Redemption
The strange thing is Xenosaga III is the best playing Xeno title yet and the story here finally becomes more than pretty cutscenes.
The game picks up after Xenosaga II, where Shion quits Vector and abandons KOS-MOS. A series of whacky events leads to Shion joining back up with the rest of the cast including the quiet well-mannered chaos, hot-headed URTV Jr., and Shion’s badass katana wielding older brother Jin. Fortunately Xenosaga III also axes the ugly art direction of its predecessor and reverts to the anime inspired character designs of the original. The game still includes the occasional gorgeous CG movie of mecha trying to dismantle each other and KOS-MOS destroying Gnosis with dazzling light shows, but far more of the story is driven through real-time cutscenes focused on dialogue.
Monolith was merciful on the impatient man I am and now allows you to simply read the nifty dialogue boxes and skip all the spoken voice-overs rather than sitting through all 8 hours of Adult Swim caliber acting. This allows you to progress through a Xeno title faster than ever. And since this is the final chapter of the Xenosaga games, the story finally becomes interesting by revealing all the juiciest plot twists. Shion also establishes herself as the main character rather than playing second fiddle as “hot” android “babe” KOS-MOS’s caretaker. The game delves into Shion’s past and psyche creating a portrait of a tormented character that’s about to succumb to the emotional scars that have secretly been gnawing away at her brain since Episode I. It’s a real refreshing change of pace over the old “OH KOS-MOS! KILL SOME GNOSIS, DUUUUUR!”
But most of the time I couldn't have cared less about the plot. Xenosaga III’s combat is so fun that most of the time I just wanted to skip all the talking go right back to kicking ass. Battles have a real Final Fantasy X inspired feel to them only enemies and bosses lie at a golden mean between FFX’s ‘too easy to kill’ and Xenosaga I & II’s ‘waste too much time to kill’. Any tiered physical attack system from previous games has been replaced with a simple attack command, and now each character will learn both Ether Skills (spells) and Techs (powerful attacks that use EP).
As your party (or your enemies) accumulates damage against their foes, the Boost Gauge will fill and stock up to three units. As in the game’s predecessors, one boost can be used to delay an enemy assault and to instantly start one character’s turn. More importantly you can now use multiple boost units to unleash beautifully animated and deadly special attacks like Jin’s electrifying multi-slash combo Spark Waltz or Shion’s vaporizing Seal Beam. Additionally the game adds a new Break System where continually damaging an enemy or party member will cause them to become dizzy for a couple rounds during which they can’t act and will be dealt additional damage. Break damage is shown by a meter that fills with each hit, and there are both skills that heal break damage and focus on filling enemy break meters rather than causing damage. This adds an element of strategy where a skilled player can quickly knock the wind out of a foe making them an easy target to fell.
Throw in gorgeous visuals, epic Celtic-inspired music, booming sound effects, and the ability to switch party members mid combat a la Final Fantasy X and you can see what’s to be excited over.
Xenosaga III has plenty for the RPG junkie to tinker around with too. Although each character will obtain a predetermined array of helpful spells, attacks, and stat boosts with each level, you’ll also earn additional experience to use on the Skill Line. Every party member has their own unique Skill Line, where you can take usually one of two paths filled with stat boosts and abilities. Each path tends to develop a character suited for a certain role. For example one path will imbue Shion with tons of augmentative and degenerative Ether Skills while the other bulks her up on strength increases, Techs, and automatic abilities like counters. By the end of the game you end up having characters that do really wicked tricks. I would have Jin employ one Tech that would deal two heavy attacks, then my Short Double ability would kick in causing Jin to add a third slash during the same turn. Next an enemy would attack Jin and he’d use his Revenge ability to strike back, which he then followed up with a Short Double off of his Revenge.
Certain dungeons will require our heroes to board giant robots called ESes. Combat with your mecha is different as you’ll have set number of EN (engine power) regulated by your equipment. Depending on the weapons you have equipped, you’ll have anywhere from one to three different attacks to choose from that deplete various amounts of EN. You choose multiple sets of these attacks and then unleash combos of slashes, bullets, and plasma beams. If your combo was especially strong, your allies will sometimes jump in for an assist and deal even more damage free of charge. Each attack fills your Anima gauge, which upon activation allows you to execute ridiculously brutal super attacks. Optimizing your ES parts is just about any young RPG gamer’s wet dream. For example you can give Jin’s ES Rueben either a pair of twin katanas or one gigantic long sword. The former uses little EN while the latter nearly always eats it all up. The katanas can be used for long combos that obliterate multiple enemies in one turn while the long sword makes an assist from Rueben the equivalent of a free turn. There’s also a huge library of equippable disks containing abilities like increasing EN for longer combos, nullifying enemy counter attacks, or halving elemental damage.
Unfortunately ES boss fights more often than they should lead into lame trial and error situations. For example it’s not fun when you’re fighting a boss that counters nearly every attack, which will stop a combo dead in its tracks, forcing you to reload and put Null-E-Counter disks on all your ESes. Another boss fight will go pretty normally until your foe reaches critical status and then starts constantly using a fire-based desperation move that inflicts more damage than you have HP. So you have to go and give every ES a Fire disk and it becomes simple.
There are a few other minor problems too. The pacing hiccups in the middle as one moment you’ll be progressing normally and then all of a sudden the whole universe is in danger. In addition the end of the game side quests leave much to be desired and amount to little more than a couple optional bosses and several short errands for each character’s ultimate weapon.
While Xenosaga III’s storytelling may not be as flashy as its predecessors, its emergence of gut-wrenching emotion and revelations makes things a lot more entertaining than all the set up and introduction that went into the last two games. The fact you can quickly read through cutscenes is a definite plus. But truly it was Monolith’s decision to stop trying to make a combat system so very different from the norm and go with something both practical and fun was what made me enthralled with Xenosaga III. Maybe if Xenosaga had started out this engrossing, interest in the series wouldn’t have seemingly vanished after the first entry was released. As it is, this is one killer RPG that sadly many will pass up having given up after Xenosaga I or II or having never even played either.