And so we reach the end of Fei’s story, and learn the true meaning of -the power-.
Despite Fei Fong Wong successfully murdering God a little while back (days? Weeks? Months? Hard to tell), by the time the party was ready to see Krelian again, he had resurrected a/the divine being. So, once again, Fei marshalled his forces to commit deicide, and squashed the revitalized Deus in the hole at the center of the planet. And this could have been the finale that everyone was pursuing, but destroying the link to another divine being, the Wave Existence, caused a bit of an issue. The Wave Existence’s escape from Fei’s dimension was going to tear his planet a new one, and, with the Zohar Modifier destroyed, the party’s giant robots were all inert. But Fei’s Xenogears was still functioning! And Elehayym was at the core of… whatever we are calling the orb containing the Wave Existence… So, for one last time, it was up to Fei and Elly to save the world.
Somehow, the fate of the world came down to an ideological debate between three people. Elly believed that she should be the one to carry all of the world’s burdens, so she attempted to sacrifice herself to steer the Wave Existence out of planetary orbit. Nobody wanted to see another Elly explode, so both of her boys disapproved of this decision. Krelian, meanwhile, claimed that he loved Elehayym, but also acknowledged that he did some pretty heinous things to prove that love. He claimed this boondoggle was a situation that he could never fully control, but, given most people would choose not to mutate the entirety of the human race in pursuit of a ridiculous crush, it is easy to judge Krelian’s actions as wholly malevolent.
And then there was Fei. Fei wanted everyone to be happy, and it is hard to argue with that. So he had to fight a giant snake lady. I guess. And because he beat that snake lady, that proved he had the most striking philosophy, and he was allowed to walk out of the god sphere with Elly. Krelian stayed behind to atone for his sins, and what was left of the planet survived thanks to the Wave Existence getting slapped with a mystical restraining order.
So, in the end, Fei and Elly were able to return to their friends. Thanks to -the power-, Fei was able to beat a physical manifestation of cylindrical suffering, and save everyone and everything he held dear. In the end, the truest example of -the power- was -the power- to defend his love and the world.
…
Well, the 0.0002% of the world’s population that survived everything else that happened in Xenogears, at least.
May you too remember to use -the power- to save a miniscule fraction of what is important.
Even Worse Streams presents Xenogears
Night 18 Part 1
Original Stream Night: June 22, 2021
Night of Xenogears
Random Notes on the Stream
- In case you are an absolute completionist on watching me play Xenogears, I have included the entire footage of the only time I played Xenogears without the Even Worse crew (not including the “cheat catchup” in Chapter 2). If you really want to watch me buy supplies from Big Joe and then tackle the final dungeon in its entirety (with me pausing to check a map frequently), feel free to take a look. Note that this includes exactly zero commentary, so it is a straight “longplay” style for this distinct section.
- If you are curious, this was recorded on June 9th, 2021.
- And, with all that shopping, the actual hike into Deus does not start until the 22 minute mark.
- Given the video is a little over an hour long, guess that means the dungeon only took about forty minutes. Really thought it would be longer!
- We begin this video with a condensed version of the final dungeon with Kishi, fanboymaster, Jeanie, and BEAT. I would like to note that I consider this five-minute opening as the shining achievements of this Let’s Play. Once again, this shorty at the start completely covers anything relevant from that other video above.
- Shopkeep Johnny is hanging out in the room next to God. As you do.
- Remember when JRPGs were all about including the entire party in the final battle? Final Fantasy was really into that for a while.
- Please enjoy some ridiculous orb bosses.
- The next-to-final boss is defeated! We all talk about the final boss deaths we’d like to have. There is merit to fanboymaster’s massive explosion.
- “Neither of these characters feel like a person anymore.”
Fei has some kind of “composite frankendong.”- It would be hard to lose the final-final fight of Xenogears. This contrasts with Final Fantasy 10, where you can find some exciting ways to commit suicide.
- We all have a moment of silence for the voice-acted, anime-as-heck ending (that doesn’t have subtitles).
- Kishi notes that this ending with its random communications guy may have confused a lot of people back in the day. Like… people that didn’t already dip out because the plot was plenty confusing already.
- Anywho, let’s all enjoy the credits that feature not-famous people like Jonathan Williams.
- And next week we have the continuation of this night. Get ready for Part 2!
Next time on Xenogears: The alpha (build) at the omega (stream).
We have spoken a lot about -the power- over the course of these sermons, but what can one do once they have firmly acquired and established -the power-? Solaris offers an answer: sinful decadence.
But where does this all lead? Well, despite the fact that Solaris had easily the best showers on this planet, it still could not maintain -the power-. Even though there were multiple high-ranking Solarians involved in the invasion of Fei Fong Wong, none were strong enough to stop the terrorist martial artist with a giant robot. As a result, the whole of Solaris was obliterated by the actions of one man, and the wicked kingdom was brought low.
And then we talk about watching our family members die in arcade games and Oregon Trail.
Final Fantasy 10 was a brilliant deconstruction of its franchise. And that statement is firmly past tense because it was immediately undercut by capitalism.
As is stated from literally the beginning, Final Fantasy 10 is the story of Tidus. And, since you are holding the controller that keeps that story going, you are meant to be Tidus, too. Tidus is good at playing games in a technologically advanced world, but his life is turned upside down when a tragedy transports him to Spira. Spira is a much more rural, primitive spot, and something very foreign to our “modern” Tidus. Ultimately, everything you see of this world exactly matches to the time Tidus spends in this strange place. You experience every second of his journey there, and you know exactly what you know of Spira exclusively through his eyes and what he learns from others. Tidus only discovers new things about Spira if you choose to talk to more people or see more places in Spira. And even though Tidus has his own issues to work through, you wholly inhabit his view of this alien world, complete with leaving Spira exactly when he exits. You are a strange visitor from an advanced (and implied to be more enlightened/less superstitious) society, here to save the world with ideas that could only belong to an outsider. When your job is completed, everyone is going to miss you to the point of tears, but despite their protests, you literally disappear.
Magical memory whammies or whatever is happening aside, Tidus apparently comes from a world where the afterlife is an unknowable mystery. But Spira has a concrete answer to this age-old question: if you die with regrets, you are likely to either become a fiend, or live on as some manner of ageless zombie. A summoner may “send” the dead to the Farplane (a magical but firmly visitable place), but if some undead avoid this fate, they will stick around for literally eternity and continue to make a mess of things. At best, the living dead of Spira are perpetuating endless spirals of destruction, and at worst they are literally monsters. So, in short, a huge theme of Final Fantasy 10 is “don’t wear out your welcome”. You died, get over it, move on. If you stick around, you are going to hurt everybody still alive. 
And this would have been the ideal moral for a Final Fantasy title that matched every Final Fantasy that came before 2001. Sure, Seymour, Kefka, Sephiroth, and every villain that wanted to destroy their world had technically won by virtue of dying and leaving behind a world no longer requiring a player to defend it, but outside of the meta-narrative of the player living on, these were games with happy endings. Yuna, Terra, and Cloud would live to see a happily ever after, and we were left with only our imaginations to guess what happened to these heroes after we left them alone. Did Terra truly find love in her new family? Did Cloud and Tifa decide to settle down? Did Yuna become a pop idol cross treasure hunter?
There will never not be new Final Fantasy 10 media for the rest of our lives. Any given “HD rerelease” of FF10 will inevitably stoke the rumors of a Final Fantasy 10-3, and we may eventually see such a product “because the fans demand it”. In the meanwhile, Tidus will appear in any game that requires Final Fantasy cameos, and any of those “cameos” could be excuses to foist new pathos or backstory on our intrepid Blitzball player (depending on how serious anyone wants to be about a game where a clown can fight a tree). In 2001, it was reasonable to assume that Tidus’s story was one-and-done, and we would never see anything further to elucidate his limited life beyond the odd Ultimania release. Now? Now our grandkids are going to be learning that the third lizard that Tidus curb-stomped was secretly the fiend-reincarnation of the dude that founded the Yevon chapter of the Boy Scouts, and further information will be available on a cell phone-based lottery game released to promote Final Fantasy 19.
And is that all bad? Well, truth be told, if I had the choice between Final Fantasy 10 having a more focused message, or being able to play Final Fantasy 10-2, I’d choose Final Fantasy 10-2 every time. Morals and lessons are all well and good, but Wakka can come out of Blitzball retirement anytime Square wants, because there is at least a 30% chance a game including him will be good (just so long as no one actually plays Blitzball). Finality in a videogame may be impossible for Square Enix nowadays, but the world doesn’t really need videogames to be final. We like videogames, SE, so feel free to keep churnin’ ‘em out.
Level Up: After years of leveling systems in Final Fantasy titles trying unique things like Esper customization or 
Goggle Bob Fact: I have always considered myself fairly… Woke? My parents are liberal and raised me in a fairly progressive fashion, but I… kind of didn’t notice Wakka when I first played Final Fantasy 10 back during my freshman year of college. But now when I play the game? Holy crap is he racist! It is fantasy racism, but the fact that he is a religious zealot that takes every spare moment he can find to denigrate the Al Bhed is exceptionally concerning. And I did not observe it at all twenty years ago! I guess I wasn’t as “woke” as I thought back then. Maybe I still have more to learn now…
As of Chapter 1 finishing, let us enjoy a brief interlude on the nature of Wild Arms 3. And we shall do this on July 25, Scarecrow Day. In Elw architecture, scarecrows are commonly placed on rooftops in place of weathercocks. But it was rumored to bring bad luck among non-Elws and slowly went out of style. A scarecrow slowly rotting away into dust is a sad sight.
