Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathrustra is the 2006 follow-up to Xenosaga Episode I and Episode II and is the conclusion to the Xenosaga series, and goddamn does this series end on a good note. This is a game that had everything against it. Despite Bandai Namco having no faith in the team after Xenosaga III, the fans being (probably) let down from how Xenosaga Episode II turned out and Episode III being rushed in many areas, this game not only somehow made all of the pain everyone went through worth it, it went above and beyond and cemented itself as one of the best RPGs of its generation, if not ever according to many people that played this game. Does Xenosaga Episode III really live up to its reputation or is it an overhyped mess? This review is my compliation of my thoughts of Xenosaga 3 (and by extension, the franchise in general).

I will firstly begin with the music of Xenosaga Episode III. The composer of the previous game, Yuji Kajiura returns to compose yet again, an another banger soundtrack. I mentioned in my Xenosaga Episode II review that I found the soundtrack of that game to be good generally speaking and Episode III's soundtrack does not disappoint either. They utilise tracks perfectly this time around and each piece of music feels appropiately placed. The boss tracks are insanely good and some of the best in the PS2 generation in my eyes and the overall soundtrack direction is more somber, emotional and beautiful in a depressing way most of the time. The only nag that I have against this soundtrack is that the main battle theme is ass and not that great - which is a shame because the rest of this soundtrack rocks.

The next part of this review that I will focus on is the combat and general gameplay. Monolith Soft in the last two entries could never really figure out a generally good, fun, cohesive combat system. Xenosaga Episode I had cool ideas in regards to AWGS battles and positioning but I generally found the combat in that game to be slow and honestly unfun for a lot of that game. AWGS as an idea were cool but they were useless pretty much except for two boss fights and the row system is generally useless outside two or three bosses in that game whilst making the combat more convaluted than it should be. Xenosaga Episode II while it did do some changes in regards to giving the game a snappier feel, they fucked up the balancing so bad which made playing the gameplay super unfair to you. If you are not levelled up enough to a section and you have no strats, it's over really. This is alongside a fucked up item/money economy which you can only use on the single item shop in the game, a skill system that is unneccesarily confusing for no reason and battles that include multiple spongy enemies that would deal heavy damage most of the time to your party members during dungeons.

Xenosaga Episode III's approach towards game and combat design not only drastically improves and overhauls upon its predecessors but it is forwardthinking in so many ways for its time. I think the only other combat system that feels this good from this era of RPGs that I've played was FFX. Episode III feels snappy and insanely responsive right from the get go to move around and navigate - it does not feel like a chore to play and skim through like Episode I is. Episode III's combat is completely overhauled from the past 2 games - removing position based battles in favour for a traditional combat system while retaining all of the gimmicks that make Episode I and II's battle systems interesting conceptionally, like Boost and Mech battles which were repurposed into ES battles, which are super fun but I'll get to them a bit later. Alongside returning mechanics, Episode III introduces Special Attacks if you have enough boost on your character, which lets you perform a very strong attack against enemies. This mechanic is super useful when you want to get a Finish Strike, which gives you a lot of XP and money if you manage to land one of these right before the end of a fight and incentivises you to save boosts throughout some of the tougher fights in the game, as Finish Striking them would give you an insane amount of XP and money. An another cool change that this game does is a completely overhauled skill tree system which lets you form your characters however way you want. Any of the main cast of Episode III can be the most powerful character in the game depending on how you cater their skill set and playstyles, making up a very fun and rewarding system overall.

An another key part of Xenosaga Episode III's combat is the ES battles which are unironically better than normal battles in my opinion. I think there is a great satisfaction in having overpowered ES mechs rip through battles. The ES boss fights in this game are some of the best in the Xeno series on top of that in my opinion. ES fights also have a similar mechanic as Boost in the form of Anima, which depending on what level of Anima are, it lets you perform a very strong attack against enemies alongside giving you more attacks per turn. These are awesome.

I think an another element that I will mention regarding the gameplay is the quality of life improvements that they made that improve the overall game experience. This 20 year old game has QOL improvements that only modern RPGs today have. For example, all of your party members gain XP even if one of them die midbattle or not - which means everyone is at an equal playing field most of the time and there is no one by the end of the game that is seriously underleveled. Their philosophy with QOL would also be seen in how they handle menus aswell. They make it so easy to navigate through each of the character's equipment and gear in a way that modern RPGs do today, as if it was a game made in the modern era of video games with how it caters towards UX. Despite them having to rush the game, they really thought of everything in making this game the most convenient RPG that they could and they deserve massive props for that.

The final aspect of this game which I will discuss is the story, writing and characters of Episode III. If there is one element of this franchise that remains consistant from start to finish, it's the story and while this is a spoiler-free review and I would highly recommend experiencing this game for yourself, I will say that this game rounds off everything in an epic and somber way. There are reveals and twists here that completely recontextualize everything that you thought you knew about the world of this series in a very well done manner - I don't feel like they are mere asspulls to fill in plotholes either. Every character in this game gets some kind of limelight (except MOMO interestingly enough, her arc resolution was in the 2nd game more than here) and their arcs resolved - the key character, however, is Shion and she is the one that gets the most development throughout this game by far. The pace of the plot is a bit rapid and I do wish there was more time spent on some arcs in this game but considering they were squeezing the stories of 3 games into one and had to go over these arcs rapidly, the fact they managed to maintain a cohesive and consistant narrative throughout is insane. I'd strongly recommend this game for its writing along with everything else, it is so good. Another thing I will also mention is the database, which contains all of the information that you will ever need on the lore of this game and other games. This tool is so good and I wish more RPGs with an emphasis on worldbuilding had this feature, along with Active Time Lore in FFXVI - it makes digesting the world so much easier and less convaluted for people who don't want to rely on sitting through hours of obscure lore that they may or may not have the time for.

I think the only real criticism that I have against this game if you can even call it that, considering how the development team was so constrained throughout this franchise's existence, is how you have to play and read up on so much things in order for you to fully appreciate what is going on in these games. The fact you have to play through two games with varying degrees of quality alongside having to sit through two vital side games that are practically lost media at this point despite being extremely important to setting up the third game is, in my opinion, a huge deterrant to those who want to experience one of the best RPGs of the 6th generation. I would not really blame people if they told me that they gave up before they even reached Episode III. Episode III is a fantastic game, but it is probably the hardest sell that I could make to someone as it requires newer players to soldier on through the series itself in order to reach this game, which I think is a shame. I think Xenosaga remakes/XCDE style remasters can easily fix this issue and more; compile every piece of lore into one package, make the first 2 games way better on a gameplay basis and give Pied Piper and A Missing Year the fully fledged games that they deserve.

In conclusion, Xenosaga Episode III is a triumph in so many ways. One of the greats of the era and certainly one of the greatest RPGs ever made.

Under similar circumstances as Xenosaga II to III: A Missing Year, the rating that I give here does not really mean anything. This game is basically impossible to access today in any means and the only way I was able to access this in any form whatsoever is through translation by ValakTurtle of a playthrough by 桂樹 (shoutouts to these guys.... seriously they deserves kudos as without them, no person on this Earth would see this story).

Xenosaga Pied Piper is a Japan exclusive game for flipphones I think??? I can't really recall which phones or whatever had this game because this is such an obscure piece of media, in fact it is lost media in all but this playthrough with no way of emulating this game. It follows the story of Jan Sauer and his subordinates as they try to search for a prolific killer, Voyager who has been killing people utilising the UMN.

I am not going to spoil the writing here at all as that is the only real thing the game has going for it but it is so good. Like A Missing Year, this should have been made into an another game since it had no budget. If you want to watch Pied Piper yourself, here is the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo2yfd3EU8_5wY7vso-kGBRpZhXZSiZCL

Definitely worth a watch, especially in the leadup to Xenosaga Episode 3.

I don't even know if the rating I put in here is fitting for this kind or review or even matters so I am not really giving this one an official rating or whatever in the traditional sense.

Xenosaga II to III: A Missing Year is a Japanese-exclusive visual novel/game/idk how to describe this thing that takes place between the events of Episode 2 and Episode 3. It involves Shion and Jin pursuing a 100-Series Realian who has more to her that meets the eye and the story dives into some very relevant lore points and delves into the characters we all know and love so much.

I don't think the game itself is even active anymore online even in its original incarnation so the most accessible way of seeing this game is through a fan translation of the game on YouTube which I will link below and is the way I managed to access this game:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhkdGQOixb1cbR4UDX1iFT1M_ErV5dWxA

It is unfortunate because if the game had a way bigger budget than it was given, this could have been converted to a game like Tetsuya Takahashi and the devs wanted to (same with Pied Piper and other media). I still think this is worth experiencing for the writing alone and especially for the ending, it's only an hour at most so this won't take up much of anyone's time but that's all there is to it really...