Released in 2002 by Monolithsoft, Xenosaga is both a prequel and a continuation of sorts from where Takahasi
and Saga left off upon finishing Xenogears. After some unimpressive sales, they were let go from the company
along with some other staff members, thus moving on to create their own studio. There's actually a large
history of game developers from the 90's getting sick of Squaresoft's shit and moving on to make passion
projects beyond anything that larger companies would allow. It's funny because, while none of them even
came close to rivaling Squaresoft(later Square Enix) as a studio, they each have developed their own little
cult followings. It's actually kind of crazy to me because the Xenogears project was entirely screwed over
in order to beef Final Fantasy VII up into the work of art that it is. This was entirely because Squaresoft
and Nintendo had experienced what you could call a nasty divorce over the use of the CD-ROM. And, like any
bitter divorce, it was rife with both companies trying to prove that they could survive without each other.
Final Fantasy VII was essentially created as a giant middle finger to Nintendo as a company and cartridges
as a concept. Like I don't know how to tell you that they basically almost destroyed their entire company
in order to make that game.
Now that they're doing it again, it's obvious that the new FFVII is sort of copying the homework of Monolithsoft's
plan for Xenosaga. A multi-part epic that's meant to stretch over not only mainline games but spinoffs and
expanded media in order to create this incredibly robust, rounded, world. The only issue is that FFVII is not near
as expansive or smart as Xenosaga.
If you remember me mentioning a multi-part plan in the Xenogears section, you'll come to realize that Xenosaga
was, unofficially, a part of that plan. Even if they weren't able to carry out their own series, Xenogears,
due to it still existing under Square's thumb; we can still see where things connect.
The safest thing to do in times like this is to create a prequel and that's essentially what Xenosaga is. If
you're familiar with anything in Xenogears, you'll come into Xenosaga with just a little more intuition than
if you hadn't. That said, you don't really need to play Xenogears in order to enjoy Xenosaga(but it helps,
certainly moreso by III).
I actually didn't even know the series had so many detractors. The number of times I try to look at anything
involving this series only to see such a harsh pushback is astounding because, I actually don't find this game
to be terrible by any means. I heard that it has a cult following but I've only really seen one extremely
dedicated fansite that translates everything and...that's about it. It feels like this is something that's
been lost to time although I've also noticed the price tag it's been given in game resale shops, the first
being around the $20-30 range while the other two go into the triple digits. I actually attempted to play it
from a used copy only for the stupid thing to be so broken, I could never leave the Woglinde so I emulated the
series after that. No ROM hacks, no undubs, nothing, it's just the plain vanilla game that you can get from
Vimmslair.
For this section, though, I've decided to do things a bit different. Instead of giving just a general rundown
of the series and all it's moving parts, I'm going to do a sort of rundown/walkthrough of each and
every game from start to finish. Or, at least, to the best of my abilities(Pied Piper was recently rereleased onto
Steam of all things but only on the Japanese version of it). All of this is to say that this section is going
to be a constant work in progress until I'm done. I want to make it so that you can follow along even if you
haven't played the games yourself but just want to see what all the talk is about. That said, I also wanted
to help people who do want to try out the game but find the idea of it intimidating. All tips, tricks, opinions,
and warnings will be baked right in, spoiler free(until said spoilers have revealed themselves, at least).
