this is old (regarding Xenogears-Xenosaga)

Zuldane

I thought this was semi interesting, it involves some info on how Xenosaga came to be developed by someone other than Square and some other misc Squaresoft history.

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So, what's all this talk about Xenogears and Xenosaga being related to that
game as a prequel or sequel or a remake? Well,pull up a chair, relax, and
let me tell you all about it.

Xenogears was released in Japan on Febuary 11, 1998 and released in the U.S.
on October 27, 1998. The game was hailed by critics as the one to beat, with
argueably the best story of any RPG ever. Controversy surrounded a U.S.
release, due to the religious undertones of the game, but nevertheless, the
previously thought banned game in the U.S., was pushed through and released
to the delight of thousands of gamers. It instantly became my favorite game
of all time and remains as thus to this day.

So what does all that have to do with Xenosaga? Be patient, I'm getting to
that, I have to build it up first...

The two disc game, released on the Playstation met thunderous applause and
standing ovations as the first disc came to a close and sent gamers reeling
into the second disc, with a thirst for more Xenogears. Only to be
disappointed. I personally loved the second disc, but also wish it would
have been all it could have. But, many, were very disappointed by the second
disc.

Why you ask? Because the second disc departed significantly from the model
of the first disc. The first disc was packed solid with action, story, and
battles. The second disc was more like reading a good book. It felt rushed
and told you more about what happened instead of actually doing them yourself.

Let me give you an example that would parallel Xenosaga. Let's take the
Pleroma Mission with Ziggy. If that mission had been on the second disc of
Xenogears, instead of actually playing that entire mission you would of had
Ziggy, sitting in a chair, telling you how he saved MOMO. He also would have
had a slideshow presentation behind him to accompany his speech.

So you can see why some people complained about it. Not because it was a lame
part of the story, but because they wanted to actually play that part, instead
of just hearing about it.

Why was it like this? Well, many people have speculated and claim they know,
however, I don't know that anyone truly knows the answer. Let me provide you
with the most widely accepted reasons.

1. Squaresoft cut the Xenogears project funding in order to allocate more to
Final Fantasy 7.

2. Squaresoft cut the Xenogears project funding for other reasons.

3. Xenogears was taking too long to make and neaded to be rushed along to get
it out the door so it could start turning a profit.

4. The game was too long by the end of the first disc, so they had to cut out
a lot of the stuff they had planned.

5. Any combination of the things reasons listed above.

So, isn't it possible that they just had it planned that way from the
beginning? Anything is possible I guess, but no. The reason I say this is
because many things are left unresolved in the game. I am not referring to
things that get left unresolved because there may be a sequel in the works, I
talking about things that were partially in the game and then left unfinished
or partially taken out. You would have to play the game to understand what I
mean. There is also a debug room in Xenogears that also alludes to my
reasoning. Do a search on the web for info on that if you want to know about
it.

Okay, okay, thanks for the history lesson, but what does this have to do with
Xenosaga? Hold your horses...I'm getting there...

Upon completion of Xenogears, many of the team members that created Xenogears,
left Squaresoft and formed their own company named Monolith Soft. The reasons
for them leaving range from just a plain old, Squaresoft didn't need them
because the game was complete, to Squaresoft and them having a falling out
over Xenogears. Whatever the case may be it doesn't really matter.

So, here we are, Monolith Soft is essentially the same team of people that
created Xenogears. And we all know that they are also the same team
responsible for creating Xenosaga.

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firestarter sent me this:

First off, the whole Xenogears project being screwed up may have had more to
do with their following project, "PROJECT KID" (more on this later), and their
need to work on it over anything else, considering they had both projects
going on at the same time.

Second, I think we need to dive into the history of this development team,
because there is a whole lot more to them than the Xeno games. The team's
first major project was an effort that not only included some of Square's best
(composers Nobuo Uematsu and newcomer Yasunori Mitsuda, as well as
Hironobu Sakaguchi), and two of Enix's best men, producer Yuji Horii and
character designer Akira Toriyama, both from the Dragon Quest series.
The result was probably the best Super Nintendo/Famicom game, and a game that
could outlast the best of them: Chrono Trigger. The team would be involved
in two other projects before Xenogears, one I do not remember the name of,
the other being the text-based Broadcast Satellaview SFC game, Radical
Dreamers.

Upon their completion of Xenogears, they became deeply involved in
"PROJECT KID". When the game gained enough shape and form for the full name
to be released to the company in late 1998, and the public 8 months later:
"PROJECT KID" = "CHRONO CROSS". It was released in 2000 to much praise, but
with lacking sales: It barely hit gold in North America and Japan. Many
people complained afterward that the game itself had quite a few gaping
problems, one of them being the Suikoden-size list of characters (there are
48 accessible characters in the game), and the lack of focus towards many
key characters because of it, as well as a lack of uniqueness and
multi-techs in the game. It was otherwise a great game, however.

Which brings us to how this development team became Monolith Software. Well
after the release of Chrono Cross, Sakaguchi-sama had said that a third Chrono
game was in development with the same team, and he had a major hand in it. At
the same time, they were also developing what seemed to be Xenosaga at the
time. It was even at this point that Chrono Break (the (un)official name of
the third game) had its name trademarked in Japan. Unfortunately, in late
2001, Square literally told the team that both projects were to be on hold,
for they were trying to focus more on its key pillar series, Final Fantasy,
and they were close to being in the red with the bomb of the Final Fantasy
movie. The team responded surprisingly by uniting and becoming Monolith Soft,
leaving Square to become an independent developer. Namco immediately signed
them on, and they continued work on Xenosaga, Though the status of Chrono
Break remains uncertain. Recently, Monolith Soft announced that after
Xenosaga Episode II and the game Baten Kaitos are completed (as well as a
slight remaking of Xenosaga Episode I), they will be available to any
company that wishes to have them join, possibly even their former employer,
now Square-Enix.

As far as where this information came from most of it came from news sources
like GameSpot, the Magic Box, and GameSpy.The knowledge that they were the same
team is implicative simply by comparing credits between XenoGears and either
Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross. The whole Chrono Cross announcement began as
a rumour that Square themselves spread back in 1999, that their next big game
was to start with "Ch-" and since there was just a recent release of a
Chocobo game at the time, all signs pointed to the long-awaited sequel. I
learned a lot about the team through the official announcement of Chrono Cross,
which was on a bunch of game sites that weeded through the entire announcement.
Around late 2000, Hironobu Sakaguchi himself (news source: GameSpot) said
that he has begun early development of the next Chrono game and that he was
shown several storyboard ideas, and the team behind Chrono Cross and XenoGears
would develop it once again. A small note in the news article mentioned that
this team was also working on another project related to XenoGears, this was
probably the first article that actually mentioned what would eventually be
Xenosaga. Sometime later in 2001, Square had registered the trademark of
Chrono Break for their use. Trademarking records tend to be public, though
the trademark offices in Japan and the United States don't exactly announce
it, and gaming companies tend to trademark a specfic name ahead of time so it
isn't used before they officially announce it (see: Sony's PS3 trademarking
in mid-2002, and their "Shock and Awe" trademarking in 2003). It was sometime
after this, however, that we would see the massive bomb that was
"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." It pretty much put Square in the red
once again. They didn't want to become another "bubble-bursted" company (this
was still the beginning of the post-bubble recession in Japan), so they saved
themselves from going bankrupt (like they almost did when they released Final
Fantasy back in 1986) by doing two things:

1. They closed Square Movie Studios.

2. They halted the development of any game that was considered excessive and
unprofitable in the immediate time table. In other words, any game that
was not related to the Final Fantasy franchise was to be put on hold or
cancelled. This is notable by the fact that before Square and Nintendo
finally kissed and made up in 2002, the only games that were in
development at Square in late 2001/early 2002 were Final Fantasy XI,
Final Fantasy I & II Remake, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy X-2.

This meant that Chrono Break and Xenosaga were halted for the time being.
Sakaguchi-sama was probably the one who gave them the news considering he was
the executive at the time. They soon left. In early 2002, we get the
official announcement of Xenosaga from Monolith Soft. But, when the
announcement officially came down, the team did a lot of interviews with the
big gaming magazines, and when asked for the reasons they left Square, they
stated the above, though it was a lot softer in tone, making it obvious that
their main man Sakaguchi-sama was the one who not only told them the bad
tidings, but put it as softly as possible. Thus, we still see a possibility
with Monolith Soft and Square-Enix jointly working on Chrono Break again.
Look through the August and September archives on The Magic Box
(http://www.the-magicbox.com). They're free and a lot of recent Monolith Soft
news has been on the table recently (including a notice that they'll be
available to any publisher once they complete the three games being worked on
right now).

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And there you have it.

So, is Xenosaga a prequel or a sequel to Xenogears?

Well, that question is not easy to answer. Since Squaresoft owns the
copyright to Xenogears, Monolith Soft can't legally create a game like
Xenogears. So the powers that be are playing some games with the Xenosaga
universe to try and skate around that fact. Many feel that it is a direct
prequel to Xenogears, while others feel it is just a game similar to the
Xenogears universe, but not the same.

Keep in mind that Xenogears was Episode V as is revealed in the end credits
and Xenosaga is called Episode I. This just adds fuel to the fire. Whatever
the case may be, the universe in Xenosaga and Xenogears are very similar.

The next section discusses the similarities between the Xenogears universe
and the Xenosaga universe. Many of these can just be taken as the developers
having fun and giving fans of Xenogears little nuggets, but others are
unmistakably the same elements of the core story.

this is old (regarding Xenogears-Xenosaga)

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