And God said; "Let there be more Xeno..."

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February 2012

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[A.C]

...And there was more Xeno!








In the beginning there was Tetsuya Takahashi's XENOGEARS...









Then there was Tetsuya Takahashi's XENOSAGA...









Now Tetsuya Takahashi, Soraya Saga, and the good folks over at Monolith have announced their new upcoming RPG:












http://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/sx4j/index.html
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/01/29/xenoblade_official_site/

At first this fantasy action RPG was called "Monado: Beginning of the World". Monolithsoft have officially lost their minds.

[TheContact]

Ha, I was just about to post this!

We decided to call it XENOBLADE to honor Mr. Tetsuya Takahashi who poured his soul into making this and who has been working on the XENO series

[A.C]

So it's Nintendo who decided on the name.

[Nyuna]

I KNEW IT!!!!  XD

I mean, when I saw the first screenshots of it, had that sort of Xenogears' feeling to it. Besides, there was obviously a need for a proper trilogy of "Xeno"-Titles.   
(Seriously, if Square/-soft can stick its "Final Fanatsy" on everything and everywhere, let Takahashi his Xenos. ^^ )


Also, A.C., I honestly apllaud you for the dramatic build up-post! Bravo!

[kostjan]

Hmm.. I can picture how Monolith's marketing execs meeting went:

- We have a game about a fucked up sword that challenges the laws of physics and convention, and makes Cloud's sword look realistic... How do we name it, gentlemen?
- How about we keep it as you said, "Fucked Upu Nippon Swordu"?
- Nah.. We can't use such profanity in a title - our US market depends on those Wallmart sales and that E rating... Can we somehow paraphrase that?
- Umm... "Strange Japanese Swordu"?
- Getting there... getting there... Now we just need to make it sound a bit less lame...
- If I may.. I believe in ancient greek, prefix "xeno" means strange, foreign... Kinda like this sword..
- You, sir, are a genius!!! And we can even tie it up with our RPG franchise about strange nippon robotu..er.. I mean, mechas...  and milku some more money from fanboys and fangirls!!!

...

[Nyuna]

Kostya, I'm convinced that this is exactly how it happened! XD

[A.C]

That's the only way it could have happened, and after rewatching that early Monado trailer this Xeno-fan (if I can even call myself a "Xeno fan" anymore without being confused with the hype-whores and future wii gamers who may be interested in this unrelated thing) feels just a little bit sick...

*goes away to vomit*

[Nyuna]

Really? It's even that bad? Wow!  

- has seen only the few screenshots

[A.C]

Really? It's even that bad? Wow!  

In terms of selling out the Xeno brand, yes. Remember MSI was trying to create something completely new with Xenosaga, as an old interview put it:

The fact that Xenosaga is unlike any other RPG is very clear. It contains ingredients of a kind we’ve so-far never seen. The battle system, atmosphere and character design has an original touch that can’t be compared to either Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Or, as Tetsuya Takahashi describes it: "I don’t think there are any similarities at all with those franchises."

...Yet the Monado Xenoblade trailer gives off a traditional fantasy JRPG vibe. It may not end up being a bad game if you like that kind of thing, but I'm not really a gamer anymore as the only thing that held any interest left for me was the Xenoverse (or maybe I should start calling it the Saga/Gears-verse ) because it was so different, compelling and unlike anything else I've experienced from the gaming world.

[Nyuna]

Hm, I see your point there. But that makes me wonder, have you ever bothered to check out the Shin Megami Tensei franchise? I became a fan after playing Persona 2 exactly because of its urban flair. Admittedly, these games also have their fair share of "generic" mythology, but are also quite bizzar.

In any case, I'd love to see more really "urban/sci-fi" RPGs as well, and less of the typical "sword&sorcery" nonsense.

[A.C]

I've heard Shin Megami Tensei/Persona mentioned alot, and that they are supposedly very dark, philosophical, and complex, but I've checked out some Youtube vids and I didn't like the way it looked or sounded. Frankly, it looked like any garbage Anime that is made these days, and even the plot sounded like generic Anime, so I doubt I even would've checked it out if it was simply an Anime series.

Perhaps the game play is fun but when it comes to games these days I'm honestly more interested in the new old school looking Mega Man 9 and 10 than any of the cutting edge stuff.

[Surtur]

We decided to call it XENOBLADE to honor Mr. Tetsuya Takahashi who poured his soul into making this and who has been working on the XENO series

I bet Takahashi wouldn't even want them to do this, since it seemingly has nothing to do with the other Xeno games, rofl.

I don't really know what's happened to all these guys (Takahashi, Masato Kato, even Soraya Saga).  I mean, it's one thing for them to be making bad games, but they're making such boring generic games now (Masato Kato especially).  It's like they've lost all their imagination or ambition.  I didn't much like Xenosaga, but at least it was different.  The Xeno games felt like a breath of fresh air from other JRPGs, bad writing or not.  
There's a fan translation of Soma Bringer for the DS out (written by Soraya Saga and produced by Takahashi, so I thought, oh that could be interesting), and I tried playing it, but it's such a bland, unoriginal game.  Bleh.

I've heard Shin Megami Tensei/Persona mentioned alot, and that they are supposedly very dark, philosophical, and complex, but I've checked out some Youtube vids and I didn't like the way it looked or sounded. Frankly, it looked like any garbage Anime that is made these days, and even the plot sounded like generic Anime, so I doubt I even would've checked it out if it was simply an Anime series.

I've never really been able to get into any of the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona games either... except Digital Devil Saga.  I honestly think you might enjoy DDS too.  Definitely at least look it up on YouTube if you haven't already, and see what you think.  You're not gonna like it as much as Xeno, and it's far from perfect, but I found it pretty interesting and unique (for an rpg), and they're up there with my favorite RPGs for the PS2.

[A.C]

It's like they've lost all their imagination or ambition.

I've had the same feeling, and I always suspected that none of them would ever be able to make something truly great beyond Xenogears. Video gaming is a young medium, but it has a lot of similarity with cinema - and that is especially true for Takahashi who uses a very cinematic approach - which brings the following quote to mind:

"A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again."
- Jean Renoir

I guess it's true that most artists, filmmakers, writers and geniuses have only one truly great idea, or 'work', inside of them and the rest of their works only consist of new ways they can think of exploring/expanding on that same thing in different forms and variations. I haven't played Soma Bringer but it looks just like a generic Xeno wannabe in a more traditional fantasy setting. This is why I always held out hope that they would one day revive and continue the Xenosaga series, once they figured out how to do it right; because it is what they truly wanted to make. But now we get "Xenoblade" and despite Iwata claiming that Takahashi "poured his soul" into it and we see typical 'Hashi-style referencing in the Monado title and huge robots on the teaser site, it still looks incredibly bland and generic for a Takahashi/Xeno title; a lamer version of what has come before without the passion or momentum it once had (the unveiling of Xenosaga back in 2001 with the biblical passage followed by keywords and gregorian chanting was epic.)

[A.C]

Some update on this thing (game was released in Japan yesterday.)

The staff is different from the Xenogears/Xenosaga works. Story is by Tetsuya Takahashi but the script is by Yuichiro Takeda (see interview), a different director (Koh Kojima), a different composer (Yoko Shimomura), a different character designer, etc.

Takahashi also explained that to him "Xeno" has the meaning of "different nature" or "uniqueness". Basically a Xeno game is a game that tries something new and different from contemporary games.

There has been only one easter egg to past Xeno titles and that is Yasunori Mitsuda composing the ending song:

Xenoblade - Beyond the Sky (Ending Theme)

[TheContact]

Not really super impressed with the song   Feels like Mitsuda mailed it in.  Or maybe I just don't like the vocals that much.  It does remind me of Ben Folds Five's "Brick" from years ago at parts.  Probably just because of the piano.

I also find it funny that "xeno" means something different to Takahashi than its actual definition.  I hope he doesn't subject his staff to intending alternate meanings for his design directives