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Xenogears 2 Didn’t Happen Because of FF: Spirits Within – Monolith Soft President Sugiura [Update: Xenosaga art not drawn by Soraya Saga]

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Aureon

Aureon

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,819
sfortunato said:
Nope, it was just the tip of the iceberg.

Squaresoft's impressive output during the 90s was mainly (and sadly) the result of inefficient development processes. Sooner or later Squaresoft had to cut here and there because there were too many teams working on too many projects and too many overlaps over too many ventures. Of course, most of the games that were released were pretty great, even C-tier stuffs like Threads of Fate. But that approach wasn't going to be sustainable for a long time, especially with increasing development costs.
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Exactly, how did an inefficient development process give us VII\VIII\IX\X\XI in.. 1997-2002?
Sure, a lot of the 'fat' was never going to survive even going into PS2 gen, but i'll eat my hat if the mainline FFs of that age didn't pay for themselves twice over.
 

B.K.

Member
Oct 31, 2017
17,075
Akainu said:
Did xenogears 2 even need to happen?
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The plan all along was to do games for Episode I and VI. They were already in preproduction for Episode I when it was cancelled. Soraya Saga posted some concept art on her website back in 1999/early 2000 that was clearly character concept art for Xenogears Episode I and was clearly the basis for Shion in Xenosaga Episode I.

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That's the only concept art from Xenogears Episode I that was saved back in the day.
 
Zen Hero

Zen Hero

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,649
It's okay. Square Enix and Monolithsoft both went through some rough times but they are doing well these days. I'll let bygones be bygones and be happy for where they are today.
 

B.K.

Member
Oct 31, 2017
17,075
Zen Hero said:
It's okay. Square Enix and Monolithsoft both went through some rough times but they are doing well these days. I'll let bygones be bygones and be happy for where they are today.
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I hate what Monolithsoft has become. Xenoblade is one of my least favorite series ever. I would gladly give up everything Monolithsoft has ever made to get Xenogears Episodes I and VI.
 
Zeal543

Zeal543

Next Level Seer
Member
May 15, 2020
5,828
B.K. said:
The plan all along was to do games for Episode I and VI. They were already in preproduction for Episode I when it was cancelled. Soraya Saga posted some concept art on her website back in 1999/early 2000 that was clearly character concept art for Xenogears Episode I and was clearly the basis for Shion in Xenosaga Episode I.

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That's the only concept art from Xenogears Episode I that was saved back in the day.
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Aww what? That shion design is better than saga 1-3, shame they didn't go with it
 

Deleted member 41651

User-requested account closure
Banned
Apr 3, 2018
1,981
Not a tragedy like FFT2 but it would've been neat to get an unnecessary sequel that ended up being great like Blade Runner 2049.
 

B.K.

Member
Oct 31, 2017
17,075
Zeal543 said:
Aww what? That shion design is better than saga 1-3, shame they didn't go with it
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There were a couple more pieces I thought I had saved, but can't find. One is a head shot of that same character and another was a blonde headed man that was pretty clearly the prototype for Ziggy. They clearly used quite a few characters and ideas from Xenogears Episode I for Xenosaga.
 

Deleted member 61531

Banned
Nov 19, 2019
10,231
Surprised about this specific news, but only because I would have never expected a Xenogears 2. It's very evident after Spirits Within that Square started to play things safer all the way across the board--all the little side-genre games like Bushido Blade and Einhander vanished from their repertoire overnight.

Ser_Foxalot said:
I was actually looking at the three different Shions earlier. I think 2 looks the strongest of the three. It's funny because everyone seems to dislike Episode II. (I'm currently playing Episode I for the first time).
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Keep an open mind and you're in for a treat with Episode 2. Easily my favorite of the bunch.
 
Lua

Lua

Member
Aug 9, 2018
1,952
I'm sure that movie killed many projects we're never gonna hear about.

That said is fine. People like to pretend gears is more "mature" than it actually is. It has some few elementes that take obvious inspiration by some experimental anime at the time(see EVA and Infinite revyus) but the game itself is very much a straighfoward jrpg. A lot of the twists are also incredibly predictable.

That's not to enter in the realm of the mechanics, which i don't want to do because they didnt had enough time from what i read about. But the combat system is as shallow as it gets. There's almost no strategy in the fights on that game.
 
CrichtonKicks

CrichtonKicks

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,262
EntelechyFuff said:
Surprised about this specific news, but only because I would have never expected a Xenogears 2. It's very evident after Spirits Within that Square started to play things safer all the way across the board--all the little side-genre games like Bushido Blade and Einhander vanished from their repertoire overnight.
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Any impact Spirits Within had on a potential XG 2 was in Square having 90+ million tied up in the project and nothing to do with the eventual economic failure of the movie. Monolith was formed two years before TSW even released.

Lua said:
That said is fine. People like to pretend gears is more "mature" than it actually is. It has some few elementes that take obvious inspiration by some experimental anime at the time(see EVA and Infinite revyus) but the game itself is very much a straighfoward jrpg. A lot of the twists are also incredibly predictable.
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Infinite Ryvius didn't air out until over a year after XG released.
 
Ishaan

Ishaan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,702
Things worked out for the best. In a parallel timeline, I suspect Takahashi and Squaresoft would have parted ways eventually anyway, and he would have gone independent, signed an agreement with another major publisher, ticked them off with an overly ambitious game his team couldn't deliver on, learnt his lesson, and finally found a permanent home elsewhere—just like he has in our timeline.

It just feels like the natural course of events for Monolith Soft. You don't get the Monolith Soft of today (a studio that prioritizes exploration and gameplay mechanics in their RPGs) without them learning the lessons they did while working on Xenosaga.
 
id.

id.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
158
B.K. said:
I don't believe that. Both Xenogears and Evangelion are heavily inspired by western science fiction. Both were clearly heavily inspired by Asimov's Childhood's End. The villain of Xenogears is even named Karellen, after the main character in Childhood's End. Anno and Takahashi were both clearly big scifi fans. Anno even got the name for the Human Instrumentality Project in Eva from an obscure short story series called The Instrumentality of Mankind. It's less than Xenogears was inspired by Evangelion and more than Anno and Takahasi were inspired by the same material.
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Pretty much agree with everything here just want to point out Childhood's End was Arthur C. Clarke not Asimov.

Xenogears is my favorite game of all time, and while I enjoyed the Saga series and the first Xenoblade, nothing ever was as good to me as Gears.

In a perfect world we could get all VI episodes of the Xenogears universe.
 
Sojiro

Sojiro

Member
Jun 24, 2018
310
Building a time machine to right this terrible wrong 😣. Damn, that movie continues to sting Squaresoft fans even now.
 
Gaia Lanzer

Gaia Lanzer

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,678
Gotta be honest, a part of me would've loved to see the timeline of Square had TSW never been a thing. Sakaguchi would likely be there (maybe eventually becoming President). No Wada Presidency, no overly milking of the FF series, no FNC, no FFVII Compilation (Sakaguchi was all about moving forward, not dwelling in the past). The "what ifs" are intriguing.

Meh, time cannot be dialed back. As Gooch stated regarding his vision for the FF series, we should look forward, no back, so where we are right now, I am content as it is and looking forward to what the future holds.
 
Laughing Banana

Laughing Banana

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,537
Bandung Indonesia
The hate against Xenoblade and Xenosaga in here saddens me. Xenoblade 1 is very dear to me and to this day Xenosaga 1-3 gave me one of the strongest emotional impacts ever from a video game.
 
Laughing Banana

Laughing Banana

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,537
Bandung Indonesia
Hikari said:
depends in what. Story and characters? Hell no.
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If I so happen to like the characters and the story more in Xenoblade compared to Gears, so what?

Well I suppose we can go back and forth like this forever. While I am at it, I'm gonna say I like the music, the gameplay, the world in Xenoblade more too compared to Gears.

However, you can't deny Xenoblade is a much more complete product compared to Gears.
 
Łazy

Łazy

Member
Nov 1, 2017
5,249
No wonder I began to dislike Square right after this period. All the good series were sacrificed and for what ?
Big budget boring games.
Ser_Foxalot said:
I was actually looking at the three different Shions earlier. I think 2 looks the strongest of the three. It's funny because everyone seems to dislike Episode II. (I'm currently playing Episode I for the first time).
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Not everyone. I like Episode 2 a lot.
 

Shroki

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,911
Xenogears and Xenoblade 1 are both pretty great games.

There's no compelling reason to think more Xenogears chapters would have lived up to the first 2/3rds of the original game, anyway. A huge part of Xenogears charm is it's 90s anime aesthetic and playstation 1 era audiovisuals. I can't even picture a satisfying PS2 Xenogears. It's like picturing Mario RPG 2's aesthetic on N64.
 
GarthLordOfTheSith

GarthLordOfTheSith

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,006
One thing I STILL don't understand, TO THIS DAY:

why did Square think "let's make an extraordinarily expensive movie?" Like how did no one there stop and go "you know maybe this ain't a great idea"
 
OP
OP
delete12345

delete12345

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
19,805
Boston, MA
GarthLordOfTheSith said:
One thing I STILL don't understand, TO THIS DAY:

why did Square think "let's make an extraordinarily expensive movie?" Like how did no one there stop and go "you know maybe this ain't a great idea"
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They had Square Pictures at the time, a department for producing movies. No one at the time thought a popular video game franchise movie can be a box office bomb.
 
sfortunato

sfortunato

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,742
Italy
Aureon said:
Exactly, how did an inefficient development process give us VII\VIII\IX\X\XI in.. 1997-2002?
Sure, a lot of the 'fat' was never going to survive even going into PS2 gen, but i'll eat my hat if the mainline FFs of that age didn't pay for themselves twice over.
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Inefficiency doesn't only refer to output only. At the time, Square was producing output far above their capabilities as a company. Most of the output was great for us, gamers, but it was creating a lot of frictions inside the company.
 
King Kingo

King Kingo

Banned
Dec 3, 2019
7,656
B.K. said:
The plan all along was to do games for Episode I and VI. They were already in preproduction for Episode I when it was cancelled. Soraya Saga posted some concept art on her website back in 1999/early 2000 that was clearly character concept art for Xenogears Episode I and was clearly the basis for Shion in Xenosaga Episode I.

Ky2yeVd.png


That's the only concept art from Xenogears Episode I that was saved back in the day.
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What a cool character design.

Zeal543 said:
Aww what? That shion design is better than saga 1-3, shame they didn't go with it
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They legally couldn't go through with it because the concept art was property of Square.
 
King Kingo

King Kingo

Banned
Dec 3, 2019
7,656
Zeal543 said:
was it though? was another xenogears game ever greenlit in the first place?
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Even if a Xenogears 2 wasn't concieved when that artwork was created, it was still a design that was created for a Square product. Therefore, they owned it.

Xenogears itself started as a failed Final Fantasy VII pitch.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Alpha Baymax said:
Even if a Xenogears 2 wasn't concieved when that artwork was created, it was still a design that was created for a Square product. Therefore, they owned it.
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Was it though? Soraya Saga was no longer a Square employee by the time Xenogears was released. I guess it depends on whether she submitted this piece of art to Square, or if it was just something she posted online on her freelance website or on her deviantart.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Akainu said:
Did xenogears 2 even need to happen?
Valkerion said:
Nah, but more of that world/one like it, yes.
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The entire story of Xenogears happens because some robot, Deus, rebelled against its spacefaring creators because it wanted to go to Earth. At the end of Xenogears, we still don't know why it wanted to go to Earth so badly. The entire plot of the game, the entire history of Fei's planet, all of the characters' hopes and dreams and lives happen for a reason that is still completely unknown to this day.

The afterword of Perfect Works implies that Episode VI would have tackled this mystery.
 
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