Sorry for the dips in audio quality on this episode! We're investing in some new equipment that should make future episodes both faster to edit and more consistent across the board! Thank you for supporting our channel and making this happen. Check out TJ's channel here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l5-HjNalldCdkZc.html&ab_channel=TJTheEmperor Check out Symfonikev here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ptuFnaihlZqrl2Q.html&ab_channel=symfonikev

Timestamps: 1. Intro (0:00) 2. Introduction of the special guest (0:10) 3. TJ's motivation for creating an in-depth retrospective on the Xenosaga triology (1:05) 4. Availability, ports and fan translations (5:22) 5. Explaining the concept of the podcast (8:10) 6. The early career of Tetsuya Takahashi at Squaresoft (11:00) 7. Tetsuya Takahashi co-founds Monolith Soft (24:40) 8. What is Xenosaga and where does it fit in the larger Xenoverse? (32:34) 9. Minor spoiler for the ending of Xenogears (34:46) 10. cont. (35:24) 11. The importance of Kaori Tanaka (36:51) 12. The overambitious nature of Xenosaga and its impact on Takahashi and Tanaka (39:05) 13. Why did Monolith Soft restructure after Xenosaga Episode I? (56:25) 14. Key developers and staff on the Xenosaga triology (1:05:00) 15. Differences in directorial style between Xenosaga Episode I and II (1:15:49) 16. Takahashi returns for Xenosaga Episode III (1:22:08) 17. Monolith Soft finds a new publisher and Xenoblade Chronicles (1:31:53) 18. Xenosaga engine only completed six months before release (1:34:42) 19. Evolution of character faces throughout the Xenosaga triology (1:37:45) 20. The story of the podcast outro song (1:41:01) 21. Yasunori Mitsuda and the music of Xenosaga (1:44:57) 22. Where to play to for next two episodes (1:48:36) 23. Outro (1:51:16)

Watching Tetsuya Takahashi bludgeon the gaming world with Xeno games until the world finally loved them, has made me smile. Seeing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 being talked about online the same way FF games used to probably makes him smile.

I had no idea Takashashi had that much pull, the dude really could've been a cult leader if he wanted to. We're lucky he just wants to make games lol.

As the current Xenosaga speedrun Any% World Record holder... I AM SO HYPE FOR THIS.

God bless you for jumping into this series after doing 84 episodes on Xenogears. I don't catch every episode, but I want to say it's really classy (and smart) that you bring in other KZfaqrs that have done their own retrospectives on these games so they get the credit and hits they deserve.

This episode was absolutely phenomenal. TJTheEmperor is such a great addition to the team, and I think this has to be by far one of my favorite episodes on the podcast, especially with regard to how interesting the dev history of Xenosaga was overall. It really gave me a sense of Tetsuya Takahashi’s insatiable ambition as a creator, and gave credit to the extremely underrated Kaori Tanaka / Soraya Saga for her work in the Xenosaga franchise as well. I love the idea of having an additional guest who is familiar with the work in question to come on for games that both Mike and Casen haven’t played yet, and I hope to see TJTheEmperor come on more times if he is willing and able to. Kudos to everyone involved; you guys are seriously killing it with the quality of your content.

This channel is so underrated

I was not expecting this and am super excited. I'll miss Fei and them but time to explore the second attempt by the Xeno team.

After hearing about how ambitious the story for the xeno universe is I cant help but compare it to Yu Suzuki and his work on Shenmue. Having planned out several installments ahead of time and even having work intended for the first game end up on the 2nd. I think it might be interesting topic for a deep dive for you guys. I mean the development history portion is right there from it originally being a virtua fighter rpg to Yu Suzukis crazy ideas for what his kind of roleplaying game would look like.

It's pretty wild that I JUST started playing xenosaga on a whim, completely unaware of this impending podcast.

My favorite RPG of all time- i know it had its problems, but to me it will always be perfect. The depth these characters had was awe inspiring and it truly made me feel something unlike other games had.

I just finished playing through Xenogears while watching your earlier podcast! It was such a fun experience and I am super excited to hear what you guys have to say about Xenosaga! I've beaten this already, so it'll be nice to kick back and enjoy this one each week. Keep up the great work guys, you're always the highlight of my day!

Soraya Saga seems to be working on personal manga projects now, trying to get something published, so I think she's focused on taking her writing and artistic talents, and putting it into something smaller and with a lot less business politics. She's still married to Takahashi personally, but it seems she doesn't care about big budget projects anymore. She wants smaller stuff. Its why she worked on Pied Piper and Soma Bringer.

Every time I hear about Xenosaga's development I slowly but surely get heated, I remember coming acros Kos-Mos' design where it showed her with wings in like a gaming magazine or something similar when I was young and being immediately taken by her. Hell for little me that may have been my first crush or at least the first time I felt such infatuation with art. So yeah I get a little aggravated. THEN you guys brought up FF15 and I REMEMBER the original trailers of Noctis less than an hour in I was already SEETHING. Thanks for the video guys appreciate it.

HOLY CRAP ITS FINALLY HAPPENING. After all these years I’ve been a viewer, back when you were still Dark Pixel and had Casen’s brother on the team I have been hoping you’d cover this game someday. Thank you so much Mike!!!

Takahashi and his team's work is a major source of creative inspiration for me. These guys are insane.

Really really excited for this one. There just aren’t a whole lot of discussions about Xenosaga out there. Thanks as always for all your fantastic work.

Really stoked for this series. I kinda get where he's coming from but still don't fully agree that video games are a bad medium for story telling, it's just a much bigger challenge to manage. It goes into the statemnet about the importance of maps vs story. In a book you only have to discribe the setting and whats happening, in manga or anime you draw it out and such, but in a game you have to make the environment interactive. How successful you are at making that entertaining is going to directly affect people's take on the game as a whole, but additionally its a huge creative/time constraint in an environment of strict deadlines. I Agree that he probably wouldn't stand by that statement now. I used to think that characters where the most important aspect in storywriting in such years ago but there have been a few things since then where I absolutely hate every character but was so drawn into the world and where the story could go that I kept watching (Sword Art Online probably the biggest example of this).

Krelian confirms a multiverse at the end of Xenogears. Xeno games are all in that multiverse with a shared higher dimension/upper domain.

Yesssss! Xenosaga deserves more recognition despite its dips in quality on occasion. I'm really looking forward to hearing what y'all think about it.

HOORAY SOMEONE IS FINALLY TALKING ABOUT THESE MASTERPIECES

That's a nice touch Casey... I will support that game "Takahashi's Ambition"

Great to see someone covering this overlooked and underrated JRPG series. I’m a longtime fan of Xenosaga, so if it’s okay I’d just like to make a small clarification/correction (assuming I didn't misinterpret what you guys were saying): Episode 1 wasn’t 20% of the plan for that game itself; it was 20% of the complete story of the first arc in Takahashi’s epic, aka Shion’s arc, which was originally supposed to be told in Episodes 1+2, with the second arc being told in Eps 3+4 and the third and final arc in Eps 5+6. But ultimately we only got Shion’s arc, 1/3 of the complete picture, and it ended up requiring three episodes/games instead of just two as originally planned. Regarding the restructure in the development team for the series after Episode 1, personally I’m not sure “Takashi wanted it to happen” would be the best way to describe it; I’d say “Takahashi went along with it” would be a more strictly accurate description, since there’s little available information on and insight into Takahashi’s thoughts and feelings during the whole thing. However, it’s the exact opposite with his wife, Soraya Saga, who was very outspoken during the restructure, since she was removed from the project altogether despite being one of the co-authors of the story and the lead writer for Episode 1. And thanks to all the evidence we have from her firsthand account of the process, once again I personally don’t think it’s entirely accurate to call it a "debunked rumor" that there was meddling from higher-ups that prevented Takahashi and Saga from fulfilling their vision. Yes, there was no meddling on _Namco’s_ part, as Soraya Saga herself made clear with her statement on Namco being very supportive and allowing: "The parent company has been kind enough to allocate reasonable budgets, development times, and promotional campaigns for the series. I've been grateful to them for their help." But Soraya Saga kept a blog at the time and she made numerous posts on the changeover in the series and its staff after Episode 1, and she made it very clear that she was removed from the project against her wishes and was deeply hurt by that, going as far as to state that (she wrote this herself in English as she is fairly fluent in it): “No offense to anyone or anything. But you would know how it depresses your feeling, if you lost an egg you've been hatching for so many years. I had been really looking forward to see a flight of our dreams.” So while there was no meddling from Namco, one of the co-authors and lead writers was still kicked from the project against her wishes by the higher-ups at Monolith Soft itself (and yes, those included Takahashi himself, Saga's husband, which is indeed weird, but perhaps like you guys speculated he couldn't prevent that due to it being a group decision). If you’re interested in reading more about this, I highly recommend checking out the article “The History of Xenosaga” on the Xenogears & Xenosaga Study Guide website: xenogearsxenosagastudyguide.blogspot.com/p/the-history-of-xenosaga.html I was part of the forum community of this website back when it still had one and the creator of this Study Guide did an amazing job compiling information from virtually all the materials and interviews ever released about the games and their development. And honestly, the story of the Xenosaga series’ development is almost as interesting and dramatic as the story of the games themselves, so I do think it’s worth checking out. Btw, another small correction, Norihiko Yonesaka, who became the lead writer for episodes II and III, did have a writing position in Episode 1: he wrote the scenario for the game’s sidequests. Last but not least, on a more personal note, I’d just like to say that not every Xenosaga fan _hates_ Episode II. It had a lot of problems, but personally I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as TJ makes it out to be (especially story-wise; the combat system _was_ pretty messy), and I hope Mike and Casen are still able to go into it with an open mind and without too many preconceived notions derived from TJ’s rather damning assessment of it. But yes, as Mike said, it’s good to keep in mind that Episode 3 is incredible (in the eyes of many, anyway, myself included) if you’re underwhelmed while playing Episode 2, or even Episode 1, to be honest, since again I personally disagree with TJ’s appraisal of it. It’s basically a 40 hour prologue and it very much feels that way. It’s very slow paced and barely gets anywhere story-wise (remember, it only covered 20% of the complete picture), consisting largely of setup, exposition, and worldbuilding, with very little in the way of payoff. Not to say I didn’t like it, but yeah, IMO episode 3 is very much what makes the whole trilogy truly worthwhile. It nailed everything from the art style to the combat system, and despite the messy development history of the series, it somehow still managed to conclude the story in a pretty satisfying manner and provided incredible payoff to all the build up from the first two episodes. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy the ride because I’m sure you’ll be on it for a few months at the very least, haha.

OMG can't believe Mike Agreed to do this one. After Xenogears I thought it would be years before they dared tip their feet back into this series. This is one of my favorite games of all time, and while I usually have trouble keeping up w/ Mike and Casen's schedule for these retrospectives (having a job eats up a lot of play time) I gonna make a concerted effort this time. So excited to hear their thoughts on the game (and maybe the series).

I've been listening to every Yasunori Mitsuda soundtrack looking for the outro for like two months. Thanks for solving this mystery

Played this game in high school. This game blew my mind. Also lots of good laughs from the English voice acting. But still even beyond that I loved episodes 1 & 2.

This is really about to be a Xenosaga

LET'S GO, GOOD LUCK BOYS, MY fav game series rn

You guys have never played these games? o_0. Well prepare for probably the most over the top ambitious project ever created at the time of its development. It was so FAR ahead of its time in terms of its presented storytelling visual medium.

oh dude I just finished xenogears a few months ago in prep for xenoblade 3 and binge watched your entire series on xenogears and that’s how i discovered your channel. now that i’m done with xenoblade 3 i’ve been meaning to play saga and this gives me BIG reasons to play it asap. Very excited you guys are continuing the xeno series.

Oh my god, I was so eager for you to cover this series as you did with xenogears. This is gonna be amazing

If I remember correctly from the relevant Iwata Asks, Takahashi and Tanaka hired Yuichiro Takeda and workshopped the Xenoblade plot with them, but they were still intimately involved in the writing. As for the game design and scene direction, I've never seen anything that says who did what on that.

I love Xenosaga so much. Personally resonated with it so much more than Xenogears. Shion is one my favorite protagonists of all time.

Yes! Finally! Pretty sure if you guys plan to do all three that this podcast list is going to be about 100 episodes long.

I'm glad you guys are covering Xenosaga! It's going to be a fun one with both of you playing it for the first time. The problem with Xenosaga is that it was pitched as a rival to Final Fantasy. Even though episode 1 was successful, it wasn't nearly as successful as they wanted it to be. Then they wanted to appeal to a wider audience with episode 2 which was a huge misstep. I don't blame Takahashi's ambition. They should have stuck with quality over mass appeal. The two rarely, if ever, can go together. I think it's the biggest tragedy in gaming that we didn't get the remaining 2 story arcs of Xenosaga. It's great that Monolith Soft finally found success with Xenoblade but it just doesn't compare.

Game engines help speed up some aspects of development, but you can never, ever just drop in your graphics and run it. Not in 2002, not in 2022. Also, you don't have to stop gameplay development while the graphics are being finished. You're always working on graybox material. With that in mind, making your own engine does add a lot of work.

Awesome that you guys got to XenoSaga after it got sidelined from a couple Patreon polls, I'm super excited to go through the story this in depth after my playthrough a couple years ago. I'd reccomend checking out a channel called Miiks for some multi hour Xeno analysis as well. That guy also has a deep dive analysis that is favored by your guest this episode. Praise the Monolith!

Yes Xenosaga! Thank you for talking about this great game! It's always overshadowed by blade and gears but I love Saga so much

Loved the bit about Mitsuda! I just assumed the song was a piece from xenogears that I didn’t remember. So funny!

I love your podcast guys, I've been following you since the FFXV days. Keep up the good work!

It is kind of soothing to go over the history of Takahashi/Tanaka/Monolith again after playing Xenoblade 3. No spoilers by any means, but it seems like the guy is able to finally put out something that he intends in the way he wants without being too compromised with this new series. He has achieved a medium point between telling a story in a expanding universe while each one remains "it's own thing", so he doesn't get tired of doing always the same and comercially, its success does not rely on playing whatever iterances of the saga came before. Each Xenoblade, althought thematically connected, is completely different in tone, what it tries to achieve and how it does it. And I bring this up because Xenoblade 3 specifically deals with the themes of previous failure and "what happened before, however it happened, has paved the way for us today and its valuable even if it ends". And it is difficult to not think of it as a sort of "meta" aspect in its narrative. With that said, I don't even know if you we'll read this but your Xenogears series was many times one of the highest points each week in a year of ups and downs, so I'm really happy and eager to follow you on this journey again.

So excited you guys are doing Xenosaga!

Can't wait for the rest of the series! Your analysis videos are amazing. That's something we really need.

YES! Finally more Xeno. I’m shocked you guys were willing to sit down to do this after the insanity that was your Xenogears series.

That is so cool! I just finished Xenogears 3 Monts ago and had a blast with your Podcast und after finishing Xenoblade 3 I decided to play Xenosaga now and then I see this.

No better feeling than going on KZfaq and finding a video from you guys about some banger old rpg.

Oh my god! I don't know why I didn't get a notification for this. Stupid youtube. I've been waiting for this since the podcast began. You guys kept bringing it up on voting and I didn't think people would ever vote it to be done. This is one of my favorite JRPG series of all time. I really hope you guys like it. I'm looking forward to your standard deep dive into Xenosaga! This should be good!

ついにゼノサーガやってくれた!! ありがとうございますっ!!待ってました!!

Takahashi has ambition of a universe creating author. The reality is that telling a story via a video game or movie takes a lot more resources and time unlike a book that uses the readers mind to process information. It takes a special kind of person to decide what content to keep or throw away when your passionately invested. BTW, I can't wait to be reading Mike's future novel!

So glad you're doing this game:) Thanks for explaining the outro music, I've somehow missed all the other times you've explained it.

Great episode guys! Jumping the gun quite the tad here but I see Resonant Arc's final episode on Xenoblade 3 in 2030. Analyzing the conclusion of the story of Perfect Works, and seizing our destiny!

I’m excited for this one, XenoSaga holds a lot of nostalgia for me.

Omg!!! Thank you for this analysis guys, I've been watching your content non stop!!! The Xeno games are my favorites :D

The Xeno saga continues... Truly a momentous occasion.

I listened to the pod so just commenting for the Algorythm gods, great EP everyone, need to check those videos now

This video came out at just the right time! I had played Xenosaga Episode 1 way back when it first came out, but I never did manage to get around to playing the other two episodes. But in the past couple months I finally decided to play through the trilogy and I'm currently about half way through Episode 3 now. Such a great set of games and I'm loving these podcasts!

Man am I excited for this! Your Xenogears and FFX Analysis are just insanely good. Now with another of my favorites with Xenosaga. This will be so great.

It’ll be excited to see some first time reaction to stuff. It’s very rare to see discussion to Xenosaga in general and discuss what is actually going on. Looking forward to it!

I am blown away. After my beloved Xenogears comes Xenosaga. Legends!

I only just started the series from Mid Oct, and finished it 2 weeks ago, I'm so happy to have found your channel while my memories are still fresh!

Oh man, this is going to be amazing! Thanks for making and uploading this! I really wish this trilogy was on PS5 and Switch physically. We need to "operation Rainfall" a remaster trilogy for this.

Considering how phenomenal your careful step-by-step dissection of Xenogears was, I am so stoked for this.

Whoa!!! AWESOME. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

LETS GOOOOO Xenogears podcast is now one of my favorite things on the internet. Was phenomenal to watch during my first playthrough. Now Xenosaga, as I’m playing Xenosaga, fr thank you guys.

Gentlemen, this was a fantastic episode. TJ was a phenomenal guest, I was riveted. I'm also happy because normally, if I have any interest in playing a game, I'll have to skip media related to it until I play it myself first and form my own thoughts on it independent of any influence. I've reluctantly had to skip several of your podcast series because I either haven't played the game yet but plan to, or I can't play along with the book club format at that moment. But, in this case, I have basically no way to play these games. So I'll be experiencing this story as you present it, and I'm fine with that. Can't wait for episode 2!

Im so excited to see you guys covering xenosaga! I just played xenogears for the first time a couple of months ago and listening to the podcast alongside it really enriched my experience - cant wait to do the same with saga!

Been waiting a long time for this one, this is one of the first ps2 jrpgs I ever played and it absolutely blew my mind as a teenager when I played it in 2003. It was like playing through a sci-fi space opera. I still have all three of my Xenosaga ps2 games, I hope a remaster comes one day.

WHAAAAAAAAT omg, I love that you guys are playing this!!! It’s going to be such a joy listening to you pick this apart. I love Xenogears and Xenosaga is just as near and dear to my heart!

Welcome back to Xeno hell Mike and Casen

Just got done with your xenogears series, so hype to dive into Xenosaga!!!

holy shit, I can't believe you picked this game next. I have been watching the Xenogears series you guys made and have loved it. I was hoping you would do a -saga set as it was my favorite. Thank you so much for devoting so much of your time to creating these wonderful in-depth documentaries.

Wow! Back into the Xeno universe! Looking forward to this and hopefully covering the Xenoblade series next.

Woho! I’ve been waiting for you to eventually cover Xenosaga. Thank you! I love the game series. It’s still one of my favorite series of games and Episode III is my favorite game of all time.

It's really interesting to contrast the careers of Tetsuya Takahashi and Hideo Kojima and what they have both managed to accomplish. I can only imagine the games we would be playing had Takahashi managed to follow the same route within Square. As it is, he still managed to make what I'd consider to be the best story of all time in Xenogears.

First reactions especially from people like you who know so much has been awesome. Casen in Xenogears, 5 seconds in calling out stuff extremely accurately was SO fetchin awesome and educational. I think it added a lot. I'm not worried at all. Actually makes me more excited.

This epsiode was peerrrrrfect dudes, absolute quality from start to end fantastic conversation giving tons of insight from the devs through interviews and facts that really influenced the development really great speaking TJ, I'm often wary of collaborations even between creators I like because its not guaranteed that there'd be a chemistry between them but this was smooth as butter to listen to. Tons of great insight and research on both sides, and especially with Mike and Casen having not played this game before. I would say having TJ on as much as possible for this game is a must! and THANK YOU for shouting out the viewer that rearranged that piece Mitsuda made, not only for enabling me to listen to the song, but they are extremely talented. I stopped the podast to listen to more of their songs and by god every single piece, original or cover, has been an absolute pleasure to listen to while I was working. Frankly, you should keep that link in the description for all your videos so that more people can find your intro/outro song and ferry more views and subs to symfonikev! This epsiode has really made me confident in subscribing to your subscribestar, keep up the good work!

Xenosaga (counting the trilogy as one collective game) is my favorite game of all time, I'm really looking forward to hearing what your thoughts on the series!

*SPOILERS* *AHEAD* great episode! Even though I played Xenogears and loved it thoroughly, looking forward to Xenosaga 1 was dubious, particularly looking at early character renders. Keep in mind back in the day a JRPG in particular was a mystery in terms of information for fans in N.America, so who was directing or anything would have been a bonus if at all known. The game looked plasticy in the magazines. But XS1 exceeded all my expectations out of the gate with Mitsuda's score and Takahashi's brutal cut to 4000 years ahead, what three minutes in? I love the battle system (never use the mechs) and in terms of storytelling it hit all the marks for me Of course XS2 is a different thing; it retreads a lot of XS1 and shows a lot that XS3 *will* feature. Its battle system is *extremely* linear. But it does correct very well towards the end. The character models are an unfortunate downgrade, not stylistically but functionally. Animations are stilted, let's say due to a technological learning curve, but the game does suffer for it. A much better compromise is reached in XS3 and we're all better for it

Oh my god I can't contain the excitement for this series

I've been waiting for this since Xenogears. I can't wait!

OMG!!! I was feeling a hole ever since the end of Xenogears analysis… i’ll be here for every second of this journey. And Emperor will also see me on his channel

I didn't know you guys were doing this and I literally JUST replaced my PS2 and bought HDMI cable converters and a new controller for it in prep for another run through the trilogy. This is impeccably well timed for me.

IT'S TIME! I've been waiting on this one after Xenogears :)

Somewhere cares about Xenosaga?! I’m excited! Glad I found this!

I've been waiting for this! :)

I was so obsessed with these games as a teenager and remember endlessly speculating about the connections to the original franchise. Even when I was younger, I knew the series was very flawed, but the world and themes always hooked me anyway. The history lesson here was really eye-opening and definitely puts the wavering quality of these games into perspective. So glad you guys are finally covering Xenosaga and grats on a phenomenal opener 👍

Can't wait for Xenoblade 3 analysis podcast!!!!

I am SO down for this analytical podcast covering Xenosaga. Hopefully this lead to Xenoblade Chronicles being analyzed!

Looks up Miiks for another excellent analysis of Xenosaga.

Been looking forward to this since your first Xenogears Episode!

It ha begun! So excited!

Really excited for this. The Xenogears one was great, so this should be a fun ride too.

MIKE - your bit there on how what you're doing is supposed to go beyond youtube to inform devs about feedback to lead to better games is fantastic. Well done that man.

cool. cant wait for discussion of story

I only just found this channels's Xenogears analysis (on a few eps in), and kept thinking "I so want a Xenosaga analysis like this" and it's HERE. *vibrates* Will be a while till I can get to this, but I am so glad that it is happening!

Man i love this game so much and there is so little chatter about it on the internet. So glad you guys are covering this one.

Finally! Been waiting on this! I legit paused this vid and watched all of TJ's videos on the spot. EDIT: WOW, you helped with Operation Rainfall? DUDE, thank you so much. I was UTTERLY INVESTED at the time and hoping it would succeed. When it was announced that it would finally be brought over, the hype was off the charts. I must have reread and rewatched everything about the game that summer a hundred times. And when it did, OH MAN what an experience Xenoblade was.

oh man this is so exciting. i recently managed to get my hands on a physical copy of saga 3 after hunting for a decent deal for over least a year now. cannot wait to come back to the xenogears videos and now these too after playing!!

Yo, great to see TJ on here!