A year ago, I played this game in the coming weeks before the release of Xenoblade 3. I enjoyed my time with the game and the series, but I didn't really get to fully digest it since I was in a rush to also play Xenogears before XC3 at the time. I initially left the game at an 8/10 score due to this. After replaying it without any rush to beat it as quickly as possible, I can say I owe this game an apology. Xenosaga 3 is, if anything, an achievement. It's common knowledge that Xenosaga as a series was unfortunately cut short and had to end early at 3, but the fact that the devs and writers were able to salvage that and still deliver a satisfying and hopeful conclusion to the story is downright impressive. It's by no means a "perfect" game due to its circumstances, but the good so severely outweighs the bad that I think it has earned the new rating of 10/10.

Well, after replaying Xenosaga Episode III, I can definitely say that this is my favourite game of all time. Everything about it is just so damn good. The gameplay, the graphics, the story, the characters, everything is fantastic. I can hardly put into words how much I love this game. 

So first, let's talk about the battle system. Most often, I’m not even the biggest fan of turn based battle systems, I definitely don’t hate them, and with most of them, I have very much fun. But mostly, I would prefer action-based battle systems over them, but there are always a few exceptions where I absolutely love turn-based systems. Xenosaga Episode III is one of those cases. It’s so fast, the battles have barely any loading times, it feels like I’m going instantly into an encounter. I love the break system, the boost system and how you can really get broken in this game. The dialogues in between the battles are also fantastic, really love them. And the Mech battles are also great and fun. I don’t know how they did it after the battle system of Xenosaga Episode II, but with Episode III, they created one of my favorite battle systems. It still feels so modern, and probably the only criticism you can give it is that it can be too easy, though I don’t have a problem with that at all. But it would, of course, be nice if there were more difficult options.

Oh, and the menus of the game are fantastic too, there aren’t really loading times, it’s fast and easy to navigate. They really nailed that aspect of this game too.

Next, I want to talk about how great the graphics of this game are. No, really, this is probably the most beautiful PS2 game that I’ve seen. It could even be an early PS3 game, and it still looks so good. As an example, Fifth Jerusalem is such a fantastic looking area that I could just look at these wonderful environments for hours without getting bored. Probably the only thing that holds it back is the resolution, but if you were to put it in HD, imo it still holds up with many modern games.

Especially the character models are gorgeous, and overall, the artstyle is my favourite of all Xeno games. I would love it, if they were to use this artstyle of the characters in the next Xeno game. I definitely love the character models of Episode l too, but they really delivered with those of Xenosaga Episode III.

The title screen of this game is also gorgeous, I love how some of the cutscenes are playing in the background, and the music always makes me really emotional, especially after beating the game. So yeah, even the title screen is my favourite of all Xeno games.

The amazing aspects of the game just don’t stop, and next there’s also the excellent soundtrack of this game, composed by Yuki Kajiura. There are so many fantastic tracks, and overall, it’s probably one of the best videogame soundtracks that I have heard.
Here are some of my favourite tracks:

“The Battle of your Soul”; “Rolling Down The U.M.N.”; “Promised Pain”; “She’s Coming Back”; “Beach”; “The Harsh Truth”; “Godsibb”; and of course; “Maybe Tomorrow”.

I could mention many more, but then I would probably just list the whole soundtrack. It would be great if Yuki Kajiura were to again make a soundtrack for a Xeno game.

So now let's talk about the story. After they had to end the story with this game and with Episode II barely moving the plot forward, they did a marvellous job, it’s incredible how well they concluded the story of this arc. Probably the main problem is still disc 2, where it can feel kind of rushed, but considering how much they had to bring to a close here, they probably did the best. At least, I wouldn’t know how you should’ve done this better, considering in which position they were after Episode II. And I can totally live with how it is now in this game.

Though it’s a bit unfortunate that in this game not all the cutscenes are completely animated, I totally loved all the cutscenes in Episode I, and the story was really immersive with those. So having a lot of them “just” as voiced text boxes is a bit of a shame. It’s definitely not bad, and I can live with it, but I would’ve 100% preferred it if all of them were completely animated, especially because the characters look so good, and even all the animated cutscenes we’ve got are awesome.

Considering that they certainly didn’t have the same budget as for Episode I and II and that they probably didn’t have that much time, I can’t really criticize that, at least I’m certain they would’ve presented the whole story of the game with completely animated cutscenes if they had the needed time and budget. Not to forget that the game overall has 9 hours of cutscenes, which would’ve needed a lot of work to completely animate all of them.

The characters overall are also still great, and I love all of them. The main party is so good, and I really care about these characters. Shion and KOS-MOS are still my favourites, but I also love characters like Ziggy, chaos, Jin, and so on. Not to forget, the antagonists are also great.

Regarding the voice acting, it’s gladly again really good, opposed to many moments in Episode II. Overall it’s, at least in my opinion, not as good as in Episode I, which had excellent voice acting, but it’s still very good. And it’s so good to hearing Shion’s and KOS-MOS original voices again, after what they sounded like in Episode II. Lia Sargent as Shion and especially Bridget Hoffman as KOS-MOS have again done a great job. Probably, Bridget Hoffman has with KOS-MOS delivered the best voice acting throughout the entire series.

So most of the characters in Episode III sound again really good in the English dub, with some of the original voice actors from Episode I back. Sadly, I can’t really say that for chaos. I don’t like his new voice from Episode II, as much and for Episode III he still has the same voice actor as for Episode II. In Episode II, he sounds like an edgy teenager, which doesn’t fit to chaos and his personality at all. It doesn’t feel like he has any emotions there, and all his quirkiness is gone, which is really a shame. At least in Episode III, he sounds a lot better, but I think it’s still very unfortunate that they didn’t use his original voice actor from Episode I. I really loved his performance as chaos in Episode I.

So yeah, I think you can really tell that I love this game and don’t have a lot to criticize about it. I definitely would call it Peak Fiction, and I just love Xenosaga. This series means a lot to me, and I already would like to replay Xenosaga again. I can totally recommend Xenosaga, if you want great characters, a fantastic story and excellent worldbuilding. It’s really a shame that these wonderful games to this point still haven’t got any re-release or remaster on a modern platform.

But I think after all of this, the only thing there is left for me to say probably is,

Let the saga take you

This review will not contain major spoilers, though I will mark some sections with light spoilers if necessary.

Xenosaga Episode III is a game I approached with the highest of expectations. While not talked about nearly enough in the gaming landscape, especially compared to its Blade brethren, it is regarded among the finest of the MonolithSoft's Xeno titles amongst the series' diehard fans, and I was eager to see why.

Cut back to April of 2023 when I was playing through Xenosaga Episode I. Great a game as it was for its unique approach to storytelling and presentation that could only be attributed to the idiosyncracies of Tetsuya Takahashi, I wasn't digging the combat much and put the game on hold when I reached the insurmountable wall that was Doppelwogel (fuck you). I was also on somewhat of a Xeno-burnout having just finished Gears, Xenoblade 3, and its Expansion within a timeframe of a few months.

Eventually I figured the longer I put it on hold, the longer it would take for me to get to it again. I knew I would have to experience the Xenosaga series sooner or later, and so in August of 2023, I started a fresh playthrough of Xenosaga I and eventually beat it. It was a thoroughly awesome time, though admittedly not without some glaring flaws, 'specially in regards to presentation and game-balancing.

Xenosaga Episode II was a much harder sell for me the whole way through. I still beat it, riding off the momentum of Episode I, but it was the game where some of the Xenosaga franchise's issues begun to came to light, and so I became more and more worried as I slowly approached the Monolithic title (no pun intended) that was Xenosaga III). For the record, I adore a lot about Xenosaga II. Sure the combat and presentation are rough around the edges, but when it hits, it hits hard. Episode I had its moments, but II was the game, in spite of its issues, that really sold me on the storytelling potential of the series, in spite of the general issues that plagued both games.

Then we get to the main topic of this review: Xenosaga Episode III. As a result of my mixed experienced with Episode II, I now approached Episode III with equal parts astronomical expectations and the lingering feeling that it might fail the expectations it so highly set up for itself. It was only inevitable.

(Spoilers for the first cutscene in the game)

Then I saw the opening cutscene. I don't want to exaggerate too much, but this may be the best first cutscene I've ever seen in a game. We see a boy and mother walking through a ravaged planet, ushering him to safety and giving him a chance to escape while she transforms into a Gnosis. Yuki Kajiura's beautiful score emphasizes a palpable sense of tragedy that continually echoes throughout the game. Everything about this opening was beautiful. The moment I saw this scene, I knew this game was going to be special.

(spoilers end)

The first thing about this game that becomes apparent the moment we gain control of our characters is how it re-centers the story's focus on Shion Uzuki. Episode I's second half and Episode II admittedly endeared me a lot to Jr, who I still consider one of the series' best characters, so the change back to Shion is a good way of re-acclimatizing us to her shoes, especially since Episode II did a ton of damage to her character.

More so than Jr in II, or Shion in I, Shion's role in Episode III is of absolute importance, more so than any of her contemporaries, KOS-MOS aside. It doesn't take long for the game to make Shion endearing again, which is especially important considering the fact that we spent several hours with no combat whatsoever, following Shion's story as she reconnects with her friends on Fifth Jerusalem.

A lot of this game's structure is heavily reliant on Shion. Everything from her character interactions to the progression of the plot to the main conflict is so Shion-centric that it tends to overshadow every other plotline in the game. It's here we get to the game's first major flaw, being that anything that isn't adjacent to Shion's character or journey tends to feel like an afterthought. Ziggy's subplot with Voyager suffers the most from this, as we only get around 2 or 3 whole scenes dedicated to the conflict before it is resolved. Alas, the point of this review is not to linger on such things.

Discussions have been had about this game, and this series' in general, poor pacing. It applies mostly to the gunshot pace of disc 2, though the first disc does suffer from this as well, particularly in regards to the Miltia arc, which happens to be highly Shion-centric. Perhaps we spend a little too long here, though it doesn't bother me much.

On the complete other end of the spectrum, everything that is adjacent to Shion in this game is explored to a damn-near masterful degree. Once again, the game tends to keep Shion herself at arms-length from the player, only giving us bits and pieces of her psyche, that is, until we reach Old Miltia for the first time. Though the Miltia arc's pacing is not quite perfect, it re-emphasizes the game's aggressive focus on Shion's character and opens up her past for all to see.

It is from Shion's mind where the game really begins to click. Shion's past is ugly, unsightly, unfathomable, all of it. From her mind and experiences, we are allowed to examine much of the game's central ideas from a closer angle. Trauma, cycles, the nature of waves and how we can influence each other, the whole lot. It's a travesty that Shion is as disliked as she is by a good number of people, because her character and the way it links the games core ideas in a way that is equal parts cohesive and emotional is pure artistry in video game storytelling.

(minor spoilers for the best cutscene in the game)

All of this culminates in one moment, being Allen and Shion's confrontation with the Red Testament in Michtam's core. This is not the first video game to make me cry, although it is the very first to make me sob like a lost child. This cutscene in everything to me. Once again, Kajiura's masterful score only serves to strengthen my already potent emotions. Watching the resolve of Allen, KOS-MOS, and later Shion brings more than a couple of tears to my eye, all of them warranted.

(minor spoilers end)

And all of this beautiful writing around Shion doesn't say anything about Jr's mini-arc and his conflict with Yuriev, the masterful dynamic of Jin and Margulis and their perfect duel in the Zohar facility, which stands as far-and-away my favorite boss in any turn-based RPG and a reaffirmation of the game's stellar mechanics, the heart-wrenching pain of KOS-MOS and everything she's had to go through, and the game's beautiful presentation, most of which holds up to this day.

With this, I can say that in spite of the flaws that plague it, Xenosaga Episode III not only met, but surpassed my astronomically high expectations and then some, and absolutely lives up to the Xeno mantle that Xenogears had started. GOAT, raw, fire, Peak Motherfucking Fiction.

Absolutely incredible game with the best cast of characters in fiction
Also one of the best if not the best stories ever told especially the ending

This game is the best turn based combat has ever felt and even though the E.S. combat may not be as good as character combat it is still incredibly fun and accentuates the power of these craft by having numbers you cant hope to achieve with characters

The music is some of the best ever composed, especially with songs such as: Godsibb, Promised Pain and Maybe Tomorrow

Overall incredible game only losing out to the powerful influence of nostalgia as without the factor of nostalgia this could easily be my favourite game of all time truly an incredible masterpiece that everyone owes themselves in playing the entirety of Xenosaga for

on all accounts i should despise this game
the combat is incredible for ground combat idk how they managed to fuck up horrendously with E.S. combat but uh yeah
disk 1 was perfect then you have the disjointed mess of disk 2 which houses the best story/character moments and the worst gameplay moments with like 1 or 2 good bosses and it was genuinely painful because there was so many fucking dungeons that lasted forever and were just tedium because theres a LOT of encounters to the point i kinda wish it was random encounters instead at times
but god dammit if the characters and story werent incredible like holy fuck i went from despising shion with my full heart to liking her quite a lot at the end
also the music is incredible, testament, godsibb, promised pain are so fucking good
i can definitely tell they were rushed out the ass with the story and had to make some concessions but damn they made it work for what it was
also Dmitri Yuriev is genuienly one of the best boss fights ive fought
9.5/10 its peak

Just like with Xenogears, this game is an unfinished masterpiece, story-wise. I had such a good time with the game I binged it in under a week, a 50 hour game! But I don't know how to rank it.
First of all, I think the story is amazing. It answers what I believe all the questions the series asked, very action-packed and very impactful. Like the other xeno games, it impacted me on a personal level and I can say that Tetsuya Takahashi is an amazing storyteller, and It's severely unfortunate he has never been able to tell a 3 part, six-episode storyline until Xenoblade. I now consider Xenogears Perfect Works on a conceptual level my favorite story of all time, and I very "normally" want him to tell it one day. Looking into the development of the Xenosaga series, I also learned that Xenosaga shared the same structure, but because of how Episode 1 turned out, the 3-part 6-episode storyline was cut into a 1-part 3-episode storyline (debatably 5 episode). This means the full Xenosaga storyline only covered 1/3 of the storyline, only Shion's story. I would love to see how the other 2/3 of the story would've been like, and I'd like to redirect people to the Xenogears and Xenosaga Study Guide Blogger website if you want to learn more about Xenogears and Xenosaga's history and development. Anyways, the story is amazing and I love a lot of it's ideas, and I wish the full thing could've been told, the after-credits scene in particular almost makes me tear up (a high accomplishment, btw).
Onto gameplay, this is definitely the best a Xenosaga has played. Some people may call it generic/traditional, but there's a reason it's tradition. The turn-based battles just flow a lot better than 1 and 2's ever did and I definitely had the most fun battling in this game than the previous games. The bosses also didn't drag on for as long! Although, I feel as though the final E.S boss battles in the final chapter weren't that fun, I think my weapons just had bad accuracy but damn they kept missing all the fucking time. This is still the most fun I had playing a Xenosaga game, though.
Lastly, the music is fantastic. I love the regular boss theme, Promised Pain, and other Xenosaga fans know I don't even need to mention Godsibb. Amazing tracks, maybe even the best ost in the trilogy.
Overall, this has been the hardest game for me to rate on this site so far. I wasn't able to decide between a 4.5 or a full 5/5, because I do believe this to believe one of my favorite experiences I've had in a video game, with what I believe to be great gameplay, amazing story, and some godlike music, I can't help but feel melancholic over thinking about how different things could've turned out if we got to see the full Xenosaga. I think this is personally the opposite of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for me. as I feel it was one of the best games of all time, but not one of my favorites as the gameplay still isn't much my cup of tea even though I do find enjoyment in it (everything else is still a 10/10, for real that game is peak fiction). This game, to me, is not one of the best games of all time, but probably one of my favorites now.
After I finished this game, I started thinking about how much stories mean to me and how much they can impact me. I know stories in video games aren't for everyone, but for me a good story just elevates the experience tenfold in a video game. That's what I love about the pre-blade Xeno games. It truly felt as though Takahashi wanted to tell this super ambitious epic story, and I feel like he succeeded where he could. And because the games are more my style (turn based), I think this is why I prefer these games over Xenoblade (at least gameplay-wise). I could feel the passion, the love that the stories had, and the sadness at the end of it knowing he wasn't able to see it all the way through, and had to sit down and make something else that could appeal to a wider audience; Xenoblade. I will always love these early Xeno games for what they tried to do, and I think I can say this is now one of my favorite games of all time.

Not only is the best xeno game, not only is this the best project Tetsuya Takahashi has ever worked, not only is this the best ps2 jrpg and the best game on the console in general but this is possibly the best game ever game absolutely everything in this game is done so expertly and done with so much love and care that very few problems this game has (1 plot line that is kind of unresolved and the fact you need to play xenosaga 1, xenosaga 2, read xs pied piper and watch xs: a missing year). Xs3 is a triumph in every aspect from its beautiful artistic direction and graphic, god tier soundtrack by the legend Yuki Kajiura, and its amazing story and cast of characters that deliver one of the best messages regarding accepting the end of everything and a strong critic of Nietzsche philosophy makes this game an experience and a must play, easily my favorite game ever made and an artistic triumph and tragedy that after this game Takahashi decided to settled with the mediocrity of the xenoblade series and never managed to make something as great or thought provoking as xenogears and xenosaga