Summary
Impressive and satisfying end to the ambitious trilogy
The Good
Like many other fans, I have been impatiently waiting for the concluding chapter of the promising sci-fi RPG saga. I got the game a few days after its North American release, brought it back home, and with shaking hands inserted Disc A into my Playstation 2 DVD drive. And it was during a serious gaming crisis, at the time I was dismantling my game collection and losing interest towards games in general! The impact of the first two episodes on the fans of Japanese RPGs was huge. Everybody were eager to find out how the majestic story ended. But at the same time, some gamers expressed their doubts about the third episode. They said it was impossible to wrap up such a huge and complex story with only one installment left, especially after
Episode II did more to present new mysteries than to solve the old ones.
In the end, the fears of those skeptical minds were unjustified. Perhaps the best part about Episode III is the satisfaction it gives to the fans of the series by concluding the story in a way that leaves almost no room for complaints. The saga is complete now. All the questions are answered, all the mysteries resolved. Episode III does an absolutely remarkable job of putting all those loose ends together and bringing the whole thing to its ultimate conclusion.
The sheer complexity of the game's story is simply astounding. This is by far the most complicated plot I have ever seen in a video game. The amount of characters, places, names, organizations, scientific concepts is overwhelming. They have included an in-game database which you can browse by all these categories. It's a really helpful addition, because you'll probably have trouble remembering all those names. The gigantic proportions of the game are absolutely awe-inspiring.
But don't think for a moment that they just did a big mess out of characters and organizations, without caring for logic and consistency. No, they handled the almost unbearably complex plot with brilliancy. Nothing was left out. Every event that seemed out of place in Episode I or II was explained properly. Every character's motives became fully revealed. So many unanswered questions were given full attention. Backgrounds of all the characters were expanded even more. With the maximum clarity, they achieved maximum complexity. The architecture of the story line in Episode III is truly outstanding. They did a commendable job in stuffing the final episode with as much content as possible, at the same time striving for logical and natural story development.
Now it is finally possible to judge the plot of the series as a whole. And yes, the plot is very good. Of course, sometimes it sacrifices depth for the sake of complexity. If you are looking for realistic depiction of emotions, finely crafted character development and relationships, this is not the right address. Xenosaga is all about complexity and intellectual challenge. You'll find here plenty of interesting ideas and a lot of symbolism, mostly of religious kind. The religious and philosophical references finally make sense in this last installment. The Nietzsche titles are not there just for decoration. And the countless names and themes from Judaism and Christianity proved to be rather coherent, even though some of them are still there just for embellishment. There are also much more serious ties to the plot of
Xenogears in this episode.
Overall, the story of Xenosaga is your typical Japanese tale about the world, humanity, God, and everything else. Overblown, world-embracing, ultra-epic, larger-than-life, and corny in mixing deep philosophical concepts with soap opera. But the utmost complexity of Xenosaga, the brilliant architecture of its plot, all those twists and turns make it more than just another boring repetition of the old formula. Sure, you won't find anything really original in this story. But you'll be still curious to find out how it ends. Maybe it provides more pure entertainment than true thought-provoking content, but this entertainment is of highest quality. Playing Xenosaga is like reading some ultra-complex novel with supernatural, sci-fi, and detective/mystery elements, all spiced up with fictional history, mythology, and religious ideas.
There is an enormous amount of characters in Xenosaga. Good guys, bad guys, good/bad guys, less important guys - everyone is given attention here. Every player will surely find some likable characters for his own taste in this game. The characters are perhaps more colorful than really deep, but at least they are not one-dimensional, every character is given full background, and only few stay in the shadow. Most of the villains are also well-developed, with well-explained, logical motivations; some of them tend to moral ambiguity, which is always a big plus. Along with the traditional good guys wanting to save the world, and bad guys wanting to do something bad to it, all of them seeking or using some mysterious ultra-powerful something, there are some more "earthy" types, one of them being my favorite character in the whole series: Allen Ridgeley, a sort of a semi-comical, awkward "anti-hero", who really grows in Episode III and shows there is still place for non-cliché characters in a Japanese RPG. Otherwise, expect a lot of those clichés, but almost all presented with style and fitting the environment.
Now to the gameplay. A lot of people complained about the overly complex gameplay system of Episode II. I must say I really liked it, but the system in Episode III is in no way inferior. Regular battles have become simpler. Your normal attacks are now done in standard manner, just by selecting "attack" from a menu, instead of executing combos, like in the first two games. The best part about the gameplay system is the skill system. Each character has now his/her own "skill tree" with two branches: you can view all the skills a character can learn, and decide which branch to follow. The system is certainly not as deep as the similar mantra system in
Digital Devil Saga games, but it is effective and interesting. The skills are well balanced, and there is enough room for experimentation. The break system from Episode II also plays an important role in this final chapter. You'll have special break skills, which will increase the enemy's break meter and render him immobile for two turns, during which you'll also have a higher chance of critical hits. It is really satisfying to gradually break your enemy and then punish him with the strongest attacks. In boss battles, it becomes an indispensable strategy element. Giant robot (E.S.) battles are naturally also present in this installment, and are given much more attention than in the two previous titles. There are more robot dungeons, more boss battles, and the battle system is more refined and deep than before.
As for graphics and music, Episode III is clearly superior to its predecessors. The graphics are simply wonderful: Episode III is easily one of the best-looking titles on Playstation 2. It looks like it pushes the hardware capability to the limit. Some locations are absolutely beautiful to behold. The music, one of the most disappointing aspects of Episode I, is really excellent in the final installment. From mellow piano tunes to majestic religious-sounding boss battle music, the score of Episode III is nearly impeccable.
The Bad
Just like with the previous two games, my biggest problem with the third episode was the quality of the dialogues. Xenosaga is extremely story-driven. Most people will play it just for the story. So it would be natural to expect a high-quality script and dialogues to match it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even though the story is really outstanding, the dialogues are for the most part boring and uninspired. At most, they do their job of advancing the story. But I expected so much more. Some characteristic patterns of speech, clever sentences, maybe some humor.
Lunar and
Shadow Hearts proved that all those things can co-exist very well with an emotional, world-embracing story. Sadly, all the characters in Xenosaga speak more or less the same way. They simply gradually explain to us the monstrously complex story line. For the most time they talk like information robots, their phrases being too round and unnatural.
I really hate this Japanese tradition of dragging the dialogues indefinitely by countering each phrase with its meaningless repetition. "We have found the Zohar!" - "You have found the Zohar?!" - "We shall use it for out purposes!" - "Your purposes?!" - "To dominate the world!" - "To dominate the world?!" and so on, and so on. Oh, please... I have a headache already! Almost equally annoying (although much less frequent) is Shion's habit to nod in approval and to utter a silly "un!" when she agrees with something. Come on, Shion, you are a futuristic engineer, not a Japanese schoolgirl!
The voice acting is also average at best. During cut scenes, you can really feel how the voice actors read their lines. They seem to make an effort to match the speech with the subtitles, which is plain ridiculous: it should have been the other way around. As a result we have some very unnatural pauses in the middle of sentences, for example: "I think I'll go... (waiting for the subtitles to change) to the city. I want to see... (waiting for subtitles to change) if there's something new there". In a game with an ambitious, deep story and high-standard production values, such unprofessional handling of voice acting is absolutely out of place.
Xenosaga has plenty of dramatic cut scenes and emotional moments. It is such a pity that the voice acting rarely reflects the tension of the moment or the power of feelings that the cut scene is supposed to express. The voice actors always speak too comfortably, too clearly, too smoothly. It is a bad sign that the most acceptable voice acting in the game comes from Ziggy. As a cyborg who tries to forget his human past and to repress his emotions, he has quite an adequate voice. The problem is, all the rest are acting exactly the same way, only they don't have this excuse.
The extreme linearity and narrow navigation from the two previous games are still present in this installment. Xenosaga will certainly not win any awards for exploration possibilities. The game world is small and the navigation is very straightforward. It's not that I absolutely must have a world map, but it would be nice to be able to explore those huge futuristic cities on your own. Such as they are in this game, those cities are little more than background scenery. You can only explore tiny districts and enter a couple of buildings. All the side-quests take place in the same old locations, you just have to re-visit them to discover some secrets. There are no optional locations, generally too many dungeons and barely some "friendly" areas to visit. And you can't physically navigate a space ship. Pity.
I really hope this will be the last Japanese RPG without camera-rotating. Admittedly, the automatic camera angles are nice, but how many times do I have to say this: I want to look at those environments from
any possible angle! You've made such beautiful graphics for the game, why do you only show us glimpses of them, not letting us admire them in their whole beauty?
And are you seriously saying they will still listen to Wagner's music thousands of years into the future?! I'm going to scream!!..
The Bottom Line
Summary for the whole trilogy:
+ Insanely complex story line
+ Huge amount of characters with full backgrounds
+ Very cinematic
+ Solid, entertaining gameplay system
+ Overall good production values
- The dialogues are not good enough to match the quality of the story
- Voice acting leaves a lot to be desired as well
- No physical space travel
Now the saga has finally reached its end, making it possible to pass the final verdict to the entire series. In many ways, Xenosaga tries too much: its story is over-complicated, and average script and voice acting do little to support it. But precisely thanks to its gigantic proportions and mind-blowing complexity, Xenosaga became the ultimate animé-style space opera among video games. Even though I was bothered by its shortcomings more than once, I appreciate very much the tremendous effort.
