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[jshackles]

After many years of tirelessly searching for Xenosaga Pied Piper, the day has finally come where it has been preserved for everyone to experience. This is truly a monumental moment for Xeno Series fans as it was the only missing game in the series.

In case you're unaware, Pied Piper is a mobile game released exclusively in Japan in 2004. The story in this game takes place about 100 years before the events of Xenosaga 1, and centers around the character of Ziggy. There is also a lot of world building in the Xenosaga universe happening here.

Since it was a limited-time release of a cell phone game from 2004, and exclusive to Japan - it was quickly lost to time. Until now. Previously, there were only screenshots and snippets of gameplay that survived - however, now the game is fully playable, and you can experience it yourself (link in the YouTube description of the video posted above).

An English fan translation is also being worked on as well, and will hopefully be available soon.

 

[nial]

I'll guess, i-mode shit.

 

[The Lunch Legend]

What a time to be alive!

I also hope Before Crisis gets recovered soon.


.. and sprinkle in some Xenosaga I & II DS.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

In case you're unaware, Pied Piper is a mobile game released exclusively in Japan in 2004. The story in this game takes place about 100 years before the events of Xenosaga 1, and centers around the character of Ziggy. There is also a lot of world building in the Xenosaga universe happening here.

Since it was a limited-time release of a cell phone game from 2004, and exclusive to Japan - it was quickly lost to time. Until now. Previously, there were only screenshots and snippets of gameplay that survived - however, now the game is fully playable, and you can experience it yourself (link in the YouTube description of the video posted above).

An English fan translation is also being worked on as well, and will hopefully be available soon.

The magic of Internet.

Now bring Blue dragon and lost oddysey to the consoles!!

 

[Maestr0]

Well, i just finished Xenogears and now I'm going into Xenosaga

 

[Werewolf Jones]

I watched a Pied Piper playthrough the other week so I could play III.

Pied Piper IS mandatory btw.

 

[Zephyranthes]

I watched a Pied Piper playthrough the other week so I could play III.

Pied Piper IS mandatory btw.

As is Missing Year. Xenosaga is definitely a product of its time when it comes to JRPGs, when markets outside of Japan were still being treated as an afterthought.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

As is Missing Year. Xenosaga is definitely a product of its time when it comes to JRPGs, when markets outside of Japan were still being treated as an afterthought.

MonolithSoft needs Nintendo to make Namco Bandai cough up so we can get a Radical Dreamers Edition of Xenosaga.

 

[EDMIX]

Well, i just finished Xenogears and now I'm going into Xenosaga

I love part 1, didn't care for part 2, love part 3. Biggest reason I still have a BC PS3 lol

Every few years I replay the first game. Wildly underrated and crazy the series has not gotten remastered or ported.

 

[kevboard]

there was a Naked Gun mobile game that has been lost media for a while since even if you get the .apk file, you can't play it as it needs to download additional data from a server that's of course offline.

I think tons of mobile games will or already have become lost media simply due to how bad the path of distribution is

 

[NanaMiku]

MonolithSoft needs Nintendo to make Namco Bandai cough up so we can get a Radical Dreamers Edition of Xenosaga.

Yeah, if Bamco doesn't want to make a remaster, just sell it to Nintendo.

 

[Zephyranthes]

MonolithSoft needs Nintendo to make Namco Bandai cough up so we can get a Radical Dreamers Edition of Xenosaga.

I suspect that there's some technical issue, such as the original source code being lost; otherwise Bamco probably would have already released a port of some kind.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

I suspect that there's some technical issue, such as the original source code being lost; otherwise Bamco probably would have already released a port of some kind.

So you think Harada lied when he said Namco considering it saw it as a financial failure?

 

[Boss Mog]

Xenosaga trilogy is in desperate need of a remaster. Hopefully Namco will step up soon, they seem to be remastering Tales games so why not Xenosaga. Does the fact that Nintendo now owns MonolithSoft complicate things?

 

[The Lunch Legend]

Does the fact that Nintendo now owns MonolithSoft complicate things?

Yes .

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

As is Missing Year. Xenosaga is definitely a product of its time when it comes to JRPGs, when markets outside of Japan were still being treated as an afterthought.

Yup, the start of Episode III was mighty confusing with all that content between it and Ep. II being locked into those two games.

Can't really blame them for not distributing those games in the west. Mobile was far from the standard it is in the post-iPhone era, and the series wasn't exactly lighting up the charts, so translating those games would be a waste. But I do blame Japan for their cross-media craze and their obsession for multi-part sagas with pieces and episodes distributed through console games, mobile games, comic books and whatnot, where every single part is absolutely essential to understand the whole plot. Kingdom Hearts did that too.

 

[Hudo]

I love part 1, didn't care for part 2, love part 3

Agreed. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely liked part 2.

 

[Zephyranthes]

Agreed. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely liked part 2.

Takahashi had far less direct involvement with XS2, which is why the art style and combat design are so wildly different. And yeah, the game's a mess....everything takes forever to do, the characters barely animate, it has one of the worse collections of side content ever conceived for a JRPG, and the new English voice cast is largely terrible. I don't know that I've ever seen as extreme of a course correction in game design as there was going from XS2 to XS3.

 

[NanaMiku]

Takahashi had far less direct involvement with XS2, which is why the art style and combat design are so wildly different. And yeah, the game's a mess....everything takes forever to do, the characters barely animate, it has one of the worse collections of side content ever conceived for a JRPG, and the new English voice cast is largely terrible. I don't know that I've ever seen as extreme of a course correction in game design as there was going from XS2 to XS3.

They even fixed it in Xenosaga 1&2 for DS

 

[jshackles]

I do blame Japan for their cross-media craze and their obsession for multi-part sagas with pieces and episodes distributed through console games, mobile games, comic books and whatnot, where every single part is absolutely essential to understand the whole plot. Kingdom Hearts did that too.

Cries in Final Fantasy XV

 

[rubik's dude]

Cries in Final Fantasy XV

Kingdom Hearts fans be like:

 

[Zephyranthes]

So you think Harada lied when he said Namco considering it saw it as a financial failure?

Harada lying would hardly be a surprise, but I think it's more of an effort-versus-reward issue. If the source code has indeed been lost, the resources that would be required to produce even the most basic of ports would be exponentially higher. Perhaps they consider it a "financial failure" insofar as they are not in a position to easily profit from it.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Yup, the start of Episode III was mighty confusing with all that content between it and Ep. II being locked into those two games.

I love all three Xenosaga games but the original vision was six games. I think for Episode 3, they just went directly to Episode 6 and just called it Episode 3. We didn't get the story for the actual Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5. I would love it if MonolithSoft ever gets the chance to do Games in the Xenosaga Franchise that goes over all the missing content from Episode 3 to Episode 5. Since I know that the Episode 6 we got was just called Episode 3. Hope that makes sense. It's a pipedream though

Can't really blame them for not distributing those games in the west. Mobile was far from the standard it is in the post-iPhone era, and the series wasn't exactly lighting up the charts, so translating those games would be a waste. But I do blame Japan for their cross-media craze and their obsession for multi-part sagas with pieces and episodes distributed through console games, mobile games, comic books and whatnot, where every single part is absolutely essential to understand the whole plot. Kingdom Hearts did that too.

Yeah for Kingdom Hearts that didn't work at all. Most of the time I'm not a fan of that approach to storytelling either

 

[YeulEmeralda]

MonolithSoft needs Nintendo to make Namco Bandai cough up so we can get a Radical Dreamers Edition of Xenosaga.

There was a Baten Kaitos remaster so anything is possible.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Agreed. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely liked part 2.

I did. Of course, I struggled hard with the combat system and of course I hit a roadblock at that infamous boss. Then I read/watched a few tutorials on how to combat effectively and when it clicked, the game became actually fun. It was much shorter and less dragging than 1 and 3, which coupled well with the faster-flowing gameplay. In comparison, 3 felt rigid and repetitive, with the mech boss battles taking forever and being all about doing the same thing again and again and again. Too bad Ep. 2 had ugly designs and the loading times for battles took forever.

I love all three Xenosaga games but the original vision was six games. I think for Episode 3, they just went directly to Episode 6 and just called it Episode 3. We didn't get the story for the actual Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5. I would love it if MonolithSoft ever gets the chance to do Games in the Xenosaga Franchise that goes over all the missing content from Episode 3 to Episode 5. Since I know that the Episode 6 we got was just called Episode 3. Hope that makes sense. It's a pipedream though

Well, Xenogears was clearly labeled as Episode V in a saga where, iirc, Xenosaga was supposed to be Episode I, to be told in 6 parts. They were clearly biting more than they could chew, even in that era of way faster development times.
Doing spinoffs to save time and money and still tell as complete a story as possible was somewhat a good idea. Pity about the execution. If you have a story to tell, make it fucking accessible and don't release it in a format that will predictably be obsolete in a few years.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Agreed. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely liked part 2.

Episode 2 is my favorite of the Xenosaga Trilogy due to the battle system

 

[The Lunch Legend]

Agreed. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely liked part 2.

I genuinely liked part II, but didn't love it.

 

[Hudo]

I did. Of course, I struggled hard with the combat system and of course I hit a roadblock at that infamous boss. Then I read/watched a few tutorials on how to combat effectively and when it clicked, the game became actually fun. It was much shorter and less dragging than 1 and 3, which coupled well with the faster-flowing gameplay. In comparison, 3 felt rigid and repetitive, with the mech boss battles taking forever and being all about doing the same thing again and again and again. Too bad Ep. 2 had ugly designs and the loading times for battles took forever.




Well, Xenogears was clearly labeled as Episode V in a saga where, iirc, Xenosaga was supposed to be Episode I, to be told in 6 parts. They were clearly biting more than they could chew, even in that era of way faster development times.
Doing spinoffs to save time and money and still tell as complete a story as possible was somewhat a good idea. Pity about the execution. If you have a story to tell, make it fucking accessible and don't release it in a format that will predictably be obsolete in a few years.

Episode 2 is my favorite of the Xenosaga Trilogy due to the battle system

I genuinely liked part II, but didn't love it.

Well, fuck. Maybe I need to dust off my PS2 and try to play it again, then.

I first disliked XBC2 mainly because of the battle system at first, before some dude on 4chan told me that I should try seeing it as a rhythm game, especially with the auto-cancelling as the "pulse" or "beat". And then it fucking clicked for me. XBC2 is the Taiko No Tatsujin of JRPGs. So maybe I will have some new take on Xenosaga 2's battle system as well.

 

[The Lunch Legend]

Well, fuck. Maybe I need to dust off my PS2 and try to play it again, then.

The enjoyment I gathered from part π was that it "felt" more like Xenogears.

I can't objectively make a case that it's good, though.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Well, fuck. Maybe I need to dust off my PS2 and try to play it again, then.

I first disliked XBC2 mainly because of the battle system at first, before some dude on 4chan told me that I should try seeing it as a rhythm game, especially with the auto-cancelling as the "pulse" or "beat". And then it fucking clicked for me. XBC2 is the Taiko No Tatsujin of JRPGs. So maybe I will have some new take on Xenosaga 2's battle system as well.

Yeah I understood the battle system from the first time I played it. I only played the game once and got through that boss that made a lot of people quit that game which is understandable.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Yup, the start of Episode III was mighty confusing with all that content between it and Ep. II being locked into those two games.

Can't really blame them for not distributing those games in the west. Mobile was far from the standard it is in the post-iPhone era, and the series wasn't exactly lighting up the charts, so translating those games would be a waste. But I do blame Japan for their cross-media craze and their obsession for multi-part sagas with pieces and episodes distributed through console games, mobile games, comic books and whatnot, where every single part is absolutely essential to understand the whole plot. Kingdom Hearts did that too.

This is not exclusively a Japan thing. The Halo series expected people to read the books.
It is a really shitty way to tell a story expecting everyone to be a mega fan who is into the whole universe.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

This is not exclusively a Japan thing. The Halo series expected people to read the books.
It is a really shitty way to tell a story expecting everyone to be a mega fan who is into the whole universe.

True. Still, it's infinitely easier to find a book than find a video game made for Japanese mobile phones from the mid-2000s, and a way to play it as well. Not to mention, it's in Japanese.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Xenosaga 2 has without exaggeration the worst battle system I've ever experienced. 4+ minute battles where you solve the same puzzle over and over. It was torture.

I'm kinda shocked seeing people white knight for it now.

 

[rubik's dude]

Xenosaga 2 has without exaggeration the worst battle system I've ever experienced. 4+ minute battles where you solve the same puzzle over and over. It was torture.

I'm kinda shocked seeing people white knight for it now.

Agreed, I'm extremely fond of 1 and 3, and I'd like to replay the trilogy at some point, but I fucking hate the combat in 2.

Some people dog on the story of 2 too, but I thought it was good. It was obvious they were still planning on doing a total of 6 games at that point though lol.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The combat in 1 and 3 wasn't anything to write home about either. In 1 your characters could learn way more skills than were actually useful to beat the game, and late-game enemies were stupidly spongey. 3 had 15/20-minute boss battles where the exact same moves were repeated throughout the whole battle. 2 had at least some strategy involved in it. If you like the rock-paper-scissors combat of Persona, it's basically the same thing, with the added bonus that Xenosaga 2 will never throw a curveball at the most convenient moment and wipe your party out in one turn just when you think you've figured out the battle.

 

[N0S]