[PS2] Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Shiny E3 2k6 Trailer is hyah (here): http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/xeno...de3/media.html

In english~

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm personally interested in more details about this "GeMix!?" minigame that the review mentioned. Is it an elaboration on the card game? Or something completely new?

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm kind of frightened by the trailer deal... but... I can't seem to get it to play. I click play, and it shows a black screen. Nothing happens, or loads. Tried in both IE and Firefox. Hmm.

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

Actually, according to the Perfect Works storyline, Xenosaga would be Episode II. Episode I is the prologue, where they discover Zohar on Earth etc.

(I didn't click on the spoiler tags and I don't intend to, just commenting on the last post here.)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Eh, I loved Ep II, and I have Ep III shipping today. Should arrive tomorrow.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well considering that I just played for about 6 hours straight, with some copious Database reading, and I just arrived at the first non-tutorial dungeon, I'd say they certainly aren't rushing the storyline

I'm really enjoying the hell out of it so far. Agreed on most of the first impressions thus far. I'll add my own Good/Bads:

Negatives:
- Sample rate on voices is low, mainly because there's a TON. So, "ess"es get smudgy, but it's made up by their quality acting.
- However, a few new antagonistic characters have awkward voices - one's a bit too arch in his snideness, the other just has a really bad voice.
- "Facetime" cutscenes aren't as immersive as the directed/lipsynched scenes of the past, but given the sheer quantity of them it's forgivable.
- The gap between Episodes II and III is pretty vague without the flash animations from the JP website, but it's summarized well in several sources both ingame and in the database.

Positives:
- Graphics are vastly improved from the previous two titles. Environments in particular are amazing
- Dungeon design is top notch.
- Battle system is one of the most enjoyable RPG systems I've played in a while. Plus, there is NO loadtime. The transition between field and battle is quite literally instantaneous. (With a few exceptions, but it's nothing to complain about.)
- Music is hardfuckingcore, with really nice orchestral battle themes - a FAR cry from Mr. Riiiiidge Racerrrr's Episode II battles. (Just my opinion!) Also, for various BGM, there's some really nice jazz tunes. First dungeon is a great upbeat tune, and several interior locations have some nice downbeat tunes.
- Voice acting in general is very solid. Ep. I Shion & KOS-MOS = Happiness. Plus, I liked Ep II's chaos better than I's, so I'm glad he's back too.
- Storyline is progressing very well, probably even better in its method of storytelling than the previous two games. And according to IGN, the game has a very explosive and powerful ending. Hence, me literally glued to the screen and forcing myself to put it down to sleep tonight. Can't wait.

---

Is there a music rip from this game floating around anywhere? I've come across so many tracks ingame so far that aren't anywhere on the released OST, especially the piano pieces and most non-dungeon BGMs.

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Holy crap. Has anyone played the minigame HaKox very much at all yet? It's insane, and incredibly addicting. I just wasted 2 hours on it haha It's like... Lemmings... combined with Chu Chu Rocket... but with blocks, movable things, and lots of death if you aren't careful.

How ya doing, buddy?

Just a bit of a testimonial here

I beat the game last night, around 55 hours or so logged, though I have yet to do the sidequests. Missing about 4% on Unknown in the Database, but other'n that pretty complete. Absolutely loved it. All the storyline threads get concluded, character arcs complete, and an ending that

Spoiler:

leads BOTH into Xenogears, but also more potential stories from our surviving characters.

Regarding the blood issues, only one scene made no sense without blood, and I agree that since it was key to the scene should have been left in. The other instances didn't bother me as much, though I'm still not certain why they were cut out considering the ammount of blood that was in Episode I. It's moot at this point, and I'm wondering what happened to the "animated blood" that's allowed to be in Teen games.

Regarding the ending:

Spoiler:

I thought the scenes with Jin were a really meaningful way to not only finally explore the bond he had with his sister, but to also tie him together with Citan in Xenogears. The whole thread regarding Nephilim and Abel played out a lot differently than I expected, but also made total sense to me. This is my interpretation on how that event leads into Xenogears...

The gnosis, a.k.a. the peoples' wills who wish for rebirth, all gather at Zarathustra. chaos uses his powers of Anima to bring everything located in that area of space into the physical (out of imaginary space). The idea is that considering that all gnosis were once physical objects, when they're brought back into normal space, they once again take shape. Therefore, Abel's Ark becomes the Eldridge, which literally is the Ark of humanity for those traveling to Lost Jerusalem. Abel becomes corporeal on the ship, as does the Omega System which becomes what we know as Deus. Omega Universitas is Weltall/Xenogears, and the various gnosis that you fight in the Ark become their respective omnigears (assuming that the ones you don't fight also exist somewhere within the Ark).

One could also assume that this event of corporealizing the Eldridge and its contents also resulted in the trapping of Xenogears's Wave Existance within Zohar. Why would it not be U-DO? For one, U-DO is represented as red, and the WE is turqoise. Secondly, because Abel (U-DO in physical form) contacts the WE to set off the creation of the new world, they have to be separate entities.

Then, of course, according to Perfect Works lore, the Eldridge which is en route to Lost Jerusalem, is suddenly attacked from the inside by Deus/Omega and crash-lands on the planet that is to become Xenogears' world. Abel makes contact with the Wave Existance and thinks of Nephilim to create the Mother. All the wills of the people follow this and are eventually born into the humans born on the world. Hence, Jin's consciousness becomes born into Hyuuga/Citan. Mai's consciousness becomes born into Maria, etc. And of course Abel and Nephilim become continually reborn as we know the story to go. However, the simple fact that Abel is the physical manifestation of U-DO brings to light exactly why his reincarnations have such power, all of which revolving around the color red. Grahf, one of the reincarnations gone awry, grants people with power with his "divine fist" - literally so, his fist glowing with red energy, the same as which U-DO manifested. Fei with his unstable mind, regresses into Id, a being that not only has flaming red hair but also glows red and manifests all the powers that a god would have.

Anyways, that's all I've got for now End spoilery cut.

As a final note, I also wanted to glow about the boss battles. Extremely challenging, but not impossible if you put your mind to it. I loved how possible they could be if you figured out exactly what to do, rather than just solving the problem by grinding out levels. Can't say enough good things about how enjoyable the fights were once I finally won after many frustrating defeats

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Casaubon

How the hell could you have a 55 hour playtime?

Sorry, it was actually more like 50... Time was 48h at the final savepoint. My characters were 55, not the time spent. But regardless, yeah, that's a bit longer than you spent.

Not sure exactly. I took my time, read through the entire database as things were updated, and had instances of extremely lengthy boss battles. Majority of the 2nd disc battles lasted around 15-30 mins each for me. Final boss was even longer... definately not a joke as per your experience, though my criteria for cakewalk = brainless fight. The fight kept you on your toes, and was doable if you know what to pull off, but going in blind makes you adapt on the fly and keeps you shifting your strategy. Unless I'm just wailing away without a challenge (like many battles in Ep II), I wouldn't consider a fight easy per se

Not sure if you used a guide for anything, but I pretty much went in cold hence why I missed a few things and didn't finish all the optinal such-and-such. Oh well

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Actually, the full voice cast is listed in the end credits. If anyone has screen capture abilities, that would be pretty rockin'.

I didn't like the talking heads at first either, but you get used to them as the game goes on, since there's lots of dialogue. It starts to feel like a voiced-over Xenogears after a while what with the dialogue boxes and portraits.

Agreed that the battle music is very effective. It gets even better as you proceed, with special boss musics for all sorts of encounters.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

regarding chaos:

From the Database: The form of Anima, having assumed human shape and consciousness.

"He is the human incarnation of Anima, a power derived from the collective unconscious and present since the beginning of the universe in this dimension. His powers act as a failsafe for all of dimensional space.

As the release of his powers would mean the destruction of dimensional space, his powers were divided up into parts by his antithesis, Mary Magdalene (Animus) in the distant past.

chaos regained his former powers through KOS-MOS's awakening, and left the possibility of a future in the hands of Abel-- U-DO that chose to remain in this lower dimension. chaos unleashed the power of Anima, performing a dimensional shift with Nephilim, the recipient of Mary's power, leading the consciousness of mankind to Lost Jerusalem."

So in other words, he's the harbinger of the end of the world once humanity resonates with the will of self-destruction. Wilhelm chose to avert this by keeping the universe in a cycle of eternal recurrance. But the heroes defy this, instead creating a rebirth for the members of humanity that resonated with this will (gnosis), which goes on to become Xenogears' world.

regarding Wilhelm:

I don't think he's a reference to satan, but instead is a long-lasting member of humanity that chooses to defy fate/god. He was jenseits von gut und bose, beyond good and evil, and had his own agenda, der wille zur macht, the will to power, and the means for attempting to save the world from destruction, zarathustra.

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

Another part I was wondering around censorship...

from chapter 8:

is when Yuriev shoots Mary. It mainly just makes a sound, but it isn't clear how badly she's wounded. At the time I was sad because I thought he killed her, but then she recovered and was instead mainly emotionally traumatized.

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Agreed. On the second point that is. My main complaint post-mortum is that there wasn't more E.S. combat. I could've probably played an entire game using that system

I'd be tempted to say I enjoyed it much more than Xenogears' gear combat, if only because you didn't have to worry about Fuel constantly... But of course there needed to be a much wider variety of ES and weaponry. Most all of the normal attacks were either Physical, Fire, or Beam. So when bosses put up elemental resistances, there wasn't much to go with for working around that aside from Anima attacks. So yeah, there could've been a bit more depth, but in general very fun combat system versus the big bads.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Vash

Spoiler:

Will Jin become the Green Testament (or some other kind/color of Testament or some other enigmatic being)?

Spoiler:

Jin's consciousness joins those of the other gnosis gathered in Abel's Ark and eventually is reborn as Hyuuga a.k.a. Citan. To have him go back and fight to the death along with chaos, KOS-MOS and the gang, is to justify his likeness in the new world that results from Abel and Nephilim's saving of the universe that in the long-term results in Xenogears' world. So no, everyone in Abel's Ark at the time of its remanifestation is no longer really part of the Xenosaga timeline.

Which does lead to the question of what Shion, Jr. and company would find if they did find Lost Jerusalem. Considering that even in Xenogears' storyline, that place hadn't been revisited. One could also take the ending as a metaphore for the surviving characters' unwillingness to settle down and let things be. They're always on their search for the next horizon. The Xenosaga team did say comfortably in an interview that this game ends Shion's arc in the overall storyline.

If any new series of games popped up regarding the Xeno universe, my bet would be on them covering Episode VI (Post-Xenogears) in the Perfect Works timeline since that's the only unknown at this point.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Guest

Spoiler:

I'm going to go with an old theory in that KOS-MOS becomes Deus/Maing, somehow.

Spoiler:

I was under the impression that the Omega System is Deus, almost exactly. Zohar-powered, Merkabah as the chariot, the 4 coloured spheres, Omega's mutated self looking exactly like final-boss Deus. It was created to end the war, blew up a planet, etc. just like it says in Perfect Works. The Y-Data being the Raziel dealy that your party descovers on the Eldridge ruins. Since it never left Abel's Ark, it still remains capable of waking up and beginning the storyline of Xenogears.

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Fair enough, Mr. Skills It's just fun trying to put pieces together, even if they don't fit.

Yeah, lots of re-writing would have to occur, but you do have to wonder what exactly they were going to go for in a 6-episode Xenosaga rather than what we got in 3.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It's actually a pretty cool story Deals with much more than just Jan.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Don't think it has a name, since the battle music was never part of a released/named OST.

There's nowhere I can't reach.