ゼノギアス // Week 17 // Chapter 27, 28, 29

[Voi]

ゼノギアス // Week 17 // Chapter 27, 28, 29

Week 17	2026 February 21
Last Week	Week 16
Next Week	Week 18
Home Thread	ゼノギアス

Ending Point

Save nearby after the captain leaves and the characters notice a battle outside.

Screenshot

Gameplay

Gameplay notes

• Play the card game to get a nice accessory that gives the gear equipped new deathblow
• You can talk to a kid in the supply area to play another card game for a prize

Unique Missables

• None

"FMVs”

None.

Walkthrough
English Guide Ctrl+F WK26
Japanese Guide

Vocab

	Script	JPDB
CH27	Here	Here
CH28	Here	Here
CH29	Here	Here
NPC	Here	Here

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
3. Avoid posting any information from later in the game than the current week’s reading. If it is necessary to doing so, it needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1”]).

Discussion

• A MAN

• OF THE SEA

Participation

Will you be playing with is this week?

• I am playing along.
• I’m still playing but I haven’t reached this part yet.
• I am no longer playing.
• I’m just here for the discussion

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

[Akashelia]

Week 17

I don’t know what to comment about Bart shooting down the aircraft right after Feiたち managed to steal it xD
Let’s just say I don’t blame Rico for his reaction.

Fei jumping around after the fish was great too.

Me on board of the new boat: “Well this seems to be very small”
Gets to the elevator:

ooh…

@Voi

"FMVs”

None.

There is voice acting when you lose the card game xD
Took me a couple of tries but I won! Voice acting there too, yay!

[Sasabonsam]

Week 17

The spinning ball of ominous old guys (should I call them the s.b.o.o.g?) threw me this time. I know enough of future events and locations that I’ve been able to work out what they’re talking about in previous scenes, but I had to give up and just shrug my way through half of this one. You win this time, ominous old guys

I really love the タムズ. It’s got a grungy vibe similar to キスレブ yet manages to brighten it into something charming rather than depressing. From the queasy guy in the screw elevator to the crowded beer hall attached to the bridge. And the 艦長 is the best part. Why? Obviously… 海の! 男だからだ!

I managed to beat 2 of the card game opponents, but the second one (the blond battler in the beer hall) took me 5 tries to win. I swear the game cheats sometimes, the way the opponent gets so many consecutive number cards at once. Or could I just be slow? No, it’s the computer that’s wrong!

@Akashelia

Let’s just say I don’t blame Rico for his reaction.

He was even bragging about it in front of them! 100% deserved.

[Akashelia]

@Sasabonsam

spinning ball of ominous old guys (should I call them the s.b.o.o.g?)

Haha I’m down for calling them that Love this feeling when you are playing / seeing something for the second time, and cryptic dialog now makes sense I’m afraid it’s just cryptic dialog for me so far haha!

[VikingSchism]

海の 男だからだ！

The card game definitely feels a bit overtuned. I had a lot of trouble with the third battler (the one in the market). Took me like 10 tries and even then it felt like a fluke

Did people find all 4 chests in the salvage room? I did

[simias]

How the hell do I get this treasure?

EDIT: The Japanese guide doesn’t seem to have the answer but the English guide says:

• Possibly the dumbest and most obscure chest to get is saved for last (also
because it has the worst prize). There is a suspended barrel floating near
the western edge of the salvage yard. Step on an NPC’s head for a vantage
point, and when the barrel comes near, jump under it to displace it. Some
might say to use the drunken guy, but I found it easier to use the red-
-clothed kid near the card-player since he stands in one place (the boozer
moves around a lot). The reward is some [MICA]…whee.

That did work… I would not have figured it out.

[simias]

Actually me looking up the guide for this chest yielded something somewhat interesting:

I noticed in the guide that the starting area is called the ARMOR GROUND in English:

It seemed weird to me because I didn’t remember seeing anything like that in Japanese. Indeed, in the original it’s 甲板広場:

I feel like this is a mistranslation. 甲 does mean armor, but 甲板 is just “deck of a ship” according to JMEdict, and weblio agrees:

船の上部にあって、鉄板または木板を張りつめた広く平らな床。デッキ。

I feel like maybe the translator was not familiar with this term and decoded the kanji too literally?

EDIT:

Mmmh, but the menu in the elevator has the right translation for 甲板:

The plot thickens…

[simias]

Found an instance of 甲板広場 in the wild:

緊急メンテナンスのお知らせ

I thought that maybe in some context this specific term would be translated as “armor ground” in English, but it doesn’t even seem to be a real term in English…

[VikingSchism]

I actually did figure this one out myself - though I’m sure I probably looked up a guide back when I first played so maybe that stuck somewhere in the back of my brain. Definitely didn’t consciously remember it and took a good while to work it out (mostly just jumping about and then knocking into it at the right moment)

[simias]

I was convinced that I was supposed to jump where the cats are. It even looks like you can make the jump from the machinegun-platform at the start!

w17

What a week! I can’t say that I understood much of the SBOOG’s speech. They keep referencing an 男, is it Fei? Or Somebody else? They said that the church has been hiding something important for years. I also think they mentioned something deep underwater, and the タムズ also mentions that they’re on a special mission for the Church, so I guess it’s yet another one of these crazy coincidences that bring us exactly where we’re supposed to be? You call it bad writing, I call it fate!

I must say I was kinda over this week after Fei and Ellie’s shipwreck dialogue, but then we got on the タムズ and I got excited again! I love exploring crazy locations in JRPGs:

It amuses me that the ギア weapons are just oversized normal weapons. It makes no sense but it’s fun.

This place is so comfy… I love the amount of details this game puts in all these random locations. I’ve never seen it done to this extent for a 3D game of that era. Even if you compare with Trails in the Sky for instance, which came out quite a while later and on more powerful hardware, it’s so barebones compared to this.

The third card player is insane. I beat the first two fair and square but this one took me like 10 tries even while using savestates!

I did manage a draw:

There’s no audio playing in this case, but it still count as a loss.

And then finally:

Rekt.

I don’t know how you’re supposed to win on the real hardware besides mashing cards at random and hope you get lucky.

Anyway, I don’t know if anybody noticed the amusing “foreshadowing” when you talk to one of the kids on the deck:

He does the cool anime pose routine but messes it up. Surely enough the captain gets it right:

One more cool machine! I liked the audio design of the underwater sequence, for once.

[eagleflo]

With a week’s pause I’m taking my time enjoying タムズ, but in meantime I do want to help you fellow travelers with this round of SBOOG’s cryptic messages and カイン making a surprise(?) appearance.

This is quite the curtain pull, and one of the moments where I realized we are playing something a bit more than a classic rebels vs empire story during my original playthrough. The archaic style makes it quite a bit harder to read than normal dialogue in this game, demanding a closer reading…

No spoilers from future, just diving deep into that particular dialogue. Skip if you want to decrypt and piece everything until now together yourself!

「勝手なことを……。
ラムサスの任はイグニスに眠る
“アニマの器”の発掘とラムズの
監視であったはず。それを……。▽

「“アニマの器”なら
いつでも回収出来る。▽
それより、移転した船には
“奴”が乗っていたことが
判明しておる。▽
ラムサスはそれを
追ったのであろう？▽

「……トラウマ、か。▽

「否。
この場合は、ニグレト……
陰性外傷だろう。▽

It starts with ラムサス abandoning his duties & orders to pursue フェイ. His duties were only to excavate the アニマの器 and survey the ラムズ. ラムサス has developed quite the fixation on フェイ, and the SBOOG are guessing it’s due to some negative trauma – 陰性外傷, ”ニグレト”.

If it’s been some time since you encountered Carl Jung in your psychology 101 class, he pulled up this old term from alchemy and came up with a completely new meaning for it – that’s what the game refers to.

(We of course know グラーフ and ミァン are playing their own games with ラムサス.)

「メモリーキューブからの情報によれば
“奴”の周囲には“アニムス”
となり得る因子を持つ者が
複数存在しているらしい。▽

「Ｍ計画対象者
＜スファラディー＞
では無くか？▽

「ああ。▽

「偶然か？▽

「否、それにしては多過ぎる。
“奴”に引き付けられたか……▽

「図らずも５００年前と
同じ様相を呈してきたか。▽

Next, we flat out learn that the メモリーキューブ are actually used by the SBOOG to spy on the ongoing events… maybe they hinted at it previously, but this here is definitive. ”奴” is フェイ. He is gathering people with the “アニムス”となり得る因子. This means they are not just the M計画対象者スファラディー as SBOOG originally assumed. フェイ is attracting them, it’s not just a coincidence. It’s unexpectedly playing out like the war 500 years ago.

「あの男がそうなる様に
仕向けた可能性も
無いではない。▽

「転移先はアクヴィ……
タムズの近くだったな。▽

「アクヴィならば
カレルレンが
向かうそうだ。▽

「カレルレン？
直々にか？
なにゆえに？▽

「見つかったのだそうだ。
４０００年の長きに渡り
奴が探し続けていた
ゼボイムの遺産がな。▽

「遺産……
という事は、以前奴が
話していた技術か？▽

They suspect あの男 has orchestrated things to play out this way. We learn that this guy’s name is カレルレン. He has been searching for the ゼボイムの遺産 for 4000 years. アクヴィ is a place near タムズ, where it has apparently been found.

「そうだ。▽

「分子工学……ナノテクノロジー
創世の地、ゼボイム文明の首都が
アクヴィの海底下に
眠っていたのだ。▽
１９年もの間、
その存在は『教会』によって
秘められていたがな。▽

「よいのか？ カイン。▽

天帝カイン
「ああ、まだ暫くは保つ。▽

「１９年……。
ちょうどアクヴィの
大地殻変動の年と
重なるな……。▽

「成る程。▽

「しかし、解せぬ。
その技術、
さほど重要なものとも
思えぬが……▽

「奴とてラムズ。
あまり勝手にさせるのも
どうかと思うぞ。▽

「あれには
何を考えているのか
解らぬ所があるからな。▽

Here 天帝カイン makes an appearance and confirms that ゼボイムの遺産 is about nanotechnology, and that 『教会』 has been hiding it from the world for the past 19 years, after it was exposed in the 大地殻変動.

(The SBOOG are asking カイン if he is OK. He answers that he can still hold out for a while.)

The SBOOG don’t appear to think nanotechnology is all that important – whatever カレルレン is trying to do with it, it’s of little concern to them – he is still a ラムズ, so they’ll just 勝手にさせる.

天帝カイン
「よい。
その件は、私が責任を持とう。▽
ところで……。
お前達……“消すつもり”で
あったのか？▽

「何、偶然だよ。▽

「場所がイグニスだ。
蓋然とも言える。▽

「それに、あの程度で
消せるなどとは
思ってはおらぬ。▽

「粛清そのものも
失敗に終わった。
今後はなかろう。▽

「“アニムス”が
集まっているのであれば
尚更、だな。▽

「うむ。▽

Next, カイン asks the SBOOG why did they try to assassinate フェイ. SBOOG are avoiding by saying it was just a 偶然, just a 蓋然, no big deal – and of course it ended up in failure anway… they won’t do it again (今後はなかろう), especially 尚更 that the アニムス are gathering.

「カインよ。
何故そこまでこだわる？
我等にとって、
何ら利のない“奴”に……▽

「毒になりこそすれ、
薬になることは
有り得ぬのだぞ。▽

「“アーネンエルベ”……
未だに信じている訳では
あるまい？▽

「そんなものは幻想だよ。
理想ですらない。▽

「結果は……
この姿。
見ての通りだ。▽

「それとも……
忘却の彼方に葬り去った
“想い”からか？▽

天帝カイン
「……▽

「カイン。
我等が“神”なのだ。▽

SBOOG are mystified why is カイン so fixated on フェイ. In SBOOG’s eyes フェイ is dangerous (he can become a “poison”, but never a “cure”). And LOL, does カイン still believe in Ahnenerbe?? It’s a complete 幻想, not even worth being called a 理想…

Now, a huge inversion: the SBOOG ask カイン to look at them… 見ての通りだ.

忘却の彼方に葬り去った“想い” is a particularly beautiful way of saying something is buried beyond the horizon of oblivion – this refers to カイン’s mistaken ideals.

SBOOG remind カイン that they are God.

[Akashelia]

Wow, thanks for that. Also a bit shocking how crazy long that dialog is, funny how you don’t always realize that, when it’s only 2-3 lines shown on screen at a time.

[eagleflo]

Yup! I think one of the great things playing games in Japanese does for me is that it chews pagefuls of text into small digestible boxes. It never feels overwhelming to just read the next text box… and before you know it you’ve read multiple pages worth.

逆転裁判 is another series that is deceptively digestible in short bits.

[simias]

Oh right, I forgot the NANOMACHINES part. I won’t lie, it triggered my MGS PTSD.

Hopefully they won’t go full Kojima with it…

[Voi]

We’re back!

ゼノギアス // Week 18 // Chapter 30, 31, 32

ゼノギアス // Week 18 // Chapter 30, 31, 32 Week 18 2026 March 7 Last Week Week 17 Next Week Week 19 Home Thread ゼノギアス Ending Point Save once you are in control of Elly, on the Thames/タムズ. Screenshot Gameplay Gameplay notes Unique Missables "FMVs” Walkthrough English Guide Ctrl+F WK29 Japanese Guide Vocab Script JPDB CH30 Here Here CH31 Here Here CH32 Here Here NPC (Thames) Here Here Discussion Guidelines Everybody should feel free to post and ask questio…

[eagleflo]

Week 17

Really liked the dialogue scene between フェイ and エリィ at night. It’s markedly different from “normal” dialogue. A few lines in you can easily tell who is who.

気のせいだ。

This whole salvage part had escaped my memory! If you’ve played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 you should feel right at home. Tetsuya Takahashi knows what he likes.

タムズ is yet another luxurious environment with lots to investigate. There is a great deal of environmental storytelling. I specially liked seeing the gear at work from the beer hall window.

Oops! Not quite yet, it seems!

That’s more like it. 船長 seems like a fun fellow with his heart in the right place.

The card game was fun at first, but it feels like it’s way too hard at full speed? The CPU barely thinks at all. It took me many tries to win against アネゴ. I was surprised to learn that’s her real nickname, as it was translated “Queenie”.

Hunted all the chests. The one up high on a moving crane was a bit troublesome, but I think I bumped into it from the side by accident during one of my jumps and got the desired end result anyway.

[simias]

@eagleflo

The CPU barely thinks at all.

I cheated with savestates to beat the hardest level and I can say that there are times where you literally can’t react fast enough to play before the AI. For instance there was a time where I savestated during a stalemate (when there’s no possible move for either player) and I saw what the next cards to be dealt were going to be. I reloaded the save, placed my character on top of the card that needed to be played (the adversary AI was also sitting on the right card waiting for the dealer, not sure if it cheats too) and I never managed play my card first no matter how many times I reloaded the save, the CPU would always get to play a few frames before me no matter how hard I mashed the button.

[eagleflo]

I had a similar savestate where I did manage to beat the CPU, us both aiming to put the same card. Seeing its card bounce back was a minor victory. But yeah, it goes from easy to way too difficult way too quickly – the first two matches I could beat easily without any savestates.

[simias]

I agree. As far as I can tell the only way to beat the last one legitimately would just be to mash buttons at random and hope you get lucky. It’s too bad because I feel like with a few tweaks it could be a genuinely engaging game with some level of strategy.

It’s always wild to see how many half-assed subsystems this games has in store…

[eagleflo]

@simias

It’s always wild to see how many half-assed subsystems this games has in store…

Absolutely! Part of its charm for sure, and once again this one didn’t overstay its welcome… just something different thrown in for good measure.

I think this card game would work really well in real life – it’s very simple and there’s the addictive combo of having both reaction speed & strategy involved. Not many card games feature both.