Well I just started playing the game yesterday and so far I'm very impressed by how much better everything is compared to Episode 2. The games don't even seem like they had the same director for the cutscenes. Most of the voice actors are back to normal, but it sounds like chaos kept his Epi 2 voice actor? If so then that's a shame but I'll live. Though it also sounds like Virgil and Red testament changed their voice actors as well. I hope not.

Well I transfered my Episode 2 file so I got Shion's Vector uniform and I haven't gotten very far in the game. Shion just returned to Fifth jerusalem.

chaos did keep his Episode 2 voice actor, and sadly he performs even worse this time (just wait 'till later in the game, the way he says "Erde Kaiser Sigma!" kills me). Virgil and "Red Testament" do seem to have different voice actors as well, yes (I'm not completely sure, but they both sound different).

PS: I liked Miyuki in the previous episodes, but in Episode 3 she just plain annoys me. But maybe that's just me.

It's good that the shops have returned and I love the fact that there is a movie viewer mode and that they brought back the Database. However I spent the last 3 hours reading through it...

Oh and is Shion Research Uniform the same as her Vector uniform? Supposedly you steal it from Red Testament's ally.

Say it ain't so... I missed that one. I didn't know that "Red Testament's ally" had an outfit for stealing too. From Red Testament himself you can steal the (sexy) White Shirt. But I never got the Research Uniform. ;-;

Yup, it's apparently the white labcoat outfit she wore when infiltrating the hospital. I have to get that.

Oh and I have x3 running speed if I want to use it (by pressing X) and I unlocked all the costumes already because I'd rather enjoy using them now than at the end of the game. Other than that no gameplay cheats and I wasn't sure if I'd need the faster running speed but I like it now that I tried it.

o_O You just got Episode III? Geez, last we talked it sounded like you already beat the game and knew the whole thing pretty well.

But I didn't hate chaos' voice actor as much as it seems just about everyone else does. The Episode I voice actor is better, but he just seems to sound more mature in the second and third ones. At least he looks more like he did in the first episode, since they went back to the more anime kind of look. I thought Virgil was the same voice actor though. It seemed to me that they kept the same voice actor for him all the way through, unless I missed something. Sounds the same to me. They did change the Red Testament though, which is good I think, I really did not like how he sounded in the first episode. From the few times you heard him anyway.

Things did change a bit, where I agree with Xerno on. Miyuki was fine before but she just was really annoying in Episode III. Also, the only way I can say this is bluntly. I really liked Shion in the other two games but in the third she...well to be frank she's turned into a bitch. I really dislike Shion in the last game, she just seemed to lose the old personality she had. It was a really big turnoff for me. But more or less I sometimes found Jr. a bit annoying as well. His voice gets a little too high and it bugs me when he says certain things. Overall, having played most of the time its by far the best of the three in my eyes. But you can of course be the judge of that Athrun.

I recomend not to expect much or you'll get dissapointed, then again maybe you'll think differently. Personally Episode II was a crap but Episode III, geez, it seriously made me yawn. I mean, so crappy direction of cutscenes, the annoying pauses of dialogue that killed the not-so-good altered storyline and the sloppy character interactions, to a point that some reactions felt forced and out of character. But meh, just ignore this message and try to enjoy the game as much as you can =P


~Hechizero

Ouch! xD I found Episode III to be the best one by far. Imo it makes the other games pale in comparison. But to each their own, heh. =p

And I've replayed part of it just to get that Research Uniform (got it now).

I liked Episode 1 too much for it to pale in comparison to something else, but so far I really enjoy Episode 3 as well. Right now I'm right after the scene where Shion teaches Kevin how to water the flowers.

Oh and I looked up Virgil and Kevin's voice actors. Kevin's is obviously different in Episode 3, I just wanted to see if it was Haseo (.hack//G.U.) and Luke/Asch (Tales of the Abyss) voice actor that was doing Kevin now, and it seems I was right.
As for Virgil, pretty strange but in Episode 2 he was voiced by Allen's voice actor, and now in Epi 3 he got back his original Episode 1 voice actor again, so that's good. And I can hear that it is him now, it wasn't so clear in the first few scenes though for some reason.

Well I really liked Episode I too. I'm replaying it right now and really like it. But story wise, so much is revealed in Episode III that again, when it comes to the story, Episode III blows the other two before it out of the water. Episode I was a great game, I personally think Albedo was the best in that one as one of my favorite villains ever. But Episode III is just a ton better with finally answering our questions instead of how it was with the first two in getting some questions answered but then giving us a million more at the end.

Well I just finished Disc 1 and I'm very very impressed by the story in the game so far. I really liked Virgil's story too. The only thing I'm concerned about is the seemingly big change in Kevin's personality from before. He's a lot more whiny and cocky, not to mention rude to the point where Shion and Allen question if it really is him. So I guess it may be a concious change in the script, for whatever reason.
Oh and I really liked the ES battle against the Welltall lookalike. So far I haven't really played battles normally, but always try to finish enemies off with a Special Attacks. Especially once I got multi hit attacks like X-Buster. Basically I'm always carefull not to kill enemies before I can use the special attack, and perhaps that's not as fun as playing without holding back. I'm not sure but for now I'm sticking with this strategy to get SP.

Disc 2 only gets better (in my opinion of course) and there are definitely more lookalikes to come (including one huge one that I won't mention because its something you just need to experience). The only thing I really didn't like about episode III were the text box scenes BECAUSE 1. they take away from the cinematic feel 2. The color is more....vibrant or brighter than the colors are in the movie scenes. and 3. the voice acting quality is far worse in the text box scenes than in the movie sequences (Jr. and Albedo's voices are really bad in the text box scenes in particular).

I agree, disc 2 gets even better (of course; being the Yuriev fan that I am, his greatest moments are on disc 2). The plot twist at the end of disc 1 (young Shion calling the Gnosis) still has me puzzled, though. I didn't quite get how or why this happened. Other than that, disc 1 ends nicely with KOS-MOS knocking out Shion: "Action was needed to avoid danger" xD

One thing I thought they should have been more careful with is showing U-DO in Shion's mind. Not that I know for sure yet so don't tell me, but he looks just like Abel. Unless there are other kids with short pants, no shoes and with the same haircut. In which case U-DO seems a lot more like the WE from Xenogears. I'm guessing Abel's mind is stuck somewhere inside of the UMN like Sakura and/or he is using Abel as a vessel or something. But since he is cooperating with Yuriev they don't seem to be one and the same person, so I'm not sure how that'll work out but I thought it was easy to see that he looks like Abel. Unless I'm mistaken.

Right now I'm going to Abel's Ark and so far I thought the story on Disc 1 was better. Also I noticed that about Jr.s voice acting being worse in textbox dialogues. He seems to emphesise on the wrong things some times. I'm not sure why that is, but I think everyone else is the same as they are in the regular cutscenes.

Oh and my 3X running speed code actually slowed down the movement of my E.S. by about three times slower. I thought that something was wrong and tried without the code and you move much faster normally. Can't believe I put up with that slow speed all this time.. I'll just play the E.S. parts without the code from now on.

I also tried fighting Omega Id yesterday but he did some Destruction Wave and got a critical hit which killed my second E.S. leaving me with only two left so I gave up for now.

Abel's Ark is a cool place, because it's full of Xenogears... references! Pay attention to the music playing in this dungeon (it's very similar to Xenogears' final battle music; not the final battle with Deus, but with the Urobolus). Secondly, you will soon recognise an exact copy of something from Xenogears (hint: there's 4 of 'em). And lastly, the final section has a familiar setting as well (it looks like Xenogears' Urobolus battle ground).

As for Omega Id, I faced it after getting to Michtam and I beat him on the first try. Granted, I used a strategy posted by another member (Asuka), which worked great for me. =p

I think I already saw that in a picture a few months ago. It looked like the Deus core system with those spheres you had to destroy. Anyway I'm currently cleaning up some space on my memorycard since it's almost full and I like to make additional save files. Oh and I mastered Kos-mos Attacker skill line and got Bloody Dancer or whatever it's called. Extremely useful skill. I used it on Citrine.

ES move like five times faster than characters, Hiku. I think that's why the code didn't work. Controlling ES is a lot of fun because of how fast they are, in my experience.

Yeah I'm enjoying it now inside of Abel's Ark. Going up and down the Merkabah was a pain earlier because the code seemed to slow them down to about ten times slower than their normal speed, and if I held down X it would move about three or four times slower than normal speed. Right now I'm at the first boss inside of Abel's Ark.

By the way does anyone know the difference between Short Revenge and Short Counter?
And I just learned Jin's Attacker Master skill which always lets him do critical hits. But it's an Ether spell so I'll still keep the swimsuit on.

Well, I've checked some guides (which were of no use) and finally found the answer posted on a random forum;

"Revenge - Triggers with 25% rate, counter triggers when the attack hits you.
Counter - Triggers with 10% rate, makes character automatically evade and attack (counter)."

So Revenge would be a counter-attack after getting hit by an enemy, while Counter would be dodging the enemy attack and then counter-attacking.

I vaguely remember Jin doing two different counter-attacks in my game, but I never payed attention to the difference (though I know one of the two did considerably more damage than the other).

Wow, haven't been here for a while XD (When'd Hiku get co-admin? O.o)

Glad to see you're enjoying the game and all. Though I honestly thought you'd have beaten it months ago =p

theres definitely more than 4 references to Xenogears in Abel's Ark, the biggest, in my opinion, being Yuriev's final form looking almost exactly like Deus in Xenogears

Yup, but I didn't mention that because I didn't want to give away too much (but I know Athrun has finished the game now =p ). But indeed, Yuriev's final form has two mini-gears at its sides, just like Deus has those 2 little mechanic angels.

Considering the fact that I have not played through Xenogears in probably over 5 years, so I did not catch any of the references in the game when I was in Abel's Ark. (Though, I did catch the similarity to the Welltall ES you fight as you escepe from that hospital).

Anyway, yeah, 2 weeks late in replaying to this, but I found Episode III to be a sweet relief of fresh air compared to the craptacular game called Xenosaga II. Just a question, is the PAL version edited to the point where they cut out all the blood? If so, I would recommand seeing some of those scenes at youtube. (Especially the scene at the end of disc 1 when you witness Shion's parents die. The lack of destroyed that scene).

Oh, right, I forgot that you guys got jipped, meaning that there is no PAL version. Well, if you were playing the NTSC version, definitely see those scenes.

Yeah I played the US version, but I'm going to watch the un sencured versions of those scenes later. I finished the game almost a week ago. I was going to make a big post or topic about questions I have about the ending, but I want to read through the updated Database before I do.

Anyway I liked this game a lot. It was definitely one of the best experiences I had in the series. The battle system was my favorite out of the three. I think you can guess which one I liked the least. Overall this game was amazing all the way up until the ending where it was painfully obvious that they cut the series short from the originally intended six games.

I still like Episode 1 the best because of the feeling the story gave me when it had all those possibilities that you were unaware of what it all meant. I like how much of the truth was revealed in Episode 3 but it didn't quite beat the feeling I got from Episode 1. Especially the ending in the first game was amazing.

The only uncensored scene from that game I don't wont to see is the beating Feb took and the stab that came after. You that had to be overly bloody >_>, plus I don't particualy like seeings girls get beat down -.-.

The database will have everything. By the time you're down reading it, you probably wont need to ask anything here.

hurry up and finish Suikoden V =P

that was another thing (one of the very few) that I didn't like about episode 3 (along with the text box scenes, but that was just because Rubedo and Albedo's voice acting was absolutely terrible in those scenes. Anyway, I hated how incredibly censored the US version is. The major problem is that some scenes don't make sense unless you know there is supposed to be blood in it, including the scene at the end of disc 1 where Shion's parents are killed and in the end where Jin is dying to name a few. Also, a certain scene was cut to reduce the amount of...Shion you could see, although that is an incredibly minor complaint that doesn't even compare to the cut of every single drop of blood.

These people didn't even do it selectively. They took the blood texture, and then they pressed Delete. There. No more blood entire game.

; Lazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Yah, in the ending when Jin pulls that sword out of his back you can see some kind of blurry blue edge on it, which I assume is where the blood should have been. Oh well, it's annoying but not the worst thing that could have happened (like if Episode III would have been even worse than Episode II, for example =P ).

Ending Spoilers ---> Jin's death was less dramatic without the blood. It's not the worst thing that could happen but it was one of Jin's best parts in any of the games. His development was so bad in Episode II that it's a joke. It's a shame his strongest moment was censored. I only wish that Xenosaga would carry on, Episode III left it open to start a whole new story with some of the less explored characters. Blue-Eyed KOS-MOS (although didn't KOS-MOS turn back to red eyed machine again at the end? I need to watch it again), chaos (Who remained quite an enigma throughout the games and is my favourite characters) and Jin (Who I think would appear in the sequel despite his death, there was something about the way he died which just made me think, that isn't the last of him. He was so certain he would see other worlds) all could have done with the extra development without the other characters holding them back. <--- Spoilers

Now everyone who has played all three games must now go and Play the DS game... Great gameplay...

Flame Mary gave KOS-MOS control her "body" during the battle. Once Mary's spirit left KOS-MOS, that was it. In space, her eyes were red.

I was watching some youtube videos on the first I couldn't see because my RELEASE BOUGHT COPY was scratched and froze on those parts. I saw the first fight with Telos. It was pretty awesome seeing KOS-MOS use one hand to catch Te-los' fist(even though the force behind her fist shorted KOS-MOS' arm out). And I got to see the one I always wanted to see. Voyager vs V4 KOS-MOS. Awesome.

But that stupid shield of his >_>.

Indeed, ~ I didn't notice this the first time, but Mary is awake right up until she removes the pendant from Shion. It's then that her eyes turn red again (I payed special attention to that the last time I viewed the ending). She also says at that moment: "I am not Mary, I am... KOS-MOS!" They even show her eyes in close-up when she says this, but I wasn't sure if they were still blue before this part (and yes, the last time you can see her face before she removes the pendant, her eyes are still blue). ~

Heh, I'm ranting about characters' eye color again... I'll shush now. =p

Does anyone understand the significance of the beginning FMV with Kevin and his mom?

It really only explains how Shion got the neckless..

The planet was Michtam. . . . I'm thinking he was one of those "People of Zohar".

The pendant was one of those things that didn't make sense to me. The whole thing about awakening Mary and Zarathustra didn't make sense. The circumstances behind it weren't explained, including the necklace.

I was leaning towards the idea that Mary was necessary for Kevin to stay with Shion. What Kevin wanted is not what Shion wanted(but she never learned what that was). Wilhelm already said it: An empty world with only those two. Only through Mary, Chaos and Zarathustra could that have been possible.

It still doesn't explain the point between the pendant. Except that it also contained the flower petals from that garden on Old Militia.

Hmmm something isn't right about that. Oh well guess we will never know.

victim of a rushed ending because the long series had to be cut short.

Well I don't know if that is entirely accurate. It isn't like they were poorly funded, Xeno III certainly looked the best out of the other two. But this also isn't about funding. I think they were rushed a bit to cram story elements together into one game. The pendant may have been a part of that which ended up falling through in closing things up. I'm not sure who from the team, perhaps the creator himself, but they did say if there was enough sales and good thoughts about the last Xenosaga that they would think of continuing somewhere down the road. Story wise, hypothetically Xenogears took place significantly after Xenosaga so there may be another Xeno somewhere down the road that may continue from another different part of the massive timeline. Maybe the pendant is explained elsewhere or a new game may come along where the main element of the story was the creation/discovery of the Zohar.

But I'm just rambling about various things that either don't matter or may not happen. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see some kind of a Xeno on the PS3 or something a few years down the road.

I would be, especially now that Nintendo own the team Monolith Soft, who created and developed of the Xeno series. I also doubt Namco would put together a different team to work on a new Xeno game just for the PS3 either since they still own a share of Monoliths profits. http://www.destructoid.com/nintendo-acquir...oft-31233.phtml

Hm. I didn't know that. Honestly, I don't really keep track of who owns the rights to certain companies/games or whatever. Maybe the Wii then, who knows.

There's Xenosaga I-II for Nintendo DS. So they've made a Xeno game for Nintendo already. But I'm not quite following here; how does Nintendo owning Monolith Soft cause the original team to be gone? Isn't that team also owned by Nintendo then? I really know zip about how these kind of things work... =s

Well Monolith Soft was the team behind the Xenosaga series and they are now owned by Nintendo so I would imagine if there was ever another Xeno game it would again be developed by Monosoft but released on the Nintendo instead just not under the name Xenosaga unless Namco said it was ok which is a possibility since they are still shareholders/investors in Monolithsoft, although I personally find that slightly disappointing because Xenosaga was visually impressive last gen so imagine what how it would have looked on a current gen console.

I still haven't fnished the first one. the games are too long, slow speech, dialect filled, too easily sidequest due to awesome bonuses etc. and i'd be lying if i said i didn't forget what had to do next. but at same time you dson't want to just restart 76 hours.

have 2 and 3. refuse to play till I finish 1. but looking like, i'll gfive the 3 to my brother for his bday in april (he's 27 w/ 2 kids). he'll maybe find it more enjoyable...

Too long? Episode II is known as one of the shortest RPG's, and Episodes I & III take about as much time as most other RPG's (I finished both in 40+ hours). They probably just appear long to you because the cutscenes are so long (and it seems you're not too fond of that). But I agree on one thing; Episode I has the slowest pace out of all 3, and I find it quite boring to replay this one. But that's just me.

Shion didn't even have nerd butt in EP3. Who wants to see some cookie sheet?

If you need your precious blood, watch the uncensored English versions on YouTube. If you have dial-up and can't watch stuff like that without waiting for an hour for it all to load then...well...Who cares.

The only pointless edit in the entire series I know is Albedo and MOMO in EP1.

ZOMG. HIS HAND IS ON HER YOUNG BODY.

WE HAVE TO MAKE IT HER HEAD.

Honestly.

Who wouldn't touch MOMO's body?

Wait, what?

The reason the edited blood is important, though, is because without it, you can't always tell whats supposed to be going on. For example, the scene where young Shion is holding her hands out saying that she needed to put it all back, it took me a while to figure out that she was supposed to be bleeding because I either forgot, or didn't know at the time that all the blood had been edited out. There are some other scenes like that as well, but that was the biggest complaint I had about the blood edit.

^^ I guess that I don't pay attention that much because when I was playing that part, I was so in the moment that I knew right away what she was talking about.

As for the next Xenosaga game... wouldn't putting XSIV on the Wii be like they are just saying 'goodbye, so long, We still want you to play the game but your going to have to buy a new system first.' to the original Xenosaga fans? Xenosaga is a PS game (this is just me), but I'd really like it to stay a PS game.... It would be cool if they came out with another XS game even if it was on the Wii but... don't you think that it would take away from how the story is played out if they don't make it for the next gen PS?

Technically if it was staying on the Playstation then you would probably have to invest in new console anyway - the PS3, but yeah, I get what you mean it would be cool to see it on the PS3, that's where the fan base began so it'd be nice to stay there but it's certainly not implausible, even Final Fantasy moved platforms but that was out of choice rather than from being bought.

Well there was Xenogears...a pause...and then Xenosaga. Some consider them to be connected, many will refute that. But they are considered different just with a good amount of similarities. There may not be a new kind of Xeno for awhile...if ever its difficult to say. But I don't know if they would call the next in the Xeno series Xenosaga again. With Xeno at the front of whatever they would go with, it would be enough for people to grab it anyway. At least, it would in my mind.

Xenogears ended, if Xenosaga hypothetically is a prequel to Xenogears...they did not call it Xenogears: Episode I. It was Xenosaga. Who knows, hypothetically speaking a next game could be after what happened in Xenogears and have a new set of characters and be called something different. I just don't think they would, or would be a good idea, to put Xenosaga as a title on a Wii game, unless it was some small thing they did for the DS or something.

Exactly, they did not call it Xenogears: Episode I. Because they are not related, it was clearly stated that Xenosaga is a re-telling of Xenogears (hence the many similarities). Of course, if they'd to succumb to the fans and make the connection that some people want oh so badly, Xenosaga as a whole (the entire 6 episodes) could very well be only the first Xenogears episode (because Xenosaga Episode II & III definitely don't match the Xenogears episodes described in Perfect Works).

At this point, I guess a lot could happen with the series, or nothing at all.

I still think it blows that xenosaga epII is the reason there wont be any others. But that's what monolift gets for trying to give us the big ##### you.

ahhhh!!! i finally beat episode III!!! took me forever but im glad i saved the game two bosses before the end of the game. lol finally!! i wish there was another one though...i could see a nother one but i guess its good they stopped it here.