Welcome, welcome to the recap of Xenosaga II! Imagine me saying that in my best Effie Trinket voice, as I am more or less welcoming myself to the Reaping. Xenosaga II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (that’s German for “Beyond Good Writing”) is about as direct a sequel as they come, so please feel free to refresh yourself on what passes for the plot. (I will do my best to provide links explaining more obscure stuff, but otherwise I’ll be operating as if everybody has read the Xenosaga recaps. Cool? Cool.)
Are we all caught up? Does everyone have “Shion sucks” triple underlined in their notes? Great. The title screen shows us some random dudes in orange jumpsuits floating in zero gravity and attaching tit plates to a mech (NOT an A.G.W.S., because I can’t have shitty things I’m accustomed to, let alone nice things). That feels like an appropriate taste of what’s to come. After tinkering with some game settings, I am asked if I want to load save data from the previous game. I am deeply concerned that this save data will be encrypted like the MacGuffin Data and my TV will be subject to a hostile takeover by Shion’s naked torso, but the only thing that happens is I acquire three swimsuits: one for Ziggy, one for KOS-MOS, and one labeled “Geriatric Swimsuit.” I will assume this is Corey’s.
On to the actual game. By that I mean a long-ass cutscene, obviously. An unfamiliar class of ship flies over an ocean-blue planet, and the footage is soon shown to be just that, as static cuts in and a reporter tells the audience that this is “actual footage from the violence that erupted before dawn this morning.” That footage happens to be Realians going berserk in the futuristic, digital billboard-lit streets of Miltia. Oh, did I mention? The “direct sequel” portion of our program won’t be commencing for a an hour or so–instead, we’re bringing you live coverage of the 14-years-gone Miltian Conflict, as it has not been impressed upon us nearly enough how fucked up the universe became because Realians got their wires crossed and ate some people one time. (I’m actually being serious: we have not even begun to nose into this gopher hole. God help me.) As the Realians flip cars and beat people to death and laugh maniacally, the reporter drones on about the specific models of Realian that have gone berserk, as if Bob Buttcrack and his wife Doris Drinksathome are going to take solace from knowing that their intestines are being eaten out of their stomachs because Joachim Mizrahi was too late in issuing the factory recall.
They’re really just celebrating the Cubs finally winning the World Series.
We zoom out from the TV news, where the reporter is still reading a list of fucking model numbers, to observe a person watching the broadcast as he needlessly futzes with his gloves. He’s pretty clearly a Realian judging from his ridiculous jumpsuit, but unlike the Aryan models starting fires on TV, he’s a saucy redhead. Realian Weasley is just about done making sure his gloves are fitted to his hands within a nanometer when Mace Windu appears on the TV screen, wearing a black beret that I’m going to pretend is a Kangol hat. The army-issue Kangol and accompanying beige uniform are helpful indicators that at this point in the story, Mace is still in the military. At first I think Mace is reading some statement for the public via the news broadcast, but it becomes clear after a moment that he’s speaking to Realian Weasley. “Today was just the beginning of the ensuing violence,” Mace says. “These Realian outbreaks are spreading like wildfire. They’ll be reading off plenty more model numbers in the media tomorrow, I can assure you.” Oh boy! Cannot wait. Realian Weasley wonders aloud, in a fairly sexy but monotone voice, what that has to do with his “operation.” Still fixing his fucking gloves–Christ, guy, just take them off if they’re bugging you that much–he goes on, “I’d like to know why I was chosen for this mission.” They needed the dude who was the most neurotic about the fit of his accessories. “I’m told that the military has detained all of its Realians,” RW adds. “I find it difficult to believe that they don’t have any misgivings about us.” That’s fair. But maybe all redhead Realians have programming that makes them Pure and Good and True?
“Canaan,” Mace says, and I like my name better but I’ll stick with his real one, “you’re a Realian who’s been especially created and configured by Vector, itself. I’ve been given the CEO’s personal guarantee that you won’t be affected like the others.” Well, if Wilhelm says he’s fine, full speed ahead! Can’t think of a more trustworthy person to be giving product safety guarantees. None of this explains why Canaan needs to be doing whatever it is he’s about to do, just why he should be allowed to. But a third person steps off the elevator into Canaan’s room to provide that answer. This person is also in a sad future jumpsuit, making me rethink my stance on jumpsuits being Realian-exclusive, even if I was right about Canaan.
“Besides,” this mystery person says, “no ordinary pilot could possibly control your craft.” How did he already know what they were talking about? Was there a monitor in the elevator? “That makes you very vital to the operation.” Eventually I get a glimpse of the back of this dude’s head, and it’s…CHAOS!!!? No, this can’t be right. I got a nice close-up view of the crotch of his jumpsuit–natch–and no gargantuan pants serpent was visible. Are these jumpsuits just incredibly unflattering to one’s genitals? (Canaan is also not packing, but I wasn’t expecting him to be.) Or does CHAOS!!! grow his Space Needle at some later point? Does it regenerate?! Is he between wiener growth cycles?
Mace introduces Canaan to CHAOS!!!, who will be keeping his nickname despite the current lack of a lurking third leg. CHAOS!!! will be Canaan’s navigator on this mission, an offer Canaan tries to decline because “A regular human can’t ride in that thing.” Well, regular humans can’t grow penises like grass on a chia pet, either, so I think we’re good there. CHAOS!!! is basically like, “HAHA, you think you’re going to meet anyone from here on who is a normal human being? Oh, you.” They head out.
Canaan and CHAOS!!! receive a briefing from either a woman or a robot with a womanly voice as the OS for their craft boots up. It’s apparently run on a Windows 95 screensaver. The technobabbly gist is this is a top secret mission so they’re on their own, and should expect to have their asses blown into a million pieces by both U-GEE and Federation units. I don’t know about Canaan so far (well, I totally do), but it’s hard to think they’re in that much danger with CHAOS!!! here. We know he’s gonna be fine. Eventually the lady or lady robot lets us in on the actual mission objective: to find the U.R.T.V.s and get them off the planet. “All of them?” CHAOS!!! asks, more or less wondering if they should only rescue the important ones with interesting hair colors. “Affirmative,” lady/robot lies. Then, she says, they should “infiltrate [U-GEE]’s motherframe and acquire the [MacGuffin] Data, the root of this conflict.” Of course it is.
“E.S. Asher start-up sequence complete,” Canaan intones. “Requesting launch.” I looked up what “E.S.” stands for and it just made me roll my eyes, so I’ll let you do the same on your own time. But as for what they actually are, the extremely short version is that they’re mechs with souls. (Or they’re Omnigears, if you hate yourself and want to go down the fruitless road of attempting to line up this series with Xenogears.) We’ll be talking a lot more about them from here on, and also feigning temporary deafness when someone points out that the E.S. have been around all this time and nobody in the last game used one or mentioned them at all. (Except for maybe Albedo.) The title of the game appears as Canaan flies Asher into the sunrise over Miltia.
‘…make out with me.’
CHAOS!!! fills the silence–the nemesis of all Xenosaga writers–with technobabble and numbers, until Canaan basically tells him to shut up and do some navigating. I like Canaan. He gives over weapons control to CHAOS!!! and toddles him through taking out some craft doing fancy tactical spirals in the air ahead of them. (The craft are actually unmanned robots on tiny circular surfboards. EXTREME!) Canaan responds by pulling some acrobatic stunts of his own while CHAOS!!! fires E.S. Asher’s long, hard laser rifle at the unmanned craft, clearly very comfortable with having such an impressive implement in hand. I wonder why. After all this, CHAOS!!! whines that they’re low on “A.B.R. Energy,” and nope, not even gonna look that up, and says they should land, but Canaan instead flips Asher around like Episode II Yoda and CHAOS!!! closes his eyes until the exact right moment, before firing the gun and taking out four of the five remaining Robot Surfers with one blast. Thumbs down for Gary Stu mystical showoffery, thumbs up for cool explosions. They dispatch the final Robot Surfer in anticlimactic short order, CHAOS!!! and Canaan congratulate each other on being so awesome and special, and they land.
*snickers for five long minutes*
Now that the lighting isn’t all fucked up one way or another, I can report that E.S. Asher is a lovely shade of pale violet. Neutral enough to fit any accessories! I approve. CHAOS!!! takes a look around the streets of Miltia City, or whatever the fuck, and observes that they didn’t exactly land near the target, but they’ll have to approach by ground because Asher’s penis laser is out of juice for taking on air assaults. But that’s all the better for me to appreciate the many neon delights of the FUTURE PAST! Seriously, the light pollution on this planet must be off the fucking chart.