Two days before August ended, I managed to use up only 40% of my internet access monthly quota. It wasn’t because I was on internet diet. It was because, once again, the-cool-kid dragged me into playing PS2 game that had been stashed under my bed for sometimes.

It all started years ago.

I was sitting in front of the computer, battered down, drinking my coffee, while celebrating the finale of Xenogears adventure. Since it had been such an emotional, philosophical, and spiritual roller-coster, thought provoking, physically draining, and mind blowing, I read each letters in the rolling credits as I wanted to know just about everyone who had made that experience possible.

No wonder..., I mumbled. Some names were familiar. Tetsuya Takahashi the director and writer — I thought I'd seen his name in FFVI as well, and elements of FFVI was also present in Xenogears. Itô Aiko, doing the english translation, had co-translated, with Graeme Wilson, several works of Natsume Sôseki. And of course, there was Mitsuda Yasunori, whose work in Chrono Trigger and in Chrono Cross stayed in my mind and heart. I am now listening to Chrono Trigger's End of time, the jazz version....

And then... there came one of the biggest shock of the (last) century.

As I read that episode V thing... I choked and spilled my coffee. What's that episode V thing! There are more! Does that mean I'd missed episode I to IV?

Those thoughts were thoroughly annoying. Just when I thought I'd grasped the Xenogears Universe, those letters suggested that I might've known only a little. Hmm, there is nothing I detest more than unfair judgement, and partial information, incomplete story, bias, whatever... often figure into that. The thought that my understanding of Xenogears Universe might be faulty tipped my equilibrium. I have to know... I need to know...

Then I learnt that it was originally the fifth installment of a six-part story. I also learnt that some of the production crew that created Xenogears and the Chrono series had left Squaresoft, established Monolith Soft and planned to do the story.

I felt exalted.

But the Xenogears experience taught me that the journey required perseverance, zeal, endurance, and piles of books and references on alchemy, and Jung, Freud, and Nietzsche’s philosophy. At the time, with studies and work load, I couldn’t afford multi-tasking and split attention. So when Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht came out, I bought the game, stored it in my wardrobe. So did I with Xenosaga II Jenseits von Gut und Böse and Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra. Then, I think I sort of forgot them.

Five or six months ago, we thought the cool kid was old enough to be allowed to play games on PS2. He rejoiced of course, but also demanded that I accompanied him and played the game for him whenever he got stuck on something. And when he bumped into the Xenosaga discs, yet unable to understand RPG and its battle system,..........  my chance to play these games came  at last.......... hahahahaha.

I am about to go through Episode III’s final battles. All in all, it’s not as overwhelming as Xenogears experience, partly because I think it is less compressed and has more distraction than Xenogears, and I can no longer do 24-hour reckless gaming as I once did. But Xenosaga still took up all my free time and sleep, and accounted for the unprecedented lack of internet use in August.

One may wonder why, in the holy month of Ramadhan, I waste such precious time on these games. But I’ll rationalize. These games serve as a bouncing wall where I can toss ideas and have thoughts experiments on the extreme opposite of my belief system. In a way, these games reinforce my faith… yeah, yeah… keep rationalizing, noel!