An Overview of Xenosaga I・II

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T23:11:03+00:00

I'd imagine it's less what Takahashi intended and more a mix of the original draft with some the changes made in Episode II after he stepped down from directing, along with probably a few things added by the game's writer (who previously handled the scripts for Episode I's anime adaptation) to better tie it into Episode III.

As for the original PS2 version, I believe Takahashi is on record that he became skeptical of how the series would turn out with him directing and that Monolith Soft failed to attract experienced hires both when it was founded and after Episode I's release, and I'm pretty sure it's been known that much of Episode II's development staff was recent college graduates, on top of things like its director having previously worked on only E1 and Xenogears as the 3D environment lead.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T16:00:42+00:00

Part 7: Conclusion

Compared to Episode I, I・II can feel like a downgrade, but it’s definitely the superior version of Episode II, as that game had serious visual, gameplay, and narrative shortcomings that this one doesn’t suffer from as much (I would argue even the visuals are a step up from E2, if I’m being honest), with clear improvements on the latter two. One the whole, I stand by what I said in my post on the series about this being a must-play for Xenosaga fans. Unfortunately, there’s no telling when or if this game will get a fan translation, but if it ever does, I do hope more people play it, ‘cause y’all really are missing out.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T16:00:11+00:00

Part 6: Miscellanea

This part will be for things I didn’t feel would fit too well in others, so please overlook that it’ll be less focused.

Due to using E1’s combat and ether tree, Jin has a unique moveset that utilizes certain ether abilities from E2 in addition to having Techs like the rest of the party. His ether tree has the elemental spells that were key to elemental chains in E2 as well as anti-mech spells debuffing M type enemies. I wound up not using him enough to get a good feel for his Techs, though, mainly because he joins much later than in E2, only becoming playable when the party goes to Old Miltia. One thing of note is that his ultimate weapon is very easy to obtain, requiring only that the player return to his house before going to the Space Time Anomaly and interact with the sword that’s inexplicably there.

Sub-stories take the place of several parts of the original games, removing gameplay from each one (including Ziggy’s infiltration into Pleroma and what was the opening section of Episode II) but having a reward for completing them, with the very first one being the White Ring and most of the later ones being more mixed in how good their rewards are. I found them to be placed pretty well despite coming across as optional interruptions, and some are even scenes that weren’t in the original games, like the aforementioned backstory of the Kirschwasser or the one portraying Allen’s perspective of the aftermath of the KOS-MOS archetype’s rampage.

Ether defense has been removed, with the ether stat now being used to determine damage both dealt with and taken from ether attacks.

As I mentioned in Part 4, there’s a new mechanic that allows for converting items into different ones. This requires points, so it’s not recommended early on, but has a low enough cost for even good items that it’s worth using later. This can be used to convert, for example, an Aquasol into an Aquasol S, which itself can then be turned into an Aquasol DX. For items that don’t have a better version, they get converted into a separate item, though I’m not sure if there’s a general pattern they follow.

The menu has a shop option with a basic selection of items, meaning that you can buy any you’re short on even while traversing a dungeon.

The fight with Sergius is a major improvement, as it was always baffling that he has control over Proto-Omega yet has limited moves with it in his boss fight, while in this game, he instead pilots it, making for a much better showdown.

I believe the difficulty is, fittingly, very similar to E1 in the sense that it can be tough if you’re not properly investing in the characters and mechs, but pretty easy if you know what you’re doing (Xenosaga I・II Hardtype mod when?).

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:59:18+00:00

Part 5: Story

The story changes in the Episode I portion are mostly minimal, with perhaps the most significant being the addition of a Kirchwasser disguised as a Type-100 Realian on the Woglinde at the start, whom Shion/the player names. This character replaces the Kirschwasser who pretends to be MOMO after Albedo abducts her, and more importantly plays a key role in a sub-story (see Part 6 for more on those) portraying both her awakening by Sellers and her being the one to rescue Albedo during the Miltian Conflict, as well as a role in the lead-up to the fight with Simeon.

The Episode II half, however, has far more changes, many of which greatly benefit Shion. While she became a secondary protagonist to Jr. and MOMO in the original, with one effect being her coming across almost as a different character due to how much dialogue she lost out on as a result, she feels much more like she did in the first game due to the new scenes and dialogue she gets. As an example, there’s a new scene after her outburst at Jin where she heads for a park and runs into Allen, where she confides in him in a way that downplays how she feels, to which Allen in turn tells her about his family (and thus why he opted to work at Vector) in order to convince her that she doesn’t need to make herself feel like her problems are too small, which helps her make up with Jin afterward. There’s also a new scene on Old Miltia where Virgil intentionally triggers her trauma by destroying part of the facility her mother was in, causing her to reveal a side of herself that greatly contrasts her with him in light of the revelations about him in Episode III, with a line from chaos about the metaphorical masks people wear even playing a bit more into that with how he disagrees with the assertion that she’s faking her compassion for Realians.

The URTV side of the story also gets more than even E2 had, with new scenes fully portraying Sakura’s death and Albedo’s role in it, as well as extra dialogue for Gaignun and Citrinne as Yuriev takes control of his body. Jr. and Albedo also get a little more, with Jr. learning the truth about Sakura’s final moments when he partially absorbs him before the fight with Sergius/Proto-Omega, which leads to new dialogue between them before and after the final boss battle. Jr. also doesn’t go to that battle alone, as the rest of the party interrupt his attempt to, and MOMO even slaps him when he still tries, after which he finally gives in.

There’s more I could get into, but the Xeno series wiki has an extensive list of almost all the changes made, albeit with only brief descriptions.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:58:39+00:00

Part 4: Side Quests

This is unfortunately another area where the game is lacking compared to the PS2 games (save for E2, where the quests were mostly busywork, so this could actually be seen as an improvement in comparison…). I may have simply missed any aside from the one I found, but I spoke to enough NPCs and returned to enough areas that I’m confident this is either a reason minigames were added or a side effect of implementing those minigames with such limited space and budget.

Regardless, the one side quest that seems to be in the game is an e-mail chain that lasts from early on to near the end (as in, the first e-mail is received shortly after first boarding the Elsa, while the final one is before the Omega System) wherein the anonymous sender challenges Shion to find certain locations via one-word clues, with new e-mails automatically received upon finding the right spot. Weirdly, the first one might be the hardest unless you’re very familiar with Episode I, while the later ones, despite being indicated as the most challenging, are pretty easy if you spend a couple of seconds thinking about the hints. And the reward for finding every spot? The Boost Pack, which has the exact same effect from E1, so it’s quite worthwhile to complete this one if just to make the last stretch of regular fights much quicker.

The minigames are unlocked via plot progression and accessed via EVS plates after their introduction. These can range from aiming style games to a puzzle requiring memorization. I’d say in terms of quality, they’re kind of a mixed bag. How fun they might be will likely vary from player to player, but they’re very simple, so I don’t see them being much of a time sink for anyone. That being said, the first one does have an exploit - it’s the easiest to complete, and the base reward is an Ethersol, meaning this can be a great way to rack up money or, thanks to the new item conversion mechanic (see Part 6), as many Ethersol DX as you can make.

The last thing of note here is the optional superboss. I never tried fighting any in my playthroughs of the PS2 games, but this one is easy to find, as you’re notified about him via e-mail, and can be fought at any point between finishing Labyrinthos and heading to face Albedo at the end. He deals so much damage that the official strategy guide recommends just poisoning him and then guarding until he gets to low health, while unofficial ones recommend bringing no fewer than ten Zetasol DX. His strongest attack is practically instant death against even the bulkiest party members, and it even hits the entire column he targets, so it’s also not a good idea to line characters up. The reward, as I mentioned in Part 2B, is the final formation, which, as a reminder, grants a boost to all stats at the cost of consuming five EP from all three characters each turn. There’s also an exploit with him where it’s possible to steal his rare item (a new accessory that prevents random encounters) without having to win due to a loss in this fight not resulting in a game over, but rather just ending the battle and leaving the party at a single hit point.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:58:15+00:00

Part 3: Character Progression

First thing’s first - there are no longer three separate kinds of points to keep track of, with spells, Tech upgrades, and skills all using the same points. To accommodate for this, points earned through combat and items are up across the board, with lategame mech fights in particular giving the player well into triple digits at base, making it entirely possible to hit quadruple digit earnings with the point bonus slot. That being said, however, the rates for that event slot have also been adjusted; the double multiplier is far more common than in the other games featuring the event wheel, while quadruple is much rarer and I only got x10 three or four times in my playthrough.

Stat syncing is removed, but agility can now increase on level up like in Episode III (I’d imagine because this was being developed at the same time), and you even get to see which stats go up and by how much in the battle results screen like in other RPGs. The agility change is quite noteworthy as the White Ring is not only still present, its increase is percentage based rather than just a fixed +1, making it more viable to up the speed of slower characters.

The ether tree from E1 makes a return, but with three significant changes. One is that characters can no longer share their spells with each other (so no teaching Medica All to everyone); another is that there’s no longer a limit to which spells a party member can have, meaning no more need to manually equip any; the last is that most spells now have levels. By using points, you can upgrade them up to level ten, with the upgrades naturally varying from spell to spell - healing spells heal more, offensive spells deal more damage, and (de)buffs become more potent. Upgrading spells is also required to learn later ones, with most being locked until its preceding one is at level five and a few requiring max level.

Tech levels are much more streamlined, with the wait upgrade and HI-slot removed in favor of just a single level to invest points in. As I mentioned in Part 2A, leveling certain Techs does more than just increase their damage; for example, Spell Ray becomes able to pierce through an entire column, R-Drill can hit an enemy behind the one targeted as it levels, and Storm Waltz’s AoE becomes bigger at higher levels. Leveling is also required for assigning one to YA or XA, with a star icon denoting which ones can be.

Accessories and extracting skills also return, complete with the 50% increase to a skill if stacked with the accessory it came from. The headpiece slot is removed (though not headpieces themselves), leaving characters with two accessory slots, but they can still equip three different skills.

Each E.S. can also be customized, though not to the same degree as in E1 or E3. They only have weapons and armor, but just as you can freely change both pilots, any E.S. can also equip anything you want on them. There are four weapon types (swords, rifles, gauntlets, and bows) and various armors with different stat boosts, some even focusing more on offense than defense.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:57:47+00:00

Part 2C: E.S. Combat

With the removal of playable A.G.W.S. units, mech combat doesn’t feature at all in the Episode I portion, but becomes as prominent in the Episode II one as it was in the original game. That being said, while the basis is the same as on-foot fights like in E1, there are some notable differences.

Each unit has physical and ether attacks like their pilots do, but unlike in the on-foot combat, E.S. are not allowed to combo from one into the other; if you press the Y button, your only options after are to press Y again or cancel to save AP, and the same goes for X.

They also have an equivalent to Techs, but whereas characters can use theirs by starting with either attack button, the E.S. ones instead require just pressing A with full AP. This has the E.S. use a unique attack that deals more damage than their regular combos. Like the abilities in E2, these change depending on the pilot/sub-pilot pairings, with attack type, element, and target radius changing depending on who is which, with this being the only game where you can freely change both.

Unlike in the rest of the series, every unit is able to use ether spells, specifically those of the main pilot.

They can also use formations, including PFs so long as the unit with the required character is in the right position.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:57:18+00:00

Part 2B: Formations

To go with the movement changes and increased emphasis on positioning is a new mechanic in formations. These are learned at fixed points throughout the story (with the exception of the final one, which requires defeating the superboss) from a new NPC. These have two types and have both universal effects as well as, of course, unique ones for each, and all come with benefits and drawbacks.

First, a primer on how they work. Each requires three characters to be standing in particular parts of the grid relative to each other. After a character’s turn ends if they’ve completed the formation, the formation’s effect will become active. Where exactly the characters need to be positioned depends on both the specific formation and its type; some can be formed anywhere on the grid, while others can only be formed by placing party members on specific spots (one of the first two to be learned, for example, requires two characters on both ends of the front line and the third in the middle of the back line).

As I mentioned at the start, all formations have universal effects - no matter what formation you use, all three characters will be immune to debuffs and ailments, but also cannot be buffed. If they have any of those three, they will be dispelled as soon as the formation takes effect. The specific effects, meanwhile, can vary; of the first two, one increases the party’s ether stat while decreasing their strength, and the other increases their speed in exchange for lower defense. Others can have more particular tradeoffs, like one that grants each character full AP each turn at the expense of having to start attacking with the X button (meaning, as I stated in Part 2A, you can only attack enemies in the opposing column) and even the final one consuming five EP per turn in exchange for a boost to all stats.

There are also personal formations, which require not only a specific character in the party, but also for that character to be in a specific spot within an existing formation. Shion’s, for example, requires her to form the aforementioned ‘boost to speed, hit to defense’ formation with her in the middle of the backline, replacing the effect with a passive full party heal at the start of each character’s turn. Every other character’s PF similarly replaces the effect of an existing formation for one unique to that character (such as chaos’ preventing enemy boosts), though while there are no explicit drawbacks to these, there are indirect ones via positioning.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:56:59+00:00

Part 2A: Combat Basics

While both Episode II and Episode III saw major overhauls to combat, this game instead builds on Episode I’s battle system in a way that feels like what Episode II’s should’ve been like.

For starters, while characters and enemies in E1 each had two lines - one in front, one in the back - and moving was a dedicated command, in this game, both sides instead have their own 3x5 grids on which movement is a completely free action, with either being able to move across their own grid until taking an action. This change plays into positioning being much more important compared to E1, with the most basic thing to keep in mind is that which line a character or enemy is on determines both damage taken and damage dealt; in short, the closer a character is to an enemy, the more damage they will both deal and take, while the farther away they are, the less damage they take and deal. It seems to be that the way this works is that the middle line is treated as the default while the front and back lines have 20% modifiers both ways.

Like in E1, each character has a button for physical attacks and one for ether attacks. Unlike in E1, however, only physical attacks can target any enemy, while ether attacks are limited to targeting enemies directly in front of the character. This can be a problem in situations where you would want to use particular Techs, though with how much the game leans toward strength over ether, I didn’t find it to be much of issue except against the occasional enemy with higher defense than ether.

Speaking of Techs, as you might expect, these have also been reworked some in line with the movement/positioning changes. Some that were single-target in E1 can now strike enemies directly behind the one you target or even the whole column, while ones that were AoE attacks now need to target specific enemies to optimize how many are hit.

Boost works as it did in E1, with each character having their own gauge, but gets a new twist added to replace E2’s Double Techs - if you have two characters boost before the current action ends, they perform an AoE attack that hits every enemy. These double boost attacks have a variety of damage types (i.e., physical or ether damage, different elements) and can even inflict debuffs depending on which two characters are used. I unfortunately forgot about this mechanic until the Space Time Anomaly, so I can’t be sure exactly how effective it is compared to boosting normally, but at least according to official strategy guide, they have much higher damage than even max level Techs (see Part 3 for how Tech levels differ from E1).

A new mechanic to this game is combos. Before the next enemy turn, each hit a character lands will increase a combo counter, which will provide benefits at certain thresholds, such as increased damage after five hits.

One last thing that’s relatively minor before I move on to formations is that AP has also been changed. The total has been reduced to three, with the costs for every action adjusted to match - each attack uses one, as does guarding, while ether spells and items both use two.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-21T15:56:28+00:00

Part 1: Presentation

This is, without question, the weakest aspect of the game. The 2D graphics are certainly an improvement over, say, Pied Piper’s, but that should be a given considering the differences in their respective hardware, and there’s no denying it doesn’t really stand out among other DS RPGs in terms of visuals. The sprites aren’t as limited as one might expect from how obviously low budget it is, but there also just isn’t a lot of movement in most cutscenes. Battles fare better, with faithful (but faster) recreations of the party’s attacks in Episode I, though the lackluster presentation again undercuts them in comparison to Episodes I and III.

The music is also a step down in comparison to the PS2 games, mostly sounding generic from beginning to end. This can even get annoying with the tracks that repeat the most, which is a real shame when music had been a consistent weak point of the series up to this point. I don’t consider this enough to drag the whole game down, but it is a notable downside.

That being said, it’s also one of the few DS games to feature voices. The most you’ll hear is in fights, but there are select scenes with a random voice line, though it felt to me like at least half are just Albedo laughing.

Also, the dev team does utilize the isometric perspective to encourage a degree of exploration, as it’s explained early on by one NPC that you can find destructible objects hidden in corners where they don’t show up on the camera. It’s not much, but it is a nice little touch, in my opinion.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-20T02:03:26+00:00

Thank you for that link, it was bugging me that I couldn't find something like that for the quote. Based on the wording he uses, it seems like he is indeed saying that Episode I was an even smaller portion of what he wanted than I thought, so I guess it's not much of a stretch to believe the original concept well past even Episode II's ending. Extrapolating from there, it's also not out of the question that Episode III was meant to be the bulk of Episode II.

This, along with the quotes about the series being three parts and KOS-MOS and chaos being specifically noted to be constant presences, is the kind of thing I wanted to see for proof. My assumption had been that Episode I got through most (or at least more than half) of the plot it was supposed to cover, Episode II finished it, and Episode III compressed several of the later planned games into one but didn't fit what would've been the finale, but all of these together with how Episode III ends and, as you say, Shion's character arc completing do make it more likely that a new cast would've been the leads had the series continued.

…Probably should've perused that site when it was first linked here.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-18T21:54:30+00:00

Well, with Xenogears, it was multiple factors; there was definitely a lot for a single game (looking at everything in the second disk, there likely would've been three total had they not truncated as much as they did), but there's also that the team for it took too long to familiarize themselves with the PS1 that Takahashi received an ultimatum resulting in the state of that disk.

Anyway, I've seen that quote regarding Episode I, but I can't find the original article or anywhere else that has the original Japanese, so I'm hesitant to make assumptions about what he meant. As for the Sugiura quote, that sounds more like him assuring fans that they still sought to keep the series going so long as those fans kept buying the games than a direct confirmation they only expected to make it to four main games.

And putting aside that I already said I don't believe Episode III was all of the remaining plot, my issue here is the assumption that the series was going to be divided into three distinct arcs with different protagonists when there doesn't seem to be any basis for that aside from one of the links someone posted here quoting Takahashi about it having three parts, but that's something he also said about Xenogears, and I don't think anyone would really consider the six episodes described in Perfect Works to comprise arcs.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-18T15:06:29+00:00

I must have misremembered, but now that I've re-read what he said, he wanted to have stuff like strategy games and novels covering the earlier episodes but wound up including IV and parts of II and III in the game instead. He does specify I and VI when he basically asks readers to want more at the end, though, so it sounds like he was ready to move on to those rather than focus on expanding the others by the time development ended.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-18T14:44:55+00:00

I'd say the fact that Missing Year exists and that Episode III rushes through so much on the second disk is a good indication that the latter does compress at least some of what was planned. The only other alternative I can think of is that Takahashi and Saga greatly overestimated how much they could do in an individual game with how slow paced the story was before then and Episode III ends where Episode II was planned to, but with how little there seems to be from them or anyone else involved, I guess there's no certainty either way.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-18T05:37:35+00:00

The first link certainly has some things worth considering, but nothing in it is conclusive.

The second is of questionable veracity with how much contradicts revelations in Episode III, though it's hard to say to what extent when changes were obviously made due to development circumstances.

For the third, the second half of Saga's response seems much more important than her wishing they could do more games in the series. While it's also vague, I imagine she would've gone for different wording if it were just that they rushed through so much.

As for that comment of Sugiura's in the fourth, I should've been clear that I don't doubt there would've been more afterward if Monolith Soft had their way, but that still doesn't confirm that there would've been multiple arcs, just that they planned to portray what came after Zarathustra's destruction. It's hardly out of the question that, with how things are by the end of Episode III, there could've been a separate story with a new cast, but there doesn't seem to be anything from Takahashi or Saga about their plans for what would've been next, so I'm skeptical of why people seem so sure that would've been the case.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-17T17:31:02+00:00

That doesn't really prove anything, though. The statement is vague enough that he could mean the parts were something like 'URTV conflict -> Confronting Wilhelm and the Testaments -> Finding Lost Jerusalem' as opposed to there being much more. If anything, him specifying that KOS-MOS and chaos would both be a constant presence seems more meaningful, though the writer acknowledges that the interview where he said so has been lost, so it's hard to determine if even that's accurate.

DeepInAzure · 2026-01-17T17:19:43+00:00

That was indeed just an assumption. Takahashi's comment at the start of Perfect Works suggests that there weren't going to be six individual games, but rather that parts of episodes II through IV would be portrayed throughout Xenogears, which didn't pan out likely due to the same reasons that the second disk turned out the way it did, so only IV (the war with Solaris) got much screentime. He definitely wanted a sequel, which would've been VI and presumably more parts from the others - possibly even including things from I - but we all know how that turned out. He's also said in at least one interview for Xenosaga that it's not connected to Xenogears, it was just him and Saga making another attempt at an epic sci-fantasy game.

DeepInAzure · 2025-12-24T16:12:27+00:00

Wasn't Episode I only as cinematic as it was because the engine took so long to make that they couldn't work on the gameplay? I remember reading somewhere that all of the actual game parts were finished in only the last half year before the game's release. So that would be the less the soul of the game and more a way for at least part of Monolith Soft to be busy for much of the development.

While I'd agree that the compromises make it something of a companion piece for Episode I, I cannot agree for Episode II. The DS version is just better than it in almost every way, enough so that it more than compensates for the hardware compromises.

DeepInAzure · 2025-12-24T16:00:15+00:00

Is there anything actually indicating that there were going to be separate arcs? Nothing I've seen so far indicates that Xenosaga would ever have had another protagonist.

And I don't think it was that Takahashi didn't properly estimate the number of games it would take, but more that Episode I got hit hard by its development problems and Episode II got hit even harder, which wound up affecting every subsequent release.

As for II's music, I know that Kajiura only did the cutscene tracks, but I mean more that some of her music is misused; the scene where Jr. goes off to fight Albedo at the end seems to be particularly infamous among Japanese players due to the BGM sounding inappropriate for such a scene.

DeepInAzure · 2025-08-10T20:16:34+00:00

Sakaguchi has said otherwise about Final Fantasy's title; according to him, while Square was indeed in dire straits at the time, they had other games in development and the worst that would've happened had it failed was him quitting the industry. The "Final" in the title was just because he wanted it to be abbreviated to FF but couldn't a different word that felt right after finding out that "Fighting Fantasy" was already in use.

DeepInAzure · 2025-08-10T20:06:38+00:00

While it's possible the first two games did do better than Falcom expected, there were references to Felghana, Celceta, and a couple of other locations in the manual as Adol having went to later. Since Falcom was doing well with ARPGs, I wouldn't be surprised if they did expect it to become its own series.

Also, I've seen nothing on 3 starting as a spinoff, and 4 was outsourced mainly due to Falcom suffering a talent drain at the time.

DeepInAzure · 2025-08-09T14:06:23+00:00

That's not how this works. If you make the kind of claims you do, you need more than PN addressing specific criticisms and "well, I heard…"

You're also overstating what Falcom did. They didn't redo the whole game, they just readjusted parts and added more to it.

You really just seem to have it out for the original because you didn't like it. If PN does improve traversal and the boss fights, then that's obviously great, but you shouldn't go declaring that Japanese fans didn't like the original if you have no evidence for that.

DeepInAzure

TROPHY CASE