Nikolai Balthasar was a brilliant scientist from Shevat who was kidnapped and forced into creating Gears for the nefarious Solaris. Solaris was dead set on creating the most advanced mechs on the planet, and Nikolai’s genius in the field of neurological research was unrivaled. With his coerced assistance, Solaris was able to produce inhumane Gears that “swallowed” a person and their consciousness whole, creating a Gear without lag or human error. And, in the end, after losing his wife and life to Solaris, Nikolai became an unwilling victim of his own creation, and was bonded to the Gear Achtzehn.
Achtzehn was a formidable beast of a Gear. Fused with a Nikolai who seemed to lose all empathy for humanity, it was a monster set to destroy the whole of Nikolai’s former home. Fei and his friends stood up to Achtzehn, but it utilized an Anti-Gear Psycho Jammer that disabled all Gears controlled by traditional pilots. This left Maria, Nikolai’s daughter, and the Gear he had created for her, Seibzehn, the only Gears that could stand against this massive threat.
Oh, and there was Chu-Chu, too.
The scripture is… okay… A host of theologians have all but deemed this portion of “history” as… apocryphal. If taken literally, one is to believe that before humanity was ever on this world, there were creatures known as Dotesque Chu-Chupolin. These beings were intelligent, had their own culture, lived in the woods, and, most importantly, were larger than houses. However, those wily so and sos at Solaris found them to be a (gigantic) nuisance, so they installed limiters on the chus, causing them to shrink down to stuffed-animal size. But apparently Fei’s dad (?) was a researcher on these creatures, and he escaped with some chus (?) that had their limiters removed (?), and one of these chus became the companion/pet (?) of Margie. Margie was in Shevat when Achtzehn attacked, and this “Chu-Chu” grew to enormous size to fight alongside Maria.
And, look, despite how many artists love depicting a giant, pink puffball hanging on the cross, you do not need to believe in the “literal” history of the Chu-Chu to understand the parable here. Chu-Chu was little more than a teddy bear, and Maria was a traumatized teenager of barely 13 (standing in the shadow of a queen that was supposedly 522). They both banded together and repelled a man who had grown into a scientist that could no longer distinguish friend from foe. The “wise, learned man” was defeated by the meekest and most inexperienced defenders around. Whether Chu-Chu could become titanic is immaterial to the fact that this creature somehow assisted in saving people. It is meant to draw a metaphoric parallel between those that think they cannot succeed, and a similarly unsophisticated organism saving the day.
Chu-Chu and Maria worked together to be the heroes of Shevat. You can be a hero, too. That’s the moral. You do not need a mammoth rabbit-mouse thing to reinforce that concept.
Even Worse Streams presents Xenogears
Night 10
Original Stream Night: April 6, 2021
Night of Quistis Trepe
Random Stream Notes
- Welcome back to Xenogears! There are not glorious HD squats here.
- We immediately compare Final Fantasy Amano illustrations to Aqua Teen Hunger Force gags regarding pianos and MP3 conversions.
- Hey, remember The Granstream Saga? It is better than Chu-chu Land.
- Would you like a discussion of the comic strip BC thanks to Sega CD title BC Racers?
Please enjoy as I check a FAQ to figure out what the heck I am supposed to do to activate the next bit. Talk to a rocking chair?- We meet Queen Zephyr while we discuss how gachas should be illegal.
- Citan’s family is here. Grandia 3 includes your mom in a JRPG. These things are marginally related.
- Elly has been voted off the island as Maria joins the party. … Oh wait we kept Elly. Sorry, Billy.
- As we skulk through tunnels with Maria, talk of Final Fantasy 9 leads to talk of SaGa Frontier and Asellus being gay as heck.
- We discuss Breath of Fire 2, Oddworld, and other games that have influenced our views in weird ways.
- And Kishi arrives while we are still trying to find our way through these stupid tunnels.
- “Snowpiercer was in fact inspired by Xenogears.”
- I assume my Gears are going to survive the onslaught, but save anyway. This is good planning!
- Kishi brings up their notes for helping the fact that my Gears are a miserable failure.
“If you want to save fuel…” “Nope!”- After two or three game overs, I finally decide to upgrade my Gears. This may have been the issue!
- Now we can actually make progress. And, yes, despite my objections on the stream, this is uploaded without editing my many losses.
- “I wiggle in the air to assert dominance.”
- We are all, obviously, excited by Chu-Chu finally attaining maximum power.
- Kishi is quiet during the Chu/Giant Robot fight due to really liking the music involved. I can’t blame ‘em.
- Chu-Chu notes her pure heart as we close.
Next time on Xenogears: Remember Bart? Sure you do! He’s back! In Omni-Form!
This is important: how gay is Asellus?
Let us consider a few things of note. Japan did have some significant, deliberately queer JRPGs in its past (Eternal Filena comes immediately to mind). America, however, did not. If something was remotely “gay”, it did not make it across the Pacific. In fact, any and all queerness was ironed out of any Japanese imports across media, so Japan appeared to be some kind of shining bastion of acceptance thanks to gay 
But even beyond her “stealth”, the most obvious reason other games did not make it while Asellus was able to be imported was simple… and it is the same color as Asellus’s hair. Squaresoft had a gigantic, once in a company’s lifetime hit on its hands with 
There is nothing like an old friend stopping by to remind you of who you were.
SaGa Frontier was directed and produced by Akitoshi Kawazu. And, while the SaGa franchise was familiar to fans in Japan, over here in America Town, Kawazu had only shown his hand in the 
I mean, I did deserve it, right? I played the game wrong, and my punishment was an incomplete experience that could only be rectified by starting over. Memory card space was at a premium at the time, so it was not like I could simply reload from an earlier point where maybe I could have constructed a more useful party or learned a more useful skill. There are a thousand options in SaGa Frontier, and I chose the wrong options. And, in a way, this was not a big deal. SaGa Frontier was likely to be my “big JRPG purchase” to last me until Christmas, so I had time. This would be “my game” for the next few months, and if I had to restart, I would simply do that. Start all over armed with the knowledge I had sparked from an aborted playthrough and do better this time. Hell, the multiple characters/scenarios seemed to even encourage this: I failed with Emelia, and I could go back to her, but why not try Asellus this time? And, if I was really trying hard, I could hit the generally accurate advice of Gamefaqs, or shell out a few more precious dollars for a strategy guide. Now I was on the right track! I could handle seeing at least one aqua-colored sorcerer’s ending (or what passed for such). I might never see that all important dev room that required the full dedication of a player and memory card, but I could come close.
SaGa Frontier was once the only game I purchased within a whole season. Now, SaGa Frontier Remastered is one of many games I purchased within that same time period. Hell, it’s not the only game I purchased within one month. Double Hell, it’s not the only 
When there is the possibility that you can explore 90% of the whole game with one scenario, there is the distinct danger that the player is going to become too exhausted/frustrated trying to play 630% of the game. And never mind “knowing” that, like, one goofy NPC or dungeon is going to be a silly diversion in six scenarios, but absolutely essential in scenario seven…
SaGa Frontier is a good game. SaGa Frontier Remastered is a good game made even better. But playing the two games at two very different points in my life has reminded me how much things have changed over the last few decades. A game that was once “difficult” can now be safely judged as “difficult to understand”. And, while this does not detract from the experience, it may impress upon this player that, at an age when time is valuable, maybe learning the ins and outs of an extremely unique JRPG is not the best use of the day.
So are you still just super bitter about being locked out of the Emelia “good ending” because you decided to follow a lead when you should have just immediately given up? No, of course not. That would be silly. That is totally not the reason I harbor resentment against the entire SaGa franchise. I don’t know why you would ever think such a thing.
