Review by: Sir Darrick
Xenosaga: Episode 1 Der Wille zur Macht

Released in February 2003, Xenosaga had been said that it was one of the best RPG in PS 2, you can say that it is as great as Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series.

Storyline: 9/10

Episode 1. The beginning of a wonderful story about humans fighting with other creatures to survive. Seems like the storyline is kind of same with other RPGs right? Actually, all these events happen in space. So it might be a little different, here and there. The story begins where there is a flashback of a scientist, Joachim Mizrahi that had open the ancient Pandora Box that release the creatures known as ‘Gnosis’. After this scene, you will be introduce to the main characters of this game, Shion Uzuki and KOSMOS and you will be learned about how the battle system works and so on. Later, your spaceship, the Woglinde will be attacked by Gnosis, the creature which I was talking about earlier. You will than escape and for some reason, will head to Second Miltia. On the journey to Second Miltia, you will accounter other main characters.The whole Episode 1 is about the journey, and it practically ends when you reach Second Miltia.

Graphic: 9/10

Well, I must confess that Xenosaga has a stunning graphic, maybe as good as FF10. The surroundings in this game is really good, it makes you feel that you are really in a hi-tech era in space. This game also has massive cutscene, so Namco must really focus on the graphic. I wonder how long it takes for Namco to finish all the cutscene?

Characters: 10/10

There are six main characters in this game which you can use in battle: Shion, KOSMOS, chaos, Ziggy(Ziggurat 8), Momo(a 100-Series Realian), and Jr.(Little Master). These characters’ background will be revealed little by little as the game goes on. There are many secrets that won’t be revealed in this episode, so we just have to wait for other episodes. Each characters have their own unique background and personalities. Since KOSMOS is machine and Ziggy is a cyborg, they don’t have much personalities in this episode. But look at Jr., he has a personality that is he can’t really control his temper and if he is angry, usually some ‘bad words’ will come out from his mouth. Allen, a secondary character has a funny pesonality that is sometimes annoying. Overall, I think Namco had done a good job in these characters.

Music and Voice Acting: 8/10

This episode doesn’t have much background music. During happy times there will be a happy-go-lucky song, during emergency you will have a fast-pacing song and during scary moments, eerie songs will make it even more scarier. Voice acting, however, is the best part of this game. The voice actors speaks very clearly and if you miss them, there is a subtitle below the screen. For example, Albedo, one of the villian has a good voice act. He sometimes added some French words in his dialog to make it more interesting. If you don’t understand what does the French words mean, you can find the meaning in the U.M.N. section in your MENU.

Battle System: 10/10

Xenosaga has a unique battle system. It has features like other traditional RPGs. I said that it is unique because there is a small moving slot that moves every turn. Each picture in the slot has different effects that will affect either your characters or your enemies during battle. I don’t really care about this at first but at some point you must learn it to defeat some bosses. Turns are also random so you won’t know who gets to start first. Your characters can use few kinds of attacks: physical attacks, tech attacks and ether attacks. Physical attacks are those normal attacks you use. Tech attacks, however, is at attack that consist of physical attacks and another special attack that is usually more damaging that physical attacks. Ether attacks is a little more wasting, because to use these attacks, you have to sacrifices some of the characters EP(Ether Points). I rather save those EP for healing purpose. Your characters can also use A.G.S.W., their special robots in battle. But not all characters have A.G.S.W., so keep that in mind. (There is a tech attack that KOSMOS has, called ‘X Buster’, doesn’t it looks familiar? I remember I saw this attack before in PS2’s ‘Zon of The Enders’.)

Extras: 7/10

There are 4 mini games you can play in this game: Card Game, A.G.S.W. Battle Game, Casino, and Drill Game. You can win rare items by playing these games. You won’t get to play these straight away though, you must collect each game passport to get to play the game, so good luck. In terms of side quests, there doesn’t have much of it. There is a mission for you to collect all decoders to decode all secret doors and there will be a rare item waiting for you behind each and every doors. A Professor in Kukai Foundation also has a side quest for you, that is to collect all the robot parts you found for him. There are two optional bosses for you too. Well, the sad part of this game is there are no replay values. So after finishing this game, you just have to wait patiently for episode two.

Final Score: 8/10

As soon as you finish this game, you will surely feel that this is the best RPG so far for the PS2. So be happy that this isn’t the only Xenosaga game. I just can’t wait for episode 2 to be release.

Most useful character: KOSMOS

Most useless character: Momo

Most mysterious character: chaos

Most cutiest character: Momo

Most disturbing character: Commander Cherenkov

Most annoying character: Allen

Best Tech Attack: X Buster (KOSMOS)

Best Ether Attack: Erde Kaiser (Shion)

Best background music: Song of Nephilim

Best voice actor: Albedo