Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

[Aeni]

I'm currently about (maybe) 1/3 of the way through and it's almost as if Xenosaga III is making way too many references to Xenogears. Am I the only one seeing this?

An example

I'm currently fighting Mai and her Leupold "gear." She reminds me too much of Maria Balthasar in Xenogears (The same outfit even!) and her gear is none other than Siebzehn. omg?

Now, I don't want anyone to spoil this for me, but was there any official mention or anything said on record that Xenosaga III was trying to draw connections with Xenogears? Other than a few misplaced references, almost everything (with the exception of Gnosis) is starting to feel "familiar" in this episode. Heck, there's so much in this episode that it's even making some certain things in Xenogears more clear to understand!

[bside]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Now, I don't want anyone to spoil this for me, but was there any official mention or anything said on record that Xenosaga III was trying to draw connections with Xenogears? Other than a few misplaced references, almost everything (with the exception of Gnosis) is starting to feel "familiar" in this episode. Heck, there's so much in this episode that it's even making some certain things in Xenogears more clear to understand!

No, there are no "official" connections between Xenosaga series and Xenogears. Unofficially? As you've discovered yourself, there obviously are.

According to JP Wikipedia, back when they released Xenogears, Xenosaga was to be the story of 10,000 years before it. However, due to the fact that the massive part of story was re-written, officially there was no longer any ties.

Obviously, however, there're too many things in the series that evoke such connections to say they aren't connected, even if they officially say they aren't. Therefore, among Japanese gamers, they're usually treated as related titles.

[Aeni]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Well, the connection is definitely there, whether or not the developers intended for it to occur. Spoiler ahead ...

If you have Perfect Works (Which I do along with copies of several Xenosaga complete work books) you can see how the story was being developed. There's a time line which you can follow and everything so far in Ep III is following that timeline. It's insane.

Spoilers

(1) In the part where I am now, Juli Mizrahi is expressing concerns that the Federation is attempting to invade Michtam. This is the Ormus stronghold. In Perfect Works, there was a "Federation" vessel carrying the Deus-Merkabah weapons system and something "terrible" happened on the planet Michtam.

(2) The Black Testament was called the Executioner by Wilhelm. In Xenogears, Grahf was the Executioner - I believe he was that Black Testament.

(3) Omega is piloted by Abel, who looks like Fei Fong Wong in Xenogears, albeit much younger. In Xenogears, Fei has flashbacks to a distant consciousness to the time before the incident with the ship interplanetary vessel Eldridge. In fact, I'm quite sure the flashbacks relate to his time on 5th Jerusalem, when he piloted the first Omega version.

(4) I can draw parallelism between Nephillim in Xenosaga and Elly in Xenogears.

(5) The Vessel of Anima is used to power the E.S.s in Xenosaga. The animas powered the unique Gears in Xenogears.

(6) There were references to realians in Xenogears. Surprised? You shouldn't be. IIRC, Solaris was the only place that housed "human beings" while everyone down planetside were considered "a variant species." The processing of these people into food can be found with Lieutenant Virgil's admission of "consuming" Realian flesh.

Many many many more references. They are far too numerous to be anything but coincidental. However, whether or not they can be tied directly with Xenogears is still up to debate, but where I am standing, the odds are pretty good that this is possible.

[Drive]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

i remember wikipedia also pointing out allusions and such here. One i found interesting was about the launch of the Eldridge in xenogears.

[Macht]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Yeah, Xenosaga is suppose to be the time before any of Xenogears stuff happened including the destruction of that civil ship.

Since Xenogears story line is actually 50,000 years and the events are suppose to of happend 10,000 years before that. It's the same universe Zohar's are basically the Anima and Animus from Xenogears.

The only statement I remember reading though was like 4 or 5 years ago. It was on IGN.com and they mentioned that the universe for Xenogears and Xenosaga were the same but focus and story lines don't go together. They were more or less suppose to cross eachother so some refferences of Xenogears in stages before Xenogears occured you see happening.

Though with the changes it seems like they might of tried to make it a storyline as part of Xenogears past. No big surprise since seeing how Xenogears was such a good one.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Back in the VERY early phases of Xenosaga, back before the whole team even left Square, Xenosaga at first was supposed to be a 5 episode series, with the 4th being a remake of Xenogears. Unless this is a blatant attempt at appealing to the fans of Xenogears, its possible they had this idea for this character up WAY beforethey even finished Episode 1, and ended up recycling the character for the 3rd one.

This is all speculative of course.

[Macht]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Back in the VERY early phases of Xenosaga, back before the whole team even left Square, Xenosaga at first was supposed to be a 5 episode series, with the 4th being a remake of Xenogears. Unless this is a blatant attempt at appealing to the fans of Xenogears, its possible they had this idea for this character up WAY beforethey even finished Episode 1, and ended up recycling the character for the 3rd one.
This is all speculative of course.

Nah, before Xenosaga was released there was an interview about the whole series. One question that came up was about that very thing of it being part of Xenogears. Responce was it's the same authur, same universe but supposedly different story lines.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Clever Ninja is off slightly, Xenogears was part 5 in a 6 part series. Of course I played Xenogears ages ago, and I never even beat the first Xenosaga, so what do I know? (Or even recall, for that matter ._.)

I'm waiting for the special edition BoxSet of XenoSaga, along with the BoxSet of .hack//Infection

(I'm a lazy RPG gamer >_> )

Edit:
CN Probably read the same article I read all those years ago. It was an interview with the creator when he was still a major force in SE and he had moved onto other games and the fans were clamoring for a re-release of Xenogears (because it's out of print, hence, Ebay copies of the game were upwards of $100 ).

He even alluded to something similar way before the first Xenosaga was released. I kinda remember the interview, because I remember looking at the screenshots and thinking that these could not possibly be environments on the PS2

[Aeni]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Nah, before Xenosaga was released there was an interview about the whole series. One question that came up was about that very thing of it being part of Xenogears. Responce was it's the same authur, same universe but supposedly different story lines.

Actually, if you read Takahashi-san's response in the Xenosaga I Complete Works (or w/e it's titled, I'm at work atm) he mentioned that while they had to change many things due to copyright issues (SE is the legitimate owner of Xenogears) that they tried to maintain the same connection and feel because, as WishMaster has stated, Xenogears is part 5 of 6 (Actually 7 in another interview but these people keep changing their darn minds)

There was suppose to be novels written, not manga, but actual literary works to accompany the releases.

It never happened (AFAIK)

However, things changed. Episode II was not even entirely penned by the husband/wife that was responsible for the original story and Episode III was done entirely by remnants of the original staff of Monolith Soft as well as Namco's Tales team. Note that many things were too conveniently tied to each other to provide closure to the series and in no way did it leave for any mysteries or ambiguities. I think that is why there's too many obvious references to Xenogears in this episode that is not consistent with the story in some ways (But it is in others and I cannot help but feel that there might have been a draft of the original story for which Bandai-Namco used to finish up the series)

[Macht]

Re: Xenosaga III = Xenogears??

Lol, can't beleive I'm having to state again.

The work is done from a novelists work. A Friedrich Nietzsche (German), wrote books called:

Der wille zur Macht [Unpublished] (Xenosaga I: Will to Power)
Jenseits von Gut un Bose (Xenosaga II: Beyond Good and Evil)
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (Xenosaga III: Thus spoke Zarathustra, A book of All and None)
Morgenröte. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile (Daybreak, Reflections on Moral Prejudices)
Der Wanderer und sein Schatten (The Wanderer and his Shadow)
Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche (Mixed opinions and Maxims)
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science)
Zur Genealogie der Moral, Eine Streitschrift (On the Genealogy of Morals, A Polemic)
Der Fall Wagner, Ein Musikanten-Problem (The Case of Wagner, A Musician's Problem)
Götzen-Dämmerung, oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert (Twilight of the Idols, or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer)
Der Antichrist. Fluch auf das Christentum (The Antichrist, Curse on Christianity)
Ecce Homo, Wie man wird, was man ist (Ecce Homo, How One Becomes What One Is)
Nietzsche contra Wagner, Aktenstücke eines Psychologen (Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Out of the Files of a Psychologist)

The Xenogears and Xenosaga is based off his freaking work. The only thing Xenogears and Xenosaga had incommon was the universe, that's all it was suppose to be. As you see they didn't even get through his work, they were related by not much else. Actually bits of his writings and what Xenogears and Xenosaga takes are scattered through out them. As the best known statement in Die frohliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science) is "God is dead", the same statement a character in Xenogears makes when they find Deus ("God"). If I recall even repeated again in the ending scene by the one that was their enemy the entire time.

The novel thing I'm sure you were thinking of was "Xenogears Perfect Works: The Real Thing" a compiled story line created out of Nietzsche's-philosopy and works in which you'd see parts that were in the story and parts that were not. Really got to love people that do reviews and don't know their **** before posting a bias comment, way to often done in reviews which is why I hate them so much. Just in-case, last sentence isn't directed here, it's directed towards those reviewers like "Jeremy Dunham".

Basically took Nietzsche's work and turned it into a space drama. Also don't bother trying to find any revelance in the order I posted his works up there. They is no order, the pure fact that the 3 from Xenosaga ended up in order was pure coincidence.

For Xenogears it's one of these that most of it was taken from: Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, Der Fall Wagner, Ein Musikanten-Problem, Götzen-Dämmerung, oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert, Nietzsche contra Wagner, Aktenstücke eines Psychologen