[PS2] Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Spoiler alerts a-plenty would've nice, Motsy. Not really for me, but for some.

I imagine that the Bandai half of Namco-Bandai had something to do with all this censorship. Namco, as a solitary company, might've changed the methods in which they showed such content, but they still showed it. The censorship is that much greater in Episode III though, and I don't think it's merely coincidence that Bandai's a part of the team now.

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

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uMRZOSalyQE

Here's the video of that touching scene with Albedo and Momo. Enjoy.

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

Maybe they just didn't feel like putting the effort to merely lower the blood count, when it's much easier to remove it entirely.

Originally Posted by Motsy

Spoiler:

In Episode I, when Albedo goes digging inside MOMO for the Y Data he actually sticks his hand into her chest and starts feeling around. This was changed to him holding his hand above her head and visibly extracting data for the US version.

Spoiler:

You left out when he uses a knife instead of his hands to tear out his arm and head. Oh, and when he snaps the Kirchwasser's arm in two different places. Oh, and his orgasmic expression when he was digging inside MOMO.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'd actually say that him ripping his arm and twisiting his head off is worse than cutting them off with a knife. And they left his little joygasm in: "Mmm, ahh! This is nice! Don't you want to give it a try?"

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I aggree. Also, I was talking about the expression he makes (where he slowly blinks his eyes, just before Jr loses it) during the.....the "climax"...of the scene. >< In the NA version, his head is cut off halfway.

Ironically, his decapitated head is shown in full in the NA version, while the Japanese version blocked most of it with a shadow. I can't believe they've pussied out now and removed all blood.

It's going to take another 3-4 days at this rate to finish the download. Stupid Blackcats seeders.

FELIPE NO

Added spoiler tags to Motsy's original post and all other posts that quoted the original.

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

Normally I'm a stickler for spoiler tags, but I thought this board had a statute of limitations for games over 1-2 years old.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Awkward question, but has anyone here tried emulating this game on a PC? I'm away from home for school and unfortunately can't bring my PS2 along, so I'm going to have to find another way to play this.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

there's no ps2 emulation, well I'm pretty sure that it doesn't exist... or they aren't really good...

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

Originally Posted by Inhert

yeah they realy took ALL the blood from the game here's some screenshot that shows the JP and NA version

(some may be spoiler so look at your own risk)

Spoiler:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...llenCensor.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor1.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor3.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor4.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor5.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...EndCensor6.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ionCensor1.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ionCensor2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ionCensor3.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ionCensor4.jpg

Christ they ruined both the scenes with this. -.- Those scenes don't make no sense without blood. -.-

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

Actually there are PS2-emulators out there, not very good ones though.. I tried playing Kingdom Hearts yesterday with PCSX2, and it kinda worked.. cutscenes were slow, and control was sluggish, and it froze just after you beat that big dude in the beginning of the game. The emulator still has a long way to go.

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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 kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah I beat this sunday and I must say I was suprsiingly in love with this game.I mean 1 and 2 were GOOD but this one was amazing, I was playing 10 hours a day if not more because I couldn't put the game down. Definitly one of my favorites.

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Originally Posted by Cobalt Katze

around 55 hours or so logged

How the hell could you have a 55 hour playtime? I got 100% on everything, pretty sure I got all ultimate weapons etc.. and I my end playtime was only 32 hours.

The tied up all the loose ends, but the amount of characters that get completely ignored or just very little screen time is absurd. That's not to say the story or character development was bad, it's just a lot of characters got pretty much nothing(such as MOMO, who had one, insignificant scene). The Testaments were done well aside from White, who got like 5 minutes which is just ridiculous, but then again, I'm a fanboy so it might just be me.

Most of the scenes were done well though, and I wish they had more real cutscenes, since they seemed to last about 2 minutes, excluding the finale.

The only thing that really kept me going on a marathon was the battle system. It's so standard it isn't even funny, but it's fun as hell. The E.S. battles are epic since you do like 12 billion damage, and it's easy to just kill everything in one hit with traps and such. None of the bosses gave me any real trouble, which I consider a downside. The final boss was a joke. Other than that it was great.

I'd probably have to jump on the bandwagon and say it's the best of the XS games, but still fell short because of several shortcomings on favorite characters.

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.

I just beat the game today at around 48 hours playtime. The database is still at 98% but I skipped a lot of sidequests. I prefer to beat the game first then go back for the optional bosses later. The database is a huge help to understanding this game's story, which in my opinion surpasses Xenogears by a long shot. However, I feel there was only one thing left unexplained after beating the game.

Spoiler:

What/Who exactly is Wilhelm? Beyond being the mastermind behind civilization itself, where did he come from? The history behind chaos, Abel, Nephilim, and everyone else over a thousand years old was explained, but not his. Honestly, I was hoping he would be the final boss, because he basically triggered all the events Xenosaga's story. My theory, and I know this may be far fetched, is that Wilhelm is in fact the Anti-Christ, both in appearance and personality. There was a lot of talk about God in the game, I was shocked when I saw the name Jesus [that was a bold move], but they never mentioned anything about The Devil. If you think about it, Wilhelm is the most characteristic figure of Satan. He seduces people with power (The Testaments), he defied and betrayed God (Using Zarathustra), he's the genius behind civilization (Vector Inc = Humanity's Tree of Knowledge). Wilhelm is like the snake that offered the apple. In The Bible it describes the Anti-Christ as a handsome, persuasive individual with immense political power. Wilhelm has all these factors.

I was quite disappointed how he practically did nothing to stop Kevin from opposing him. Wilhelm created the Testaments, so he must have an insane amount of power, at least enough to neutralize or kill one at the snap of a finger. It would have made more sense had he been the final boss, and not an E.S. Junkyard. Anyway, as The Devil [metaphorically] I guess he couldn't stop Kevin because he can't force anyone to do as he pleases, they need to have the 'will' to do it, thus he only has the power of influence. He couldn't force Shion to give him her pendant either; he had to seduce her with a vision of Kevin. Well that’s my theory. But sense there is no absolute good or evil in Xenosaga, Wilhelm isn’t exactly the Anti-Christ but a reference to the biblical figure.

Also, I think he get's reincarnated as Krelian. Both characters have very similar goals.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Spoiler:

Wilhelm is not the anti-christ or a reference to it, I think that he's just a guardian of the Zarathustra. The Zarathustra was a device developed by the so-called ancients (the game never gives more details on this), and they wanted to use it to defy the gods (U-DO). Wilhelm didn't agree with this, since he didn't find meaning in their objective. He was more interested in the 永延回帰 (eternal return, don't know what it's called in English), in the hope that mankind would finally "mature". In the DS version he tells Chaos that he wants to do "that" again, meaning that he wants to reset the universe, which is not defying the gods.

I do agree with you that he really isn't that powerful, he can't do anything about Kevin or Maria/KOS-MOS betraying him, nor can he just walk up to Shion and take the pendant from her. He also doesn't seem to have full control over the Zarathustra, since he can't stop it from going out of control.

But what is Wilhelm exactly? A theory that was rather popular when the spoilers from the database were leaked, was that he is a part of chaos. We know that chaos doubted his destiny during the ages, and Wilhelm is most likely the part that cared about humanity to give them enough chances, but he didn't had the faith that mankind was powerful enough to do it without his help.

Also, chaos is NOT Jesus. We can clearly see him in the audience listening to Christ. Some guy over at gamefaqs had a rather interesting explanation of this, but I'm too lazy to search for it. There's also the matter of the Lemegeton Words, Ormus was established to protect these. It is mentioned that Ormus had been around long before the Messiah, and Wilhelm also says that "that man" (Jesus) doesn't know the meaning of those words. chaos has also been around since the beginning of the universe, so why would he wait until that exact moment to try and guide humanity, and why didn't he ever tried it again afterwards?

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

I know that I may sound shallow but when I saw Xenosaga III and compare it to FF XII or VP2: Silmeria it was rather like Xeno wouldn't evolved even a bit in graphic design.

I know that it's not the most important part in RPG but since they are releasing it on PS2 that already shown how great the graphic can be on it why do they don't boost it a little? Anyway need to finish Xeno II and then I can start Xeno III.

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

Well, if you've been following the news about the game, you'll know that the rest of the series has been cancelled, meaning that they don't really have a large budget to work with for this game. Besides, I suggest that you should play the game and base your opinion on that, instead of the screens and movies, since there are some terrific looking sceneries in the game.

I was speaking idiomatically.

On the contrary. For a series that has turned little profit, XS's graphics are quite impressive. The character models look a bit out of date (especially the bear-sized hands), but everything else is near-SE quality.

Well, better late than never. I finally finished downloading the game and gave it a whirl today. Impressions will be added as I venture forward.

Voices:

Good: Lia Seargent is back; returning voices from EP II (Jin, chaos) do a far better job this time, thanks to the lack of ackward pauses between every line.

Bad: It's a listening game to see which EPI voices are back (Shion, Virgil), which ones remain from EPII (chaos, Pellegri, Mary, MOMO?), and which ones are entirely new (Canaan, Kevin, Wilhelm). I'm a stickler for consistency between stories, so this is very annoying, and stupid.

The decision on which voices to keep and which ones to replace are sporadic as well. Canaan, for example, is now played by Steven Blum, who as Causabon put it, sounds like he's angry 24/7. This is especially jarring since Canaan is supposed to have supressed emotions. I preferred his Episode II VA.

Also, the Testaments lack that cool filter voice they had in the previous episodes. This makes it extremely obvious who Red is, even to newbies who are playing this entry before the others.

By contrast, the best voices are the ones who have stuck with the characters in all 3 episodes. Margulis, Jr, Ziggy and Gaignun (and you know who by default) have fully immersed themselves into the role. Returning VA's like Shion do a great job too, but they don't sound quite as relaxed as the ones who have remained.

Battle:

Good: So yeah, everything loads fast. Ultra fast. Even saving, loading, zone switching, just about everything in general is fast, fast, fast. I still can't let go how retarded the lag was in Episode II, though. That's a stench that will never wash out (even the most basic budget RPGs knew how to load battles properly).

It's also good that they removed everything from EPII's battle system and stuck with the basics. The break system is a nice touch too, giving you incentive to protect party members before they get dizzy.

Also, the battle music is one of the best tracks I've ever heard. It fixes the complaint I've had with RPG battle themes in general; it keeps things subtle.

It was always an annoying habit to create big, overplayed music with every random battle, even if the enemy is nothing more than a rabbit or something. But the battle theme in Ep III is not too loud and not too soft. This along with the speedy battles makes fighting a smooth process instead of a chore.

Bad: All the battle speech is insanely loud and echoing, to the point that it's hard to make out some lines. This was a problem in Ep I, but it was fixed in Ep II. I guess they wanted to bring back the flaws of the original battle system as well. :/

Canaan: "NOTACHALLENGE!"

It wouldn't have hurt to have a minimap in dungeons, either.

Mech Battles:

Good: Well I'll be damned. It took 3 games to do it, but they've finally found a way to make the robots in Xenosaga both important and fun to use. It's pretty much an exact imitation of the mech battles in Xenogears, and that's a good thing. Plus they finally figured out the obvious; Space Battles=Fun.

The robot love extends to cutscenes. The only thing cooler than a sword battle between two rivals is a ROBOT sword battle between two rivals. In space. And there's actual dialogue during the boss fights. Another plus.

And Elly's Aerods live on. Zebulon is still the best ES (and not as pink).

Bad: Nothing yet, but the one problem the previous games had was that there were barely any mech battles to begin with. It'd be nice if you could switch from character to mech at any time like in XG, but I doubt that'll happen.

Story:

Good: Things are starting out nice and slow so far, with Shion at least getting some good development time. I was surprised hearing before that she left Vector (and KOS-MOS), but the game did a good job at conveying her reasons and emotions upon doing so. Even though she's still a bit harsh with Miyuki, she's a lot less bitchy, mostly thanks to Sargent's reprised role. And Jr still kicks ass as usual.

Bad: Talking heads. I don't like them. For one thing, it feels like the clearest proof that the game has had its budget cut. Even though they're fully voiced, and at least the characters do some sort of animation during these scenes, it's still lame. Even though they're dialogue scenes, bits like the one with Margulis and Pellegri, or conversations in the Durandel would've looked cool if given the full cutscene look.

The actual cutscenes, while of course pretty, haven't quite excited me the way the cutscenes in EPI and II have. But of course things are just starting, so we'll see.

Small Notes:

I don't get why MOMO is still fighting with Jr and the others. You'd think after moving in with Juli, she'd settle into a quiet life. Or at least the others would protest if she wanted to continue helping. Maybe it's because only she can use Zebulon's full power, but Zebulon was never given a story to begin with (they just bypassed all that and before you knew it, MOMO had a pink shiny mech in the next scene).

I don't see the urgency in the first dungeon. If it's a virtual network, how can you die? Must be a Matrix thing.

Doctus bugs me, and I have no idea why. Maybe it's the "oh ho ho ho!" thing, or the fact that any new characters introduced now will take away time from the previous cast.

Merkabah: A pretty big XG reference. If there's one thing I'll be looking forward to, it's if the ending will finally answer whether or not this series is a part of Xenogears' continuity.

And don't you dare answer that.

How ya doing, buddy?

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.

FELIPE NO

Very Minor Spoiler: It's just the ending credits.

Spoiler:

Very Major Spoiler: This scene almost made me cry. ,_,

Spoiler:

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

Played about 4-5 hours. Not gonna go into any detail because I'm *gasp* addicted. I'm honestly shocked at how well this game's turned out thus far. Bravo, Monolith.

More detailed impressions and a full review coming whenever I finish it (should be sometime soon -- just got Yakuza and Okami's on the way).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

i find the enviroment awesome, especially in the first city man looking at that city makes me happy.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Enkidu

I suggest that you should play the game and base your opinion on that, instead of the screens and movies, since there are some terrific looking sceneries in the game.

I have the game already and really sweeping between those 3 games really show how big difference is in quality. Beside 45h? It's an RPG or Racing game? Ehh FF XII gave you 80 for fast finish game. I just finish Grandia III with 35h on timer. Doh games are shorter and shorter =(.

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