Xenogears 03: The Will to Fight

Fei Fong Wong has seen troubles. A man who once fancied himself a simple artist has been forced to fight others. And, every time Fei has embraced -the power-, he and those around him have suffered. When he gained the Weltall, his home village was obliterated. When he saved his friend with that same robot, he was banished to a sandy Hell. Now, when the deposed prince and sand pirate Bartholomew Fatima asks Fei to fight for his noble cause, Fei denies his new friend. Fighting has gotten Fei nowhere, and it is clear that nonviolence is the most direct route to peace.

And then Fei returns to Weltall to fight and repel an invading force of gigantic robot knights.

And then Fei joins a fighting tournament.

And then Fei fights a man that seems to exist only to fight.

And then Fei fights a man beloved by all.

And then Fei fights a woman addicted to drugs and violence.

And then Fei fights a ghost of his past, filled with resentment for the first time Fei fought.

And then Fei fights an even murkier shadow of his past, this time fighting only for the sake of fighting.

And then Fei fights a general that is himself suffering because of Fei’s unknown past.

So Fei learned a valuable lesson about his own possible passivism: never try.

In Fei’s world, violence is the path of the divine.

Even Worse Streams presents Xenogears
Night 3

Original Stream Night: January 19, 2021
Night of The Symphony (of the Night)

Random Notes on the Stream

• There’s a coffee machine on the Yggdrasil. Huh.
• BEAT claims to be paying attention, but he also asks, “are the pirates robots?”
• As the kidnapping of Margie is discussed by non-robot pirates, we acknowledge the best JRPGs just steal everything.
• “Fei has problems, but not problems we can fix.”
• Fanboymaster lets me know that we need to get the Xenogears archives up. This stream was on January 19, 2021, and the first official Gogglebob.com upload of the Let’s Play went up on October 12, 2022. Only 631 days! I am not ashamed!
• I compare Legend of Legaia to the 2020/2021 COVID response. I should write an article about that…
• “Are you there dad? It’s me, Bart.”
• BEAT and Goggle Bob were taken to the criminal factory for mentioning Totally Spies.
• … Oh yeah… Nothing in the game has happened at this point. I guess some dudes invaded.
• It was inevitable we would start discussing the finer points of Neon Genesis Evangelion during a giant robot JRPG…
• Robot Alchemic Drive sounds completely insane/grandmacidal.
• Ramsus and Miang are introduced floating around in a Xenosaga-esque ship.
• As the bad guys discuss their plans, we discuss the (then) pending Biden inauguration and Homeboys in Outer Space.

• Here’s Aveh! Time to discuss Shasta McNasty.
• “Welcome to Fiesta Day!” It’s the Xenogears Millennial Fair!
• Abby Denton stops by as Fei straight up gets drunk.
• Make way for the Ponytailed Slacker.
• “I think Kingdom Hearts is just Xenogears with a budget” – Abby Denton
• Caliscrub enters as our heroes eat at the local Red Lobster.
• Let’s play hide and seek! Like in Breath of Fire 3!
• Let’s discuss the Dead Rising franchise! It’s all about the wizard staffs!
• All Virtual Reality games are Wii games. This is my belief. At least for now.
• Aliens from Planet Funkass are all that. Anyway, this section took forever because I didn’t know what I was doing. It happens.
• “Why does Dan look so old!?”
• And, obviously, as the fighting tournament finally begins, we discuss Murphy Brown at length.
• Somehow, talking about Big Joe leads us to Hudson Hawk.
• “Dan was born into male pattern baldness. He was molded by it.”
• While Bart is in the sewers aqueducts, Abby explains how the poop bunnies work in Brave Fencer Musashi. Foreshadowing for future streams!

• Okay! Bart is making some progress in the not-sewers, and we’re discussing random twitter users who might be Nazis.
• Bart has got some stealthin’ around to do while we talk about the many martial arts of Ranma ½.
• Soraya Saga created Edgar Figaro, Sabin Figaro, and Bart. She definitely has a type.
• On a personal note, I am so bad at this area, even just rewatching this sequence in an effort to make this post makes me want to fast forward…
• Remember when we had to fight Shion in Xenosaga Episode 3? Good times.
• I need a map for Xenogears. I need a map desperately.
• Margie and Chu-Chu are rescued by Bart! Oh boy!
• And Bart dies! It was immediately after a save point, so it wasn’t a big deal, but Bart absolutely was not prepared for Ramsus.
• So I got frustrated and cheated/taught my characters all their death blows. Hooray?
• While encountering Elly again, Abby performed her rhyming shmyming routine on the stream for the first time. To my knowledge, she has escaped justice, and has suffered no consequences for this act.
• And then Kishi stopped by for the first time!
• “Never trust tiny popes.” “What if they’re really cute, though?” “No!”
• There is some religious learning going on thanks to Kishi’s mysterious “notes”.
• And we close as Abby defends this bit of the game. She is correct that this section is a tour de force of Xenogears, but these videos seem to indicate they may not be perfect…

Next time on Xenogears: Let’s give Ramsus a hand.

Where have I seen this move before?