Canaan is Wilhelm's little spy. I'm serious, I'm sure he worked the same way as Lactis did, except he was a lot more aware of his work. Plus, as Helmer states in the begining of Episode 2, "I have Vector's CEO's personal gurantee that you won't (go crazy)." Also, remember...

Albedo and Virgil were both on Miltia at the time, and Canaan was the program instilled into Lactis to see "Shining Wills" which allow one to become Testament.

*sigh* You should really warn of major spoilers like Canaan Deflecting, I didn't want to know. I think I should probably avoid this topic (I like my game to be suprise and I think enough information has been leaked that obviously shows that this is going to be an awesome game ) I'm not complaining or anything, I'm just odd and I don't paticulaly want to know anything else about the game's story at all (I find i enjoy a game much more that way). I doubt that Namco will leak all of the secrets though so I'm sure there are a lot more shocks in store

At least the stats look a lot higher than in XenoSaga II. It seems HP & MP are higher as well as the damage you can deal. It always felt like you wern't ever really progressing in Episode II...

Well it looks like they are around Level 70 in most of the battle shots.



Kos-mos version 4 seems to have really good stats.

As for the spoilers, I agree. I think it's stupid of Monolith to show things like that.

Thanks Athrun, I guess that gives a better idea. I still think the stats are a major improvement even if are still a little low (although they may not be, Ziggy and KOS-MOS look like they may hit 9999 by level 99...) These stats remind me more of FFIX instead of a lot of other RPG's where your characters all get 9999 HP and 999 MP

KOS-MOS has more EP than MOMO... thats quite a shock... maybe her skills use a lot of EP. I hope 'Version 4' KOS-MOS isn't too over powered (I hate having a character like that for some reason).

Well EP is used for both Techs and Ether spells in this game, so I think that's why Kos-mos has the highest. She is pretty good with Ether spells to begin with, and by far the best Tech user in Xenosaga.
In Episode 1 you used a system simular to the stock system for individual Tech atttacks, ecept that you didn't have to charge your stock. You atomatically gained some each turn.

I like this new system a lot better. And it looks lika chaos is useful in battle again, unlike in Episode II. So I'll probably use my usual team from Episode 1 again in this game.

Actually I used Chaos a lot in Episode II (though in the end he was basically replaced by KOS-MOS ) Chaos was far more useful than Rubedo in my oppinion.

This system seems better however it also seems a lot more generic for an RPG. Episode II's system was quite unique (though maybe not the best) however this seems a lot more (dare I say) Final Fantasy-ish... *shock*... however I'm buying it whatever so... meh.

There's probably a lot more to those revealed spoilers about Canaan than it first seems. The new pics have all been translated now, and it does indeed say (slightly differently worded):

Voyager: "What is your wish?"

Canaan: "Let me join you."

But the added note also says: "Canaan's unexpected proposal surprises everyone. Canaan's true intention...?" And I too think there's more to it than that. For one, his official bio states: "He carries the system called "Program Canaan", but what kind of program that is, not even Canaan himself knows." And then there's this too:


Canaan: "What is this?"

Doctus: "I obtained this from Vector. It's fragmented information on Program Canaan."

Maybe Canaan is just willing to join them to find out about certain things, like the program he carries. Or having realised his purpose, he might really have switched sides. But I don't think it's going to be as simple as it seems.

Oh right, Doctus' profile was translated too:

"Outward appearance of age: roughly 20 // Human // Female

The calm and collected agent of the underground organization Scientia. Normally, she commands the infiltration and combat force, and currently she conducts the investigation of the UMN together with Shion."

Nothing really special about her for the moment.

Yeah I already read those as well, although it sounds like it's mostly speculation. But I still think the same about revealing Canan's intentions, whether there is more to them or not. It would have been better to be surprised by his words in the actual game.

None the less, I have my own theory about why he switches sides.
I think the program he carries will infect U-Do in some way once it makes him a Testament.

Oh and I played the Demo earlier today. The loading times for battles are great. Practically non existant. One second after you hear the flashy encounter sound effects you can make your first attack.

You can place traps several feet away from your character, so they are pretty useful. You don't have to get too close to the enemy to trap him.

And the battle theme was pretty low beat. Makes me wonder if this is the main battle theme for the rest of the game, or just for the begining of the game. The one we heard before in the trailer is only from a Boss battle, and sounds different.

Well, this time Yuki Kajiura is composing the music for the entire game (she only did the cutscene music in Episode II, because apparently that's what she's best at). So she's doing the battle music too now, and I've read this is the very first time she composes battle music all by herself, so she's probably a bit unexperienced in that regard. So if the pace of the battle music is a bit off, I guess that would be why.


Knowing myself, I'm probably gonna be using this often. I like avoiding battles, even though I know that's not always the best thing to do. xP

Well it's not only for avoiding battles, but ambushing the enemy and giving yourself an advantage, like full boost at the beginning of the battle.

And the battle music was not only low pace, but also very quiet. I could hardly hear it with all the sound effects from attacks and browsing through menus.

Oh and Kos-mos basic attack is now R Blade.
Seems you learn new techs from Level up.

Doctus, I didn't think she'd be an ally, even if temporarily. I like that, cause she looks damn cool.

As for extreme major spoilers...ouch. Though we understand nothing. >.<

Why does everyone seek to know so much about a game before it comes out? Honestly, you really are kinda taking away from the experience of immersing yourself in something knew when you know 1/4 or even 1/2 of the details about the game you plan to play once it's released.

But the thing about xenosaga is, you know nothing.
They don't release these things with the intent on spoiling people, they release just to give you a slight glimpse of it. What we saw before xenosaga II and the details of what actually happened were...pretty different IIRC.
Its to give us something more to look forward to, know some of the details but not all. Its not really 1/4th or 1/2 of what happens, more like 1/10th.

Episode 1's trailer had that fight between Margulis and Jin that happens half way through Episode 2 (or at the start, but still)... And they made some changed to every game as they went on.

I do still say. "System Canaan" was directly related to the Testaments in Pied Piper. And XenoDS, when Ziggy first sees Canaan at Miltia's space port he has a brief soliloque saying something like "That realian's demeanor... Where did I?". So yeah.

I'm not seeking spoilers, I just usually trust what they show in the trailers isn't too much, for the reasons Vins mentioned. Though in this case, whether I know Canan's intentions or not, that's a major plot twist either way that I would have been happier not knowing that it's going to come in advance. But that's just my personal taste. There are probably others who aren't bothered by it at all, and others who didn't like "knowing" that Kevin is Red Testament.

There are 3 short new trailers available, two with battle footage and one that shows a cutscene (apparently part of the game's intro, since the movie file is called "intro"). You can find them right here: clickie

I've only watched the "Cinema" trailer yet (that's the intro one). It shows young Kevin and a woman in a Gnosis infested area, trying to get to a safer place. I assume the woman is his mother (sure looks that way, so I'll just refer to her as that for now). His mother pushes Kevin into an escape pod, hands him her pendant and seals off the pod. While saying goodbye to Kevin, we can see how she begins mutating in a Gnosis before the pod launches into space. A rather dark scene, which shows us Kevin definitely had a tragic past.

And as we already know, in present time Shion now has that pendant. There's obviously something special about it. Kevin's past is one of the things that interests me the most, the story is still looking promising. ^^

I think that pendant protects against gnosification. Just look, the woman turns into a gnosis when she takes i t off.

=o Wows, that could be it. Shion had the pendant too when she had her near-death experience with that Gnosis. I never thought of that, but that could very well be what protected her. And it does indeed fit with what happened to the woman shortly after she gave the pendant to Kevin and they got seperated. Nice theory. =p

But then shouldn't Kevin have turned into a gnosis before she gave it to him?
I think it's simply that Shion already is special which prevents her from turning into a Gnosis, and that Kevin's mother must have saved him from a Gnosis before she got him out of there. She didn't go along with him because she knew that it was over for her.

That pendant, if I'm not mistaken, starts to glow in non-gnosis related events. I think it has to do with Kos-mos more than Gnosis, so I would think it's more of a mother-child bond thing.
Which is probably why Kevin gave it to Shion, of all people. He also whitnessed Shion losing her own mother in the same way he did. It was probably too much for him to relive this event, and this time he wanted to do something about it.

Nice theory though, I didn't think about that either.

That is an interesting theory, but Kevin's mom was kind of holding him close to her, so perhaps he was protected by proximity.

I liked the battle trailer (especially since these were in English). The way techs and ethers are done or nice, but I like how they kept the Special Attack thing KOS-MOS had, which uses boosts for enegry to fuel attacks.

But since you could see Junior had his Red Dragon attack, you think they would have been nice enough to show it.

I forgot to say in my previous post that I think while Kevin's mother saved him, she was exposed to Gnosis somehow, while Kevin was never touched by one, thanks to his mother.

Also, I noticed that one of Kos-mos special attacks requires 4 Boost to activate. Not sure how that works since it says "Player Boost 0/3" in the top right corner.

And it seems they re named Arts back to Tech in the English version.

You need to use a Boost Max to do that. You had a max of 4 boost in XS2, and could make it go up to 5 by using Boost Max, I'm guessing that works by the same principle.

Jr.'s attacks use boost, too.

Max boost was 4 in XS2? For me it was 3, if I remember correctly. How do you increase your boost to 4 then? Or is it 0/4 from the start?


Yeah. Everyone's Special Attacks requires boost. Techs only consume EP.

The limit was 3 in XSII, yes. But as Denim said, you could increase it with the Boost Max item. But I'm not sure if it's permanent or just for the battle you use it in, I only used it once and lost that battle. xD

He said that max boost was 4 and that you could make it go up to 5 with Boost Max.
How can 4 be max if you can make it go up to 5?

Yes, I know. You can increase it to 5, I did it in that battle. But it starts out with a limit of 3, not 4 (which I assume is what Denim meant). I'm guessing 5 is the limit when using those boosting items then, I only had two so I couldn't try going beyond 5. I don't think it was that useful in XSII anyway, but it might serve some use in XSIII: hopefully those Boost 4 attacks will be worth the trouble.

Well, if you look close at her attack, it's listed as level one. It's possible that you get it for a story-related battle, then get to use it normally after KOS-MOS reaches a certain point in the game.

I don't know much on the Boost Max thing myself, as I never used them. Items were too hard to come by in Xeno II.

As an aside, we don't usually see battle demos and such translated into English until after the Japanese release. Could this be a sign that the game may come out sooner in the US?

Most likely no. Just that Episode III will be at E3 this year, which starts in 1 - 2 weeks.

And I think the "Level 1" represents the strength level of the Special Attack.
You can probably increase them, like in Episode 1.

Just read something about a special mini-game in the IGN preview of the game:

Speaking of new features, Episode III also has an interesting puzzle-based mini-game that can be played at any time. Known as "Xenosaga Puzzle", the 60-level distraction reportedly takes hours to complete on its own apart from the main quest. The mini-game even allows users to create their own custom stages with a built-in map editor so that they can give themselves and their friends a few things to do once they've beaten the default number of arenas.

I didn't know anything of this, I assume nothing is really known about this yet? It does sound interesting, though I hope it will be as good as they're making it sound. Perhaps they might show something about this at E3 as well (not that it's really thàt important =p ).

In XS2, the max boosts you could have was 4 at the start. It filled up 3 and it didn't bother starting a new bar, so a flashing 3 ment 4 boosts. Boost Maxes were items you found very often out of chests and by destroying things, so they were very common. They're very useful if you want a very long elemental chain.

There have been released two (English) interviews with a guy of Namco's Q&A, and he did mention a few interesting things:

- The characters are fully customizable again (like in Episode I). They all have their own unique set of skills (if I heard the guy right, I think he said 100+ total).
- There will apparently be 60+ hours of gameplay (sidequests included) and 8+ hours of movies & cutscenes.
- The story is said to have religious overtones, much more than its predecessors.
- North American release (!), Fall 2006.

And here's the link to both interviews (I only watched the first one, since it's said to be the better one =p ):

Clickie #1
Clickie #2

What do you mean by they are fully customisable again...

Thats all good news, especially the gameplay... I'm sure I can make it last longer though

It's a shame no one has said anything about a UK release (It's pretty on the edge I think)...

Probably that you can arrange and equip armor and weapons again, as well as tech attacks.

Watched the interview, and it's good to hear that they tried to improve on the "flaws" of the second game. A lot of elements are going back to Episode 1.

You didn't play Episode 1, right? In it, you had Skill Points, Ether Points, and Tech Points. You used Tech Points to upgrade the character's moves, or directly upgrade their stats (so if you wanted Ziggy, like I usually do, to have strong EATK, you could do it by using your TP). You could also equip stuff like a regular RPG, and used skill points to extract skills from armor and stuff.


The one thing I didn't like in Episode 2, and it won't be in Episode 3, is the fact that all characters except Jr. had an ether attack as a triangle attack. Since combos are taken out of Episode 3, that's a feature I'll miss. I happen to like to have Shion choose between kicking or blasting something, or Ziggy between cutting up with his Jack Blade, or Laser Blading it.

What do you mean by "combos are taken out of Episode3"?

The square/triangle combo attacks are removed, instead you just have a normal attack command now. At least that's what I read, people were complaining about the simplified way of attacking. Wasn't it like that in the demo then?

You just have an attack button, like a Final Fantasy game. You still have techs, but you choose t hem from the tech menu. You know what I mean, you saw the trailers. It's lacking triangle square and the like. I liked it in Episode 1. It gave a little bit of variety to character's attacks.

Oh like that. I thought you meant that you couldn't do any combos. Boost is still available. But yeah, it's down to "Attack" now. I wonder if you'll get to chose between a lot of different attacks though. I think in the Demo there was only one basic attack....

But I agree, I wish they kept that feature.

On the other hand, the ES battles seemed quite interesting. I noticed during the interview they showed some battle footage, and you could choose your ES' Anima Level. Looks like there will be more options available for your ES, I hope so because the Gear fights haven't been all that great yet in Xenosaga (especially not in Episode II, it felt so limited to me). But this time it seems like they've added more features for the Gear fights, hopefully good ones too. =p

I was also quite dissapointed... Momo's ES I liked... you could use Ether attacks and it had some great double Techs... Kos-Mos' ES was ok as well because it had a strong attack and High HP... but I never found a use for the Asher, it just seemed moderate. Aside from MOMO's ES they all felt very limited. There wasn't much you coud do, even with the 'special' attacks. Also, because you're enemies don't have A,B or C weaknesses, the boost seemed pretty useless except to get more turns...The only ES battle I've enjoyed so far in Episode II was the first Extra Boss battle... I only just scraped passed that one.

Well, Boost COULD be used to get elemental chains, although it doesn't work very well because, for example, you wanted an Aura attack, the only ones who provide Aura attacks for ES are Jin and chaos, and Jin does it for two the ES. So if you were using Zebulun and Dinah (or Asher, I forget) you wouldn't be able to do an Aura combo. You are very limited.

In Episode 3 you can't select co-pilots I don't believe. The Anima Relics aligned to people, basically, and now they're all set. You get MOMO and Ziggy for Zebulun, chaos and Jr. for Asher, KOS MOS (nothing aligned with Shion...) for Dinah, and Reuben for Jin. You can use three ES at the time, and I don't think some need co-pilots (Pellegri doesn't have one, and Albedo managed just fine without a Kirshwasser, so do all the Testaments).

I never payed attention to elements in battle in Episode 1, and I didn't throughout Disc 1 of Episode 2 either.

The elements come in handy later on... The Last ES battle before the final boss (The octopus thing) is weak against fire... MOMO's and Ziggy's special that costs 300 Boost does immense amounts of damage against it...

Elements also come in handy but only if you've got one character who uses an element in the team. For example, against the final Boss I used Ziggy, MOMO and KOS-MOS... I gave KOS-MOS and MOMO Fire sword and so I would get an elemental chain going when I did the combo's... Although not a lot more damage is dealt it all adds up to quite a bit.

Yeah. Elemental combos can add up to a lot in Episode 2. The Elemental Swords make characters without elemental attacks (IE: Everyone that isn't Shion, chaos, or Ziggy) elemental attributes. So you have someone like, say... Margulis at the very begining of Episode 2. He's weak against Ice. So if you had Jin learn Ice Sword (it takes a while at that point in the game), cast it on himself, then have him air Margulis, then have chaos cast Ice Blast you get Ice x 2, meaning Ice deals double damage (or something like that) at that point, then you have Jin attack again, it becomes Ice x 3, you don't boost that turn, and Margulis gets up, the elemental combo is gone.

It's extremly useful on tough bosses. Also, Shion's "Erde Kaiser Fury" move, if it is Type A or B (Slash or Pierce) it will be able to inherit the Elemental Sword status effect and after a long elemental combo could be unleashed for tons more damage. It doesn't work with any element other than Thunder when it is Type C, though.


It works a lot like Bart's "Fire Mode" etc. moves from Xenogears, except you don't have Citan to add weaknesses to enemies.

Elemental Swords are 100% useless on Ziggy, Shion and Chaos arn't they? It seems that a person can only ever use one element at a time and these three already have elements... It's a little annoying because my party was mostly Ziggy, MOMO and Chaos...

I wonder if the UK will see the Demo come anytime soon? Or if America will either for that matter...

I'll probably use elements later on Disc 2 if I find them useful.

And I don't think the Episode II demo was released outside of Japan either, unless I'm mistaken?

If you mean III, I think I remember seeing somewhere that you could download the demo and burn it onto a disc to play. Forgot where, though.

Heh, I didn't pay any attention to using elements in Episode II either. I just made it through the game with regular attacks using my main offensive team of Jin, KOS-MOS and Rubedo (or Ziggy sometimes). I did use huge elemental chained attacks combo'd with Shion's Erde Kaiser Fury on the optional super-bosses, though. I'd keep Erde Kaiser for when those bosses were nearing death, because then they start boosting like mad; so much that it isn't funny anymore. <<''


You mean Mikumari (that giant spider-like beast with the different faces)? I don't remember if there was another extra ES battle. But anyway, if you've beaten Mikumari you don't have to worry about any other ES battles anymore, because it's the most powerful ES opponent in the game (imo the strongest enemy in the game altogether). Only after leveling my ES up to lvl. 75+ did I stand a fair winning chance against that thing. x_x


I think he did mean Episode II. But the XSIII demo is available on the net, yes. It can be found quite easily simply by googling it. Though I didn't download it myself, too much trouble for a demo that's in a language that I don't understand a word of anyway. xD

Often Playstation magazines will get the demo... I hope they DO translate it into English and release it.

I didn't mean the hardest ES battle in the game... but in the main storyline the last ES battle... You fight it just before you fight Cathedral... It's not very hard, but it's even easier with Ziggy as the Co-pilot.

So does that mean that basically the whole of the Xenosaga story is out of the bag because someone hacked the demo?

Not the whole thing. Somethings, like, say Citrine's entry don't tell you everything, neither do Yuriev and stuff, but then again, they're told through other's entries (IE: Virgil's through Feb's). There are still somethings that are pretty unknown about. Somethings that the DS game tells you are explained, though. For example, Margulis, Jin and his grandfather, and them being people of the Zohar.