[PS2] Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

I'm new here, and I just finished Xenosaga Ep. III!

Spoiler:

@ the idea that Xenosaga was inspired by The Da Vinci Code. As B.K. said, The storyline of Xenosaga was created before The Da Vinci Code came out.

Spoiler:

BUT I do think the storyline and basis of philosophy in Xenosaga was largely inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche. As the Sub-Titles of all 3 Xenosaga's are from the Titles of some of Nietzsche's books, I.E. Ep. 3 "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", and Ep. 2 "Beyond good and Evil" (<--- iirc?) (I can't remember the first one...). Anyways, it's apparent that lots of the idea's of Friedrich Nietzsche were in Xenosaga, The biggest example is the Übermensch and how Wilhelm (which by the way is Nietzsche's Christian Middle name [I don't think it was a coinsidence]) wanted to create a new breed of humans, or in other words restart humanity (only containing the superior humans). Which in a sense is the same concept as the Übermensch, which is the idea of how the Apes evolved into the Humans, the Humans will evolve into the Übermensch (or Superman). Also the last boss, Zarathustra, is the main character in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

Spoiler:

While I was looking up Hebrew names for my own Story, I found out the meaning of several of the names that are in Xenosaga Ep. III. One of the main one's being "Yeshua" (chaos' name), which means Jesus. So it could be possible that (in that flashback scene) Mary and chaos were in fact listening to another person rather than Jesus (and that chaos was Jesus). This would also support chaos' and Mary's relationship with each other. BUT this could be completely wrong and they could have just used the name for fun. Some other one's include the Dark Testament's E.S. "Dan", which in Hebrew Daniel mean's "Him Whom God Strengthens" (or something like that). Which would work becouse of the Anima Relic, and it being part of the power of God.

Anyways, aside from all that. I liked Ep. III a lot. Although some of the Script was kind of lame (maybe due to English Version?) and the reactions were kind of unrealistic, but that wasn't horrible (Wilhelm was excellent in this case). The Music was Brilliant (Great Job By Kajiura for it being one of her first RPG sound tracks, it was good aside from that too). The art and story-line were excellent as well.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Sepharite

NOOO! My PS2 froze right at the ending... and it took me 45 minutes to beat the last boss. FACK. ;_;

Does anyone know where I could get a rip of the ending? I tried Youtube, there's only one or two short clips.

Umm, a great FMV site I know of is http://bluelaguna.net/ , it's there, and it has decent download speeds. (I think it's complete, haven't watched it there...)

I actually read some of Thus Spoke Zarathustra for an english class, and found it pretty interesting. It was fun to see the correlation between the themes and concepts. The biggest 'plot' problem was the direct relation to Christianity, I'd rather it be a little more subtle, although, the original idea's were amazing, and the overall story still blows me away.

Anyways, Xenosaga ep. III, was probably the best game I played this year, that came out this year :-P

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Lionking-Cyan

Personally, i found xenosaga 1 much better, and maybe one of my favourite rpg. When i begun it, i understood there was something incredibly much bigger behind what i saw. I could understand the plot would have folded in such a fantastic way. Yet, it didn't offend me. We could say that it took some Christian elements as inspiration, but nothing that would offend us Christians. Maybe something was bad, but not much. Then, when i played xenosaga 2, i was really offended...of course i had already spent 40 euros for the first 2 episodes, and so i bought the third one too. So, little by little, the game didn't give me anymore the episode one sensation. The story was no more so great, as it was just concentrating in ridiculize Christianity.

Yeah, I agree, but the Characterization (or the characters in general I guess), and some of the events in Ep. 1 bugged me. I think the reason for the sudden focus on "Christian" subjects was more of an attempt to possibly get more sales or something (as this kind of thing is popular it seems) and the fact that they had to make the series a trilogy (wasn't the 'Shion' story only supposed to be like the first 2 or so games in the series or something? I can't remember).

I wouldn't necessarily say Xenosaga was simply bashing Christianity. It is based Friedrich Nietzsche's books. He has lots of beliefs that go against christian beliefs, and he clearly does not like the Christian religion (he did write "The Anti-Christ"), but Xenosaga tended to take the more 'Original' concepts from his books (Biggest example: "The Super-man" or "Over-man", like Evolution). I would have to replay the series again to see the actual flow between the games.

Oh well, whatever...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.