hell, Xenosaga as a whole >>>>>>>>> Xenogears, despite Episode II being one of the worst RPGs ever.

MOMO: "Do ANY of you remember what he did to me!?" :tpg:

It's not like Allen busted out the Ether and took out Red. It was a battle of who had the stronger love, and his won. I was mostly watching the whole thing intently because

The scene during the ending sequence was much more embarrasing, but I still laughed.

But that's the thing, just because the characters aren't important to the grand scheme of the story anymore doesn't mean you have to chuck them aside. It didn't matter to me how important MOMO's role was (even though none of this would've happened without the Y Data), but the fact that she does little to no interaction at all is what bothered me. Come on, she doesn't say a damn thing in either Jr or Ziggy's character-specific scenes, and the same applies to the other characters.

Nobody talks to anybody here, aside from anything plot-related, or just to tell Shion to calm the fuck down.

And aside from the whole "nonhuman longing to be human" angle, I found MOMO's to be one of the best stories in the series, but again because of how she forms a deep connection with the other characters. I didn't much care for Shion's faux-lesbian pining over KOS-MOS, but I always liked the way she would care for MOMO, such as the scene in the Durandal park in EPI. But oh well, none of that exists in this game.

It was obvious with the Albedo scene in the first game that they intended MOMO's role to be darker and more serious. But I think somewhere halfway some tightwad put a stop to it, so instead she's put out of harm's way and gets together with her estranged mother. Freaking boo.

I pretty much aggree. The scenes with Ziggy and Voyager were cool and all, but they deserved far more attention and closure than it got. In the end, they focused more on the sudden surprise connection with Ziggy and another character, and anyone who didn't play Pied Piper wouldn't have a clue about it. I love Ziggy, but I was hoping he'd suicide explode Voyager; it would've been cool (but the way EPIII was going, one or two characters would cry about it, then forget all about him when the cutscene ends).

I still found the ending spectacular, but after some thought I'm also disappointed with it. I thought this would give a clear, 100% final story for Shion and company, but instead it leaves room for multiple spinoffs.



It seems there's a few patents, such as Xenosaga X. Wouldn't surprise me if it happens, but it remains whether I'll be suckered in for the third time.

No, no, the worst was in the ending:Yeah, that's what I meant. The first scene was pretty well done.True, but I can't quite blame XSIII for focusing less on the secondary characters because it had a TON of story to tell -- I'll blame Episode II for not focusing on anything (one more reason to hate that awful drek).The thing is, I thought the story actually did wrap itself up quite nicely.

I had that same conversation with someone the other day who also hated that line. I on the other hand didn't find it too horrible.



I can blame them for not taking the time to make EPIII longer. I don't know how tight the schedule was, but adding an extra hour or two just so the other characters give some individual, non-derivative dialogue couldn't have been too hard.

To take an example, Rico's screentime in XG pretty much petered out, but they still made sure his dialogue was unique to him ("I've come this far, so there's no point bitchin' about it.")

So what's the relationship between Shion and Feb?
I still don't get it.:p

Basically, Feb was like a surrogate mother to little Shion while her real mother was being treated in the hospital (and her dad tending to her). Of course, this would've been more meaningful had it not taken three episodes to explain this simple relationship.

I really wonder how many

Anyone know where I can download scans (scanlated if possible) of the XS manga? All I've seen concerning it were a few covers, but it sounds interesting from this wiki article.

Damn, that does sound interesting....