Xenogears

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Postby NIkkolas » Wed Oct 02, 2013 4:28 pm

Well just look at Rico and Maria and Billy. What plot relevance did they really have after their introduction arcs? Poor Rico's subplot with being the son of the Kaiser was killed with absolutely no resolution, we never learned what happened to Billy's Orphanage and Maria was just total dead weight.

I'm sure if Xenogears was actually completed, we'd have had a lot more from all three of them and most of the NPCs wouldn't vanish without a trace, but that isn't the game we got.

It's one area in which I prefer Xenosaga. The entire party stays interesting right up until the end.

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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 20, 2015 3:49 pm

I was recently prompted to drag this title out again. This marks my third time attempting to finish it. I'm now the furthest I've ever gotten (a bit beyond the point where a certain someone got an an important hair color change...) and with any luck I'll make it to the end this time.

Having played through Disc 1 essentially twice, I dreaded the prospects of suffering through tedious segments like D Block and Babel Tower again. I ended up modding my PSP and putting the Xenogears eboots and a bunch of tedium-reducing cheats on it. Increased text speed! Turn off random encounters whenever I want! Never worry about money! Instantly refuel Gear tanks during annoying boss rushes! Etc. I've also been compensating for disc 2's lack of immersion -- MASSIVE DECISIVE BATTLES YOU NEITHER PLAY NOR GET TO SEE!!! JUST TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT!! -- by taking copious notes. Not too surprisingly, given the one-man rush job translation, having the Japanese script open on my phone has also helped immediately clarify many things.

One thing that's struck me while playing: For all of the initial comparisons of Xenogears to NGE, it feels considerably more like the new movies (3.0 especially), which is really evident in disc 2.

SPOILER: Show
There is the fact that Shinji himself has this terrifying potential to turn giant mecha into forces of apocalyptic destruction, comparable to Fei's "Id" and the effect it has on his own mecha. Both individuals are not fully aware or in control of this potential, and both are punished and/or suppressed by others for the risk they pose by simply existing.

Gendo and Shinji, with their attachments to Yui and Rei respectively, roughly parallel Lacan/Grahf and Fei's attachments to Sophia and Elly. Grahf and Gendo both "cope" with their losses by pursuing immeasurable godly power. Their plans also involve the significant manipulation of someone who is basically a younger, more innocent, less angsty, and more intrinsically powerful version of themselves. (A son and a reincarnation, respectively.)

The imagery of Deus absorbing everything in a gray goo tsunami -- which I technically haven't gotten to yet, but I know it happens and Deus is already absorbing shit off-screen -- is vaguely reminiscent of the large-scale coreification in 3.0. This is reinforced somewhat by the fact that at the center of the gray goo monstrosity is a sometimes-floating giant artifice which contains at its center the comparatively tiny life-form intrinsically behind it all. This is not altogether unlike the Black Moon being nested within the coreified landscape and containing Lilith. The fact that Merkabah spews out swarms of "Angels" (who had once been human) and the Black Moon spews out hordes of inert Eva-things (who had possibly also once been human) just solidifies the creepy similarity.

Also like ENT, Xenogears has an apocalypse occur during the actual storyline, albeit also basically offscreen. ;p

The good guys even have an airship that they deploy their mechas from.

EDIT: Also, Seele have basically become the Gazel Ministry in ENT -- immeasurably ancient entities controlling the world from the shadows, while having long abandoned or lost their original bodies and existing only in data form. Both organizations also come to an end when their data is deleted by the superior puppet-master, albeit under somewhat different circumstances.

This probably doesn't mean anything, but it is making the game a bit more entertaining this time around.

(Also, does anyone have the slightest idea why almost everyone who refers to Deus with a gendered pronoun uses "he"? This is one of those things that makes me wonder if I'm somehow playing a completely different game from everyone else, but a statement from one of the writers makes me doubt it.)
Last edited by Reichu on Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Postby NemZ » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:08 pm

If that color change was purple then yes, you're almost done. Keep going!

When you lay them out side by side there's a lot in common for sure, especially with Rebuild as you say. Not everything of course (urg.... eva does NOT need a chuchu), but close enough. As far as character comparisons go, is Asuka's expy Elly... or Bart? :devil:

Disc 2 is the reason why this game needs a proper remake with the original planned content restored.

Also with the 'he' thing, probably because it's explicitly an attack on christianity. Pretty common 90's jrpg trope, really.

SPOILER: Show
Also oddly enough, if the original Fei was Abel, the world emperor is Cain, Elly is Eve and Miang is a sort of Lilith... who is Adam in this equation other than Deus?
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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:39 pm

Added one comparison to my previous post that I mysteriously managed to forget at the time.

View Original PostNemZ wrote:If that color change was purple then yes, you're almost done.

So few game chapters left, but the amount of information is so dense and the number of player-controlled decompression moments so few that the end still feels quite remote.

As far as character comparisons go, is Asuka's expy Elly... or Bart? :devil:

On one (very approximate and crude) level, I'd say that Bart corresponds to Toji. Guy voiced by Tomokazu Seki who initially is at odds with the protagonist, but after a rough start they become best buddies. This, of course, does not stop the protagonist's out-of-control mecha from eventually hurting his best friend (whether by ripping apart the mecha the buddy has a mental link with and then crushing the cockpit, or by throwing a gigantic [s]submar[/s] subterrane onto the buddy's mecha while he's in it).

Elly has attributes of both Rei and Asuka. The latter is more superficial and perhaps more obvious, but...
SPOILER: Show
Elly, much like Rei, is in the image of the protagonist's mother, while also being an aspect of the mother of humanity. (I'm not talking about Karen Wong, but Abel's mother. All of Fei's incarnations count as "the protagonist", right...?)

I will try to minimize quotes from this point on because the spoilers break up the post too much as is...

@Disc 2/Proper Remake:
Oh yes, my word yes. Though the game could use significant amounts of spit and polish in general, Disc 2 is undoubtedly the biggest issue. It's a pity it is unlikely to ever happen. The fact that Takahashi couldn't even see his vision through at Monolith Soft is especially discouraging.

@XG as explicit attack on Christianity:
I'm not so sure about that... The overall Gnostic thrust of the game, along with its overriding message about the role of spirituality in people's lives, need to be considered and everything put in proper context.
SPOILER: Show
The most blatant way in which it comes off as an attack is the "killing God" element, with "God" being a self-aware biomechanical weapon for whom humanity is just a means to an end. This is operating from a very superficial understanding of the J-C references being used, though. Deus is not equivalent to the Christian God, but is Xenogears' version of the Demiurge from Gnosticism. It could be argued, though, that the Demiurge is the same entity as Jahweh, the God of Judaism, and it seems that the creators knew this, since Deus was called "Yahweh" until very late in the development cycle (when it was changed because the J-to-E translator pointed out that having an antagonist named for the tetragrammaton would make the game even a harder sell in the West than it already was). Operating from this logic, Xenogears would thus be anti-Semitic if anything. :devil:

The Ethos is clearly an attack, but on something that definitely warrants it (the corruption of the Catholic Church). With both the Ethos and Solaris' Ministry, we have criticism of the use of religion as a tool for controlling and manipulating people. However, the Nisan Sect seems to be presented as a positive force, time and again providing people with a pillar of hope in a world where hope is sorely lacking. Not only that, they provide extensive medical relief to those in need of it, without any implied expectation that people must convert to Nisan's teachings in exchange for treatment. I would be hard-pressed to call Nisan un-Christian, as well, given the significant Christian iconography that's used for it: crosses, nuns, cathedrals, angels, the whole bit.

XG, rather than being an attack, seems to provide a balanced account: scorning the crummy aspects of Western spirituality while acknowledging its positives.

@The missing part of the "equation":
SPOILER: Show
Both Miang and Elly are Eve, though that situation is so weird I can't even pretend to understand it. Lilith isn't part of the equation. I was initially wondering about Adam myself, and the answer is apparently Kadmoni (the proper spelling of "Kadomony"). You know, Adam Kadmon, and all. I guess The Mother (= Elehayymyyah = Eve) originated from Kadmoni, so it makes about as much sense as Xenogears ever does.

Now, about Deus' gender, since I simply must get this off my chest, if for no other reason than to show other people Googling the issue that they are not alone in their strange thoughts...
SPOILER: Show
Calling it a "he" seems to be a pretty significant mistake, since there is nothing to suggest Deus is a masculine being besides the name -- Latin for a female god would technically be dea, but how many people actually know that? -- and Judaeo-Christian baggage. This being a completely made-up world, it can do whatever it wants. And that it does.

One of the writers, Soraya Saga, is on record saying that one of the bases for XG was a story idea about an AI with a feminine personality. Furthermore, the designer's comments in Perfect Works say, "From the start it was decided that, whatever the design [for Deus' final form] was, it should give the impression of a holy female god." The final design is a bit more xenomorphic than humanoid, and so isn't as blatantly female as some of the unused concepts, but this statement makes the intention clear, at least.

The concept of a feminine God permeates the final work. One of the very first mentions of God has Grahf referring to "Mother God". While western players seem to just gloss over this and/or justify it away, the fact remains that no reference is made to a Abrahamic patriarch. Again and again, characters speak of "Mother God", "the Mother", "Mother of Destruction", "mother existence", and so on. To the extent that a god can be any gender, this one is decidedly a she.

This is further reinforced by Deus' spokesperson and principle executor -- her will, more or less -- taking form in a forever-reincarnating human woman, Miang / Myyah. (And then there's Elehayym, who is also apparently Miang's other half and therefore a major component of Deus, but I still don't quite understand that situation so I'll stop there.)
Last edited by Reichu on Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby NemZ » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:21 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:On one (very approximate and crude) level, I'd say that Bart corresponds to Toji.


Dang it, that works too well. ;)

Oh yes, my word yes. Though the game could use significant amounts of spit and polish in general, Disc 2 is undoubtedly the biggest issue.


Yeah. Updating the graphics to high-res sprites would also be mandatory... they really have not aged well, as seems to be the rule for 90's games in general.

SPOILER: Show
the Demiurge, who is not the Christian God by any means.


eh... Technically it is, as most christians would consider gnostics heretics and their views as sacreldge. I have to admit it makes for a better story though... teen angst blundering idiot god running amok with his playthings.

Nisan Sect


I can't tell if that's actually a religion or more of just a philosophical group that revere Sophia as just a good role model. Probably not a coincidence Sophia is the name of the gnostic god's mother, though... and if it's meant to be a female god (first I've heard this, actually) it would make a sort of sense. Basically the real god in the game is the Wave Existence anyway, whatever the hell that actually is. That might have to wait until you've finished the game.
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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:34 pm

Wow! :kaos_sick: This is way more about Xenogears than I ever picked up in my time with it years ago. But then, by that point I was so confused and overloaded with information that it's no surprise I didn't pick up on various things and forgot others. By the time I finished it I just wanted it to be over.
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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:15 pm

NemZ:

A more even distribution of anime cut-scenes would also be a welcome addition if the game were to receive a remake. (The character designs are very sharp, but you'd never know it by looking at the sprites...) Also, more compositions by Mitsuda. A lot more.

My feeling is that the predisposition among certain Christians to be offended by anything that violates their very strict expectations is the problem, rather than the game. So I'm going to stand by what I said. :p

SPOILER: Show
I can't tell if that's actually a religion or more of just a philosophical group that revere Sophia as just a good role model. Probably not a coincidence Sophia is the name of the gnostic god's mother, though... and if it's meant to be a female god (first I've heard this, actually) it would make a sort of sense. Basically the real god in the game is the Wave Existence anyway, whatever the hell that actually is. That might have to wait until you've finished the game.

SPOILER: Show
I'm not sure the technicalities matter. Nisan is both represented and talked about in very spiritual and, need it be said, Christian terms. If Takahashi and Saga have only bad things to say about Christianity, then Nisan's very existence in the game's world is puzzling.

I'm surprised Deus' female nature isn't more well known. I didn't think the game was especially subtle about it, myself. I suppose it doesn't help that even the translator was unwilling to fully acknowledge it, given his pronoun choices. Maybe it was intentional, since if there's anything easily offended Christians hate more than God being evil, it's God being female. Why invite even more trouble onto the localization process?

I've spoiled the major plot points for myself, so I have a general idea about the Wave Existence, but crawling through the end-game exposition will certainly bring things into focus.


Monk Ed: Sounds like you're due for a replay! Pity there's no revised translation patch for the game, though.

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Postby Monk Ed » Sat Feb 21, 2015 3:48 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:Monk Ed: Sounds like you're due for a replay! Pity there's no revised translation patch for the game, though.

But it's so huge, and long! I don't think I can take it one more time!
Image  SPOILER: Show

Image


Especially not when my backlog of games I still have yet to finish even once remains so large.

(He says while gearing up for the serious possibility of another run through Majora's Mask now that the remake is out.)
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Postby NemZ » Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:06 am

Sadly I sold my copy years ago in a fit of stupidity, so unless they do make a remake of it I'm unlikely to ever play it again.
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Postby Reichu » Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:48 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:Sadly I sold my copy years ago in a fit of stupidity, so unless they do make a remake of it I'm unlikely to ever play it again.

Well, if you are a by-the-books kind of guy, I actually do have an extra copy I need to get rid of...

(Only reason I have not is because my brother reported problems in the final dungeon that kept him from finishing, but I never got around to troubleshooting. If you're interested, I can proceed to see if the problem still exists and if it can be resolved.)

If you have a Sony device that still has PSN support, the game can also be purchased from their store for a very affordable price.

Monk Ed: DO IIIIIIIIIIT.


On an aside, it occurs to me that working on a translation fix patch would be a delightful way to help decompress from my current FML problems, only I would need someone to assist on the technical side of things. You don't happen to know anything about game patching, would you Monk?

EDIT: I've also gone and ordered physical copies of both Perfect Works and the script book Thousands of Daggers.

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Postby NemZ » Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:12 pm

Apparently I can get it through amazon for $30-ish, so yeah, I'll probably pick it up again. I'm kind of suprised it isn't more expensive than that, tbh... I thought it was a low-production and mostly forgotten sort of deal. Then again if it's available digitally I guess there wouldn't be much demand. Meh.

Yeah, go ahead and check it out if you like. If it's working might as well buy it from you rather than some stranger. I assume you have paypal?

And yes, I'm frequently a filthy pirate... but I do try and get legit copies of things that don't suck.
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Postby Reichu » Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:24 pm

Looks like my bro's save file isn't on any of the memory cards I still have, so I'll have to check out the disc on the PS3 once I reach the last dungeon myself.

Slowly proceeding through the chapter "Dreams", I have this to say... (Dropping spoilers this time, since I've finally remembered that this game is DAMN old enough to not need them.) Holy shit, flashback!Lacan is so obviously a chronic depression sufferer that I'm having a hard time deciding if his incessant melodrama is realistic or unintentional parody. Or both. The way Sophia describes him in the infirmary also sounds uncannily like Shinji (with a dash of Gendo). Sophia for her part is channeling Yui and super-optimistic philosophies hard.

Also, having met the modern-day Fatimas first, it's really hard to get over the fact that Roni looks exactly like Sigurd, only with Bart's pigmentation.

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Postby NemZ » Sat Feb 21, 2015 7:28 pm

unfortunately part of the cut-backs including being totally halfassed with the charecter artwork in that section, hence why Lacan/Grahf has Fei's clothing.
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Postby Monk Ed » Sat Feb 21, 2015 9:56 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:You don't happen to know anything about game patching, would you Monk?

Nope. But you're making me wish I did. I don't have the mental bandwidth to go hunting down how-tos myself, but if you ever find a how-to laden with technical jargon I'll give it a look-over. Who knows? Might be easier on the technical side than I imagine.
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"That sounds like the kind of science that makes absolutely 0 sense when you stop and think about it... I LOVE IT." -- Rosenakahara

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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:03 pm

I finally beat the game. Probably due to excessive self-spoilage on my part, the ending was neither transcendental nor especially WTF. It was just kind of there. In a way, it felt weirdly removed from what had led up to it.

SPOILER: Show
I suppose it couldn't be helped, but getting to Deus lacked any real sense of urgency. We see an FMV of Deus' exterior spontaneously burst into a gray goo monstrosity and start consuming the Terrane countryside at an alarming rate. When we finally get to see Deus on the world map, the area affected not only looks significantly smaller, Deus also stopped terraforming as soon as it started. No reason is given.

I found it strange that the destruction of the Zohar was so greatly emphasized, but we never actually saw what happened to it. It just... disappeared from Bethlehem Point after it absorbed Grahf. I suppose we're supposed to assume that it teleported to Deus and was absorbed from there, but, I dunno, something a little more concrete would have nice. Like, say, if the eye of the Zohar had been incorporated into final Deus' design or something. The "helmet" portion of the head already has a big eye on it; they just needed to make it look more Zohar-y. That would have been good visual storytelling.

I was also a little put off by the fact that Karellan is the only bad guy to have a voice in the end. Deus/Miang is silent. It seems that Karellan is even able to boss Deus/Miang around -- SHOW ME WHAT HUMANITY IS MADE OF BY BEATING UP THIS GENE SEQUENCE SYMBOLIZED BY A PURPLE-HAIRED SNAKE WOMAN! -- which really... diminishes Deus. What ever gave Karellan that kind of power? If it was explained, I guess I missed it or didn't piece it together. It just... really felt unsatisfying. I was also disappointed to not get some last words from the Wave Existence.

Also, ending movie had too much of Fei and Elly trying to escape from the Path of Sephirot or wherever the fuck they were, and not enough of supporting cast getting screen time and speaking roles. Some guy with a radio got more of spotlight than characters who actually needed it. Who storyboarded this crap? :p

Lastly, I'm somewhat mystified by the post-credits shot of Kadmoni and the feather. It probably means something, but I'm not too good at piecing things like this together...

Miscellany: I really would've liked to have Ramsus on my end-game team. Beating up Deus with a reconstructed Vendetta would've been the shit. When I heard he was intended to be a playable character, it made a little too much sense. In a hypothetical XG remake, this must happen!


Anyway, pretty rad game. It's lovably imperfect. Glad to have finally beaten it. I'm sure I'll eventually slog through it again.

Here's my post from 2/22 (in somewhat edited form), which I had to remove to add onto the thread. Any further thoughts on this, Monk? I'm going to assume that you are much closer to having the needed faculties than I am.
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View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:if you ever find a how-to laden with technical jargon I'll give it a look-over. Who knows? Might be easier on the technical side than I imagine.

From the looks of it, PSX image hacking is recommended for those who've had experience with simpler stuff, but don't let that discourage you!

Find here some general documentation on PSX hacking. The kind of text replacement I have in mind seems to be one of the less complicated items.

EDIT: Here is some preexisting discussion on such an undertaking. This seems to be the critical bit of info:

Well the file table is stored using an "insteresting" system.
UINT24 and UINT32 the UINT24 being the sector (ISO systems can have up to 80 minutes which translates to 360000 sectors) and the UINT32 being the file size. The file types are allocated to specific directories.
The only thing left is examining the script engine and knowing how it works.

So in summary yes it's possible. You need to know the script engine details
Rebuild the file structure from the extracted file set
extract the script into proper scene sections.
edit the script
recompile the file structure
Rebuild the ISO from the new data and hope there is room.

Furthermore, an Italian hacking group has also created some utilities specifically for Xenogears. These include ones they used to translate the game into Italian, which have obvious applications for other kinds of text replacement, provided you can make any sense of them.

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Postby NemZ » Fri Feb 27, 2015 11:22 pm

Disk 2 really is such a disapointment. Clearly there was so much epicness planned, all those extra levels, charecters and mechs we were supposed to explore but are only allowed to read about, and it just barely manages to kinda halfheartedly tie up the plot.

Though yeah, Krelian... what the hell is the deal with that guy anyway? I don't get why he basically gets to pull a bad guy wins ending with no repercussions whatsoever. I almost suspect that if the full planned 6-part story was completed the previous entry would have had Krelian as the protagonist.

Also the feather thing at the end... I think the point is that he's reviving the original Elly/Sophia, Kadomay, because of that whole "I envy you two" thing. He's going to have his red-haired magic waifu somehow, dang it! :facepalm:
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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Feb 27, 2015 11:41 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:Here's my post from 2/22 (in somewhat edited form), which I had to remove to add onto the thread. Any further thoughts on this, Monk? I'm going to assume that you are much closer to having the needed faculties than I am.

I started digging into the material you found but strayed when it reminded me of how far behind I am in Game Engine Programming class. My capacity for work is currently at its limit. :shakehead: The possibility of editing Xenogears with a new translation is going on the back burner for now. But it's not like this was going to be done in a day anyway.
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Postby Reichu » Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:08 am

Monk Ed: Alright, no prob. Good luck with the class!

View Original PostNemZ wrote:Though yeah, Krelian... what the hell is the deal with that guy anyway? I don't get why he basically gets to pull a bad guy wins ending with no repercussions whatsoever. I almost suspect that if the full planned 6-part story was completed the previous entry would have had Krelian as the protagonist.

For... episode IV, I believe... he would probably be a member of your party for at least part of the game. I doubt he'd be the protagonist, though, since it would be hard for the game to continue revolving around him after he loses his shit and goes all IF THERE IS NO GOD THEN I'LL MAKE ONE. Lacan wouldn't make a good protagonist, for similar reasons.

(If such a game were ever made, I'd probably want to see Zephyr in the lead.)

Also the feather thing at the end... I think the point is that he's reviving the original Elly/Sophia, Kadomay, because of that whole "I envy you two" thing. He's going to have his red-haired magic waifu somehow, dang it! :facepalm:

I'm not sure how reviving the mummified corpse (seriously, how is ANYTHING left in there?) of the first woman would help him out in any way. It's Sophia that he loves. Remember all that crap about genetic memory? This is the lame 'no explanation would be better' mechanic by which the Contact and Antitype retrieve their memories after transmigration. [Seriously, genetic memory is the worst plot device ever.] Somehow their memories become genetically encoded into the population and pass down the generations until one of them is reborn, allowing the memories to be possibly unlocked. This means, anyway, by crazy Xenogears rules, that the first woman, being the zeroth generation, has no potential to retrieve Sophia's memories. And Fei and Elly aren't going to transmigrate anymore, either, so Sophia's memories die with Elly unless she goes SOL-9000.

Long story short, if a waifu is what Karellan was after at any point, then scienceing Elly into believing she's Sophia seems like the much simpler option. But he seems to have become long since estranged from his emotional core (cf. certain Ministry scenes) and abandoned any hope of being loved. [s]"The only one who could have loved me was God", so he flies to where "God" [Wave Entity] is to get his higher dimensional lovin' on. [/s] [EDIT: Whoops, no idea how my brain replaced "could have forgiven" with "could have loved."]

It's unfortunate that essentially nothing is known about Episode VI. There is the slight possibly that Karellan would "regain his humanity" and return to the material world to pay contrition. Would that be better than him accomplishing his goals and just flying away, never to return? I dunno. But a guy like him might be useful for getting humanity back on its feet and finding a way to voyage to Earth. [It's either implied somewhere or well-regarded guesswork that VI would have addressed the mystery of why Zohar was found on Earth and why humanity eventually abandoned and warded off the planet.]
Last edited by Reichu on Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby NemZ » Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:51 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:I'm not sure how reviving the mummified corpse (seriously, how is ANYTHING left in there?) of the first woman would help him out in any way. It's Sophia that he loves. Remember all that crap about genetic memory?


Yep. And he studied Elly's genes, so if it's encoded in there perhaps he can transfer it to a similar host. Thus, take crazy old remains, add supertech nanobots from Esmeralda, modify to suit and presto, brand spankin' new Sophia that's not even technically a clone. Also remember the first Elly was made by the WE so perhaps it has a motive in this too.

Basically I think that was setup for game 6 somehow, but who knows?
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Postby Monk Ed » Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:03 am

:crybaby: You two are making this confusing story that left me so perplexed by the end sound so epic and awesome and sensical. I didn't even remember Krelian except for a slight twinge of familiarity at the name, but this discussion is making him and his surrounding story sound actually interesting. What happened to this story to keep it from being told? Why could even Xenosaga not complete the tale?

[s:1c7m8782]By the way, I've heard over the years both answers to the question of whether Xenosaga and Xenogears are in continuity with each other or not. What are your takes?[/s:1c7m8782] (Looked back a page, got my answers.)

I played and beat Xenosaga ep 1 a few years back but it's like I might as well have not played it at all given how little I remembered of the story by the time I got back to it. And then with Xenogears, because I never understood enough of it the first time around it wound up very poorly encoded in my memory as well. Now I'm wondering if I should play through the entire available series again -- not sure in what order, and I've never played eps 2 or 3 -- while asking questions along the way in here to clarify the story. And I think this time I'll just cheat the fuck out of the gameplay to keep my pace up so I can focus on the story and not get bogged down like I did the first times around. :lol:
Last edited by Monk Ed on Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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"NGE is like a perfectly improvised jazz piece. It builds on a standard and then plays off it from there, and its developments may occasionally recall what it's done before as a way of keeping the whole concatenated." -- Eva Yojimbo
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"That sounds like the kind of science that makes absolutely 0 sense when you stop and think about it... I LOVE IT." -- Rosenakahara


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