About Xenosaga

Xenosaga is arguably one of the most epic, expansive, complicated, and religious stories in video gaming. Spanning three full episodes and several spin offs, Xenosaga tells a deep and thrilling sci-fi tale about a universe on the brink of annihilation, but even more than that, the people of that universe. The way the PS2 RPG trilogy weaves this tale is unparalleled in the world of role playing games, and arguably gaming and the sci-fi genre themselves. The rich symbolism, philosophy, character depth, and perhaps even in some cases realism, of these games is precisely why fans cherish them so much. If you are one of the people who love these games, read on. If you’ve never played them, I hope that this article encourages you to do so.

Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zer Macht
The first episode in the trilogy begins with the discovery of the Zohar; an important spiritual artifact, and one of the relics of God, in Africa during the late 21st century AD. The game then fast forwards more than 4000 years to the future, to the starship Woglinde. Earth has long been destroyed, and man kind now exist only in deep space. On the starship, the player finds Shion Uzuki performing her daily maintenance on the anti-gnosis battle android KOS-MOS, made by Vector industries. All seems like a normal day on the starship, until a large-scale gnosis attack occurs. The gnosis, a mysterious and hostile alien species, are after the Zohar emulator kept and guarded in the Woglinde’s hangar. For Shion, all hope seems lost until surprisingly KOS-MOS awakens rescuing Shion and her and some of her fellow colleagues. They escape and then find themselves on a small cargo ship called the Elsa, owned by Captain Matthews and his crew, one of which is a mysterious silver haired boy named chaos (writer’s note: chaos‘ name is not supposed to be capitalized). Little do they know, that this is where the real adventure begins. In a nutshell, the first entry in the series used a very interesting chain of events to begin to familiarize us with a much bigger picture.

The game play and graphics of Episode I were a feat for the time. The games 2001 Japanese and 2002 American release greatly excited the world of RPG gaming. Review magazines and websites gave it critical acclaim and was considered a direct rival for the best RPG of the time-Final Fantasy X. The graphics were stunning for the time. It’s very hard to tell the difference between game play and cut scene, but not because the cut scenes were poor, but because the character models were some of the best ever made at the time. The anime styled visuals, while different from the others in the series, gave the first game charm and expression. Many today believe that it had the best art direction of the trilogy, while others deem it “super deformed” or “dated” style anime. It’s commonly believed that the developers changed the art style to fit the serious tone of the story.

The game play was also critically acclaimed and loved by many. While some may consider it a tad on the slow side, the tech attacks (powerful attacks, much like Final Fantasy overdrives), coupled with the innovative “Boost Gauge” (which allows characters to gain an extra turn, and if executed correctly, interrupt chains of enemy attacks) and “Stock” mechanics (charging ability points to chain attacks), made strategizing battles both fun and challenging. Players could also pilot mechs in battle, much like summons in other RPGS. Characters gained experience and leveled up like in most RPGS, but the player also had to develop each characters skill grid, manage their tech attack levels, and use skill points for other bonuses. The first two games are also unique for favoring button presses over the standard menus. The few critiques the game received included: lack of sound in dungeons and towns, certain environments which felt “repeated” or were visually “boring”, and too many cut-scenes leaving only a few hours of actually play time. Using the “o” button for selection and the “x” button for canceling, while fairly easy to get used to, is also seen as one of the trilogies oddities.

Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
The second episode begins directly after the ending of Episode I. In this episode, the player begins to uncover the past of the characters introduced in Episode I. Namely Jr. and his brothers Gaignun and Albedo. Xenosaga took a break from the gnosis phenomena it seems, to focus on this character development. The story of the three URTV is dark, emotional and filled with foreshadowing. Much about many of the political issues mentioned in the first episode are put in to clearer detail in the second. New characters are introduced, and plot twist are formed but more than anything the second episode provided players with vital pieces to understanding the rest of what was going to be a six part series. Sadly, poor sales of II brought six down to three. Never the less, the plot of episode II is dramatic and enjoyable. Even if it felt like a side story at the time, it was still a very, very intense and interesting “Jr. centric” story that provided vital details to the final episode along the way.

The game play of Episode II, however; was highly criticized. Although many fans and critics often deemed the battle system to be to complicated, others found it to be a fun and challenging improvement on the first episodes formula. The battle system remained button based, but instead of tech attacks, players now relied on chaining combos with the newly shared boost gauge. Combo attacks were executed by exploiting enemy zones and boosting characters while the enemy was weakened. Doubles were also introduced. While they provided attractive visuals and sometimes touching scenes between characters, they almost failed entirely at being useful. The fact that they ate a certain amount of stock and at least one bar of boost, coupled with the fact that a combo attack could do far greater damage was to blame for this. Mechs were also used in this game, but instead of summoning them at will, players had certain mech-only dungeons to play through. Surprisingly, this worked out for the better adding more depth to the game play and making them fun to use. The character development was simplified this time around. Characters now learned from the same “grid” and could all have the same skills if you wished. This simplification, unfortunately, took the depth and reward from developing each character as an individual. Outside of battle players roamed through dungeons and towns, which now sometimes had the occasional puzzle. The Global Samaritan side missions were also added and received mixed impressions among players. Some enjoyed having extra side quest and replay value, and others found them annoying and tedious.

Other than the changes in the battle system and game play, the game was criticized for its art direction. Characters now sported a realistic style. This benefited some characters and hurt others. For example, Shion and Jr. are commonly stated as looking better in II, but the designs for MOMO, KOS-MOS and chaos were hurt by the new art style. Some characters, mainly the adult males, however, looked almost exactly the same and had little change in design. (IE: Ziggy, Albedo, Allen). However, it was noted that the environments for II were much more attractive than the first game. The voice acting for II also had a few changes, and again with mixed reception. The new voices for MOMO and KOS-MOS were highly criticized, and the new voice for chaos received mixed appeal. KOS-MOS’ voice in II was generally received as being much too human compared to her episode I voice, while MOMO’s was seen as too loud and childish. The main opinion on chaos’ voice was that it was darker and less cheerful than his original, but weather this was a good thing depends on the player.

Xenosaga Episode III: Also sparch Zarathustra
The third and final primary episode focused mainly on closing the two character arcs established in the first two. Beginning one year after the ending of Episode II, Shion has now left Vector industries and the KOS-MOS project to do under cover work for an anti-UMN organization called Scientia. Her goal is to reveal Vector’s past and find the ultimate truth of both the events of the Miltian conflict and herself. Meanwhile the government, for unknown reasons has now pulled the plug on the KOS-MOS project, and has come out with a newer model named “T-elos”, that has an uncanny resemblance to the original KOS-MOS, but has at least 6 times the battle output. After these events is when the storyline really begins for III and leads you to the ultimate exciting climax of the whole series. Nearly all of the questions episode I left, and most of the ones II raised, have been answered. The series ended on a high climatic note, but the ending does appear to leave room for a possible spin-off.

The way Episode III plays is the perfect balance between the other two games. It brings many concepts from the second game back in refined form (ex: break attacks, shared boost gauge), as well as revive some of the best things about the first (ex: tech attacks), all the while giving it a new feel and interface. Players now select from Final Fantasy like text menus instead of pressing button patterns. This may feel strange at first if one has played the other two episodes, but it’s familiar enough from other games that it can be learned without much difficulty. The game-play also deepens the formula with the new Special Attacks and the “Finish Strike” system that rewards players for making a kill with a Special Attack (ex: .5 more experience and skill points, higher possibility for a rare item reward). The skill development in III was the best in the series. Characters not only learned certain skills via level-up, but also had a duel sided skill line from which they could learn ethers, tech attacks, and gain stats. The skill line had two sides, which let players develop the characters in varying ways, without taking from their personality. For example, MOMO has an “Attacker” line and a “Spell Attacker” line. This let players choose from making her an offensive piercing-type character, or a black mage. She also learned the games “white magic” ethers via level-up. Characters also learned “double”, “counter”, and “revenge” skills. Which let them automatically attack twice, attack after a doge, or attack after being attacked, respectively. Overall III had the deepest and easiest to understand battle system of the series.

The art for Episode III also achieves a state of complete balance. Going for an updated modern anime look, rather than realism or a “super-deformed” older anime look, make the visuals and art very pleasing to the eye and fitting for the game. The game now favored a mixture voiced text scenes and high quality cinema styled scenes, rather than doing most of them in animated game mode. The cinema scenes were gorgeous, reminiscent of the ones donned in modern Final Fantasy games, but occurred much more frequently than the would in any FF game. (For every few text scenes, there is a pretty lengthily cinema scene.) The cast, with exception to Ziggy, all got makeovers and looked much better than they did in II. The style fit everyone and everything was in place. The voice acting was superb, many of the episode I cast returned and the ones who did not seemed to have greatly improved their roles. The one critique to the localization, however; was the absence of blood which takes away from a few important scenes. This is easily forgiven because there aren’t too many times when it is needed anyway. Dungeons were gorgeously designed this time around, and shops have finally made their-much needed- return. With all of these improvements, one could say that Xenosaga III has the best production values in the trilogy.