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Xenosaga
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Game Name:
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Xenosaga |
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Console:
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PC |
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Reviewed:
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Unknown |
Xenosaga is a prequel to a Playstation game called Xenogears. It’s slightly odd in that though as it’s by the same team who made Xenogears but they no longer work for the same company (Squaresoft). There are many similarities to Xenogears but this game stands on its own – it is rumored that they plan to make more prequels up to the events in Xenogears and possibly even a remake of Xenogears. Certainly Xenosaga 2 is already out and number 3 is said to be in production. Xenogears itself followed the Star Wars formula for episodes – at the end of the game it said “End of Episode V”. Xenogears never made it to a European release (nor did Xenosaga), presumably because of its religious overtones. The game made many references to Christian bible, but it reworked them into its own story. For example, during the game you visit the tower of Babel, but the tower is actually part of a downed spacecraft.
Xenosaga has fewer religious references although they are still on the fringes. The game is set in the future. Humanity is now out in the stars and currently involved in a war against a strange enemy called the Gnosis. Earth is “lost”, for some reason not yet explained the human race had to flee the planet. For that matter, the planet they fled to is also lost due to some nasty spatial anomalies. The plot seems to imply that these events are linked and linked to the battle against the Gnosis. They also seem to be linked to a mysterious series of artifacts that have been found, the first one being found in the past on Earth.
The game is an RPG but it breaks many of the old conventions. Battles aren’t random - you will actually see your enemy wandering around and have the chance to avoid them or possibly even weaken them before the battle. For many of your characters you have two options for fighting opponents, you can either attack them on foot are climb into an A.G.W.S which is a large mechanized battle armor. Only a small number of characters have access to an A.G.W.S though.
During combat you have access to a variety of techniques. You can use things like physical attacks on your opponents, ether skills and tech attacks. The physical and tech attacks each have special properties. They can be physical or ether based, some might be slashing attacks, others are piercing attacks and some have elemental attributes – many have a combination of attributes. Different enemies have different vulnerabilities so you can target their weaknesses with the right attack. Characters do gain levels as per a normal RPG, but you also gain skill points through killing enemies. These can be spent on upgrading skills or purchasing new ones. You can also spend points on improving your characters stats.
While combat is progressing there will be a small dial which rotates one step as each character takes their turn. This dial has four values which can affect the result of each attack. The first value is nothing – no special changes for that turn. The second is critical – a critical attack is far more likely to occur in that round. The third is a bonus multiplier for skill points earned – this only applies if the enemy dies in that round. The final is a boost to the battle gauge of whoever acts in that round. Note that this gauge applies to everyone – for enemies only the critical hits and boost gauges mean anything though.
The boost gauge allows combatants to jump ahead of their turn in combat by forcing their turn to come next. This requires a certain amount on the boost gauge though. Some enemies can boost and even counter boost by immediately attacking after an attack on them. Boosting has limits though – the game will show the next few people whose turn is coming up (including enemies). You can only boost if you aren’t shown on this display, this rule doesn’t apply to counter boosting though (which your characters can’t do). This can be used tactically to ensure your character gets their turn during the critical stage for example. However, a counter boost can push ahead of a normal boost. To boost you need to give the order to boost while the current combatant is having their turn. Boosting can only be queued for one combatant though so if an enemy boosts firsts you are out of luck.
Prior to battle you might notice certain barrels lying around in the game area. These can be destroyed to produce an energy blast that affects any enemies nearby. This blast doesn’t do actual damage but can restrict your enemies in some way if you attack them while the energy is still affecting them.
During a fight your character has a certain number of action points. Each character is given 4 new action points each round. They can store action points by not using them all in the current round so as to perform an action that takes more action points in a later round. You can store up to six action points. Each action has a different number of points required so a character might be able to pull off several attack moves during their turn. Normal attacks can also be linked into tech attacks. To use a tech attack you have to assign it to a certain number of preliminary attacks. Once you execute these attacks you can then unleash the tech attack, provided you have enough action points. For example, you might need to perform two physical attacks before unleashing a particular attack (normal attacks are either physical or ether based) – this requires six action points to perform. However, you can spend skill points to upgrade your tech attacks to be faster so that they might only require one physical attack in advance. This allows you to pull them off every turn in combat. You have only six slots for setting tech attacks – these are for each combination of physical and ether attacks. Your character might know more than six tech attacks so you need to choose which you wish to have equipped.
If a character summons their A.G.W.S during a fight they have a much more limited range of moves – mostly they can attack or use items. You’d think that jumping into a large fighting machine would make a character far more powerful. Strangely this isn’t the case. As a rule I find an A.G.W.S is at best on par with the character when on foot. In general it’s less than that since you can’t use special techniques and the heavy armour of the A.G.W.S doesn’t seem to stop it taking lots of damage either. On the other hand, the A.G.W.S has its own hitpoints so if a character is close to dying it might be a good idea to have them board their A.G.W.S to improve their survival odds for a while. If the A.G.W.S runs out of hitpoints you are stuck in it – it’s a good idea to jump out before then. Each A.G.W.S can be upgraded with things like better weapons and special equipment.
The plot of the game is pretty complex. Humanity is involved in a war with the mysterious Gnosis. The Gnosis seem to defy the laws of physics, they can walk straight through walls and are immune to conventional weaponry. To counter them, a special android has been made called KOS-MOS. KOS-MOS looks much like a blue haired young woman. Her body language is one of the few things indicating that she isn’t human though – that and her ability to transform body parts into weapons. The original version of KOS-MOS was involved in a tragic incident - when she was due to be first tested a group of soldiers broke in to tried and capture her. This caused a malfunction and KOS-MOS began killing everyone in sight. Her original creator was also killed. However, his assistant (and girlfriend) Shion Uzuki survived. Shion is another of the main characters in Xenosaga, she has built a new KOS-MOS which is undergoing testing in VR when the Gnosis attack the ship she is on. KOS-MOS activates seemingly by herself and almost like the previous time she awakens. This time, however, she begins fighting the Gnosis instead of the humans. KOS-MOS has a special power called the Hilbert effect which can neutralize the Gnosis ability to phase and thus remove their immunity to conventional weapons. KOS-MOS is acting strangely however; she seems to have been given a mission by someone and has only a limited willingness to obey Shion’s orders. The plot is a lot more involved than what I’ve outlined – it’s definitely not for people with a short attention span.
Other characters join the party as the game progresses. Ignoring the characters who merely follow but aren’t actually controllable, only Shion is a pure human. The others are all artificial or specially modified in some way. Ziggy is a cyborg who regrets his continued existence – as a human he tried to commit suicide but had already signed a contract allowing the Ziggurat Corporation to rebuild him as a cyborg in the event of his death. He is prevented from committing suicide again by him implants. However he has been gradually replacing his organic parts with mechanical components. His request for his current mission is for his old memories to be wiped. MOMO is a special kind of Realian. The Realians are kind of organic android which are specially made for serving humanity. They possess a certain amount of emotions in themselves although they don’t appear to have or want equal status. MOMO is a special version with superior sensory equipment built into her. She looks and acts much like a small, timid child. Junior is another artificial being who was designed to have special powers in order to fight an enemy called U-DO. He looks like a small child as well but his age is far greater. Chaos is an enigma, he looks like a young man but has unexplained powers. It’s hinted that he might be from a higher dimension.
Each character has different strengths and weaknesses. Ziggy, being a cyborg, is extremely strong and tough but is weak at ether type attacks as well as being a bit slow. Junior is a gunslinger and all of his attacks are ranged letting him attack airborne targets. MOMO is strong with ether techniques but weak at physical attacks – she does compliment Ziggy though as they have some techniques they can only use when the other is present. Your party will vary throughout the game as the plot progresses but you can have at most three characters for combat.
There are a variety of minigames throughout Xenosaga – you can gamble in a casino, play a drilling minigame and even play a special card game using cards you find throughout the game. These can be rewarding as you might get prizes if you win. There is a special simulator mode called an Encephelon Dive in the game which lets you revisit areas you have been in. This can be used to collect items you missed, even though it’s a simulator you still keep the items in the real world. You can encounter enemies during the dive and combat works like reality. The dive is also required for a game long subquest – apparently the construction droids who make everything have a glitch which makes them build these special locked doors. If you find the key to a door you can go and unlock it and collect a treasure inside of it. Some of these doors have to be revisited in the simulator as you won’t have the key when you first reach them and can’t go back there in the real world.
Xenogears is not without its faults however. The sheer amount of options for each character can be confusing or overwhelming since there are so many ways to customize each person. The tech attacks are a good example of this problem, it’s hard to decide if you should concentrate on the skills you’ve developed or focus on the new skills you get as the game progresses. Also, unlike other RPGs, characters not in your current party don’t gain any experience if they aren’t being used to fight with. The sound in Xenosaga has a very strange problem that seems to have no solution – the speech and music are both locked at the same volume. This often makes it hard to hear what characters are saying. There are some odd parts of the game where certain special events only trigger if you have a particular character in your party or at the head of your party. This is a bit annoying as nothing short of a game guide or blind chance will clue you in.
Another facet of the game which could be considered a good or a bad thing – depending on your point of view, is the cutscenes. They are long, and they are many. I mean really long, and very numerous. I think some of them even run for half an hour or so. This allows the plot to advance nicely but might not be so thrilling to anyone wanting lots of action. Thankfully the game allows you pause or even skip cutscenes – a welcome change from games which don’t let you pause during a cutscene no matter how long it goes for.
It’s a bit unconventional but I think Xenosaga is a pretty good game. Anyone who likes anime should have no problems with the cutscenes and the RPG elements are good for anyone who likes customizing their party. At the end of the game you can make a save to load into Xenosaga 2. From what I understand this just seems to unlock some content – your character skills don’t actually cross over. They seem to have the same amnesia that FF-X characters have when moving to FFX-2. Speaking of which, the voice actress in FFX who does Yuna also does the voice for Shion in Xenosaga (but not the second one). The voice for MOMO is done by the voice actress who does Sasami in the Tenchi anime. This was a little off putting to be honest since I’m used to expecting those characters when I hear those voices.
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