Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Written by Adam Woolcott  on June 19, 2006

First Impressions: Also starch kama sutra?

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Since its inception, the Xenosaga series has been a prime of example of love it or hate it, due to its more heavy-handed nature and of course, a heaping helping of non-interactive cutscenes that told some great stories but they were just that...non-interactive. Clearly the franchise has fallen more on the 'hate' end of the spectrum, as after Xenosaga Episode I released to Greatest Hit-caliber sales (likely due to the curiosity of this so-called prequel to the cult classic Xenogears), its sequel by and large was a bomb. It's because of this that the once six part Xenosaga tale has been chopped in half, and Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra will be the finale. Because of this Monolith isn't really bothering to adjust the game to regain their lost audience or even gain some new followers Ц instead, Xenosaga III is going to purely be a game for the fans, haters be damned.

Promising some 10 hours or so of cutscenes (that's what I mean by not bothering to make a game for the non-Xenophiles), Xenosaga III's story accelerates toward the end and promises that all loose ends will be tied up. Once again the game revolves around Shion Uzuki, a seemingly ordinary scientific genius who also has some mysterious powers that aren't yet explained. Picking up one year after the end of Xenosaga II, Shion has quit Vector due to her suspicions over the company and the Gnosis phenomenon, and joined an underground resistance known as Scientia. There's one problem with Shion ditching her job Ц it basically cuts her off from KOS-MOS, who is of course Vector property. Worse off, the KOS-MOS project was canned and she's been placed in storage in lieu of a far more dangerous project known as T-Elos. Those more...explorative likely will recognize the name from Xenosaga I, as it was seen on the U-TIC battleship...this itself adds some mystery to the plot.

Though Xenosaga III is aiming directly for the series fans rather than a new audience, the game will have something for people to catch up with if perhaps they missed Xeno II, forgot some stuff, or perhaps bought this 3rd game on a whim (or because they figure it will be rare and thus mega-valuable someday). Dubbed the Xeno Bible, this directory is comparable to the database from the original (which sadly was not present in #2), just expanded to include tons upon tons upon tons of information. It'll serve as a character database, explaining more about each PC and NPC than the game itself might, perhaps no matter how small a part they have. It'll have huge, almost Wikipedia-like descriptions of all the planets, towns, and conflicts. It's almost as if the Xeno Bible was constructed to fill in as much info as possible about the Xenoverse, seeing that the series has been cut in half. Just know it'll be so massive...you might spend hours upon hours reading if you're really into the story.

A reason why the series gets attacked for the emphasis on cutscenes is because the battle system seems to always be a bit inaccessible compared to the refined systems of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Shadow Hearts, or all the other turn-based RPG games of the recent years. Xenosaga I had some great ideas with tech attacks and deep customization, but was bogged down by a very deliberate pace and sometimes overbearing odds against brutal and opportunistic AI. Xenosaga II sped things up, but due to all the crazy changes like Zones and Stock, it almost felt slower than its predecessor even if attacking was so much faster. It also stripped away individual tech attacks, replacing them with generic skills and madly annoying Double Techs that were buried in bothersome sidequests and were a pain to pull off. And of course, Xenosaga II had no form of currency, so there was no upgrading weapons and buying accessories, making it feel quite stripped-down.

That's been swept away for Xeno III, as the battles will combine what was good about the original and what was good about its sequel, along with a couple new tricks. Gone are Double Techs, Zones, and Stock, but the speed of Xenosaga II's battles will be intact. Characters will again have their own special attacks (and Ether skills) that function like Overdrives or Limit Breaks or whatever Ц they can't always be used but as time goes on you probably can tweak them for more use as the game gets tougher. Mech combat doesn't seem to be much different from the original game, rather than the dumbed-down mech-based fights of Xeno II. Finally, while the main cast will be the primary fighters, a bit of fan-service is notable Ц there's a couple segments where you play as both Allen and Miyuki, Shion's assistants from Vector. That's not even mentioning the fan-service of Jin dressing up like Citan from Xenogears. Oh yeah Ц money will return and so will stores to spend the money in.