00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show author and co-host of the bits of time podcast and Youtube channel and he holds the power to attack and dethrone god welcome back to the show Michael Berger. 00:28.58 Michael Thank you for having me back and that is the best intro ever. Ah. 00:32.94 Dave Absolutely ah, a fitting intro for today's game which is Xenogears. It is an rpg developed and published by square for the playstation in 1998 finally doing it. This is a buckle in people, this is going to be a long one today. 00:47.52 Michael Yes, it will be and we've been playing this for a while. I think July is when I reached out to you. 00:53.73 Dave Yeah, well yeah, it took us several months to just play the game. Let alone schedule a podcast episode. Yeah, absolutely yeah and for a long time listeners people may recognize Michael not only from bits of time but from the. 00:59.56 Michael Yeah, so this has been a long time coming. Super excited I Can't wait to dive in. 01:12.36 Dave Parasite eve episode of tales from the backlog which is another really really fun game and fun episode. So. It's good to have you back talking about Xenogears and before we get too deep into the episode. We want to talk about the spoiler policy if this is your first time listening. Thank you for listening. If you're coming back. You already know the spoiler policy. It's the same as every episode of the show. We're not going to spoil the story for quite a while and then after this clearly marked spoiler wall. You can jump out and avoid the spoilers after that point we will go full spoiler time. And you can look down in the show notes for a timestamp for when those spoilers begin. So if people have not played Xenogears we've prepared some elevator pitches for the top of the show. I say that this is the jrpg sequel to the book of genesis. Michael, what's your elevator pitch? 02:05.76 Michael Um, that's a great one. This is a perfect encapsulation of jrpgs on the PS 1 all the epic epicness charm and limitations combined. 02:15.91 Dave That's right, yeah, that's a good summation. There. Yeah I got to credit a friend of the show Rick from pixel project radio for the ah the jrpg sequel to the bible a joke for Xenogears here. Um. Xenogears took me 75 hours to beat. I played this emulation on my steam deck. My in-game clock was even higher than that. But there was a lot of like oh I left the fast forward on and it's just been sitting for a couple minutes. So ah. 02:44.39 Dave I Subtracted a few hours for my total. I feel pretty good about 75 as a length for the game and if you're sitting there thinking 75 hours seems like a lot, trust me if they had the time to finish this game. It would have been maybe twice as long. 02:56.97 Michael Oh my God Absolutely So what do you know sometimes it's good to truncate and get the product out there before you because maybe it would never come out if they still had the time they needed. 03:02.22 Dave Shit would have been like 8 discs if they had enough time to do it. 03:09.90 Dave Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah yeah, um, so you played this on original hardware right. 03:17.70 Michael Yep, on the playstation 1 all 2 discs of it and it took me 55 hours and 17 minutes and 15 seconds and then I started a timer because they don't give you a save at the end so I did just guess it I also died 12 different times. So I want to say. 03:28.80 Dave Right? right. 03:35.37 Michael With the amount of resetting I did I want to say I'm at like 62 63 hours probably because. 03:38.54 Dave Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't save your time if you die and restart. So yeah, it's the point being this is a long game even by this genre standards. This is a long one which maybe not. 03:51.80 Michael Yes, yes. 03:55.53 Dave Super long by the Xeno series standards so we will move into our personal histories with this game Xenogears but also with the Xeno series, xenosaga, xenoblade chronicles stuff like that. So ah Michael tell us about your history with the series and what. Brought you to Xenogears is this your first time playing stuff like that. 04:15.53 Michael This is my first time playing it and I want to notice if you have had a similar experience every single time when you're online or talking to anybody about this game. What do they say about it to you? Is there a common denominator? 04:31.54 Dave Ah, just like that. It's incredibly deep and full of like religious and philosophical themes and stuff like that I kind of got the impression from people's. The way they talk about this game is that I would need a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies to understand it. 04:48.61 Michael My thing too. That's always there. But there's always the caveat of like but the second disc or but it's unfinished and I feel like that is steering people away from playing this game because that's exactly what happened to me I wish I would have played this game way sooner. But everybody that i've. 04:54.65 Dave Oh yeah, of course, right. 05:08.00 Michael Talked about playing it or I've seen on Reddit what they're like but the second disc I was like well I don't want to play a 60 hour rpg and not like it hands down. No spoilers. The second disc is probably 1 of my favorite parts of the game and that to me is mind bowling. Why are no people I wish more people would play it but I'm sure there's people out there like me that didn't. 05:12.80 Dave Right. 05:26.90 Michael But I did have a playstation one I did play a lot of rpgs on there but I did not play Xenogears I played Xenosaga when I was a teenager and I got stuck on that so I do want to go after playing through this I definitely want to go back to that series and I have played Xenoblade 3 and 3 05:45.85 Michael Have not played the dlc for the final I Forget even what it's called off the top of my head but future Redeemed Yes, that sounds good and I really really love the X Younoblade Chronicle games and I bought this game. 05:49.31 Dave Yeah, future Redeemed I think it's called. 06:02.63 Michael Because at the time it was one of the rpgs that was starting to go up in price and I was like oh that looks interesting I've never even really talked to anybody about it. So I bought it and then I started doing research on it. Yeah. 06:12.96 Dave So doing research on this game will open up a can of worms. 06:16.90 Michael Yes, and that's how I found out. There's something weird about the second disc but I really like the second disc. 06:22.64 Dave Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, it's interesting that that reputation about the second disc really comes part and parcel with any conversation about the game and like I really feel like. And I really feel like people who've even played the game are misrepresenting what the second dist is like like people say that the game is unfinished and that gives the idea that like the story stops before it ends or something like that and that is not what happens it just. 06:48.78 Michael No, not at all. 06:52.22 Dave There's stuff that would have been a dungeon that is now a cut scene in the second disc or like yeah not from a yeah, not from a story perspective for sure from a gameplay perspective. Yeah I can see that but I was. 06:55.34 Michael So yeah, if you are worried about it feeling unfinished. It definitely is not the story that has an end. 07:11.16 Dave Interested in playing this because I like the xenoblade chronicles games too. I like one I love 2 and then certain things about 3 like really blew me away the world building and the storytelling in 3 were really really, really good. I did an episode about xenoblade chronicles three with Colby. Ah, you can go check that out. It was maybe around episode 50 ish I don't remember I should have written it down bad podcast but I did ah really enjoy that and one of the things that made me want to play xenogears is when Xenoblade chronicles 3 came out. People who had played xenogears started to say things like okay they got a second chance at doing what they wanted to do with xenogears and they did it in xenoblade chronicles three and I was like hmm that sounds interesting that sounds cool. And then also again shout out to Rick from pixel project radio for championing this game for a while and I respect what Rick has to say so yeah, that just you know, bumped it up the list and I did try this a couple years ago I played about 10 hours and then I just stopped but I was playing it on a three ds which I think was part of the problem. It's just like playstation emulation on the three ds is not great. It. It slows down. It's just not powerful enough so I tried that was what I had at the time but playing it on the steam deck this time was a much better experience. 08:34.47 Michael Yeah. 08:47.54 Dave And to get into some opening thoughts here. We already talked about the second disc. So I don't have to hammer on that. But again, the story is not incomplete. The story really actually has a very very satisfying buildup and then conclusion. Like everything that I wanted to know about the story got answered. So I think that this game is maybe a little bit too ambitious because they built up this grand master plan that they had no time to finish. When you start looking into the extended story in perfect works and stuff like you find out. Xenogears is part 5 of 6 and it's like they and they were just full of ideas. But ah I really really like this. The gameplay was fine for most of the game. 09:33.59 Michael Ah, so. 09:40.00 Dave Like fine it. It was ok. It was functional but the story really blew me away. It is thematically rich. It is satisfying. It incorporates a lot of real-w world things philosophies religious symbolism iconoGrahfy ideas. But in a more satisfying way than most games in this genre do most games. Do not go to the depth that Xenogears does with those ideas so I came out of this again like just really impressed by the story. And that's that's what I'm going to take away and I think that was the point to begin with. 10:18.91 Michael So I can echo most of your thoughts I might be a little bit higher on the gameplay side of things I think another thing that gets thrown around with this game is you know there is a lot of religious themes and all that jazz and I think a lot of people think you have to do a bunch of research to go into it. But 10:37.78 Michael I Think the best thing is when I finished the game like you said it answered all the questions I needed right there but immediately after I wanted to do research like I wanted to go deeper into all these metaphors they're saying and like do I Totally understand that I think I do but and it leaves a little bit room for interpretation but they. 10:45.30 Dave Um, yeah. 10:57.11 Michael Had a story to tell and they finished it and that's exactly what I wanted and when I said you know the opening pitch. It has every markings of a PS one rpg because the limitations are there. But I think some of the things they did with this game I think are really really cool. A simple thing of. 10:59.36 Dave Um, yeah. 11:07.10 Dave Yeah. 11:14.42 Michael Transitioning from 1 door to the next they do this cool like zoom and like mesh fade thing that I've never seen in an rpg ever and I think it's super cool and you know it does have the PS 1 Grahfics but I think I really like the art style. It can be a little chunky and dated. But. 11:17.86 Dave Yeah, yeah. 11:31.20 Michael I have a soft spot for PS one rpgs it might just be me. But yeah I am very happy and yes I think the story will be the number 1 thing you'll be thinking about this game years later. It'll be the story. It probably won't be the gameplay mechanics or anything like that. 11:34.15 Dave Yeah. 11:49.13 Michael We'll get into the gameplay I'm sure but take us to the next part. 11:50.79 Dave Yeah, let us listen to a bit of music from Xenogears and then when we come back, we will set up the story. So Xenogears was written by primarily 3 people tetsuya takahashi who's been heading the Xeno series ever since. Kaori tanaka aka soraya saga who's his wife and another writer Masato Kato those are the 3 creative forces behind the story here and I want to talk a little bit about the opening cutscene that starts right when you boot up the game. Because it's really fucking cool and it sets like a very strong hook. So it opens with the quote I am alpha and omega the beginning and the end, the first and the last and I did not remember this from my childhood bible study. But. I recognized it as being from the bible book of revelations and then it begins an anime style cut scene with voice acting and everything which is not the usual for the rest of the game but this opening cutscene has it so they're abroad, a giant space station. They're in the control room on the bridge. And people are in panic and the ship is under attack and the attacker seems to be trying to take control of what looks like an embryo or something like that aboard the ship. There's a bunch of technological and biological jargon being thrown around. Ah you're not quite sure like. 13:20.10 Dave Are they trying to destroy it? Are they trying to contain it? What the hell is going on here but they're losing control of the systems on the ship and they say the quote contamination is spreading and then the computer screens on the bridge are taken over with the repeated message. You shall be as gods and it's really striking. 13:37.00 Michael Oh I Love that part. 13:39.26 Dave Things in this.. It's so good and then the captain of the ship realizes that it's lost he tries to order an evacuation but the ship's defense system turns and shoots the escape ships down then Metallic worms burst out of the outside of the space Station. So The captain decides to self-destruct the ship and then you see on land something has crashed a naked purple haired woman emerges from an ah an skate pod or something and looks out on the ocean and that is how the game introduces itself to you. And it's a super effective introduction. It's really good. 14:21.17 Michael Yeah I think one of my favorite shots in that opening cinematic is where they have the captain and he's like kind of turned away from you and they have his pocket watch like sitting on the mantle of his council of his spaceship. It's of his daughter and wife you presume and. 14:34.25 Dave Um, yeah. 14:40.81 Michael There's like no sound happening and then it just cuts to the explosion and I was like that is so striking and I love the art style. It's very 90's anime for sure. But it's got this unique look to it and yeah, the tension. 14:55.70 Michael Of this scene alone builds so quickly I'm like what is going on. Okay. 14:55.89 Dave Yeah, yeah, it hits you with a ton of stuff that is like you're going to be like what was that Oh wait, What was that? Oh now there's something else I don't know. I don't know what any of this is but it is super high tension in it I don't know for me. Sounds like for you 2 really hooked me and then they do the classic thing where they've given you this cut scene and then the things that happened directly after the cutscene in the game have nothing to do with the cut scene at All. It's just a seed to be planted. 15:26.22 Michael So you're just waiting for that to unfold. You're like when am I going to get back to this opening cutscene and I love when stories do that. 15:30.62 Dave Yeah, and yep and we will talk about that opening cut scene in the spoiler section of this episode because there is a lot there as you might imagine so getting into the actual game setup for like the game story that you'll be playing through. It takes place on the continent of ignus and similar again to Xenoblade Chronicles three there is a forever war happening between 2 nations in this continent named Aveh and kizlev the war in this story has been happening for so long that nobody remembers why they're fighting it. It's just been going forever. Um, both of the warring nations have found these mec weapons called gears in these ruins in their respective lands and finding the gears turned it from like people fighting people to mex fighting mex and stuff like that. Ah. They they say this this is all happening in like an opening text scrawl basically kizlev found better gears and was starting to win the war until mysteriously a third military force shows up. They're called gebler and they join forces with ah aveh to even the odds again. And then eventually they they take the lead with ah Ave so this is kind of like world building. You are given this like current day setting in the middle of this forever war and again having played xenoblade chronicles three and I assume it's the opposite for people who played xenogears first. 17:07.36 Dave This is like I loved this in Xenoblade Chronicles Three so when I saw this I was like oh okay, we're back. Yeah. 17:13.29 Michael All for it. Yeah I think you know because we'll get to the actual story set up like what you're doing right? when you have control but this is a nice way to do it because you can do a lot of backstory very quickly and you get the gist of what's happening. 17:23.62 Dave Yeah. 17:31.50 Michael And I like the idea. It is the war is happening. We have enough forces that I'm like okay there's enough political move movement and stuff that ah what we'll see where my character aligns is he on this force easy on that one I don't know before I get control which is nice. 17:47.15 Dave Right? Yeah and your character that you control named Fei Fong Wong is actually not a member of any of these forces at least not at the beginning you get involved of course but you take over as Fei in the village of Lahan. Which is kind of a border town between the 2 nations and Fei is kind of just hanging out in the village. He is a painter. He teaches martial arts to the kids. It is a very peaceful idyllic kind of life out here in the countryside. Ah, but this being an rpg like this you know that's not going to last. 18:24.66 Michael Um, that can last. I Love this trope and Jrpgs because it makes you feel so at home so quickly between musical tones because the music's awesome in this game but that little town feels so just lived in. 18:35.15 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 18:44.63 Michael And that I noticed that as a PS one rpg I was like this is awesome. Yeah. 18:45.37 Dave Um, yeah, yeah that kind of started out in a peaceful town. You know, just living a regular life is a step. 1 of the hero's journey that so many of the you know narratives take um and. Just like in all of those other stories bad shit happens to the village pretty quickly. Um, there are some gears that land in the village and they start fighting and there is 1 gear who lost its pilot, its pilot died or something like that I don't remember um Fei gets in the gear. So again, these are mixes he gets in the gear and starts piloting it and fighting and he beats some other things and then it pans out and it reveals that pay is just painting this I'm not sure why? ah. 19:39.62 Dave They give you a little bit of backstory here. The maid mentions that Fei was brought to the village three years ago and that he doesn't remember anything before that point he doesn't know how he knows how to paint but he does so he's painting something um you meet another character named citan that's how I pronounced it. Playstation rpgs with no voice acting Citan it's probably something more like Citan just based on how japanese things are pronounced but I said Citan um, he's the village doctor. 19:59.20 Michael I Did I do CItan I don't know I brought. 20:07.49 Michael Yes, yes. 20:15.59 Dave And that he says something really cryptic to Fei. This sounds like we're doing a lot but this is all like the first half hour of the game. Um, he says something really cryptic to Fei. He says Fei has someone living inside of him and we're just kind of left to be like wait. What do you mean by that? 20:23.70 Michael That's wild. Yeah. 20:35.47 Dave And um Citan also says that I no I'm going to cut this cut that. Yeah and then as Fei leaves from that conversation with Citan. 20:45.25 Michael Market for good. 20:54.65 Dave Gears attack the village 1 of the gears a special one's pilot dies or is ejected Fei gets in the gear and he fights and it's the same scene as before so they hit you with this weird like introduction to. The inciting event. But then it's like oh it's a fake that you go back to it. 21:16.16 Michael It's a fake. Yeah I thought that's cool imagery too. I mean all, you're doing in this part of the game is you're going to grab somebody's wedding dress and it seemed a small little task and then. 21:26.19 Dave Yeah. 21:31.19 Michael You get to meet this guy who seems like he's a mentor to Fa and it just gradually works its way into the story where all right I'm intrigued enough and when is the big threat going to happen and it happens very quickly which I thought they were going to kind of prolong it. So when these gears come in. You're like all right who is this. 21:32.44 Dave Um, yeah. 21:44.47 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly so the gears come in, you realize it's for real this time Fei gets in the gear and fights. Someone makes a comment that Fei shouldn't be able to use a gear people have to train their whole lives to do this. Ah, but he jumps in and he does it. Um, and citan says another really cryptic quote. He says Fei is bound by the dark cruel destiny of god again this like 30 minutes into the game I'm like what does this guy know. 22:19.11 Michael Yeah, right? ah. 22:22.10 Dave Um, finally one of the gears kills Fei's friend and Fei kind of just loses control and like quote awakens and there's this big explosion. Everyone nearby dies. Everyone that's close to that. Point dies Fei feels really guilty. The survivors are all really mad at him so he has to leave town and he is the thing that pushes him away from his quiet life and out into the world and for a while you're not really sure what you're doing you just like It's one of those things. It's like we don't care where you go but you can't stay here so get out. Yeah. 23:01.18 Michael I Think that is such a strong opening, especially the consequences are like they do not shy away from it and it's pretty brutal actually and knowing that there's like this little kid's like I hate you and you're like man he you know it's a mistake or you think it's a mistake and. 23:10.00 Dave Oh yeah. 23:20.78 Michael I Want to like the opening to this game. I think it is so well paced like the first handful of hours. I was like I can't stop playing like I have to see what's next and that is I would say abnormal for rpgs. 23:24.63 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 23:36.46 Dave Yeah, I do not like it. It takes you into thinking that this game is going to have that typical, really slow first couple hours but it does not, it gets going real quickly. Um this ah this intro did you play chained echoes. 23:50.58 Michael I Have not said. 23:53.74 Dave Okay, this intro reminded me of the introduction to chained echoes. I won't tell you why? But it's a similar type of thing where it's like that gets you right in the swing of the story in the action. The inciting event all happens really quickly. Um. It's very cool and you're right Fei is left with the guilt of how people died because of what he did and how he lost control but he can't stay and like to process it with anyone because everyone hates him and he has to leave town. He goes out. Yeah, he has to go out in the forest. 24:20.16 Michael Yeah, of. 24:26.34 Dave Ah, nearby and in the forest he meets a gebler soldier named Elly she's going to be 1 of the important characters in the game they meet. They have a very awkward situation because Elly's kind of mission is to kill people like Fei that she finds. I won't say anything more than that right now but eventually they realize we're not so different you and I and they team up to try and find a way out of the forest and that is as far as I'm going to go with the story at the beginning. We've already said a lot but I promise this is all like the first hour 25:01.43 Michael So yeah, it's crazy I Remember speaking of the open hours I remember I wrote a note in here as I was playing like you can jump. 25:03.15 Dave Of the game 75 hour game the 25:13.92 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Um I think like you said the pacing starts out really really strong like in the first. 25:15.39 Michael Like when you're exploring the town. You can just jump around I was like that's weird. It's weird to jump in an Rpg back then. 25:30.96 Michael We have. 25:31.34 Dave 10 hours or say I would say it moves along pretty quickly. You're constantly given new reasons to keep moving, etc, etc. Um, 75 hour games not going to have even pacing throughout There's definitely some dips here and there and some parts that I think are like. Little you know, less than necessary but ultimate like there there was not any part in this game where it was like pulling teeth to get me to make progress or something like that. But it's definitely not like moving at this quick clip the entire time. 26:04.92 Michael Yeah, the best way I would sum it up is when it's really engaging it flies by there's just some instances or story elements that last a little too long for me. 26:10.20 Dave yeah yeah yeah yeah I can see that and then again the second disk is it moves at a breakneck pace because the story is they ran out of time so they wanted to make sure the story gets filled in so the second disk is like. There are parts that you actually get to play. There's a couple of dungeons that you play but it's about 15 to 20 hours of basically reading dialogue and watching like a powerpoint presentation like they they set it up really nicely where it's like someone. 26:47.36 Michael Um, yeah I would say that. Yeah. 26:50.90 Dave Someone sits in a chair and the screen is is like the the screen showing what would be the powerpoint presentation is like set up at a nice angle. It's presented really well but it does kind of turn into like visual novel with the occasional dungeon in the second disc but the pacing there. Is like fine I didn't mind it if anything it was too fast. 27:10.61 Michael Yes, yeah, there is parts from im like oh Wow Okay I see what they did there. They had to skip ahead. But I think the the visual novel with Dungeon encounters is probably the best way to describe it and it does aesthetically I think it's super cool looking. 27:17.85 Dave Yeah. 27:23.10 Dave Yeah. 27:28.42 Michael But yeah, at the end of the day you are almost reading a powerpoint but I was so enthralled at this point I was like all right, give it to me. 27:34.45 Dave Yeah, and and like some of the coolest story content happens in disk too. So if you're in on the story you are going to be in on reading what they have to say presentation be damned I think yeah, um. 27:38.58 Michael Oh my gosh. 27:46.29 Michael Correct. 27:51.67 Dave I guess like some other thoughts about the story here I think that the character work in this game is really really good with some of the main characters especially like Fei and Elly and Citan some of my favorite like character relationships and dynamics between characters and growth like. Not only individual growth but like interpersonal growth as the characters go through these things together I mean this game has a long time to do that stuff. But I think they capitalize on it. 28:20.88 Michael And 1 thing I would shout out in from playing every monolith off games that I have up to this point the xoblade in this they write female like main leads. So well I'm yeah and I have to commend that to him and I think that's probably has something to do with the the. 28:26.10 Dave Um, yeah. 28:30.92 Dave Yeah, Elly's really good. 28:40.60 Michael 2 creators being married and being able to talk about all this and you know putting their flair on it and so yeah I would I do love some characters. There's a couple other ones I like a lot too. There is some weird gameplay mechanics with some characters that I don't love but we'll get into that I'm sure. 28:44.30 Dave Man. 28:55.34 Dave Yeah, and there's some characters like we have set up I think a very serious and involved story but there are some characters in here that are comic relief characters also and like very. Jrpg like there's a couple characters in here that like I was like oh this was the prototype for some of those like no ponds in Xenoblade Chronicles and stuff like that like yeah, that stuff is in this game. Also, yeah. 29:21.75 Michael Yep Rico here we go not as blatant I would say but it's there. 29:31.56 Dave Yeah, it's here for sure. You don't have to spend 100 hours with them like you do in Xenolade chronicles too. But it is here. But yeah I think that the ah the main characters are really great I also think the antagonists are really good because their intentions. 29:37.86 Michael Yeah, ah. 29:51.47 Dave And their plans. Ah where we won't spoil of course but their intentions and plans feel more like cohesive with everything else in the story. They feel more interesting than just like someone who's trying to take over the world because I want all the power. You know this game doesn't. This game has a couple of characters like that. But those are not the antagonists I think. 30:13.82 Michael And I would say most of those characters have an interesting backstory linked to other characters in the game too. So there's always they might project as that on the surface level but there's at least something a little bit underneath there to keep it interesting. We don't have. 30:20.52 Dave Yeah. 30:27.66 Dave Yeah, absolutely. 30:30.99 Michael No theater villains in this one which I do not like okay okay, that's the only kind I like ah. 30:35.00 Dave Ah I mean I Love I Love Ah I Love a kafka. But yeah I Love an ultrose. But yeah, it's ah it's the everybody feels really well realized all the main players feel really well realized I was really happy with that as I get. Kind of disillusioned with seeing the same character archetypes over and over and over again in the genre because I am a big fan of this this genre I play a lot of these games and sometimes you just see the same like villain with a different name come up in game after game after game. And Xenogears like skirts that line really well where it's like they have some of the same things in common. But the way they get. There is different and it's it's more cohesive I think. 31:19.47 Michael Yeah, it's almost about how you you're gonna have those same tropes and whether those are you like those or not. It's just your twist on them and this one does it by being more tied to a very very deep story and I think it always comes back to that and characters motivations throughout. 31:32.49 Dave Um, yeah. 31:38.88 Michael They're reacting to the world but they're also reacting to what they want to do as an end goal which I think it's very hard to make a character driven thing and a very heavy lore and they somehow made this workout very cohesively. 31:49.92 Dave Yeah, absolutely,. That's one of the other things I wanted to shout out. That's really cool about this game is this is one of those stories where like you get the present day story and you get the backstory concurrently and when they all meet at a point. It's super satisfying and really well done and like we said like the pacing of disc 2 is rushed but it doesn't mean that any of the story content suffers and things still happen in the same order that they should and like every payoff you get. Combines with other payoffs and super satisfying like finding out like how this world was made at the same time as like the ultimate conclusion of the present day story like it hits.. It's awesome. 32:38.94 Michael Yes, their writing team I don't know what they did but fantastic I mean I know it because I've played there's youo play games too and those are excellent as well and they're lore and world building and 1 thing that's interesting about this because. You don't have to do any research. There is a lot of religious undertones and they take from you know stuff? That's not as popular as like say like christianity. But if you have a basis for religion. You're going to understand most of the metaphors I would say but I think the best thing I could say is you don't have to do that research to come into and play this game. 33:12.41 Dave No yeah, you don't have to do the research this game taps into some like you said like religious things but it's like stuff that if you were at all aware of like creation myth and stuff like that. 33:14.16 Michael And that makes me want to do it afterwards. But. 33:31.90 Dave You will you'll know what's going on in a rough sense. Um, if you are at like the slightest bit familiar with like freudian psychology or something like that. You'll understand some of the things the terms and references that are being thrown around That being said I did do quite a bit of research. Ah, because I did hear that this game has a lot of stuff based on the ah like the philosophy. Ah the philosophy of Carl young and gnostic religions and stuff like that which I had no background in whatsoever. But I had heard it brought up. 34:03.43 Michael Remove. 34:08.56 Dave And I did do the research and that was additive to the experience like this is one of those games where if you see somebody has a name from the bible. There's a reason they have that name or if you see somebody has a name that's like. 34:13.32 Michael That's good. You know. 34:28.10 Dave Ah, proper noun from ah a dead language or something like that. There's a reason they have that name in this game which a lot of rpgs that do this stuff. Don't like I covered final fantasy ten two somewhat recently on the podcast and. 34:46.35 Dave There are a lot of characters that have names like that and the names don't mean anything. They don't tie into the characters at all. They're just names and Xenogears is not like that. So this game is enhanced by doing a little bit of background study. But I am. In agreement with you that you don't have to do that to enjoy the story. 35:04.49 Michael And I think it the best part about that is we did it in opposite ways like you did it that front load I did it in the back and it enhanced my experience and it sounds like it enhanced yours and that's pretty rare to do the game like this. 35:10.41 Dave Um, yeah. 35:18.22 Dave Yeah in it Frankly, it's pretty rare that a game will inspire me to do that Most of the time I'm not going to do that because I don't feel like I should or am that interested but I was that interested in this story and I want to shout out the people that helped me like. 35:23.90 Michael Yes, yes. 35:38.00 Dave Fully dig into the story. First of all the resonant arc podcast did a 20 part podcast series about this game doing a book club style. You know, chapter by chapter 20 episodes. It's about like It's got to be like 50 hours of podcast. Ah yeah yeah, I just finished it this afternoon I've been listening to it the whole time. Yeah, so shout out to resonant arc if they go so deep into things. 35:54.48 Michael So I listened to the first episode of that which is so funny and I'm going to listen to that whole thing eventually. Oh that's awesome. 36:13.26 Dave Like much deeper than we're going to do in this episode but they really really dig into it and they were instrumental for me knowing where to look for the answers to some of the questions I had also a youtuber named max durat I think I'm pronouncing that somewhat correctly has a really good. Like summary of the backstory in like 20 minutes video that I think is great I'll link both of those in the show notes those were helpful and then we mentioned it before but a lot of the game's backstory and like. In world history is detailed in this lore book called perfect works like we said Xenogears is episode 5 of a planned 6 part saga now not to say they were going to make 6 games but they wrote out a sixep episode. Arc and Xenogears is part 5 of that um Xenogears to my knowledge is the only part of this that was ever released as any other media other than sourcebook. So um, xenosaga and Xenoblade chronicles are spiritual successors but not like the same game. 37:14.52 Michael Yeah. 37:24.67 Michael Yes, yes. 37:25.97 Dave Or the same world exactly? um so perfect works does explain the backstory but I do want to warn anyone who's thinking about playing Xenogears do not read perfect works before you play because that will spoil a lot of the revelations that they they give you in the game. Ah, perfect works could be like a resource after you're done. 37:48.99 Michael It's exactly what I did you sent me the leak or the link and I had the pdf up and I was reading it and then you sent me the Youtube video I was like all right? So I was kind of like doing both at the same time and it was really nice, but definitely I do not read it before you play the game. 38:02.48 Dave Yeah, and frankly I don't think you would have like the context or the I mean it it reads like a textbook. Basically so it would be kind of dry to read with no context. Um. 38:13.44 Michael Yeah, they'll be really boring. Actually yeah. 38:19.78 Dave Yeah, so any other thoughts about the story characters anything like that. 38:23.90 Michael I Don't think I want to say anything more because I fear that I'm gonna say some kind of spoiler. So we'll leave that. 38:27.97 Dave Okay, all right? Well we will just say like when we talk about the gameplay I'm going to have a lot of things to criticize about it. But I want to reiterate just right now the end of the story section. The story is the reason that I played this game for 75 hours 38:48.14 Dave Happily happily never felt like homework to play this game. Yeah, so let's listen to a bit more music and then we'll come back. We'll talk about aesthetics. So you mentioned earlier that this is a ps 1 rpg when you think of that I think of things like final fantasy 7 with like blocky polygons and you know Barrett has a rectangle for an arm stuff like that. Um, this game isn't quite like that they did something really cool here instead of doing like. 39:15.46 Michael Ah. 39:22.87 Dave Polygon models. It looks like 3d sprite art which I think is really good. It looks way better. 39:28.27 Michael Yeah, the only thing I want to say the kin thing I can think of is while Wild arms 2 did something kind of assembler not as bright work but Mario Kart 64 if it was like 3d very similar. 39:40.48 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean? Yeah, so your character models look like 3 d pixel art sprites instead of being you know a collection of 7 polygons or something like that. There are things in the game that look like the gears look like that in cutscenes and then ships and stuff will look like that in certain cutscenes as well. But this kind of reminded me of final fantasy tactics. If you've played that like the way the character models look, that's another good. Ah. 40:09.69 Michael I Have not. 40:15.84 Dave If you like rpg stories like from this Tactics has got got something for you. 40:17.50 Michael Good I know it's a block. It's a blind spies just started getting into irpgs. So that's that's on my list but I hear there's this rumor about 3 make so we'll see maybe I know of course. 40:29.15 Dave Ah, yeah, always persistent remake rumors for any game that you're considering playing. So yeah, they might remake it? Yeah, um yeah. 40:36.90 Michael But what they do with the there's something strange about those three D sprites. It's almost like they blur the lines a little bit so it never looks blocky. So that's that's right about that and it's a very interesting choice and I still think it holds up even though some people say it looks ugly. But 40:44.70 Dave No never. 40:53.72 Dave Oh I think this looks pretty good especially when compared with something like final fantasy 7 that came out 1 year before this. So I think this game looks pretty good from that perspective. Another thing I think are good are the battle animations when you're in combat. 40:56.80 Michael Yeah, yeah. 41:13.53 Dave Ah Fei's a martial artist but his backstory. So when you get into combat. He's not just standing there looking at the enemy he's, you know, hopping around doing things like his little boxing steps and stuff like that when he gets hit. He gets knocked on his back and then kicks himself back up onto his feet. The battle animations stand out. They're really impressive and there's a lot of different attacks. You can do so. There's a lot of different animations and they all look cool. 41:40.34 Michael Yeah I cannot imagine how long this must have taken because you hit every enemy and sometimes you launch them up into the air and that all had to be animated and the amount of moves you unlock in this game is pretty staggering too so I was like man they really went to work with this one. Okay. 41:47.30 Dave No. 41:55.84 Dave Yeah I think we're starting to paint a picture of why they ran out of time. But 42:01.00 Michael Yeah, probably Also you can move the camera like R one and L one so you can spin the entire So that's got to take a lot to. 42:05.35 Dave Yeah, yeah, you're exploring 3 d levels in this game. It's not pre-rendered backgrounds. It is fully 3 d levels you can rotate the camera there is platforming I guess we'll just mention that. 42:21.42 Michael Yeah. 42:24.17 Dave Yeah, like you said earlier you have a jump button and you'll need to use it in a bunch of sections. It's from an isometric perspective though which makes platforming pretty rough in my opinion. 42:34.13 Michael Yeah, there's some, there's some rage inducing moments with that where you fall down. You're like oh gosh I have to go all the way back up and it's random encounters. Yay. 42:43.62 Dave Ah, yes, exactly yeah that is 1 thing where like just sometimes you're playing a game. You're like why did you get why? Just why? why? Why did you put the platforming in this game you could have easily not done that but um. 42:57.25 Michael I Do think it adds a little bit to the feel of an adventure. So I kind of get the line of thinking I don't think the execution was perfect. Obviously so. 43:01.48 Dave Yeah. 43:07.13 Dave Yeah, like jumping up the side of a mountain and stuff like that for sure I can see that um, sound music is really good music by Yasun Ori Mitsuda who's ah, just ah, a superstar composer. In the genre. Um I think this soundtrack grew on me a lot as I was going as I played there were a couple of songs that really stuck with me like the world map song when you're out there. It's called emotion. I think it's called emotions. Um, and then the song flight which is like this exciting like writing out to battle type of song. Really good. The music in Shevat I like literally just sat there, put the steam deck down and listened to the song for like a couple minutes. Ah, a couple of different times. Um. 44:07.55 Michael So I have the standout one for me is ah without your home base in this game. There's just like these two and I'm just like every single time I come back to I was like a man I feel like I'm arriving home. 44:18.25 Dave Yeah, yeah, so like where I was going with that was that the soundtrack started out with a couple of like immediate catchy songs. But as I played more and more you started to grow attached to the song like back at the base. Because you'll hear that song so many times and it's a good song um other songs like the you know Disc two is full of narration watching a powerpoint. So the music that plays during that you'll grow attached to that because you'll listen to it for 10 hours while you're reading. 44:51.57 Michael So good. 44:55.31 Dave And it's really good. So as I was playing I was thinking like yeah this soundtrack all right? It's got some bangers on it. But then as you know before we started recording I went and clicked through the soundtrack a bit to get back in the frame of mind and I was like. Yeah I'm attached to all of these songs for 1 reason or another. Yeah. 45:13.67 Michael Um, yeah, isn't that weird how that works it could be like you said you're spending so much time with this. It's just growing on you and becoming that little earworm. I think it's a different feel than a lot of the Xenoblade which I was very intrigued by. 45:26.86 Dave Um, yes. 45:30.75 Michael Definitely evolved and tried to take a different path with that and I think it works for this game. There I wouldn't say there's a lot of standout tracks but they all fit with the mood. There are a couple like the ones you said so. 45:44.17 Dave Yeah, for sure. Everything fits. Um, I don't quite have the musical vocabulary to describe what this soundtrack sounds like. Luckily, anyone listening can hear the soundtrack because I put it in the episodes. But it's not like the xenoblade chronicles like a wild electric guitar. Stuff like that which is what drew me to xenoblade in the first place was I heard some of the music and I was like well I have to play that game I love the way that sounds yeah for sure. Um. 46:07.60 Michael Oh that's an interesting way to get your foot in the door on that one I like that oh man that just makes me think of Xenoblade chronicles to that one song that plays when I was there's like a crazy good story moment and it just always. 46:23.59 Dave Oh, like a counterattack? Yeah yeah, this game doesn't have songs like that. They're much more atmospheric I would say or like you know, background music instead of. 46:27.90 Michael Yes, yes, God So good. 46:41.48 Dave Counterattack is like carrying the full motion of those moments in Xenoblade two. There's a couple songs like that like flight I think that have that in this game but I think the Xenoblade games are known for songs like that and this one is much more will we just say background music. 46:58.68 Michael Yeah, more subdued but not in a bad way. 47:00.58 Dave But it's great. Great background music. No not. It's good I feel like yeah I feel like I just have I just don't have the musical vocabulary to to say what I really want to say here so we'll just say it's good. It's fucking. It's Mitsuda, Mitsuda doesn't miss. 47:09.33 Michael We knew? Yeah I don't have it either crescendo and stuff you know good stuff. 47:19.20 Dave Yeah, yeah Crescendos key changes are musical terms. Um, let's see other things I wrote down about aesthetic things and this is just a real small touch but it made me smile every time when you save or when you load. It has like a bar that fills up and it has like a you like a rocket ship taking off sound effect that goes. It's great. 47:40.00 Michael Yeah, it's so weird. Ah, another little tidbit is that I had 2 memory cards plugged into my playstation one and it reads both of them at the same time so I had to wait for every single block the load up on both memory cards. So I hit save. 47:53.23 Dave Oh yeah. 47:57.62 Michael Turned it off pulled out the first memory or the second memory card was like I'm not going to wait for that every single time it takes a little while to save. But. 48:00.58 Dave Interesting. So you got to really um, take in that you like charging up sound effects. Yeah, it's great though. It's good. So yeah, all in all. 48:11.54 Michael Um, whom she yeah, it's very sci-fi yeah. 48:19.59 Dave Aesthetically like you know you kind of know what you're getting into when you boot up a playstation one rpg as far as visuals. I think this game looks pretty good still that the other thing I guess we didn't mention is um, there are more of those anime style cut scenes like the prologue chapter. They're never quite as. Long or involved or with as much voice acting as the intro one but there are like I don't know maybe 10 of these like thrown in throughout the game and they're all they're all cool. They're all pretty short. 48:51.80 Michael I'm good. I'm gonna check something for you to hold on. 49:07.80 Michael Got my copy right here and it says over 20 minutes of cutscenes there you go and that's what it says I want to get that number right. 49:12.21 Dave Over 20 minutes of cutscenes there we go? Yeah I don't know if that's like 20 minutes of like the anime cutscenes or if it's just you know there are some like in engine cutscenes. Also, 49:27.49 Michael I want to say it's the anime but I don't feel like there's enough to justify 20 minutes but then again that first opening cutscene is pretty long and the ending one is long as well. 49:33.44 Dave Yeah. 49:40.53 Dave That's true. Yeah, so yeah, we might be there. Yeah so um I don't know I thought those were cool. Those were effective. They're always in really important moments. Um, some of them are really mysterious and just the way that they're drawn and animated. 49:55.86 Dave It adds to that feeling of like well I need to know what's happening here. 49:58.67 Michael And I think I always looked forward to opening cutscenes on the PS one because I just wanted to see the different visuals especially in the final fantasy games when they would in the middle of your playing you get this nice crazy detailed cinematic and this game does that too. 50:05.50 Dave Then. 50:15.42 Michael A little bit less sparse for its time but man they're so good I Love those I Miss those actually. 50:15.92 Dave You. Yeah, those now you just get whole games of that. So Yeah music. 50:23.82 Michael Which is still really cool, but like I always think of final fantasy 10 when you see the dancing Yuna scene like that shift is so awesome and I miss those from time to time. 50:33.58 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, that's true I think you get stuff like that in like Persona five where they will. They'll go from like that. 50:42.66 Michael Yes, yes. 50:47.96 Dave Game engine into like those full anime style cut scenes. Yeah, so yeah, all right music. So the gameplay in Xenogears we already kind of talked about the exploration part you walk around in 3 d levels. 50:50.63 Michael Rare and rare but they're still there. 51:06.72 Dave Ah, you do platforming I wish they didn't but you do platforming so we'll talk about there's 2 kinds of combat in this this is turn-based atb style combat it is square in the 90 s so it's atb which means you have a bar that fills up that is. Governed by your speed stat or something like that when the bar is full. You get to do your move. The enemies have this too so it doesn't mean that everyone will be attacking in the same order every time you might know someone with a higher speed stat might be able to attack 3 times instead of 2 in a battle. But. It's in combat. 51:45.60 Michael But they do not attack if you're just idling sitting there. They won't attack you though, right? so. 51:52.83 Dave I Don't know. I never tried it in this game. I have a feeling they know you know what? they probably don't because I played with fast forward on in combat a lot and they would have if yeah so I think you're right? Yeah, um, something that sets the Xenogears combat. 52:00.22 Michael Yes, Okay, okay. 52:09.65 Dave Apart from others like this, when you click attack you get 3 options for what to do: you can press triangle for a light attack square for a medium attack and x for a heavy attack. Ah but you have a certain number of points for attacking each skill. Called action points. So let's say if you have 4 total action points a triangle attack costs one square cost 2 x cost three so you could do 4 triangles. You could do two squares or any other combination of them and these all translate into punches and kicks and. You know other attacks like that. So when you're fighting this remember Fei is a martial artist so it feels like you're kind of playing a turn based fighting game. 52:57.93 Michael Yes, which is pretty cool. I think it's a unique system and I think the experimentation with if you do a certain amount of these inputs. Let's say you hit Triangle and X over and over over again, you will eventually learn a new mode or ah. 53:08.92 Dave Yeah. 53:14.31 Michael A skill called a death blow and so you want to fight because you can experiment and find new skills and I think that is very intriguing and that's kind of that grindy thing like oh I want to get into battles now. 53:14.59 Dave Yeah. 53:25.30 Dave Um, yeah, and it's it's it might be cheap engagement but it is more engaging than just clicking attack attack attack like you might in like a final fantasy. 53:38.86 Michael Yes, true. 53:42.57 Dave Ah, game in this one. You are your Click attack. But then it's like oh okay, well this time I'll do you know Square Triangle Triangle and then next time I'll do Triangle X and stuff like that and then once you unlock those death blow attacks Those death blows are really powerful against any type of difficult enemy. That's what you want to be using and the death blows have their own animations. They're all very cool. Some of them later in the game have elemental properties to them. Um, this isn't yeah some of them. Yeah, yeah for Sure. Um. 54:10.40 Michael Almost cut steam like summon style like bombastic moves towards the end. It's awesome. 54:21.86 Dave So it starts out like pretty engaging with this and I overall like I I think this is a cool idea but by like our 50 or so I was really tired of punching in these combos. The reason for that is. Outside of elemental weaknesses which there's not that many and you learn elemental death blows very late in the game outside of that you really don't have a reason to use 1 death blow instead of a different death blow. Um. 54:44.93 Michael Yes, you do? yeah. 54:55.70 Dave Very rarely. You'll be like oh the Square attack is really slow and it misses these quick enemies so I need to use the triangles. But that's pretty rare so this became one of those games where every fight was basically the same. 55:09.49 Michael I would agree. The only time I think that changes for me is when you're fighting bosses. But if I'm looking at your notes you did not use the combo system in this game. Really? oh. 55:11.87 Dave Which kind of sucks for a game this long. 55:23.80 Dave I didn't. I never felt like I needed to. I did just fine against the bosses without it. 55:28.46 Michael So what I would always do is do minimal attacks. So then my combo gauge would increase and then I would just like kill the bosses in like 1 or 2 hits afterwards. 55:40.11 Dave That's I mean that's pretty fun too. What Michael's referring to is you can let's say remember you start out with these AP points and if you don't use them all you bank. Whatever's left and then if you have enough saved up. You can just do several death blows in a row for this. Super powerful turn but it turned into one of those things where it never felt worth it to me because if I just did the death blows on each turn the battles ended anyway. So. 56:07.89 Michael How I did it sometimes too was I figured out which death blows have the quickest animations because I can't fast forward because I'm playing on original hardware and I was like I like this one this one looks cool and it does a decent amount of damage and some of them seemed like the damage would vary on what type of enemy you're fighting. 56:17.11 Dave Right. 56:27.40 Michael Even when it wasn't elemental weaknesses I'm not exactly sure what system was built in there or if it was oh I ran into a stronger enemy and this one doesn't do as much damage anymore. 56:37.63 Dave Yeah I did get the feeling like some enemies could block and reduce damage or something like that. Um, you also have some characters that can use magic like to straight up magic attacks or healing magic or buffs and stuff like that and you do need to. Learn those for some of the bosses but you know the bread and butter of the on foot combat is the death blows and there was just like not any reason for me to switch up my strategy which is a real bummer in a game. That's this long. 57:08.83 Michael I Do think it lasts long enough. But yes towards the end I was like it became a routine which you know every long Rbg I think has this problem almost where I don't really know how you fix it because you don't want to introduce too many late game elements to change up. Entire combat system. But you also want to keep us engaged the entire time. 57:29.92 Dave Yeah, it's a really rare game Honestly, that hits that balance really well for the whole runtime chained echoes again I think chained echoes does that which is another feather in that game's cap. Um, oh yeah. 57:42.27 Michael I Need to play this game. Apparently. 57:46.64 Dave Yeah, absolutely I mean knowing the kind of games that you like you're on a podcast talking about Xenogears with me. You should definitely play chain echoes. The other part of combat is when you're in the gears in the mix you do fight quite a bit and as the game goes on you do this more and more fighting in the gears. 57:50.93 Michael Okay. 58:06.10 Dave They have a similar attack system similar death blow system but instead of using Ap you use Fuel. So All the gears have a fuel gauge and doing more powerful attacks takes more fuel doing death blows takes even more fuel and then. Later on the gears get like really powerful attacks that use a lot of fuel and if you run out you can't do anything you have to sit and charge. That's the move you do to regain your fuel. You also can't heal when you're in the gears without using a special technique that uses a lot of Fuel. So The gear combat's a bit more interesting because you have this fuel management on top of it. It can be yeah. 58:46.61 Michael It's anxiety inducing like there's so many there's so many times where I'm like I don't think I'm going to beat this and a lot of my deaths happened when I was in the gear forms. Let me just say yeah I'm just like I'm, I'm screwed. 58:55.38 Dave Because you ran out of fuel and you're just yeah yeah, you can um you can do this thing called Boost which increases your attack but also makes you use more fuel every turn or just passively burning fuel every turn. Which is like a good strategy against a lot of bosses. But if you don't kill the boss fast Enough. You're just going to run out and you're basically toast. 59:21.70 Michael Yeah, it's ah, there's a lot more strategy in the gear combat even though it seems very 1 to 1 with the on foot combat but there's just that little extra element of fuel and the cost of using death blows really adds to it. 59:33.96 Dave Yeah, and again, this reminded me of chain echoes combat system chain echoes chain echoes took a lot of stuff from like final fantasy 6 and xenogears and Suikoden and and stuff and I think after playing xenogears I see another piece of the puzzle there which is cool. Um. 59:38.71 Michael So. 59:50.51 Michael Okay, okay. 59:53.95 Dave Yeah I think the gear combat is better than the on foot combat. It still got pretty old toward the end but then the final bosses took some strategy like with managing that stuff so I was engaged by the fights. Even if it's.. It's managing fuel and managing when to use your good abilities rather than adjusting to something unique. This boss is doing but it's like this boss is stronger and does more damage. I need to kill it faster so I need to use more fuel but that's ah, it's ah a risky move. 01:00:23.40 Michael Yeah, and ah. 01:00:31.65 Michael And I think that's like the perfect escalation of difficulty when you don't know what's around the corner you're like all right do I use my fuel now do I sit on this one enemy and just charge a bunch and I like that gameplay loop a lot. 01:00:36.55 Dave Yeah. 01:00:45.47 Dave Yeah, so I guess I'd like to wrap up talking about combat here. I came out of this thinking that combat is fine. I like some of the ideas that they had but I also hear criticism out there about combat and especially because the game is so long. If the combat's not engaging the whole time which to me it's not then that's a real problem for some people because like you know you want to be engaged by the video game. You're playing and some games do that with story, some games do it with combat the great games. The all timers. Do it with both for me the story in Xenogears is good enough to carry everything else by itself but I would be lying if I said I love combat. 01:01:33.47 Michael I would say I'm higher on it. The unlocking the death blow attacks was that little bit edge that does it for me a little bit. I don't know if there's that Grindy mental mentality even though I barely grinded in this game but if you did oh. 01:01:46.44 Dave I did well. I had the fast forward. So yeah. 01:01:52.34 Michael That's why I read there? What I think it is I would call it good. It's not fantastic. It's not great, but it is. It's better than serviceable because there's enough elements especially the gear combat elevates that to good for me, but it will get tiresome and. 01:02:09.30 Michael Random encounters suck. Especially if you're playing on PS1 01:02:13.69 Dave Yeah again I didn't mind the random encounters but I think it's just like if I got hit with a long section or like some of the dungeons in this game are just mazes and you know. 01:02:22.00 Michael Oh my gosh. 01:02:27.87 Dave Nothing worse than being lost in a dungeon that has random encounters right. 01:02:29.76 Michael Yeah, yeah, get I got turned around on some dungeons I'm like oh I realized I was going the wrong way that I had just gone back before I was like I know I'm going to get into a random counter at least twice before I make it back to where I was and this game does do. 01:02:41.88 Dave Yeah. 01:02:46.98 Michael I would say a no no in jrpg terms is where you fight multiple bosses and no chance to save. Yeah and I don't have save states so I do recommend playing it emulated. I Really enjoyed my time on the original hardware. I Love that feeling and stuff. But it's a little rough out there. 01:02:51.00 Dave Yeah, that's rough. 01:03:05.29 Dave Ah, yeah, disk 2 is especially rough with this because they give you a save point I don't know maybe every 45 minutes or every hour 01:03:12.94 Michael There was constantly where I would not play this game before I had to go to work so I'm like I don't know if I'm going to find a safe point and it was definitely 45 minutes to an hour and a lot of cases multiple multiple cases. Not even before the second disc. Even. 01:03:19.10 Dave Yeah, definitely one of those. 01:03:26.47 Dave Yeah, yeah I think disk two is definitely worse about that. There were times even when I because I trust save states but I want to when I'm emulating I Want to do both because I'm a neurotic weirdo and so. 01:03:30.29 Michael But maybe I'm just slow, who knows. 01:03:45.97 Dave I was waiting for the save points as well as using save states and sometimes it was like it's like yakuza levels of like man. It's been an hour and a half like I wanted to stop playing a half hour ago but didn't get to a save state or a save point. So definitely one of them. Yeah. All right? Well let us wrap up the non-s spoiler part here by giving our final recommendations. So Michael who would you recommend Xenogears to 01:04:17.87 Michael If you were all intrigued by any PS one rpg give it a shot if you love the Xenoblade Gears games or Youno Blade Gears Xenoblade chronicle games. This is like the easiest recommendation and I know that seems weird because it's a spiritual successor but there are so many elements. 01:04:37.86 Michael From those games that work in tandem with this one like it. You could just see it even though they're completely different in most regards. But I think if you prioritize story you have to play this game like if you come to rpgs for the story which is my main incentive to play rpgs. It's my favorite genre. But. If a game's combat system is lacking I can overlook it if the story is stellar and this story is stellar. 01:05:03.40 Dave Yeah, if a game's combat system is lacking and the story is fine I will probably not see it through or not have a good time with it. But this game's combat system is lacking and like you said I think the story is magnificent. It's great. So. 01:05:18.88 Michael Yes, so. 01:05:23.22 Dave That pulled me through I mean the fact that I put up with 75 hours of combat that I didn't really enjoy all that much should speak for itself because I had to know what was going to happen in the story and I mean that's it's it's a testament to like the ambition and then like following through on. The most important part of that ambition is finishing and telling the story they wanted to tell. I really think they did that and the spoiler section is going to be a doozy because we have so much material that not only so much material that is there. But so much that I want to talk about. Ah, you know for a game this long. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of filler story material in it like there's some stuff that maybe went on too long but everything that happens loops back in and becomes a part of like the greater thing. So yeah. 01:06:06.77 Michael No no. 01:06:17.96 Michael Very impressive in that regard. 01:06:22.20 Dave Absolutely so if you ah you know Michael's right on the on the the truth there if you like the xenoblade chronicles games. You gotta you gotta play this because I assume you like those games for the stories and this game does a lot does more in my opinion. Um I hesitate to yeah, just got to say like I don't want to say that the xenoblade chronicles games like do less with storytelling because there's a lot going on in those games too. But this feels so. 01:06:41.65 Michael But well that's some choice words. Yeah I like that. 01:06:58.38 Dave Thematically rich and deep with backstory and lore and like present day story goes along with that too. There's so much here. 01:07:07.49 Michael Um, yeah, it's almost like this is the best example of a self-contained story that every element works. 01:07:15.41 Dave Yeah, yeah, there really isn't anything you know aside from some few small sections where I was like they probably could have left this out but they didn't and then it ties back in later in a way so like how mad can I really be so yeah fans of the xenoblade. Play this if you like rpgs for the story like Michael said this is one of the best that I've ever played. So yeah, pretty easy recommendation like if you're one of those people that needs the combat to be engaging and really good. Then I mean you might have a hard time. 01:07:51.11 Michael Caution. Yeah. 01:07:53.10 Dave That's about all I could say, yeah caution. Yeah for sure. But again , I want to reiterate the respect I have for this game's approach of incorporating so many Real-World Philosophies and you know religion. Ideas and stuff but all making them part of like the central themes and it's like so baked into everything that happens in the game that it's not just like extraneous proper nouns that are just there because they sound good it all matters. 01:08:23.50 Michael Yeah, there's a lot of those but the key point is they actually matter. I don't need to go look at some codex and like oh cool they made this little title for this person. It's never going to mean anything but these ones actually do mean something and I think you know. 01:08:27.77 Dave Um, yeah. 01:08:35.70 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:08:43.23 Michael The medium of video games. This is like a perfect example because even if the combat is underbaked for some people like you I'm a little bit higher again. It would not feel as good just to watch this game to me like I want to go through the motions of like that initial just hour of the game where you're exploring that. 01:08:49.66 Dave Yeah. 01:09:02.26 Michael Your first city feels so good and I think that the weight of exploring and then feeling the death and destruction of it goes a long way. 01:09:10.88 Dave Yeah, yeah, agreed so ah, pretty hardy recommendations from the both of us and before we get into the spoiler section. We do want to do a little bit of housekeeping per usual and we'll start with bits of time. So like I said we have the bits of time podcast and Youtube channel. Ah, so Michael tell everybody about that, tell them what you got going on and where they can find you. 01:09:32.81 Michael When is this episode coming out Dave Do you know. 01:09:37.11 Dave Um, that's a good question I think I wrote down like may. 01:09:40.17 Michael Okay, so if it is may we are about to be doing season 5 so we split up our content. We're 2 brothers, my older brother and myself and we just do a review based podcast and it's more of a discussion. We sometimes have a spoiler wall, sometimes we don't. And we're just asking each other questions back and forth and we pick 12 games every season and we separate those out every month I think we do 3 and then it's last for four months and then we have some side stuff like I do a bunch of quest along stuff so diving into rpgs and kind of kind of a book club format. Still hopefully I'm in the middle of doing one of those right now. I don't know what future me is doing but I hope in the future I enjoyed persona three reload and final phase 7 rebirth and all this fun stuff that's coming out and then yeah, yeah, the Youtube. 01:10:27.41 Dave Oh I'm sure you did. 01:10:32.59 Michael Is more list based and like topic based some funny shorts and stuff that one ebbs and flows there so there is some overlapping content but it's also different content and yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I Love my older brother but he drives me crazy too. He generally doesn't finish games so we have to. 01:10:47.43 Dave Right. 01:10:50.80 Michael Talk about certain things but is a nice checkpoint of coming in why did Larry stop. What kept me going and I think it's a really fun time. 01:10:56.39 Dave Yeah, good discussions I remember the show of yours that really got me into your podcast was you did a really good story discussion about 13 sentinels e just rim which is another one that was like. 01:11:05.71 Michael Oh yeah. 01:11:11.35 Dave I remember doing that podcast on tales from the backlog just being like how the fuck do I approach this story. Yeah, so yeah, that was great and then um I Really appreciate bits of time too. Arnd you guys don't just cover whatever is popular or whatever you think people want to hear. 01:11:13.64 Michael Yeah, that's a master class of story as well. So. 01:11:31.22 Dave On the podcast I Often find a new bit of time episode and it's about something I've never heard of before and that's not super common. So that's cool. Yeah, um, you want to talk about your writing as well. 01:11:35.50 Michael Well thank you for mentioning that? Yeah, so I've written 2 books. I don't think I will have another one published by now. So I'm in the middle of writing 2 different ones and I got to focus and just finish one of them. 01:11:55.43 Michael But I've written a sci-fi Novella which is kind of like black mirror with the splash of the movie her. So it's kind of about this love life that 's really interesting and then I wrote a collection of short horror stories that have been getting good reviews too and that one was fun and different. 01:12:12.20 Dave Oh nice, What are they called? 01:12:13.91 Michael No idea what my next thing's going to be but we'll see, Ayla, if you just type in Ayla Berger B-E-R-G-E-R which is my last name. It'll pop up on Amazon and then the other one is The Consumed. 01:12:26.34 Dave Okay, cool. Hell yeah, well lots of stuff for people to click around and explore while I'm talking about myself over the next minute or so check down in the show notes for. Links to bits of time podcast Youtube channel and then if you want to check out ala and the consumed you can do so again down in the show notes you'll find links and if you want to support this show. It's the same way to support the podcast that we always talk about. If ah, you leave a rating and review that will help people find the show, especially people who are searching on their podcast app for Xenogears that will help them find this episode and that's what we want if you leave a review. I will give my dog a treat. Also there's a little incentive. He'll get a blueberry or a carrot or something like that and we have a Discord server lively welcoming and friendly community. We would love to have you come in, especially if you want to talk about Xenogears this week that would be a great thing to do. There's an invite link down in the show notes as well. Ah I have another podcast called a top 3 podcast where we do top 3 lists. 01:13:46.18 Dave That show has a very different vibe from this one. It's more of a comedy guys hanging out doing lists you know top 3 lists so that's a fun show. Check that out if that sounds interesting to you and last but not least if you want to support monetarily you can do that at patreon.com/real Dave Jackson where all Patreon supporters get to vote in polls for what games I do on the show you get some bonus episodes every now and then and then as the tears go up. So do the treats. So with all that being said Michael and I are going to take a break and when we come back. It is full spoiler time for Xenogears. 01:18:36.37 Dave That's all right? all right? So we'll come back. All right? Michael and I are back and it's time for full spoilers for Xenogears and we are once again, we're not going to go chronological order in the order that they tell you things in the game we're going to. Ah, start out with the backstory and this is stuff that you learn very late in the game to just kind of set this up stuff you learn late in the game stuff from perfect works and then um, moving into like other revelations about even how this world. Ah. 01:19:00.69 Michael Very late. 01:19:16.28 Dave How this society was formed and things like that. So um, some quick backstory and again this is they tell you this in the game but it's also in perfect works. So like if you don't absorb all of it at once because how could they throw so much at you. 01:19:30.65 Michael Yeah, a whole lot and so you have all this stuff that we're going to go through and then we have what happens in the real moments or like some gut punches like the one I had just we have to talk about right? it away like Hammer Hammer but betraying you was like. 01:19:39.35 Dave Yeah. 01:19:47.34 Dave Oh yeah, yeah, he was he was calling you your bro the whole game and then yeah yeah I don't think I I think I left that out of the notes because I was like where does this even fit. 01:19:49.99 Michael I was so mad because I love that dude I know yeah did not see that coming. But there's my little thing I had to get out of the back door. His betrayal. That's what it is but so sad. 01:20:08.32 Dave There's so much. Yeah, um, and then when you have to I think there's a way for you to save him if you beat because when you fight him when he's like merged with the machine at the end I think if you beat him quickly enough. You can save him. 01:20:19.16 Michael Yeah, what really. 01:20:25.17 Dave But I couldn't. Yeah I think I saw that either in the guide I was using or heard it on the podcast on Resonant arc. But yeah, no, it was a sad day. Yeah so um, backstory. So. 01:20:30.80 Michael You could save my bro. Not very sad. 01:20:44.15 Dave When we say backstory in Xenogears for people who are just playing or listening along and have no intention of playing the game, when we say backstory I don't mean the backstory of how Fei ended up in the village. He doesn't know how he got there. We're talking about the creation of humanity on the planet here. So um, humans in this world humans were a space faring people and out there. They discovered this energy source called the zohar and they studied it for a while then they put it away because they didn't understand it a little extra research courtesy of. Resonant arc I believe pointed this out. Zohar is an ancient Hebrew word relating to radiance and the jewish creation story. Um, so again like words names proper nouns in Xenogears mean things in the real world that have to do with the story of Xenogears. 01:21:40.40 Michael Yeah, and they don't. I don't know if they specifically say where Zohar came from and I think because they found it deep down in the earth and like you said they did a bunch of research on it and it's this power source. But there's also this. 01:21:42.29 Dave So like ties together. 01:21:55.78 Dave Yeah. 01:22:00.40 Michael Wave existence combined with Zohar or is yes and I wonder yeah like where it yeah we'll we'll get there. 01:22:00.84 Dave Yeah, that happens later. Yeah. 01:22:11.24 Dave Yeah, so um, ah, later on humans leave the earth they colonize a new planet called Neo Jerusalem that's going to be important later later they found the Zohar again and they discovered that it is like this infinite energy source. And you'll never believe what they decided to do with this. They decided to make an ultimate Ai super weapon using the infinite energy source hey I mean it's humans. Of course. 01:22:35.71 Michael It makes sense right? Ah somewhere in the notes they talk about not new jerusalem but Earth itself is kind of like a forbidden land. It's like either a catastrophe happened there or nobody goes back. 01:22:47.86 Dave Um, yeah, something like that. Yeah yeah, for sure I always thought it was funny like I think it might be like an ah quote or something like that. But like any new technology that gets introduced. 01:22:52.41 Michael Yeah, yeah. 01:23:03.41 Dave By humans we're either going to use it for sex or for killing people 1 of those 2 things and yeah, they chose war in xenogears. Um, but they ah they called this by a weapon Deus which in latin means god we'll be talking about that. Um, because. 01:23:08.67 Michael Bad choice. 01:23:23.35 Dave I did learn about gnostic beliefs gnostic Christian religious beliefs here and there. It is like a god kind of belief. There is like the true god that is hidden away from sight like that's not the one that you see doing things. And then there is a false god um, which Deus is in this story because Deus is the one that everyone likes interacting with I believe. 01:23:48.32 Michael And yes and I believe also there were some name changes that happened prior to this game coming over here and I believe it's with Deus that he was supposed to be called Yahweh or is that wave existence. Do we know? 01:24:03.96 Dave I am not positive on that. Yeah. 01:24:07.69 Michael Okay, so they want because yahway's supposed to be the name for God before in the bible but they changed that as well. It's no longer in the bible because they didn't want. 01:24:14.28 Dave Oh in the translation. Yeah because they also changed like I think in the Japanese The ethos is not called the ethos. It's called the church and they changed it for the American translation right. 01:24:25.55 Michael Which I get. You probably don't want to do that as much and I do like this idea. There is a false God and we don't know if God is inherently bad in a sense So It's a very interesting take on God where. It's kind of akin to some religions but it's also different too and I like that symbology between two Gods. That's very interesting to me, kind of like the spirit of God in some ways. 01:24:46.41 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, and in yeah, and in this one like Deus is the one that everyone is working with in the story. But if it does align with the. Gnosticism the way that I think it does Deus is not the real god it's the fake one. The real one is hidden away and we'll talk about that one in a second. So um in the backstory There's a young boy named Abel who walks up to the zohar and makes contact. Ah. Abel's mom had died and the Zohar, this energy source first of all transfers this incredible power into Abel and also senses his need for a mother so he creates this mother figure for him. It creates this mother figure for him called it. Eleheim it's spelled differently from Elly's real name in the game so it creates a mother figure for him. Um, and I think no, it was ah be it was before this Deus had made contact with. The zohar has an infinite energy source going into the infinite weapon and when it did that it dragged down this higher plane being into the zohar so I think that's like the true god is stuck inside of this infinite energy source and that's who. 01:26:21.93 Dave Abel made contact with that like the intelligence inside of it and that's what Fei talks to later in the story. 01:26:27.50 Michael So it's like there's 2 gods trapped in one then or Zohar and Deus they're symbiotic in that way. They're connected but the wave existence which is what they call it didn't want to be there. It went away from its yeah, it went away from its. 01:26:38.84 Dave Yeah, it's stuck. 01:26:44.20 Michael Like it is called the 4d plane or 3d plane I can't remember what it is and I find that the fascination of god just wants to eat out of there. That's basically what he wants to do but he's trapped there. 01:26:45.46 Dave Right. 01:26:51.88 Dave Yeah, yeah, that yeah and if it aligns again with that gnostic influence. That's the real God but it wants to leave. 01:27:01.97 Michael Yeah, and it doesn't have yeah right? So it's like God trying to leave but you also want to kill God because God is trapped there because of this other thing and I think what's interesting about it is that in gnosticism I'm pretty sure like God doesn't have a form right. 01:27:11.50 Dave Right. 01:27:21.43 Michael And so when you see this wave existence. It's just light and blinding and I think that's a very cool connection. 01:27:23.27 Dave Yeah I think it tells Fei when Fei talks with it that like this is just the form that I'm appearing as is just your brain trying to make sense of this because this is this eldritch thing that you could never comprehend. Yeah. 01:27:35.54 Michael Yeah, so you're just, which is so cool to me. 01:27:42.93 Dave Yeah, super cool. But in the backstory this is you know Millennia before this this boy named Abel makes contact with the wave existence in the zohar Deus connected with the zohar the energy source and went rogue and destroyed a planet whoops. The Ai went rogue. Never would have seen that coming um leading to them disassembling Deus and separating it into its 3 component parts the zohar the energy source Deus which is the body and then a supercomputer which they call cadamony in the story. These 3 pieces. 01:28:03.98 Michael Nope. 01:28:21.27 Dave Were secretly placed on a ship called the eldridge so they could be transferred and that ship the eldridge is the ship from the Prologue Anime cutscene. Yeah. 01:28:31.66 Michael So cool. So cool and I love when you see this you watch this cutscene again and realize what's happening and you're like okay how is this all playing out. It makes sense. Ah, there's a little confusion about when. 01:28:39.69 Dave Um, yeah. 01:28:48.86 Michael Don't know if they state it in the actual game of when does the girl survive the fight or the fall and how does a little kid survive and you have to do a little digging to figure that out. But yeah, it's so fun. 01:28:58.80 Dave Um, yeah. 01:29:04.15 Dave That's it. Yeah yeah, it's really fun and it all ties together. So well. But before we talk about that cut scene again before we revisit that. Do you remember the old guy in the cave when you're under the sand in the desert and you fight you find the guy named Balthazar. 01:29:19.10 Michael Um, Maria's father or grandpa right? Grandpa, yes. 01:29:21.27 Dave In the cave grandpa. Yeah I think yeah, um, you meet him in the first ten hours of the game when you're still on this super small scale story like I was laughing earlier thinking to myself like. So the story sets up. They tell you about the forever war. But by the time you finish the story that forever war is so insignificant that it doesn't matter at all. Um, but that old guy in the cave There's a quote from him and I wrote it down when I was playing because I was like. 01:29:45.43 Michael Yes, no, it really doesn't. 01:29:58.71 Dave Ah, he does this thing where he tells you this like he tells you the real story but then he plays it off at the End. He's like ah you don't listen to me I'm an old man but he says humans lived alongside God in a Paradise in the sky until Humans ate a forbidden fruit of Wisdom. Built Giants to fight God but God destroyed the mall wounding himself in the process which is not like exactly what happened but is the same result we'll say. 01:30:26.12 Michael So in this example, Abel would be the one that got the knowledge I would assume and. 01:30:33.77 Dave Well humans humans got this like they built a supercomputer they built this ultimate ai yeah bio weapon um I think Deus is the giant to to fight god. 01:30:37.49 Michael Oh the Zohar Yeah, okay, the gears I assume are part of that too. They built giants. But oh. 01:30:50.27 Dave But then ah or something like that. Yeah. 01:30:52.39 Michael See, look at that. We're already interpreting differently as I love this. 01:30:56.76 Dave Yeah, but the point being like very early in the game along with those quotes that Citan says in the first hour like they're not hiding very like significant stuff from you but you just have no context for it yet. So It doesn't mean anything to you. But like there's this old guy who basically tells you the backstory very early in the game. Yeah. 01:31:22.72 Michael Which is really cool just because you don't have a frame or reference you have nothing to compare it to and ah yeah I Love when they do that because that's excellent foreshadowing even though you have no frame of reference. 01:31:33.98 Dave Yeah, it's cool. It's fun to revisit those things if you get the chance to if you remember what they said or if you're taking podcast notes or something like that. I was looking through the notes and I was like oh yeah, he basically said it. 01:31:49.67 Michael Yeah, there was one I wrote down in my notes at some point where they talk about where god created winged angels or 1 new-winged angel so they would not be perfect and depend on each other and I assume that means like. 01:31:51.54 Dave I Just didn't know what any of those things meant. So. 01:32:08.21 Michael 2 races of people fighting in the modern day. But I don't know there's so many little things like that. I was like I don't know what's going on but I wrote it down. 01:32:15.95 Dave Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of those things that sound like bible verses or something like that. But they just tie it directly into the story here. Um. 01:32:25.35 Michael It's a good way. Ma'am. 01:32:31.50 Dave I wonder if talking about those 1 winged angels is talking about Elly and Miang or Elly and Abel or something like that. 01:32:35.46 Michael Oh that's true because when you see those angels it's very almost romantic when you see them together every single time you know in Nisan and then later in some dungeon I can't remember off the top of my head. 01:32:47.67 Dave Mean ah. 01:32:52.40 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:32:54.95 Michael But yeah, maybe that is talking about the separation of the supercomputer and everything like that. So that's interesting. 01:33:02.43 Dave Yeah, so let's revisit that opening cutscene. So now we know what's happening in the cut scene. The opening text that says I am alpha and omega that's Deus talking Deus is taking over the computer or the ship. 01:33:06.52 Michael I am novi. 01:33:21.59 Dave Um, what happened was they were traveling in separate parts. This is the ship that Abel is on; this is where Abel made contact with the Zohar; they're in separate sections of the ship. The zohar and Deus and cadamony the computer. But Deus manages to connect back with the other parts and starts to try and take the ship over because I think Deus wants to go back to New Jerusalem, the old planet. Um, so ah that's like an embryo. That's in there I think that that is Deus growing because they're talking about like I think they're talking about like multiplication and like base pair multiplication I think that that's Deus in there right? you with me. 01:34:03.50 Michael Correct. 01:34:11.97 Michael So yeah, yeah, 100% I assume after god went rogue and killed a planet full of people. They're all right? We got to get rid of him and so he's trying to reboot himself. 01:34:21.90 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically um so what happens here is really cool I think after the ship is self-destructed and crashes on the planet. It sets up. All of the main players in the game right from the start. Super cool. So the mother figure that was created for Abel was split into 2 people. The purple haired woman that you see on the beach. 01:34:40.41 Michael So wild so wild. 01:34:57.25 Dave At the end of that opening cutscene that is miang but Elly was also created there. Um, they have different purposes. So ah Elly, Elehaym as they call her was created to nurture humanity with the mother's will from that contact with the Zohar and Abel. And then Miang was created with the sole programming to resurrect Deus. 01:35:21.90 Michael And I think this concept feeds so well into Fei’s story that is expertly done which we'll get to but I I like that So it's basically the computer itself is like all right I want to survive but we also need to. 01:35:30.15 Dave Yeah. 01:35:39.88 Michael Feed our God to create him so we need to also make sure that humanity thrives and what's very interesting about this is on another planet. There's still other humans. They have no idea that this is going on. 01:35:42.16 Dave Um, yeah. 01:35:52.40 Dave Yeah I wasn't clear like if this was an empty planet that they crashed on or if there were people. Oh you mean like out in space like elsewhere in space. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely still humans out there. Yeah for sure. 01:35:57.27 Michael This is I Assume so yeah and they probably have no idea what's going on over here. 01:36:11.40 Dave So um, from this crash you have the 2 women Miang and Elhaym. Abel survives the crash because he got god powers from the zohar from the wave existence even though he's a little boy. He survives the crash. Um. 01:36:30.28 Dave The first mother which was like the one that Miang and elhaym were cloned from or split from also created emperor cain. Um, which means the 2 the first 2 people on the planet are arcane and able yeah. 01:36:45.60 Michael Little on the nose. 01:36:49.70 Dave Especially because Cain kills Abel later in the story. Yeah, um, he creates the gaal ministry ah and was the other note. Oh the other note was that cadamony. 01:36:51.30 Michael Yeah I didn't even think about that. That's amazing. Okay, where I guess hello. Yeah. 01:37:08.35 Dave Again, research from outside cadamony. The supercomputer is similar to Adam's last name like Adam and Eve from the story Adam Kadmon I think is his last name. So yeah, you get all of these things. So basically we have like. 01:37:17.76 Michael Um, that sounds correct. Yeah. 01:37:28.80 Dave Similar or like inspired by Christian Christian creation myth but all of these characters are playing those kind of similar roles at the beginning of this story. 01:37:37.97 Michael Yes, and it's very interesting because we see the Gazel Ministry later on I Just call. I always call them the old geezers but when we see them in this modern time we're going to jump away ahead on. They are not physically there, they are on a computer. 01:37:45.54 Dave Um, yeah. 01:37:54.27 Dave Yeah. 01:37:57.70 Michael And I think that's so interesting that they've been around since the creation of the world and or the creation of humanity. Yeah. 01:38:01.68 Dave Yeah, so has emperor Cain. He's been around this whole time too. Yeah, um, other things that have been around this whole time. So the babel tower that you go to in the story is actually and you can see this when you go there like in the game but you don't. What you're looking for at least I didn't but babel tower is the city section of that ship that just crashed vertically into the ground and formed a tower and there's a part I even think when you save it says like babel tower city or something like that. 01:38:37.90 Michael Yeah, do you know it's interesting? I found out that that was probably the ship when you're trying to shoot that beam at the ah reflector mirror and the thing that comes out of the ground looks like the things that came up. 01:38:53.58 Michael Ah, to shoot at the fleeing passengers I was like this. Oh really nice. 01:38:56.94 Dave Yeah, that's another thing. Yeah I had written it down. Um, yeah, the ship's laser defense turrets you use 1 of them later. It's called Fort Jasper that the bart can control. That's what you shoot the beam into the reflector mirror on babel tower. 01:39:06.17 Michael Yes, Okay, that's one. 01:39:12.81 Michael And I was like that kind of looks like the ship thing. I was like okay that could be the long shaft of the ship that you see at the very opening shot I was like it's all connected I was wondering how they're gonna make it all fit together and they do beautifully. 01:39:14.11 Dave Yeah. 01:39:24.10 Dave Yeah, yeah, there's also the um, the place where you go to find what they call it in the game. Razael's tree which they say contains the wisdom of god um. That is the bridge section of the ship that crashed and that has the supercomputer in it. So of course it has the they think it's the wisdom of god but it's actually the wisdom of all the people from that more advanced society which is super fucking cool that like. All of these things come together and if you think about the in-game religion here. Um, if the people in this world believe in god or some Christian analog then their creation story is just a shipwreck from. Past humans. 01:40:16.58 Michael That's such an interesting concept and I think somewhere in the perfect works it talks about somebody. I think it's Fred Hoyle yeah I think I wrote down and he was talking about the first life on earth. Began in space so coming from comments and they call it like panspermia where a comment would land and then life would go about and that's really what this game is telling us right? there. It all came from a computer trying to save itself and then procreating life and then. 01:40:34.92 Dave Yeah. 01:40:43.54 Dave Yeah. 01:40:52.23 Michael Trying to rebuild the world. It's so weird. Ah. 01:40:52.38 Dave Yeah, what? yeah and it's It's just super creative and I'm sure this has been done before where like you know our idea of God in our society whether you believe in it or not but that it's not this higher being.. It's actually just. Like ancient knowledge or something like that, like something from an ancient society. But it's super cool. The way that they set it all up here. 01:41:16.90 Michael And I think the best part about that is you get that you get this whole. You get to see the creation myth unfolding. But then you also have the very spiritual thing of the wave existence So you kind of get both at the same time and I. 01:41:32.22 Dave That's right? Yeah yeah, and so like God as the people in this story would know it I was debating on this because if you want to keep it with the gnostic thing then there's two gods. 01:41:33.16 Michael And I love that dichotomy between the 2 01:41:47.93 Dave But the true one would be the wave existence in the Zohar and that's the one that allows people to use magic in the game. That's what lets people use gears That's where all of that energy comes from so it makes sense that they would worship that as their God But then. 01:42:02.12 Michael And what's interesting about that too is though because that's technically the wave's existence is trapped in there. So zohar if the wave existed wasn't there. They'd still have the power of the gears and stuff correct because it's so it's like that soup. It's like that giant Ai. Computer. 01:42:23.10 Dave Zohar is the energy source. The supercomputer is separate later in the game when I think they destroy the Zohar then all of that goes away and the gears stop working. It's still there. 01:42:35.31 Michael And the wave existence at that point is still there right? yes and the only gear that works is phase so it's interesting. So like the killing of God in this story is just unique and I think it's probably the. 01:42:40.72 Dave Yeah, right? so. 01:42:54.85 Dave Yeah, because it presents you with 2 gods you have the false god that you actually do kill you kill Deus but then the one that would be analogous to the real god you don't kill that you let it go home. Basically yeah. 01:42:54.86 Michael Best example of it? well. 01:43:09.77 Michael Wherever that is. 01:43:14.19 Dave Um, into another dimension where things are just made of waves and stuff like that. So ah. 01:43:18.98 Michael And I think what's cool about the false God is it's technically from all the people on this planet. It is a real God because it gave power and it gave life to everything. 01:43:35.20 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 01:43:36.95 Michael It's false but to them. It's real. 01:43:40.66 Dave Yeah, so if I think I have it right? Then the false god is Deus and Deus still has tons of power but in the current day events. It's basically growing and it needs help to be resurrected. 01:43:48.91 Michael Um. 01:43:55.56 Michael And that's the whole reason why we exist in this world. 01:44:01.57 Dave Yeah, yeah, exactly so this is super cool. So miang is in charge of this. Oh also I wrote down um the wiki says that Miang's last name is HawaHAWW a which in the hebrew bible is eve. 01:44:16.16 Michael Oh I got it all there. 01:44:18.70 Dave So there's the last missing piece of genesis. Yeah, um, so Miang's job is to foster the growth of humanity and in the current day timeline she is overseeing the ethos which is a church but is actually a front to deliver human bodies. Ah, for the flesh of Deus when Deus is resurrected because in order for deus to be resurrected all of those component parts have to come back together so you need the gazel ministry you need emperor cain. You need Elly, you need Fei and you need. Flesh to build a new god so right. 01:44:55.50 Michael On top of the anima and animus right? So there's like a female and male counterpart that was split off when it came crashing down. I believe there's 12 of them and that also ties into the main story as well. But you need all those components for god to. 01:45:06.88 Dave Um, yeah. 01:45:12.66 Dave Right? The cadamony supercomputer was split into Animus Animus is the male half that's kain and the gazel Ministry. Anima is the female half which is the anima relics that upgrades your gears. So. 01:45:13.28 Michael Be reborn. Yes. 01:45:31.22 Dave The bad guys have some of those at the beginning of the game and then you find the rest and complete the set basically and I learned that this is a principle from Carl young that every person has a male and female. Half to their personality and both need to be reconciled for that person to basically succeed to become a whole person. So if you are you know again, it's it's outdated in the way that it's worded but like the general idea is there that like. 01:46:08.71 Dave Everybody is born with masculine and feminine traits. But if you just ignore one half of that you will never become a complete person. 01:46:16.46 Michael Okay, so it's almost very similar to the yin and Yang concept right? You're trying to find that in-between spot which is interesting because Fei is also a martial artist which ying yang like like that all kind of works together. 01:46:24.51 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, so I thought that was interesting to learn about and again like I think. Male female. Binary is outdated but like the principle behind it. You can agree with that like you know if you are if you agree that there are others. Aspects to your personality that you must reconcile all of them in order to reach enlightenment or something like that in the way that you can in a non-religious sense. 01:47:01.80 Michael Yeah, so they have the backbone of the religious sense. But then there's nature and like finding yourself the right type of thing. 01:47:08.66 Dave Yeah, and again, this is like I was skeptical before I started really digging into it and before I got far in the game when I heard like oh yeah, tons of religious content, tons of philosophical and psychological principles. Going into the story here I was really just worried that it wouldn't make sense or that it would just be you know proper nouns for the sake of being there but I think this all really plays in and fleshes out character motivations and backstory and all of that. 01:47:43.90 Michael And I think the best part is again, you don't need that perfect work background like actual very very background but you do understand the creation myth and this game presents it to you and it all has an end goal which is just. 01:47:50.24 Dave Right. 01:48:02.56 Michael Da wants to be reborn and mother god just wants to leave which is amazing in that regard. But it all then creates the religion of this planet and it tells ah and you can like you said in the non spoiler section real real world elements to it that you can like reflect on and this was made in the 90 s which is. 01:48:04.41 Dave Yeah. 01:48:17.93 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, and ah translated into a second language in a very short amount of time This is like ah you read that This was like a legendarily difficult. 01:48:21.25 Michael Crazy to me. 01:48:33.70 Dave Things to translate and they did not have nearly enough time to do it. So it's a wonder that it turned out the way it did. 01:48:38.80 Michael Yeah, like for how much text there is and how much like deep high context material. This could have been a mess but I can't remember who translated it. 01:48:50.52 Dave Oh yeah, easily? Yeah, so. 01:48:57.29 Michael The State of the Arc podcast definitely shouted them out and I cannot remember the name off top of my head but they paved the way for better translation going forward which so that person was very crucial to how we get games now. 01:49:08.17 Dave Yeah. Yeah I want to say honeywood is their last name Richard honeywood. Yeah, so yeah, exactly am my 1 nitpick with the resonant arc series that they spend like just every. 01:49:16.15 Michael That sounds correct so shout out to you. You did. You did all the work. 01:49:31.34 Dave To me a ridiculous amount of time is spent picking apart and correcting the translation and it's like man you don't lose a whole lot here. Yeah, so shout out to Richard honeywood. Ah. 01:49:38.66 Michael No, you really doubt. 01:49:46.23 Dave Again, Legendarily difficult if you can believe the stories. So um, the other part of this kind of belief system that goes into the game is the gnostic side of things and. The other kind of belief system of gnosticism that makes a big appearance in this game is the belief that god is inside of you basically and what you discover and what you learn that is. Akin to meeting god and like they are after knowledge above all and only when you attain that knowledge then you can become one with god or something like that. I don't remember the end goal of it all. But I know that it starts with knowledge and then it comes from within and there's a couple of characters in Xenogears. Who says that exact thing throughout um, Billy's dad Jesse tells him straight up god is what you discover inside of yourself and then Sophia one of Elly's reincarnations um these are her teachings. And one character misinterpreting her teachings is like what sets this whole fucking thing off in the present day I think. 01:51:02.93 Michael And I think what's cool about that aligning of gnostic traditions or belief systems is if God is inside of you and you have to find them literally God is in every single female on this planet because they're D So it's. 01:51:17.58 Dave Yeah, true. 01:51:21.80 Michael Quite literal in that sense and I think that's a very interesting way to look at it and if you do find the knowledge and like you do become one with God because you become his food. Yeah. 01:51:32.40 Dave In a way. Yeah. 01:51:38.17 Michael Now the thing I don't know is the ministry, the Gazel, the old geezers they've been there since the beginning along with Kane are they teaching this to other people or are they just waiting for everything to populate. 01:51:38.47 Dave So yeah. 01:51:46.71 Dave Yeah. 01:51:55.17 Dave So what I think is going on and this is mi Yang's mission too and I think that for a long time they work together like they're all working toward the general goal they believe I think that humanity has to advance to a certain state. 01:51:55.38 Michael So they can get what they want. So. 01:52:14.34 Dave Before it can then become one with God again and I think the reason that they do it in the modern timeline is because people can use ether magic I Think that's what's going on. 01:52:23.87 Michael Yeah I assume they need to wait for the technology for Deus to have a ship to leave. They need to be able to build it and everything so that that lines up then. 01:52:29.64 Dave True. Yeah, ah so there was like the ancient Zeboim civilization where you go to meet one of Fei and Elly's reincarnations in there but miang. Thinks that they're unfit for reunification. So she pushes them into a nuclear war that destroys their civilization. So yeah, like several times like Miang is overseeing this all and just hits the reset button. 01:53:03.72 Michael And I'm curious what her parameters were. I mean it's obviously the survival of her God or her part of her God So I wonder why they did that. They don't really go into detail but I suppose I don't really need that either, it 's just it's more cool backstory and also that. 01:53:05.54 Dave Over and over again. 01:53:20.80 Dave Yeah. 01:53:23.57 Michael That timeline gives us 1 of our characters which I think is also very cool. Yeah. 01:53:26.30 Dave Um, yeah you mean emeralda? Yeah, and then after that timeline is reset then you have the next timeline which is the timeline of Solaris and Shevat and the other city that I didn't write down the name of but this is where. Lican and Sophia and Bart's ancestors and krelian are all from so like yeah thousands of years and then this was like five hundred years ago I think something like that. Yeah. 01:53:54.68 Michael Yeah, the big war, the big war. Yep you what's super cool about that is when you first go to Shaatt I I generally explored everywhere I went and you can go down into the dungeons and like talk to people and they talk about how we used to put people in imprison them here and that was. 01:54:06.68 Dave Um, yeah. 01:54:14.64 Michael Like Sophia and then back in the day and I was like when you eventually get that in disc 2. I was like I've already been there. I know this is awesome. Yeah. 01:54:19.77 Dave Yeah I think the people in shabbat also talk about this grave sin that they did hundreds of years ago and it was during that war I think they betrayed somebody. Forget who they betrayed. 01:54:37.22 Michael I Probably wrote it down somewhere. 01:54:51.99 Michael This is not the 1 where Sophia crashed her ship right? Okay yes, shevat. Yes, that's what it was okay, yeah because they want to line up with them. 01:54:57.27 Dave It is and it's yeah, you're right? So they betrayed Sophia. Yeah yeah, okay so. 01:55:11.91 Michael Stole and old geezer a Gazel It's such a weird name. 01:55:14.33 Dave Yeah, yeah, um, and that's the timeline when these warriors called the Diabolos are released and that again miang is letting them loose to kill all the humans to make sure only the best ones survive. And they said in the game that 96 to 98% of the population was killed by them. Yeah. 01:55:39.25 Michael That's a lot and this is the timeline where ah is it lacan. They say it in 1 of them. 01:55:47.60 Dave I Figure it's lacan just because of how they spelled it. But 01:55:50.58 Michael They say it in 1 of the cutscenes and I was and when I heard it I was like that is not how I was pronounced it in my head but doesn't really matter. But this is where he then wanders off and finds the power of zohar correct after this? yeah. 01:56:02.69 Dave Yes, yeah, yeah, and so Lacan goes and talks and finds Zohar but ah I think because either because his mind is broken because this is after Sophia sacrificed herself. Um, or because Elly's not there, something like that. Um, it's an incomplete contact with the zohar and that's where the grahf comes from. 01:56:29.49 Michael And so Grahf is dealing with all the trauma of losing his alley his Sophia and so his conscious is just rage and death and that's why he wants to kill everything which is such a cool concept. 01:56:42.31 Dave That's why he wants to kill god and during the phase story. He's just poking Fei to awaken Fei's inner power so he can kill god. 01:56:51.34 Michael Yeah, and it makes sense and I like that they're the same person technically and so good. So. 01:56:56.28 Dave Yeah, but Grahf Grahf and Miang both have this power to travel from body to body. 01:57:04.76 Michael Yeah, they talk about some type of neurons that they overdeveloped or like they were chosen. I can't remember what it was but they have so liked it. It was tied to like if this happened in real life. You would know the. Memories of your ancestors I thought were very interesting and I think Fei also has it. 01:57:22.88 Dave Oh yeah, right? Yeah I think they theorized it's like a part of Dna that at the time that the game was made no one knew what that Dna was for so they just filled in the blanks with a sci-fi idea which is cool. So. 01:57:40.34 Michael And it's so cool that these people have reincarnations but all ah that's used also with people I don't know if we want to go there yet where I can just take over people's bodies. 01:57:40.92 Dave Um. 01:57:53.97 Dave Yeah, exactly like Grahf can do this and I didn't understand not that I need to but didn't understand the mechanism that Grahf can take over people's bodies. Ah, but. Miang they say she can do it because she's already in the Dna of every woman. 01:58:10.40 Michael I Think at one point they talk about Grahf whittled down the consciousness of the person they're going to inhabit and maybe but also that's why he does it to face dad eventually. 01:58:19.86 Dave Um, okay. 01:58:23.24 Dave Right? Yeah, so who let's listen to some music before. 01:58:28.10 Michael Yeah. 01:58:33.68 Dave So we've talked about like these civilizations through time as like Miang is overseeing human development and society's development trying to get the right type of humans or the right stage of development. Advanced society or evolution within like Dna or something to make the perfect body for Deus to be resurrected but during these reincarnate incarnations Abel and Elly are continually reborn because they were. The original. They're part of the originals. They're reborn with the purpose of 1 day defeating Deus to oppose Miang and Cain and the Gazel ministry. So um, you get some like hints throughout. The early game when Fei and Elly talked to each other where they kind of just mention how like they feel like they know each other already and it's like a cool little just a bit of flavor for there because they're falling in love in the present day story as well. But they don't. Fully understand like just how that's happening. But. 01:59:48.31 Michael And I think it even goes further when you see the painting of Sophia and you realize that looks really a lot like Elly and then you know that Fei is a painter. You're like that just starts making you question everything you're like to wait. What's happening? 01:59:53.33 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 02:00:02.97 Dave Exactly yeah, exactly. So um, it's explained in the beginning of the disc to Fei and Elly both kind of give this like poetic monologue about how they dreamed of their past. And their paths lives with the other person always changing but never forgetting deep down about the other um and so they both talk about how they know their true purpose. Their purpose is to work together to defeat Deus. Um, so it's like this. Really romantic, kind of like eternal love story where like they may meet in a timeline but things are not right. For example in the first timeline Elly is Abel's mother figure so there's no love story there so you could say that like every continuing one is like this. Oedipal weirdo situation. Freud again. 02:00:56.23 Michael That's yeah, yeah, Freud yeah I mean there is love there. It's just a different type of love right? Not the romantic kind. 02:01:04.30 Dave Right? right? Um Elly and Abel at the beginning are just kind of like trying to make their way in the world but Cain emperor Cain kills both of them. That's how they both die in the first timeline. 02:01:20.80 Michael Fricking Cain. 02:01:22.81 Dave Um, the second one is in Zeboim with Elly and then this time Fei's name is Kim and they are actually in a relationship there and that's where emeralda came from because they couldn't have a child naturally so Fei made one out of nanomachines. 02:01:40.50 Dave As you do. 02:01:43.95 Michael It's interesting this one where Kim is very angry at the world around him and the people around him and the senseless death. I wonder if this was to show his other side where he can become super angry and depressed kind of. 02:01:48.83 Dave Yeah. 02:01:59.44 Michael When that split happens even though the split is totally different from this scenario and this timeline or this time period not timeline. 02:02:04.55 Dave Yeah, because this is before Id becomes a thing So I read that as because Zeboim is destroyed by Nuclear War and he's complaining about how people just keep escalating the war. So. 02:02:10.23 Michael But ah. 02:02:21.18 Dave And that's how I saw it, just him kind of frustrated like you know. 02:02:25.58 Michael Maybe it's the more of the sign of like the Eastern influence of being more of a pacifist versus you know, wanting to go to war. Yes, exactly. 02:02:35.31 Dave Ah, versus Americans. 02:02:43.75 Dave It could be with the idea that arguably the most advanced of the civilizations is the one that you know had a nuclear war break it break it apart. 02:02:57.52 Michael Was a little influenced by our bad mother. We'll call her. 02:03:03.40 Dave Yeah, your friendly neighborhood. Yeah, your friendly neighborhood evil mother? Yeah, um, so the next timeline is the one that's like most fleshed out of the past three. This is the one with Elly who becomes mother Sophia and Lacan. So. Lacan in this is just like a regular painter. He's just a guy. He's just a regular painter and he's chosen to paint a portrait of the mother sophia, the holy mother of the religion. Um, but as he does the portrait throughout many weeks etc they start to fall in love. Um. 02:03:37.56 Michael I think this is like 1 of the best forms of how love is going and I love that they show his insecurities about being a lower class than she is because she's this person on a pedestal and she just doesn't want to be that. I feel like that was like the most. 02:03:39.81 Dave Elly. 02:03:47.67 Dave Um, yeah. 02:03:56.12 Michael True world, Love interaction and store that I've ever seen in a video game. 02:03:58.74 Dave Yeah I thought this was excellent. So in this timeline Elly took on the name of holy mother Sophia but she still wanted lacan to call her Elly which was really cute. 02:04:13.80 Michael It's so good. Yeah, very cute. 02:04:16.16 Dave Ah, they say that Lacan's painting of Sophia reflects a warmth that she doesn't show to other people only to him which is cute but you're right? He's super insecure because he knows that she loves him and that he loves her. But it's like you said they're different like positions in life I was trying to think of like a comparison to this. It would be like if Taylor Swift was in love with me. But then also she was the pope. It would be like that right. 02:04:48.95 Michael So yeah, there you go. That's great . I have no idea where you're going with that but that works. 02:04:53.87 Dave Yeah, it's like she's the most powerful person on the planet and she's in love with a podcaster. So. 02:05:00.50 Michael Yeah I was just going to go with you know a farmer meeting some high officials but I like yours better so much better. 02:05:05.84 Dave Yeah, yeah, so so Lacan for a couple of reasons he kind of pushes her away which is interesting like he I think he feels unworthy of this because of the different social standings. 02:05:20.40 Michael Yeah. 02:05:25.30 Dave But also because like you know she's I think it also just is like a simpler thing too or just like what does she possibly see in me I'm just a painter I'm just ah, a guy you know. 02:05:35.84 Michael And I like that we have the banter of his friends that are around him who are descendants of Bart and is it rasp Ramus I always say his name wrong Rasmus is he there? no rams. Yeah, he's there right. 02:05:50.78 Dave Um, oh rams us yet I know that krelian is there and then Bart's ancestors are there? yeah. 02:05:53.81 Michael No krelian that's who I'm thinking it's krelian and they're like dude she likes you but it seems like Krean also has a thing for her is that okay yes okay I did not misread that. 02:06:03.90 Dave Yeah Krelian's in love with her too. Yeah, so yeah, so he's mad at Lacan because she's in love with Lacan but then he gets even more mad at Lacan when he rejects. Or keeps pushing Sophia away. 02:06:19.93 Michael So he wants to do both things like I'm in love with her. But you love her. So don't be a dumb as and like. 02:06:28.91 Dave Yeah, exactly. It's exactly that it's like it's like I'm in love with her but she's in love with you. So don't fuck this up. Yeah ah I also thought it was really cute that um the painting of Sophia is unfinished and it's unfinished because like. I think Lacan wanted to stretch out the time that he got to spend with her so he made up excuses like I gotta go buy paint but I can only go buy paint in this one village several weeks away like sorry. 02:06:48.91 Michael That's so adorable, like I gotta go shopping. 02:06:59.88 Michael Ah, he just wants it to last that young. Love. 02:07:04.80 Dave Yeah, ah so this is oddly like one of the inciting events for the modern day story is because of this love story here like because Sophia sacrifices herself. To help in the war. And yeah, this this like fucks everybody up so ah krelian lost faith in the god that they believed but Sophia's teachings had taught. 02:07:23.69 Michael This makes everybody split off. 02:07:40.81 Dave That God is inside of you God is something that you realize or something that you make in quotes. So I think this is why Krelian Joins the team to resurrect Deus because he's like oh God is something I need to make well that I'm going to make. God Then? That's what I do will resurrect Deus. 02:08:00.31 Michael I love how extreme that 1 death creates everything from here on our modern timeline. You know Lacan goes. He's angry but he finds the forbidden knowledge and then we have Krelian like nope we got to go the science route. 02:08:06.77 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, and. 02:08:18.34 Dave Yeah, absolutely yeah Krellian goes deep into nanomachine research. Yeah yeah, it is um it is cool. How like this is the backstory for. 02:08:34.12 Dave It's the backstory for the events of the main game. Why the villains are doing the things that they are doing so why Grahf is here. That's all from this why krelian is doing what he's doing. It's all from this and also backstory though for Fei and Elly. Because in the present day Timeline. They're going on like a similar trajectory. So just super cool like and this is fucked it with this There's still like 6 pages of notes. Ah, um. 02:09:04.59 Michael Um, yeah, ah gosh it's so good. So we assume after mother Sophia dies. She sacrifices herself as the next incarnation of her present day Elly. Okay. 02:09:16.54 Dave I Think so yeah, yes, because. 02:09:22.17 Michael Well do you think there's one in between because like how long do these people live? That's another thing I need to know. 02:09:30.88 Dave It's weird because there's like those people in shevat that have been alive the whole time for five hundred plus years so like I don't know there's something going on but I don't remember them mentioning another set of Fei and Elly in between. 02:09:34.30 Michael Yes, yes. 02:09:44.60 Michael The only thing that doesn't make sense is this point right is five hundred years ago and Allie's 18 when we meet her. 02:09:51.36 Dave Yeah, well yeah, she grew up in Solaris so like she had a regular life. She doesn't look like the rest of the people in Solaris because she's Elly Reincarnated and Elly always looks the same so that was a fun story beat when they were like you know Elly has like this actually it was weird because she blamed her mom. 02:10:07.85 Michael Which is another nice cool touch I think. 02:10:21.81 Dave For lying about being her mom as if her mom wouldn't know that she was her mom but um, yeah, because she doesn't look like any of the other people in Solaris so she thinks that she was like the maid's daughter or something like that. Yeah yep. 02:10:33.10 Michael Yeah, another real world event just going in their adoption this time. 02:10:42.28 Dave Yeah, so um, in the present day timeline with Fei and Elly because I want to stay on Fei and Elly because I really like how they work together so when we so when I said all the way back in the non-spoiler section that the. Dynamic between Fei and Elly is great. It's that their steps along in the backstory get better and better like I really like the story of Sophia and Lacan and then Fei and Elly in the present timeline is just a really good love story even without all of that backstory. 02:11:17.40 Michael Yeah, yeah. 02:11:18.62 Dave I Think because they're both like they initially are drawn to each other because they're both in similar situations of just feeling like they're kind of drifting without a real place to belong. 02:11:32.76 Michael And they're literally kind of stranded together like he's fleeing his destruction. She's got to get back to where she is and I love that they just slowly drip feed you with these encounters and you're like is she ever going to come on my team come on like guess. 02:11:36.90 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:11:45.43 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is she is gone for a lot of like the first like 30 hours 02:11:54.75 Michael Yeah, it takes a long time before she actually joins you and I think that's another way to build tension is the wrong word but like what would you say like budding romance. Yeah I don't know. Yeah yeah. 02:12:05.84 Dave Like a yeah like a longing like a you know absence makes the heart grow stronger that sort of thing fonder. Yeah Heart Grow fonder. Yeah, it's like they're separated. 02:12:11.83 Michael Yeah, hell there we go yeah long and but is it fonder. Okay. 02:12:23.85 Dave But each time they meet up they can like I feel like they can see more of each other in the other person so when they first meet. Um, I really like the scene with Elly when she's pointing the gun at Fei in the forest and she's yelling at him for being a coward and not owning up to the guilt. That he has for the incident in Lahan and all of that. But like she's yelling at him. She's replaying this scene where she did the exact same thing. Basically yeah is awesome. 02:12:50.38 Michael Oh my god it is so good between those words. Yeah, do you have this crazy moment where she obviously killed a bunch of people and then you also have the flashbacks. I think it was before this scene or maybe it was later where. You just have young Fei and he's like covered in blood and you're like what is going on and again. Yeah so IN love again, the pacing. We're not far into this game at this present point that we're talking about and you just get these crazy scenes of. 02:13:09.35 Dave Yeah, yeah, phase done this a couple of times. 02:13:25.83 Michael These characters are experiencing so many traumatic things you're like it just wants to build and build and build. 02:13:31.60 Dave Yeah, and as they go in like the main story too. Things get more intense I think for both of them like both trying to find their place I think like Elly's trying to find her place where she belongs like she's. She doesn't know if she belongs in the military or if she belongs with Fei and with the group in the game and Fei is just trying to find peace for most of the game but keeps getting wrapped into things. 02:13:55.88 Michael Yeah. 02:14:02.48 Michael Which I like that aspect because he doesn't have a clear goal for a long period and you think that would make a a reactive character to the stimuli around him but it's more about him finding himself and. 02:14:09.10 Dave Yeah. 02:14:19.96 Michael I Like that laissez faire style. But you think it wouldn't work from a story point, but it really does because he just makes other characters shine along with him. 02:14:28.18 Dave Yeah there's only a couple times when I felt like Fei was just being pushed and I wasn't sure if it had a good payoff at the end of it like the part where he fights in the arena. When he gets captured in Kislev like the part where you first meet hammer um, that part. Yeah that because we'd already been through many hours at this point of fa being like I don't want to fight stop making me fight and then like he gets captured and they're like you're gonna fight in the arena and he's like. 02:14:50.81 Michael Bro. 02:15:05.90 Dave Ah, you know. 02:15:07.90 Michael Ah, it's almost like that call of destiny you're going to have to fight eventually so just get over it or accept it and find the thing that you are worth fighting for is kind of that story beat would be my guess. 02:15:10.90 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 02:15:17.81 Dave Yeah, yeah, and that's something they keep like that's something that eventually ties Fei and Elly together as the story goes. Um, there is. 02:15:33.78 Dave There's basically 1 scene for each character where they're like out of their mind fighting in their gears. There's one where Elly is on the drive drug and Fei basically goes and holds her and just says like I'm not giving up on you. This isn't like you're still inside there. 02:15:41.11 Michael Oh yeah. 02:15:52.40 Dave And then when Fei goes id mode and he attacks the the yggdrasil Elly does the exact same thing and so like that payoff like bringing that back around is really good like part of what makes this good is that. That happens at like hou hour 45 or something like that. So you've had a lot of time to to build this up. 02:16:12.89 Michael Yeah, that's a whole nother element of like the drug usage and technology and how Elly doesn't really want to do that but she needs to do it at this moment and there's just so many layers to every situation I feel like. 02:16:28.77 Dave Ah, yeah, she has that history where um, like her freak out. They killed a bunch of people because she took the drug drive and it activated her inner self. What do they call her the anti type. Yeah. 02:16:43.46 Michael Yeah, that sounds right? yeah. 02:16:47.26 Dave Gives her god powers basically but it's like deep down inside. Yeah the antitype. Um, so they're both her and Fei both have that activated by like super intense, emotional moments and for her it was when she took the drive drug. Ah, but Fei basically being pushed into these crazy emotional moments like several times throughout the story. Um, yeah so Fei Fei stops her from going into one of those and then she repays the favor like 20 hours later 02:17:27.14 Dave Yeah, and then in disk 2 Elly kind of becomes Sophia again and starts to kind of relive that as ah, all the people get turned into these horrific flesh monsters. 02:17:44.19 Dave To then become the body of Deus for the resurrection and she becomes that healing mother figure again and eventually ah you said like it becomes one of those like find something worth fighting for something worth living for and they both. Eventually find that in each other Fei finds that in Elly and like when he goes off I think it's at the end of disc one he goes off on like what he thinks might be like a suicide mission but he says like I need you to stay here. You can't go with me because I need you to be here. So that I have a reason to stay alive and come back home. Yeah. 02:18:23.80 Michael Hit me right in the fields on that one I do think of the religious undertones even though they didn't exactly do christianity but like her giving her blood to save people so like the body of Christ very symbolic or metaphorical I don't know what she actually is. 02:18:35.13 Dave Yeah. 02:18:41.67 Michael Word choice is right on that one. 02:18:43.44 Dave Yeah, yeah, that's getting into like parts of ah the bible and stuff that I'm not super familiar with. But yeah, obviously yeah, the the blood of Christ the yeah. 02:18:55.63 Michael Yeah, it's like communion. That's his blood and spirit. 02:19:00.66 Dave Yeah, so it's really cool the idea of like the love story throughout different generations and like the reincarnating but they always seem to find each other. And it wasn't romantic in that way the first time but then it became that in every subsequent timeline. They didn't have to do that. But it's just like 1 other layer of complexity in this weave that they've made. Could have just had the present day story and that would have been enough like the present day. Love story is good enough I think but add in the fact that they've been doing this for several generations. It's a man just a chef kiss. 02:19:37.78 Michael Yeah, yeah. 02:19:46.89 Michael Absolutely yeah I Wonder if it doesn't if you took those parts away would it actually hinder the experience and I don't think it would but it those parts enhance it so much more that I'm so happy they're in there. 02:20:03.21 Dave Yeah, it's just the part of it where they say that if you feel like they know each other from a you know like this uncanny feeling that they know each other or something like that but taking yeah that wouldn't work but taking that away. 02:20:15.49 Michael And that wouldn't work. Yeah. 02:20:22.36 Dave Wouldn't really affect the growth that they go on together throughout the story. 02:20:25.32 Michael And again I Love that part because I just started making me think high pipe hypothesizing like all right? Where are they going with this, why do they know each other, why do they feel like they know each other and then you see the painting and it's just a problem walking. All. 02:20:35.34 Dave Yeah, yeah, it's all it's all spaced out really well too. And 02:20:42.55 Michael Um, yeah, that's a really good point, like the pacing of knowing when to do the major reveals in this game I think are maybe somewhere in that middle between the tournament, the sewers and something else after that. Maybe that. It gets lost there. Maybe they need another info dump there. Now I say info dump. But it's not like that revelation. But for the most part this game just keeps hitting you at perfect moments to want to keep you going. 02:21:01.50 Dave Um, yeah. 02:21:11.59 Dave I Think that during that section when you're in Kizlev you do get some sort of little Backstory nugget about Fei's family. Or something like that, something about Grahf or wise men or something like that in that section. So like. 02:21:32.69 Michael Oh you do learn that wise man was the one that took you to that? Yeah, okay so I just forgot about that because there's too many good things in this game. 02:21:37.27 Dave Yeah, took Fei to the village and yeah, there's a lot. Yeah for sure. Music. So we're finally at love. Modern day story outside of Fei and Elly's relationship is the modern day story and I think one of the biggest parts of the modern day story is for Fei to fulfill his role as the contact he's got to get his personality in order. So ah. Fei's personality is split into, say, 4 personalities eventually in the game and there have been some theories that you can map these onto Freud's id ego and superego. Um, one of them is just called id so that's your first hint. 02:22:35.59 Michael It's pretty ah on the nose again. Yes yeah. 02:22:37.81 Dave Um, and id is they show you id you don't know what it is yet. But you suspect that it is connected to Fei pretty early on. 02:22:45.59 Michael Yeah I would say when the realization happens I knew way before that I'm usually terrible at foreshadowing but I got that it lines up when he's passing out and things are happening right. 02:22:52.43 Dave Um, yeah. 02:23:00.24 Dave Yeah, it's it I got it to. It's one of those where it's like it and Fei are never in the room together. So it's not that hard. Um, yeah so I am like this red haired kind of wild um destructive force. So it is. 02:23:06.84 Michael Um, yes. 02:23:17.84 Dave Ah, violent, incredibly powerful, more powerful than Fei. Um, and so it is just kind of like whenever Fei becomes id he loses all control and destroys everything around him. Um, there are other parts of the personality. 02:23:37.49 Dave The original Fei when he was a child. 02:23:40.46 Michael You know one thing I was a little worried about when they first revealed that Fei had split personality disorders and I was like I mean I like that but the split personality is destructive right? and I was like. 02:23:49.60 Dave Yeah. 02:23:58.68 Michael Anytime there's a split personality in any media. It's always like a bad serial Killer Whatever I was like ah they're going down this route but the creation of Id is so interesting to me that it enhances that so much better I was like okay. 02:23:59.38 Dave Oh yeah. 02:24:09.40 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:24:14.62 Michael They didn't. They didn't go with the way I thought they were going to go. 02:24:15.39 Dave Yeah, and it took me a long time to square all of these like things and put them in the right place and I think I got it. But again this is like there's like 5 other storylines being revealed to you at the same time. So this is the real Fei, our current version of Fei that we're playing as in the body or in his mind there are four personalities. There's the destructive one. There is Fei as we know him in the modern day. Who has only been awake for 3 years he only has 3 years of memory. So yeah, again, the amnesiac character. Yeah that he's not totally amnesiac. He's a functioning person. He's living his life in the village. He's a painter. He's chillin' um. 02:24:58.26 Michael Such a cool reason to be amnesia that the trope. Yeah. 02:25:14.32 Dave It's just when he gets brought out into the greater world then he doesn't know stuff that he probably should. 02:25:18.84 Michael And I think that's the 3 personalities and then there's the fourth 1 right? But the third original one is the coward. 02:25:29.47 Dave Yeah, the coward and that's Fei when he was a kid who had the bloody thing where he ended up. I think he killed his father in that incident. But anyway, um, okay. 02:25:41.35 Michael No, but we'll go back to that. So what? Ah, what ended up happening with that, so it was born because Miang took over his mom Elly or I guess Elly was mom at that point and then. 02:25:52.32 Dave Um, his mom. Yeah yeah. 02:26:00.33 Michael Meng took over that and just started experimenting on him like to get his body ready which is terrifying. Yeah in this case, right? oh. 02:26:05.42 Dave Well, did you say Elly's his mom? No her name's Karen Karen's his mom in this and this is the same timeline where Elly's growing up in Solaris I think so yeah, but you're right. 02:26:20.67 Michael Okay, that makes sense. Okay I I forgot that's. 02:26:25.35 Dave Miang took over his mom because Miang is like this fucking horror like supernatural horror that could just take over any woman at any time. 02:26:34.50 Michael I forgot I'm thinking of every woman having a mother in her but Elly is kind of separate at the same time and yes, so the father just goes off to do his thing and he's gone and she's just like well I'm going to experiment on you. 02:26:38.67 Dave Right? right. 02:26:46.37 Dave Yeah to do for whatever purpose Miang has Miang has a purpose for doing these experiments on Fei when he's a kid. Okay, yeah. 02:26:54.33 Michael And that's to get the body ready for this and it is born because he Fei coward his personality just can't take the pain and torture so he blocks it out and I think that is such a cool. 02:27:06.90 Dave Right. 02:27:13.45 Michael It has the wrong word, but it's relatable I guess right? yeah. 02:27:16.14 Dave It's interesting. Yeah, it's not only that he blocks it out. He like partitions his mind in his memories and so like the kid Fei is just going to hang out in the happy place with happy gilmore. 02:27:29.93 Michael Literally doesn't have any members. 02:27:32.38 Dave Just going to hang out in a happy place and be stuck with all of the trauma and the pain of the experiments and just everything bad in life. That's its existence and Fei who id calls the coward is just sitting in this room watching home movies of good memories. 02:27:50.85 Michael It's blissful ignorance. It's great and so I think when we see that the bloody scene isn't that Karen dying and that's the blood that came over them or right? Yes, yes, okay. 02:27:52.35 Dave Basically it's a happy place. Yeah. 02:28:03.20 Dave Oh right? because Fei's dad is alive. Yeah, obviously yeah, yeah, you're right? Yeah, so that's her dying. Um, and I think that was Grahf that caused that. 02:28:09.60 Michael And it. Yeah so Grahf is so weird to think of so id the main reason he's raged is obviously all the torture but he's even more tortured because he killed mom. In his head but mom actually saved id at that timeline like the Grahf attacks this big old beam comes out and she steps in front so she became even though she was me at that point she became mother and that gives hope later on good job. Karen yeah. 02:28:29.63 Dave M. 02:28:38.70 Dave Right? Karen came back? Yeah yeah, and then the fourth personality they say is just this like basically husk personality that doesn't talk is just kind of catatonic. But. Is just there to take the pressure off of the other 3 and there's there's one part in the game where I remember Fei being in that kind of state where he's just kind of like wandering around the igdrasil and he doesn't he's just kind of like. 02:28:57.86 Michael And I haven't really figured that part out is that just for you. 02:29:09.93 Michael Oh yeah, oh. 02:29:13.77 Dave Confused and stuff and I think that's what that is. 02:29:15.33 Michael What is the purpose of that personality is there ever is it just too because there's so much trauma and there's nothing else that the coward does because I suppose that's probably the the personality that took over between. 02:29:20.41 Dave Um I don't. 02:29:33.99 Michael When we see Fei in the village and after that. 02:29:34.75 Dave Yeah that's that's the question that I was never able to like I didn't like look it up but I was never able to figure out on my own is like okay so Fei is a little kid when this incident happens that kills his mom. And then through I don't know 10 years go by something like that and I don't we don't know where he was I don't think he was in id form because he would have just been destroying everywhere. 02:29:55.40 Michael Yeah, yeah. 02:30:06.60 Michael Yeah, so that's where it gets ah, it must be that other canatotic state where he's just wandering around which would be kind of symbolic to what Fei the new fade does he just wanders from place to place to figure out his purpose and. 02:30:08.80 Dave It could be yeah. 02:30:17.76 Dave Yeah, true without a yeah without a purpose without a home etc. Um, so with the Freud comparison the modern day Fei is the super ego. 02:30:33.86 Dave And the kidfe is the ego because the super ego is the mediator between the two. Yeah yeah, and again much props to the Sigmund Freud Wikipedia page and resonant arc and everybody else for helping. 02:30:38.40 Michael And that's he definitely fulfills that role eventually. So. 02:30:53.20 Dave Put all these pieces together because it is. It's a lot. Um and then the way that they overcome this and this is another idea that I read about from Carl Young is that there is a like. An idea of like the self and that the self must become whole in order to prosper. Basically so in order for Fei to fulfill his mission in the game of destroying Deus he needs to reconcile all these personalities and become whole again. Otherwise he'll be fucked up and making incomplete contact like Lacan did and it won't work. So I thought the way that he reconciles all of these in the game was really really good and it was really good writing in this section. 02:31:40.68 Michael Yes, um, that's my thing I was worried about how they started it but it just got better and better. The more information we were privy to and the awakening portion where he's got everything together. It just makes so much more sense and i. Weird part about that is Fei does not He's not doing that to contact zohar or at least himself he's not right? He's just trying to be whole so but obviously then that Grahf steps in he's like oh this is what I wanted. 02:32:08.50 Dave Yeah. 02:32:16.48 Dave Yeah, but ah. 02:32:22.91 Dave The way that he does. It was really Cool. So It's not like not like you might expect like it is the evil One. It is causing problems. It's the violent and destructive one. So like maybe the easy thing to do or the easy thing to write. Would be to just get rid of Id in some way like you have ah a boss fight against Id or something like that right video games. Yeah yeah, but they do it in a really compassionate way Instead. It's. 02:32:47.46 Michael Like you destroy yeah his that other self you overcome it that way. 02:32:58.74 Dave He actually Fei actually goes to the coward the kid Fei and is like this is your fault you created this because you're being selfish you are keeping all of the happy place to yourself and subjecting it to all the bad things in life that. This is you you created this and then at the same time showing id his mother's love Basically yeah. 02:33:24.42 Michael Yeah, that final moment and what I like about that is I would never if in a situation like that you wouldn't put blame on the coward because he's going through these horrific acts over and over. And that has become his life. So Obviously he wants to disassociate from that but it did create this other problem and I think that's such a unique way of looking at it. 02:33:42.68 Dave Right. Yeah, well the coward is just sitting in that room just watching memories of him like kicking a soccer ball around like having fun with his parents just hogging that to himself. 02:33:58.35 Michael Yeah, and we don't really know how long he was tortured before it was created. They kind of went through and talked about how this was happening for a while and then he just couldn't take it anymore. But yeah in that you created but then you were also selfish because it has. 02:34:06.62 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:34:14.71 Michael No good things in his life. 02:34:15.28 Dave Yeah, exactly so by convincing the coward to share the good memories and convincing id that Karen actually protected them during that incident that killed her. He's able to join the personalities together just kind of like break down those barriers which I thought was a really creative way of solving this type of thing because I think there was probably less emphasis on representing mental health issues in like ah. Ah, caring in a respectful way in 9098 but I think that they handled this in such a creative way that it doesn't really feel insensitive in the way that a lot of other media dealing with this kind of thing might. 02:35:03.79 Michael Yeah, and that was my worry in the beginning that the portrayal was going to be the trope portrayal of that time and even still now to this day but they did not go with any low hanging fruit on this one. They really thought I was hearing the box and. 02:35:11.86 Dave Yeah. No, absolutely not. 02:35:22.45 Michael Ah, commend them for that because yeah, this holds up today and that's hard to say about a lot of topics. But that's the thing about this game in general like every topical point can be looked at from today's lens and it still fits. 02:35:35.98 Dave Yeah, yeah I mean that's how I view the video games I play like I'm. I'm not somebody who can really put myself back in a time very well when I play and this held up really really well. 02:35:53.63 Michael Which is always a blessing. 02:35:53.75 Dave From that lens. 02:36:01.68 Dave So there's other details and stuff that I think are really cool but we got to talk about the resurrection of Deus the time of the gospel as they call it in the game. Um. 02:36:17.70 Dave I guess the only other thing is to never cut that and so character motivations are kind of revealed as it goes and that's what everybody is working toward. Miang is working with Solaris heading up the ethos trying to gather flesh while also controlling the people with emperor Cain. He's the leader of Solaris so you realize that anything that they do is toward that end of resurrecting Deus. Um. They solaris creates a special force called gebler that's ah 1 of the early ah revelations is that like this mysterious third army is from this country in the fucking sky that is a secret to everybody. Um. 02:37:08.21 Michael Correct. 02:37:14.80 Dave I Think they're doing that because they don't want the war to end because more war means more bodies which means more flesh, more technology etc. 02:37:22.44 Michael More people to experiment on. They can, you know, grab people because people die in the war all the time so it makes people they can cover up. 02:37:27.69 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah, the ethos is providing bodies for the resurrection of Deus but it's also like doing that thing. The church gives people hope in desperate situations. So like they are evil but like the surface level thing like Billy Billy is trying to help people and so like you do need that especially in ah, a world that has a forever war happening. 02:37:59.40 Michael And I think the crazy part is though the people he is protecting are going out and killing these others like mutants. They're actually still human. So it's like betrayal after Betrayal but also in a good sense like yeah, he's trying to do the right thing. 02:38:10.52 Dave Yeah. 02:38:17.86 Michael I Mean he runs an orphanage. 02:38:19.63 Dave Yeah, yeah, trying to do the right thing. Yeah, and then um, the other kind of thing that sets up the resurrection I guess and kicks it all off is like that gear fight in Lahan Village ah where they're fighting over Weltall, Fei’s gear. Um, they think they're doing it because they think it's just a nice gear that's going to help them in the war. But the powers that be want that gear because it's an anima. It's an omni gear and they need that to resurrect Deus yeah so Deus is going to be resurrected because you found all the animalma relics and turned all the gears into omnigears. Ah the gaal ministry is. 02:38:55.46 Michael Yeah, they need all 12 02:39:13.60 Dave Killed and consolidated in some way. So like they're there um emperor cain gets killed ramses kills him and so I guess they can just absorb that into Deus or something like that. Um Fei fix. Good. 02:39:26.90 Michael I do like that Rasmus is like the clone of Cain and he's pissed off at fate all because he's an inferior clone. Basically yeah and I like it. 02:39:35.15 Dave Yeah, yeah, just inferiority complexes the character. Yeah. 02:39:44.79 Michael I Like that you know you see him and when he goes off the handle like flies off the handle. It's so good. Just seeing his craziness. 02:39:52.37 Dave Yeah, yeah, and yeah, he kills Kane he kills the Gazel ministry I think he kills them um, does Krelian kill them. Yeah yeah. 02:39:58.84 Michael Yeah Krelian kills them he like stars on doing their data chips or whatever just 1 by 1 What is cool about Krelian like you said. 02:40:09.64 Dave Just literally unplugging them. Yeah. 02:40:16.42 Michael Since Rasmus is a clone of Cain Cain is able and like he kills Himself town technically. 02:40:21.80 Dave True. Yeah I got like I'll be honest I got ramses and Krelian mixed up like many times throughout the story. 02:40:30.71 Michael Yeah, yeah, they're similar even though they're very distinct different people right? But there's so much going on towards the end of the game with the figureheads you're kind of like who's who's going where. 02:40:36.75 Dave Yeah. 02:40:44.12 Dave Yeah, ah one of them isn't ramsus like made of nanomachines or something like that. Yeah. 02:40:48.80 Michael Yeah, he's grown so he's like his life rapidly and then that's when miang becomes pregnant at that point and so he's like oh we don't need this guy anymore and that's why he's got the complex freaking me. 02:40:59.76 Dave Um, um, who yeah, um, other missing pieces for Deus Elly arrives to the scene and then Miyang takes over her body and they needed Elly's body ah, Fei arrives all the flesh from the people and then ah there is apparently they said there's some gaps that needed to be filled and so Krelian's nano machines are used for that. So. 02:41:28.83 Michael And I think it also like what's the right word like boost the reproductive rate of Deus because of the nano machines. Yeah dude when frickin ah Elly Shoots Fei at that point I was like. 02:41:37.23 Dave Oh yeah, true because they're machines. Yeah yeah. 02:41:47.33 Michael What is going on? Yeah I was like what. 02:41:48.65 Dave Yeah, yeah, because this before you learn about Miang's powers slightly, like Deus is being resurrected. You think like maybe you got there in time but ah yeah Elly just turns around and. Just like really cold and just shoots Fei and her hair turns purple and you're like what. 02:42:08.83 Michael So I think what's even cooler about that is because you kind of make what is his name Rasmus Ramis Ramses you make him kill the other miang and that cycles over so like if that didn't happen Allie probably would have been. 02:42:17.60 Dave Ramsus. 02:42:23.66 Dave Um, yeah. 02:42:28.66 Michael Okay, and with you the rest of the game but I was like that consequence of that is so well done. So. 02:42:28.69 Dave True. Yeah, yeah, and it's before you know what? a like what a horror Monster Miang is literally just the power to take over anybody any woman. Ah, yeah, and at the worst time. Yeah, um. 02:42:49.14 Michael And yeah, right? And so when that the original miang dies and she said something like you I can finally go so she was basically immortal right? because Miang was in that body as well I assume and so she was. Whoever that person's name was I don't actually think we ever know right? She just called me. Yeah, but she finally gets released and so she feels relief. Thankfully. 02:43:08.45 Dave Yeah it could have been anybody. Yeah yeah, and then I think Miang takes over Elly's body Elly Shoots Fei and they merge they go in with Deus and then. Miang leaves Elly again and takes over a different body. She's like okay I'm done with this because I guess she needs Elly for the resurrection. Yeah yeah, so yeah, Deus gets resurrected. 02:43:33.81 Michael Yeah, because she's the one of the original personalities right? The mother split; you need both of them. 02:43:45.90 Dave So you failed in stopping the ah the resurrection. Um, and then this is a bunch of parts where like sex parts that would have been like 5 to 10 hour gameplay sections are just like 30 seconds of text. 02:44:00.96 Michael Yeah, yeah. 02:44:03.39 Dave Where they're just like summarizing what happens so like at this point there's like I don't know ten five to 10 hours left of the game. But yeah, yeah, but it's like it. There's another 50 hours worth of like. 02:44:11.71 Michael Yeah, maybe fifteen Ish depends on what you do? yeah. 02:44:22.17 Dave Story content here. It's just you read that It's not even you read like dialogue like you would in a visual novel. It's literally them summarizing here's what happened. 02:44:30.14 Michael And what's weird about it. Is it like it works somehow because of the yeah, the presentation of it and they're like oh yeah I've done enough of these like dungeons where I'm like yeah this new giant machine's going to come out. Okay I have to get there. 02:44:34.80 Dave Um, yeah, because it's good content. Yeah. 02:44:46.34 Dave Yeah. 02:44:48.43 Michael Gonna team up with my other people and take it down so you've been you know had like 40 hours of this beforehand so you can kind of fill in the gaps yourself and I am so happy that they chose this method to do it versus but 1 this game just never coming out. 02:44:58.70 Dave Yeah, ah man. 02:45:07.70 Dave Um, yeah. 02:45:07.65 Michael Because that's a possibility or 2 They just like all right? We're going to end it at disc one and that wouldn't be possible to and that would never come out so this wraps up and is the best thing about this. 02:45:12.80 Dave Yeah, and then stay tuned for Xenogears too. Yeah. 02:45:21.32 Dave Yeah, yeah, and I much prefer the approach of just letting us read the rest of the story rather than not finishing the story. 02:45:29.71 Michael Because I'm trying to think of obviously doing this episode because of the podcast if it was in a different light and I had another 50 hours to go and I had to go through dungeons and gameplay and random encounters. 02:45:48.19 Dave It would have I mean think about like I'm already kind of tired of the gameplay and then I'm faced with seventy five more hours of it like I did that with xenoblade chronicles. 02:45:48.38 Michael I Don't know if I would have finished it. 02:46:01.29 Michael Yeah, like ah, 3 right. 02:46:07.90 Dave Yeah, but that only took me I think it was like 65 hours to beat that game and I didn't like the combat at all in that game but it was shorter than Xenogears so Xenoblade Chronicles two took me about one hundred and forty but I liked the combat in that game. So. I was in and I like the story too. But yeah with the dlc with the yeah with Torna but the main story was 120 so long as a game. 02:46:29.49 Michael Hundred and forty hours okay 02:46:39.59 Michael Man you we're yeah, did not take me that long if I remember correctly. But 02:46:45.13 Dave Um I did a lot of side quests. Yeah, um, so there's a whole bunch of shit that goes on. We've talked. We've talked about things out of order so Deus gets released. Ah they carbon- freeze Fei like Han Solo to stop him from. Becoming id again. But then they they let him out. Um, Fei goes into prison and you meet Dan again, we haven't talked about Dan but Dan from the village the the balding 10 year old kid they have a nice little conversation at the end. 02:47:15.60 Michael So I love that little guy. He's a little shit. Yeah I thought that was well done. 02:47:23.36 Dave Dan basically says like I'll never forgive you but I I can't stay mad at you like this forever which is nice. 02:47:29.73 Michael Ah, apparently if you don't attack him in the tournament. He gives you something I saw that somewhere I know it's like a wedding dress or something but I have no idea what you're going to use that for. There's a lot of items you get in this game but I'd never used. 02:47:39.71 Dave Right? Yeah, that's interesting I think I spent because there's a couple turns where Fei tries to talk Dan out of fighting him in the tournament and then he keeps doing it so I was like all right man like if you're gonna make me and then he. 02:47:54.70 Michael Yeah, yeah, he was kicking my butt though I was like am I supposed to die here if I just don't do anything to him. So yeah, yeah, that's actually what you're supposed to do if you win. 02:47:57.66 Dave Obviously Fei just beats the shit out of him. 02:48:04.92 Dave Be really weird if Dan shows up to the tournament and beats Fei in a fight. 02:48:10.10 Michael Be great. My name for the term was wandering youth by the way I wrote it down. 02:48:17.21 Dave Oh okay I forgot what I wrote and forgot what I did there? Um, so. 02:48:20.53 Michael Okay, for pacing wise too like I was level 63 when we started disk two and I was level 43 when I got to the last dungeon so or just 73 not 43 so 10 levels so you can definitely see them. 02:48:29.31 Dave Ah. 02:48:32.34 Dave Wait 73 okay yeah for sure. Yeah, um, so stuff that is really interesting but happens in cutscenes. Well Fei meets the wave existence in. 02:48:40.29 Michael Ah, shrinkage. 02:48:51.91 Dave The present day timeline and learns about the backstory which we've already talked about um and that yeah that part. Yeah for sure. Um. 02:48:55.63 Michael And they do slow down and like really emphasize that part which is nice. I'm glad that wasn't just in a little you know powerpoint slide. Yeah. 02:49:07.83 Dave You learn about Gra being Fei's father and also wise men being Fei's father and it's too again. 2 personalities grappling for the same body. I think the wiseman shows up whenever he can regain control to help Fei and then Grahf shows up. I think Grahf is in control. Most. 02:49:16.19 Michael Yes, first. 02:49:25.98 Michael Correct. 02:49:26.41 Dave Most of the time Grahf shows up to poke Fei and try to get him to awaken his power. Um, there is a Deus's ark built. It's called Merkava and then there's a. Plan to destroy it and it all happens in one cut scene. This would be like a dungeon and several boss fights and shit. Yeah, um, but it crashes and I thought this was super cool. The arc that Deus was going to use to try and leave the planet crashes and. 02:49:46.86 Michael Yeah, a big reveal. Yeah. 02:50:02.12 Dave Deus's final forum comes out as all nanomachines and shit and just starts terraforming the planet into a giant weapon. What an idea. 02:50:06.25 Michael Oh it's so cool. Yeah, right I mean it makes sense for his end goal or their end goal. 02:50:15.79 Dave Yeah, it would be like okay so you won't let me leave and go to the place I'm going to go Well I'm going to become I'm going to take over the entire planet and then I will just move myself. Yeah. 02:50:30.65 Michael Yep I'm just going to eat out of here on my own way. They're both trying to leave both of the gods just ones trying to do something very different. 02:50:36.84 Dave Yeah that's that's true. They are both trying to go to the um all right final dungeon in the game when you go inside of the Deus structure and you try to go fight him. This is leading up to the final boss and stuff. Um. We have not talked about 1 bit of gameplay in the spoiler section. But I just want to point out the final dungeon and Xenogears is one of the worst dungeons I've ever done in a video game. It's awful. 02:51:02.70 Michael So I wouldn't say it's the worst but it is very confusing and I I didn't really use a guide because the guide I was looking at didn't really work out or here here's the more of a way to say that I. Started messing around in the final dungeon and then when I looked at the guy they're like this is the map if you don't do anything I was like well I've done a lot of stuff and it was completely wrong. I was like right? I'm just gonna figure this out on my own and I and I did. 02:51:26.76 Dave Oh yeah, right? Yeah, So it's got a maze section at the beginning that has random encounters in it and it is an event with the guide. It's hard to get through the maze because you have to rotate the camera and all of this shit and you get out of your navigation gets out of sorts then it has this section where you have to go hit these switches to rotate bridges and you have to do it in the right order. And you get taken out of that screen where all the bridges and stuff are all the time to go back in the maze. 02:51:59.60 Michael So remember yeah and there's like 8 I think different exits and you have to move basically an exit and then use also these like lever things to move the walkways as well. It was like. 02:52:06.46 Dave Um, yeah. 02:52:13.60 Dave Yeah. 02:52:16.39 Michael I think I know where I need to go. It's this red dot. How do I get that to work completely had a map if there was not a map I don't think I would have passed this part. 02:52:20.15 Dave Ah, yeah, it Yeah, that's true. Um, I was getting annoyed because there are a lot of random encounters in the maze there and they're tough. They're tough encounters too. 02:52:29.49 Michael Yes, so many? yeah and there's thankfully there's one of them that if you attack it it heals you and gives you fuel and I was like oh I think and there's also that 1 random npc that heals you as well. 02:52:40.10 Dave Bright. Yeah. 02:52:47.79 Michael Yeah, we have not really talked about but some of the dungeons were a little too long I would say and there were some that there was another one I think it was in shevat that was confusing to us like I have to jump on these fans and I have to press a lever to move the direction of the fans I got 1 at 3 02:53:01.10 Dave Oh yeah, yeah, just generally not like a huge fan of the dungeons for a lot of it. There was the one in Solaris when you're. It's before you get captured and like Citan like fake betrays you it's a really long dungeon really long. 02:53:21.21 Michael Oh I was so mad. Yeah I was so mad that he was going to flip I was like I Really like this character do not do not betray me please. 02:53:28.97 Dave Um, yeah, turns out well I guess we didn't mention Citan's role in all of this his role the entire time the whole game even from the first time you meet him you're like this guy knows too much. And it turns out he's working for the emperor and his whole job is to watch Fei to make sure that he's not a danger and he is a danger so he helps them capture it. But I think he captures Fei in there just so he can talk to id. 02:54:03.14 Michael Yeah I think that's a very cool scene. Yeah. 02:54:06.40 Dave During that. Yeah, a really good conversation. Yeah I either I took notes and deleted them or I didn't take notes about that part but it was a good conversation. We'll just be able to say that. 02:54:12.71 Michael Satan man. 02:54:21.80 Michael Oh yeah, like little things that bugged me was when Fei told Elly off I was like fuck you I like Elly didn't make sure she's in your party. But yeah, she does not get to use her after a certain point and I was like damn it. That's who I was using, it was mainly Fei. 02:54:30.27 Dave Um, yeah. 02:54:33.42 Dave Yeah. 02:54:39.37 Michael Allie and Satan Satan and then I would use bart a lot and Billy oh this is the thing I want to talk about way earlier. Billy's ammo is so hard to find for me. There's no consistency like I ran out of ammo with them and I just couldn't use it. 02:54:41.43 Dave Um, yeah, okay. 02:54:52.91 Dave Um, ah, interesting. I Just bought a bunch of ammo whenever I found a shop. 02:54:58.44 Michael I don't know, I was just so sad because I liked using him. 02:55:03.69 Dave Yeah I used mostly Fei Citan and Elly because they felt like the canon party for the story but also Bart and Billy and then there were a couple parts very late in the game when I used esmeralda because there's a. 02:55:19.77 Michael Yeah. 02:55:23.60 Dave A part you can go into an old ruined city like right before the final dungeon and you can do a cut scene and emeralda will grow up. Yeah, yeah, it's really cute. 02:55:32.21 Michael She becomes an adult. It's super cool. I like that portion. That's why I said the ending disc is like my favorite part of the game because you get amazing story payoffs and all that jazz. But then when you can go and fight Deus. There's so much cool side content. You can do and one of those was esmeralda and I was like all right, you could save here. You could do a bunch of grinding. It's great. 02:55:53.42 Dave Yeah. 02:55:59.71 Dave Yeah, and I think in that same area is where big Joe has a shop down in this is down in this like it's funny because it's one of those it reminds me of near where it's like. 02:56:06.67 Michael Yeah, yeah. 02:56:16.46 Michael So I haven't played that So okay, got you. 02:56:18.75 Dave It looks like our technology. It looks like a mall that he's just set up shop in but it's a mall that was a mall a thousand years ago or something like that. 02:56:29.19 Michael What is the point of his character? He just shows up randomly. He likes dancing and Solaris and yeah. 02:56:34.71 Dave I know what's going on with a big job. He's always around. He seems like he's like an immortal thing like they didn't say that he's not part of the original people that populated the planet but because I think it would just be too silly if they were like. Yeah, the supercomputer created Kane and Elly and miang and big Joe that was the seed of humanity now he's just he's just chilling down there in the shop. He sells these items that like. 02:57:01.55 Michael Ah I thought he was going to join our crew eventually. But yeah, he didn't, yeah I like it. 02:57:12.43 Dave Turbo charge your gears down there that made the final bosses and stuff. Um, pretty simple if you can buy 3 and just put them on like 3 on each gear and then just do nine Nine Nine nines every time you hit. 02:57:28.81 Michael Oh that would have been helpful gotcha. What I ended up doing is I grinded because I think they're called speed shoes. So yeah , I had 3 of those. 02:57:32.43 Dave Was too much gold. So I just did one on each gear but it still made it a lot more powerful. 02:57:43.14 Dave Yeah, yeah, so you don't have to do boost with that. 02:57:48.10 Michael For my final yeah that was very helpful like I got one I was like this thing's awesome and I looked up I was like can I get more of these somewhere and then it took me so long to get the other two but I don't know where I got the first one. It's probably somewhere in the story in 1 of the chests or something like that. But. 02:58:03.94 Dave Yeah, yeah, you you get 1 and I remember looking it up too and it was like oh you needed to do this before. 02:58:05.74 Michael Like I want these for the rest of the game. 02:58:15.26 Dave You needed to do this in disk one or something like that and I didn't do that So I was like well I just won all right Fei you get the speed shoes. 02:58:20.31 Michael But I grinded and got two more and it was glorious. 02:58:26.99 Dave Yeah, ah so after all that grinding and big Joe's awesome gear items. Um, you fight? Deus ah Deus has an interesting mechanic where Deus has these 4 mini bosses that are like hovering around him. And if you fight them you will weaken Deus in the final fight. Ah, but that risk reward by fighting them. You have to use fuel and you might not have enough fuel for the final fight if you decide to fight all 4 of them. So what did you do here? 02:58:57.97 Michael I fought all 4 and what yeah, so and I used my main team on 3 of them and the very last one I switched out my team and did and beat that and then I swapped back. 02:59:01.53 Dave Did you? okay. 02:59:08.69 Dave Okay, ok I tried that so I fought one of them with the main team and realized their fuel was not low, but like you can't refuel like you can't go back and do it so I was like. They shouldn't do another one and then I took another like backup team of like emmeralda and Blake Billy and fucking Maria because her her gear has a ton of Hp and I beat one of the mini bosses with them and then just got my ass kicked by the other 2 so I was like all right? We're just going to fight to we'll we'll go fight Deus and it turned out that it turned out that my main party especially Fei was powerful enough that it didn't matter but it like would have been easier without it. 02:59:48.84 Michael Really. 02:59:59.80 Michael Did you kill the healing one? Okay I think it's nice I didn't. I had no idea but I noticed that when I looked at the guide afterwards like they block off certain moves and 1 of them was the healing I was like well I'm glad I did that dude i. 03:00:03.36 Dave Yes I did, I made sure to do that. 03:00:18.21 Dave Did you. 03:00:18.77 Michael Barely beat Deus like yeah like I think I was out of fuel for 1 of my characters. 1 of my characters was in like four digit health like yellow and another one was basically dead. I was like I'm going to have to do this all over again and fight all four bosses. But 03:00:24.60 Dave The fifth of. 03:00:32.45 Dave Um, yeah, nice. Yeah I think it's because I didn't use a lot of fuel or a lot of health fighting the mini bosses. 03:00:36.65 Michael I Beat him . I was like oh my gosh. Thank you? good. 03:00:48.60 Dave My people were in good shape and I had those items that boosted their engines or whatever it did and so the gears can get into that like omega mode or infinity mode. Yeah, and so I made sure to get them all in that. 03:01:00.96 Michael Infinity mode. Yeah I don't know what the thing is. 03:01:06.70 Dave And then they just wrecked Deus after that because I had the fuel to spare I suppose. 03:01:11.50 Michael Dude I I thought I was going to die. I was very close and then it finally was like oh it was such a relief because I mean it was probably close to an hour and 20 or maybe like 55 minutes of fighting those 4 bosses like shuffling around to make sure all my equipment is right. 03:01:27.47 Dave Yeah. 03:01:29.33 Michael Like I do not want to die and Deus is a pretty hard boss I would say yeah. 03:01:34.23 Dave Yeah, it was tough. It was definitely one of the tougher ones. I didn't have a lot of difficulty with anything really in the game but I was playing with a guide so that you know all that. But ah yeah date. 03:01:43.63 Michael Do some of those gear battles for me like the back to back ones I didn't. Maybe I just didn't know the system at the beginning. I kept running out of fuel. I was getting too crazy and I was like oh I'll have a safe point after this nope. 03:01:52.24 Dave Little. 03:01:58.94 Dave Yeah, yeah, that happened to me during those mini boss fights. I was like running out of fuel you know because I had like my backup team in there like their equipment isn't the best so it was yeah it was rough. Um, so after you beat Deus. Ah, this destroys the zohar so all the gears stop working and Fei decides to fly out after Deus. So um I think what they say is that the wave existence is trying to ascend. But doing that will create so much energy. It will blow up the planet. So Elly starts pushing Deus out into space from inside or something like that. 03:02:43.22 Michael Yeah, it's exactly like her willpower is she's still trying to save the planet and save us like Fei and all are crucial. She's like I'll get him away. Yeah. 03:02:49.38 Dave Yeah, yeah, so she does that Fei chases. They have a nice scene with Bart where Fei, like Fei, thinks he might not make it back. From this and Bart is just kind of like you better come back or you better promise me, you're at least going to try or something like that. We haven't talked a lot about Bart. Bart's cool. I like him. 03:03:12.25 Michael Good old Bart. Yeah I like Bart and also his move where it lowers the accuracy of enemies is very good. 03:03:20.13 Dave Um, yeah, very helpful. Yeah, um, so Fei goes out. His consciousness goes into the waveform and he talks with the wave existence again and his body is like stuck on the outside or something like that so he goes in Elly is in there and Krelian is in there too and krelian gives a speech about. How he wants to ah be absorbed into the waveform and become one with god and he thinks that everyone else should too because this would alleviate all suffering throughout the world and he kind of dips into jrpg villain speech territory where he does this like. Humans' pitiful existence is so short and you fight so hard for it and there's so much pain and your free will is just an illusion like what's the point of all of this but the thing that makes krelians better than say. Ah. I won't say I don't want to spoil what game it's from but other games where I don't like this type of villain Speech is that krelians is not like bow down before me. I'm more powerful than you, you are nothing before me, your free will means nothing. krelian. 03:04:41.79 Dave Wants to do this on behalf of people. He wants to erase suffering by making everyone one with the wave existence. 03:04:48.22 Michael Which is an interesting point because really, that's his goal the entire time he didn't really know it in the beginning right? He's still trying to do what he thinks is right. He does a lot of bad things to get there but he wants to create God because. 03:04:57.29 Dave Yeah. 03:05:02.57 Dave Yeah. 03:05:07.19 Michael Like we said before his false god the Deus is not the 1 he wants and that all started because of Sophia yeah 03:05:13.91 Dave Yeah, his thing is mode like I guess like so many villains his story is motivated by a trauma that happened that caused him to you know heal turn but all the While. He's doing it for a somewhat noble Purpose. He wants to eliminate sadness and all of that from the world. It's an imperfect method of doing so by merging everyone with the wave's existence. It would. Basically would erase everything So like yes, you would erase all of the bad parts but you would erase all of the good parts too. Everyone would just be the same in this wave-like existence. 03:05:59.20 Michael You wouldn't yeah you wouldn't have an identity most likely unless I Wonder if there's some symbology of when in like the Christian religions when you ascend go to Heaven. You are basically praying to God and you're living for God I Wonder if that's like his story is that. He's accepting that but the weird part is like I did not expect him to be like quote unquote the big bad like they never I thought i'd be the ministry and or and or cane the emperor and they kind of just weasel him in there and I like that. 03:06:24.81 Dave Um, yeah. 03:06:30.31 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, it's ah it's a slow rise to power with him. Um, I think Miang enables him for a lot of the game because they're working toward the same thing and then he just kind of likes it. Yeah, every step of the way he just kind of advances his plot. It helps that Kain Ramses kills Kain right? Yeah, so it helps that someone else took care of kain and that getting rid of the gazel ministry is as simple as unplugging the computer. 03:06:57.23 Michael Yes, yes. 03:07:07.43 Michael Yeah, what. 03:07:08.46 Dave So That helps. But yeah, every step of the way he kind of advances his own. Um plan. But it's again, it's most interesting to me because he dips into this like well worn Genre Territory. so many jrpgs that are about human existence and free will and all of that but his is not from the like I want to destroy you because you mean nothing I want to have us all become one with God. So that we can ease our suffering and there will be no more suffering. 03:07:45.10 Michael Where do you think the free will portion comes in because that kind of seems a little bit out of left field for Crellian's character. 03:07:52.17 Dave It does and I made sure to write down his quote. So It might just be like a way to try and convince people to join up like. You know he's listing off all of his reasons and I don't think that's his biggest reason or I don't even know if he really believes that but if he's giving reasons for why? Yes, we should assimilate then maybe that's one of them. You think you have free will over what you do, but it's actually all just the higher power anyway. So Why not become one with the higher power? Maybe. 03:08:31.17 Michael Oh you know you know what? so since he's not one of the originals right? Do you think when he got in contact with the wave existence that he learned kind of the history. The creation myth of everything is probably also me. 03:08:37.54 Dave No. 03:08:47.53 Dave Possibly yeah. 03:08:50.67 Michael Also Meng and he's realizing now like wait. All of this was just to resurrect a god so there is technically no free will this is all kind of like planned out and ordained. 03:09:02.40 Dave That's true. Yeah, because the plan of everybody who he's been working with this whole time is just to resurrect Deus yeah yeah, so maybe he you're right? He had his own illusion of free will shattered. 03:09:09.80 Michael Um, yeah. 03:09:18.00 Dave Not that he doesn't have free will now but what he thought was his own free will was just following these like predetermined decisions from these ancients. You know. 03:09:26.59 Michael Yeah, okay so I love when in discussions just 1 simple question and a couple back and forth. It's like that fits what they meant, no idea off but that's okay. 03:09:34.99 Dave Yeah, and it's like okay it makes sense. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, not sure. Um, so Krelian gives that speech Fei gives the classic jrpg response to that which is that you know humanity. Our lives may have pain and suffering but this imperfect life makes us live the way we do makes us help each other. It all has value then that's the meaning of humanity the imperfection being the meaning of humanity and that imperfection. Gives rise to progress gives rise to love and he says that that's human's greatest. Strength is love and that love can make them independent from god. 03:10:20.16 Michael I think that's the most interesting part right? because there are a lot of religions. God is love and love for god is like the higher echelon and but this is saying you can separate the 2 03:10:27.70 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, god's yeah Jesus is love etc. Yeah. 03:10:39.30 Michael Separating church from state you know, but and I like that revelation and what's I think even more interesting is Fei's commitment to that even though he has now gained the knowledge of sohar and everything that came with it and the wave existence so he knows that this. 03:10:42.11 Dave Yeah, um. 03:10:53.67 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:10:57.82 Michael Existence is only to fuel God but he's still finding meaning and I think that's in any jrpg when you're talking about existence and humans and all that imperfections like this game makes it work The best. 03:11:00.81 Dave Um, yeah. 03:11:05.65 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, it does because like I said it starts to like to go into those tracks that like so many of these other games have been in but it's going with its own purpose I think and. 03:11:25.60 Dave I Agree that last part about humans Greatest strength being love and it's not God's love that makes you um, divine or makes you special or gives you a purpose to live or anything like that. That's what makes it. Can make you separate and be able to live your own life and why again assimilating into the wave existence is not the way to go here. So yeah, it's it's It's just. 03:11:51.90 Michael No more where is he going to take you. We don't know where they are going to take Yeah, so. 03:11:59.85 Dave I Think it's like you played Citizen sleeper. Okay all right never mind. Ah there I think it's like they will just lose all form all thought and just become waves. 03:12:02.78 Michael No. 03:12:19.20 Dave And so they become the same they become nothing I think. 03:12:22.88 Michael Is that like the concept of singularity eventually like Ai becoming so rapidly becomes so technologically advanced eventually either destroys itself or enslaves everything so everything becomes nothing. Yeah. 03:12:37.56 Dave Um, yeah, So um, yeah, it's ah it's an interesting back and forth and I started to roll my eyes a little bit at a couple points during the conversation but they always brought me back in because this game was introduced. Some element of it that I had never seen you know in a game like this or a story like this. 03:13:00.10 Michael And what's interesting about that is it comes back to that just dual God concept: The fake God and the other God and just how neither of them are technically bad. 03:13:16.16 Michael Just have there's certain things they want to do. I mean you could say maybe Deus is bad but it was created with the intention to be a weapon so it's just trying to do what it wants to do and the waving existence I guess just got too curious. Just. 03:13:24.32 Dave That's true that was its purpose to be from being created. Yeah, you know? Yeah, if you want to bring it back to God like the to god like gnostic system I think like the gnostic belief is that. When you have attained this level of knowledge then that's when you can become one with god Fei and then choose not to in this game but they Fei does go into this encounter with I think with that requisite knowledge if that makes sense. 03:13:54.65 Michael And yeah, his persona now combined right? All his personalities. He can be that person that I guess the wave existence wants right? The perfect body but heat. 03:14:07.67 Dave Right? Yeah, the ideal. Yeah from all of those outside influences on the game. The psychology of Carl Young the gnostic beliefs Fei has accomplished all of those things but now he's going to choose to. Ah. To not become one with god and to ah to just let them go so krelian is convinced because Krelian lets Fei go and they are um before they leave they have a conversation 1 final, really interesting conversation. Um. 03:14:44.12 Dave Elly apologizes for her sacrifice when she was Sophia because as we said like an hour and a half ago that was the inciting event for all of this was Sophia's sacrifice that sent so many of these other people down on these negative paths. So she says that in the moment her sacrifice was the right thing to do but because of all of the pain and sadness that she left behind for krelian and for Lacan and for everybody else who mourned the sacrifice of the mother sophia the holy mother. Um, that it wasn't net negative actually and so you know 1 final bit of like characterization for Elly apologizing that her past self sacrificed herself and indirectly caused the problems of the modern. 03:15:40.63 Michael So it's a very good empathetic viewpoint right of that character and yeah, it does build that character right. 03:15:41.64 Dave Story yeah yeah, Elly's the mother the the personification of the mother's love so it makes sense. 03:15:54.39 Michael So good. Why didn't we cover it? But that second the final boss fight I mean Deus is obviously the final one but this is like the story one. What is that supposed to be meaning. Do you think? 03:16:02.00 Dave Right? right. 03:16:10.97 Michael Is it Fei overcoming something? 03:16:11.77 Dave So I thought that the final boss looked like Miang or looked yes so I thought that was basically him defeating the eldritch monster that is Miang or something like that. 03:16:17.59 Michael Definitely for sure. 03:16:25.10 Michael Okay, she's got like a snake body. There could be something teasing like the snake Forbidden Knowledge I don't know. But 03:16:30.56 Dave Yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, but that's that , yeah, you're right? That was more of an interactive cutscene than like an actual challenging boss. Yeah yeah for sure. 03:16:42.61 Michael So it was cool I'll give you that and it was. We're in this green abyss place and you know wave existence is just chilling over there. What's his face? 03:16:53.53 Dave Yeah, yeah, ah so Elly apologizes Fei doesn't like to disagree with her but Fei kind of commends her for her noble act of sacrificing herself and. Just talks about the importance of love and then they are going to live together. So like they're in this like dimension, this like side dimension where just their consciousness so they need to run and escape when Elly falls down and Fei. You can see it in his face. It's in a cut scene. You can see it in his face where he makes the decision like I'm just going to stay here with her then and we're going to die here together but Krellan rescues them. Um Kreian says that like he understands what they're talking about he thinks that he has sinned too much to return. So he's going to stay and become nothing become one with god ah but he lets Elly and Fei leave and says that he envies them and Fei and Elly ride in Xenogears. We didn't say that xenogears. The upgraded Weltall is called Xenogears um. 03:18:08.41 Michael Heck yeah, okay. 03:18:08.75 Dave And they yeah they fly down to earth and that's credits. 03:18:11.27 Michael Yeah I mean I really like the idea of Krelian saving them and I also like the idea of Fei giving in like I'm not leaving without her I'm gonna do this sacrifice I thought that was very well done and krelian being though like this such a unique. 03:18:20.93 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:18:30.16 Michael Character at the end and I found that in a very interesting choice because again you could have done a jrpg trope thing. I'm going to kill the god and that'll be the end of it and Karan's the bad guy right. 03:18:31.58 Dave Um, yeah. 03:18:39.50 Dave Yeah, or you could have been doing the trope of Krelian wants to become god so he can kill everybody and they're. Game I played in 2023 that will remain nameless did this exact same thing where the final boss was going to kill humanity because they their free will is nothing and yada yada yada like he could have had that kind of heel turn where he's like I'm going to become god and I'm going to take out all the trauma on everybody else. Or I'm going to become god and I'm going to kill everybody to ease their suffering but they didn't it. It. It kind of doesn't end with a bang with krelian it ends with ah a nice like compassionate ah agreement between them. 03:19:25.44 Michael And I feel like it This game does that more than once and I am a fan of the crazy person just wanting to become God and killing everything I like that? Yeah yeah, who doesn't love Kekoff you don't You're weird. But I think it's been overdone and I feel like. 03:19:33.56 Dave Yeah cap Again, Yeah Kafka I Love kafka. 03:19:45.17 Michael When you have a spin on it. It's great and this game came out so long ago in the 90 s and there hasn't been anything. That's like this with the whole god concept that I've played and I've played a lot of jrpgs. 03:19:55.86 Dave Yeah, just to tie it all back together like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 did kind of play with this a little bit but it's very very different in the way that they did it. 03:20:07.63 Michael Yeah, that's more character driven. Even though this one's character driven too that one's in a separate I don't even know how to I don't have the nuance to say it without spoiling I think so I'm going to not do that. 03:20:21.19 Dave Yeah I will you would just cut this out. Yeah, but that was for us just because I know you played that game too. Yeah, ah okay, cut that so that is Xenogears Michael this is ah. 03:20:26.68 Michael Ah, yes, yes. 03:20:38.70 Dave Over 3 hours not unexpected you know we took one look at this notes document and I was like fuck. There's a lot of stuff again. Not just a lot of stuff that you can talk about with Xenogears but a lot of stuff that feels essential to talk about with Xenogears. So yeah. 03:20:38.66 Michael No no. 03:20:50.74 Michael Yeah, you know one thing we didn't even mention though is that last little scene where there's like a golden feather that falls at the very end. What is that supposed to symbolize? 03:21:04.59 Dave Um, oh at the end Krellan like sprouts angel wings and flies away so it might just be a feather from krelian. 03:21:13.18 Michael So do you think that has deeper meaning like this is gonna start again or there's it's like a remnant of him like because that's depressing because it's such a nice ending. It's very quick though. 03:21:24.56 Dave I Don't think so to me that would be like a simple remembrance of Krelian and his final act. Yeah yeah I think so yeah I like I like that more than the. 03:21:32.47 Michael Like his empathy towards the end and saving them. Okay I like that look at me I'm usually op now. The 1 thing we also don't know is the humans and new jerusalem. 03:21:43.52 Dave Oh shit? Well this is just going to repeat again. 03:21:51.39 Michael Or Neo Jerusalem do they know that this all powerful god like weapon was lost or do they think it's destroyed and gone or do you think they did so much secrecy that nobody knows about that. 03:22:05.40 Dave I think that it was secretly put on the ship. I think they did say it was secretly put on the ship. But if they did create a weapon that was so powerful that it destroyed a planet you feel like the people probably know about that unless they covered it up somehow. So. 03:22:12.26 Michael So yeah, so. 03:22:24.36 Dave Yeah, what? ah you know Xenogears too. The people from New Jerusalem go out into space to try and find Deus. Yeah I'm definitely interested in playing Xenosaga I'm going to need a break. 03:22:29.33 Michael And I haven't played Xenosaga. Maybe that's part of the timeline I don't know. 03:22:40.27 Dave And I've got other long jrpgs to play before that but definitely very interested in playing the Xeno Saga trilogy. 03:22:46.63 Michael Yeah, same here and I honestly I'll probably if I have time I'm going to try and do it this year because I'm just I'm all in on this Xeno series and I know you shout him out Rick from pixel project radio. He said. 03:22:54.94 Dave Yeah. 03:23:03.88 Michael Anytime anybody wants to talk about that. So I might hit him up or something we'll see. 03:23:04.68 Dave Yeah, absolutely yeah, well this has been awesome man. Thank you so much for taking over 3 hours to talk Xenogears with me. This has been great. 03:23:14.43 Michael Hey I am happy you went in on this. This was a long time coming And yeah I love talking Rpg So we will do this again. It'll probably be a while and I need a break from that you know I thought about this. 03:23:20.43 Dave Um, yes, it was. 03:23:33.41 Michael There's no way I could be in games Journalism media and having to review rpgs I feel like all the bad things of rpgs and trying to like the flaws would be so present trying to rush through a game for review I Thought about that. 03:23:50.64 Dave yeah absolutely yeah I was thinking about another game we did on the podcast rain world that got like really bad reviews and I want to I think I can chalk some of that up to like that's a terrible game to try and beat in ah, a week and. Imagine if you got a review code for Xenogears and you had to beat it in two weeks and write a review about it like you might hate it. 03:24:12.57 Michael Like I remember when out we're going back and forth. They're like how far you I'm like I feel like this game's never ending. I'm a little worried that I'm not going to make the recording date but we are flexible. We kept talking back and forth and it was a blast and I always appreciate coming to this show. It's one of the best out there. 03:24:18.19 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 03:24:29.20 Dave Yeah, thank you man. Thank you Thank you. I Appreciate it again and was very happy to invite you to come on and talk about this game. I Knew we'd have a good conversation that is what happened so again I will thank you again. Everyone, I will thank everyone who has made it. 03:24:48.52 Dave To the end of the podcast as always, you are the Mvp. We appreciate you if you've made it this far. Please again, go down in the show notes and check out the links for bits of time for ala and for the condemned. That's the other one a consumed shit. It's a C O N word 03:25:04.30 Michael Consumed close enough. 03:25:07.87 Dave Consumed. Yes, go check those out down in the show notes. And yeah, yes, thank you episode 57 see I remembered the general area that it was. 03:25:10.64 Michael Oh you episode 57 is you know play chronicles for you me, you're welcome. Thank. 03:25:22.83 Dave Episode 57 Xenoblade chronicles three with Colby from the switch at up podcast. We had a great conversation. There. So maybe go check that out if you want more Xeno on tails from the backlog. But that is going to be all for us tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.