ゼノギアス // Week 21 // Chapter 37 & 38

[Voi]

ゼノギアス // Week 21 // Chapter 37 & 38

Week 21	2026 March 28
Last Week	Week 20
Next Week	Week 22
Home Thread	ゼノギアス

Ending Point
Save on bridge after decision to head to a tower and are asked to select a party. Sadly, you’ll have to listen to SPOOG yap first before you can get to a save point.

Screenshot

Gameplay

Gameplay notes

• None

Unique Missables

• If you wanted to pick up Ether Doubler or Holy Pendants from Nisan, get them this week. They won’t be available after!

"FMVs”

None.

Walkthrough
English Guide Ctrl+F WK36
Japanese Guide

Vocab

	Script	JPDB
CH37	Here	Here
CH38	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

• This seems like it’s less than the 11.7k characters the script would suggest….don’t tell me it’s because we have so many character options?!
• Speaking of, which is your favorite party so far?

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]

I like this game. It reminds me every week that I am far from being fluent in Japanese.

[Voi]

I finished this week! I am officially caught up with club!

Thoughts to come tomorrow though I’m sleepy

[Akashelia]

Nice, well done! Just in time for the new week xD

[Voi]

ゼノギアス // Week 22 // Chapter 39 & 40

ゼノギアス // Week 22 // Chapter 39 & 40 Week 22 2026 April 4 Last Week Week 21 Next Week Week 23 Home Thread ゼノギアス Ending Point Save in town after heading to the ruined house and talking to Screenshot Gameplay Gameplay notes Unique Missables "FMVs” Walkthrough English Guide Ctrl+F WK38 Japanese Guide Vocab Script JPDB CH39 Here Here CH40 Here Here Discussion Guidelines Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But …

[Sasabonsam]

Little late to finish this week!

Week 21

Favorite party with our current members is any combo of Fei/Elly/Bart/Billy. I like Citan and Rico fine as characters, but in battle Citan tends to be too strong and quicker to learn deathblows than everybody else and Rico’s speed is just so bad.

This is one of those weeks where I could have much more to say if the game was quicker to explicitly reveal certain plot points

Not a fan of Jesiah’s big scene. Why does the pilot have to be in a bullet? Why design a device like this in the first place? I don’t mind melodrama, but I would’ve preferred it to at least happen in a more grounded situation. Also, as an American I almost lost it at this bit:

I feel like I completely missed why ストーン ended up looking like Red Skull from captain america. He says カレルレン did it, but did anybody notice a how/why somewhere? My best guess is he was experimentally fused to the machine for some reason.

カレルレン has turned out to be a difficult name to parse even in my head. It always ends up something like カレルル. It was kinda funny having him repeatedly call the SBOOG “貴様ら” when my only exposure to this term is the insulting way manga characters use it. It’s apparently polite in old language, but I wonder if its usage here is meant to be toe the line between modern/archaic?

[eagleflo]

カレルレン

@Sasabonsam

カレルレン has turned out to be a difficult name to parse even in my head. It always ends up something like カレルル.

It’s a transcription of Karellen. The English localization switched it to Krelian, so you’re not alone!

@Sasabonsam

It was kinda funny having him repeatedly call the SBOOG “貴様ら” when my only exposure to this term is the insulting way manga characters use it. It’s apparently polite in old language, but I wonder if its usage here is meant to be toe the line between modern/archaic?

I earlier noted that ドミニア refers to エリィ as 貴様 as well. I think the writers absolutely want to invoke and play with the incredible semantic drift of this word, being both extremely polite and extremely insulting at the same time. At least the writers are aware of how it sounds to the modern ear.

(I also might be overreading it. Maybe ドミニア is just so openly hostile to エリィ that it’s just the modern use.)

[Sasabonsam]

貴様

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that! I admit at the time I wasn’t sure what to think. Characters like ドミニア or ラムサス use the term but we only see them use it with people they don’t like or are angry at (correct me if I’m wrong).

On the other hand, sboog use so much old grammar already and they seem to think of themselves as the most important people in the world. It makes me wonder if they’re out-of-touch old farts who don’t realize that カレルレン is secretly dissing them. _{Or, you know, maybe he’s just speaking their language which is it!?}

[Akashelia]

@Sasabonsam

Also, as an American I almost lost it at this bit:

Non American here but same reaction to that quote

[Akashelia]

Week 21

By the way, every time we see “the child”, it makes me think of those guys, is it only me??

[eagleflo]

Here I thought for some reason that troll dolls with the hair were a local Nordic phenomenon — was it whole Europe, or the whole world?

[Sasabonsam]

Not sure about the whole world, but I had these as a kid, too! Ruined the hair on all of them of course.

So that’s why カレルレン wanted the nanomachine colony. He simply wanted to complete his doll collection

[Voi]

Glad I’m not the only one!

@eagleflo

troll dolls with the hair were a local Nordic phenomenon — was it whole Europe, or the whole world?

We had them here in the US. Pretty sure I had a few.

[simias]

Do these diagonal elevators even exist IRL? They’re all over the place in Japanese sci-fi (Akira, Metal Gear Solid, this) but they seem absurdly impractical in most situations.

Ah, I found this video by a like-minded individual:

https://youtu.be/M2oELc61XHE

[eagleflo]

A week of vacation in southern France, and I left my iPad home on purpose to devote more time to the Steam Deck during holiday downtime. I’m going to catch up!

… but posting screenshots from the Deck only using my phone sucks. They are usually the substantive portion of my updates so I’ll have to improvise… writing this update will take as long as playing the game.

Week 21

What a week. Once again one of those chapters that have stayed with me since my teenage years, and it absolutely did not disappoint.

There have been a bunch of fragments we’ve been shown that are now delightfully starting to come together. I wish I could write more already…

So, イド finally introduces himself by name. Strong entrance game, but グラーフ still does more evocative poses.

Absolutely love the spritework here. He is not avoiding these blows by any means — not him. Then, when he sets out to attack in turn it’s this wild, uncontrolled energy…

One of those battles I was sure I was supposed to lose, but nice of ワイズマン to show up when he did — grabbing イド out of his gear and I’m still not sure I like his chances.

This game is NOT ashamed of its mecha roots. A goddamn GUN gear that you’re supposed to use together with another gear? I need to investigate the history of Transformers in Japan one day… It’s so foolish in one way, but the Rule of Cool is undeniable.

They gave us the proper names for 神聖なるガゼル and SOL-9000. SBOOG is faster to type.

@Sasabonsam

Also, as an American I almost lost it at this bit:

Haha, this same quote also totally broke Hideo Kojima once upon a time and he has still not recovered. Not a proper Kojima game without a reference to the “peculiar” US gun culture. Death Stranding 2 did it again.

@Sasabonsam

I feel like I completely missed why ストーン ended up looking like Red Skull from captain america. He says カレルレン did it, but did anybody notice a how/why somewhere?

It happens off screen but yes, it’s the “blessing” of カレルレン. He also gets blessed by グラーフ before the fight. I wonder if Perfect Works has more? I think it’s just more for shock value here… and also callback to the earlier fight with ヴァンダーカム, the guy with the face tattoo.

@simias

Do these diagonal elevators even exist IRL? They’re all over the place in Japanese sci-fi (Akira, Metal Gear Solid, this) but they seem absurdly impractical in most situations.

Some mineshafts come to mind, when you’re excavating a ton of material and basically need an elevator for your biggest excavators. I’ve also been callling them Akira / Eva elevators since late 90s. I liked this two-video rabbit hole, even though it was focused only on games — there is a bunch of older mecha anime with these. Iconic to say the least.

[Voi]

Since I’m apparently never going to write up my thoughts or get my screenshots off my steamdeck, here are my notes lol

week 21

Grahf chilling underwater
Didn’t try but can you change the mc from citan? Noticed dialog specific to him.
Also Elly gets some interesting dialog in zeboim
citan avoids answering on Solaris goals
Keep outside clean not inside…pandemic? Containment of something?
Flashing lights warning
How does the password play out without Elly??
How do nanomachines save people? The whole world in danger?

Also apparently it’d noted a flash warning but I no longer remember where it was to edit the op.

[eagleflo]

More week 21

Forgot to attach my two favorite screenshots of last week, because preview is so hard on mobile:

@Voi

How does the password play out without Elly??

She must be a mandatory character for this part, right? Probably シタン as well… feel like you could miss pretty big story beats otherwise.

[Akashelia]

@Voi @eagleflo I really like reading your updates so I won’t be mad if you just post pictures of your screenshots (as in, take a picture from your phone of the steamdeck and post that) :x

'optional' dialog

@eagleflo

She must be a mandatory character for this part, right? Probably シタン as well… feel like you could miss pretty big story beats otherwise.

I did not have Elly with me but I probably got the important points anyway, as I watched a playthrough in English where they had her. Otherwise, the script has all the different branches of what can be said (▼バルトがいる/ ▼バルトがいない for example), sometimes I read the parts over there that I didn’t get to see in my game.

[eagleflo]

Ok, very surprising! Thanks for the info.

I always save in a new block (five memory cards full so far) so I’ll have to try the sequence without エリィ to see how it plays. The whole “I know how to use ゼボイム computers from 4000 years ago and know the password as well” was a big partial character reveal.

[Akashelia]

Hmm makes me wonder why they haven’t made it mandatory to have her in your party at that point, like they sometimes do. Or I guess it would spoil it with too much foreshadowing.