Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

"A Suitable End for a Great Series"

The Xenosaga series has had somewhat of a tough run. The original game, in all its brilliance, seems to have slightly missed its mark with the gaming audience, failing to meet the rather lofty sales goals its designers had originally anticipated. Some might attribute this to the fact that it was in many ways an atypical RPG in terms of characters and storyline. Whatever the reason, Xenosaga II overcompensated for this by tempering the uniqueness of the characters and at the same time going just a bit too far in complicating the battle system.

Rising from the ashes of these mistakes is Xenosaga III, which finds itself in the unenviable position of atoning for these errors and at the same time concluding the storyline of the first two installments. Despite these handicaps, however, Xenosaga III manages to do an almost flawless job of concluding the trilogy's story, even if it does fall victim to some shortcomings.

All of the major characters from the first two games have returned, but unquestionably the story in the third focuses more on the main character, Shion Uzuki, than the previous installments. The story resumes a little while after the second game ends, and spends a large amount of time developing her past relationship with Kos-Mos's inventor Kevin. Typically, interactive flashback scenes don't meet much success in video games, but the designers of Xenosaga managed to put forth a solid effort here. This game really goes into great detail filling the many holes that were left in the first two episodes.

Beyond that the story moves along reasonably well throughout the entirety of the game. There are, sadly, times that the designers may have taken a little too much liberty with the story (especially with the connection between this game and Judeo-Christian traditions), but really the overall presentation is top notch. Unlike most other RPGs that merely rely upon a single, usually insane, villain, Xenosaga III develops all the characters to the point that a player is at least forced to empathize with the antagonists' positions.

Perhaps the only criticism is that the game has substantially moved the focus away from the alien Gnosis, whose attack opens the series. Admittedly, the depth of the rest of the story makes up for this fault, but it's hard to walk away from playing without the feeling that the Gnosis really played only a minor role in the story as a whole. Overall, however, the plot progression in this game is amongst the best released to date in the RPG genre.

Of course, the story benefits from taking place on a wonderfully designed stage. The graphics are once again some of the best to date on the aging Playstation 2 and will likely please almost anyone. Dungeon design is well varied and creative, especially the areas towards the end of the game. For the most part, the character design is also top notch, with the sad exception once again of the main protagonist, Shion. Her original costume in the first episode was a breath of fresh air - that is, a female RPG character not dressed as though she was out for a night of clubbing - and unfortunately the designers dropped this in the second installment and maintained the more typical outfit here. "Sex sells," as the saying goes.

Likely betraying the disappointing sales of the earlier installments are the relatively few full motion video scenes throughout the game. Granted, the game does have more than an ample supply over the course of the story, but the first game really dwarfs episode three in terms video scenes. Instead, the designers have chosen a more cost effective method using text boxes and animated heads. In all honesty, these were generally well done and sufficient to convey the story - they simply just aren't as jaw-dropping as the plethora of videos present in the first game.

For its part, the voice acting for most of the characters is once again representative of the best in the genre. There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule (generally with the female actors noticeably forcing emotion), but the game still compares very favorably to most others in terms of voice acting. Sadly, there is still no option for Japanese voices subtitled into English, a long overdue addition needed for Japanese-styled games ported to the US.

Much of a player's time not watching the story develop will be spent in battle, and here again several changes are present. The second episode introduced a very complex battle system that arguably went too deep, causing even a regular battle to require a substantial time commitment. Unfortunately, if this was an error, it appears as though the designers may have overcompensated, because a great deal of the early battles in Xenosaga III only require mashing the O button on the "fight" command.

As the game progresses, the battles become slightly more difficult, and this becomes less of an issue. There is no more bonus reel, but defeating an enemy with a special technique awards 1.5x the experience and gold, and trying to finish as many enemies as possible this way leads to much of the strategy for most routine battles. The boost gauge, which allows a character to act out of turn, makes its return in this incarnation of the game, but unfortunately it expends multiple boosts to use a special technique, so most of the time it makes more sense to bank the gauge for finishing strikes.

Leveling works by amalgamating a more traditional system with something similar to Final Fantasy X's sphere grid. Each character levels at a predetermined rate as they gain experience from battles, but each fight also awards skill points that a player can manually allocate to learn specific abilities. Like Final Fantasy X, there are still set paths on which to use these points, but in Xenosaga each character has only two basic paths to follow. Generally, one is the default path, with another as an alternate. Fortunately, a player can choose whether to completely unlock one before starting the other, or, if desired, split time between both skill sets. It's an interesting system that mixes a little of the old with the new and is also flexible enough that a player doesn't need to determine right off the bat which skills a character will need.

ES craft make their return from the second episode here as well. These vehicles replaced the AGWS from the first Xenosaga and are giant mechanized craft capable of devastating attacks. Maybe a third of the battles fought throughout the game take place while your characters are in these vehicles, and, if nothing else they provide a nice change of pace from the traditional battles. The special maneuvers also provide for some nice eye candy.

Several other reviews have criticized this installment's musical score, but this seems largely to be a matter of taste. Generally, the pieces fit the intended mood relatively well. Many of the boss themes are somewhat unconventional in that they have an almost spiritual tone about them, but this always fits appropriately with the general mood of the story at the time. Likewise, the dungeon music also varies quite a bit from area to area, but only does so in correlation with the progression of the plot.

If there is an area of concern in the trilogy's conclusion, it would have to be the almost total absence of side quests in this final installment. The segment file (basically a list of numbered doors and keys spread across the entire game) makes it return here, but besides this and a few optional bosses strewn along the way, there is next to nothing else for a player to explore. As in the earlier games, there is also a way to revisit earlier areas after passing them, but, again, there is little reason to do so besides searching for segment addresses. There is also a mini game, "HaKox," but it isn't terribly interesting and plays like a typical Nintendo platform/puzzle game.

In the end, however, Xenosaga III is a very effective conclusion to the trilogy. Admittedly, the game does have some minor faults, but it excels so much at telling an intriguing and involved story that it is easy to look past these blemishes. As far as RPGs go, this is really a game that any fan of the genre should give a try. Of course, this would necessitate also playing the earlier episodes first, but both those games are also worth a play. Anyone who has already played the earlier games should be on their way to the store.

9/10. Great

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/06