Xenosaga Episode III - Promised Pain | Reacting To Video Game Music!

[@valkyrieKNIGH7]

It's our time Xenosaga fans!!

[@arjanzweers6542]

Finally come Yuki Kajiura. She's probably one of the more underrated composers, probably because she does more anime music than game music. I'm sure you will love her music as her style can best be described as a combination of Keiichi Okabe and Yoko Shimomura. Her anime music is something you can check out in your free time (e.g. Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mai Hime) Regarding this song, it was probably a cutscene rather than a boss battle. Yuki Kajiura usually combines actions scenes with an electric guitar, going for an orchestral metal style.

[@wildblack1]

0:27 The Also sprach Zarathustra is in German and it means Thus Spoke Zarathustra in English. It is also the title of a book written by Nietzsche. 8:36 It plays during the final boss of the game. 9:38 I believe it is the 3rd most expensive ps2 game.

[@ianp5367]

While this is the final boss theme, it's more specifically, in my opinion, the main antagonist theme. It plays during some of the most iconic moments that serve those particularly story beats far better than it does the final boss fight. Godsibb feels a bit more climactic than this, while this hits the more emotional and melancholic elements of the story.

[@weewoo1111]

hell yeah bro xenosaga is peak xeno for me xenosaga is my favorite story in all of fiction. it tackles stuff like mental health and trauma and the effects it can have on people's choices and behavior which is something that not everyone understands but it means a lot to the people who do. it's also one of the only rpgs to portray god and religion in a good light which i highly appreciate. recent xenoblade 3 dlc kinda connects the two worlds in a really cool way so i hope they bring xenosaga trilogy back so people can play them on modern consoles :D (especially since the third one is super expensive as you saw lmao)

[@siverwrites]

It's been a long time now since I've played Xenosaga, but the nostalgia hit. Yuki Kajiura was the co-composer for Xenosaga II and the sole composer for III. Her work is just cool.

[@arkdetective]

She also did the score for .hack sign & the case study of vanitas, among other anime. She actually has two albums called fiction that cover works she did for anime & video games. My long forgotten cloistered sleep, which was an unused song for xenosaga, is a personal favorite of mine.

[@Mrinsecure]

The Xenosaga games are a *fascinating* anomaly from the PS2 era. Originally envisioned as a six-game anthology spanning years of work and going across console generations, the games were meant to focus on a story that touched on themes as broad and high-minded as the nature of good and evil, what it means to be human, and the existence and nature of God. It brings in ideas and concepts from philosophy and theology as far afield as Nietzsche, Kant, Gnostic Christianity, Kabbalah, and Aleister Crowley, among others (How successfully it does so is another story). Unfortunately, it was a case of them biting off way more than they could chew, especially after sales turned out somewhat disappointing for the first game and their initially ambitious plans had to be scaled back. Ultimately, only three games were ever produced, though in a sense Xenosaga lives on with its kinda-sorta spiritual successor, Xenoblade.

[@SacrificAbominat]

The one thing I like about Xenosaga's music and they kind of did this for the Xenoblade series as well is that each game has it's own distinct soundtrack from each other. Episode 1 is very melancholic, episode 2 is very experimental and weird, and episode 3 is very epic. Even though Yuki Kajiura did the soundtracks for 2 and 3 she made them feel very different from each other. Though to some extent she also brings some of the music of episode 3 back to Xenogears with songs like "Abel's Ark" which is her recreation of "Those who bare fangs at God" instead of this chanty religious sounding song she made it a very somber piano theme fitting for the penultimate level of the game.

[@celadore]

It is such a nostalgic early 2000s sound. I would love to hear this song remastered with modern production values (think xenoblade 3 or Nier Automata).

[@Malficious]

I have such fond memories of the Xenosaga Trilogy, but especially 3. I Really need to play through them again.

[@ia7051]

9:22 Well, now people are SPECULATING that Xenosaga will return soon due to Xenoblade shenanigans. It's a whole thing, fans are getting into arguments about the validity of this now

[@icecreamorc]

Honestly beyond good with whatever they are cooking but I am admittedly in the Xenosaga 4 camp of the fanbase myself.

[@SomaNova]

Honestly I'm fine with whatever they do next. After playing Saga myself I'd absolutely love to see it return in some form, but regardless the trilogy should definitely be on modern consoles (and the side content like Pied Piper and Missing Year more accessable in an official form). Then again, when have Saga fans ever got nice things lol.

[@fireswarmdragonp]

When I looked into the music for this game, finding out the final boss theme was called promised pain was really satisfying. There's a whole deal in the game about how fighting against the final boss would result in pain, the classic, you should just give up it's easier that way. So this song, with it's title really gives that cathartic, yeah we chose the hard path, because it was the only way to move forward

[@mahboi4830]

Xenosaga, despite a rough development, has some fantastic music as a big series constant (Mitsuda and Kajiura especially are GOATed). This series also has a lot of unused songs, so I often come back to it to try to dig up another hidden gem lol

[@arkdetective]

My long forgotten cloistered sleep is a personal favorite of mine that went unused in xenosaga. It's on her album called fiction 2.

[@Luthee]

The composer for this is also one of my favorite Anime composers, if you're interested in hearing an awesome track check out the song "The World" from the anime "Hack Sign". It still gives me chills when listening to it. To be fair the whole hack sign OST is incredible.

[@austinmartin612]

Comparing anything by Yuki Kajiura to Nier music is pretty accurate. She's one of the original Chaos Language users in her compositions. Honestly LOTS of the music from Xenosaga is similar to Nier. Yuki Kajiura did the soundtrack for Xenosaga 2 and 3. If you liked Nier music, you'll love her music, she has a very similar style. I have such a deep love for this game series, it was my escape for a while, I played the hell out of it, and it was such a bittersweet moment when I first reached the end of Episode 3 knowing there wouldn't be anything after that, I so badly wanted to continue the story with these characters.

[@MorseusWGS]

Having replayed these games recently, you can absolutely tell that it started out meaning to be a super long, super expansive storyline project that unfortunately got cut short. Over the course of the trilogy a lot of great storylines had to be closed up with less satisfying, though still good, endings. It is dark, it is brutal, it makes you question a lot of the things you believe: about the world, about existence, about what it is to be human, about yourself. So yeah, some parallels to Nier there lol. That said, Yuki Kajiura took over for Yasunori Mitsuda after the first game in the trilogy and this was the game that got me absolutely hooked on her music, which got me to watch .hack//SIGN, the gateway drug for a LOT of people's love of her music. She has an absolute mastery behind her compositions for emotional storytelling. The transition at 2:50 of this video is the motif of the 3rd episode, you hear it at the start of the game and a few other times during in different iterations, and it's called "Prelude to Tragedy." So to answer your question of whether this boss is attacking you physically or emotionally, the answer is yes.

[@flik221]

Xenosaga is amazing story wise. Such cool concepts and characters

[@nathannemyman3522]

We need a remaster for these games (especially given the price and lack of availability 😅) but it's been hard to avoid spoiler for the game! What's worse is that alot of the concepts of Xenoblade feels attributed or derivative to concepts explored seemingly far deeper in Xenosaga and I feel really out of the conversation trying to figure out where the heck Takahashi is going with the next Xenoblade game! I'm trying my best to keep myself unspoiled so I can support an official release, but videos like this make me even more curious!

[@ShallBePurified]

I was lucky to borrow my cousin's copy of all 3 Xenosaga games. They really need to rerelease them so they aren't $100 per game to play. More people need to experience Takahashi's madness.

[@jacobmonks3722]

​@ShallBePurified Xenosaga 1 and 2 aren't too bad. 1 got a Greatest Hits release so it's not rare in the slightest, and I found 2 in decent condition at a secondhand store near me for $45. A bit much for an old game, but definitely affordable. Xenosaga 3 can piss off with its $300 average.

[@Malacite]

I would love to get a remaster of the trilogy but there's a lot of issues unfortunately - mostly licensing, since Xenosaga was published by Namco Bandai, but Monolith is owned by Nintendo now. Also tragically, some of the VAs are dead (most notably Marguelis). At least KOS-MOS was playable in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (she's an incredibly rare pull though, I never got her sadly) Here's hoping SQEX new President will be more chill and actually let Monolith use the Xenogears license. *EDIT: The subtitle is German I believe for "The Will to Make" Much like Xenogears, the Xenosaga series has massive Christian overtones.

[@totalradlad]

I believe this is the final boss theme.

[@CycloneFox]

Yay! more Xenosaga goodness. Godsibb and Promised Pain are both two of the boss themes. The whole episode III soundtrack sounds very somber and sad. But it’s my favorite game of all time.

[@NoahAU]

Xenosaga's history was rocky as hell. Originally planned to be six games through Xenogears, but budget at square ran out so the game had to be rushed. They tried the same thing again to fill out more of the universe with Xenosaga, but once again budget ran out so it was cut into three games. They later just settled with the Xenoblade series which only slightly nudges at the universe, the most now probably in Xenoblade 3. Yuki Kajiura is generally known as a famous anime musician who rarely really works on games, but Xenosaga was her largest one she did. For anime, The Garden of Sinners and Madoka Magica have likely her most popular/favorite works(at least they're my favorites). Fun fact, budget straining got so bad in Xenosaga 1 that there are only two battle themes in the entire game, the main battle theme and final boss theme. If anyone ever heard Xenosaga 1's battle theme, it's probably playing in their heads reading this now. Also, Xenogears' original development was actually planned to be the sequel to Chrono Trigger at first, but after some early work it turned into its own project. As an easter egg, Luca even shows up as a tutorial guide in the first house.

[@ManiacalForeigner]

Xenogears was actually intended to be a multimedia franchise, the game we got being Episode 5, and the issue with the game wasn't actually budget, but time. Square had a hard limit of 2 years of development per game, but a lot of the Xenogears staff were fairly inexperienced, so they simply ran out of time. Square offered Tetsuya Takahashi the option of releasing the already finished first half of Xenogears separately and a part 2 later, but fearing the sequel might get cancelled the team instead focused on tying up the story in one game.

[@totalradlad]

To add to this a bit, the story of Xenogears was initially a proposal for FF7. It was deemed too dark and complex for the Final Fantasy series, but Takahashi and his wife was allowed to make it into a game anyway. For some amount of time, it was going to be a Chrono Trigger successor, but it was also too dark for that series, so it was turned into a new IP.

[@Malacite]

So, the problem with Xenosaga wasn't budgetary it was SQEX being assholes. Takahashi practically begged them for the Xenogears license so he could finish his grand plan that started with Gears (which is episode 4 I believe) but even though the company had absolutely no plans to revisit the IP (they still don't) they wouldn't give it up. So instead of being prequels leading up to Xenogears, they went and made a brand new trilogy that loosely references Xenogears but had to avoid making any overt connections. It's a damn shame honestly, we won't ever see the completion of the series all because SQEX upper management keep being dicks about it (and Takahashi has moved on besides I think) The next Xenoblade is apparently gonna be wildly different from the other entries.

[@cnett486]

Xenosaga, now that's unexpected. All the Xenosaga titles had German subtitles in their name. I can't pretend I know what they mean, but there we go. I really wish these would come to steam, I loved those games.

[@saintfayde4438]

Xenosaga is my favorite of the Xeno games. Even as flawed as they are due to not being given the budget for the full 6 games they wanted to do for it. That said, I think this is one of those games that Jesse could really appreciate if he played them. If not this, then at least Xenogears.

[@icecreamorc]

Xenosaga 3 was very limited in release as the series was not selling super well, so it's spendy due to it's low print count. It's also considered the best in it's sub series so demand for it is pretty high more so in the last few years because Xenoblade started to pick up a lot more fans and turned people onto the older titles. Oh and it bares mentioning that the entire Xenosaga chunk of the Xeno series has never been officially digitally released so it's currently, I want to say the 3rd most expensive ps2 game?

[@anitireborn1207]

One of favorites. This is a throw back lol

[@SMNtheNight]

This and Godsibb (Jesse reacted Mar 12, 2022 haha XD) are two of my favorites from Xenosaga. After the most recent Xenoblade context, here's to hoping Xenosaga returns in some way soon! Episode 1 was my first PS2 RPG way back and I miss this franchise so much!😭

[@SquallSZ]

Too bad the requester sent him a studio version. Sometimes I dont understand them. I mean...its Godsibb !because of that, jess was just like okey with it.

[@anonarat]

Xenosaga Episode 3 is my favourite game that I've played. As a European, we got screwed heavily with the Xenosaga franchise, with only Episode 2 being released, along with a DVD with some of the plot relevant cutscenes on (which did not include one of the characters doing something completely insane and impossible). One of my friends had a chipped PS2 to let it play US games, and had a copy, so I've only ever gotten to play it once. Nevertheless, it has always stayed with me as an incredible game. It's up there with Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn in terms of needing remasters, not in the least because those of us in Europe never got to truly to play them. (The game not being released here is probably one of the few things I remain truly bitter about)

[@firestuka8850]

Replaying 1 right now

[@geoclisymmk2135]

Hmm I wonder what thoughts would spring to mind if he listens to Remnant 2's Venom boss track.

[@Shakiereagle]

With PAYDAY 3's release a few months ago, you shoud listen to their new soundtracks, they feel very different from PAYDAY 2. In particular, I recommend CTRL + ALT + STEAL by Gustavo Coutinho

[@vampirepriest03]

Casey edwards released a new song a few days ago..

[@dogabark3418]

Although it is less well-known among the Xeno series, it is undoubtedly a work that served as the inspiration for the Xenoblade series.

[@younlongou4071]

Her name is kos-mos

[@SquallSZ]

Also, if you listen to Godsibb again, I recommand you the "official" version. The studio version wasnt giving it justice

[@rafaelribeiro3375]

The first game with orchestra

[@MagnyusG]

Speaking of crying, Xenosaga III has quite possibly one of the most realistic crying faces on its characters. Which is unfortunate because the Xeno series has moved onto more cel-shaded anime aesthetics, which means portraying more subtle details a lot more difficult.

[@kristijanEX]

I wanted to suggest this one, well somebody just saved me a pretty nickel.

[@neogoterra]

Have to say xenosaga is a game I personally have alot of nostalgia for, its been years since I've played it and saddly cant remember to many song's for it. Will say the storyline even with how they had to make cuts to it and sometimes becomes kinda corny it is rather good.

[@rafaelribeiro3375]

Where is Xenosaga remake😢

[@iamjason9693]

He should take a listen to Xenogears’ Flight