I have been playing replaying a game called Xenosaga 3 that came out in 2006 for the ps2. I really like the glow effects they have. How are they doing this, is it an actual emmisive/ glow shader or some kind of trick? They do this alot for lots of glowy signs etc and its on ps2 hardware so I am wondering.
okay so its a post processing effect.Thanks,
You can always fake it. Look at the halo effect on lights on games from back in the ps2/gamecube/xbox era. Most of the time they use sprites(billboards) that face the camera to achieve the same effect. Tack on a script to adjust their transparency/self illumination based on distance and you have an instant alternative. It’s not as easy as the post processing effect, but its a trick that gets the job done. Also, you change play with their render level to have them selectively render in front of other objects. This technique does have its limitations however. For the shader to use if you attempt it it would be a particle multiply or something similar to blend its light color on background objects.
You might like this blog entry: standard-assets-update-part-two
Standard self illuminating shader with the entire texture’s alpha set to gray and the portion over the light set to brilliant white…
for the lights on the walls, at least 
Knowing what I know about Japanese developers, you’re not looking at any fancy shaders, especially PS2 circa 06.
That screen looks to me like a lot of vertex lit geo with an environment map on the floor (“maybe” a cube map, but probably just a single projection) and a simple bloom for the overbrightening in the doorway. Hell, the whole scene wasn’t a big “soft” I would say they weren’t even using bloom and just had a truckload of additive particles in the doorway.
Nowadays, you buy Unity Pro, go to Image Effects, select Glow and tone it down.