Xenosaga: Episode I - Der Wille zur Macht

aka: Project X, Xenosaga Episode I: Chikara e no Ishi, Xenosaga Episode I: Reloaded, ゼノサガエピソードI:力への意志
Moby ID: 6230
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In the 21st century, a group of scientists discovered a mysterious monolith near the Lake Turkana in Kenya. The substance contained within it, which later received the name Zohar, has quickly become a source of immense power. Humanity was eventually able to reach the stars, founding the Galaxy Federation and colonizing known space.

In the year 4767 T.C. (Transcend Christ) or 7277 A.D., according to the old year-counting system, humanity has long left the planet Earth, which has been renamed Lost Jerusalem and erased from star maps, the way to it no longer known. The original Zohar substance has been proven to be too dangerous, and was sealed on the planet Old Miltia, most humans resorting to use less powerful device called Zohar emulators instead. However, some organizations still long to re-discover the true Zohar, believing it to be the path to Lost Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, a new race of aliens known as Gnosis has emerged. The Vector Corporation decides to develop an android called KOS-MOS to be the ultimate weapon against the Gnosis. Shion Uzuki is a young engineer leading this project. After having completed KOS-MOS, Shion and her team are attacked by the Gnosis. Through a series of events, Shion becomes the target of the terrorist U-TIC organization and other mysterious figures, whose goal seems to be the secret path to Old Miltia. Other characters become involved in the conflict, and eventually Shion realizes that she is not alone in her struggle, and that the initial Gnosis attack was but a small part of a complex, multi-layered conspiracy.

Xenosaga: Episode I - Der Wille zur Macht, the first chapter of a trilogy, is a Japanese-style sci-fi role-playing game, sharing many common themes and gameplay elements with Xenogears. The battle system is not unlike the one used in Xenogears (combo attacks, AP and EP gauges, etc.), but random encounters are eliminated. Instead, the enemies are now visible and battles can be avoided. During combat the few upcoming ally and enemy turns are shown onscreen, allowing the player to make strategic decisions based on who will act next. A rolling slot moves with each turn as well, conferring a bonus such as added damage or bonus XP for any action on that turn. If the enemy would be in position to take an advantage then the player can expend a character's boost gauge to cut in and act next, although enemies can boost as well, and enemy boosts always over-ride player boosts.

Each character has a unique tree of ether spells they can learn by spending ether points earned in battle, with lower spells requiring spells above them to be purchased first. After a spell is purchased, so long is it does not require a unique talent of that character, the spell can also be purchased and learned by any other character that can afford double its normal cost. The Anti-Gnosis Weapon Systems can be equipped with different weapons and accessories and can be used in combat provided that a character has enough AP on that turn to board their AGWS.

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

246 People (226 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Theme Songs
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Production Designers
Art Director
Event Planning Director
Quest Planning Director
Battle Planning Director
Map Planning Director
Programming Director
Event Programming Director
Battle Programming Director
CG Supervisor
Animation Director
Effects Director
Event Scenario Writer
2nd Unit Production Designers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 21 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 49 ratings with 4 reviews)

Goodbye Final Fantasy...Hello Xenosaga

The Good
Poorly distilled cliff note quality quasi-Jungian philosophy, pre-pubescent robot girls in miniskirts, a female lead so oblivious to the calamities around her that you want to punch her, and giant battling robots. It can only be another Japanese RPG, and despite what I just wrote, it's my favorite game of the last year.

Despite what many reviewers have said, Xenosaga is very much the prequel to Squaresoft's cult classic Xenogears, so players familiar with the latter know what to expect: one of the deepest and most satisfying stories you're ever likely to find in any RPG any time soon. Sure, by movie or novel standards Xenosaga's plot is as hackneyed as they come, but it makes for an astonishingly compelling RPG.

So what's it about? Damned if I know. In the future mankind has been forced to live a nomad-like existence in space. We are at war with an insectoid inter-dimensional race called the Gnosis whose only desire appears to be to wipe us out. Why? Damned if I know. Add in some monoliths straight out of 2001 a Space Odyssey, a whole bunch of religious symbolism, a robotic weapon that appears to be turning into a human, a cyborg who doesn't want to be human, a strange guy in hotpants that might be an angel and a villain who enjoys sucking the life force out of little girls, and you've got a heck of a lot of questions to be answered and one hell of an interesting plot.

It's all told in beautiful FMV sequences interspersed with your average puzzle solving and some good strategy oriented combat. Boss battles are particularly cool.

Some have complained about the amount of FMV in the first portion of the game, but I'd rather watch a (mostly) well voice acted FMV then scroll through pages of text (know what I mean Xenogears people?).

Characters and monsters are beautifully rendered and animated. Backgrounds are uniformly sterile and uninteresting.

Script has some super corny lines of dialogue (in a Japanese RPG? Surely not!) but is for the most part pretty compelling and well delivered.

The music is astonishingly good, but pretty sparse.

Bring on part II....I've got questions that need answering.

The Bad
Racing a giant stuffed bunny rabbit. What the heck was that, Namco? All this religious symbolism and dark characters, and I stumble upon a bunny right in the middle of nowhere....whatever. Lose the bunnies.

The Bottom Line
There is nothing out there (no, not even Final Fantasy X) that approaches the depth of plot and gameplay that Xenosaga offers. It's an almost flawless game and destined to be a classic RPG series. Buy it.

PLOT: 10/10, GRAPHICS: 10/10. CHARACTERS: 9/10. GAMEPLAY: 9/10, REPLAY: 4/10. OVERALL: 10/10.

PlayStation 2 · by Bog Trotter (6) · 2003

Great

The Good
I love the battle system. The people in the game are good. I like the way it looks. Everything about it is good!

The Bad
It can be hard sometimes...

The Bottom Line
I would say pick this game up, RPG fans!

PlayStation 2 · by mila morrison (1) · 2005

Squaresoft should learn a lot from this game

The Good
Whow, and I thought I saw everything in the game's realm. Huh, was I surprised when this piece of jewel knocked on my door. Can't say I am or ever was a fan or role-playing games of any kind, and SquareSoft was particularly brutal in making me dislike the genre. So, as they did Xenogears I was prepared for the worst, but was still hoping for the best as it wasn't developer by Squaresoft. Not only was this game much easier than any Squaresoft's RPG ever made, but it let you follow the story completely and addictively as you can and want, not marching you towards hourless upgrades just in order to pass some incredibly silly point you got stuck with. I'm not saying this game doesn't offer any challenges, it does indeed, but it lets you follow the story, which is the main thing every game should let you (unless it has no story, in which case extra hard bosses would be acceptable, I suppose). I barely reached somewhat below level 50, yet I had no trouble beating final bosses in my first attempt. Not to mention, various upgrading options were so confusing at first that I was playing it fully weak until much later in the game, and still didn't encounter too much of a problem. Gotta admire them for that.

The game itself doesn't seem like it has any pre-rendered cinematics except the very opening to the story premise, but ingame graphics is so cool and beautiful you will not cry for anything pre-rendered. Oh, and if you thought that Metal Gear Solid 2 has too much cinematics, guess again. This game has at least twice that size, and they're all in motion. the music, although a bit scarce, takes the upper hand through the cinematics and is beautiful in every part of the game, thus having a soundtrack for this one is nothing hard to believe. Some of the tracks are fully voiced and perfectly depict serious situations, while others are so joyful you get a feeling Larry Laffer will pop outta nowhere any second now.

This is a party-based RPG, but bottomline, the game still majorly follows the story of Shion, a Chief Engineer of Vector Industries, who has her past haunting her, and her work to push her forward. Speaking of her work, the newest creation of anti-gnosis weapon, KOS-MOS (check up the cool little blue angel on the front cover, a-huh :) The main story progresses steadily but easily in the right way, isn't too fast to mess your mind up, nor too slow to make you bored. And in all that, many characters are to join you on your journey, Chaos, Momo, and some more, that all seem to have something to atone for one way or another, so you'll be following each of their background stories not to be too one-track minded, and some of them are quite interesting and daring.

The Bad
This game made me feel proud carrying a title of a player, and did something to me I haven't experienced in a while - forcing me to play it constantly until its very end. However, the main female protagonist has got to be one of the most annoying characters I've seen in a game. Not only does she never finish a sentence, but she constantly seems trouble by whatever's haunting her from her dark past and never answers differently than "It's... it's nothing." which can become really annoying after thousandth time. He's very unsure of herself, and everything else. Her insecurity would pretty much cost everyone else around her lives, she is way too self-centered and in dream-like state. She may be a genius when it comes to science, but... she acts like a spoiled brat and doesn't seem to think rational in almost any situation.

The Bottom Line
This game has great gameplay, a perfect balance between easy and hard, graphics are astonishing for the time being, the art itself is amazing, the color effects, the direction of cutscenes, it has really long movies which will often give you impression you're watching some pretty cool sci-fi anime, and it has a brilliant set of characters, goodguys as well as badguys, all creating a perfect harmony in this twisted yet highly likable storyline. I don't get it why the rating was this low, though, it has some scenes that might require a bit higher level, but guess not by a far, most of the time it's what it stands for. Also, the game shows an excellent point how people can be stupid, how military is but a mere puppet on a string of a madman, and gives an interesting balance between life and death all throughout the game. This game is as serious as it can be silly at the times, yet it's undoubtedly amazing.

PlayStation 2 · by MAT (240759) · 2012

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
So, uhm, Nietzsche? Donatello (466) Jun 9, 2012

Trivia

Artbook

Like Xenogears before it, Xenosaga has a companion artbook published with it that contains original artwork used in the conception of the game as well as details on characters, events, locations and background story. It should also be pointed out that some of these events are *modified* (like the game) from those listed in the similar Xenogears: Perfect Works guide.

History and language

  • Like Xenogears, Xenosaga is full of references to the Bible and to Jewish mythology in general. For example, the mysterious energy Zohar means "glow" in Hebrew and is one of the central aspects of Jewish mysticism (Kabbala).
  • The sign written on Zohar is Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
  • One of the game's main characters is called Ziggurat. Ziggurats (also spelled Zikkurat or Ziqqurat) were tower-temples in the ancient Mesopotamia (today's Iraq). The famous Babel Tower was most probably also a ziggurat.
  • The scientist Joachim Mizrahi, one of the game's central figures, has probably Israeli ancestors. "Mizrahi" is a popular family name in Israel, and the word itself means "eastern" in Hebrew.
  • Another Biblical trivia: the 13 Zohar emulators possessed by Kukai Foundation are named after the 12 pupils of Jesus and Jesus himself (Child of Mary). The Zohars are also numbered - by letters of the Hebrew alphabet, that also serve as numbers (alef = 1, bet = 2, etc).
  • Did you notice how Albedo always calls Momo and other Realian girls ma pêche? This is a common affectionate word used in French language, but literally it means my peach. Does it have any other meaning in the context? Yes, it does: momo also means "peach", this time in Japanese.

Special edition

Got about $200 to burn? For that cash, you can pick up a Special Edition Box of Xenosaga, which comes with the game on two DVDs (with different artwork on the discs), an artbook, a keychain, a portfolio, and a cold-cast statue of KOS-MOS.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – PS2 RPG of the Year
    • 2003 – #10 PS2 Game of the Year

Information also contributed by Unicorn Lynx and WildKard

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Unicorn Lynx.

Additional contributors: Satoshi Kunsai, Shoddyan, Exodia85, DreinIX, Caelestis, Patrick Bregger.

Game added April 22, 2002. Last modified March 23, 2024.