Why I almost gave up on Xenosaga

In my previous post, I said that I would talk about anything that crosses my mind regarding my work on the Xenosaga videos. And what's been crossing my mind at the time of writing this, is something that is making me question the quality of Xenosaga's story and my whether or not I should continue this project.

I've mentioned before that I haven't finished the game, or have watched all the cut-scenes before I started this project, so I didn't really have a total understanding of the plot. I know that saying this is going to make me look like a total dumbass who is impatient, but I think that it's better for me to be honest, rather than lie. So a good portion of my knowledge of Xenosaga's plot has been coming from my work on further episodes in this series.

However, working on the most recent episodes has been bothering me quite a bit. You see in the setting of Xenosaga, there are a lot of things that's needed to wrap your head around to get a full understanding of the plot and the world Xenosaga has created. Up until now Xenosaga did a good job of expositing; keeping things vague, while at the same time making them simple and understanding. At the part of the story I'm in now, they use that same exposition technique, but they're trying to provide exposition for too many things at once. I suppose I could just remove the scene I'm talking about here, hoping that it would have no real impact further in the plot (it's not like it's the first time I've made that decision woking on this series).

It also doesn't help that there are actually quite of number of plot-holes I've noticed. The first one I saw is in the first episode I made. At one point Shion mentions that she used to live on Miltia, and that nobody is allowed to go back there. Although later on in a scene where she is talking to her brother over the phone, Shion said that she would visit him eventually. Thing is, Shion's brother lives on Miltia. I thought that nobody outside that planet was allowed to go there? I don't know, maybe I took that statement out of context, or it could've been a translation error. Plus, it didn't really seem to affect the main plot so I let it slide when I posted it, thinking that things would've been better explained later.

After that, I haven't really noticed any other plot holes while working on further episodes. That was until recently. Later in the story, we're introduced to a character named Junior. Even though I haven't gone through the story in completion, I can tell that the writers for Xenosaga were trying to set up a romance story between him and MOMO. Problem is that in one point in the story, Junior indirectly calls MOMO's "father", Joachim Mizrahi, insane, leaving MOMO upset. Later on, you see Junior asking his friend and co-worker not bring up Mizrahi when he's around her due to her being a realian. Than why did you go on that rant about him in front of her earlier!? He knew MOMO was a realian, but that still didn't stop him from his diatribe!? In fact you never see Junior confronting MOMO about that situation. Next moment their together, Junior tries to put the moves on MOMO, without ever apologizing or consider if she's still a little upset over what he said earlier. Ass-hole.

Then there came another plot hole that just blew my mind in how stupid and ridiculous it was. I'm still a little confused about this scene, so excuse me if I get some things wrong in this explanation. Anyways, our main protagonists are under arrest, and while awaiting questioning, they are introduced to this woman whose working on the inside, trying to prove they're innocent. To summarize this event, here's what she asks them to do. She asks our heroes to knock her out, run away and retrieve video footage stored in KOS-MOS' memory bank and give it to that same woman from earlier. THAT..DOSEN'T..MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! If you want to prove them innocent, than why do you want them to knock you out and attack every guard in the way!? That would just add to their list of charges! Secondly, this woman seems to be the one in charge of the soldiers that arrested our heroes, so why couldn't she just escort them to KOS-MOS and receive the footage from there!? What's the point!? Why create this elaborate stage when it makes NO FUCKING SENSE!!!

Sigh.... Now I think I've given a good explanation on what I said earlier about having second thoughts on this project and on Xenosaga as a whole. I mean, I really did think that Xenosaga had a really good story to it, but after seeing how confusing it is, and how gaping the plot-holes are, I'm starting to think that my admiration for Xenosaga's story and this project as a whole is a total lie. However, even with that I'm still determined to finish this project. Why? Because I've spent so much time and effort into this, I'd hate to see it end up being worthless. And who knows, maybe things will start to make sense in the end. And if it dosen't, I could try to edit these scenes out.

Xenosaga: Episode 3 and announcement

I am so, so, so, sorry about the delay of this video. I know I said that I would have this up on saturday, but a couple things have gotten in the way, which prevented me from doing so, but here it sorry. Again, I'm very sorry.




With that, I would also like to make an announcement for this blog and series. Due to the problem of trying to keep this on schedule, I'm not going to be releasing any more episodes for a while. What I'm going to do, is finish making every episode for this series, and then I'll post them on the site after that task is accomplished. I feel like I work better when I'm not under any sort of pressure. Plus, I got to admit that I haven't seen every cutscene for the game, so it would probably be better if I had a full grasp of the plot before I release this series. I'll still keep the blog up and make posts whenever there's something relating to Xenosaga that crosses my mind. So with that, I'll say "see ya later".

Episode 3 Will Come Out Next Week

I know that in a previous post, I said that to some extent I was finished with episode 3 of this series. What I meant by that was that I had the video I made for episode 3 in the days I did this series using Movie Maker.... or I thought I did.You see, when my laptop caught a virus erasing everything installed on my laptop, I was kind of fortunate to have episodes 1 and 3 intact on my flash drive. However, one day when I was trying to make some room on my flash drive, I deleted episode 3 without thinking I was going to need it later. I forgot about this happening and I made the premature statement that I said I was kind of finished with episode 3. Also I got to admit that the other reason why I didn't finish the episode for this week was because throughout this weekend I was busy with school and work, and I spent my free time playing video games and watching TV. I know it's kind of stupid for me to admit this, but it's not like there are thousands of people watching my videos and visiting this blog. So to the two people who visit this blog on a regular basis, I want to apologize for the lack of a new episode this week, and I'll have episode 3 up on the Ninth of July.

Xenosaga: Episode 2

Here's the second episode of my Xenosaga series.

Xenosaga: Episode 1

 Well, it's finally here, the first episode of my Xenosaga series. It's been a while since I started this project and only now am I posting the first episode on the internet.

Episode 1 Will Be Released This Saturday

Dear god I'm lazy! It's been what? Two months since I started this blog? And I haven't even posted the first episode yet, even though I've been working on it it for months!? Sigh, unfortunatley to those who care about this little project I'm working on, it won't be released until saturday of this week. The video itself is actually finished but I wanted to release it on saturday because not allot of internet series (at least not the ones that I'm familiar with) don't post any new videos on that day of the week, which I thought would give the series more exposure on the internet. I was going to post it on the saturday that preceded this post, but I got distracted that weekend with school, the movies, hanging out with friends, work, errands and just plain goofing off, to even bother working to set-up an account on blip tv, where I'll be posting the episodes on. I do plan on releasing new episodes on a weekly schedule, and since episode 2 is finished as well, and episode 3 to a certain extent, I don't think I'll have to worry about on track to much.

Episode 2 is Finished

 Man, it's been a while since I last posted on this blog. Like it says in the title for this post, episode 2 of my Xenosaga series is complete. I've actually been finished with it since last friday, but I've only able to confirm this today because in the weekend I completed this, I caught the flu, and I got sick during Memorial Day weekend. Plus, school and other things have prevented me from having much free time to write this post, and working on more Xenosaga-related stuff.

 Also, I didn't face the same problem I had while working on episode 1, where the video took 11gb of space. I fixed it by working the episode on the latest version on Sony Vegas, which not only gave me a video that wasn't the size of a World of Warcraft install, but it was superior to Premiere Pro 1.5 in every way.

 Anyways, I'm going to make some adjustments to the episode 1 video before I post it online, but I'll be able to finish it and post it soon. Although considering how busy I am, and how easily distracted I can be, It will probably take another week.