Xenosaga: Was mi�riert

Well may not be a name of God, but certain authorities held that it did remind them of the babe with the power of the voodoo.

Previously on Xenosaga: The Kukai Foundation stands accused, and their only hope is Shion performing a routine procedure to grab some recorded data off KOS-MOS’s hard drive. Because this is Xenosaga, the future equivalent of popping in a USB stick breaks all of time and space and pulls everyone into… Something. Somewhere? Somewhen?



We now resume our freakout already in progress, with Shion a little confused about what’s happening.



Here’s Shion and her dad. It’s good to see sweater vests last another 2,000 years.



Kiddy Shion wants to visit mom, but that’s going to have to wait. Is mommy sick?



Adult Shion is paralyzed at this entire encounter. Frankly, I don’t blame her. Right brain wants to give everybody a hug, left/scientist brain is worried about the space time continuum. We’ve all been there.



Hey, when did you get here? Red is chilling on a nearby slide, and narrating childhood suffering.



“Hey! Eyes over here, Shion. Don’t get distracted by your silly, traumatic past.”



Yes! We’re finally going to get some answers! Guys! Answers! This is going to be great!



Whoops, scene change. Better go check on some other party members. MOMO, Junior, and Ziggy were transported to… looks like a street?



A street with goose-stepping, heavily armed Junior lookalikes. Junior, you got some splainin’ to do.



As you’ve likely guessed, they’re URTVs, same as Gaignun, Albedo, and Junior. Short answer: it’s the clone wars.



Ziggy, I guess, was assuming this was a mass hallucination until Junior started recognizing people. This raises a lot of questions about Ziggy hallucinating that I am just not prepared to address.



Junior is in and out of one of those Shion trademark PTSD comas, but Ziggy wants answers, dammit.



Oh, good, we’re on a planet that practically obliterated itself 14 years ago. I guess armies are still stomping around?



Oh, even worse. More time travel.



Junior runs off to do… something? MOMO is concerned.



Ziggy understands that sometimes a clone has to go off and fly with the rest of his people. Butterfree will be happier now, Misty.



Or not. Yeah, I guess we better help the squirt out.



Oh, right, back to answers. Note that Junior Squad and Shion get totally different daylight.



Oh, thank God, we know Allen’s status. chaos is also here, and, given his nigh-omnipotence, you have to figure he’s the only one that actually chose his team. I am forced to assume he doesn’t like to hang out with Junior, or he realized that Allen was such a tremendous handicap to Shion, he’d better get his super powered butt over there to help out.



“I may have gotten a little drunk and accidentally programmed my entire childhood into KOS-MOS’s mainframe. Sorry.”



I want to say Shion asked this question before, but didn’t get an answer. What makes her think this time is going to be…



Oh. Good. Red’s got a name. Nephilim. Swear I’ve heard that somewhere before.



“That’s what I have been called ever since I existed in this form” is exactly what I’m going to tell anyone that ever asks for my name. Accurate, and just enough extra information to be creepy.



Dammit! I was promised answers! Now we’re back to Team Junior… but we actually have control for once. Welcome to Xenosaga Episode 1 Giant Dungeon #2. Like Big Scary Dungeon #1, this trek will be intercut with various story scenes and plenty of battles. As is my wont, we will not be viewing every damn battle.



Here’s our opening save point. 14:10, just for posterity.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Junior and pals are stuck in a ruined, urban area. Instead of the usual wandering enemies, there are searchlights patrolling the area, and if you’re spotted, then you’ve got a battle on your hands. The searchlights, as you may expect, follow pretty specific routes, so it’s not all that difficult to avoid unnecessary fighting. For the record, I’d appreciate this more at the end of a dungeon when you’re already drained, as opposed to the start.



Team Junior faces a lot of soldiers and helicopters in their opening area.



The mobs are numerous, but both Ziggy and Junior have powerful multi-hit attacks, so there’s not much to worry about. With MOMO on healing duty, Ziggy/MOMO/Junior is a pretty balanced party.



Despite the fact that this area is pretty much as “mundane” as the hallways of the Durandal, this part of the game is shaped like a dungeon, so there are treasure chests, and paths that are obviously more risk/reward than others.



After some dungeoning, an unusually ominous tower is encountered.



And in its shadow, some of Junior’s buddies are… not making this conflict any easier.



Infected with a bad case of “my machine gun has too many bullets, let’s share”.



But one dark-haired URTV is bumping off the infected URTVs, and shouting for Rubedo.



Yep, that’s a 14-years-ago Gaignun gunning down his former comrades. I can see why you’re still having nightmares about this place, Junior.



Speaking of, Junior flashes to another scene of Kiddy Gaignun backing away from an apparently super saiyan Kiddy Albedo. I’m assuming this does not end well. This environment appears to be the same place Junior was dreaming of cradling an apparently deceased Gaignun.



Junior: not having a good day.



But it’s all a daydream, and MOMO is here to…



Geez, shortpants, maybe you want to lay off on the girl?



That’s better. Just because you’re reliving your most horrible memories doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it.



Junior would like some answers about this nonsense.



And back to Team Shion. Junior gets a warzone, Shion gets to play on the swings. I do appreciate that Shion is the kind of heroine that just rolls with being at a playground.



Nephilim is here to explain what’s going on here, apparently. See, you’ve all got memories of Miltia…



And KOS-MOS went ahead and created an absolutely perfect virtual reality for everybody. Thanks, KOS-MOS!



Erm. What?



Shion might not have any idea how the robot she built works, but she knows the android wasn’t running around during her childhood.



And it’s hand-waved with, I don’t know, she borrowed some memories or something.



But…



Finally we get some closure on that “Cherenkov makes KOS-MOS murder everybody” flashback from way back when we were tossing curry around. Let’s see how that bit of fun ended.



Oh. Shion shot KOS-MOS in the head (presumably with some sort of anti-KOS-MOS weapon designed just for the occasion). Oh. This... Huh.



And Nephy gently reminds Shion that, yes, KOS-MOS killed Kevin beforehand. Sorry, killed Kevin while he was protecting Shion with his bullet-riddled body.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Hey, Shion, ya know how you’ve been repressing everything ever up to this point?



Please stop.



“You’re not alone, though. I hear Allen is repressing something he calls ‘the pudding incident’.”



And Nephilim claims that Shion and co. must return to Miltia once again. Presumably the real Miltia.



This causes a brief flash of memory in Shion of… less than happy times.



Shion springs from her swing and demands to know why.



What? No, she’s like a five day old robot.



No she’s not, she’s on the Durandal. Nephilim, you’re terrible at geography.



So I guess Shion is going to tromp off and face her past by herself… but don’t worry, Allen is here to help! Actually, that might be cause for worry…



chaos and Nephy hang back. I presume chaos called next on that swing.



Nephs asks chaos if this is what he wants, though it’s no coincidence that the camera chooses to frame Allen chasing Shion. Clearly, chaos has the hots for that hunk of man jell-o.



Or… that? Whatever chaos just said.



It’s cool to admit you have feelings, omnipotent godling.



Nephilim is like the only creature in this universe that can ask chaos a question or two.



But she’s not going to stick around to provide an answer. Better go catch up with Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Weenie, chaos, your ride is leaving.



Alright, we now have control of Shion, chaos, and (technically) Allen. Allen, of course, will not be participating in any battles, but he is here for emotional support if anybody needs a hug. Allen is also carrying a chocolate bar, but he will not share with anyone. You go on and fight that gnosis, chief, I’ll be right here.



This area, to say the least, seems a lot more… friendly than Junior’s area. Still, it is a dungeon, so it’s time to blow up this adorable penguin statue for a minor, consumable item. It’s not like it’s real anyway.



But the gnosis are real. While Team Junior tackles soldiers and mechs, Shion and chaos get to battle gnosis like bugbear here.



Incidentally, this side of the dungeon is horrible. First of all, you’ve only got two characters, and you haven’t had that handicap since back during the ZigMo days. Second, chaos and Shion are both primarily “support” type characters, and really require a more offensive third character to be effective. Third, neither of those dorks have a multi-hit attack, so any battle against more than one enemy is going to be a pain and a half. And to top it all off, specifically on this side of the dungeon is the bugbear gnosis, which will frequently counter an attack with a multi-heal spell cast over the entire enemy party. None of these gnosis do too much damage, and Shion/chaos have a lot of healing abilities, so you’re unlikely to actually die… but battles take absolutely forever. This would be a tedious area with just White Mage and Red Mage attempting to conquer a dungeon alone, but the added “always heals everybody” monster is crap frosting on the shit cake.



This… I don’t know. Shion must be talking about the overturned Bunnie here, right? Like, the fact that he’s fallen over bothers her? Because otherwise Bunnie himself creeps Shion out, which can’t be right, because Bunnie is Shion’s PDA AI assistant. Unless she’s talking about Bunnie’s… secret other face.



Anyway, as we leave the distinctly playground area, the gnosis seem to multiply, and what this area needs is more bugbears!



See this? This is just terrible. Bugbear has a whale of a lot more HP than the little kobolds, so if you try to take out his healing first, you’re going to suffer a number of flesh wounds that are going to add up fast. If you ignore the bugbear, however, the kobolds will last twice as long, and every miss will basically make the turn useless. It’s… very annoying.



Hey! Another human! … Or not.



This Larva Doll gnosis has one stupid trick for surviving adventurers. Basically, it’s in “reverse” mode, so any damage done to it is calculated as “healing”, and any healing is calculated as damage. It would be kind of clever if these creatures were encountered with bugbears, so you could see the trick before you risk “wasting” a potion on an enemy, but, nope, they only ever show up in groups of themselves. Boo.



Incidentally, if you take the long way around, you may find yet another Hidden Red Door hiding on past, KOS-MOS generated Miltia. That android is really thorough.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Eventually, Shion’s path leads into the sewers. How are there so many sewers in space!?



Gremlins stalk the underground, and they’re interesting for a couple reasons. There was a pack of gremlins on the Woglinde back in the day, and if you bothered them there, you’d wind up dead in a heartbeat. Now, a few levels later, Shion and chaos can take ‘em without much trouble. The trouble, though, is that gremlins counter with an acid rain attack that heals the gremlins and damages the party… but also damages any other gnosis that may be around. You can use this to your advantage, and have the gremlins eliminate any extra gnosis while focusing exclusively on the rainmakers. It’s a shining glimmer of strategy in a dungeon that is mostly “just keep attacking”.



There’s an entire “lower path” to this sewer, complete with treasure, but, try as she might, Shion has no access to that area.



Oh well, let’s not worry about it and get out of this sewer.



And as Shion exits, we rejoin Junior and his mechanical friends.



They might be increasing in strength, but this side of the dungeon is still mostly mechs and humans. And, given all of our firepower is over here, there’s not much to worry about.



Eventually, the streets lead down into an underground, subway area.



This area actually has some neat architecture, and is slightly more interesting to “explore” than the streets above. There are also a few gnosis enemies mixed in with the mechs, which I suppose is a subtle hint that Junior is catching up with Shion.



By about the time Junior is waist deep in sewer water, it should be obvious.



Yep, same sewer area as Shion and pals, but now Junior is in that lower area.



Yes, you face the exact same gnosis as Shion and chaos here, and, yes, you have absolutely nothing to worry about because Ziggy and Junior can obliterate mobs with ease.



Shion seemed to continue through the sewers, but Junior finds a ladder on his path and climbs back up to street level. Sewer water (“water”) cannot be good for that coat.



Topside, it appears we’ve discovered something interesting.



Really, U-TIC? You named your home tower “Labyrinthos”? Do you guys know you’re living in a JRPG? How many treasure chests did you allocate for each floor? You guys got a minotaur watering your plants?



Bah, no time for questions now, there’s a happy fellow singing praises up on the roof.



And he’s quoting Revelations. What a joyous occasion!



Looks like a pretty alright bloke, if a little excitable.



MOMO seems to recognize the dude that is shouting way the hell up a building in the middle of a battleground. Selective hearing.



Joachim Mizrahi, you are the father!



Concerned Dad Ziggy is immediately threatened by Fake Real Dad Mizrahi.



MOMO has a pretty understandable freak-out at encountering her father, alive, for the first time since her activation (reminder: she was pretty much just a brain in a jar while he was alive). Ziggy keeps a handle on her, though, because, I don’t know, she could have jet boots or something.



Remember how Junior said he was there when Mizrahi died? Probably sticks in his memory.



Mizrahi doesn’t notice the party… or anything, really. He’s just gleefully preaching to nobody in particular.



And then he exploded.



And fell off the building.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Going to go ahead and guess that this is that death of Mizrahi that Junior witnessed. MOMO isn’t taking it well.



MOMO attempts to catch a full-grown man that fell, flaming, off of a skyscraper, but he dissolves into nothingness as he hits the ground. Sorry, MOMO, no touching reunion for you.



Just a reminder, in the last week, MOMO was kidnapped by terrorists, navigated a deadly dogfight, watched an entire planet dissolve into nothingness, watched an acquaintance transform into a monster, beat said monster to death, and now watched her father die. Bad news? It’s only going to get worse.



Ziggy, the, like, one guy in the party that has nothing to do with Miltia, kind of can’t believe the level of horrible that is this planet-destroying war. I’m assuming that fourteen years ago, Ziggy was on… New Maui?



And then reality decides to throw in the towel.



Here’s… some… thing? Mayan calendar?



And, poof, infinite crisis’ed.



Aaaaaaand back to Shion, exiting a sewer pipe into some kind of forest area.



The forest is naturally overcrowded with more gnosis. At least they’re different gnosis, and a few less bugbears.



Ah, chaos finally learns a multi-hit attack. Shion won’t do the same until practically the end of the game. This doesn’t turn chaos into a powerhouse or anything, but it does allow us to cut battle time in half.



Again, no one thinks to ask why chaos can just randomly sprout wings for his attacks. Though, at this point, I’m not complaining, either.



Honestly, this whole forest area is a little strange. If you’re trying to showcase the ravages of the Miltian Conflict, sure, show me the urban area that is a battlefield. You can even focus on the playground/hospital area that is crawling with malevolent monsters. But the forest? There’s barely any signs of life here, and even something like this, this strange, abandoned campfire, doesn’t do nearly enough to imply… anything. Maybe they’re trying to say people are out surviving in the woods to avoid the battle? But… it’s a log and some fire, not like, I don’t know, a damaged and abandoned trailer or something. Maybe I’m just spoiled by all the post-apocalyptic games we have in the modern world, but this forest does nothing for me. I’m inclined to believe that someone on the staff made some really great forest graphics, and there wasn’t anywhere else in the game to wedge ‘em in.



And now, let’s spy on Bunnie grabbing carrot juice.



Yep, that’s Bunnie alright. Grabbing some canned carrot juice.



Oh no, he heard us!



And away he goes.



Yep! And now he’s alive and grabbing supplies. What the hell is even happening?



In the next area, you find Bunnie’s home, and can sneak behind and see he’s got a lovely little shack, complete with a fireplace and a TV with rabbit ears. Har har. But the front door is locked, so no entry.



But you can double back to the area where you first saw Bunnie, and grab some carrot juice of your own. Actually, it’s –S. Carrot Juice-, and I’ll assume the S stands for “simply insane”.



Go back to Bunnie’s house, place some carrot juice on the stump…



And Bunnie will leave his front door open to collect the juice.



Quick! Run in there without being spotted! The trick here, as we’ll see shortly, is that Bunnie has a pseudo-face, and his real face/eyes are on the back of his head, so you have to “sneak” around his front, not back.



Bunnie is acknowledging Shion’s B&E skills.



There’s the real face! What a looker.



Your reward is a door decoder and the knowledge that the Xenosaga crew will break all concepts of grounding their story in hard reality if it means playing with a bunny through a confusing minigame. No, Bunnie is never acknowledged as anything more than Shion’s AI. In fact, Bunnie is confirmed to be a fictional character in the Xenosaga universe, albeit one that is as ubiquitous as the modern Mickey Mouse. That said, it’s never confirmed, but the best anyone can figure is that since this whole area is based on Shion’s childhood memories, maybe KOS-MOS tossed in a few childhood fantasies to entertain her mom while battling waves of gnosis. Or maybe the designers had a terrible idea for a “cute” mini game, and stuck it in the middle of a dungeon based on the horrors of war, because, really, why not?

CONTINUED NEXT POST

That’s the last interesting thing in this area, time to plow through some more gnosis and move on.



Back to the other party. It seems the all-encompassing whiteness (not Allen) spit these guys out in some wooded area.



For everybody that understandably forgot while they were bunny bopping, MOMO just watched her dad die.



Shion and co. have cleared the forest, and now…



Found religion. ‘Bout time.



Oh, hey, you guys!



Good question!



Good answer!



Allen asks what Nephilim already answered, but I guess she didn’t specify that everybody wound up in here. She was using a lot of plurals, though…



Allen explains that the tachyons and the anomalies and bob’s your uncle, yes, this all makes perfect sci-fi sense.



Even with all the pseudo-technical jargon being tossed around, expert scientist Shion claims there’d have to be something else to pull everybody into this virtual world.



Oh, right, yeah, this was already explained. Guess Nephilim has some juice to her.



“Silly mortals, can’t you just get over it.”



The explanation that this is everyone’s memories gets tossed out again, but Allen calls bullshit because he distinctly remembers masturbating fourteen times in one day opposite the Miltian Conflict, and was never anywhere near that cluster.



“I wonder if perhaps memories – in other words, events that occurred in the past – become stronger, more selective, and gain a higher priority when they resonate with others that share identical axes in time and space. If you think about it in those terms, it isn't quite so odd that both my memories and those of Allen are not reflected here.”

Basically, chaos is saying that Junior and Shion experienced such powerful traumas during this same exact time period, that their memories are overriding everybody else’s. Also, I guess MOMO is part of that, because Mizrahi stuck his memories into MOMO as a backup… theoretically wirelessly as he dove off a building. Try not to think about it too hard.



Did… did you think we were really in the past? Alright, fine, stranger things have happened in this plot.



Shion says something that is absolutely not true. I mean, I guess it’s technically true, but… dangerous thinking. Xenosaga isn’t real!



And Shion recounts Nephy’s advice as she gazes at that church.



Back to actual control, for all the good it does you. The party is reunited, but the dungeon is basically over now, so you don’t really get to utilize your complete killing squad.



You can either backtrack into the forest or hit this black hole if you want to go back and explore some Junior areas, though. You know what? I will die a happy man if I am ever seriously asked about jumping into a space-time disturbance.



Looks like the “default” combined party is Shion, Junior, chaos. Let’s toss Ziggy back in there, as I’m tired of looking at chaos.



Sunday morning, guys.



Here’s the church. Looks pretty nice, if a little abandoned.



Allen employs his amazing observational skills. Legitimately, this is the first non-hostile, non-ginger human anyone has encountered since they landed in this freaky world.



Wait, not human, Realian. Same diff.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

You are in a virtual reality wonderland here. I’d be surprised if you sensed anybody that was distinctly normal.



Shion has checked out.



Ziggy is not exactly a conversationalist, but he is ready for this nonsense to be over, so he decides to get the ball rolling.



Hiya, Feb.



Here’s an out of sequence screen shot. Remember back on the Woglinde, when Virgil bit the dust? Here was the last thing on his mind. Just, ya know, reminder.



Anyway, back to right now, Feb is apparently a Realian Rights Activist.



Durandal to Shion, come in, Shion.



Yep, Shion knows her… corpse.



Eureka, breakthrough!



Dammit. Thiiiiis close.



Starting to get the impression that Feb is more than meets the eye (oh my God, no, she is not going to turn into a truck).



Neither Feb nor the magically appearing Nephilim are particularly good at advertising.



“This is going to suck, but we’re going to enjoy it.”



Could somebody please reboot Shion? We’re going to need her to be shocked by something again in like five minutes.



Let’s call it gameplay, but you, player, have to make the choice to walk through that door. You can also talk to everybody involved, and use that convenient save point, because you can guess what’s coming next. Come to think of it, this may be the only save point that is distinctly located before a major boss in Xenosaga Episode 1.



Inexplicably, there’s a side door to the church that you can unlock.



And it just leads outside to the exact same spot you can explore before entering the church. I guess… someone just really wanted that church to have a side door? Maybe it will come in handy in another few games.



Alright, quit yer lollygagging and get in there.



Upon entering the door, Allen makes a pretty bizarre, if accurate, leap in logic.



Nephy will narrate Shion’s memories for the good of the audience.



Acute neurosis… hospitalized. Oh! Shion’s mom is really, really sick. Aw.



You ever visit a sick friend or family member in a hospital? Nursing home? Insane asylum? Want to relive that experience for any reason?



Particularly when it involves horror lighting and bodies scattered about?



And your dad, slumped over with a significant bloodstain behind him?



Not good, either.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Mommy is not getting out of bed today, dear.



Shion, literally now facing her worst nightmares, is a tweak taken aback.



Doesn’t help when some spiky looking fellows start thrillering into the room.



And do whatever is going on there.



Junior, meanwhile…



Is watching Kiddy Albedo do his whole song and dance back at the metallic place of his nightmares.



Something stuck in your head, Albedo?



We get to watch the exact origins of Albedo’s insanity before we actually see that insanity in action. Guess it’ll save time later (no it won’t).



Well that’s just super. (Yes, this makes a certain amount of sense, but, no, it won’t during this Episode.)



Just back away slowly, Rubedo.



You’d think that, after working with Shion for so long, Allen would be able to instantly recognize a good PTSD coma.



Both hallucinations coalesce into… that?



Yes, that. Boss battle time!



Behold Tiamat, and her weird, scissor arms.



Aside from just being a generally hard hitting boss, Tiamat has a gimmick or two. Chief among them is, like the DOMO Carrier back on the Elsa, you have to manage your turn order through boosting to avoid Tiamat getting a turn directly after Shion or Junior. If she acts after Shion…



You’ll be hit with a crippling, party wide attack that could drain over half your HP in a blow.



If she moves after Junior, she’ll hit a single character for a quarter of their HP… which isn’t too bad, but it can certainly sting.



Additionally, she’s got the capability of confusing a party member, which is a giant pain for a three person party. Confused character likely loses a turn, and another party member has to waste a turn on healing. Really can mess up that all important turn order for this battle, too.



And the kicker is that Junior and Shion both have to land a killing blow on this beast. Junior or Shion “kills” the gnosis, it revives with 1500 HP, and then the other trauma victim has to score the final-final blow… or else the damn thing heals again until you get it right. Hope you’re not already spent at that point!



I clocked in around ten minutes on this battle, and that was with a buffed up party and (mostly) knowing what I was doing. Must be fun for anyone on their first time through the game.



Anyway, turns out punching your problems until they go away solves nothing, so Shion and Junior are still in mid-freakout after Tiamat slaying.



And then… art?



Oh, guess we found the Mana Tree.



And all your friends are here! Congratulations!



Ah, this certainly seems nice.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

“Good job slaying the dragon that was your past. Or at least acknowledging it a little bit.”



“Yeah, that’s great, Feb. Do you have a twin?”



Well, thanks for the update.



Oh, good to hear that this isn’t just Allen’s memory of a tree.



Cecily and Cathe: happy children in a happy world.



KOS-MOS can break into any mind she wants, apparently.



Guys, I think Allen finally snapped.



Okay, yes, they look happy.



Oh no! Their virtual reality is actually pretty crummy! How is that a bad thing, again? Can’t we just toggle the happiness back on? What’s that? It’s a metaphor? Oh, fine.



“So, what, that stupid tree really loves frolicking, and forces them to do it, forever?” “No, it’s not the tree.”



Man, we almost got through one whole update without mentioning the damn Zohar.



“So the Zohar is an angry tree?” “Ignore the tree!”



“Okay, I got it, we’re gonna fight that tree.” “WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?”



The Zohar is oppressing Realians? I guess? Whatever you say, Feb.



Oh, wait, humans are threatened? Now I’m invested!



“So I’m going to need you to go on a quesadilla run for us.”



Wait, what? I thought we were in the past.



Oh, now we’re in space. Hiya, space.



Gotta give Shion credit for identifying her old planet from orbit. Not sure I’d be able to do that.



Alright, I would be able to identify her. You finally find those Dr. Light capsules, KOS-MOS?



Oh snap, it’s our favorite nebulously gassy U-DO. And He’s shooting off some kind of beam.



And KOS-MOS is returning a beam in kind.



Their DBZ-esque encounter detonates the entire solar system. Lotta collateral damage, and I’m pretty sure Old Miltia didn’t make out too well either.



Good to know.



One where your stupid robot destroys a planet, Shion.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.



Junior is back on track and concerned about U-DO like a good lil’ URTV.



Usual prophetic backdoor policy, blah blah blah, even the tiniest wave, yada yada yada, save the cheerleader, save the world…



“Yet, before it all begins… I wanted you to…face your pants. Wait. I meant pasts. $%&^.”



Buuuuut you failed.



“Or Allen? Why specifically Allen at all?”



Whoops, someone is out of the closet.



“Which is convenient, because no one is making you another character model.”



Lies.



“Gotta go be mysterious somewhere else! Don’t forget the chips and salsa!”



Oh, here’s a door from nowhere.



And here’s the KOS-MOS inside KOS-MOS. Anyone notice that it seems a little extra… ancient crypt-y for the mind of a week old robot?



“Naw, it’s cool guys. I programmed her to see her inner-self as an android crucified by random wiring.”



Hiya.



You would think that Shion would have dived into KOS-MOS’s internal mainframe before now at least once.



Not only does Shion use that same passcode from back at the start of the LP, she also makes a little hand motion that is totally the sign of the cross. The second layer of encryption on KOS-MOS involves reciting your favorite Bible verse.



As the scene fades, let’s acknowledge the fact that nobody in the room is going to ask about the ornate coffin chilling in KOS-MOS’s brain.



Aaaaaand reality.



KOS-MOS awakens with everybody else.



Nothing good about it.



Call and answer.



“Alls well that ends well, I always say. Junior, why are you shivering, sucking your thumb in the corner?”



And we close on Allen spontaneously hugging Shion. No touching!

So, lot to unpack here.

First of all, our dungeon du jour. Overall, I rate Big Dungeon #2 higher than #1, but still needs improvement. If I’m being generous, Xenosaga is pulling a very neat trick by sticking the player with chaos and Shion for half a dungeon, as it makes you feel that something is wrong, and you miss KOS-MOS in this virtual environment of her creation. She’s, technically, always there with you, but her physical absence is felt. Practically, however, it means every time you have control of Shion/chaos, battles take forever, and, again, the addition of monsters that can frequently heal is salt in the wound. Then there’s the forest section that has no business being in this game at all. At best, it feels like padding, at worst, it’s a betrayal of the remainder of the dungeon’s measured “this is what a disaster looks like” aesthetics. The forest could easily be a “connecting dungeon” in any JRPG, from Final Fantasy to Breath of Fire, and thus feels completely removed from the planetary battlefield that is the rest of the area.

Also, can’t stress this enough, you play tag with an imaginary rabbit shortly after watching MOMO’s father’s suicide, and right before you watch Shion’s parents’ murder.

All that said, the rest of the dungeon ain’t half bad, and, particularly in Junior’s ruined areas, you really get a feel for how devastating the frequently-referenced Miltian Conflict really was. Given the importance of the area, you’re encouraged to poke around and explore the shared past of your protagonists, and you may be rewarded with material treasure while sating your curiosity. So, basically, it’s more fun than a crummy gnosis planet.



And, for the record, our first save was at 14:10, and our pre-boss save (in the church) was at 16:09…



Post boss (and a whole lot of cutscenes, some of which we haven’t seen yet) was at 16:40. Depending on how you want to count the boss/cinematics, this dungeon averages out to a little over two hours. Pretty large, but it goes down smooth, because you’re learning an awful lot about your heroes, and not cruddy ol’ Cherenkov.

This dovetails nicely into an excuse for me to type out a lot of character analysis, because, without exaggeration, this is the most interesting single segment in Xenosaga: Episode I. Depending on how you count Nephilim (who is more like a spirit guide here than a “real” character) this entire area doesn’t introduce anyone outside the party until the finale with Febronia. This is wonderful for exploring the characters and their relationships, so let’s take a closer look…

Ziggy and Allen had nothing to do with the Miltian Conflict, so they’re pretty much the outsiders of this whole adventure. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t give a damn, because both care about MOMO and Shion, respectively. Interestingly, this makes both of them, basically, the “girlfriends” of the group; that is to say, they’re those characters that pretty much only react as proxies to their opposite gender main characters. This will continue through the series for Allen, while Ziggy will eventually find a plot sometime around when he gets his own spinoff.

MOMO got to watch her dad die. After hearing about Mizrahi being a bad guy from pretty much everybody, MOMO finally sees her father as others (specifically Junior) see the man, and, yeah, it sucks. If it wasn’t already obvious, this will basically be MOMO’s thing for the rest of the series: grappling with the practically immaculate image of her father that she holds in her heart, and the possible reality that he’s the suicidal madman that brought the gnosis down on the entire universe. Also, this is the first we get to see Mizrahi at all (give or take a blurry JPEG), and I’m assuming his explosive entrance left an impression on the audience.

Junior gets some backstory shaded in, but, honestly (and this may be just my own personal bias) Junior isn’t that interesting. He’s got a plot (which is more than Ziggy can say at the moment) but it’s pretty typical… Hell, it’s practically one of the oldest stories straight out of the Bible. Two brothers, one pious and good, the other slightly murderous, conflict ensues. It’s, obviously, a little more nuanced than Kane and Abel (incidentally, two characters that already popped up in Xenogears), but it still boils down to that easy emotional resonance of brother against brother… just everybody involved has super powers. Here we see a little more about why Junior regrets his past, though we don’t get any details on the whys of it that are actually important to his story.

Just to be clear, I don’t think Junior’s story is bad or anything, it’s just, without the details, very… obvious. Here’s a spoiler: eventually good brother is going to have to confront bad brother, because bad brother is threatening the universe, and good brother is going to have to do “what he has to do”, but he’ll feel bad about it. Good story. Everybody cries.

And chaos, we can infer from these scenes, stands on the side of the vaguely omniscient characters like Nephilim and Febronia. No, we don’t “know” his deal yet, but if there was ever any doubt before, yes, we now know chaos is a lot more than a random Elsa employee.

KOS-MOS is where things get really interesting. KOS-MOS is now officially a force of nature. Notice what happened here? Neph/Feb could have woken up KOS-MOS, spoken to her, told her to lay off the planetary obliteration, and maybe take up knitting; but, no, rather than speak directly to KOS-MOS, the warning about KOS-MOS potentially destroying a solar system (and God) goes to a collection of six people that happen to have been pulled together by circumstance. Recognize this scene? The Ancient One gathered together the heroes to face the Ancient Evil… and it’s KOS-MOS. This, like Shion’s potential gnosis-ification, is a sharpened blade to dangle over the heads of our heroes, because, even though KOS-MOS rejoins the party with the next area, she’s not just a helpful murderbot anymore, now she’s a potentially genocidal God-slayer. And, what’s more, this is a problem our heroes can’t just hit with swords until it goes away (though it is kind of amusing that no one suggests dismantling her, like, right now): KOS-MOS is a problem with an emotional solution, not a physical one. Which makes things difficult when an emotionless robot is involved…

Oh, and if you’re wondering why Neph didn’t try talking directly to KOS-MOS (metaphysics of it aside), consider that maybe she doesn’t want to get vaporized.

Then there’s Shion. I realize I’ve been making references to her problems all along this LP, and, in a way, I apologize for that. Up to this point in the game, for the average player, there has been very little reason to believe that Shion is anything but the typical “genki” heroine, practically a female version of (Silver Age, not cover-based) Superman or Goku. Yeah, she’s “powerful” (still not a gnosis, bumps off a lot of enemies), but she’s almost pathologically friendly and supportive of all people, Realians, androids, etc. She (metaphorically) embraces Cherenkov as he dies, even though he was always a pain in the ass, and had a similar reaction to Virgil. And, of course, she has had no qualms this entire game about being the first into the fray when someone is in trouble, even when dealing with complete strangers like Ziggy and MOMO (boarding the Elsa). Shion helps people, and, complete with the astraphobia, comes off as another, “simple” character like Rikku of Final Fantasy 10. I help people because it’s right! Let’s stay positive!

And then there’s this section, where, in rapid succession, we learn that Shion had a sick mother, watched her parents murdered, and apparently watched Feb die, too. Couple this with earlier, “It’s nothing, I’m fine” events, and you realize that Shion really is just a walking bundle of neurosis. Oh, wait, almost forgot about Kevin’s murder, too. Shion practically bleeds trauma, and this isn’t the kind of story where there’s a sad, dead Uncle Ben and then Spider-Man gets back to his quipping, this is a story that’s constructed to remind you that someone who suffers through that kind of thing(s) and then just pushes it all down to an “it’s nothing” is going to have more than a few issues. Now, even without the gnosis problem hanging over Shion, we know that our heroine is basically a tightly stuffed powder keg. Considering her “position” in the universe at large, that… can’t end well.

Which brings us back to the most important relationship in the game: KOS-MOS and Shion.

Shion is KOS-MOS’s friend/creator/mother/(secret lover). KOS-MOS killed Shion’s fiancée. Shion killed KOS-MOS. Shion revived KOS-MOS. Shion wants to guide KOS-MOS to being more human. KOS-MOS doesn’t have feelings. KOS-MOS’s literal first act upon activation was to find and save Shion. KOS-MOS obliterated an entire gnosis fleet to save Shion. Shion cares more for KOS-MOS than anyone else, human, Realian, or otherwise. And now Shion has been tasked with, somehow, stopping KOS-MOS from destroying her home planet. Relationship status: it’s complicated.

This is the kind of conflict that could make this series memorable. Albedo and Rubedo need to shut their gobs and make way for a conflict that isn’t going to get solved with a literal and figurative magic bullet. This is the promise of a plot that’s interesting and innovative for a JRPG, and not just another cackling villain attempting to conquer the world.

This is Xenosaga.

…. And we’ll see if they can keep it up.

Next time on Xenosaga: What happens when emotional support needs emotional support?

Y'know I had forgotten all about this dungeon. At least the Cathedral Ship is memorable for how frustrating it is, but for whatever reason KOS-MOS's Encephalon didn't leave much of an impression on me.

No not even the Rabbit bit.

My playthrough of Episode I pretty much ended after the parade of cutscenes following this dungeon. Partly because, like Parish before me, my PS2 crapped out (Lapis' character model particularly got hit with some issues that wouldn't be out of place in Assassin's Creed Unity), and the electronics person who could fix it basically told me it would be cheaper to just buy another one.

And after watching the cutscenes (and having heard about what would come next)... I decided I had better uses of my time.

Which is a pity, because I actually liked the Miltia Simulation dungeon for the same reasons GoogleBob wrote. It's definitely a better dungeon than Cathedral Ship (aka, Dead Sea 2: Age of Cherenkov).

God, I played this game and the only thing I remember about any of this is the rabbit.

idk how anyone could forget the rabbit. And I really like that they play it up as some minor horror in shion's childhood (which is I guess the only reason they had to link it to miltia? Maybe to create a little bit more physical space between city and church?). It's cool

I hope you really, really liked this Miltia sequence, because come Xenosaga 3, you get to do it all over again! Not even kidding.

(omg sky render is reading my LP oh god oh god its alright just stay cool stay cool)

Hey, spoilers for twelve years from now!

In all seriousness, while I'm sure I'll reiterate such when the time comes, they kinda HAVE to revisit Miltia, as this was all setup with no answers (What actually happened to Shion's parents? What was Junior/Albedo's deal? Mizrahi, what?) and the only way to answer those questions in the present is through a big pile of flashbacks... which is basically exactly what happens to Junior through Episode 2. I'm not the biggest fan of "reusing" the concept of going back to a virtual Miltia (and everyone involved being shocked that such a thing is possible, even though they all went through it once), but it is a pleasant way to get gameplay, closure, and a sign that the team has matured since Episode 1 all in one go.

And, hey, at least you explore mostly different areas! I think! It's a big planet!

At least until one cutscene, and it still makes me giggle when I think about it. Xenosaga 3 has some good moments.

I don't understand how people can have good thoughts of XS3 outside of the battle system, leveling system for both humans and your robots, and the fact that you can totally kick the shit out of Alpha Weltall but with a different name..

Like, I'm not trolling. Can you help me understand this phenomena? When I finished the game, I was just mad and disappointed.

I connected with the narrative personally both in spite and probably partially due to the clumsiness and it's pretty simple, really.

OOPS I FUCKED UP

I meant to say XS3.

Really my answer isn't much different but it's been reallly really long since I've played it so I can't really tell you if I felt disappointed by it or not.

e: used really 4 times in that post. I am finally ashamed.

I love Xenosaga 3 for spoiler reasons I want to let GoggleBob explain.

Previously on Xenosaga:
This is the story of a girl
Who built a robot that could destroy a whole world.
But while she looks so sad in flash~backs.
Allen absolutely loves her when she smiles.
(Which is rare)



Easy to forget: the entire reason The Brews went through a harrowing trip 15 years down memory lane was to retrieve KOS-MOS’s memory of five days ago. Shion has got that data now, and it’s time to hand it over.



Lapis is pleased, and notes that everyone shouldn’t go anywhere for the foreseeable future. Not really a problem, considering modern virtual reality allows these guys to friggen time travel.



Mary and Shelly, who spent the entire adventure, I don’t know, eating ice cream in their room, are sure glad everything’s back to normal.



The actual party… is a little more shell-shocked.



Um… we’ve run out of party members, Lapis. Like, Allen’s right here, and he’s the mascot…



Oh, yeah, guess that’s why Mary and Shelly were so upset. They were separated from their boss/paramour for, what, three hours? Had to be dreadful.



Gaignun (now with a woman on each arm), asks how it all went. I want to reiterate that, to everyone else in the universe, the party only “went through” downloading a file.



But Shion and Junior go over the actual events of last update, and, yes, everyone remember that Red’s real name is Nephilim. It will come up in like ten minutes.



She kinda is, she kinda isn’t, but it’s still bad news for everybody.



Gaignun is also going to get busy pretty quickly, because… yeah.



Meanwhile, off in the park, here are the two characters that will never, ever be anywhere near getting busy.



Alright, this scene is important (and completely bizarre). Allen is upset because Shion was upset.



Shion was last upset when her fiancée was gunned down protecting her from her favorite robot which she then decapitated. Guess it takes a lot to get Shion upset.



Allen notes that, yeah, she’s juuuuuuust a bit emotionally guarded.



And, yes, Allen, she thinks of you as nothing more than a subordinate. Mainly because you are, weenie. I mean, come on, you could barely muster the will to ask her out before… everything happened, and since then it would be very easy to write off your every move as a survival mechanism. “Oh, no, Shion, it’s cool, I’ll just die in this escape pod, you get on that new ship. I’ll be fine.”



As opposed to only sheepishly following the party and occasionally claiming MOMO’s mom might be a traitor.



chaos, no doubt contemplating blowing his cover and teleporting away to anywhere but here, comforts Allen. He’s… technically correct here, but it’s going to take a while.



Allen, once again, is just an unappreciative wiener.



But he’s getting better!



chaos, as ever, only has kind words to say about the guy whining about his not-girlfriend.



“And has anyone ever told you you look almost exactly like the president of the company I work for? You guys know each other?”



And the scene closes with chaos talking about how kindness makes the universe go ‘round. Serious time? This is a generally emotional scene where two male characters open up about caring for people. I literally cannot immediately think of another JRPG where this happens. At all. Guys are allowed to fist bump and fight and whatnot, but straight up “she was crying and there was nothing I could do” is something that real (as in reality, not trying to judge anyone’s EQ here) men talk about on occasion. It’s also coming out of a character that has primarily been used for comic relief in the past, so this could potentially make him a more three-dimensional character.

And then we’ll spend the rest of the update making “he’s so gay” jokes at his expense…



Alright, over to the President’s office.



Helmer is confirming that all charges were dropped and hooray and whatnot.



“Thanks” is all Helmer gets for planting a sleeper agent in the Universal Government years ago for just such an occasion.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

I was not kidding earlier. Some kinky stuff went down moments before Helmer called. Mutantcest?



This will also be important: U-TIC is still after MOMO. Junior can hear this. Remember this, Junior! REMEMBER!



“And I wonder if they’re going to do it within the next half hour.”



And switch over to Shion, awake in bed lamenting the fact that she just did exactly what she wanted to do for the thousandth time.



It’s better than jail!



Maybe Shion is so empathetic because it lets her focus on other people’s problems... She immediately starts worrying about how sad MOMO looked after the whole ordeal.



And then she thinks of poor, doomed Allen, who apparently actually worked up the nerve to ask Shion out so maybe she could vent about the whole “watching your parents die all over again” thing.



Shion reflexively shoots him down.



Shion actually laments being so mean to Allen, but writes it off as, “I’m not quite myself.” Newsflash, Shion: you have never treated Allen as anything other than a genderless homunculus. I’d say “robot”, but, ya know.



She gets over it quickly, though, and returns to worrying about Nephilim and Feb. Legitimately, if I were Shion, I’d be happy that that mysterious ghost girl I’ve been seeing was an actual (virtual) person, and not just a hallucination.



Shion can barely face two days ago. Seriously, is Cherenkov good and repressed yet?



Yeah, you and the rest of the people following this plot.



Alright, back in control for the first time since Virtual World. It’s time to… go apologize to Allen? Eh, a quest is a quest.



For the record, here’s where the timer from last update actually belongs. Nearly seventeen hours in, and I think we just established what our heroes are supposed to be doing.



Mail call! KOS-MOS is back in the party, and now she’s got a new weapon (that we’ll never use), and a new tech attack that is, seriously, the best tech attack in the game. I’ll explain why when we can actually use it, but for now, it’s called the X-Buster, and it’s going to send the mavericks packing.



Aaand we’re back to Allen being comic relief. We can literally find him by following the trail of a man that was openly weeping over being rejected by his not-girlfriend. Haha, what a [insert homophobic slang]!



Allen: suicidal at the prospect of losing a lunch reservation. Looks like he headed down to the surface.



And we find him in the not-so-subtly gay bar. Once again, this isn’t a gay bar, this is a bar that is simply run and decorated with every muscley gay stereotype someone could render.



Shion immediately forgets that she was going to apologize to the doofus, presumably because he now appears to be having fun without her.



And Allen forgets all that silly “let’s talk about our emotions” crap and decides to give Shion a couple of tickets to the gun show.



Shion never apologizes, and decides to leave. I cannot imagine why these two have such a corpse of a relationship.



Meanwhile, back in… some kind of throne room?



Oh, it’s Albedo again, and he’s cradling a dead Realian. Well, she might not be dead, but I don’t think her neck is supposed to do that.



He tosses the poor girl aside, and starts ranting about “the song” again. Remember, that was lil’ Albedo’s shtick, too. Some people never grow up…



Like a kid on Christmas morning.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Dum de dum, chaos hanging out on the bridge of the Elsa… which is currently docked completely within the Durandal. I guess he just wants to look busy. Hey, you hear something?



Junior and Gaignun do. Hey, it’s that thing Junior was expecting about 50 screenshots back.



chaos flips when he realizes what he’s hearing.



This… might be the first time in the game that chaos is genuinely off his cool. He also probably looks like a nutbar, because nobody else can hear “the song”.



And we flash over to Wilhelm’s space pyramid. I appreciate that, while waiting for the good guys to screw everything up, the bad guys sit around playing holo-chess. Better than the usual Dark Emperor archetype, lounging on a throne and barking out orders for every cutscene. Oh, wait, Albedo…



Red Testament confirms he’s one of the chosen that gets to listen to Crazy Radio. Hey, R.T., do you always wear that mask? Seems like it would make eating difficult…



Yep, Wilhelm is a fan of saying cryptic nonsense all the time.



Nothing cryptic about explosions, though!



The Federation Fleet is getting blasted by… something. I swear those blasts look familiar, though…



Ah, yes, I remember those readings from the Woglinde.



That’s them!



Wooo Space Whales here to party!



Everybody out of the pool and into the laser death ship! How long do you figure it takes to evacuate an entire city via those shuttles that fit, what, eight people?



Shion (who is always inexplicably on the bridge when things start to go crazy) has her priorities straight, as usual.



KOS-MOS comes when called. Good girl. Do you want a KOSSY-SNACK?



Hilbert Effect time! Note that if KOS-MOS wasn’t around, like one space whale could probably wipe out the entire colony. Now those dorks are solid, so they’ll bonk into that space bowl like giant goldfish.



chaos seems to have reclaimed his generally cheery attitude, and is ready to assist with the evacuations.



Before requesting further help from KOS-MOS, Shion considers that “she will destroy a planet” thing. Yeah, you might want to cut down her EXP intake.



But Shion pushes through it and reaffirms her trust in KOS-MOS. No one else even thinks to object… probably because they’re afraid of God-Slayer Bot.



Here’s my party for most of this update. I’m tired of looking at Shion and chaos after the last dungeon, and everybody here has decent multi-hit attacks, which will be important. MOMO is on healing duty, KOS-MOS needs the exercise, and Junior will be important for one reason we’ll cover shortly.



I don’t know how you top “diving headfirst into a gnosis battlefield” with more recklessness, but I’m sure we’ll find something.



Down on the surface, there’s a line to evacuate. At least everyone is being orderly with their terror.



Good news! The beach is safe and devoid of gnosis!



The AGWS garage, which is literally stocked with rows of anti-gnosis weapons is safe, and no one there is doing a thing to help. It’s hard being the main character sometimes.



Alright, here we are in town, the actual “dungeon” of the day. The Mayor (who we somehow missed on our other trips through town) will sell you anything you need. Convenient that he’s carrying around a cache of guns and cyborg weapons!

CONTINUED NEXT POST

And he’ll keep you updated on exactly how many people to save. Oh boy! It’s a “find all the red coins” mission!



As you may expect, the streets are wrecked, and crawling with gnosis. Oddly, every area thus far has had very distinct “only appearing in this dungeon” gnosis, with only the occasional “cameo” of a gnosis from a different area. About 80% of the gnosis in this area, however, are all recycled from the previous update’s virtual Miltia. I don’t know if this is meant to indicate that “old” Miltia and current Kukai Foundation are under attack by the same gnosis fleet/weapon (which is accurate), or if the designers just got lazy, or perhaps this dungeon was a late addition, and there wasn’t any time to make that many new gnosis.



Whatever the case, now that you have full control of your party makeup and a few more levels, these guys are a cakewalk compared to the Shion/chaos days of that stupid forest. Here’s MOMO showing off one of her new techs, and she’s not even that great at attacking!



So, as already advertised, your goal is to find the thirteen survivors scattered about town. The east side of town is hide and seek, while the west side of town is basically a straightforward dungeon “maze” with survivors scattered along the path. A good example of east side fun is this fellow in the big, wide open bar, hiding behind/with the muscle men cutouts. You’d have to be a little bit blind to miss him, but the “challenge” is exploring this area at all while gnosis are creeping about.



But those gnosis are really no big deal, because KOS-MOS has her X-Buster. It’s costly, but upgrading the X-Buster to fast and maximum strength should be your number one priority from this point in the game on. Nothing can survive the X-Buster. And, yes, the X-Buster is the same tummy laser KOS-MOS employed to destroy an entire fleet of gnosis a couple updates back. I suppose this version is a little toned-down, and doesn’t involve the vacu-suck feature, but it’s still nice to get a “cutscene weapon” on your side.



Alright, back to exploring. There’s a treasure chest and a gnosis behind the counter at the bar, but you can’t reach it quite yet. Guess it’s time to go explore outside Allen’s favorite hangout.



Here’s the reason Junior will become a fixture in the party: this jellyfish gnosis is considered “far range”, but its weakness is to physical attacks… which most characters don’t have in a long range variety. Junior does, though, which makes the encounter consistently trivial. There’s pretty much going to be a monster like this every dungeon from now on, so guess who gets a permanent spot on the A-Team?



This guy… doesn’t count. The inn’s owner wants you to retrieve his “treasure” from the vault you weren’t allowed to access earlier. Rather than just telling you the combination, though, he dispenses a fairly imprecise clue. Thanks, dead guy!



But before heading over to the safe, we loot the inn and find a swimsuit behind the counter. Score!



The swimsuit has the worst available defense in the game for a piece of body armor, but it ups your T.Pts earned by 25%. This… is marvelous, and you should do everything possible to max out Tech Points and earn faster, stronger techs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t “fit” Ziggy or KOS-MOS, else I’d have one of our hard hitters equipping it at all times. Given your average mook from this point in the game on isn’t much a threat by itself, it’s a good idea to always have someone wearing a swimsuit, just make sure you heal him/her after each battle.



It also changes your character’s model to beach mode. This is only true for battles, though, so you can’t have Junior staring down his arch rival during a climactic cutscene wearing only his shorts. More’s the pity.



Anyway, if you go all the way up to the attic, you’ll find a picture of a happy family, and the birthday of that dead dude’s daughter. Can you figure out the combination, now?



Yep, 1028. Time for treasure!



Aw, treasure was family all along. What a twist! Eleven to go.



The inn connects to the bar through the second floor for some reason, and there’s a button that will raise the gate that prevented everyone from exploring behind that counter. Oh man, I hope the bar has another swimsuit!



The top floor of the inn has roof access. The roof is not sure footing, so you’ll slip and slide down, and you have to use a little bit of skill to “steer” your character where you actually want to go.



If you… don’t try, you’ll wind up on a catwalk over the street. This leads to…



A building across the way that allows you to see that some dude is hiding in a dumpster under a very obvious roof ramp. Seems easy enough: on the next trip down that hot tin roof, hold left.



But since it’s easy to hit the ground floor again, let’s investigate that previously inaccessible bar area.



Hey, another rescue! Ten survivors remain, but no extra swimsuit.



Alright, now we’re falling off the part of the roof we’re supposed to aim for…



And now we’ve got nine left. Hey, nice goggles, dumpster dude.



You can hang left even harder on the roof, and find this “secret” passage that leads to a door decoder. Even when people’s lives are on the line, it always pays to explore!



Alright, that’s everybody from the east side of town, now we’re hitting the west, where that purple fellow that gave us the history of a statue is now… hiding on top of a statue. How’d he get up there? He’s shaped like Danny Devito.



Salt statue, dude. Salt. Eight left!

CONTINUED NEXT POST

It didn’t come up during our last two visits, but there is an east and west exit from this town area… when everything isn’t on fire. During the “invasion” portion of the game, the second exit is blocked. Wooooonder why.



Larva Dolls, the gnosis that were in permanent “reverse” mode back in Virtual Land, are here on the west side of town. Now they have a new trick: upon “death”, they’ll transform into Larva Faces, which are more powerful versions of their generally sluggish larval forms. They’re still not all that threatening, but it does effectively double the battle length, so boo on these jerks.



The Laundromat Owner is chilling in the Laundromat, naturally enough. She’s concerned about her missing son…



And didn’t think to check if he had escaped up the giant honking ladder five feet away. Sometimes I wonder how NPCs make it through the day…



The ladder leads to the rooftops, and we can see a poor widdle cat being menaced by a Larva Doll. I’ll save you, kitty!



KOS-MOS, arbitrarily blow up that wall!



There’s the kid. So with mom already off to save her own butt, we’ve got six remaining.



The bakery owner can be spied through a nearby window. For the record, I believe this fellow is implying that children’s dreams are… bread. Children of the future have poor imaginations.



Rarely seen in Xenosaga Episode 1: this dungeon has a series of switches, ladders, and walkways that will make a “return visit” must more pleasant. Most Xenosaga dungeons are straightforward “hikes”, so it’s nice to deal with a “maze” style dungeon that makes re-exploring for a possibly missed rescuee easier.



A pack of bug bears down, and a baker saved. Five left, and I wonder if any of them will be the butcher or candlestick maker.



King’s HQ/Garage has a dude being menaced by a hulking troll.



And upon the troll’s defeat, you will find that the guy was acting as bait to save his girlfriend. D’aww. Hey, Johnny, maybe next time you want to draw the threat away from the person you’re protecting. Just saying. This is a double save, so three remain.



But in the box behind the rescued duo, we find… this thing.



The trick is that Pink Bug here is another destructible object, and if you’re trigger happy, he’ll go up in flames, and you’ll never talk to the “pink doll” (clearly purple) that has “Talk to Me” emblazoned across its chest. As you no doubt remember because you’ve been paying attention to Xenosaga Episode 1 minutia like a hawk, Pink Bug is the missing mascot of Talk to Me!! , that shop back at the dock colony. Because we spoke to random kid Tom, Pink Bug will share with us extra info.



His “Great Story” will reveal the location of a door decoder key that will eventually unlock a super attack for Shion, and, to be clear, it is literally impossible to find the key without speaking to Pink Bug.



And then he takes a picture (remember that KOS-MOS is our party leader right now), and claims he’ll email it along later. What a friendly inanimate object!



Back to the carnage, King himself is hanging out on the second floor of his base. Like the Laundromat Owner, King is concerned about another family member… his cat. Eh, have to admit, I’m more likely to be worried about a pet than a family member in the event of an emergency. I picture most cats sticking around in a disaster out of sheer stubbornness. Anyway, King takes the rescue count down to two.



The previously “guarded” switch is now abandoned, and it’ll open up a new path across the rooftops.



And now we get to save a cat! Note that KOS-MOS cannot talk to animals. It would be stupid to design a combat android that could incidentally communicate with pets.



The cat counts as a person… for… some… reason? One to go!



Looping back around the rooftops will lead to this area of the Laundromat, which hides our last person, and (who cares about human life?) this hidden door that houses some robot legs. Just so you know.



Good on you for knowing your place. We’re done! Yay!



… But we still have to walk out of here. Xenosaga really needs an Exit spell.



On the way back to main street, the Mayor has moved slightly, and the street itself is clear of gnosis (though all interior areas are still crawling with them). Guess all we have to do is walk out of here and…



Oh, right, dungeons have bosses.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

Part 6 of an update that started on the previous page.



You can walk back to the inn very easily at this point and utilize its save point and rejigger your party in peace. I’m going to slide Shion into the party, because, like everyone else in the party (and a few moderately hearty infants) she has more HP than MOMO.



Behold the Gigas, who will always start the battle by splitting into two entities. That’s not good!



The Gigas Twins are not twins at all, and will use different attacks/suffer from different weaknesses. Left Gigas is weak to ether attacks, and attacks with mostly physical blows.



And Right Gigas uses ether attacks, but is weak to physical blows. Of course, they’re both constantly using multi-hit attacks, so you might be too busy dying to realize the trick of it.



They both whip out additional, hard hitting attacks when A. HP gets low, and B. when a twin dies. It’s up to you whether you want to attack both at once (thus hopefully negating the “you killed my brother” attacks), or focus on one exclusively until its dead (which would avoid being hit by two critical health reprisals at once). I go with the “hit everybody at once route” because, after Tiamat’s revivals last time, I expected this dork to respawn if you left one brother to linger. That doesn’t happen. Good.



Junior actually wound up with the final blow on both Gigases. They didn’t die simultaneously, but close enough to make my strategy seem sound. Note that this boss fight, thanks to high levels of damage on both sides, will likely be over, one way or another, pretty quickly.



And Junior got a new attack for his trouble. Guess we have something to try out in the next dungeon.



Alright, everybody’s rescued, let’s get out of here.



And cutscene to the Federation Army getting their butts handed to them. You believe what happened to the Woglinde now, guys?



Oh, joy, Albedo joins the fray.



Albedo’s mech is apparently no joke, and he’s indiscriminately detonating entire Federation ships and gnosis alike. Remember this for later.



We can’t all be named characters, Albedo!



Meanwhile, the stupidest thing in the game happens.



The whole party is on the way back to the Durandal, but MOMO is lingering, helping the injured back on the surface.



This is MOMO’s bag, so it’s no surprise that she’s helping out how she can.



And away everyone goes. Without MOMO. Ziggy, your entire job is to.. no? Just gonna leave her there? Junior and Gaignun were just discussing U-TIC’s aims and… guess you forgot? Alright, not like there hasn’t been an incident every update that reminds everyone that U-TIC is trying to capture MOMO at every possible opportunity. I’m sure she’ll be fine in the bedlam of a mass-evacuation.



The Brews aren’t gone five seconds before a sinister shadow starts creeping up on MOMO. Seriously, Ziggy, did you take a blow to the head?



Alright, back on the Durandal.



Christ, Shion, it’s been a whole minute. Seriously, this is the dumbest thing in the game.



Let’s turn around and go right back for MOMO. I hope she’s okay after being arbitrarily left alone for two minutes of gameplay.



Womp womp womp.



WE WERE JUST THERE!!!



Back on the Durandal, again, we’re routed to the Residential Area.



Umm… uhh… geez… could… Does anyone have a mop?



Allen is wandering around the Residential Area with a medkit. It’s kind of amusing to consider that we have 99 of those things in our inventory.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

“She’s not with you guys? You all have been a continuously inseparable party for days now, right?



Oh, yeah, now Ziggy reactivates.



Does nobody have a cell phone in the future? Can we send her an email?



Meanwhile, MOMO is passed out… somewhere.



Good question.



Well, shucks, if only we could have a flashback to explain that.



Ah, good. Five minutes ago.



Yeah, I’m sure this isn’t a trap. I guess it was either this or rent an ice cream truck.



“Daddy” leads MOMO to a dead-end alley, because of course.



I’m not certain if MOMO is terrified, or just confused by Swan Man, Avenger of Crumbs.



Repressed memories are the best memories.



Not liking where this is going.



Woof, not certain how I feel about the fact that dead Realians apparently have a distinct odor. Please never elaborate on this, Xenosaga.



Meanwhile, the Federation is still getting their collective asses kicked.



And General Baldguy here notices that the gnosis are all moshing into the Kukai Foundation. Welp, better destroy an entire space city’s worth of people to hopefully make this battle end faster.



Back in MOMO land, #100 identifies #97.



And I guess we know where we are? Well, at least MOMO does.



Oh boy! Let’s have a tea party!



*boop*



Flashback to… this looks like that creepy building from last update. I’m assuming this will be before Mizrahi’s amazing diving showcase.



It’s a much gentler Mizrahi speaking to a floating-in-a-jar MOMO. Guess this is #97’s memory of being jealous of her younger sister.



This is a “real” memory of what MOMO described earlier: Mizrahi apparently believes that MOMO could become human through being a good lil’ girl.



Or maybe MOMO can become a specific human?



And then a quick flash to Albedo beating the hell out of not so mighty #97. No question on why she’s pretty much dead in the present.



Yes yes, why else would we use those crazy fuzzy borders.

CONTINUED NEXT POST