Spoiler Xeno Boss Thread

Aidan Uzuki

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Nov 2, 2020
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This thread is dedicated to all of the really amazing boss fights in the Xeno series. Since this thread is likely to contain heavy spoilers from all series, I've gone ahead and added a Spoiler tag that people can use preemptively on their threads as a way to exercise caution.

Probably one of my favorite fights in the entire metaseries is the E.S. Levi fight. In my opinion this fight is one of the strongest fights that Xenosaga has to offer. Being the final E.S. boss fight in the game, this fight requires you to use everything that you had learned up until now to win. On top of using the best E.S. equipment, it is best to continue to use Jin in this fight as it only seems fitting for the final battle with Margulis. If you manage to use Jin through the whole thing you even end up getting extra dialogue which was a neat thing that XS 3 did for most of its boss fights.

Levi-1.png


This whole fight is accentuated by an incredible revision of the Fatal Fight theme which has been used as motif to evoke Jin and Margulis' epic rivalry:

View: https://youtu.be/xiTCqbzT4SQ


This is one of my favorite fights from the series because everything is just built up so perfectly here from a character to gameplay to music stand point. The cutscene before really makes Margulis out to be the perfect tragic villain and one that you can absolutely feel sorry for despite all of the bad stuff he has done.
 
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The levi fight is sooo good, I always appreciated how they left Margulis as one of the final fights of the game. His character and ambitions might be "insignificant" in the grand scheme of Wilhelms plans, being that he was just a pawn, but he's one of the first villains we encounter and served as our foil from the onset, so having one final epic boss fight where he fights us on HIS terms, and not as a pawn, was just such a great send-off to his character arc. I feel like a lot of other stories would've disposed of him earlier, but keeping him around until the end was just so good.

As for my favorite, TELOS was just so emotional. Hepatica playing with the emotional build up from KOS-MOS's character always makes me so emotional.
 
I really enjoyed beating the crap out of Kevin.

As for my favorite, TELOS was just so emotional. Hepatica playing with the emotional build up from KOS-MOS's character always makes me so emotional.
Yeah, I gotta agree with this. The T-Elos boss fight was really well done.

Also Yuriev. Man XS3 had so many great boss fights.
 
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Having only played Xenogears, for that game alone I would give it to three bosses.

From a challenge/actual difficulty/strategy perspective, the Kislev Cliffs battleship chase and the Dora. It's literally (unless you don't know Mirror Stance and how to avoid it with Ramsus on foot or in Haishao, or face off with Deus underequipped and without picking off the angels) one of the very few fights where you DO have to strategically manage your fuel resources and moves or you will die due to how low your fuel and engine are at that point. Almost every fight in Xenogears doesn't tend to have that much of a chance of a game over (aside from the first time you run into the normal-enemy Tears under Shevat YIKES), especially once you can curbstomp everything as Citan on foot or as Elly or Billy in Gears. That one is when you're just on the verge of going into "you can only upgrade from here" and that's what makes it so interesting.

From a storyline/"absolutely satisfying to finally fight you," Miang and Deus. To explain why is major spoilers, but by the time you fight both, you want both dead.
 
the very few fights where you DO have to strategically manage your fuel resources and moves or you will die due to how low your fuel and engine are at that point. Almost every fight in Xenogears doesn't tend to have that much of a chance of a game over (aside from the first time you run into the normal-enemy Tears under Shevat YIKES),
I feel like Xenogears' boss fights had some real balance issues and quite a few of them were decided on by a few poorly thought out gimmicks. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the scale of some of the fights like the Id fight as well as the final boss, but fights like Opiomorph and underwater Ramsus were straight up rage inducing.
 
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I feel like Xenogears' boss fights had some real balance issues and quite a few of them were decided on by a few poorly thought out gimmicks. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the scale of some of the fights like the Id fight as well as the final boss, but fights like Opiomorph and underwater Ramsus were straight up rage inducing.
Oh yeah the Id fight. There's actually a couple of gimmicks to that, which I exploit the hell out of every time I do my no Citan damage challenge. The Black Snake whip for Bart saps his ether attack, for one...
 
I feel like this fight would have had more impact for me if she got just a tiny bit more screen time.
I totally understand this feeling!
My emotions and love for their showdown really doesn't have much to do with Telos herself since I completely agree that she was underdeveloped. I just loved it more from how it culminates all of Mary`s development by this point. She had so much pain and grief from her life as Mary, but now reborn as KOSMOS she has the chance to redeem her greatest failure, letting her maiden die and failing the universe. She could reject her old failure and intended "purpose" as just being a vessel for Animus to be used in Wilhelm`s plan. She could now protect Shion and save her and the world on her own terms and move past her grief. She chooses love over her "purpose" as the vessel of animus and that really culminated in her fight with Telos and then the remainder of the story with rejecting Kevin and Wilhelm
I also find the fight itself challenging and fun since its the endgame so we have most of the characters builds and abilities to utilize
 
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No one will ever forget Cherenkov, for his story and his boss fight.

The final fight (heh) with Margulis in EP3 is indeed the perfect end to our longest running villain in the trilogy.

The Id boss fight is awesome for a lot of reasons but the fact Id's theme played during it helped a ton. Top 5 Xenogears songs. In combination with his beating teh shit out of us, it really set the perfect mood of mystery and intimidation.