*SPOILER WARNING*
I’m discussing elements that could be seen as spoilers for people who have completed some of these games but not others.
They are connected in that they are different takes on the same story arc. They have different licences and inconsistencies between them, but removing the inconsistencies, Xenosaga, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Xenogears fit together very well due to having a lot of common history. Basically - taking the common bits:
1. Xenoblade Chronicles X - humans leave earth and earth is destroyed.
2. Xenoblade Chronicles X - Fleet of immigrants begins traveling throuch space and colonizing planets.
3. Xenosaga - Humankind creates a galactic wide Empire.
4. Xenosaga - Zohar rediscovered and made into a superweapon by harnessing the power of a higher dimensional being in our third dimension. Kind of a zero point energy generator because relative to us, higher dimensions have infinite energy.
5. Xenogears - Abel makes contact with the Zohar, gains power of the higher dimensional being.
6. Xenogears - weapon creates human life forms to act as the genetic material to rebuild the body of the weapon.
7. Xenogears - 10,000 years of history, humans destroyed multiple times because the genetic material is not pure enough to contamination from the genetics of actual human descendants.
8. Xenogears - Scientists discover a way to use nanotechnology to build replacement flesh for the weapon - which they now refer to as “God” because the energy source is the source of energy and Ether magic on the planet (yes, it is similar to two other Takahashi games - the three Goddesses from FF6 and Lavos from Chrono Trigger).
9. Xenogears - the weapon is built from the flesh of the descendants of the created humans, “angels” are born as the defensive force of God.
10. Xenogears - “God” is killed, and the the higher dimensional being goes home.
There are inconsistencies though:
1. Xenogears and Xenoblade Chronicles X have aliens, Xenosaga does not - it’s more of an Asimovian universe.
2. In Xenogears, Abel is merely a survivor onboard an arc colony ship with millions of others, in Xenosaga - he is a bio weapon, and the arc ship is a battleship to host Abel - not a colony ship.
I think Xenoblade Chronicles X and Xenogears could potentially be the same universe, since neither has an element that contradicts the other... yet. BUT! To me it looks like Xenoblade Chronicles X is Xenogears Episode 1 - the human Galactic Empire. The initial New LA colony is not inconsistent with how the first civilization of Xenogears began - it has Kadamony, it is only missing the Zohar
Xenoblade Chronicles - it has the same macro-plot as Xenogears. If you take Shulk’s story, it is basically the beginning and end of Fei’s story, same with Elly and 7’s story, also Bionis and Deus. Egill and Krelian are the same archetype, the tragic villain who is misguided due to an ancient disaster that ruined his life.
Xenoblade Chronicles doesn’t establish anything new, it only repeats part of a plot line in a different setting. The purpose of the game was an experimental sort of project to define what Takahashi’s games are going to be like going forward (big areas, battle system, high vertical traveling - and it was very successful at that. So I don’t think any unification story would include this game in any serious capacity.
In short - I think Xenoblade Chronicles X - if continued - could be the series that does the Xenogears/Perfect Works arc in full, finally. They could have called it Xenogears Origins, and it would have worked. Mira and New Los Angeles could essentially be the original name of New Jerusalem - perhaps a re-christening once the human bodies are reconstructed.
I have yet to finish XC2, so no comments on that one.
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