Easy Site Navigation:
Digital Torture: Xenogears (PSX) - Week 3
CyclopticInsight - writer/webmaster - posted on Wednesday, 09/12/07 23:33:58 EDT
Thursday, September 6 SPOILERS ABOUND!!!
Last time, we got to the town of Dazil. I start out there, with Fei alone and at level 9. I’m not entirely sure on where to go, but as Citan went out into the desert I’ll start walking there. Just outside of town I encounter the sand sharks again, as well as the “Sand Men”, who (as I guessed last time) look almost exactly like Tusken Raiders, wielding sticks and (unlike the Fremen, thus cementing it as a Star Wars reference) guns.
A few steps (and a few more random encounters) later, the screen suddenly zooms in and I stop moving, so I guess I made the correct choice. I’m treated to a few cutscenes of a few Gears (presumably from Aveh) hopping through the endless dunes of the desert, and Fei feels that he should follow. Here I wander aimlessly through a few screens of dunes which add a nice 3-D effect to the path I’m walking, but greatly increase the distance as well, all the while fighting Aveh Soldiers (who look somewhat like the Sand Men, but are certainly a distinct sprite rather than a palette swap). Thankfully, I gain a level and learn to heal myself with the InnerHealing spell, as well as gaining another AP with which to try and learn more deathblows. As I’m wandering around I see a flying military unit shaped like a donut fly over Fei, as well as more Gears.
Finally, Fei gets tired of running through an endless desert and sees some soldiers riding dirt bikes, then gets in front of one of them and causes him to crash. After that, he steals the bike and makes some impressive jumps over dunes. He rides well into the night (via a recycled sequence of the same jumps but with a bluish nighttime background) and is attacked by two gears, but is saved by Citan in Weltall. Citan explains that Fei has to do the fighting (as Citan can’t use Weltall correctly), and Fei hops in. After a quick fight, the screen pans up to another gear and a Man In Black standing on its shoulder – who is wearing a mask and cloak.
His statements make it clear that he knows Fei in some capacity, not to mention the obvious similarity to the “masked man” who brought him to Lahan in the flashback earlier. Ah, here's some anime again – Fei saying “You killed her…her?”, seeing the swinging cross again, and a flashback with Fei in a younger form, covered in blood, with another young man telling him “Coward…no, it was you!” To explain further, it seems like what we're seeing here is a single anime sequence that we're viewing in chunks, with more of the full scene added in each time.
Fei recognizes the Man in Black from Lahan, and is told that his name is "Grahf, the seeker of power". He mentions that Fei showed how much power he showed back in Lahan, while Fei doesn’t know what is being talked about. Grahf blabs on about needing a greater power to fulfill his mission, and claims to have sent the gears into Lahan as a catalyst to awaken Fei’s power. Fei is shocked that Grahf did that intentionally, while Grahf baits him some more about him being powerless to stop “the screams from your heart born out of the tragedy” and offers such gems of villain-speak as “It does not matter how many of them died, they were wretched vermin, only living from day to day without ever fulfilling their prescribed destinies!” He even tops it off with a guilt trip about how Fei’s the one who destroyed the villiage and suggests that Fei’s essence is “the voice of desire from within you that craves destruction.”
Fei turns the blame on Grahf for causing it, and Grahf responds with “That sounds like something ‘you’ would say. That’s good. Your basic nature remains unchanged.” I mention this because as we’ve seen earlier, surrounding a word with single-quotation marks or hyphens denotes a hint. Grahf also claims that with Fei’s power, he wants to “destroy mother god”. It’s all gotta tie into that, of course, this IS Xenogears after all, although it's interesting how the game quickly dispatches with any notion of subtlety. Fei refuses, and Grahf laughs and says he resembles his father. Fei asks “You know my father?”, and Grahf (again in cheesy villain mode) replies “That was a most delightful scream. I was enthralled by it.”
Ok, before I continue: here’s a guy who is trying to awaken the power in Fei and make him follow his desires for destruction – in other words, it sounds a lot like he’s trying to turn Fei to the dark side. Furthermore, he’s wearing a mask and a cloak and is clad all in black. I’d said earlier on that he looked like Darth Vader – now I’m sure of it, he IS Darth Vader, and if he hadn’t just given me the line about killing Fei’s dad I’d be completely sure of who he really is. As it is, I’m not entirely convinced that he isn’t Fei’s father.
Along this line of thought, Fei asks what happened between Grahf and his father, and Grahf gives the response of “There is no use in you knowing it now”, which seems like he’s dodging the question being that a minute ago he was all too willing to talk about the screams. In any event, he says that Fei isn’t powerful enough yet and must be tried until he becomes suitable. A monster shows up, and Grahf says that to learn the truth about his father, Fei must first attain the level of strength he requires by destroying others.
I mentioned a monster appearing – it looks somewhat like a polygonal snake that ate an animal, with a bulge in the center of it. I suppose it’s a crappy excuse for the sandworm I was expecting (though it IS named “Wyrm”) but ah well, I can’t expect them all to be established sci-fi references. It seems to attack with weak hits and stealing my fuel, and doesn’t take damage from physical attacks. I use my guided shot spell, which does only minimal damage but does the trick in a few shots. When it dies, I obtain an eyeball and Fei claims the Gear is broken again. Two Aveh Gears suddenly show up at that moment, which seems awfully coincidental. Fei and Citan are then taken captive (along with the Weltall) in a hovering desert transport. It looks very flat on top, like a shorter version of a Sandcrawler with hoverpads.
More anime! Fei looks on and sees three figures facing one another – one looks like Grahf (with an evil glow), saying they will join together. In the center is a mustached man (glowing light blue, like Obi-Wan) who looks similar to Fei (albeit much older), who says “I didn’t think we’d meet again like this”. On the other side of him, a red-haired (and evil-looking) figure mentions something about taking “him”, to which Mr. Mustache says I’ll never let you have him, even if it kills me!”
Fei doesn’t tell Citan about his dream, and Citan apologizes for being careless with an experimental Kislev gear in the middle of Aveh. Fei talks about how Grahf’s statements hurt him, particularly the stuff about how Lahan was sacrificed just to get him into Weltall. It’s got Fei wondering who he really is, and Citan advises that they can’t find anything out while being held prisoner, so they may as well rest and try and sort out their thoughts. There is a chance to talk more to Citan here, but I accidentally took the other option, which was to end the conversation. I'm not sure anything more would've come to light anyway, as Citan is clearly not telling Fei everything he knows. At this point, we see Citan’s thoughts: “It was him! No mistake…that was no coincidence…could it be that we are approaching …the –Time- of the –Gospel-…?” This is clearly important due to the hyphens and religious symbolism. Perhaps the punctuation itself is leading us to another reference, this time a nod to the pause acting of William Shatner? Maybe we’ll see some Star Trek plots come up next after all that Star Wars.
Whoa! Now we have a bunch of screens flying around, with Citan standing on a platform talking to a mysterious “Emperor” (nope, more Star Wars!) in the middle of nothingness. The Emperor speaks of “The –Gospel-“, saying “we are the people expelled from paradise and forced to live on the cruel surface of the earth. We who fill this land will once again return to the presence of god in paradise and live there eternally. That is the –Time of the –Gospel-. That –Time- is at hand. We, the Gazel, must find god’s resting place by then and resurrect him. That is our final prayer...to escape from the –Fate- that was determined at our genesis.”
Back to Fei and Citan, a scope watches the Aveh transport, with someone talking about the stolen Kislev Gear (Weltall). Apparently it’s some blond guy dressed in red wearing an eyepatch, who doesn’t want “that Shakhan guy” to have it. He puts his periscope back up (is this a submarine?) and asks his crew about radar scans in the area, as well as preparing the gunners. Note that this room is rounded, with everyone sitting at consoles around the edge of it...maybe now we're venturing into Star Trek? An old guy dressed like a butler type shows up, asking “Young master! What is happening?”, and he’s followed by another blond guy with an eyepatch (although it’s the other eye, and he’s more of a platinum blond wearing blue). Wherever this is, I’m thinking maybe that the eyeball I just received would be of use.
Citan sees the ship (which really is a submarine) as it surfaces, and describes it as a sand cruiser manned by desert pirates. They fire upon the Aveh transport, sinking it but leaving Fei and Citan just enough time to escape as well as rob the place, though there are random encounters to deal with. These consist solely of Aveh Soldiers and Corporals, and periodically throughout the fights both sides get hit with “fire from the engine room”, which does a little damage and shortens the fight a bit. Then, Fei has to run up a crane to get to Weltall, which is some really freaking annoying platforming in which every false move adds a few seconds to what should be a short run. I’m not sure if you can fail at making it in time, but if so it would take more than a few falls to do it. Now in Weltall, Fei saves Citan as the transport finally sinks.
The two banter about how Weltall is a well-made gear, in that the environmental response system and weight reduction hovering kicked in automatically. For Citan I suppose this makes sense, but being as Fei is piloting the thing for perhaps the third time in his life with absolutely no training, such information seems out of place for him to say. The first blond pirate shows up in a red Gear with two minions, telling Fei and Citan how it isn’t manly of them to leave their platoon to die while they run away. Fei argues with this and says they aren’t Aveh soldiers, though the red Gear attacks (with whip-like weapons on its arms). Physically, his Gear seems to outmatch Weltall, but guided shots of chi seem to work just fine. The two gets caught in quicksand, ending the battle on a more peaceful note, though he tells Fei that he’ll pay for getting them caught.
Before I get to the next scene though, I would like to remark on one somewhat unique thing the game does do right: the likening of a desert to an ocean, Star Wars references aside. This desert is full of sharks, pirates, and submarines. While quicksand is mentioned at this point, a "ship" actually sinks into this desert with no quicksand present at the time. At the very least, I commend the developer for taking this metaphor as far as they did with this segment of the game. If they're extrapolating all of this from the "Dune Sea" reference in A New Hope to go with the Star Wars theme, I'm not sure, but even if so they've done the reference some justice.
They both disembark from their Gears in a cave area with the sound of water dripping, where the pirate tells Fei that he won’t kill him, and that he just wants the Gear, though he is surprised that Fei really is not an Aveh soldier. He introduces himself as Bart, the “pirate that works this territory”. The two agree on a truce and to work together to escape the cave. Meanwhile, Citan is aboard the pirate ship along with a few survivors from the transport, where we learn that the platinum blond pirate’s name is Sigurd. Sigurd mentions a few facts about Bart (his “young master”), who is always getting the pirates into trouble but claims to always have a plan. He also cryptically says “…I never thought I would meet you here, ‘Hyu’…” to which Citan responds that it is no coincidence, but an inevitable consequence. Sigurd responds: “…Hyuga…are you saying something is about to happen?” Being as every scene Citan's in thus far has him muttering something to himself, going on acid trips down memory lane, or talking to people who know him by different names, I get the strange feeling that Square's trying to tell me he has a mysterious past.
Back to Fei and Bart, I can now control Weltall in the cave along with Bart’s gear, Brigandier. Here I decide to stop, but I note that it seems strange that I can now use Weltall freely even though it was “broken” two scenes ago. I’m now level 13, with 6 and a half hours played. In Xenogears so far, I've seen a lot of bad and some good as well: I've seen quite a few obvious sci-fi ripoffs which may be intended for a campy feel (quite out of place considering the subject matter), I've seen one unique and interesting idea (a desert being a literal sea), and I've seen a ton of vague religious references backed up by vague anime footage. We'll see how more of this pans out next time, as the anime sequences become less and less common and the actual gameplay moves at a steadier pace.