Stuff about the game you realized/noticed later

I decided to create this thread because Xenogears was such a rich game and even after all this time, we can still find something new to discuss.

I had this realization lately that Fei's main persona was actually foreshadowed HEAVILY at the beginning of the game and I never made the connection until now. Remember that cutscene where Elly calls Fei a coward, and then he says angrily "That's right ! I'm a coward !". How did I miss something so big ? Fei's main persona IS called "the coward".

Then, I don't remember someone talking about it but look at the back of the game's box. It pitches the plot like this :

"A mysterious organization is turning the tides of a century-long war with ancient technology, giant combat robots known as Gears.
A failed attempt to steal one of these powerful mechanized weapons places it in the unwilling hands of young Fei and his dubious allies.
Now he is pursued by military governments, royal pirates, spies, the emperor and his own forgotten past."

SPIES. Citan, you were sooooooo busted !

What about you ?

I think I have the opposite thing going on for me (I am like, Seraphita-level dense). I only tend to pick up on things after they've happened (it's especially bad with me and Game of Thrones). I think the only things I saw coming were that Miang would screw Ramsus over even worse and Krelian was bad news, but those are both so generic, I hardly feel they're worth mentioning. Looking forward to what other people have to say, though. :3

katimus_prime wrote:I think I have the opposite thing going on for me (I am like, Seraphita-level dense).  I only tend to pick up on things after they've happened (it's especially bad with me and Game of Thrones).

Well, actually, you're in good company. I didn't mean us to share the stuff we guessed right away, but stuff we actually missed and only realized now (or wayyyyy after having played the game).
And you know, it makes you think how Takahashi probably knew where he was going with his plot overall. Some people would accuse writers to write as they go, resulting in a nonsensical or awkward mess. But the bit about the "coward"? That's quite the foreshadowing. I think I will never understand people who accuse Xenogears of being nonsensical. No, the execution was flawed (this can't be denied) but the story is hardly nonsensical. There may be a few plot holes (like any huge story) but everything makes sense overall.

Hmm...

How about that scene where you find Citan's family for the second time? Midori still behaves like she did when we first met her, but the Chu-Chu nearby insists on her being quite the chatterbox. Did she clam up when Fei entered the room? Or is it just implied that the text box shows the conversation only partially like the bulk of you talking with unportraited characters goes?

The possibility of it being exactly what it looks like - Chu-Chu talking aloud as if responding to someone we can't hear - is not exactly a very subtle one, but it (in my eyes at least) looked so much like one of those acceptable breaks from reality I as a player deliberately ignore in order to submerge myself in the video game medium that it didn't merit anything more than a small note in the back of my mind as the majority of my attention was occupied with more immediately relevant plot threads. Looking back on it, it feels like the narrative didn't even try to hide it - maybe that is why it waltzed right by me so effectively?

Same with the first Id reveal - there are details about it strewn all over the place and at least some of them pinged the 'something is not right with this picture' sense, but I didn't go 'A-ha!' until Citan dropped the bomb directly. IMHO, the way it is done adds some real replay value to the game.

Not so much with Grahf and Wiseman though. While there are some quite neat plot turns to them in the story, I don't remember there being enough details to connect the dots or at least make the player particularly suspicious before the reveals happen. If Xenogears was a manga, I would've said that these plot turns were conceived at a later date and then retroactively put in the plot and adjusted to not contradict anything when the author decided to scrap their previous plan for these characters - or just simply didn't have a firm idea of where they would lead the plotlines when they were introduced.

EDIT:
The scene at the end of Disc 1 where Citan presses Fei into letting Id out with a few choice words. Good doctor refers to Elly as 'the most important person in your life'. When I went through that scene for the first time, I thought it was the usual JRPG tripe of pushing male and female leads into a pairing regardless of how plausible it looked and throw around gems like 'look into your heart, you know it to be true' and so on and so forth. I don't know about you, but that was among the first thoughts I've had during the first meeting with Elly and I thought the game was starting to push that in already.

Now that I've completed the game... Oh, the main pairing still happened and I still feel it was shoehorned in just because 'this is JRPG, it is supposed to be like that'. But knowing what happens on Disc 2 and knowing Citan knew at least a part of that information, I now believe it was said with quite a different meaning in mind. And it wasn't 'love' - at least not 'pairing love'.

Yikari wrote:
How about that scene where you find Citan's family for the second time? Midori still behaves like she did when we first met her, but the Chu-Chu nearby insists on her being quite the chatterbox. Did she clam up when Fei entered the room? Or is it just implied that the text box shows the conversation only partially like the bulk of you talking with unportraited characters goes?

I think PW implies that Midori is kind of psychic, something Citan kinda is too (his talks with the Emperor happen in his head). The Chu-chu probably can read minds too so... it was probably having conversations by thoughts with Midori.

RadicalDreamer wrote:

Yikari wrote:
How about that scene where you find Citan's family for the second time? Midori still behaves like she did when we first met her, but the Chu-Chu nearby insists on her being quite the chatterbox. Did she clam up when Fei entered the room? Or is it just implied that the text box shows the conversation only partially like the bulk of you talking with unportraited characters goes?

I think PW implies that Midori is kind of psychic, something Citan kinda is too (his talks with the Emperor happen in his head). The Chu-chu probably can read minds too so... it was probably having conversations by thoughts with Midori.

That was the impression I've got, but it came quite a bit later than that scene in my case.

I'll be finally able to play the game again starting this weekend, so would it be cool if I posted some impressions here?

Absolutely! :D I think that's what this topic lives for!

Today I saw a video and I learned that you can actually defeat Alpha Weltall with proper equipment and good tactics (In Mahanon, after you defeat deus for the first time, Grahf attacks and he beats you). If you can defeat him, the story doesn't change but you get 60.000 gils

ArchangelOmni wrote:Today I saw a video and I learned that you can actually defeat Alpha Weltall with proper equipment and good tactics (In Mahanon, after you defeat deus for the first time, Grahf attacks and he beats you). If you can defeat him, the story doesn't change but you get 60.000 gils

I have done this before while using savestates on an emulator, but during my replay of Xenogears earlier this year on my PS3, I defeated Alpha Weltall (in Mahanon) legit for the first time ever (took about 10-15 retries).

I'm pretty sure you don't get any money for beating him, but 60.000+ exp instead.
But more importantly, if you have Hammer's Trader Card equipped, you also get the Slayer Robe (armor for males).

I think the Slayer Robe is the coolest thing about being able to beat Alpha Weltall in Mahanon. ^^

A little discovery...

While watching a walkthought, this caught my attention :

Fei : "A rather old picture. Is it a picture of a family ? Parents, a girl and a younger brother... Everyone's seems to be smiling happily."

At 0:26.

I was trying to figure out who are the people on the picture. Who is the girl ?
I didn't know what to think for a while... Then, I read Zephyr's profile in Perfect Works and realized this was about her. According to PW, the entire royal family was killed in the Great War except Zephyr. PW never goes into details over this, but if I have to connect the dots, I'm to assume that Zephyr had a younger brother who was murdered alongside her parents (and who knows who else in the royal family). This is what the picture in Shevat's palace portrays : Zephyr's parents, brother and herself 500 years ago.
Episode 4 sure was harsh on siblings (there was Roni losing Rene, Sophia possibly never seeing her sisters again *and dying herself* and then this).

Also, REALLY fun coincidence I noticed : Krelian (Karellen)'s character was heavily inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Somehow, voice actor Cam Clarke ended up voicing Krelian .

Ha! What a detail, I have really looked everywhere in the game but I still have no memory of
that one picture.

Haha, that is also a fun coincidence!