Xenosaga

[Dessa]

Actually, I already knew that Shion (thank goodness) and chaos had different voices, as well as Jin (don't worry, Lovely, Crispin still does Gaignun and Albedo). Mike's heard chaos' new voice, and he says it's really good... quite frankly, no one can replace Souichiro Hoshi anyway, so...

[Lovely]

Ah! So Crispin still does Gaigun and Albedo?? THANK GOD! He didn't voice TOO much of Jin last time so I don't really mind that he won't be playing him this time. And I heard Sherry Lyn (or someone who sounds remarkably similar) is still playing MOMO.
How about Jr? Has he been changed? For better or worse? Agggghhh... I hear the gameplay kind of sucks but.... I wanna see what happens next ;_; . The wait... the wait...

[Dessa]

Yay!! Tomorrow!!

**can't wait**

[vanman]

Hello Dessa, I finally started an account here!

Xenosaga is awesome, and I will beat you to finishing it!

Ha ha, and no one on this board knows my true identity!

fear the newbie!

(Dessa, you should know who I am, though)...lol. ;D

[Dessa]

No, you won't beat me... I'll steal your memory card if I have to.

[Lovely]

Stealing his memory card is a bit low ^^; .

Anyhoo, I'm STILL play StarOcean3 so it might be a while 'till I play Xeno2.
I don't want any story spoilers but... how is the game so far? I'm speaking control wise, voice wise, character wise, random sci-fi lingo wise, random religous reference wise ....

[vanman]

Hmmm...Dessa and I disagree on a few of these points,

but we both like this game a great deal so far. We are

both at the end of the game, and there are several

things that we thought were both better or worse than

the first one.

*drum roll*

well, here is my pre-finishing review:

Story-wise, I feel that the game has improved quite a

bit. Not because of better story-telling persay, but

because it is now in the "meat" of the story, not the

prologue like in episode one. It is now more focused on

the individual characters, and the focal point has

narrowed considerably. The Gnosis are almost non

existant, instead focusing on the characters introduced

in the first game. Gameplay-wise, I love the new battle

system(Lovely, it's a lot more like Xenogears's battle

system). I won't go into detail very much, but the boost

/stock system in the 1st game has been refined and

near perfected. One thing I will say about the story

(sans spoilers) is that there are a HUGE amount of

Xenogears references! vanman was very happy.

The mech battle system(because there actually is one

in this game), is cool as well. More simplified than the

character system though. Dessa doesn't like it as much

as the Xenogears battle system though. However, I like

it a lot. One of the best parts of the game, is the fact

that towards the end of the game, you truly feel the

build of a climax(in the first game, I felt that the last

dungeon was kind of tacked-on at the end). Finally,

voice-wise, they did change some of them, but Dessa

and I feel that most of them were for the better

(especially chaos and Shion). Kos-mos's voice was not

quite as good as the original, but I didn't hate it either.

The only voice that is truly annoying this time around,

, is my beloved MOMO's. *sobs heavily*

As Dessa put it, she reminds you of Rainbow Brite!

One more thing, there are a huge amount of extras and

hidden bosses to fight after you finish the game, so

play time will probably be longer than the first, if you are

willing to go the distance. all in all, I loved this 2nd run

into the Xenosaga universe.

[Lovely]

Waaaaaaa~ .... It sounds so fun...
And XENOGEARS references? I'm there XD ! Thanks for the review Vanman.

EDIT: Oooh, I just found out (from the AoD message boards), that Chaos' new voice is Joshua Seth . Sooo... I'm not scared anymore. I actually like Mr. Seth's voice ^///^ ...

Ah dang... now I REALLY want this game ;_; ... I'm never gonna finish Star Ocean 3 (and I DO love the game ^^; ! )

[Pinkechidna]

Crispin, Seth, the VAs from the Digimon dub were just great! Hell, I'm going to get this game simply for that reason!

[Dessa]

Stealing his memory card is not low. I have never beat a game before him, and I'm going to this time!!!

[Dessa]

Well, you guys no longer have to worry about me stealing vanman's memory card, I beat it earlier today (heheheh... he was doing homework...).

About the ending... SPOILERS, duh...

*First off, after the "final boss" is about a half hour or so of cutscenes... which takes you to an area with Jr. only, where you fight the REAL final boss... It's very "Xenogears-ish", where you have the big, tough boss (whom I had no problems on, at level 41-43), and then you have another boss after, which really isn't that hard, but it is possible to lose (personally, this one is much easier than the Xenogears one). Anyway, after that, you get a really cool scene which almost brought me to tears!! And chaos is there, which is cool! Anyway, everyone escapes (and the Dammerung shows up out of nowhere), and, oh, look, there's the Zohar (the original). Oh, but wait, here's this HUGE thing that shows up (it's Abel's Ark), and, what? What's chaos doing standing on the Durandal... OUTSIDE!?!?!?!?! Yeah, we finally get some info on chaos!! Yay!!!

You see, his real name is Yeshua (so nice to be able to tell people this, since I spoiled myself a long time ago), and he apparently wasn't planning on intervening in things (whups, too late there). Anywho, he and Wilhelm (ya knew there was a connection) have a nice little discussion, and Abel's Ark takes away the Zohar. There's a few more scenes (I think), then we get the credits.

Jr. got Ziggy a new job stationed on the Durandal, unless MOMO needs him for anything, in which that takes priority... MOMO's living with Juli now, too. Jin's doing SOMETHING that he's taking the Elsa to get to, and Shion and Allen have a lot of paperwork to do (poor Allen).

And then the credits end, and the game's over... or is it? We are now privvy to a meeting between Wilhelm (who is standing on a mech... another ES? Perhaps a Gear?) and his three Testaments: Red (old, possibly Kevin), Blue (new, Virgil), and Black (named Voyager by Ziggy). And then a new player shows up, a white Testament... This new Testament talks about what they're going to be doing, and the white Testament is apparently "the eternal weaver of the circle of Zarathustra" (Wilhelm's words). Oh, did I mention that the white Testament also has Joshua Seth as a voice?*

[Jr.]

Well, I am looking away from Dessa's last post and now I have my final update. I still don't have the game.

I'm kind of busy with other games though.

[vanman]

I know Dessa! Stupid ending! I've half a mind to not play the extra dungeons and such because of where Monolith left us off! (as a side note, there is no way that I am not playing all the extras).

Jr, you must play this game though. It is so awesome! When you finish the other ones you are working on, don't miss the second part! Too cool to pass up.

[Jr.]

Oh don't get me wrong I am definetly going to get this game. I didn't avatar and name myself after Jr. because I was bored!!

Xenosaga was the flat out best game I played last year. Without a doubt. Well, .hack series was really awesome too.

[Dessa]

I need to make myself an Ep. 2 chaos avatar... Lovely, vanman, any requests? I'm pretty sure vanman would want MOMO... I can probably handle that pretty easily... I need to find a good base to make Ashil's avatar that he requested... I just can't find a good base to make it out of (BTW, Jr. used to be a Van from Escaflowne, and chaos used to be Hatsuhara from Fruits Basket).