I don't think she is.
KOS-MOS was put forth as the 'front woman' of the franchise on all covers, additional material books, etc, and she is supposedly important to the plot, but in actuality she is almost a non-character.
In all the meaningless crossover game appearances to date, she is there at the forefront of the xenosaga delegations for the same reason: marketing department forcing her likeness in because they apparently don't think anyone else is worth bothering with, or something.
Which I personally find strange, since the market is oversaturated with overdesigned magical girls (which, let's be honest here, KOS-MOS really is). The color combination of white with blue, with a spot of red and maybe some black is tried and true, and I'm a sucker for fabulous anime hair, but I can't for the life of me call her canon visual design 'good'.
Even if viewed through the narrow lens of 'what is the sexiest', her design versions that are more suitable to push off of to be marketed as sensual - episode 2's and the first appearance in episode 3 - are never seen in her non-canon appearances in other games, as far as I know.
XXX
A few thoughts on some other points, while I'm here:
75 Speaking of XCX any interesting parallels between it and past games?
Off the top of my head:
73 Anyone feel like discussing the Gnostic influences on the Xeno-series?
I have basically zero knowledge on the topic, so only thing I can add here is maybe an obvious comparison of Wilhelm to the idea of the demiurge - a well-meaning, but ultimately mistaken and thus self-serving false creator figure holding everyone below him back like an allegory to an over-protective parent.
72 Speaking of which any idea on what those black boxes could include/be?
I would assume it would have something to do with scooping out the Mary soul goop out of the human soul goop layer of reality, since no one on the team besides Kevin seems to have any idea about it.
The sprit-grinding, 'I'mma swallow you into my stomach' attack she shows on a few occasions in 1 and 2 could be like that, but that's just speculation. It is never really discussed anywhere in canon.
The whole idea of working around hardware and / or software you have no idea of in such a supposedly important project seems bogus to me. Especially since the team already had suffered severe losses previously (they wouldn't know Kevin sabotaged the whole thing, after all). But seeing how much control Wilhelm has, it may have just been pushed through as all decisions from the top do.
KOS-MOS was put forth as the 'front woman' of the franchise on all covers, additional material books, etc, and she is supposedly important to the plot, but in actuality she is almost a non-character.
In all the meaningless crossover game appearances to date, she is there at the forefront of the xenosaga delegations for the same reason: marketing department forcing her likeness in because they apparently don't think anyone else is worth bothering with, or something.
Which I personally find strange, since the market is oversaturated with overdesigned magical girls (which, let's be honest here, KOS-MOS really is). The color combination of white with blue, with a spot of red and maybe some black is tried and true, and I'm a sucker for fabulous anime hair, but I can't for the life of me call her canon visual design 'good'.
Even if viewed through the narrow lens of 'what is the sexiest', her design versions that are more suitable to push off of to be marketed as sensual - episode 2's and the first appearance in episode 3 - are never seen in her non-canon appearances in other games, as far as I know.
XXX
A few thoughts on some other points, while I'm here:
75 Speaking of XCX any interesting parallels between it and past games?
Off the top of my head:
- spoilers inside:
- - A bunch of xenosaga references off the bat. The establishing shot of the intro the whole game starts with is one big xenosaga 3 ending cameo; Earth is getting evacuated on a bunch of ships rushing as far away from the impeding catastrophe as they can; pre-release short stories mention xenosaga-esque energy supply fields projected by motherships for their smallcraft that allow them to run essentially on endless energy, as long as they are in range and the mothership's field is still intact; rather gnosis-like space gribblies make an appearance while in transit, forcing a sizeable portion of the remaining active mecha compelement to fight a rearguard action and become missing in action, presumed lost.
- The log-in prompt shown off in the very beginning is, as ever, the exact length needed for the login shown back in xenogears intro.
- Nopon are around, even if more direct references to some details of their culture in the previous xenoblade game didn't seem to make it.
- Mecha have distinct xenogears elements in their gameplay, but that may just be a next iteration of gameplay mechanics. There is a 'fuel' gauge, even if it probably should've been 'energy' instead.
- There a bunch of distinctly zohar-shaped things that fell off our crash-landing ship that are supposedly critical to our survival. (I say 'supposedly' because you can easily find them on the map before the plot mission related to them comes up, and there is no way to inform your home base of their location or anything.)
- The quest relating to unlocking appearance changes (essentially opening character creation again, after the game's start) features a distinctly xenosaga episode 3-ish metal coffin. I was expecting to find 'IRON MAIDEN' written on it somewhere, but couldn't find any.
- There is a party member that's really, really obssessed with his brother, comes off as a bit of a loose cannon. His hair happens to be rather close to stark-white, incidentially.
- There are a bunch of killer androids with distinctly Kevin-like design sensibilities. They are also infiltrators, so now I can't even claim I had that idea about T-elos posing as KOS-MOS first.
73 Anyone feel like discussing the Gnostic influences on the Xeno-series?
I have basically zero knowledge on the topic, so only thing I can add here is maybe an obvious comparison of Wilhelm to the idea of the demiurge - a well-meaning, but ultimately mistaken and thus self-serving false creator figure holding everyone below him back like an allegory to an over-protective parent.
72 Speaking of which any idea on what those black boxes could include/be?
I would assume it would have something to do with scooping out the Mary soul goop out of the human soul goop layer of reality, since no one on the team besides Kevin seems to have any idea about it.
The sprit-grinding, 'I'mma swallow you into my stomach' attack she shows on a few occasions in 1 and 2 could be like that, but that's just speculation. It is never really discussed anywhere in canon.
The whole idea of working around hardware and / or software you have no idea of in such a supposedly important project seems bogus to me. Especially since the team already had suffered severe losses previously (they wouldn't know Kevin sabotaged the whole thing, after all). But seeing how much control Wilhelm has, it may have just been pushed through as all decisions from the top do.