Xenosaga is a series that is known for its long cutscenes and large, sometimes long-winded story sequences. It is also a series that is about to be miniaturized for gamers everywhere in the form of Xenosaga I and II for the Nintendo DS.

Xenosaga I and II brings together the first two installments of the series. Considering the original games were both for the PlayStation 2 and both lasted at least 20 hours, it seems an extraordinary task to get the games onto a DS cartridge. The games' graphics have been modified to be sprite based (as seen in the screenshots), and the cut scenes now have no voice acting, instead telling the story with long lines of text. Thus, this is not a game for those who do not wish to read. The story is said to have a few additions to aid in the narration. What exactly these additions are remains to be seen.

Xenosaga I and II's story is of course familiar territory for those who played the previous installments. For those who haven't, the story starts off bringing KOS-MOS through a training procedure. This is a sort of mini-tutorial to get used to the battle system. After that the story picks up into a grand scope that has many religious and philosophical undertones.

But a few changes do appear in the story, such as certain characters appearing at different times in the plotline than they originally did, and the presence of Alex the Realian in the player's party. There have also been subtle twists and tweaks to draw the game story closer to that of the Xenosaga anime, which has not been released outside of Japan.

Instead of allowing one to see enemies and possibly maneuver around them like in the PlayStation 2 installments, Xenosaga I and II has a random encounter system. The battle system is turn based, and is more like the first Xenosaga than the second. Characters each have a ranged and melee attack, which can be combined into longer combinations to perform various attacks and access certain abilities.

A DS change to the fighting would be the movement of characters. At the beginning of a character's turn, the player has the option to move said character on a sort of grid--not quite like that of a tactical RPG, but still movement. A long-range attack can hit an enemy from pretty much anywhere, while dealing a regular physical blow will require the attacker to be lined up properly. There are strategic approaches to moving the characters as well, such as moving a character with lower defense behind a stronger character for protection, or aligning into a preset formation which can grant temporary bonuses. There is no mentioned use of the touchscreen.

The graphics, as mentioned previously, are sprite based. During some cutscenes, however, the graphics have still portraits of important events, or anime-styled characters that help to add to the experience. The game also has some short videos, which is somewhat impressive given the amount of gameplay being crammed into the cartridge already. The video sequences are generally only a few seconds long, not really being comparable to their PS2 counterparts that would commonly last several minutes.

Xenosaga I and II DS was recently released in Japan and has not yet received an official announcement regarding European or American localizations.

SCREENS

• The characters still look great
• Standing and talking
• I call her mini-me
• AWGS attack!

LINKS

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