Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht

"I really wanted to give this game a better score"

It's 2006. I avoided playing this series for the longest time, but with the release of Xenosaga Episode III, (which was released in the US about a week before this review was submitted,) I became very interested in this series and decided to play the first one.

This wasn't the first time I had wanted to play this series. RPG fans everywhere recommend this series constantly to those of us who care more about plot than gameplay, and who appreciate a "fantastic storyline and cutscenes" more than anything else. I fall into that category, so this series seemed like a great fit for me. Unfortunately, some things stood in my way. Aside from the fact that Episode I is very hard to find, (had to purchase it used; something I never do,) I did not want to play Episode II. At all. And I knew that it would be essential to play Episode II to continue the series, so I decided not to bother with the series. It turns out I worried for nothing. Once I found out that Episode III features very detailed summaries of Episode I and II (therefore eliminating the need to play the games,) I decided to just go ahead and play Episode I, skip II, and play Episode III at a later date. I really liked Episode I up to a point, and the story is definitely well told and very interesting, but the game ends up being sunk by some really poor decisions on the developers' part, leading to a dull gameplay experience and a plot that doesn't live up to its full potential.

Graphics; Xenosaga Episode I (from here on known as Xenosaga 1,) looks decent. The characters are well-drawn, the anime style used suits everyone perfectly, and the characters are very colorful and have decent facial expressions. The environments themselves look nice, and while nothing stands out in any way, Xenosaga 1 at least features solid visuals. It's just unfortunate that the color scheme used doesn't really create an interesting-looking game. Most environments are colored with dull shades of grey and black, and aside from the characters, very little color is thrown around at all. Now...most of this game takes place inside space ships and space colonies, yet that's not much of an excuse, since Star Ocean; Till the End of Time, (which was released in Japan about 1 year after this game,) showed that you can have colorful visuals in an outer space setting. While some places, like the Elsa, did have the developers throw some color around, too many areas in this game just look bland. At one point, you invade a ship, and the visuals were so dull that it actually seemed to resemble an office building. Ugh...

Another graphical flaw is in the loading times, (which last around 8 seconds,) that occur when you travel from one screen to another. They really make exploring ships and towns kind of a pain. Still, though, the graphics on display here are solid, and get the job done. I just wish they had tried to liven up some of the environments here, since plenty of them just look boring.

Sound; The sound effects in the game are nice, from the rumbling of ships to the smashing of objects as you fire at them with your ray gun. The sound effects people did a good job here...which is good, because while playing the game, that's all you hear. Yes, there is no music in this game outside of cutscenes. Wait a minute...it's not as bad as it sounds. When exploring ships, I kind of liked the fact that music was off. Like I said, the sound effects are cranked up, and it kind of creates a lonely atmosphere that I think they were going for, (the game takes place in "deep space" and often, ships are in the middle of nowhere, with no contact from anyone nearby,) so I had no problem with that. However....the lack of music in dungeons was a bigger problem, especially considering how long and boring a lot of them are, (more on that later,) and some music would have really made them interesting. Aside from the battle theme (which is used in every single battle, yes, even the BOSSES, except for the final one,) dungeons are completely silent, again, with nothing but sound effects. Even this I might have been able to live with, but it gets even worse. Towns and cities do not have music either. Now...talk about a bad idea. There are very few (non-dungeon) locations in this game to begin with, and the problem becomes worse when you reach them and don't even get any music. As I walked through the silent town, I entered a (silent) bar, and saw a character sitting at a piano. I talked to her, and she said something like, "like the song I'm playing? Ha...just kidding. I'm not playing any song, this piano's broken." Of course it is....

Anyway, the lack of music when controlling your character outside of battle during this game is a big problem. While it was a good idea to cut the music when exploring ships, it was a bad idea to cut it when exploring dungeons, and an even worse idea to cut it when exploring towns and other locations.

With the music missing from the gameplay, you'd expect composer Yasunori Mitsuda to have some damn good cutscene music, since that's all he had to work on, apparently. Yet he couldn't even accomplish this. Although the quality of the music is excellent, the songs repeat themselves fairly often during the game, the main villain's music sucks, and during action scenes, the music even starts looping a few times. Which means he only basically composed a 1-minute long song for a 5-minute long action scene, and just had it loop during it. How lazy could he get?

The music in Xenosaga 1 just wasn't up to the standards you'd expect for a game with such high production values. While the music quality (performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra,) is excellent, the songs themselves are too short, they are recycled for a few cutscenes, and some just don't work at all. This wouldn't normally be a huge issue, but the fact that Mitsuda was only required to provide the musical score for about 1/3 of the game, (the cutscenes only,) it should have been much better.

Gameplay; You've probably heard of the infamous Xenosaga cutscenes. Sure enough, the cutscenes are very long and very frequent in Xenosaga 1, and they definitely take up about 1/3 of the game. The other 2/3's, however, are spent actually playing the game, and once you get far enough in the game, you'll wish the entire game was cutscenes. Playing this game is BORING!!!!! After the amazing cutscenes, getting dropped back into the gameplay was always hard. With the large, bland, environments totally lacking music, exploring is a complete bore. And the combat system is also boring, favoring long battles that are heavily reliant on tech attacks (which you have to sit through,) and enemies with lots of HP.

Now...I didn't find this game to be challenging at all. Many consider this game to be a big challenge, but I went through almost the entire game, (every required boss battle, even the final ones) without ever facing a hard battle. The game, allowing much customization, puts heavy emphasis on finding and using your own strategy, and I guess I picked the right one. I'm not complaining about the lack of difficulty, (I like my RPG's to be fairly painless experiences,) I'm just pointing out that with the right strategy, this game is extremely easy. So those looking for a huge challenge might want to look elsewhere. (I hear Episode II provides a big challenge.) The funny thing is, strategy is one of my biggest weaknesses in an RPG. I'm one of those people who typically relies on level grinding and attack+heal strategies in many RPG's, and I was unable to beat Grandia III and Star Ocean; Till the End of Time due to this weakness. Yet, I was able to easily master Xenosaga 1's combat system.

That's not to say that combat was any fun, however. It's your incredibly basic turn-based battle system, although you're given 2 different modes of attack (for enemies with different weaknesses,) tech attacks, as well as something called boost, which, when charged, allows you to cut the enemies off. (They can do the same to you, however, and do so more frequently.) And during some areas, if you have the right tech attacks in use, you can easily destroy the enemies with amazingly powerful moves. In these instances, combat is fun. However, in other instances, it's horribly boring. As I said, the battles are longer than average, taking from 4-6 minutes each towards the end of the game. That wouldn't be a huge problem if they were actually exciting, but they're not. With tech attacks, (which end up being a little showy, which was a poor decision considering how often they're used,) enemies with high HP who constantly interrupt you by boosting, as well as noticeable load times when entering and exiting combat, battling in this game is not fun at all. I'm not even mentioning the skill points, ether points, or AGWS robots. But I don't need to go into details about those here. Just know that, although it's somewhat complex, combat in this game is completely without excitement and it ends up being way too slow for its own good. The only good thing to be said is that battles are not random, and you can see the enemies walking around and can usually choose whether or not to engage them in combat.

The slow combat, grouped with the extremely long dungeons in the game's 2nd half (again, completely without music,) as well as some needlessly large areas which include fairly long load times (and some instances of poorly placed save points,) end up creating a game where I sighed with disappointment every time a cutscene ended and I was thrown back into gameplay. It ended up being a case where, if I was even a little exhausted, I could not play this game, otherwise the slow gameplay literally put me to sleep. The only time the gameplay truly comes to life is when you get to explore some of the ships in the game, (without battles, of course,) because the ships in this game are amazing. Truly a highlight.

Plot;....but that stuff's all secondary. The real reason you play the Xenosaga series, (and what was clearly the most important part to the developers,) was the storyline. And what a massive storyline it is. Almost all events are done in 30-40 minute cutscenes, (yes, you CAN pause, and, in some instances, save, during them,) the character cast is diverse and interesting, and some of the action scenes are excellent. I honestly can't describe the plot. (For 2 reasons. One, I don't want to give away any spoilers, and Two, because there isn't one.)

This is the 1st episode in what was a (planned) 6-game series. (Due to poor sales of Episode II, this was scaled down to III episodes, the final one having just been released.) Therefore, it doesn't include as much a plot as simply things being SET UP for the rest of the series. We meet all the characters, we see some questions being set up, we meet the villain, we learn a little about the galaxy this series takes place in, and we get a little info about where the series will go from here. That's basically it. If I had to say what the storyline is, it would be very quick; The ship you're on is attacked by Gnosis, creatures who attack humans in the galaxy. Shion, a scientist on the ship whose working on an android named Kos-Mos, flees, with the orders to deliver Kos Mos to Second Miltia. And...a bunch of stuff happens on the way.

That's basically the game's plot. Like I said, it's not much of a plot, and this game served mainly to set up the overall storyline for future installments in the series. It ended up being not enough for me. I realize that this series wants to be judged as a whole, and as a whole, this plot is excellent, but just going by Episode 1 here...the plot just doesn't exist. I think the writers of this series made a very bad decision to split it up into 5 multiple episodes. If it had been originally planned as 3, (and had more plot packed into each,) I think we would have ended up with a tighter series where more progress seems to happen from game to game. After finishing this game, I learned very little about the Gnosis, almost nothing about the Zohar, very little about the pasts of the characters, almost nothing about the villain (except that he's basically Kuja from Final Fantasy IX but on crack,) and I learned almost nothing about the universe that this series takes place in.

Obviously, though, the cutscenes have to be about something, and they're very character-driven. Which is great. Very little development actually happens, but you really get to know these characters, and watching these cutscenes (particularly the action scenes involving Kos-Mos,) is a real treat. It's like watching a great anime. The cutscenes in the first half of the game are excellent, and really create a great game. Unfortunately, though, the 2nd half of the game is bogged down by an emphasis on the bizarre (like "journeys into the characters pasts" or "Miltia's Past..." or whatever,) and it just kind of loses its punch. Also, the characters, so interesting in the 1st half, seem forgotten by the second half. There was a really interesting relationship developing between Ziggy and Momo that seemingly gets completely dropped. chaos (deliberately spelled with a lower case "c" ) is completely forgotten, and even Shion becomes less of a character. And Kos-Mos ends up being absent for a few hours in the middle of the game, and when she finally does re-join the group, it seems like the writers forgot about her, as she has almost no dialogue until the end of the game. A lot of characters share this fate. In the 2nd half of the game, the only character who seems to have a lot of dialogue, (and one of the only 2 characters who ever get to speak to the main villain,) is the character named Jr. Which was unfortunate, because I wasn't a big fan of his character, and the heavy emphasis on him in the 2nd half of the game was disappointing, especially since most other characters seemed to get pushed into the background.

Anyway, don't get the wrong idea. The story here (as a setup for the rest of the series,) is really great. The action scenes are fantastic, especially the ending, one of the best I've seen in a video game. The characters have lots of dialogue, and you really feel like you get to know them. Many of the exposition scenes, setting up plot lines for future games in the series, are also very interesting, and again, all cutscenes are fully produced with clearly a top-notch budget. The story loses some of its punch in the 2nd half of the game, with the focus on Jr. and the "strange," as well as frequent interruptions due to long dungeons. And the other characters are seemingly forgotten by the script. That said, though, the story is definitely reason enough to play through this game, because it (in the 1st half, mainly) is completely worth experiencing. It really sets the scene for the rest of the series, which promised to be a huge series. As it stands, it's ending prematurely at Episode III, but it's still a series worth playing. Even though I'm only giving this game a 6/10 score, (Sorry, Xeno fans, but I honestly can't rate it any higher. The gameplay was amazingly boring and the plot wasn't quite compelling enough in the 2nd half of the game to make up for it,) I do, though, recommend all who are interested to check out this game, because it's unlike any other RPG I've ever played, that's for sure.

Note; I had no desire to play Episode II, and that hasn't changed. I researched the game thoroughly, and aside from including long and puzzle-filled dungeons, (which I hate,) as well as an overly complex combat system, (which I also hate,) it takes my problems with Episode I and makes them bigger; battles are even longer, the plot focuses even more on Jr, combat is even slower, the load times are even longer, the characters were re-designed horribly, (Kos-Mos) etc. etc. etc. I've been told by some Xenosaga fans that I'm wrong to skip the 2nd one based mostly on word-of-mouth, but look; some games I just know I won't like, and that's one of them. I wouldn't have made this decision without fully researching the game first, and I honestly wouldn't enjoy it. That said, though, I really like what I see for Episode III, and that game, unlike Episode II, seems to really have improved many of the issues, rather than making them worse. I hope to play Episode III in the future. I admit I'm a little disappointed by Episode 1, but I highly recommend playing it anyway because the plot is really worth experiencing.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06, Updated 01/20/09

Game Release: Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (US, 02/26/03)