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Xenogears Perfect Works translated, full of stuff

 
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Kid Fenris



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 300

PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:45 pm    Post subject: Xenogears Perfect Works translated, full of stuff Reply with quote

Do you like Xenogears? No? Well, do you at least like huge books of production art and background material for video games? Xenogears Perfect Works is quite possibly the largest such book ever published, and someone's translated it into English.

Flickr uploads

Huge-Ass Direct Download, courtesy of Nate RFB (Part 1)
Huge-Ass Direct Download (Part 2)

No matter what you think of Xenogears, it's interesting to see just how much work went into the game. Of course, a lot of the complicated backstory wasn't even mentioned in the game itself, and there are numerous notes detailing just what parts of the story were cut or changed.

I'm surprised that there aren't more unused pieces of art or radically different concept drawings, considering that Xenogears supposedly started off as a different game (rumor has it that a 1996 promotional video introduced it as "Chrono Trigger 2," but I've never seen evidence of that). There are some versions of the main characters' Omnigear robots that the game never got around to using, and one playable party member, Margie/Marguerite/Maroeur, was reduced to a supporting role.

Another thing that wasn't used in the game was this batch of cutesy character illustrations.



Well, they weren't in the final game, anyway. Early screenshots of Xenogears showed them as the character portraits during battle.



Square, apparently not wanting to waste the art, used some of these noseless designs for pins and keychains. Rico and Chu-Chu were excluded; the Blanka-esque Rico was probably too wide for the base keychain mold, and only one person on the entire planet ever actually liked Chu-Chu.


Last edited by Kid Fenris on Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:41 am; edited 1 time in total
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Dais



Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 142

PostPosted: Fri May 01, 2009 10:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Let me officially be the only one here to thank you for posting this. I have a love/hate relationship with Xenogears - I think it's a fantastic game and I loved nearly every minute of it (save certain moments like the Shevat tunnels), but I also think it's generally a load of shit, if you know what I mean.

I haven't read entirely through the book yet, but it seems pretty interesting....I'm kind of depressed by how much space is taken up by things that may seem important but really aren't, like how any of the game's moronic science works. But all the character sketches and developer comments are great.

Seeing the different levels of focus is interesting, too....in addition to Margie, the attention given to Sigurd seems to imply they wanted to focus much more on him (and things like his past in Solaris with Jessie, Citan and Ramsus). You also kind of get the idea they wanted the ecology of the game world, especially the various demi-human species, to be more meaningful then they actually ended up being.

It really just brings about more questions, though....my thoughts about Xenogears were never "why did they do this?" and more "what didn't they do?" All the "gosh, this is so mysterious" comments about Zohar and the Wave Existence and Deus heading back to Earth tick me off (and make me wonder what later showed up in Xenosaga), and I'm still baffled by the idea of Episode VI - exactly what is supposed to happen next?

People often compare Xenogears to Evangelion, but looking at the wealth of backstory they made up, sometimes I wonder if they weren't aiming for something closer to Gundam - not just a single plot with a set cast of characters, but an evolving story that takes the form of a universe represented in many different ways...
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