Xenogears: Final dungeon.
Hours 51-52: I don't have much to say about the final dungeon. It is long and boring and essentially a treasure hunt for two arbitrarily placed switches. Thank goodness the game provides you with a map, I would hate it so much otherwise.
Hour 53: Finally, there is the clash with Deus. I kind of like the design of this fight where you have to decide how optimally to take down the four pillars (or not!) and handle the boss, with party switching in the way. It's all pretty trivially easy if you've gotten Big Joe's silly power upgrades though.
Anyway Deus is beaten, which also shuts off the Zohar that is tied to it. The world is saved! Or not. The Wave Existence is freed and is heading back to its home dimension... which perhaps fittingly for something which has been used as a near-infinite power source, is going to release a lot of energy when it happens! Citan calculates that it will be enough to blow up the world. Well. That wasn't as planned.
But then, Deus starts moving upwards, leaving the planet. It appears that it will escape the world before it can explode. Fei realises that it must be Elly who is moving Deus away, in order to save everyone else. Which is great news, but Fei is still understandably frustrated that Elly is, once again, going to die. He also realises that hey, his gear still works because it is special and because it made direct contact with the Zohar, still has some power of its own despite Zohar being gone. So he goes to chase after Elly and Deus, whatever the risk to his own life.
When he catches up with Deus, he is absorbed into what seems to be another subconscious dimension, like when he first met the Wave Existence. Only this time the Wave Existence isn't there, but Krelian. Krelian talks about how by being absorbed by Deus he is now one with god, and desires to return to god's plane of existence. (It isn't clear what his plans were should Deus not have been destroyed... I'd compare this rambling to Seymour's idiotic rambling inside Sin in FFX but I think the game wants me to take Krelian more seriously.) There is some stupid converation about how Krelian can't trust people therefore the only solution is to go to a dimension where all are one (or at least he and Elly). Fei says he's wrong, boss fight ensues against Urobolus (Ouroburos), a purple-haired snake-woman which is the manifestation of Miang's hold on Elly.
Elly is saved. She talks about how being one with Krelian made her realise all the sadness he held, and that he actually "loved people more than anyone". That's why he tried to kill almost everyone right? Barf, what an awful villain. Elly also talks about regretting trying to sacrifice herself to save everyone, but Fei tells her not to apologise, that making sacrifices to help others, even if it feels selfish, is what love is and an essential part of being human. At this point the pocket dimension starts to fall apart so the two make to escape.
As they do, Elly trips, so Fei stops to go back to her, and the dimension is apparently destroyed. But they aren't dead, because Krelian saved them. He tells them to return to their planet. Fei wants him to come too, but Krelian says he has committed too many sins to do so (hey, for once, I agree), so he goes off to "walk with god" by going to its dimension. Which was his goal all along, so I guess he wins?
Pretty much everything about that character in that scene rubs me the wrong way.
Anyway, Fei and Elly make it home, and there's a happy scene as they are reunited with an overjoyed Citan, Bart, Margie, Emeralda... and even Chu-Chu. Humans are free from Deus and the Zohar, and Fei and Elly are finally free to live out a happy life with each other after so many past lives of tragedy. The end.
I'm a big fan of Xenogears but there isn't much about those last few hours (after the big scenes at the Zohar with Id) I really like? The ending deciding to suddenly be all about feeble attempts to justify and glorify an unredeemable monster (who wasn't even the main villain) is bizarre and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Overall though, there's still a lot to like about this game. Yes it could have been better (some pacing problems at point, wasting too many time in side stuff in disc 1 then cramming together the good stuff in disc 2), but to echo what Snowfire said, it remains impressive just what a tapestry of plotting this game creates, with so many characters with distinct motivations (PCs and NPCs alike) and it's really interesting to see. As someone who really enjoys seeing how a large cast each with their own agenda can fit together, not to mention a rich backstory which has clear implications on the present characters' trials, Xenogears has a lot to offer. Not a perfect game by any means (even completely ignoring all its failings on fronts that
aren't writing), but one in a style I would certainly like to see more of, especially in an era with better production values and better translations.
A fun ride anyway. Hope you enjoyed reading about it.
