Finished the Xenosaga series

I finally finished playing the Xenosaga series. I had been playing a year ago on my PS3, but halfway though episode 2 my PS3 broke, luckily still under 1 month of warranty, and had to be replaced. And after losing my save games and having to start episode 2 over, I didn't really feel like playing when I got my PS3 back. After watching the anime a few weeks ago though I decided to finally finish the series.

Episode 2 was a good game story wise, but I hated how they changed the combat system. They even changed the character models which took some getting used to. Episode 3's combat system was much better. I was afraid episode 3's story might be rushed, since they had originally planned on making Xenosaga a 6 game series. But, they did a excellent job in setting up the 3rd by skipping ahead 1 year from the end of episode 2 and then including a database that detailed events that took place during that time. These events would of supposed happened in the games that didn't get made.

More after the jump...
(Warning) Contains some slight spoilers.



The actual end of episode 3 did feel rushed however. They set the story up to require you to defeat these 6 specific bosses before the end of the game, and 5 of them were placed one after the other right at the end of the game. Actually 2 of them were 1 battle. Three of these fights were even part of other plot lines which made it feel even more rushed. Like they knew they needed to close up these plot lines but ran out of game to do it in. One of the plot lines was between Jin and Margulis and Pelligri. The other was between Ziggy and his relationship to the Testament Voyager.

There are a couple of twists I wasn't expecting. One was at the end of disc 1 concerning the origin of the gnosis, and the other was exactly who Kos-Mos is. The end of the game was left open with both Kos-Mos and T-elos floating in space, and Shion, JR, and Allen aboard the Elsa heading off to find Lost Jerusalem (aka Earth) while MOMO, and Ziggy stayed behind to build a new network for faster than light space travel. The previous network having disappeared with the defeat of Zarathustra. chaos, Jin, and Kos-Mos had stayed behind after defeating Zarathustra to transport the Gnosis and prevent the destruction of the Universe. It would be nice if they used this open end to make a new game or series for the PS3.

If you like RPG's with a good story then I would recommend this series. And I would really like to see more game series like this and the .hack games where the story continues from game to game. Do you prefer games that tell their story in a single or game or games that carry their story across a series of games?

Image from RPGamer