Xenogears Cutscenes

• Blogs
• Forums
• Photos
• Code Examples
• VS Movies

May 2012

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31
		HOLIDAYS
May 28 - Memorial Day

Guardian Angels
Kia Purity's Site
Surtur's Fuge of the Damned
Malachit Room
The Nisan Sanctuary

[Surtur]

Ah-HEM.  So.

Recently, I had the urge to rewatch all the cutscenes from Vagrant Story.  I looked around online, but couldn't find them anywhere.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and played it on an emulator, with cheats, and recorded all the cutscenes.  Still an awesome story, btw.  Then I thought maybe I'd upload them to YouTube, at which point, naturally, it turned out that someone had already done so in the meanwhile.  Grrarrgghhh.

SO.  Afterwards, I rather stupidly thought, you know what other game I want to see the story from again?  Xenogears.  I haven't played it in forever.  So I, uh, started doing the same thing for that.  

Turns out though it's a really fucking long game.

But anyway, using cheats (the no random encounters cheat is particularly nice, although of course the one place it decides not to work properly would have to be Babel Tower), I was able to do quite a bit of the game so far, and have begun uploading the results of this project to YouTube.  I've recorded up to the chucifixion scene on the second disc, but uploading everything will take awhile still, especially thanks to my bandwidth limits. -_-'  But I thought people here might be interested in the fruits of this colossal waste of my time.

So here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=028C2703542FCAEC

Alternatively, if, like me, you have always thought to yourself, Xenogears is great and all, but I wish it had horrible English voice acting for the entire game...

YouTube apparently has you covered for that too.

Also, for the record, Vagrant Story's cutscenes, edited together, come out to about 2 hours.  Proving once again it would make a pretty sweet movie.  Let's hope Uwe Boll can make it happen some day.

[TheContact]

Whoa... this is pretty insane.

Dude, you might make me update TNS to post this, lol

Also, it's funny that I've beaten Vagrant Story in 1.5 hours (skipping cutscenes).    Bravo, this is sweet.  Though if you have super high res versions of these movies you'd like hosted somewhere, let me know

Also, wtf Xenogears.  I forgot how completely ridiculous that intro FMV was.  The dialog barely makes sense, and there's a lot of stuff that happens that *also* doesn't make any sense.  Also, I can't believe how much text they put in front of the player before the game even begins... lol.  Amazing.

[A.C]

I've always wanted to make a capture job of the XG cutscenes (with a few key battles) and put them on DVD to watch so I don't need to play through that entire game for hours in order to enjoy the story, but unfortunately I live in Europe and my capture program only accepts PAL sources. The best I get when I capture this game is black and white even when I chose the NTSC settings.

So I'm curious if you've got the cutscenes on something like DVD compatible MPEG and would be willing to share them or upload them somewhere for me to grab? =)

I watched the intro movie of that DUB job and it's pretty funny, but I noticed they say "auto-pilot system 'Deus' has been accessed" but it's supposed to be "auto-pilot system 'Faust' has been accessed".

[Surtur]

The intro scene in XG is awesome... but also stupid, yes.  Quite possibly the worst technobabble ever.
And yeah, the like 4 screens of text at the beginning are ridiculous.  Especially considering they're not necessary at all, you could take them out and you'd still be able to pick up all that info perfectly well by just playing the game, yeesh.

I do indeed have the videos in better than youtube quality.  I'd love to be able to upload them somewhere but didn't want to ask, because it's gigs and gigs of stuff, lol (I'm up to 6 dvds worth so far... I'm guessing it'll be 8 total).  But if you're alright with that, I'd definitely take you up on that offer.  Just... after I finish uploading to youtube.  Stupid ISP has stupid bandwidth limits. 

I could also upload the VS scenes if you... wanna host that... (bout 2.5 gigs I think)

In terms of what can/needs to be done to make them playable on a dvd player, I'm... not really sure.  I've encoded the scenes in xvid, in what I assume is the best quality I could get, but then, I don't really know anything about encoding.   vdubmod makes it pretty easy to just mess around and get decent results, lol.

If Gau's okay with hosting them, and there are some specific scenes you guys want right away, let me know, and I'll try and get those up at least.  As of this post, I've recorded up until Elly shoots Fei.

[Demerson]

Elly shoots Fei?!  Fucking spoilers!

The intro movie STILL gives me goosebumps to this day.

[TheContact]

The intro scene in XG is awesome... but also stupid, yes.  Quite possibly the worst technobabble ever.

  The part that gets me is that these giant cables are severed, and then... the electricity jumps across anyway? Didn't anyone test this before deployment?  That's really not how electricity works in the first place either... So who knows wtf is going on.  Maybe they're pipes filled with magic and that's what's going around.

I also keep forgetting how awesomely stereotypical-anime the captain is.  Beard + Naval captain look = space captain.

As far as hosting stuff is concerned, yeah, I could totally host stuff.  I've got the space anyway 
I can probably also take the time to convert the videos into DVDs if you guys want.

Just let me know the desired formats and I'll try to make it happen.

[Myaru]

I see "Repairing Weltall" in my peripheral vision while scrolling down the list, and read it as "Raping Weltall."  What is it with my associations.

(It's kind of true.  Sort of.  At certain parts of the game.)

The intro movie still gives me chills too.  It's knowing how everything is connected to the story that inspires me - and though we never see the characters again, the images from the opening movie come back to haunt you later in the game in the form of Mahanon, Raziel, and all of that.  It ended up being effective in a story-telling sense despite so many other ill-advised scenes (chucifixtion being at the top of the list).  I find the technobabble hilarious, though. 

Maybe they're pipes filled with magic and that's what's going around.

Of course it's magic!  Like nanotechnology!

It's funny, because while Xenogears is grounded strongly in classic speculative fiction, it seems to make no attempt to match the classics when it comes to actual research and speculation.  Or-- maybe I shouldn't phrase it that way, as I don't have the background to judge Arthur C. Clarke's science.  I wonder if this has something to do with the translation, or if the original script made some attempt to sound credible.  I'm guessing not, based on the PW, but you never know.

This is a really cool project, Surtur - thanks for putting the effort in.  I would love to have scenes from both games.

Maybe then I could get a screen of those stupid angels. 

[A.C]

In terms of what can/needs to be done to make them playable on a dvd player, I'm... not really sure.  I've encoded the scenes in xvid, in what I assume is the best quality I could get, but then, I don't really know anything about encoding.   vdubmod makes it pretty easy to just mess around and get decent results, lol.

If Gau's okay with hosting them, and there are some specific scenes you guys want right away, let me know, and I'll try and get those up at least.

Well Xvid won't work and I'd like to be able to edit them in my own capture editing program which cannot open xvid, only specific avi and MPEG files. There's no specific scene I'm looking for at the moment but I hope to take some screenshots eventually of things like the Wels in containers (that look like the Gnosis on the Durandal in XS) in Krelian's lab and the 'roads' and 'buildings' you see while jumping around Bable Tower in that tedious part, so I hope you captured some of that. =)

Also, if you haven't captured any boss battles yet, I think you should capture at least a little bit of the Deus battle and the Urobolus battle. I'd like to take some screenshots of those.

With all the Xeno sites and information about the series disappearing, I've been working on my own small Xeno site in my spare time for about two months now, and I wanted to take a few specific screens from this game for it so this is good timing. But first I'd like to finally have it all on DVD. =)

I can probably also take the time to convert the videos into DVDs if you guys want.

Just let me know the desired formats and I'll try to make it happen.

Thanks.
I want MPEG Video Format. Then I could edit them myself before burning them. I might want to cut away some bits. My capture program converts to this MPEG format for DVD:

DVD Compatible
Video Setting:
Compression: MPEG-2
720 x 576
Bit rate VBR
Audio Setting:
Compression: MPA (MPEG-1 Layer 2)
Sample rate: 48 kHz
Kbits/sec: 224

Btw how do you capture this material Surtur? Since you converted it to Xvid I assume the original capture source was different? If the original capture format is MPEG then maybe you could upload an example of that (since you are still recording) and I can see if it's something I can work with. Then maybe TC could simply convert it back?

Oh, and if it becomes too tedious to upload all these different formats on the server then we could just hook up on DC++ again.

[Surtur]

The part that gets me is that these giant cables are severed, and then... the electricity jumps across anyway? Didn't anyone test this before deployment?  That's really not how electricity works in the first place either... So who knows wtf is going on.  Maybe they're pipes filled with magic and that's what's going around.

Well, my interpretation of what's going on is that they're trying to disconnect Deus from control of the ship by... severing some cables.  But then Deus manages to force the electricity to keep passing through anyway.  How does he do this?
...
...
Well, you know...
Magic?

I can probably also take the time to convert the videos into DVDs if you guys want.

This would be pretty sweet.

Maybe then I could get a screen of those stupid angels.

If you mean the two one-winged angels, I have definitely captured scenes with them.  If you're talking about the Seraph or whatever random encounter guys, I... don't really have them, though.

I hope to take some screenshots eventually of things like the Wels in containers (that look like the Gnosis on the Durandal in XS) in Krelian's lab and the 'roads' and 'buildings' you see while jumping around Bable Tower in that tedious part, so I hope you captured some of that. =)

Well, now I feel really guilty about it, but I kind of... didn't, lol.  There's a little of it, but I don't know if it'll really be what you're looking for.  Sorry.   If it wasn't featured in a cutscene (scene where people are talking/you are not in control of the characters), I probably didn't get much of it.  I did, however, record every boss fight in the game, so... that's something.

Btw how do you capture this material Surtur?

I'm playing the game in epsxe, and recording with Fraps.  The trouble is that the original fraps files are pretty huge.  I don't have the hdd space to keep them around long, and I definitely don't have the bandwidth to upload them.  However, it is not that difficult to actually do yourself, if you want to give it a try for some of the specific things you want that I didn't capture.  You can find game saves at GameFAQs to get you close to whichever part of the game you're looking for, and with the PSX Emulation Cheater, you can use cheat codes to make things even easier.  And of course, you would need Fraps, or a similar program to actually record it.

[A.C]

Hmm. Well I've never used a PSX emulator and I rarely play games these days... but hopefully it'll look decent enough on DVD. So is there a black 'edge' around the screen in the vids? It's good if there is, since that means it'll be full screen on the DVD, but if there's not then the edges of the screen could get cut when burned to DVD and playing on a TV screen... Well, we'll see how it looks I guess. You guys probably know what you're doing.

[A.C]

Status on this thing?

[Surtur]

I finished recording the game awhile back.  Went pretty smoothly.  There was some slowdown during the last battles that I couldn't get rid of, perhaps because my computer is too mediocre.  Mildly annoying.  It's purely the audio that experiences slowdown though - the music plays slower for some reason.  The video is pretty much fine.  Kind of lame, but... it'll do.  Still uploading everything to youtube daily... up to video 75 of 117, I think.  Soon as I'm done there, I'll start uploading here (again, stupid isp has stupid bandwidth limits).  So, just be patient and I'll get em up soon... already finished recording, so there's no reason I wouldn't.  Unless my hdd dies.  And the DVDs I burned them to all break.  Which is... actually possible, with my luck.

[Franz]

That "Xenogears Dubbed" voice is awful...so fanboi "tough guy." Barf. Actually, all of them are awful, lol.

[Surtur]

You should hear the voices this guy does:

Lets play Xenogears part 001

[Franz]

Kinda sounds like the gay counselor guy from Family Guy...I think I like this (1 minute in) better than the previous. I will say though that the voice the other guy did for Franz was pretty darn close to what my voice for Franz is. So I guess I'll give him props for that. Close.

On a side note, if anybody is interested im selling every single piece of hard-searched, Xenosaga shit. My entire collection, byebye. Books and all.