Continued from Part 1...
109. Alright I legit love the Thames as a location and all, but wow, no real regulations on drinking. These people are the real pirates, not those fakers on the Yggdrasil.
110. Also the dramatic clashes of "Men! Of the sea!" can only get so cool until it suddenly just isn't cool anymore.
111. Coincidence Yggdrasil under attack followed by coincidence reunion of separated characters who join in battle. Also major coincidence that Vierge and Weltall got their repairs just in time.
112. So, Elly and her former five cohorts are considered Shepherds or -Abel-, while anyone not on Solaris and on the continents below are the surface-dwellers or -Lambs-, meaning they are under both Solarians and Shepherds. Yet Dominia decides to be offensive by saying both -Abel- and -Lambs- are the exact same. As if we needed enough offensiveism in this already confusing game.
113. More cutscene crap follows where villain manages to take female lead character even after beating the boss.
114. I often question why Bart would consider himself "Bart the Immortal" but then I remember he gets s*** dumped on him no less than three times already and it won't be the last.
115. Also just how did there end up being an almost exact replica of the Yggdrasil underneath some cave system after the first Yggdrasil sank? And then they made it into a real submarine? I can't follow any of this.
116. Miang can do Jedi mind tricks to confuse someone under her to just shut up.
117. We also have the whole "eyes" cliche which is just so f***ing annoying.
118. Hypnotized Elly uses the same trick Rico pulled off last time and just tells an engineer a superior wants to see him while not actually questioning why a random woman is in the engine room unauthorized.
119. Ramsus is defeated for the third time, although this one happens in cutscene but not before critically injuring Fei in the same manner.
120. The world of Xenogears isn't entirely that marred in fantasy, more with the sci-fi stuff. So quite frankly, the fact that Jessie has to go shopping with Primera on the Thames in the middle of the ocean means he's limiting his options rather oddly. Also he's clearly from Solaris like Citan so naturally he would have had quite a few supplies from up there too.
121. I'm pretty sure Bart has the capabilities of piloting the Yggdrasil at any point in time, so why oh why do we need to fetch a drinking Sigurd to get his ass back there?
122. Squaresoft once again puts in tutorials for stuff that isn't really all that necessary. For Billy we just have to watch his ammo counts.
123. Now we go to the Billy arc of Xenogears, starting with a flashback involving his mother's death, Primera being mute, Jessie being a general jackass and of course it gets worse from there. But still, flashback again.
124. I wonder how an entire orphanage full of kids manage to allow Billy to remote-operate Renmazuo without at least one kind of accident. Also think of the potential bills and repair costs of using that thing.
125. Really? A cape?
126. Wels are like these zombie things that are basically humanoid as we will eventually see in Disc 2 when people start mutating inexplicably. So what's the deal with the so-called Giant Wels? Is it some humongous demi-human that is about the size of a gear? And what the heck is with the Ether attacks enlarging it? This is yet another thing that is never really explored.
127. Church has civil disputes and ends up being corrupt with your token priest friend discovering the truth cliche.
128. "In short, it's like this" Elly then proceeds to talk about something that isn't short and is barely worth remembering until the plot demands it.
129. Verlaine somehow makes an even bigger monologue that players will snore through.
130. And so does Bishop Stone. I'd rather have people start shooting already, but due to the obvious fact it's a cutscene, you don't see bullets fly unless they hit non-important people. So Jessie doesn't even get to shoot the bishop then and there.
131. You just had to shoot the Thames, didn't you? Also the dumb fishbowl airship and the Gazel Ministry rambling...hey what's this? Another villain being introduced? My god, like we needed more of them already.
132. The most useless Grahf scene, him just sitting in the ocean with his gear. Totally unnecessary and Grahf doesn't even have a line.
133. Bringing Elly to Zeboim will naturally give her a PTSD moment with her own blood being on the floor and her muttering s***.
134. Yet another moment of sheer cutscene retardation, Your group reaches the troll doll thing first, Bishop Stone soonafter, then they just sort of let the bad guys take the troll doll without any fighting.
135. Clearly all of the Elements are nothing but anime girl-cliches all wrapped in four characters.
136. I would love to point out that Stone clearly had what Id wants back, but apparently trying to ask who the diabolical maniac is is somehow more offensive and leads to a completely unnecessary fight with Id, even though Stone was more a primary target in all cases.
137. Stone still runs away with the damn troll doll.
138. We never see Id thrashing Wiseman and his gear so we all know he survives this.
139. Another hammy Grahf scene. Also Stone apparently received a "body" from Krelian in what can only be some sort of botched way to "cure" humanity, note the quotes. That never works out and should honestly stop being such a villainous motive. Even Grahf notes that the body is clearly fake and wants none of it even if he grants power to Alkanshel.
140. Another flashback, bonus points for being in the middle of a boss battle. Major dick move to have one there.
141. With all the gun control debates over tragedies in the past few years, it's pretty clear that Jessie and his son are divided on that issue. But it's not like that gets explored.
142. So the Gazel Ministry people are just basically like Arnim Zola then. This...doesn't really explain anything worthwhile.
143. Remember that gears can fly? With thrusters? Come on Xenogears, there's no excuse for a platforming tower dungeon.
144. Also clearly the prologue apparently decided to be relevant again for just a minute before fading into obscurity thereafter.
145. Fourth times a charm right? Not for Ramsus. Dude just needs to retire already at this point. Also Shevat ex machina.
146. You would think that none of the machines inside the prologue ship, which is now the Babel Tower, would stay operational after lots and lots of years.
147. One of the most dastardly things about Maria and Seibzehn is that Maria is never in the cockpit of that particular gear. She's always standing outside on its head. Even in battle. How does Maria not get knocked off the outside of the gear is beyond me.
148. Omnigears start getting mentioned as Elly apparently has the first Omnigear. But this is not even seen at any point in the game hereonafter despite multiple mentions.
149. Remember the spider web item from Lahan? Apparently it's strong enough to be used, of all things, to fish.
150. Square really did want to have a whole room full of furry creatures and have an expository one among them for really no good reason whatsoever.
151. Wiseman's diary apparently had Chuchu as his pet, not to mention all the moping about humanity. And you think he'd be a wonderfully good mysterious person.
152. Xenogears takes the whole carbonite freezing thing straight out of Star Wars.
153. So many things wrong with the Shevat dungeon, all monsters are gimmicks (one is even called a Gimmick), Maria is a required party member, and so many stairs, hallways, and random encounters. Square clearly wanted people to hate them with this one.
154. Oh for god's sake, another monologue, this time to set up Maria's actually boring arc.
155. Clearly Chuchu has suicidal overconfidence in order to fight the enemies all the adults want to fight.
156. Nikolai's introduction is stupid and hammy.
157. Achtzein does absolutely nothing while four gears try to defend four Shevat generators.
158. Oh, so it actually has an "anti-Gear Psycho Jammer". Which he could have used at any point while the other gears were fighting.
159. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single person who played Xenogears who didn't go "what the f***?" the moment Chuchu grew to a gear's size.
160. Nikolai then proceeds to say that Chuchu deserves to be a guinea pig for experiments, even after the boss fight.
161. Midori apparently runs to Maria, both children who for some reason are looking at the big bad Achtzehn just a few kilometers away from them that could decide to hurt them at any time. Then, Maria makes her way all the way back to where Seibzehn is located without any hitches along the way and just in time for the next boss fight.
162. Mercy kill cliche.
163. Plot then decides to detour from the invasion of Solaris to deal with a yellow bald guy who wants to invade the main church town, just to remind us that unfinished villains exist. I wouldn't be blaming players if they completely forgot about Shakhan either.
164. Elly's Omnigear mentioned, even though players won't see it.
165. What even is the whole deal with Limiters anyways? Oh so humans in Xenogears are all capable of doing completely inhumane stunts so we need to limit their abilities because we're elitists up in the sky Nazi town of Solaris. Heck, if they had more security on the Limiters so that some sage like Gaspar doesn't remove them, they'd pretty much curb-stomp our heroes flat.
166. Bart once again can't come up with any decent names and decides to go with Roman numerals.
167. Liberating Nisan is a mix of exposition and just killing Aveh soldiers, with most of it exposition. We're really only concerned because the villain thinks about tearing out some dead woman's eyes.
168. Even though the shopkeeps are out of town due to the whole invasion thing, Fei still leaves money on the table in any particular case they come back. While they do, quite frankly it isn't as necessary as it should be.
169. The tomb itself has a s***load of stairs! My god! Do you think that anyone who is unable to climb up or even down these stairs can make it?
170. Of course villain waits for the heroes to reach the main treasure trove first before deciding to make his timely move.
171. Sheer cutscene retardation moment, Margie runs right past Shakhan and his goons even though the party has been surrounded on both sides. There should be no reason she made it past those guys.
172. So is Sigurd all of a sudden related to Bart now? Is everyone on the Yggdrasil gonna be related to him at some point? I get the eyepatches are nice signatures to the equation but still, things are weird.
173. Margie's leg got shot between scenes but she's obviously gonna make it out alive. I wonder who locked the Fatima Jasper thing though. Must've been her in efforts to get the Omnigear alone, but where the Omnigear is located is also where Shakhan had made his entrance before, so really there's no reason it should have been locked in the first place and Margie just had to haul ass to the Omnigear to get rid of everything before any of the bad guys got to her.
174. Elly's Omnigear mentioned once again, even though we never see it. Also Citan's big idea that the Omnigear is piloted with mind-control. This is just super silly and pretty much negates all aspects of actually piloting a robotic gear.
175. Fighting off the Neo-Etones actually would have been a lot more fun with just Andvari alone to be honest.
176. According to the translation, Fei and the gang have been in the Ignas Gate Cave before, so they act like they have just seen something there that wasn't there.
177. Shakhan's plan is so obviously not worthwhile. Nice cord dude, no way you can even bother getting a good hit in when your plug is so short. Have a feeling this is Squaresoft taking the piss once again on a minor character.
178. Grahf's power up abilities honestly feel more like death knells for the people he uses them on. Oh cool, power, doesn't really mean jack s*** when the party beats them anyways.
179. Accordingly it was Bart's father who wished that upon taking the throne, Bart has the dissolve the kingdom of Aveh and create a Republic. He's still got a boatload of crap to handle as the head honcho of Aveh and he never does any of it, instead helping Fei with Solaris and crap.
180. Bart asks Sigurd about his origins, may have dropped a slight ball, but it doesn't get mentioned ever again for the rest of the game.
181. Another wild theory from Citan, deflect a beam off of Babel Tower fired from Fort Jasper, and also that people who were at Babel Tower knew about such beam from Jasper and had that mirror in case of an extreme emergency attack.
182. Gazel Ministry does not just do confusing exposition, they also trash-talk Ramsus for failing over and over instead of deciding to kill him or replace him with someone better.
183. Uh yeah, that mirror's too damn small to work with. Also I'm pretty sure the beam that's supposed to go across the continent would just shatter the thing and cleave the tower in half.
184. Even Tolone knows the plan to reflect a beam is outrageous, and would have been worth a point off if it weren't for Seraphita talking about pull-ups for no real reason.
185. The rematch against the 2x2 Elements is cheap and there should be no reason they have healed up for a second bout. Or for that matter, our own gears not healing up for the rematch.
186. All of a sudden, Yggdrasil III cannot go into the deep ocean even though its previous incarnation was one. Come to think of it, that thing never even submerged once in the game.
187. Rattan has no significance in this entire plot.
188. After beating Crescens and unlocking the final Gate, the place blows up, but everyone still survives.
189. Emeralda is clearly on caffeine for the next scene and won't shut up.
190. Hahahahahaha, that's what Solaris looks like? A huge rod stuck in the ocean with a thin pole stretching well into the sky to some sky city that's supposedly bigger than Nortune and Shevat combined? This will certainly end well.
191. Maria would suffer asphyxiation from standing outside the gear all that time as it ascends higher up. Seriously, where is the cockpit on Maria's gear?
192. Skies of Arcadia did a much better job at an upside-down location and did it for much longer.
193. Fei then decides to do what Claude did at the beginning of Star Ocean 2 and get sucked in something and stuck for the next few minutes.
194. It's so obvious this is a Nazi city, where laborers have to work for their lives or they will die in a rather unique way. Also doesn't that guy technically fall upside down? What happens if he leaves Solaris' anti-gravity deal? Does he just splat on the hatch that opens and closes?
195. While he may look like Timothy, he isn't. What bothers me is that this Samson guy apparently knows Fei from the Aveh tournament yet there's not a single Timothy-looking dude there.
196. Also A New Hope gets ripped off when Samson impersonates a guard. Clearly he must've knocked one out when nobody's looking.
197. The security "cubes" which are actually guitar picks, are supposed to be using deadly force against any sort of renegade. But if caught in the stealth section, they simply are like the Hyrule Castle guards in Ocarina of Time.
198. Underground tech doesn't work, who would have thought?
199. Yeah, like bashing a machine with martial arts is gonna work. Alternatively, you could technically climb around the side, or just apparently stay really close to someone with a perfectly good ID? I don't follow any of this.
200. Seeing Krelian in public gives Fei a flashback to his previous life when Krelian's hair was blue.
201. Fei has the friendship mantle in his head and doesn't want to see his captured friends die so he throws a s*** fit in public over it.
202. Elly decides to unwind once the duo reaches her house. You know, in dire situations, you wouldn't be taking a shower scene. At least I won't complain about a shower being in the middle of the room with a opaqueness thing preventing people from looking. This is the future world after all.
203. What a nice and easy password for Elly to hack into her dad's computer. Yeah, the full name of your daughter backwards.
204. Erich somehow sees Fei's chivalry in protecting Elly so much that he decides to let him go.
205. In Elly's flashback, she takes advantage of cutscene retardation to run away from home despite all the Imperial Guards there.
206. You knew this was coming, Citan does absolutely nothing to tell either Elly or Fei about what they decide to eat until it was too late. Fei even gets a brief flashback out of the ordeal.
207. Oh goody gracious, now save points are being justified in the plot. What isn't at this point. My brain perhaps?
208. What is a gear doing in an Olympic swimming pool? Why do they even have that pool? And also what is with mentioning Elly's Omnigear in Shevat yet again?
209. Yeah, convert well and healthy creatures who are deemed lowest on the caste system into utter zombies. Although you technically brainswash upper-class citizens with Dedication ceremonies earlier.
210. How does Citan get no comments on his hologram? He has been on the opposing side of Solaris for quite some time, helping Fei every which way in order to get to Solaris, involving destruction of gates and beating down any Solaris supporters? He ought to be as much as a target as Fei is at this point.
211. Clearly Citan is Lando, even of course the numerous things I described earlier, but he has to take the way that makes him so Lando-ish.
212. S***loads of exposition folks! Lots of talking and helplessness! Also the Ministry doesn't seem to mind what Citan had been doing against them.
213. Elly's end of exposition involving Krelian makes even less sense.
214. Ramsus then comes in and obsesses over Fei in the wrong room.
215. Further Lando-ing along, Citan pretty much gets help from Bart and Billy, both of whom are in the same scene all of a sudden and not locked in a cage or in some trash dump. How did they get there I wonder? And what's this about a Limiter-you know what I'm not gonna bother following that.
216. Now is also the time when Citan decides to use a sword, but not now also because he leaves the party yet again.
217. Just say the magic word Fei to give Ramsus an aneurysm. Also he stays at the reactor as it blows up and survives.
218. There just so happened to be a random waiting room completely safe from Solaris protocol so the heroes and allies can just wait around in.
219. Oh but of course, when Xenogears decides that it just doesn't have enough villains, Hammer decides to be one. But he's far too delusional and a rookie to even consider working with Krelian.
220. Billy, Maria, to a lesser extent Rico and Bart, now Elly has to go through a drama bomb with people she cares about dying.
221. Also the Executioner apparently makes such short work of that gear which is completely different than how she deals with the party in the previous boss fight.
222. Ramsus loses and survives for the fifth time.
223. Again I must bitch about Etrenank's architectural design. It's a surprise how the damn thing manages to be sturdy enough for what it holds against anything with a metric ton of force.
224. Also despite Solaris exploding, pretty much every character with a picture will survive this.
225. Id goes down with the power of love.
226. Major flashback to explain the Fei/Id connection. Clearly Citan wanted answers without any bloodshed. At least this psychology lesson is more understandable to players, but players get bored with psychology.
227. Because of Id, Shevat goes delusional and is scheduling a full-blown Han Solo moment to out Fei without any way of compromise. Elly then proceeds to pull a Leia before the carbonite freezing, not before.
228. Oh so now the Gazel Ministry figures out Citan moled them? Come on guys.
229. Disc 1 finally ends on a pity party for Ramsus as he scores his first and only win. Also he clearly doesn't care that much about superior officials to him and only his own superiority complex.
To be continued in Part 3
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