For the next episode, play up to the point where Bart infiltrates castle Fatima and gets into the room where Margie is being held captive. There is a save point in that room. Save there and stop!
And make sure you make a separate save BEFORE that room too because as a kid I was underleveled for what comes after and had to restart the whole game hahaha. There's no opportunity to grind once you step out of that room! (or maybe I was a kid and just wasn't playing the game effectively and maybe could have handled it, who knows)
@@gordonprice5924 Like, I'm sorry that you had to experience that, but I'm also glad that I wasn't the only one hahaha. The second time around I spent a whole play session just grinding up to level 30 in the Aveh Desert, I'm pretty sure I was overleveled even up to Kislev by then lmao
Hey guys, once again, awesome episode ! Now, about Casen's assumption that "Gazel" is referring to the wild animal, and all the symbolism that it could infer. I've looked into my copy of Perfect Works and the japanese word for Gazel ガゼル actually translates to "Gazelle" (the animal then) in both your English language and my French language. So it's pretty safe to say "Gazel" was either a an error in transcription or a deliberate choice of adaptation ✧\(>o
@@nateruns400 yeah, could be mixed better.. tho would help if it was just louder on their end, so it didn't need to be mixed. I also miss being able to hear the Xenogears soundtrack in the background while they discuss the game.. some of the tracks fit so well and its just not loud enough here.
All of you guys combined form the most interesting group of people to listen to dissecting story. Especially when Casen's trap card is activated and he starts rapid fire spitting mad facts from different languages, cultures, and religions. Y'all are inspiring haha keep up the amazing work!
I kept worrying he was going to turn against me on my first playthrough yet I trusted him. The sense of paranoia the situation puts on you is unparalleled in my opinion.
Grahf's musical theme is an all-time favorite for me. Also the Retrograde Amnesia guys were cool, would definitely watch future collabs with them. And props to Casen on your Japanese language knowledge and etymology. It's great to have that perspective with the analysis.
spot on call from retro AM, that grahf scene was definitely what hooked me as a kid. at that point i needed to know who that guy was and what his plans were for fei (same feeling a little bit later on, with ramsus' flashbacks to the red-haired guy destroying gears with his bare hands)
I read the line "Repair Weltall..." to be Fei's reluctance with doing so. He knows they're in Dazil to do exactly that but he still has reservations about piloting this gear and is wary of the fact that his fate seems to be intertwined with this gear. The fact that it's not punctuated with a question mark doesn't give me the conversational courtesy vibes. It's more like, "Oh, so you were serious about repairing Weltall."
21:47 "the fear is often worse than the danger itself. We should not let such fears hold us back." I can't express how pivotal and deep this quote runs with me and my history. I fell in love with this saying from Citan as a teenager and I wrote it down and made it a part of me both in spreading it verbally and living it myself in all aspects of my life. Its amazing how much of an effect this quote has had on my life. Inspirational quotes/wisdom/principals etc have always rang vividly with me, and this is by far one of the most potent in my life. I'm so glad you made note of it in this video. Extremely well appreciated by me🙏🏿💯
yeah wow casen's really pulling his weight with these linguistic etymologies and whatnot in this episode...great stuff. gazel/gazelle is interesting too, in japanese it *IS* ガゼル which is in fact the japanese word for gazelle. i think the homophone/symbolism is indeed deliberate - why else or how else would they have chosen that term?
looking into it a little, lambs and gazelles are both members of the bovidae family. [spoilers ahead] the gazel ministry are more or less the official supervisors of humanity, so perhaps they chose their name to symbolize their status as the more dominant and capable humans, in a sense leading the mere lambs (who, as a matter of course, are herded as sheep, with little to no agency compared to a gazelle). the ministry members were indeed some of the very first humans by kadomony, so it's possible they would've viewed themselves that way. either that, OR they're using "gazelles" as a more elegant synonym for lambs - i.e., they do not view themselves as the "gazel(le)" themselves, but rather the ministry who supervise and herd the gazelles, i.e. the surface-dwelling lambs. i'm not sure which way it goes, or if perfect works contains any clarification about the symbolism here. but i do think there's something to it, particularly when considering that gazelle/ガゼル is a loanword in japanese and they don't have a native term for it
Holy crap, that insight into gazelles and lambs as relating to Hebrew sacrifices!! And from the newbie to the game! That's such an insight! I love this series!
and yeah, i can relate to casen's impressions 100%. as a child in '98 playing the game, i was pretty trusting of citan and thought that maybe he was just some hermit inventor following political developments and cultural flows from his mountainside abode. i think it was almost like a confucian guru archetype (the chinese aphorisms hung on his walls maybe contributed to that). definitely didn't suspect much of him at that point. and i also had a hard time being sure if the in-game sprites were always the same characters as the ones in the anime cutscenes, though i think sometimes that ambiguity was intentional early on
I thought the same, I was 10, and thought he was a good older brother/fatherly figure for me (I had no father or brother) so I was shocked later when I saw his origins and motives. Still, Citan is the man :) lucky wife, lol
I didn't eat the bird egg and the nurse told me Fei was the perfect weight. Another fantastic discussion!! This is sooooo good.Also, I always thought Gazelle was the counterpart to Lamb, even on my first playthrough as well.
Here I go again with another German lesson! Mixed in with a big chunk of philosophy this time! So Grahf, although spelled a little weirdly, (probably to reflect the Japanese グラーフ (Gurāfu) for native english speakers) looks suspicously like the German "Graf", which means earl or count, so it's a title for nobility. The easy answer here would be that it's just fitting for his striking and elite attitude and appearance. However, the stuff he says make me think it's more than that. He introduces himself as "seeker of power", which as someone who actually studied philosophy and Nietzsche made me think of "Will to Power". During the rest of the conversation between him and Fei, that notion became only more obvious. So according to Nietzsche there is a drive inside the human psyche to long for affirming the cycle of life and death, becoming and fading away, creation and destruction, pleasure and pain. "Power" in this context is the ability the exact all these kind of different (and contradicting) processes in the way one sees fit and this is what all of humanity naturally strives for. Supposedly, (monotheistic) religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam contain this drive artificially be teaching a certain kind of ethics, that emphasizes harmony and altruism (I'm being really short here. Nietzsche's critique of Christianity in particular is pretty extensive). He claims that in antiquity, before these religions even existed people (especially the ancient greeks) were all to happy to exert their power, even if it meant that other human beings were suffering because of that. Many of his examples go in about how "aristocracy" ( ancient greece: aristokratia (άριστον= the best, excellency and κράτο = power or rule) for example was a title that nobility gave it self to distinguish itself from (weak/lesser) people that couldn't exert their power. Here I think the name Grahf/ Graf comes in. He can be seen as a person that see himself as "better than others", quite like aristocracy and it seems like he wants Fei to see himself in the same way, which is why he refers to the population of Lahan as "vermin" and doesn't care about their deaths. Also, he talks about "destroying (mother) god", which seems pretty reminiscient of Nietzsche's quote "God is dead. And we killed him", marking the overcoming of the need for religion in general. Now, this quote is often read as resulting in nihilism as without God there wouldn't be any meaning of life, however Nietzsche actually thinks this is a good thing, not only does it mean that the "Will to Power" can finally reign more freely, but also that the strong people can create a new meaning in the Übermensch(" über" = across, beyond ; Mensch = human. So a Superhuman, a human beyond humanity) As humanity itself is an imperfect concept, caught between animal and something more "refined". (I'm not gonna go more into this for the sake of "brevity", this post is probably too long anyways...) Another thing is how Grahf talks about destiny. As a concept, in close ties with "Will to Power" not denying ones destiny/fate (is there a difference between these two in English?), but instead embracing it, becomes a strong talking point in Nietzsche's philosophy as well, as there is no way to escape it anyways, it's all part of this endless, and recurring cycle of life and death etc. So yeah, in just this small dialog Grahf seems to be full of Nietzschean thought. his name as a title for nobility, he himself proclaiming himself to be a "seeker of power", the way he talks about the Lahan villagers, his desire to kill (mother) god and the way he frames as destiny as inescapable For anyone who wants to argue, yeah I've have portrayed Nietzsche's philosophy in pretty broad strokes, there is a lot of detail I left out, but we can discuss this stuff, if anyone cares. Btw for the German pronounciation: [ü is pronounced like "ee" in "see", however you have to tightly round your lips while saying it, it's difficult if you don't have similiar sound. So if you don't get it right, whatever. "Mensch" is pronounced "mensh"].
Very good info, it's like Takahashi and Soraya Saga took all these great philosophical thinkers and ideas they had and turned them into a bunch of the different main characters of this story. It seems Grahf may be mostly based around Nietzsche's thoughts. You've definitely inspired me to look into Nietzsche more, interesting stuff...
appreciate casen pulling up the source japanese text on key terms ("mother god") just to confirm intent. i think the awkardness of the "my dad?" line is mostly that the script writers are going about in a way that suggests fei has a memory/deep connection to his father (i.e. he used to call him "dad"). but that's not the case - he has no memory of him - so the line just comes off silly
I thought it was so weird that Citan was saying they had to move Weltall to protect the village and Fei didn't just respond with: "Alright why don't we use your weird crab helicopter thing to move it again since that apparently works perfectly fine."
Off topic fun fact, but in the Xenosaga series(ep1 go be exact), there are a few optional end game bosses you can fight. One of which is a reference/homage to Big Joe, called Great Joe. Though there are a plethora of hints and nods to Xenogears within the Xenosaga games, and alot of other neat things sprinkled in too
Mike actually started a playthrough of Xenosaga several years ago but quit right before the act 1 climax, much to the chagrin of everyone watching. Not sure if he ever went back to finish it. But it would be and awesome follow up to this series of vids.
@@DSzaks i was cool with xenosaga back when i had not played that many jrpgs. then i played xenogears and more of the classics and i just have alot of issues with xenosaga now.
This is so good!! The retrospective from way back was already awesome in itself, but this stuff is groundbreaking! I cant wait for more of Casen's perspective. Especially with the hype-train the rest of them are putting him on lmao this stuff is rich
Thanks you so much for doing this! Xenoblades and your review of Xenogears got me to play Xenogears. There was too much to handle alone and think on yourself so this is perfect. I've been watching your guys videos for long time and never said anything, but now I want to say thank you! I'm grateful that this channel exist.
I always hoped and still hope they do a full remaster and finish the game the way the creators wanted too. They ran out of funding and had to cut it down. This is one of my favorite JRPG’s and is in my top 5 all time RPG’s
So good. This is definitely my favorite section of the entire game. The scene with Grahf and then Balthasar, plus the boss battle with Calamity are amazing.
Xenogears....one part Matrix, LoTR, Escaflowné, with various mythologies, philosophy, and psychology. This game, Imho, STILL remains ahead of the curve, decades later.
Yeah it's the best story ever put into a videogame I think.. the Neon Genesis Evangelion influence is also really strong, if you're into anime I'd recommend checking it out at least once.. it's a pretty dark and depressing anime, but has cool parts and you can see where a lot of ideas in Xenogears came from.
The Weltall always gave me Space Runaway Ideon vibes, which (correct me if I’m wrong) was a direct inspiration for Evangelion. So it’s not a leap to say Xenogears took similar inspiration. To add to the thought Ideon starts off as a paint by numbers Super Robot show and becomes something very different and dark. To get the full effect though you have to watch the cap stone movie for Ideon (Be Invoked). Another parallel to Evangelion since if you wanna see the dark climax there you gotta watch End Of Evangelion. I suspect for both creative teams Ideon was airing when they were young. Kinda lines up since I think Takahashi would have been 14 when it aired originally.
The scene where Grahf appears is so memorable. It was such a great scene. I hope you will also speak about the meaning of the names of the gears. As a german player i like it how they use german words like Weltall (Space) or Seibzehn, what is written wrong and should be Siebzehn (seventeen). Great episode!
There are many forced encounters that are triggered by stepping in specific locations, so it gives the game a feeling of having a higher encounter rate than it really has. Also, the game can take up to 10-15 seconds to load a fight, so if you stop after triggering an encounter, you can still rotate the camera, and then the fight will begin a few seconds later. Standing in one place and just rotating the camera does not trigger a battle. Sometimes you will be loading one fight, and then step on a forced encounter, which will trigger 2 fights in a row.
Really loving this series! Just one comment regarding everything that was discussed: I think the Gazel were indeed named to differentiate them from the Lambs, with both terms being used to denote humans (as the offerings to God). The key difference being that the Lambs are domesticated, whereas the Gazel are free. This distinction becomes clear later in the game, when we learn more about the Gazel society and their role in the greater scheme of things.
I absolutely love this show and the breakdown is soooooo amazing but I one suggestion is I think asking questions like do you trust citan puts things in a person head that probably wouldn't have been their naturally. It's hard breaking it down on a 2nd playthru without giving spoilers I know. Either way continue your amazing show on my favorite RPG ever.
This series is amazing! I really appreciate the work and effort that's gone into it, and when I get out of my current financial difficulties, having lost nearly everything I have due to Covid related issues, I will definitely support you guys. Thankyou for bringing this into our lives. I can't wait for the rest! Lots of love from a dude in Australia, keep up the good work ❤❤
I remember first time playing this game when I reach this point, my speculation that we were the protagonist on a mission to slay the false/evil god and organization that rules the world, using the god slayer gear and obtains humanity freedom
this bookclub is such a good way for me to "force" myself to play jrpgs that I never played before and appreciate it because I mostly play for nostalgia
I’m so excited for this. Really enjoying the Xenogears content. I wish I could play this game again. Been one of my all time favorites since childhood.
I'm loving how in-depth you guys are going into everything. Really enjoying it so far. And about the Emperor's floating painting room. I believe this is possibly an anime reference/inspired by to the series "Nadia: Secret of Blue Water", which is by the same creator as Neon Genesis Evangelion. So Nadia funnily enough was probably more of an inspiration than Evangelion. Also, "Nadia: SoBW" was pretty likely a heavy inspiration for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as well. I made a comparison video showing the two, but it does have some vague later game Spoilers for Xenogears. czcams.com/video/q0DMJ11oUNA/video.html
4 episodes and 8hrs into it and there's still BIG spoilers warnings, games these days don't even use foreshadowing anymore This is why old school jrpgs hold such a special place for us and its still fukin' good even now.
Hey, guys I'm sooo thankful I found this 'videogame book club'. And something had been bothering my mind for quite a long time when I did my second (or was it third....) playthrough. Of course the first one being me still in Junior High I just played it for the cool mecha and being the "oh-so-philosophical" reasons. But on the second (or third) playthrough something really bugged my mind. About the spelling of Citan's name. Like you guys found out on the previous episode (was it the 2nd or 3rd I forgot), that his name was actually written "Sh*tan" on the wooden board near his house. So when Casen was thought to have mis-pronounced Gazel ministry as "Gazelle", it reminded me, could the name "Sh*tan" was actually a deliberate misspelling of Syaitan. Syaitan is the Arabic for Satan, the one who constantly whispers into human beings into doing bad deeds. Just like Citan did when, at the beginning, trying to push Fei to his limit to do something he didn't wanna do. I know it's a longshot because of how the story played out at the end... but to me it's a mind-boggle worth thinking / mentioning. Anyways thank you for the awesome in-depth analysis, guys. Much love.
Definitely worth noting, it's possible they meant to mislead the player or reference Satan in a way that flipped his role in this story as many things in the story are.
I don't have a GREAT knowledge of the Japanese language from the one semester course that I took in it, but I still remember the instructor explaining how "soo desu ka" changes based on the inflection: a flat expression can either be something contemplative or a confirmation of something that might be incredulous, and then the classic upward inflection question form. He also pointed out that English does almost the exact same like if you said in response to something "really?" or "really," and also how it still is meant to reinforce that you heard and understood what was said to you. Of course, it's much more extensively used in that language, but even then, I've always been under the impression that even native speakers can joke about how prevalent the expression (or other synonymous forms) is to their language. For example, the character of Chichiri from "Fushigi Yuugi." In Japanese, he ends literally every sentence with "no da." The translators went with "ya know" and both the dub and the original uses it as comic relief in some spaces just because it's literally in every sentence. Again, not sure if that is 100% accurate due to my own brief experience with the language, so please correct me if I'm mistaken; it's been like nearly 20 years since I took that class.
Not sure if it mentions it in Perfect Works, but since Casen mentioned both pirates having eyepatches, this is actually explained in game during this portion of the game. If you go down to the engine room and talk to the engineers, they mention that Sigard and Bart performed emergency repairs on the engine to save the ship at one point, but there was an accident or explosion. Presumably, that's why one of them has an eyepatch on the right eye and the other on the left eye (as the explosion occurred between them). Sorry I don't have the exact quote.
08:00 I can tell you that changing the camera angle does induce an encounter. I've had it happen a few times already. Annoying, but not the worst thing. Honestly I'm more ticked off whenever I have to do a "platforming" section haha.
The line from fei about grahf knowing his father makes more sense if you view his father as biological, and his dad as the person who has raised him. "my father? you mean my dad?(chief lee) you know my father?!(khan)" He doesnt know his real father at all, so the first person he would think of is chief lee, but then he realized he meant his biological father. thats where there is the !? at the end. they were all questions, fei was confused who grahf was speaking of, then shocked that grahf knows his real father.
That's a really good point I hadn't thought of.. he would have only known Chief Lee as a father figure at this point and most likely would have thought of him first.
01:35 "A little complicated" ain´t that a understatement 14:30 that Gear appears at disc2. 21:25 the village that doesn´t exist anymore? 59:30 and you never use ether on Gears until the end game... 01:16:12 Oh Casen you will know him, oh you will 01:25:45 Bart is also known for some "odd" reason as "gung ho" by his other gear pilots of the crew 01:47:40 when you actually realize the true nature of the Emperor you will be very surprised Canen
This is getting better and better, I can't wait to see the discussions when the plot starts unfolding more and more with all it's crazy and amazing details. Also it's great to see the perspective of someone that's completely new to it. Casen's point of view and analogies are really great additions to the discussion.
Hey, great work! I'd like to submit subtitles to Latin American Spanish, so more people enjoy this series. The information and references that you use are new to me and it is amazing how you analize every tiny part of the game. But I can't contribute to add by myself the subtitles in the options feature in the video, maybe we can be in touch so later I can work in this. Keep the good work and thank you for making this about my favorite game ever.
I always assumed that the "you mean my dad?" line was Fei clarifying whether Grahf is talking about his biological father (who he has no memory of) and Chief Lee in Lahan.
Speaking of the coolness of the cutscenes back in the 90´s... FF7s backside on the copy (on the PAL version atleast) literally brags about having 120 minutes of CGI in it, it was something to market with back then. And I get it, it was eye candy for its day.
Seeing how the internet reacted to Final Fantasy Origin's dialogue. I think non Xenogears fans would likely fall in love with the "Father? You mean...my dad?" dialogue exchange if it came back in a remake. I support it.
As Casen pointed out about the "repair weltall..." sentence, I always read it as Fei doubting to himself wether it would be a good idea to repair that thing.
Im having a great time playing the game right now and also a great time listening to your dissections before sleep. I think it makes me appreciate the experience more, great quality content.
Historically, Pirates were actually quite orderly and honorable in their dealings. Primarily because they had to be. It was a small world. Pirates talked. And, unless you somehow managed to kill/disappear an entire crew, word of your misdeeds towards other pirates you worked with would get around. At its core, piracy was still a business, and businesses require people to want to work with each other. Mutiny and backstabbing were rare occurrences.
Excellent analysis and love all of your interpretations. I also have to say you all do a great job with balancing out what you have to say without stepping on each other’s toes per se. Very good at staying on topic for a game that is extremely thought provoking. It has to be hard diving into the deeper meaning of certain things happening at this point in the game without revealing too much about what happens later on
At 1:42, “bullet wounds would appear to confirm that”. I love how scientific the script is, with scientific reasoning and not just dogmatic faith language.
The darth Vader/ imperial March thing is from how much of an impact Star Wars had on Japanese pop culture. It basically provided them with the archetypal bad guy that that we'll become familiar with in anime and jrpgs. Char Aznable of gundam was one such character.
the thing i like about grahf is in every other jrpgs he would be the main antaginist. but if anything he is the thorn in the side of the real villains of the story.
The nurse will still say Fei is the perfect weight at his default weight. You can change the weight significantly in both directions and it will change what she says, but the bird egg alone is not enough to shift it to overweight.
Concerning Gazel/Gazelle, since Xenogears is full of misspellings of actual references, Casen's case is certainly valid, both as a probable reference and sensible interpretation of their role (reference or not). There are countless misspellings in the game, see this list (which contains spoilers): web.archive.org/web/20120324072146/xenoverse.xenotensei.com/xenogears/xgtranslation.htm
Gazel is actually a valid spelling of the word and artistically fits into this game better I think. They also had space limitations with the text boxes, so I'm sure the programmer/translator was always looking for shorter versions of every word or phrase he could find or think of to fit those preset text boxes.
On the Dazil music piece, there's a good chance the temp track for that was Loreena McKennitt's "Marco Polo". "Dazil"'s chanting takes it to a new level though
In Unfinished Tales, it’s directly implied that Gandalf had some kind of vision/foresight about Bilbo finding the One Ring on the dwarves’ quest. It’s why he pushed him to go.
The church teaching evolution is just perfect in my opinion. They completely reverse the real life dynamic with the scientist promoting myth and the church teaching evolution. I like the idea that the writers demonstrate that how people view a world perspective is colored by the groups that are promoting it. I could draw more evidence from the game, but spoilers so we will see over the course of the podcast series.
For the next episode, play up to the point where Bart infiltrates castle Fatima and gets into the room where Margie is being held captive. There is a save point in that room. Save there and stop!
And make sure you make a separate save BEFORE that room too because as a kid I was underleveled for what comes after and had to restart the whole game hahaha. There's no opportunity to grind once you step out of that room!
(or maybe I was a kid and just wasn't playing the game effectively and maybe could have handled it, who knows)
@@EbbFlowe Oof, I remember the exact same thing on my playthrough! That room is burned into my brain hahah
@@gordonprice5924 Like, I'm sorry that you had to experience that, but I'm also glad that I wasn't the only one hahaha. The second time around I spent a whole play session just grinding up to level 30 in the Aveh Desert, I'm pretty sure I was overleveled even up to Kislev by then lmao
Hey guys, once again, awesome episode !
Now, about Casen's assumption that "Gazel" is referring to the wild animal, and all the symbolism that it could infer.
I've looked into my copy of Perfect Works and the japanese word for Gazel ガゼル actually translates to "Gazelle" (the animal then) in both your English language and my French language.
So it's pretty safe to say "Gazel" was either a an error in transcription or a deliberate choice of adaptation ✧\(>o
Thank you for making the play sections easily manageable.
Thanks for having us on, it was good to purvey the myths and legends of yore once again.
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Just subscribed to your podcast on CZcams and Spotify!! You guys do awesome work!!! Keee it up!!!
-thanked-
you guys are awesome 😎
I love the Japanese language context Casen brings to these discussions. So interesting!
Yes, particularly about azuichi, which I was not aware of before watching these episodes.
@@rodrigohartmann9951 *Aizuchi (相槌)
Retrograde Amnesia are a great addition, they add a lot of great points, and I particularly like this non-spoiler, book club style, thanks guys.
Agree, but their audio was too quiet!
@@nateruns400 yeah, could be mixed better.. tho would help if it was just louder on their end, so it didn't need to be mixed.
I also miss being able to hear the Xenogears soundtrack in the background while they discuss the game.. some of the tracks fit so well and its just not loud enough here.
All of you guys combined form the most interesting group of people to listen to dissecting story. Especially when Casen's trap card is activated and he starts rapid fire spitting mad facts from different languages, cultures, and religions. Y'all are inspiring haha keep up the amazing work!
When I played Xenogears, I trusted Citan, but I knew there was a mystery to him and he was a very intriguing character to me.
I kept worrying he was going to turn against me on my first playthrough yet I trusted him. The sense of paranoia the situation puts on you is unparalleled in my opinion.
Grahf's musical theme is an all-time favorite for me.
Also the Retrograde Amnesia guys were cool, would definitely watch future collabs with them. And props to Casen on your Japanese language knowledge and etymology. It's great to have that perspective with the analysis.
spot on call from retro AM, that grahf scene was definitely what hooked me as a kid. at that point i needed to know who that guy was and what his plans were for fei (same feeling a little bit later on, with ramsus' flashbacks to the red-haired guy destroying gears with his bare hands)
I read the line "Repair Weltall..." to be Fei's reluctance with doing so. He knows they're in Dazil to do exactly that but he still has reservations about piloting this gear and is wary of the fact that his fate seems to be intertwined with this gear. The fact that it's not punctuated with a question mark doesn't give me the conversational courtesy vibes. It's more like, "Oh, so you were serious about repairing Weltall."
One could make a top ten villains with just Xenogears villains. Such an epic.
21:47 "the fear is often worse than the danger itself. We should not let such fears hold us back."
I can't express how pivotal and deep this quote runs with me and my history. I fell in love with this saying from Citan as a teenager and I wrote it down and made it a part of me both in spreading it verbally and living it myself in all aspects of my life. Its amazing how much of an effect this quote has had on my life. Inspirational quotes/wisdom/principals etc have always rang vividly with me, and this is by far one of the most potent in my life. I'm so glad you made note of it in this video. Extremely well appreciated by me🙏🏿💯
The vibe i always got from Citan was more of a nurture and protect rather than a manipulate and deceive.
Well he is a literal guardian angel
yeah wow casen's really pulling his weight with these linguistic etymologies and whatnot in this episode...great stuff. gazel/gazelle is interesting too, in japanese it *IS* ガゼル which is in fact the japanese word for gazelle. i think the homophone/symbolism is indeed deliberate - why else or how else would they have chosen that term?
looking into it a little, lambs and gazelles are both members of the bovidae family. [spoilers ahead] the gazel ministry are more or less the official supervisors of humanity, so perhaps they chose their name to symbolize their status as the more dominant and capable humans, in a sense leading the mere lambs (who, as a matter of course, are herded as sheep, with little to no agency compared to a gazelle). the ministry members were indeed some of the very first humans by kadomony, so it's possible they would've viewed themselves that way.
either that, OR they're using "gazelles" as a more elegant synonym for lambs - i.e., they do not view themselves as the "gazel(le)" themselves, but rather the ministry who supervise and herd the gazelles, i.e. the surface-dwelling lambs. i'm not sure which way it goes, or if perfect works contains any clarification about the symbolism here. but i do think there's something to it, particularly when considering that gazelle/ガゼル is a loanword in japanese and they don't have a native term for it
"Gazelle" is also how the animal is written in German! With other german Names in the game (eg. WELTALL) that's totally plausible.
@@derheadbanger9039 Gazel is also an older spelling for the word gazelle so its not like it's not referencing the animal.
Holy crap, that insight into gazelles and lambs as relating to Hebrew sacrifices!! And from the newbie to the game! That's such an insight! I love this series!
and yeah, i can relate to casen's impressions 100%. as a child in '98 playing the game, i was pretty trusting of citan and thought that maybe he was just some hermit inventor following political developments and cultural flows from his mountainside abode. i think it was almost like a confucian guru archetype (the chinese aphorisms hung on his walls maybe contributed to that). definitely didn't suspect much of him at that point. and i also had a hard time being sure if the in-game sprites were always the same characters as the ones in the anime cutscenes, though i think sometimes that ambiguity was intentional early on
I thought the same, I was 10, and thought he was a good older brother/fatherly figure for me (I had no father or brother) so I was shocked later when I saw his origins and motives. Still, Citan is the man :) lucky wife, lol
Awesome content, I still find myself going back to Xenogears after 3 playthroughs!
dood i love the retrograde amnesia guys, im half way through their podcast series on xenogears now because of their appearances
59:44 "You also get an Eyeball as a reward for that and keep a lookout..."
Yes! Been listening to retrograde amnesia's podcast in the meantime waiting for this. Great content
I didn't eat the bird egg and the nurse told me Fei was the perfect weight.
Another fantastic discussion!! This is sooooo good.Also, I always thought Gazelle was the counterpart to Lamb, even on my first playthrough as well.
So glad to see Eric and Chris again!
I cannot believe the amount of time all of you put in to this game. As a big fan myself, this is astounding!! Well done, all of you. Thank you!!!
My boy casen finally here
Here I go again with another German lesson! Mixed in with a big chunk of philosophy this time!
So Grahf, although spelled a little weirdly, (probably to reflect the Japanese グラーフ (Gurāfu) for native english speakers) looks suspicously like the German "Graf", which means earl or count, so it's a title for nobility. The easy answer here would be that it's just fitting for his striking and elite attitude and appearance. However, the stuff he says make me think it's more than that.
He introduces himself as "seeker of power", which as someone who actually studied philosophy and Nietzsche made me think of "Will to Power". During the rest of the conversation between him and Fei, that notion became only more obvious. So according to Nietzsche there is a drive inside the human psyche to long for affirming the cycle of life and death, becoming and fading away, creation and destruction, pleasure and pain. "Power" in this context is the ability the exact all these kind of different (and contradicting) processes in the way one sees fit and this is what all of humanity naturally strives for.
Supposedly, (monotheistic) religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam contain this drive artificially be teaching a certain kind of ethics, that emphasizes harmony and altruism (I'm being really short here. Nietzsche's critique of Christianity in particular is pretty extensive). He claims that in antiquity, before these religions even existed people (especially the ancient greeks) were all to happy to exert their power, even if it meant that other human beings were suffering because of that. Many of his examples go in about how "aristocracy" ( ancient greece: aristokratia (άριστον= the best, excellency and κράτο = power or rule) for example was a title that nobility gave it self to distinguish itself from (weak/lesser) people that couldn't exert their power.
Here I think the name Grahf/ Graf comes in. He can be seen as a person that see himself as "better than others", quite like aristocracy and it seems like he wants Fei to see himself in the same way, which is why he refers to the population of Lahan as "vermin" and doesn't care about their deaths.
Also, he talks about "destroying (mother) god", which seems pretty reminiscient of Nietzsche's quote "God is dead. And we killed him", marking the overcoming of the need for religion in general. Now, this quote is often read as resulting in nihilism as without God there wouldn't be any meaning of life, however Nietzsche actually thinks this is a good thing, not only does it mean that the "Will to Power" can finally reign more freely, but also that the strong people can create a new meaning in the Übermensch(" über" = across, beyond ; Mensch = human. So a Superhuman, a human beyond humanity) As humanity itself is an imperfect concept, caught between animal and something more "refined". (I'm not gonna go more into this for the sake of "brevity", this post is probably too long anyways...)
Another thing is how Grahf talks about destiny. As a concept, in close ties with "Will to Power" not denying ones destiny/fate (is there a difference between these two in English?), but instead embracing it, becomes a strong talking point in Nietzsche's philosophy as well, as there is no way to escape it anyways, it's all part of this endless, and recurring cycle of life and death etc.
So yeah, in just this small dialog Grahf seems to be full of Nietzschean thought. his name as a title for nobility, he himself proclaiming himself to be a "seeker of power", the way he talks about the Lahan villagers, his desire to kill (mother) god and the way he frames as destiny as inescapable
For anyone who wants to argue, yeah I've have portrayed Nietzsche's philosophy in pretty broad strokes, there is a lot of detail I left out, but we can discuss this stuff, if anyone cares.
Btw for the German pronounciation:
[ü is pronounced like "ee" in "see", however you have to tightly round your lips while saying it, it's difficult if you don't have similiar sound. So if you don't get it right, whatever. "Mensch" is pronounced "mensh"].
Very good info, it's like Takahashi and Soraya Saga took all these great philosophical thinkers and ideas they had and turned them into a bunch of the different main characters of this story. It seems Grahf may be mostly based around Nietzsche's thoughts. You've definitely inspired me to look into Nietzsche more, interesting stuff...
appreciate casen pulling up the source japanese text on key terms ("mother god") just to confirm intent. i think the awkardness of the "my dad?" line is mostly that the script writers are going about in a way that suggests fei has a memory/deep connection to his father (i.e. he used to call him "dad"). but that's not the case - he has no memory of him - so the line just comes off silly
If any game deserves this deep an analysis its this one. Xenogears is master class and they bit off as much as possible with the medium of games.
I’d argue Xenosaga and Xenoblade X and 2 are worth analyzing if @Miiks is anything to go by!
Grahf thumbnail goated
I thought it was so weird that Citan was saying they had to move Weltall to protect the village and Fei didn't just respond with: "Alright why don't we use your weird crab helicopter thing to move it again since that apparently works perfectly fine."
Off topic fun fact, but in the Xenosaga series(ep1 go be exact), there are a few optional end game bosses you can fight. One of which is a reference/homage to Big Joe, called Great Joe. Though there are a plethora of hints and nods to Xenogears within the Xenosaga games, and alot of other neat things sprinkled in too
Mike actually started a playthrough of Xenosaga several years ago but quit right before the act 1 climax, much to the chagrin of everyone watching. Not sure if he ever went back to finish it. But it would be and awesome follow up to this series of vids.
@@DSzaks i was cool with xenosaga back when i had not played that many jrpgs. then i played xenogears and more of the classics and i just have alot of issues with xenosaga now.
Xenosaga I love that Trilogy I wish people would notice it more Episode III is very great
This is so good!! The retrospective from way back was already awesome in itself, but this stuff is groundbreaking! I cant wait for more of Casen's perspective. Especially with the hype-train the rest of them are putting him on lmao this stuff is rich
haha thank god you guys eventually remembered to talk about the sick combos, that's a pretty important scene!!
Thanks you so much for doing this! Xenoblades and your review of Xenogears got me to play Xenogears. There was too much to handle alone and think on yourself so this is perfect. I've been watching your guys videos for long time and never said anything, but now I want to say thank you! I'm grateful that this channel exist.
I always hoped and still hope they do a full remaster and finish the game the way the creators wanted too. They ran out of funding and had to cut it down. This is one of my favorite JRPG’s and is in my top 5 all time RPG’s
So good. This is definitely my favorite section of the entire game. The scene with Grahf and then Balthasar, plus the boss battle with Calamity are amazing.
Super happy to see Chris and Eric back! I think their chemistry really compliments you guys very well! Another terrific episode, gentlemen!
Man I hope you guys keep collaborating with Retrograde guys. Great combination. Everyone adds good points.
Xenogears....one part Matrix, LoTR, Escaflowné, with various mythologies, philosophy, and psychology.
This game, Imho, STILL remains ahead of the curve, decades later.
Yeah it's the best story ever put into a videogame I think.. the Neon Genesis Evangelion influence is also really strong, if you're into anime I'd recommend checking it out at least once.. it's a pretty dark and depressing anime, but has cool parts and you can see where a lot of ideas in Xenogears came from.
The Weltall always gave me Space Runaway Ideon vibes, which (correct me if I’m wrong) was a direct inspiration for Evangelion. So it’s not a leap to say Xenogears took similar inspiration. To add to the thought Ideon starts off as a paint by numbers Super Robot show and becomes something very different and dark. To get the full effect though you have to watch the cap stone movie for Ideon (Be Invoked). Another parallel to Evangelion since if you wanna see the dark climax there you gotta watch End Of Evangelion. I suspect for both creative teams Ideon was airing when they were young. Kinda lines up since I think Takahashi would have been 14 when it aired originally.
Congrats Casen. Super exciting.
The scene where Grahf appears is so memorable. It was such a great scene.
I hope you will also speak about the meaning of the names of the gears. As a german player i like it how they use german words like Weltall (Space) or Seibzehn, what is written wrong and should be Siebzehn (seventeen). Great episode!
NEVER noticed that paintings in the emperor scene were fei's. will have to keep an eye out for that next time...
There are many forced encounters that are triggered by stepping in specific locations, so it gives the game a feeling of having a higher encounter rate than it really has. Also, the game can take up to 10-15 seconds to load a fight, so if you stop after triggering an encounter, you can still rotate the camera, and then the fight will begin a few seconds later. Standing in one place and just rotating the camera does not trigger a battle. Sometimes you will be loading one fight, and then step on a forced encounter, which will trigger 2 fights in a row.
Mike, my favorite natural bodybuilder.
Really loving this series! Just one comment regarding everything that was discussed: I think the Gazel were indeed named to differentiate them from the Lambs, with both terms being used to denote humans (as the offerings to God). The key difference being that the Lambs are domesticated, whereas the Gazel are free. This distinction becomes clear later in the game, when we learn more about the Gazel society and their role in the greater scheme of things.
I'm loving this new format I'd love to see you do the Kiseki series, but obviously that would take ages to do. Maybe FF Tactics or Tactics Ogre LUCT?
Oh, Tactics Ogre would be awesome!
I absolutely love this show and the breakdown is soooooo amazing but I one suggestion is I think asking questions like do you trust citan puts things in a person head that probably wouldn't have been their naturally. It's hard breaking it down on a 2nd playthru without giving spoilers I know. Either way continue your amazing show on my favorite RPG ever.
Loving this series! The Retrograde Amnesia guys have been a great addition as well they have added a lot!
This series is amazing! I really appreciate the work and effort that's gone into it, and when I get out of my current financial difficulties, having lost nearly everything I have due to Covid related issues, I will definitely support you guys. Thankyou for bringing this into our lives. I can't wait for the rest! Lots of love from a dude in Australia, keep up the good work ❤❤
I remember first time playing this game when I reach this point, my speculation that we were the protagonist on a mission to slay the false/evil god and organization that rules the world, using the god slayer gear and obtains humanity freedom
i like the connection you made about the two town drunks
It’s getting harder and harder to wait for the next episode!!! 😫 this is so good!
Thank you guys for keeping the XG legacy alive ❤❤❤
this bookclub is such a good way for me to "force" myself to play jrpgs that I never played before and appreciate it because I mostly play for nostalgia
I’m so excited for this. Really enjoying the Xenogears content. I wish I could play this game again. Been one of my all time favorites since childhood.
I'm loving how in-depth you guys are going into everything. Really enjoying it so far.
And about the Emperor's floating painting room. I believe this is possibly an anime reference/inspired by to the series "Nadia: Secret of Blue Water", which is by the same creator as Neon Genesis Evangelion. So Nadia funnily enough was probably more of an inspiration than Evangelion. Also, "Nadia: SoBW" was pretty likely a heavy inspiration for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as well.
I made a comparison video showing the two, but it does have some vague later game Spoilers for Xenogears.
czcams.com/video/q0DMJ11oUNA/video.html
This whole talk made my day :) Including with Casen and the Guests 😃
I just love how you guys go to insane lengths to discuss every single detail in this one-of-a-kind game.
4 episodes and 8hrs into it and there's still BIG spoilers warnings, games these days don't even use foreshadowing anymore This is why old school jrpgs hold such a special place for us and its still fukin' good even now.
Hey, guys I'm sooo thankful I found this 'videogame book club'. And something had been bothering my mind for quite a long time when I did my second (or was it third....) playthrough. Of course the first one being me still in Junior High I just played it for the cool mecha and being the "oh-so-philosophical" reasons. But on the second (or third) playthrough something really bugged my mind. About the spelling of Citan's name. Like you guys found out on the previous episode (was it the 2nd or 3rd I forgot), that his name was actually written "Sh*tan" on the wooden board near his house. So when Casen was thought to have mis-pronounced Gazel ministry as "Gazelle", it reminded me, could the name "Sh*tan" was actually a deliberate misspelling of Syaitan. Syaitan is the Arabic for Satan, the one who constantly whispers into human beings into doing bad deeds. Just like Citan did when, at the beginning, trying to push Fei to his limit to do something he didn't wanna do.
I know it's a longshot because of how the story played out at the end... but to me it's a mind-boggle worth thinking / mentioning.
Anyways thank you for the awesome in-depth analysis, guys. Much love.
Definitely worth noting, it's possible they meant to mislead the player or reference Satan in a way that flipped his role in this story as many things in the story are.
I don't have a GREAT knowledge of the Japanese language from the one semester course that I took in it, but I still remember the instructor explaining how "soo desu ka" changes based on the inflection: a flat expression can either be something contemplative or a confirmation of something that might be incredulous, and then the classic upward inflection question form. He also pointed out that English does almost the exact same like if you said in response to something "really?" or "really," and also how it still is meant to reinforce that you heard and understood what was said to you.
Of course, it's much more extensively used in that language, but even then, I've always been under the impression that even native speakers can joke about how prevalent the expression (or other synonymous forms) is to their language. For example, the character of Chichiri from "Fushigi Yuugi." In Japanese, he ends literally every sentence with "no da." The translators went with "ya know" and both the dub and the original uses it as comic relief in some spaces just because it's literally in every sentence.
Again, not sure if that is 100% accurate due to my own brief experience with the language, so please correct me if I'm mistaken; it's been like nearly 20 years since I took that class.
Not sure if it mentions it in Perfect Works, but since Casen mentioned both pirates having eyepatches, this is actually explained in game during this portion of the game. If you go down to the engine room and talk to the engineers, they mention that Sigard and Bart performed emergency repairs on the engine to save the ship at one point, but there was an accident or explosion. Presumably, that's why one of them has an eyepatch on the right eye and the other on the left eye (as the explosion occurred between them). Sorry I don't have the exact quote.
Congrats on the new baby!!
08:00 I can tell you that changing the camera angle does induce an encounter. I've had it happen a few times already. Annoying, but not the worst thing. Honestly I'm more ticked off whenever I have to do a "platforming" section haha.
It's that time again! Thanks to you guys, I've been binge listening to retrograde amnesia while doing some (very late) spring cleaning.
Thanks!
I also totally got killed by the sand when Bart's crew attacked, lol
The line from fei about grahf knowing his father makes more sense if you view his father as biological, and his dad as the person who has raised him.
"my father?
you mean my dad?(chief lee)
you know my father?!(khan)"
He doesnt know his real father at all, so the first person he would think of is chief lee, but then he realized he meant his biological father. thats where there is the !? at the end. they were all questions, fei was confused who grahf was speaking of, then shocked that grahf knows his real father.
That's a really good point I hadn't thought of.. he would have only known Chief Lee as a father figure at this point and most likely would have thought of him first.
01:35 "A little complicated" ain´t that a understatement
14:30 that Gear appears at disc2.
21:25 the village that doesn´t exist anymore?
59:30 and you never use ether on Gears until the end game...
01:16:12 Oh Casen you will know him, oh you will
01:25:45 Bart is also known for some "odd" reason as "gung ho" by his other gear pilots of the crew
01:47:40 when you actually realize the true nature of the Emperor you will be very surprised Canen
I really hope you do more of these book club style videos. It really makes it enjoyable to play the games at the same pace as the videos are released.
this is so wholesome
This is getting better and better, I can't wait to see the discussions when the plot starts unfolding more and more with all it's crazy and amazing details. Also it's great to see the perspective of someone that's completely new to it. Casen's point of view and analogies are really great additions to the discussion.
Hey, great work!
I'd like to submit subtitles to Latin American Spanish, so more people enjoy this series.
The information and references that you use are new to me and it is amazing how you analize every tiny part of the game.
But I can't contribute to add by myself the subtitles in the options feature in the video, maybe we can be in touch so later I can work in this.
Keep the good work and thank you for making this about my favorite game ever.
I think the "blue face Fei" cutscene is indicating that we're getting a glimpse of Fei's thoughts, that he might be remembering something.
I always assumed that the "you mean my dad?" line was Fei clarifying whether Grahf is talking about his biological father (who he has no memory of) and Chief Lee in Lahan.
Speaking of the coolness of the cutscenes back in the 90´s... FF7s backside on the copy (on the PAL version atleast) literally brags about having 120 minutes of CGI in it, it was something to market with back then. And I get it, it was eye candy for its day.
Seeing how the internet reacted to Final Fantasy Origin's dialogue. I think non Xenogears fans would likely fall in love with the "Father? You mean...my dad?" dialogue exchange if it came back in a remake. I support it.
These episodes are my favourite part of the week. I get so excited when I check my phone and see that notification!
As Casen pointed out about the "repair weltall..." sentence, I always read it as Fei doubting to himself wether it would be a good idea to repair that thing.
The fuel drain is a counter attack. That is why it used it so much.
Im having a great time playing the game right now and also a great time listening to your dissections before sleep. I think it makes me appreciate the experience more, great quality content.
Historically, Pirates were actually quite orderly and honorable in their dealings. Primarily because they had to be. It was a small world. Pirates talked. And, unless you somehow managed to kill/disappear an entire crew, word of your misdeeds towards other pirates you worked with would get around. At its core, piracy was still a business, and businesses require people to want to work with each other. Mutiny and backstabbing were rare occurrences.
Hey, Casen is back. Welcome Back!
Oh man, i forgot it was weekly! Nice "surprise" for me haha
Love this content and format, so good
Excellent analysis and love all of your interpretations. I also have to say you all do a great job with balancing out what you have to say without stepping on each other’s toes per se. Very good at staying on topic for a game that is extremely thought provoking. It has to be hard diving into the deeper meaning of certain things happening at this point in the game without revealing too much about what happens later on
P.s. I subbed to the retrograde guys too. They’re great.
I did too
same
At 1:42, “bullet wounds would appear to confirm that”. I love how scientific the script is, with scientific reasoning and not just dogmatic faith language.
Thank you all for the amazing podcast about one of my the most favorite games ever.
The darth Vader/ imperial March thing is from how much of an impact Star Wars had on Japanese pop culture. It basically provided them with the archetypal bad guy that that we'll become familiar with in anime and jrpgs. Char Aznable of gundam was one such character.
Whoo boy I’m excited! Been holding off on playing more just for this.
the thing i like about grahf is in every other jrpgs he would be the main antaginist. but if anything he is the thorn in the side of the real villains of the story.
YES! I've been waiting for this like it was Christmas lol.
The nurse will still say Fei is the perfect weight at his default weight. You can change the weight significantly in both directions and it will change what she says, but the bird egg alone is not enough to shift it to overweight.
Concerning Gazel/Gazelle, since Xenogears is full of misspellings of actual references, Casen's case is certainly valid, both as a probable reference and sensible interpretation of their role (reference or not). There are countless misspellings in the game, see this list (which contains spoilers): web.archive.org/web/20120324072146/xenoverse.xenotensei.com/xenogears/xgtranslation.htm
Gazel is actually a valid spelling of the word and artistically fits into this game better I think. They also had space limitations with the text boxes, so I'm sure the programmer/translator was always looking for shorter versions of every word or phrase he could find or think of to fit those preset text boxes.
I just got to the Yggdrasil nurse and can confirm that Fei is still the perfect weight without eating the egg.
pro tip, if you don't want to hit random encounters, just open the disc lid. very helpful for certain parts of the game.
It’s so much fun hearing Casen’s thoughts!
I am absolutely loving witnessing Casen's introduction to Xenogears. First-time experiences are precious.
On the Dazil music piece, there's a good chance the temp track for that was Loreena McKennitt's "Marco Polo". "Dazil"'s chanting takes it to a new level though
In Unfinished Tales, it’s directly implied that Gandalf had some kind of vision/foresight about Bilbo finding the One Ring on the dwarves’ quest. It’s why he pushed him to go.
The church teaching evolution is just perfect in my opinion. They completely reverse the real life dynamic with the scientist promoting myth and the church teaching evolution. I like the idea that the writers demonstrate that how people view a world perspective is colored by the groups that are promoting it. I could draw more evidence from the game, but spoilers so we will see over the course of the podcast series.
I agree, I think that's exactly what they were going for with that part.