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God Came From Space - Let's Play Xenogears!

Second Duke Revier

Second Duke Revier



Welp, here it is - the beginning of a new LP. This one is focused on a game I've commonly seen be labeled a "cult classic", with many people hailing it for its story and lamenting its unfinished "second half". Personally? I think the story is really insane, and more people should get to enjoy its absurdity and grandiosity. Hence, this LP.

For this game, I'm choosing to largely convey it through screenshots and written text, as it's extremely focused on its story and its storytelling. Unlike the previous games I've LPed, however, this game actually does a fair bit with its animations and camera movements, and as such, I'll be recording a fair bit of it to capture the "full" experience, so to speak. My commentary will largely be focused on the story, either on explaining it, reflecting on it, mocking it, or even all three at once!

Spoilers are fine, as long as you remember to put them behind tags.

If you want more Xenogears stuff, check out the handy dandy links below!

My relatively short form Xenogears review: https://talking-time.net/index.php?threads/on-xenogears.3200/

And this wonderful video LP of the game: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMthTW4vRq8bNjz1PVnn-2YCTWc5vHJ1O .

Time to go to space!

Index

It Began In Space - Prologue
Premonitions of Battle - Part 1
Action Fei! - Part 2
A "Hero's" Journey - Part 3
To The City! (Part 1) - Part 4
To The City! (Part 2) - Part 5
Deserted! - Part 6
 
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It Began In Space - Prologue

Video



We open with a quote directly from the Book of Revelation. Xenogears is heavily inspired by Biblical tales and legends, and as such, isn't shy about its inspirations in the slightest.



A huge spaceship flies through the endless darkness of space...



But its journey is not as pleasant as it would seem. A bunch of overhead windows seal shut, as the ship's bridge room suddenly fills up with warning signs!



The operator at its helm tries everything in her power, but to no avail - whatever is infecting the ship is just too powerful to be handled by conventional tools. To her horror, she discovers that it's planning to hijack the ship and use it to attack the main planet!



The captain tries to contact the engine room to setup an emergency sealing. Unfortunately, said room has already been overtaken by worms!



The infection gets quite bold, and starts spamming the bridge terminals with an infamous Biblical phrase from the Genesis! This spooks the captain enough to order a general evacuation.



Unfortunately, the infection is having none of that, and unceremoniously blasts the escape ships in front of the captain's eyes!



Dejected, the captain pulls out a memento of his family, and takes some small comfort.



Then, in a last ditch effort, he blows up his own spaceship! Welp. He's pretty hardcore, if nothing else...



Somehow, a single lady survived the catastrophe. Without clothes, but hey. That's more than could be said for the passengers and crew of the spaceship.😆😩



She takes in the beautiful sight of the spaceship parts burning in the planet's atmosphere as its sun rises. End scene. Well, we're starting off quite dramatic, aren't we? Lol.

Join me next time as we completely switch perspectives and look at a quaint border village! It'll be fun, heh.
 
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I often think about replaying this game but I don't know if it can possibly live up to my teenage memories of it...
 
I love, how the intro sequence makes no sense at all in the context of the rest of the game, until you are 40 hours or so in.

Good luck with this 200 hour lp.
 
As you can probably tell from my handle, this is one of my favorite games. Looking forward to finally seeing a good screenshot LP of it!
 
I played Xenogears in practically a single session while bedridden with a high fever, and I feel like that's the best possible way to experience it. Looking forward to the full recap though.
 
I'll admit, I love the way the Japanese treat Christian mythology as mythology, and twist, rearrange and ignore it as necessary to make stories. Given what we see later, it makes no sense that anything from Genesis should be showing up because it hasn't happened yet. But symbolism!
 
Premonitions of Battle - Part 1

Video



We immediately cut to a text crawl talking about two kingdoms that have warred for centuries.



Long story short, some archeological organization, called "Ethos", enabled them to escalate their battles by digging and repairing giant ancient robots for use in combat. Yep. Lol.



Kislev had the upper hand because it got better robots, but a mysterious mercenary group, Gebler, joined the Avehian side and reversed the balance of power. Then, Aveh got emboldened enough to start invading and taking Kislev territory.



With that backdrop, we cut to our next location for the story, a peaceful, idyllic...border village.



It suffers the fate all border villages eventually suffer, getting set on fire by the enemy forces.



We cut to a young man in a dark robot, Fei, kung fuing the enemy robots...or attempting to, at any rate.



A man dressed in green, Citan, yells at him to stop fighting. Fei doesn't listen, kicking down the enemy robot again. Lol.



Fortunately, all of that was just a dream. Fei was just imagining it while painting his latest piece, lol. It's a good thing nothing like that can be expected to happen!



Instead we can enjoy the mundane pleasures of life, like talking to the maid and finding that our dear protagonist Fei was adopted by the village chief and suffers from amnesia. Also, he was brought in by a masked man and was in a horrible shape when he was taken in. Ah, nothing like a good mysterious backstory. 😆



Upstairs, we can discover that Fei has a friend! His name is Timothy, and he's getting married tomorrow to the local sweet girl, Alice. She's also his friend, and he's grateful to the two for supporting him, despite him being amnesiac and also a foreigner to the village.



We can also enjoy the small talk, like Alice's dad lamenting that he has to send her daughter off to Timothy's family, or the village chief urging Fei to bring in a good girl and make a family! Lol.



Heading outside, we run into Dan! Dan is...well...a bit of a runt. He yells at Timothy and invites Fei to a discussion in private. Hmm. Not suspicious at all!



He also bares his tongue at Timothy before leaving! What a rascal, lol.



Outside, we can enjoy the lighthearted, amusing dialogue of the village, like this woman insisting that Fei's artistic and martial prowess stems from his body remembering things, a woman musing about whether she can live a life of adventure on her own, and a boy wondering if Fei could fly back to his home as a bird. It's all very charming and silly, and sadly, it can't be captured well through text, so watch this video instead:


Well, that was fun. Let's meet up with Dan and progress the story.



Yep. He sure wants Fei to just abduct his friend's wife on the day of their wedding. To sell Fei on this offer, he even begins talking about how she's beautiful, a good cook, and has good boobs. Yikes!!! Naturally, Fei turns this rascal's offer down.



Anyway, he's checking up on Alice, because Timothy told him to, and also because, well, Alice is his friend too. The bridesmaid lets him in, because she trusts him to be a good boy. Ahhhh, what an idyllic place, lol.



Inside, we first meet Alice's aunt, who has acted as a mother to both Alice and Dan. She's relieved to finally see Alice off as a married woman to a nice man, and is quite worried about raising Dan. I can relate, lol.



Next up is the bride herself. She is obviously a bit shy and tense about the wedding. She asks Fei about Dan, and gets annoyed to find that he has been slacking off! Hah! Anyway, he was supposed to visit Citan Uzuki, the village doctor, to get a camera for her wedding.

Fei, being the charismatic gentlemen, decides to take on the errand himself! She thanks him, and then briefly expresses her attraction for Fei in the most awkward way possible, causing him to break away hurriedly!



I end this LP post with this somber musing. Tune in next time, as Fei makes his way to the good doctor, we get introduced to the game's combat, and we totally get to attend Timothy and Alice's grand wedding, with nothing bad happening! It'll be great. Lol.
 
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Every time anyone has ever played Xenogears and shared thoughts with me, I am once again jump-scared by Dan. Only to forget how he is Like That by the time someone else does a playthrough.

Little Brad Dourif lookin' 45 year old 10 year old...
 
I haven't made time to read a long LP in quite a while but I think I’m gonna try to stick around for this one. I played Xenogears when it was new and really enjoyed a lot of it but never quite finished. I know I made it past the infamous tower platforming… I think I stopped somewhere around the Voltron fight? The gear fights after the limiters come off weren’t quite clicking for me I think. But it was decades ago so my memories are fuzzy. Anyway, it should be fun to revisit!
 
Action Fei! - Part 2

Video 1: Ancient Music Box
Video 2: Fei Gets A Robot



Fei's headed for Citan Uzuki's house. For whatever reason, he doesn't live in the village itself, but rather atop a hill accessible only through a winding path.



Said path is infested with hobgoblins and wolves, thus serving as our first dungeon! Hobgoblins are the strange, bouncy creatures featured in this screenshot, and are the more dangerous of the two foes, boasting a fairly powerful HP draining attack. Wolves, on the other hand, have not much going for them except for a multihit attack. Neither foe is particularly hard, and outside of the HP draining move, all of their attacks do single digit damage to Fei.



Let's talk combat mechanics. Broadly speaking, characters fight by selecting one of three types of attacks. Each attack makes some tradeoffs between raw power and accuracy, with the attack types ranging from a low power, high accuracy hit to the exact inverse. Attacking costs action points, with the weakest attack taking 1, the medium attack taking 2, and the strongest attack taking 3. The attacks are largely balanced well against each other, the strongest attack does decently more damage than three weak attacks or even a weak attack followed by a medium attack, but misses often enough that mixing it up is worthwhile.



Every character also has spells. Fei's spells are labelled "Chi", but this is just a bit of flavor. Mechanically, they're like spells in almost every RPG ever built - they target magic defense instead of defense, they run off mana, which is a limited resource that can only be replenished through consumables or rest, and they often serve purposes beyond damage, like healing or utility. Right now, Fei only has one simplistic and fairly uninteresting spell. It hits one target and does mildly higher damage than a strong attack. Not particularly exciting.



Characters can also use items, defend themselves against incoming attacks, and escape unimportant battles. All of these should be fairly self explanatory, and rather familiar to someone who's played RPGs before.



Turns out, not only does the doctor live past a monster infested hill path, but said path just had a fair bit of it collapse. This necessitates a jump to the next side, and is also an introduction to platforming. Yep, there's certainly going to be platforming in full 3D environments, and it's going to be f u n. Lol.

Also, does anyone else wonder how the doctor runs his profession? I doubt he must be getting a lot of customers, looking at the state of this path. What about the monsters? How do the villagers handle them? Food for thought. Lol.



The doctor's house is very picturesque and charming, in the hobbit hut kind of way, but I can't get over how he lets chickens into his living room. That's crazy!



The doctor isn't at home. As his wife, Yui, puts it, he's working on his stuff in his backyard. Double entendre totally not intended.



We see just exactly what kind of work he's up to - tinkering with advanced machines. Seems like the good doctor has a fair number of interests. He invites Fei to see an exhibit in his storeroom, while he finishes working on the crab robot.



The exhibit doesn't look all that interesting at first, but...




It opens up to a ridiculously elaborate statue, which spins around playing music. The room suddenly fills with petals, as Fei stands flabbergasted at the sight.



The good doctor straddles in and explains that it's a music box unearthed from some ancient ruins, but not before ruminating on the nature of music and how it can make people remember things. He continues pondering about how people in the past felt about listening to music. Clearly he's very passionate about the subject, lol.

Fei explains his errand to the doctor, and he agrees to bring the camera, but invites him to wait for dinner and accompany his daughter first.



Before leaving, Fei comments that the music makes him feel strange, prompting this really odd comment from the doctor. Yep. He's haunted! Lol.



The doctor briefly ponders pursuing a laidback, leisurely life with the wedding being so close, but is interrupted by the statue slowly grinding to a halt, and then breaking into pieces! Ominous.



But hey, why worry about that? Let's instead look at Fei after he's done eating Yui's dinner, lol. The doctor snubs Fei gently by implying that he doesn't trust him to handle his camera well, and so he'll be bringing it down himself.



The doctor warns him once more outside his door, but come on. Since when do omens mean anything, right? He's just worried for no good reason.

So Fei went home, having accomplished a good day's worth o-



Oh noes! Robots!



Oh noes! They're headed for the village!



Oh noes! The village is on fire!



Timothy and Alice thankfully made it out safe, but the village is still in danger! The doctor volunteers to search the buildings for any survivors, and requests Fei to help him by guiding them to a safe location.

But Fei, suddenly thrust into a desperate situation, has ideas of his own...




He stares haplessly at the violence all around him...



Until he's shaken by a loud noise!



It's the noise of a robot falling in front of him, with its pilot dead.




He starts getting creepy visions of the robot's cockpit...



And takes over the robot!



The doctor vehemently protests this, but to no avail...



Fei is thrust into combat against robots for perhaps the first time in his life.

What will happen? Will he succeed in fighting off these assailants? Will the villagers be safe? Will the village recover? Find out the answers to these and other burning questions next time!
 
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For those with vague memories, watch the first video to hear what the music box is playing…
 
A "Hero's" Journey - Part 3

Video: Fei Destroys His Village



The robot has some sort of mechanism for detecting its current occupant. It identifies Fei as an inexperienced "Lamb" pilot, and sets the controls to Easy mode! While amusing, the presence of difficulty modifiers in a combat robot's console seems quite impractical. Why wouldn't you want your war robot to be easy to handle?



In any case, Fei is thrust into robot combat immediately afterwards. Robot combat is largely similar to character combat, with some key differences:

1. There are no items to heal robots, seeing as they're made of metal, not flesh and bone.
2. Robots need to build up attack levels by attacking before being able to execute combos. Consider it as their way of "warming" themselves up.
3. Speaking of which, every attack uses up fuel, a highly limited resource that can only be feasibly recharged at certain refueling robots/stations. So you need to be more careful with what attacks you throw out, or even what you choose to fight. You can charge a very miniscule bit in combat for emergencies, but if you've run out, odds are you've lost the battle already.
4. Spells are usable in robot combat, but tend to do underwhelming damage, as they're calibrated for character combat, where foes have considerably less HP. Also, healing spells don't restore HP, only armor loss sustained from certain attacks.



5. Robots have a built in booster that can be toggled on or off. When turned on, it greatly boosts how fast they get turns, at the cost of consuming 1/50th of their total fuel capacity every turn. It comes in handy against sturdy foes, but needs to be used sparingly considering how scarce fuel is.

Mechanical talk aside, this battle is fairly easy despite Fei's inexperience. Which, well, isn't surprising. It's the early game after all, how well do you expect generic mookbots to stand against the protagonist's prowess? 😆



Robot and character fights both give XP to the characters, there's no such thing as robot XP. It makes some sense as a paradigm, but it also makes robot fighting feel a bit awkward at times, as you're burning the robot's resources without getting much of a direct gain for it in turn. As such, robot fights against non bosses can get a mite aggravating past a point, and I tend to decline them after a while.



Fei may have defeated two soldiers, but all it did was draw the attention of the rest of the platoon. They quickly surround him on all sides!



Then this intimidating robot, presumably the robot of their commander, shows up, ordering them all to ruthlessly fire at Fei! Welp, he's in serious trouble now...



Meanwhile, an increasingly concerned Citan looks on, worried about something awakening in Fei.



Dan shows up fine, and reveals that he does have a sensitive side to him, despite his grossness. Lol.



Citan makes this rather ominous comment, perhaps hinting that he knows more about Fei than he lets on...



Timothy returns, but unfortunately one of the soldiers spots him and blocks his way!



The commander coldly gives them the go ahead.




Welp. So much for you, Timothy. And just when you were looking forward to a new life, too!



Fei, unable to bear the trauma of seeing his friend killed in front of him, loses control of himself!



And awakens...his hidden evil self? Damn!



He unleashes a powerful explosion from the robot!





Needless to say, there's a wee bit of collateral damage here. The village is blown apart, along with the enemy platoon, most of its inhabitants, and, worst of all, Alice.



The next morning, Fei wakes up, blissfully unaware of his own actions.



Unfortunately for him, he's immediately faced with his victims - the surviving villagers. They're...not particularly thrilled to see him. Especially Dan, who lost his own sister in that mess.



As Citan puts it oh-so-politely, it's time for Fei to leave them and find a new life. He vaguely suggests looking around in Aveh's cities (well, the one city, Bledavik), but well, it's going to be a long while before he gets there. And who knows how well he's going to adjust to the big city life?



It's been a while, but finally, Fei's journey begins in earnest! How shall he eke out his life? Shall he settle down in a nice Avehian family? Perhaps work in a fine establishment? Maybe even open his own art studio? Find all of that and more next time!
 
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Judging from the reactions so far, I feel like my updates have been a bit too short in terms of content to give the readers much to comment on. We're also kind of in the problematic early RPG parts of the game, where the game has to spend time establishing its setting, main character, stakes etc and so can't really go too crazy yet (though I do think Fei burning down his own village is quite hilarious and memorable in its own right). Should I make future updates meatier to make them more interesting? Or has the way I've been doing them up to satisfaction?
 
I would certainly vote against anything longer as the amount of images and video is already a lot to load for my computer, I think it's a nice amount. I've never played this before so don't have a lot to say personally, but I like the pacing and that you're adding videos for certain scenes.
 
Yeah, whatever works best for you is just fine. As I said above I *have* seen all this before up to like the 3/4 point, so I’m most likely to comment when we hit things I’d forgotten about (like the music box) or somehow missed in my playthrough…
 
To The City! (Part 1) - Part 4

Last time, Fei destroyed his idyllic border village himself, and was thus shunned out of it forever.



Citan vaguely suggested perusing the Avehian cities, and we do see a city sitting enticingly in the distance. But there's a vast tract of forest between it and him.



The forest is not very welcoming. It's a dense, dimly lit thicket, with tall trees constantly dominating the view, and tall cliffs hemming in the path. As you might expect, this forest is filled with enemies, and is the second dungeon of this game.



Most of the encounters are against the same wolves and hobgoblins we encountered on Citan's mountain path, but there are a few new enemies. Also, enemies that are on a different cliff can't hurt our character without jumping over, but the same is true for him. Thankfully, jumping over doesn't consume an extra turn. It's an interesting bit of environmental interaction that seems to only show up here and in the previous dungeon.



The dungeon also introduces the concept of fixed encounters that can be manually encountered at the player's choice. This hobgoblin is boldly holding up this boulder, but unfortunately for it, Fei needs to get past it to continue progressing, so he fights it. Some hero he is, lol.



The dungeon technically also introduces environmental hazards, the rock deals damage to Fei while rolling into him in the world. Thankfully, it's not a whole lot, and as far as I know, environmental damage can't actually kill our characters, but it's a nice bit of additional flavor and detail.



A fair ways in, Fei is suddenly accosted by this strange woman in a space suit (or perhaps a pilot suit?) threatening him with a gun! She shouts out some gibberish before telling him to drop his weapon. Mayhap she doesn't know that he's unarmed and only ever fights with his fists. And his Gear that one time, but hssh, he doesn't like talking about that!



Once she draws closer, though, it becomes clear that she herself is quite nervous. It seems like she's trying to avoid some enemy soldiers herself! When Fei turns to her, she also reveals that she's not from the surface, and that her kind call the surface dwellers "Lambs". Ah, so it's some kind of slur then. Glad to have that cleared up, lol.



Ultimately, she just threatened Fei to look for directions out of the forest. Too bad Fei is no more knowledgeable than her, having spent most of his remembered life only in his village. Welp!



Understandably, Fei isn't in the best mental state right now, and he dares her to shoot him and end his life, because he thinks he's a worthless person with nothing to live for. She's quite shocked to hear him boldly ask for his death, instead of being intimidated by her gun.



She tries backing away from the crazy man, but is herself ambushed by strange purple men, who quickly knock her out! Fei, alarmed, quickly rushes to her aid, leading to another battle!



The men are apparently forest elves, and they're a slight bit above the other creatures of this forest, being capable of hitting for more than 1 damage per hit, and possessing martial arts themselves! They're still not very tough though, and Fei deals with them without breaking a sweat.



A while later, the woman wakes up, and Fei holds a very awkward conversation with her, where he once again asks her to kill him, but with some choice taunts, lol. She remains silent until Fei very pointedly tells her that he attended to her wounds, and she should at least be grateful for that.



This makes her open up, and she reveals that she's nervous because he's a very suspicious Lamb. To which he points out that she's far more suspicious than him, being a spacesuited soldier randomly holding people at gunpoint just to get directions. Ha! Good one.



She's still very distrusting of him, understandably, but he eventually convinces her to at least help him as long as they're in the forest, so that they can protect each other better and hopefully figure out a way out faster. She reluctantly agrees, and gives her name - Elhaym, or Elly in short.



Fei reveals that he psychically already knew her name. Probably. Or maybe he's just lying to impress her, I guess. Lol. Not that I think he's romantically interested in her, mind.



That night, Fei experiences a very odd dream. He sees himself as a lonely boy stranded in a desert, crying relentlessly.



Just then, a bunch of shadowy people march right past him, without so much as taking a glance towards him.



He tries chasing behind them, but to no avail. Dejected, he drops down and starts sobbing again.



However, a mysterious kind lady, wearing a cross and looking a little like Elly, shows up and consoles him.



And then Elly woke him up. Well. That was quite the odd dream indeed. Who knows what it means? Does it pertain to anything? We'll just have to wait and watch.
 
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To The City! (Part 2) - Part 5

Video: Elly's Flashback



Welp, there's our first party member, Elly. I'll discuss more about her once we get into combat. For now, the two head ahead, and discover a sign leading them onto the right path! Phew, looks like they got that problem sorted out quick, at least.



Elly is essentially the dedicated wizard of this game. Her physical attacks are somewhat lacking, but she starts with spells of four elements, and unlike Fei's Chi attacks, these actually do pretty solid damage, enough to be worth their mana (or, as this game puts it, ether) expenditure.



Armor grubs are a weak enemy with high defense, but low magic defense. Essentially just a reminder that tools besides your attacks exist, and you should use them. Lol. They're even nice to drop Ether Point restores after the fact!



The forest also houses some rather hawkish birds, literally called Dive Bombers. They start out battles comfortably perched out of reach, only to swoop in once other enemies are defeated. They don't deal a whole lot of damage, but are rather dodgy, often requiring chaining weak hits, or casting spells.



After a short trip, involving some very minor platforming, Elly decides to ask Fei about his weird suicidal tendencies yesterday.



This makes Fei ask her about her circumstances in turn. She's very reluctant to answer, but then Fei begins ruminating about the recent tragedy of his former village, making her recollect her own recent events.



It turns out she was the one piloting the black Gear. A group of Kislev soldiers had caught wind of her platoon however, and attacked them, destroying one of their Gears and damaging her Gear's thrusters. This forced them to make a landing at and around Fei's village, which in turn led to the tragedy of that night. Welp. Awkward.



Elly, perhaps feeling a pang of guilt, decides to shift the blame onto Fei, which comes off as more than a little harsh, considering how low he's feeling and how he was being suicidal not too long ago.



Naturally, this works out rather poorly, and Fei sinks even deeper into depression and despair.



Elly, now feeling guiltier than ever, slowly walks away from a depressed, brooding Fei crouching in the corner.




It turns out, she too had some unpleasant memories of her past, having massacred some of her fellow soldiers before! Her admonishment of Fei begins to haunt her, as it reminds herself of her own excuses she made when confronted after the event.



But before she can brood any more, this random dinosaur shows up, eager to devour her! Lol.



Fei, hearing her screams, rushes to her rescue! He successfully diverts the dinosaur's attention towards himself before it can devour her, but as you'd expect, his regular strikes are a wee bit ineffective against a beast of such might!



Fortunately, our good buddy Citan shows up with the black Gear in his crab bot! Err, sure. Let's just roll with this. Nothing like a good ol' deus ex machina to further the plot!



Fei, of course, has reservations about fighting with the Gear again, but with Elly's life in danger, he quickly overcomes them! Once in the Gear, the dinosaur proves to be a laughable opponent against him, doing very little damage and taking overwhelming damage in turn. And so, the day is saved!



Citan tries to flatter Fei by claiming that no ordinary Gear could beat that dinosaur, but he doesn't fall for it. Instead, he brings up a very pertinent point: why bring the Gear here? The doctor gives the Gear a name, Weltall, and also spouts some psuedo philosophical nonsense about how Fei needs strength to defend himself, and how gaining power can be a good thing. Suuure. Not sure how that justifies bringing a freaking Gear to the forest, but you do you. Lol.



Once Elly comes to her senses, Citan informs her that Fei rescued her and that they're straight up going to jack her Gear for themselves. Lol. Alright. Citan then suggests camping for the day, and the scene ends!

Well, looks like we're slowly gathering our RPG party here. So, what will come next? Will Fei finally reach the city in the distance? Will Elly stick around? Is Citan up to any other business? And, perhaps most importantly, will there be any shenanigans with the Gear Weltall? Find out all this and more next time!
 
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Deserted! - Part 6

Video: Dazil
Video: Grahf



That night, our worst fears come true - all of that dinosaur kicking action broke Weltall's circuit, and so it can't see use until it's repaired. Darn! So much for getting to use a fancy Gear. 😩



Welp, since repairing Weltall is beyond him, Citan decides to kill some time by chatting up Elly, who hasn't been able to sleep. He quickly figures out that she's the pilot behind the Lahan incident, and is from the Gebler, the mercenary group supporting Aveh.



Before she gets any ideas to question him about his vast knowledge, he cuts her off! Then, he nonchalantly asks her to leave them be, because...because he wants to protect Fei, allegedly. Also because he thinks she shouldn't be here. Jeez, kinda rude, Citan.



Elly, rather reluctant to leave, expresses regret at having unintentionally scolded Fei and making him depressed, and wishes to apologize to him somehow. Citan remarks on how such a sentiment is rather rare among her people, as they see the surface dwellers as little more than chattel.

She reveals that she was rather moved by Fei's heroics, and doesn't believe in the propaganda she learnt back at her homeland anymore. It helps that her father was open minded about surface dwellers, and her own nanny was a surface dweller. She almost talks about she and Fei being linked somehow, but quickly stops herself.



Citan hilariously realizes that he's been prying into Elly's thoughts after saying he wouldn't do so, and decides to wrap up the conversation for real. But not before making this bizarre quote.



No, seriously, I don't get it. What was he trying to do, sound profound? It doesn't make much sense. Elly leaves for real, and the scene ends. Boo! I thought we were creating an RPG party here!



The next morning, Fei reveals that he had overheard part of their conversation, and in turn feels guilty for dumping his frustrations on Elly. He then queries the doctor on the survivors of Lahan. Apparently his wife, Yui, took them to a certain secretive place, where they should be safe.

The good doctor also lays out their next plan - visit the nearby desert town, Dazil, to learn about the news and also repair Weltall. Well, Fei was headed that way regardless, so following this is a no brainer. Say, doctor, what's your motive for repairing it? Do you want to pilot it because it's a cool Gear? Lol.

There's a brief scene where the doctor elaborates on things we learnt in the introductory scrawl, as well as mention Gebler's recent fights over some excavation sites. Spoilers, none of those fights are relevant to the story, and as such, through the magic of Let's Play, we skip ahead and move on.



We can now take a good look at Citan as a party member. And holy shit he's huge! He's two levels behind Fei, yet has more than twice the HP and a similarly ginormous amount of EP. All of his stats are better too. Looks like we've got a Mary Sue here!



We're also finally out of the forest! Woohoo!

Time to step into Dazil, our first "proper" city.




It's a dusty little town with some prominent Middle Eastern trappings. There's not a lot to look at, but the townsfolk have some mildly funny, or rather, punny dialogue. Lol. The rugged look of the town also has a charm to it, especially accentuated by all of the metalwork and machinery around.



But Citan isn't here for gossip or sightseeing. No, he has a Gear to fix. Lol.

Unfortunately for him, the local Ethos workshop cannot service him, as he's asking for high grade parts only used in military Gears, and they only service civilian ones.



Fei pulls him aside to ask him why exactly they need to repair the Gear. The doctor mumbles some bullshit about how they need to pull it farther from Lahan, as troops from both sides would be looking for it still. Buuut they left it in the forest, at an end that connects to Dazil, not Lahan. Also, didn't the doctor already evacuate Lahan anyway? Why worry about what happens to it, it's not like the burned out village can get any worse, lol.



Anyway, the good doctor's genius plan is...to run around the desert battlegrounds looking for Gears to scavenge. Which he decides to do on his own, ditching Fei abruptly and asking him to spend his time in the local bar. Welp. Lol.



Fortunately, this random punk rocker talks some sense into Fei, and makes him set off for the desert! Too bad Citan took the last sand ride in town, and Fei now has to cross the desert by foot! Oof lol.



Well, it doesn't take very long for him to run into some Gears hopping their way through the desert! Fei, curious, decides to follow their path.



But he gets ambushed by some raiders, which gives me the opportunity to show off a unique combo move he acquired in the meantime. Essentially, these are predefined combo moves learnt at certain levels, and they're significantly flashier than "regular" combos and also more damaging.

I feel like their existence clashes too much with the combo based system, as players are encouraged only to input certain specific combos instead of making up their own, but it's not a huge downside and the animations are nice to look at, lol.



Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, Fei loses sight of the hopping Gears. Fortunately, he find this strange spaceship, and follows it into the path of another hopping Gear unit. At this point I'm fairly sure he's just winging it, lol. Let's just hope he doesn't get lost and die of starvation.



A bunch more desert trekking later, Fei gets tired of chasing Gears that are clearly too fast for him, and decides to steal a motorcycle off a band of motorcyclists passing by! Jeez, way to be a dick. Maybe Fei should've stayed back in town after all!



His little joyride is stopped short by two Gears blowing his bike away and then surrounding him! Welp, he's busted.



Thankfully, Citan arrives just in time! He quickly dispatches Fei's would-be captors with Weltall's hidden machine guns, then hilariously gives control of it to Fei, blatantly lying about how he "can't use it very well". Well, honestly, I'm fine with this, it means we get control of it again!



Gears also have predefined combos, corresponding to the predefined combos unlocked by their pilot. Sadly, gear combos are not as flashy as character combos, but they still deal a ton of damage regardless! Anyway, Fei clears his pursuers for good in an easy battle, but..




We meet the best character of the game, standing atop the officer Gear from earlier, itself perched atop a cliff! Lol. He taunts Fei for being a bloodthirsty fighter, and we get a brief flashback of him being bloodied as a kid.



He gives his name, Grahf, and continues to insult Fei with some wonderful lines like these. He also smugly gloats about intentionally sending his platoon to attack Fei's village, to get him riled up and lose control of himself! How villainous.



Fei, aghast, brings up the innocent villagers who died in the incident. But Grahf, evil as ever, dismisses them as vermin who "didn't fulfil their prescribed destinies"! He is an extremely ham fisted villain, and his lines and performances are a great delight. Lol.



Grahf continues his villainous gloating, pointing out that technically, it was Fei who destroyed his village by letting himself go berserk, and that whatever spirit is within him craves destruction. Yep. That's definitely a plot point in this game. Lol.



Fei feebly tries to oppose Grahf's observation, but he quickly cuts it short by blaming him for blame shifting. Then, he reveals his motivation - he wants Fei's power to kill god! Yes. What a classic villainous motivation, lol.



His continued gloating further reveals that he knew Fei's father, and had enjoyed killing him himself! Jeez. There clearly is no end to his villainy, is there?



He ends their conversation by siccing a giant worm on Fei, imploring him to show his power by destroying others! Then, he flies off into the night sky, doubtless with the most evil grin on his face.



The worm is obnoxious as it can drain fuel with its attacks, and counters attacks with its fuel drain, but otherwise it's not a particularly hard foe. Frankly, it's a bit of a hilarious anticlimax after Grahf's hammy dialogue. Couldn't he have brought a more credible opponent to test Fei's strength? Lol.



Unfortunately, all of that action breaks Weltall down again, somehow. The doctor claims he only made temporary repairs and that they weren't meant to last in a battle. Oh good. We're back to trudging slowly through the desert again.



And then they got captured. The End. Lol.

What shall happen next? Shall they be imprisoned? Will Grahf challenge Fei again? Will Weltall be repaired and piloted again? Does Fei regret going on this wild ride? Find out all this and more...next time!
 
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I’d forgotten the extent to which Dazil is pretty much traced over Mos Eisley, lol. Right down tho the sand people lurking outside the borders.

Of course then we immediately get Grahf’s big debut so we’re in a peak Star Wars section. With some G-Gundam mashed in for good luck.
 
Hah. Yes, the game is rather direct with its inspirations, lol. Which, well, is only to be expected from a game that quotes the Bible in its intro and is full of Biblical allusions. Lol.
 
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