congratulations i think you just went through the longest stretch of cutscenes in the game!
have you been reading the encyclopaedia?
it’s got some fun stuff about curry and such
and some weird stuff
about momo’s
fertility
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xenosaga is a wonderful collage of beauties and horrors
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The encyclopedia in this game is wild. Like aside from the parts where it talks directly to the player about the games as a series of games, it also just has some amazing entries.
It’s not like they say what type of illness or condition they specialize in IN THE NAME OF THE FACILITY
BOOKS! Check 'em out!
Spell it out more for us, Monolith.
OK, this note rules though. I don’t even care about the fourth wall. This is just a great thing for a developer to put in a game.
Of course they gotta overexplain the magic system. OF COURSE THEY DO.
Nobody really says shit about the previous four Jerusalems. Or really the OG one. Or why that should be the name of the capital planet of the galactic federation, but who cares.
I fucking love when an acronym includes the word for the acronym in the acronym. This one makes me think about this storefront ministry in hte neighborhood I worked in when I was in Americorps called “CRACKhouse Ministries” where CRACK stood for “Christ Resurrects After Crack Kills” so there was just an endless repetition built into it right there. The funny thing about the KOSMOS one is that you never get past saying just KOSMOS because the K always stands for KOSMOS.
Sure, let’s just put this in there. Why not. Why is he the only one who gets an entry? I feel like a lot of the other Cesars are gonna be pissed.
These are in there because Albedo cracks a “joke” using a French pun, but then they trusted no one to know that French. Which to be fair, I did not.
OH. HELL. YEAH.
You know it’s good, brother, when they gotta start explaining basic Jesus stuff. REAL GOOD.
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So we are off to the Song of Nephilim, but Shion wants to look at the top of it, which makes her flashback to being a kid in her mom’s hospital room, where she saw the top of the Song of Nephilim in the ground outside the window. Thankfully in the present, the song has a convenient dock on the side.
MOMO is just chilling on the floor just inside the airlock, except it seems that Albedo has “taken her consciousness” and Junior is FUCKING PISSED. Apparently Albedo “reversed the spirit link” which is the “opposite” of telepathic communication, basically a forced mind meld to drag stuff out of the other person’s brain. Junior is trying to fight Albedo alone, but of course the posse is not allowing that to happen.
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I’ve gotta be not too far from the end of this thing and I just figured out Boost, hahaha.
They really expected you to have the manual.
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The Song of Nephilim features the most JRPG-ass elevator I have ever seen. Like you have to blow up weights on the elevator to get it to go to the floor you want, then press the button to go there. Who would ever make this elevator? JRPG level designers, that is who.
Also the game has, twice now, had things you could only find if you had MOMO said as your main character in the field. This is why you should just use a GameFAQ for this game.
Progress is slow because I only had like an hour to play tonight, ugh.
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The previous tower was but one of three, thus making the Song of Nephilim the Holy Trinity of JRPG Dungeon Pervert Game Design. Each tower is silly and ridiculous, and sometimes you might just stumble into a boss fight, like in the middle of tower 2. So with the Father Tower, The Son Tower, and The Holy Ghost Tower done, I get to ride the Pervert Trinity Elevator down to keep going.
And meet Albedo, who is holding a MOMO in his arms, despite MOMO being in our party. Albedo is so jokerfied. “Life and death are but meaningless words lacking any power over me.” LOL ok buddy, write that in your notebook in bio class next period. Albedo reminds Junior that he too is a monster, and then our MOMO starts to choke him out from behind while saying “I want the me that’s inside you…” Our MOMO then morphs into one of Albedo’s maid Realians, because Albedo would go to maid cafes all day every day.
Oh shit Junior just exploded in a fireball to get the maid off of him, which made actual MOMO in Albedo’s arms get a little upset. Albedo calls him Rubedo again and starts mind melding MOMO. Junior then blows off Albedo’s arm, which just grows back. Junior claims Albedo is contaminated by U-DO, whatever that means. Albedo claaims to be the Alpha and Omega of perfect consciousness, so Junior blows his head off, but it grows back.
chaos informs us that Albedo and Junior are URTVs, beings created to eradicate U-DO.
Albedo rips off the bullet necklace that Junior gave MOMO, and says he has only one more layer to get everything from inside MOMO, which makes Junior…explode and turn everything negative colors?
Flash to a vision of Mizrahi talking directly to the camera about the events that are about to unfold, and how nobody can stop them, just delay them. Albedo is digging through MOMO’s memories, which is where that vision comes from.
I’m really glad these cutscenes can get paused. They are so damn dense.
Ope, back to reality and Junior’s explosion knocks Albedo off his high throne of Jokerdom. Albedo starts joker laughing that “it all makes sense now” and his magical mech, which doesn’t require an external power source like other mechs, shows up, and scans in a maid Realian to charge up. FIGHT.
Once we beat up Albedo’s mech, he and Juniorubedo get into a chi battle, which even the people back on the Durandal are all “please Junior, you don’t have to give it to 'em” but Junior is gonna give it to 'em. But it’s nothing to Albedo. chaos is also like “no…don’t…” but Junior can’t stop/won’t stop. MOMO walks to talk to a dying maid, who says their Dad always favored MOMO. MOMO gets in the middle of the chi battle, and admits she got part of Albedo in her, and tries to get Albedo to feel bad for murdering all the other Realians. But Albedo says this is what Mizrahi wanted.
Oh shit, some guy in a cloak just dropped down from above, so guess we are gonna fight him next. He’s apparently The New Guy, per Albedo, who hops in his mech and nopes out of here. Diving through MOMO’s memory, he finds the Y Data, but KOSMOS shows up and says she does not exist for his pleasure. She then morphs into naked Shion. Apparently this is Mizrahi’s protection against people getting into the Y data.
After running back to save, because I ain’t no JRPG Rookie, time to fight The New Guy.
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The New Guy won’t really tell us who he is. He gets all Philosophy 101 about if things even have names. Junior tries to get him out of the way, but he ain’t budging, so he morphs into some monster thing. Well, actually two monster things, one after the other. No matter. chaos wasn’t having any of that bullshit.
But apparently “the laws by which we are governed are too different” so he survives, but also calls chaos “boss”, so HMMMM. He tells Shion he will be waiting in “that time” in “that place”. KOSMOS tells us that the Song of Nephilim is now turned off, so the Gnosis are bugging out. The New Guy apparently had quite the aura, and Shion doesn’t understand any of this.
Back on the Durandal, MOMO says she is OK. MOMO thinks Albedo got the “key” inside her. She thanks the charm bullet for getting her back safely. But then the Durandal is used to blow up the Song of Nephilim, to put the maids to rest apparently. Real sad piano jams here.
EXCEPT THE SONG OF NEPHILM SAYS NOPE. It sucks in the remaining Gnosis and powers up! Along with Albedo, who came back after his previous GTFO-ing. He channels all that energy into a giant explosion that rocks the whol foundation and makes a GIANT fucking ship appear under the Song. The government people who see it are all “that’s impossible!” and Juli Mizrahi says whatever it is, it was supposed to be destroyed.
this is…PROTO MERKABAH, where MOMO was born. The New Guy (Virgil!) says Albedo shouldn’t have done that.
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You remember Virgil, right? The guy from WAY BACK AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME who was addicted to eating Realians, basically. HE’S BACK.
Oh hey so apparently Proto Merkabah is where MOMO was made, but it was supposed to discover the true form of the universe? Apparently it will be a problem if the Zohar come into contact with it. But also the Federation apparently sent it to…The Abyss, whatever that is. (apparently it is a doubble black hole near Old Miltia, per the in game wiki).
Shit, Proto Merkabah just kamehameha’ed the entire Federation Fleet. And now it is sucking in energy like when KOSMOS used her womb cannon from the Gnosis. Per Albedo, the Gnosis seek Zohar, and Merkabah sucks up Gnosis, which he all learned from inside MOMO. Albedo is gonna turn us all to pillars of salt, sure! But instead he is gonna aim it at the capital of Second Miltia. Juli Mizrahi charges us with destroying Proto Merkabah.
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KOSMOS mokking the cosmos…moskos… whatever!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wayo/across-the-kosmos-xenosaga-piano-collection
Someone seems to celebrate your journey out there!
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It’s really weird because like half the music on this soundtrack is already piano music.
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So we are off to Proto Merkabah! Junior is sorry we got pulled into his personal issues, but it is cool because Vector said Shion can go.
SIDENOTE: THIS BATTLE SYSTEM
There’s just so much of it. Like there is the whole EGGS mech situation, which I have barely touched all game to the point where I am pretty sure I missed a few whole ass mechs. Everyone can learn everyone else’s spells. The basic attacks get so ridiculous that I barely need anything else. This seems to be a thing in Monolith games, of giving you so many options for combat, and you can just kinda pick how you want to do it. chaos is still my boy this run though.
Back on the Proto Merkabah, we find some data on Realians from pre-Miltia Conflict, but nobody knows why that is here. We also beat up a lot of utility robots. I also took time to finish a sidequest to summon a super mech, but Shion, doesn’t have enough EP yet to do that.
There’s also a file on wounded soldiers from the Miltian Conflict, but their wounds appear to be…mental illness? Shion recognizes the drugs used to treat the soldiers, most likely due to her mom’s hospitalization.
We keep climbing this tower of stairs and stopping on every floor. This feels so far much less dungeon pervert than the last one.
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...in which booji wraps it the fuck up
So I am slowly working through Proto Merkabah and really glad that I did the sidequest to get the giant robot summon. Did you know there is a giant robot summon? There is, and you have to collec t parts for it and do some silly sidequest stuff, but it also is a guaranteed 9999 damage to anyone in the game. There was a boss in Merkabah who had been handing my ass to me, but the giant robot said NO MORE!It also has like a minute long FMV for using it, and takes up all of Shion’s spell slots, but totally worth it for “fuck dealing with this fight” times. You can skip the FMV at least.
The level itself is kinda cool, if only because it keeps looping back on itself, which is neat to see in a 2001 game. Now I am gonna forever make people mad and whenever a level loops back on itself in a From game, I am gonna say “oh, they stole this from Xenosaga”. This is not true, but it will make people mad, I am sure.
I also just got an item called a “Trauma Plate”. It prevents getting critical hit, but man that name!
We just got to a map of “all observable space” except there is a spot that is black, which is maybe where “Lost Jerusalem” is, or more accurately, Earth, but no one knows where exactly it is any more. The government is apparently searching for Lost Jerusalem, but the black spot on the map is hundreds of millions of light years across, so they aren’t too close, ha.
Shortly after that, we get to the room where MOMO was born. MOMO revealed that when she was born, Joachim Mizrahi (her “dad”) died, because it brought the Gnosis into the world? That sure seems to be what MOMO is saying.
And now we are on a giant elevator down. There’s a save spot at the bottom, praise be to U-DO.
Oh hey just past this, we get to ride a funicular down to the bottom of the stage.
Gnosis keep just appearing on the elevator with me, so that is fun. After fighting our way through way too many Biggie Gnosis, we meet up with Albedo in the reactor at the center of Proto Merkabah, which has been getting charged by absorbing Gnosis. Albedo is glowing blue now? He says this is the “power of will, a fundamental power that exists within everyone”. Due to the power of GIANT MECH, Albedo gets KOed in one hit. He did do a really cool HP drain attack before that, but fuck dealing with that.
Apparently 14 years ago (the Miltian Conflict) Junior lost his shit and cut off all the URTVs from each other, which Albedo says is why they all turned to the Song and because effed up. So I guess the URTVs were trying to fight the Gnosis’s incursion? And Junior couldn’t handle his fear, so he exploded?
Albedo says he found a way to “a whole new world”, and now he is opening the central reactor, which seems to be a big ball of energy and Gnosis, and Junior says that the Gnosis have fused with the reactor, which we need to stop to stop Proto Merkabah. Albedo takes off, and leaves us to fight this…whatever this thing is. Everyone is like “fuck yeah, let’s do this” and we finally get new battle music! The thing is called “Sophie Peithos”, and did an admirable job of taking a GIANT ROBOT to the face, but eventually KOSMOS used her stomach lasers and tooke Sophie down, which seemed to cause the reactor to explode. Everyone GTFOed from the reactor room, but now Proto Merkabah is on its way to crash into Second Miltia. Albedo is standing by in his mech to watch the colony drop go down.
We have eight minutes left to save the planet!
KOSMOS says we need to separate the station into 22,000 pieces to melt during atmospheric entry. Gotta run to the control room on level 33 according to MOMO’s memories. But apparently the self-destruct takes a minute, and we can’t get back to the Elsa in time. KOSMOS volunteers to stay behind, but says she can run to the Elsa in under a minute. Shion doesn’t want to leave her droid girlfriend, but there isn’t another choice. KOSMOS triggers the destruction as a vocal ballad soars, but everyone has gotten back to the Elsa. We gotta wait for KOSMOS, per Junior’s command. Debris is hitting the Elsa and the whole Proto Merkabah is falling apart. We had to lift off before KOSMOS got back, oh no!
“Kindness is something I don’t want or need” sings the ballad.
Shion is begging to go back to save KOSMOS, but the Nephilim tells Shion to look into her heart, where she has a vision of KOSMOS by a piece of wall, which KOSMOS EXPLODES THROUGH because true love is forever. She grabs Shion’s hand but starts to slip until Ziggy comes to save her too. Shion makes a joke about KOSMOS’s weight, so yeah, thanks for fat shaming the super droid, Shion.
Everything is exploding as the Elsa makes its trench run. Merkabah is falling apart and melting in the atmosphere, but something is wrong. The Elsa is coming in at too steep an angle, so it’s getting a bit too hot in here. Meanwhile, chaos is down in the hangar, and Nephilim is whispering to him too. KOSMOS comes down to the hangar, saying “Relinquish your pain unto me…” as she opens the back hatch and jumps, telling Shion she will shield the Elsa with her energy shield.
Her last words seem to be “I am happy…to be of service”. KOSMOS really wants to sacrifice herself.
chaos’s hands start to glow and Nephilim (not-Elly from Xenogears) and another kid who is building blocks (who looks like Fei from Xenogears, but as a kid) look up. The head of Vector is chilling in his office watching a weird magic thing spin. KOSMOS is on fire, and her visor gets blasted off but her eyes GLOW and she grows six giant angel wings to protect the ship. WHITE OUT.
The Else is cruising now along above an ocean. Everyone is silent and sad. I just noticed the Captain’s hat says “Caution, I am a Boozer”. And oh shit, KOSMOS is standing on the front of the ship, hair flapping in the breeze, giving zero fucks. Roll credits.
During the credits, a man in black is praying at a grave on hillside, watching the meteor shower that is theMerkabah melting as the Else flies by. Guignan and the president of Second Miltia are talking about how the UTIC org is on Miltia. Albedo “will not die…at least until that time”. Albedo wants MOMO to link up to the UMN for some reason, queue maniacal laughter.
The Vector president says that Albedo is the only one who can open “Abel’s Ark”. One of his people thinks that Albedo might try to link up with U-DO again, but VectorPres thinks he doesn’t have the power to do it. A red plague doctor is the one talking to him about this.
The sun is rising over the sea and everyone on the Elsa is feeling good as KOSMOS comes back onto the ship. Slo-mo of Shion turning to KOSMOS for “mission complete, shion”. True Robot Love.
TO BE CONTINUED
(it let's you save a cleared file, but not load back into it. huh.)I gotta think about what the hell I just did. But also then I gotta start the second game soon to see where this all goes. What a glorious mess this game was.
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So what did we learn from Episode 1? Good question. Still thinking about that as…
...off we go to Episode 2: Beyond Good and Evil.
For some reason KORG is in the pre-title screen callouts after Namco. And the opening music is some real bagpipes in the wild shit. We are off to a good start!
My episode 1 clear data is used to…unlock swimsuits for Ziggy and KOSMOS, two characters who I don’t know would ever swim. Perfect. Also earned a “Geriatric Swimsuit”. WHAT.
The menus are all different looking and the font is as well.
The game starts out with Realians made in the past two years rioting on planets. The president of Second Miltia is talking to a redhead realian named Canaan, created by Vector to check this all out. chaos is flying with Canaan as his navigator, and admits to not being a “regular human”. Going to point NN41 (on Old Miltia) and retrieve some URTVs, and maybe infilitrate UTIC’s mainframe to get the Y Data (remember when this was just stuck in MOMO’s head? whoops?). We get dropped in our two-man mech out the back of a ship and fly into a sunrise. The whole world under us is at war, so that is a thing. An unmanned force is moving in on us in the air, and we get some hot Mech Fighting.
Sidenote: the FMVs in this one have stuttered a little bit playing on my MX4SIO blockbuster card, but that is OK.
At some point, we used our gun to impale one of the enemies, but then we just…grew it back? OK. Canaan calls URTVs “those designer children” haha. Apparently we are openly in conflict with UTIC now, who use mechs powered by the Zohar, and the URTVs are the force that can break them up.
Our suit is the ES Asher. Also the soundtrack here rules.
The Zohar uses the UMN network to transmit their power to their mechs. Apparently the UMN can’t transfer living people, who will lose their minds when teleported by the UMN. And if the URTVs lose their minds fighting the Zohar, whelp, the Zohar won’t be able to be contained.
After marching around a bit in the Asher and learning how to fight (I get the sense Monolith did not like how much the AGWS was totally unused in the first game, so now they are just making us use it, which OK, fair enough), we walk through the city until we get to a giant pillar of light and…THE SONG OF NEPHILIM starts to play. U-TIC is using it? ANyhow, some of the native Realians start to attack us in their mechs, and aren’t responding to us being like “no but we are your frieieeeennnds” and start coming at us. Canaan seems to kinda lose it a bit, but another mech shows up to save the day, even after we lost an arm. The light column disappears, but the new mech is pretty messed up. Its pilot hops out and has a bitchin’ katana, managing to cut another mech in half.
OH SHIT IT IS JIN UZUKI (who i think was the guy at the grave in the credits of 1, and also Shion’s brother). And URTVs have an “anti UDO retrovirus”. Guess we are all on foot now, as our mechs just blew up in a rainstorm. On foot fighting now has a Airborn or Downed effect you can do to enemies, which definitely is still around in the Xenoblade Chronicles games.
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did you cry a little at the x1 ending though… the girl and the robot really love eachother…
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True robot love really is forever.
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IIRC Xenosaga was originally planned to be 6 episodes, and after XS1 was a modest success, they wanted to expand it and make it a multi media sensation
So the original 6 episodes plan was expanded to like a 108 episodes plan and the place of XS2 in the grand story was shortened, so not that much ends up happening in it. IIRC pretty much all the main characters but JR get ignored?
Then after XS2 and the spinoffs underperformed they had to wrap the whole thing up with XS3, and despite everything it’s impressive and terrifying they managed to do it. In retrospect it seems natural that they moved on to deliver the Content Delivery Machines Xenoblades afterwards instead of continuing to make bad ambitious Evangelions
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