Xenosaga: The Animation Finished

Its taken me a while, but I finally finished the current series of the Xenosaga anime. I played all three of the games and the far-out story was quite intriguing, albeit hard to follow. So, I thought I'd try out the anime, which currently only covers the events in the first game.

What surprised me was how well they describe the plot throughout the anime so much better than they did in the game. You would think, being a game with a ton of available play-time, the plot would be fleshed out better than in any sort of movie or television series. But, that's not the case here. I actually thought the plot was explained better every step of the way in the anime. In several episodes they did an in-story recap of what had transpired previously, without it seeming forced.

They did so much better capturing the emotions between Shion and KOS-MOS, as well as the sacrifices they all made, in the anime. Conversely, there were some pretty major story segments of the game that were completely changed or left out altogether, perhaps some for the better. It does get off to a slow start in the first four episodes or so, but toward the end, I was on the edge of my seat all over again.

Don't get me wrong, the games were very well done, but I just think the anime did a much better job explaining the story overall, and keeping the audience up to speed with what was going on. Granted, the game has to make allowances for game play segments, which really should make up a good chunk of that experience. However, with as many cut scenes as they had in the first game, I thought the possibility would have been there to explain things as well as they did in the anime.

Its definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the games, or if you just want a very well done sci-fi anime in which to lose yourself.