[PS2] Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

After reading all these spoilers, I really need to go back and play Xenosaga II to completion. Might as well restart the game though, as I've completely forgotten the story save for what refresher spoilers I've read here.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Sepharite

edit: Awesome. I just beat XSII. Did the trailers show who the guy in the white robe is? Albedo?

Yes, it did. It revealed the red and white Testaments.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ic/Albedo2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...lic/Kevin2.jpg

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Yamamanama

Spoiler:

He does pilot Simeon, after all. The other ones have ES's too. There's Dan, a rather cool loooking black one (Voyager's), Naphtali, a blue one (Virgil's), and an unnamed red one (just guess). Wilhelm has one too. I'm going to guess its name is Jacob.

Spoiler:

Wilhelm's mech isn't an E.S.. All 12 have been accounted for. Ormus has 4, the party has 4, and the Testaments have 4. The only ones we don't know about are Levi and Judah and they belong to Margulis and Kevin. We just don't know who gets which yet. It breaks down like this:

Ormus:

E.S. Issachar - Pellegri
E.S. Gad - Most likely Richard
E.S. Joseph - Most likely Hermann
E.S. Judah or Levi - Margulis

Party:

E.S. Asher - Jr. and chaos
E.S. Dinah - KOS-MOS and Shion
E.S. Rueben - Jin
E.S. Zebulun - MOMO and Ziggy

Testaments:

E.S. Dan - Voyager
E.S. Naphtali - Virgil
E.S. Simeon - Albedo
E.S. Judah or Levi -Kevin

As for where the information came from, in I&II, Pellegri said that Ormus had four E.S.: Issachar, Gad, Joseph, and one that she doesn't name. She also mentions that the Anima from Gad and Joseph are installed into Plium and Scutum where the two are being restored.

FELIPE NO

Are each E.S. special or are they simply their individual fighting crafts built by their company? Cause I'm thinking of Relics from Xenogears...

But thanks for the images. Btw, was Kevin (Kelvin? Shion's BF) killed?

How ya doing, buddy?

The E.S. are special because they're equipped with the Vessels of Anima.

Spoiler:

The Anima were discovered on Lost Jerusalem at the same time as the Original Zohar. In Xenosaga I&II, Wilhelm says that all of them originally belonged to chaos. chaos was their commander. Evenutally, the pilots of each E.S. were absorbed by each craft's Anima.

Yes, Kevin died. In Episode I, you saw that the KOS-MOS archetype killed him when it went out of control when Cherenkov tried to steal it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Oh. I was thinking of A.G.W.S. So, some sort of spinal alienesque body is in there? Like Evangelion?

And KOS-MOS - has it been annouced that that's not the same KOS-MOS as the one that "killed" Kevin?

Btw, KOS-MOS is Shion's mom?

How ya doing, buddy?

The Anima Vessels are the spine things in the game's logo. We still don't know anything about them.

We don't know what happened to the Archetype. It's never said if the current KOS-MOS is an upgraded version of it or a completely new body.

No, KOS-MOS is not Shion's mother.

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

Some impressions from IGN have appeared.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/703/703523p1.html

Nothing too notable, aside from them mentioning that the total number of cutscenes is "over 8 hours". That's a far cry more than the previously mentioned 3 hours. I hope IGN is right on this one.

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

I think that the three hours mentioned are the actual cutscenes, where as the 8 hours include the cutscenes that als use textboxes, Famitsu mentioned this iirc.

I was speaking idiomatically.

8 hours of spoken dialogue would quite nice

That would much more reasonable than only 3 to conclude all those plot twists.

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=th_EMZez78c&search=xenosaga

Kevin and his mother(?)... on some bizarre planet. o_O

FELIPE NO

Spoiler:

That's Kevin's homeworld. In Xenosaga I&II, Kevin tells Shion that his mother and sister died when the Gnosis attacked his world. That's why he was so determined to make KOS-MOS.

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

Poor Misato...uh, I mean Kevin.

How ya doing, buddy?

This in unconfirmed whether the following informaiton is a hoax or not.

Some snooping was done on the XenoIII demo CD and some sploilerific material was found. Here's the post about some of the material:

Spoiler:

All thanx to Kouli from gamefaqs who readed the demo database and revealed all these!

WARNING!!!!!! the following post contains MAJOR spoilers of the Xenosaga mysteries (e.g. chaos, nephilim)so if you don't want to ruin the fun DON'T READ IT!!
However I know spoilers are as sweet as a deal with the devil (Albedo said that xD) so it's up to you.

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1. Heinlein IS Wilhelm
2. The cut-scene with little Kevin and his mother is taken place in Michtam. Her mother is one of the people of Zohar.
3. chaos, exists when the universe was born, with the power of the Anima to form the body with a human's shape and consciousness, holds the power of the dimensional failsafe of the universe. Release of the failsafe is basically annihilation, so back in those times, the power was divided by another existence, Maria the Animus. That's the basic jist of it. When he regains his power, he will make a dimensional shift to LJ/Earth.
4. KOS MOS will be awakened to be Maria, when she defeats Telos. But, some special changes with Maria's memories, yes, she is Maria, but she's no the real Maria, a new personality was created. The DataBase suggested Sakura and MOMO as example.
5. Just above the E.S, they will explain back to chaos/Anima, and Maria/Animus. E.S is basically half of chaos and when Maria divided that power for chaos, her half of the Anima was spreaded out through the UMN. And a quick recap of the E.S:

Asher, chaos and Jr
Issachar, Pellegri
Gad, Richard
Simeon, Albedo (note here, White Testament got a different body but it's the same as Simeon)
Zebulun, Ziggy and Momo
Dan, Voyager
Dinah, KOS MOS
Naphatali, Virgil
Judah, Kevin
Joseph, Hermann
Ruben, Jin
Levi, Margulis

For other potential cool mech, there are:

Omega Id, Omega Universitas, Omega Metempsychosis, Omega Res Novae, Erde Kaiser, Erde Kaiser Alpha, Erde Kaiser Fury...etc

6. Nephilim and Abel, hmph, I see words on Nephilim which is a human born in LJ/Earth. Basically, that Grimore programmer and Vector, they were doing this Lemegeton program, which is control the Zohar. When the test fails, Nephilim was the first one to disappear, so yeah, back in all those time, she was technically the first to disappear. And the odd thing is, when Nephilim disappears, Abel shows up. Which seems to be they can't co-exist or they have the 'because then therefore' effect going on.

Abel, he is the supposed pilot of Omega and uses the Zohar as main energy source. He's got the autism state going on, so normal communication is impossible. So, they were using the UMN support system to try to communicate with him. His real identity is to act as the side sustance of the lowend domain's observation terminal of, UDO. You can say that UDO picked Abel as a physical form. Yuriev will try to use Abel to obtain Omega, as the weapon to defy God. Abel's conscious side is basically the Ark itself. I'll rewrite this bit tomorrow, all that high end and lowend stuff of UDO is fuzzy.

As for Maria no Miko, maiden of Maria or daughter of Maria, whatever you want, both work with the context. That's Shion's early incarnation.
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That is all for now. You've been warned. More to come....
(Personally I didn't read anything).

References:
http://www.xenolegacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3085
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gen...topic=27901846

Note:
I only read the first line of the spoiler material before I had to stop and just blindly copy the whole post for here. So don't ask me for any hints because I haven't read it XD

There's nowhere I can't reach.

A camcorder recording of the English Xenosaga Episode III trailer from E3 is posted at the bottom of this site. The audio quality is pretty shoddy and therefore the voices don't sound as clear as I'd like them to be, but it's a definite that Brianne Siddall is back as Jr. and it even sounds like Lia Sargent is back as Shion.

Even better? The last line at the end sounds like it's spoken either by Bridget Hoffman/Ruby Marlowe/Ellen Wilkinson or a very good Hoffman/Marlowe/Wilkinson impersonator. I can't tell if the line originates from KOS-MOS or T-elos, but the line definitely belongs to one of the two. The dub sounds like it's going to turn out quite well.

EDIT: Uploaded the trailer here.

How ya doing, buddy?

I do *not* want Mitsuda and the London Symphony Orchestra back. He wastedthat orchestra's time in Xenosaga Ep I, and I was thrilled with the life Shinji Hosoe breathed into Xenosaga II with his music. Great, great stuff. Episode I's soundtrack was so freaking lifeless it killed me. And I love Mitsuda's other work (Chrono, Xeno, Tsugunai) to tears, which made it even more painful.

I'm not sure why you guys are talking about Kaijura Yuki in Episode II. Did she do the cinematic tracks? The meat of the game's actual songs, the ones you heard in towns and dungeons and battles, was all Shinji Hosoe.

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

Kajiura was responsible for the music during the cutscenes, and she did a terrific job at it (the OST is one of my personal favourites), and Hosoe did the town and battle music, as some other themes. I can't imagine why anyone thinks that he did a better job than Mitsuda or Kajiura. Monolith apparently thought the same, and now Kajiura's responsible for the entire OST.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Hosoe did a better job than Mitsuda and Kaijura because he put some actual energy into his work. I can go watch pretty much any Hollywood movie if I want to hear grand sweeping string sections that wash over me and leave me dry. Hosoe's town and area songs were all totally electronic and yet still managed to sound much more human and dramatic than anything in the cutscenes. The theme to Second Miltia is my favorite song from the game. It's the most simplistic song Hosoe wrote for the game, and yet it also has a really soulful melody on top of a killer rhythm.

His work is vastly more interesting than anythg Mitsuda or Kaijura did. It only sucks that they didn't release an album for anything but the cutscenes. However, I am hosting the Xenosaga II Gamerip on my FTP, linked in my sig, if anyone's interested in seeing what I'm talking about.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Along with X.S Episode III releasing in Japan (July), the soundtrack will be releasing on the 11th of July. So Klondike, you should learn to like Kajiura's works. Because after all, she's also doing the orchestration soundtrack for this finale.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Yamamanama

On the E.S.:

Spoiler:

Are Gad and Josef the same thing as Pilum and Scutum or did Hermann and Richard get some new ES's?

Spoiler:

In Xenosaga I&II, it's said that Plium and Scutum are borrowing the Animas from E.S. Gad and Joseph while the two are under restoration. It looks like Plium and Scutum were modeled after them.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ublic/0690.jpg E.S. Gad.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ublic/0696.jpg E.S. Joseph

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ublic/0691.jpg That's the remodeled E.S. Simeon.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ublic/0412.jpg This is Wilhelm's mech, Joshua.

How ya doing, buddy?

Hi, sorry for going off-topic, but does anyone know of any website that is selling Xenosaga III? Amazon.co.jp does not wish to ship overseas, so I am seeking alternate options.

Edit: A friend linked me to play-asia.com and it seems that they have it, so I guess this isn't a problem after all. Of course, if someone knows a place with better prices, do let me know.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I hate Xenosaga IIs soundtrack to bits, I much prefered the soundtrack in I, and am deeply sad they didn't bring Mitsuda back for this one. x.x I want the amazing Xenosaga I battle theme back! >_>

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Klonoa

am deeply sad they didn't bring Mitsuda back for this one.

Mitsuda said he won't work with Monolithsoft ever again.

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

Is it true that he didn't make the xenosaga 2 soundtrack because he didn't like the "new look" of it?

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

I read he refused to compose the next episode because he felt he was losing his touch.

I was speaking idiomatically.