In 2003, I was just 11 years old, barely able to grasp some of the more “adult” concepts within the games I played. Final Fantasy, Xenogears, and Vagrant Story – the RPGs that dominated my early years were often far too intense for me to grasp some themes, but I could typically follow the overarching picture. When my hands almost seemed too small for controllers, I often turned to older cousins or neighbors to help me prepare for boss fights that expected me to have more patience and understanding than I did. But 2003 was different. On Christmas of that year, my mother let me pick out one game to buy – I chose Xenosaga. It changed how I looked at games, cementing itself as something special in my memories. And as an RPG so adventurous and bold for its time, I wish Bandai Namco would give it another chance.
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Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht released in a busy year of greats, surrounded by games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Final Fantasy 10-2, and Tales of Symphonia. The first episode still saw a strong debut as Monolith Soft asked for us to buckle up for a long journey, but after Episode 2’s reception, plans to make Xenosaga a six-episode series were cut in half, and the journey ended with Episode 3.
Looking back, Xenosaga was ambitious, especially considering its time. I could watch the entire Lord of the Rings Extended trilogy, and Xenosaga’s cutscenes would still be going. They’re long, voice acted, and packed with an onslaught of confusing lore dumps. If you play the first game and put yourself into those early ‘00s standards, I reckon its fate wouldn’t be so hard to predict. Even today, I struggle to name many RPGs that continue the same story for that long. Kingdom Hearts is probably the best example, peppered with a bit of that Square Enix and Disney that catapulted it into success.
Even though Xenosaga saw its end early, it’s endearing for a lot of the same reasons Kingdom Hearts is, too. Xenosaga is – and I say this with all of the love in the world – extremely up its own ass. If you loved opening Wikipedia and hundreds of tabs of lore videos on a Saturday night so you could understand why Riku is Ansem, Ansem is Xemnas, and everyone may be or may not be Xehanort – I have no idea – then you’ll love Xenosaga. It has a lot of the same appeal, but instead of Mickey, Jesus is there for some reason, and God is named U-Do. U-Do takes the form of a little boy at some point and visits the Lower Domain. No, I don’t expect you to understand any of that, even after playing it.
Jokes and jabs aside, all three mainline Xenosaga games were a brilliant adventure into the absurd. It’s full of space magic, beginning when humanity finds an ancient relic, the Zohar. The relic is actually just a big window to where God kind of lives, and when it’s uncovered, everyone scrambles to space because that was obviously a big ole mistake. Earth is eventually just referred to as Lost Jerusalem – because everything in Xenosaga is about subtly smashing its allegory into your face – and you’ll pick up in the first Episode thousands of years later. Ultimately, you’ll learn a lot of the main cast, either directly or indirectly, will have some sort of connection to those events.
Watching it all unfold is certainly a trip, and even though it’s a big ask in terms of time, the Xenosaga trilogy is absolutely worth your time, especially if you loved a lot of the “but wait there’s more!” moments in series like Metal Gear or Kingdom Hearts. Its death will always feel a little unfair, punished at the second game for its aspirations despite still kind of doing well, and freeing up the team to inevitably follow the trend of big open-world RPGs. You can read that last line with just a hint of my bitterness.
For whatever reason, Xenosaga’s android companion and the face of the series, Kos-mos, maintained her popularity while the actual series died. She continues to see new figures, cameos in games, and model kits pop up to the disappointed cheers of old fans and the confused, thrilled reactions of people who have no idea who she is but thinks she looks cool. I’ll take whatever I can get.
Whatever, all I’m trying to say is, it sucks Xenosaga was cut down to a trilogy. It sucks even more that this entire series is also still lost to history, because Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada already confirmed that the company doesn’t think a remaster is “worth the risk.” It’s not available digitally anywhere, and Episode 3 can cost you hundreds of dollars on Ebay. For a game that felt so weirdly formative early on, stumbled, failed, and is still somehow remembered fondly, it’s a shame we can’t revisit it. Xenosaga – even in all its messy glory – shares a lot of the same appeal that other beloved early and mid ‘00s RPGs still hold, so I’m going to keep hoping that somehow, we see the series ported to modern platforms.
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