Xenosaga/Xenogears

[SineSwiper]

Xenosaga's story is engrossing, but it seems like the dialogue is very stilted at parts. Jr. annoys me, and Ziggy makes the best of what bad dialogue he has sometimes. (At least the voice actor is kick ass enough to pull it off.)

[Don]

Engrossing would imply the story of Xenosaga was comprehensible in the first place, which it is not, as there are many plot elements that are simply not possible to be understood because it's explained in the next game (or even later).

[SineSwiper]

Well, you can correlate enough of the storyline to Perfect Works to get an idea of what's going to happen.

[Don]

PW pretty much deals with only what happens from the Eldridge incident and forward, which takes place after Xenosaga. In fact the only similarity between Xenogears and Xenosaga is the existence of the Zohar. Other than that, they might as well be separate games.

[SineSwiper]

True, but there is plenty of stuff relating to the Xenosaga era; the intro to Xenogears, for example.

[Don]

They were transporting the Zohar/Deus on the Eldridge but that's about all the connection that's there. Miang/Elly came after the Eldridge got blown up and they're not really trying to explain why Nephlim exists (she's supposed to be Abel's mother but if you look at the age that can't possibly work out) and she's the only one that's got a real connection to Xenogears.

[SineSwiper]

Nephilim's an angel (Jewish word for angel), so "time" and "mother" are both relative. It's possible that they are the same one from XG and XS, but I dunno.

It's been so long since I've played Xenogears, so I barely remember the storyline. I plan on playing it over again when I finish with the Xenosaga series.

[Don]

Every person of importance in Xenosaga has a name that's supposed to have some cosmic significance. Chaos's name means like 'The Messiah'. Having a name like that means absolutely nothing with the way words are tossed around in that game.

Nephilims aren't the same class as Angels if I remember my religion correctly.

Nephlim and Jin Uzuki are some very blatant attempts to try to get people to play this game by pretending the two games are related, even though it doesn't even make sense (did Deus/Zohar just knew about this guy who was really good with a sword and he happened to be created around 5 Fei generations later as the Guardian of Solaris?)

[SineSwiper]

Every person of importance in Xenosaga has a name that's supposed to have some cosmic significance. Chaos's name means like 'The Messiah'. Having a name like that means absolutely nothing with the way words are tossed around in that game.

Quoting the Xenosaga 2 Database FAQ:

chaos has many interesting abilities: he can walk into rooms without
using the door, he can instantly kill Gnosis by touching them, he can
haunt peoples' daydreams, he can breathe in space--the list goes on
and on, and considering his real name is Yeshua, it's no wonder why.
'Yeshua' is the Jewish name for 'Jesus', who is the Messiah, which
the Patriarch mentions. (Note that he mentions 'Messiah', not
Jesus.)

chaos seems to have some kind of past with Wilhelm and the
Testaments; he and Wilhelm can telepathically speak with each other
and the Blue Testament, Virgil, calls chaos 'boss' at one point in
Episode I. Details are unknown.

Nephilims aren't the same class as Angels if I remember my religion correctly.

Also from the FAQ:

#Nephilim
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A little girl bearing the resemblance of Elly, a character from
Xenogears. She also shares Elly's jewelry, a cross.

In Xenosaga, at first Nephilim's sole purpose seems to help Febronia
get Shion to save her sisters, but she speaks with chaos as if she
knows him, and then later appears by his side at the end of Episode
II. She--like chaos--seems aware of everything that is going on,
and considering she also appears in Shion's 'dreams' with the Zohar,
it can be assumed that she is no different from him.

The Song of Nephilim was named after her for a reason we don't know,
but she may very well be the one who sings it. Ironic, since
whenever Nephilim shows up, so too does a bunch of Gnosis.

Just what a nephilim is is a great controversy within the Christian
church, but most Hebrew authors--and Xenosaga seems to have a Hebrew
perspective--believe that nephilims were angels or lesser gods.

Nephlim and Jin Uzuki are some very blatant attempts to try to get people to play this game by pretending the two games are related, even though it doesn't even make sense (did Deus/Zohar just knew about this guy who was really good with a sword and he happened to be created around 5 Fei generations later as the Guardian of Solaris?)

Most people believe Jin might be related to Citan Uzuki from
Xenogears, but that's just dead wrong. Citan gained the last name
'Uzuki' from his wife, Yui, and *she* was the one who taught him how
to use and gave him his sword. Therefore, if Jin (and his family,
and Shion) are related to anyone, it is most definitely Yui.

[Don]

So I guess you believe that it is purely coincidental that Jin Uzuki looks the same as Citan Uzuki and Nephilim and Elly looks the same? Just like Sephiroth happens to have a good reason to be in Kingdom Hearts that's not related to the fact that he's mega popular and sells games?

You should also stop quoting random explanations by guys who are obviously failed to understand that the game isn't supposed to make sense and made up some random stuff so it would. Even the game supports the conclusion that it doesn't make sense because everything is suppose to be revealed in the later games.

For example, the FAQ you quoted talks about how Albedo is immortal because his telomerse doesn't get shorter. This is blatantly wrong because we call that cancer in the real world and this definitely doesn't lead to immortality. You can say well this is science fiction, except Xenosaga pretends it is in a universe that has some semblance to the real world and we know that's not how the real universe works. Now if Albedo was drinking Jesus Juice from U-DO and become immortal, that at least is okay since we don't have any parallels to that within our knowledge in the real world. When you're tossing out so many random religious/science terms you can't say 'this is fiction' because obviously everything in Xenosaga has an implied religious/scientific counterpart so they have to work with what we know.

To use a good example from Lain, you got the guy who say "We're guys with no name" and moments later it was revealed one of them was named Karl. You're trying to rationalize why one of those guy's name is Karl even though the only reasonable explanation is whoever wrote this part totally screwed up, since you'd either expect these guys either to really not have a name, or have some names that have some profound significance, which is definitely not Karl.

[SineSwiper]

So I guess you believe that it is purely coincidental that Jin Uzuki looks the same as Citan Uzuki and Nephilim and Elly looks the same?

Hmmm...besides the long hair and use of a sword, they don't look anything alike.

As far as Nephilim and Elly, the possibility exists that she may have been a part of the story in Xenogears, such as the girl in the intro to Xenogears. Gee, we can only speculate BECAUSE THE FUCKING GAME HASN'T FINISHED YET!!

Why must you be so fucking agreviating?! I seriously believe you only argue for that point of argument. You don't learn any new information or listen to what the other person says; you just argue the same point over and over again.

You should also stop quoting random explanations by guys who are obviously failed to understand that the game isn't supposed to make sense and made up some random stuff so it would. Even the game supports the conclusion that it doesn't make sense because everything is suppose to be revealed in the later games.

One, you're equating "doesn't make sense" to "will be revealed later". That's stupid and wrong. There's a big difference between foreshadowing and random gibbrish.

For example, the FAQ you quoted talks about how Albedo is immortal because his telomerse doesn't get shorter. This is blatantly wrong because we call that cancer in the real world and this definitely doesn't lead to immortality.

I'm sorry. I didn't know you were studying for cellular biology. Cancer is not caused by infinite telomerase. It's caused by the warping of cells and further copying of those cells.

And no, the FAQ didn't just make that up. This was something that was in the game.

You can say well this is science fiction, except Xenosaga pretends it is in a universe that has some semblance to the real world and we know that's not how the real universe works. Now if Albedo was drinking Jesus Juice from U-DO and become immortal, that at least is okay since we don't have any parallels to that within our knowledge in the real world. When you're tossing out so many random religious/science terms you can't say 'this is fiction' because obviously everything in Xenosaga has an implied religious/scientific counterpart so they have to work with what we know.

Give me some examples. Please.

To use a good example from Lain, you got the guy who say "We're guys with no name" and moments later it was revealed one of them was named Karl. You're trying to rationalize why one of those guy's name is Karl even though the only reasonable explanation is whoever wrote this part totally screwed up, since you'd either expect these guys either to really not have a name, or have some names that have some profound significance, which is definitely not Karl.

Wait. Who's Karl? Oh, wait, you're using an example from SE Lain, not Xenosaga, right? Please stick with the subject at hand, okay? We aren't talking about Lain, but Xenosaga and Xenogears. If you want to point out some flaws with the XG/XS story, point them out, instead of using some other example as a proxy. I'm not saying XG/XS is perfect, or even translated completely right, but it seems good enough to be able to piece together all of the elements of the story.

[SineSwiper]

Hell, I don't even know why I'm arguing with you. Your premise is that Xenosaga and Xenogears have nothing do with each other, even though there's already a few elements that show up within the Xenosaga series (Zohar, Abel's Ark, possible character matches) -AND- THE GODDAMN SERIES HASN'T FINISHED YET!!!

Fucking Christ! You're not even giving the guys a chance to tell the fucking story before you say that they aren't going to link the two together, and proclaim that the whole series is an attempt to profit off of their success of Xenogears! That's about as fucking idiotic as reading halfway through a book, and say "Nevermind, the ending is going to suck" even though you've never read the book all the way through.

[Don]

Saying Xenosaga is not done is like saying the Megaman series and X series aren't done so there's still some remote possibility everything suddenly makes sense from Megaman to X to Zero series even though the information actually contradicts each other. Xenosaga is about an average sized RPG in terms of length and after 2 games there's still no concrete information to base anything on because everything that matter is still unexplained. This is supposed to be a good story? It's more like no story and send more money and maybe they'll finish making the other games (and seeing Xenosaga was a huge loss of money for Namco, maybe the games will never get finished).

As for examples where it doesn't make sense, I thought the Albedo one was pretty self explanatory when you've the game's main villian's power coming from a scientific-ish source (infinitely long telomerse) that also directly violates anything we knew about science. There's also stuff like KOS-MOS having a weapon (X-Buster) that can wipe out all the Gnosis in the nearest AU that somehow no one noticed while doing diagnosis. Must be some seriously powerful blackboxes in her indeed.

As for the whole profit off of Xenogears issue, you know that Jin Uzuki was named Hyuga (Citan's name) in the original/fake Xeno1 trailer when he had a duel with Margulis, right?

[SineSwiper]

The XS series is 10,000 years before the XG series, so of course a lot of elements between the two won't get answered until near the end. It's not like they are going to waste time with 10 different games until they finish the story. (Side stories maybe, such as Pied Piper.) XG is supposed to be either the 4th or 5th "episode" in the series, so they have 1-2 more games to go.

Also, Xenosaga/Xenogears has produced a PSX game, an large art book, two PS2 games, a mobile game, a DS game in the works, and a goddamn dating sim, so I doubt they are losing money from it. Either that, or they are continuing to make money from a losing francise. (Namco's figures are also a bit skewed, considering their biggest money maker is 2.5 million copies of Namco Museum and 1.3 million copies of PacMan Museum, compared to 262,000 copies of Tekken 4 or 660,000 copies of Soul Calibre 2. Honestly, that's just sad.)

[Don]

The closest thing I can find on Xenosaga sales is from this newsletter thing from IGN:

Episode II has only been out for a few weeks in the US, so the American sales numbers aren't available yet, but the first one sold very well both here if that cheers you up. The game won't be released in Europe for a few more months either, so that just leaves the Japanese sales which, last I checked, were hovering somewhere around the 300,000 mark (roughly half what Namco projected, but still strong sales). I wouldn't worry that the series is going anywhere. It's extremely popular in both Japan and the US and Namco considers it to be one of its A-list franchises.

I'd hardly call half of projected sales a sign of healthy business. I really doubt US & Europe numbers would outsell projection by 300K so it is at best doing less than whatever it was projected to sell. Consider the Tales of XXX series sells for more copioes and is basically mass produced (1 comes out every year as opposed to 2-3 in Xenosaga's case) it's hard for me to imagine Xenosaga being more profitable than Tales. I don't see how a game that makes uses of CG so heavily like Xenosaga could've a low budget and 300K in the land of RPGs isn't that assuring.

[SineSwiper]

RPGs still aren't a big market. That being said, Tales sold higher than Tekken 4. I didn't say Tales is more profitable than Xenosaga; quit putting words in my mouth! Who cares if Tales sells more? Why are we having this argument over sales now?!

[Don]

Err that's because you were asking how you think it's probably not losing money.

Since I think only Namco knows the development cost I can only look at sales by other things in the company. There is at least no indication that this is a product that's doing particularly well.

[Nev]

Are you guys having fun? I had an inkling in glancing at this thread how some of my arguments might look to someone else.

[SineSwiper]

Loads of fun. Go play Xenosaga when you get the chance.

[Don]

BTW the Jin picture wouldn't show earlier when I was at work. It looks like they redesigned him a little bit. I'm guessing you didn't see his original design which they showed in a trailer in a sword duel with Margulis for Xenosaga 1 that turned out to be fake. It was in that trailer that his name was revealed to be Hyuga (same as Citan's) and he looks a lot more similar to Citan back then.

I guess in between the games they decided it was a bad idea and redesigned him.

[Julius Seeker]

Just for a bit of Clarification. Xenogears will not be the equivilent to Xenosaga episode 5. Xenogears is Perfect Works Episode 5.

Xenosaga Episode 1, 2, and 3 are all chapters of Perfect Works Episode I, and Xenosaga Episode 4 which is also in the works (started at the same time as episode 3) I assume will be Perfect Works Episode 2, or perhaps Perfect Works Episode III since it takes place during a very major era. Episode II deals with the creation of Miang, the Gazel order, and the beginnings of humanity. Episode III is the era of high technology, Zeboim is a part of this era, there is a lot of potential for major story telling here.

Episode I; the central point here is the creation of the Deus weapon; its components are Merkaba (we have seen proto-Merkaba already), the Zohar, and apparently the Gnosis; at the end of episode 1 we see a Proto-Deus.