Xenogears, this game took me a while to finish compared to other stuff i've played since other stuff got in the way which is why it took quite a while

a game that is filled with amazing and intriguing themes( which cover many things such as, religion, politics and mental health and human fragility, a story with many dark and crippling themes but also an existential, heartfelt story, many moments in this game i was moved heavily. Apart from these interesting themes, the cast is amazing too, i love everyone in the main cast, the chemistry and bonds between them got me hooked as i played, character dynamics and arcs were something that really caught my attention in xenogears. Each character having their own individual stories which justifies their wrongdoings and righteous acts really makes you feel some sort of empathy for the characters, even the antagonists, they all have reasons why they are driven to such ideals, this gives so much substance to the game. Another thing, for the time it was made, the combat is super satisfying and excellent, i really enjoyed my time in combat, the deathblows and combos were quite cool and i don't really think I had a bad time with any of the characters i switch around in my party, even chu chu. (so unserious). to wrap things up: the osts, combat, characters, themes and world building were all amazing i have nothing bad to say.

Fei, another amazing protagonist in the xeno series, from what i've played anyway. its crazy that both Shion and Fei are probably top 5 gaming protagonists for me, they're so good. anyways,
Fei Fong Wong, who i view as a character that is one of a kind, such a unique character. Fei's character arc and development throughout the game really touched me, also his dynamics with the cast are beautifully done. Fei as a character is layered in such a unique way, his character conflicts and how he moves past them and how his problems are portrayed through his own self, becoming one and content with himself, he embraces his hardships and the hardships of others and moves on. Fei's character and his best moments kind of really resonated with me which is interesting because i really see bits of Shion in me as well. These games know how to make masterful and impactful characters. Its kind of hard to explain fei's character without spoilers but he has one of my favourite character conflicts/arcs and a mind which references works of Jung and Freudian theory. such a special and well done character

regarding the cast as well, most of them are fleshed out and explored quite well, and they are even better through the chemistry of one and other.

the antagonist cast is packed and where some of the best concepts in the game are established, they hold really well against the other side of the cast. Every antagonist each had a reason in consequence of their ideals, finding out and taking off the layers of each antagonist was super cool, i genuinely liked all of them, their concepts, ethos and backstories/reasonings were so interesting, had me feeling some sort of sympathy and empathy for them. The main antagonist(s) is amazing, crazy ideas and just full of character. A big thing about them is the religious symbolism and goals they try to lean towards, through this it gives many pathways to their character and makes us understand their true ambitions.

dungeons and areas were cool too, all the nations and even little details such as inclusiveness among races and such shows how great this game is

Xenogears i believe is a game which was created with soul and passion, a gem among the medium and a must play for everyone, one of the great

"when will it be the day we can understand what all this loneliness and sorrow was for?.."

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that story is what I value most in a game, and ever since I started getting into JRPGs, Xenogears has been one of the ones that caught my attention the most. This interest only intensified after one of my friends finished it. I always heard that it was a game with an excellent narrative but severely hindered by development issues, mostly related to budget and time, and… yeah, it was true. Everything related to Xenogears’ gameplay seems poorly planned in some way, starting with the human combat, which initially seems interesting, working quite differently from the rest of the genre. Here, instead of defined turns for each participant with one action possible per turn, we have a combo system. Each character has a certain amount of Attack Points (AP) per turn, starting at 3 and ending at 7 as the characters level up, and three types of attacks: weak, medium, and strong, each requiring 1, 2, and 3 AP respectively. It’s possible to keep attacking as long as there’s AP left, and different attack combinations unlock special end-of-turn moves called Deathblows, which act as specials and deal significantly more damage. Thus, you are encouraged to always vary the combos you perform to discover new Deathblows, and of course, the combinations only increase and become more complex as more AP is gained. But quickly, the novelty of this system wears off, and all that remains is repetitive, often unfair, and very, very, VERY slow combat. Slow to the point that playing with the emulator's turbo activated feels like the normal speed the combat should happen at. Learning Deathblows requires the combinations to be repeated numerous times, resulting in the player spamming the same sequences dozens of times in a row, which obviously becomes boring quickly. As usual for games of the genre, we also have magic or skills, but all except for the healing ones are extremely useless. I can count on my fingers the times it seemed advantageous to spend a turn using them instead of just attacking normally. There’s practically no challenge; most bosses consist of just healing while building up a bar that allows you to use a sequence of consecutive Deathblows to deal massive damage at once and defeat them easily. Money is also abundant for the first 80% of the game, so having the best equipment and infinite healing items is very easy, contributing to making everything even more tedious. On the other hand, we have the combat in mechas or Gears, which visually is incredible. The attack animations are extremely well done (this also applies to the human combat), the Gear models are very well crafted, and the HUD that resembles a real command screen is quite cool, but it suffers from as many problems as the previous combat. The main issue is the fuel meter; each Gear has a limited amount that changes depending on the equipped engine (engine, frame, and armor are the three parts that can be upgraded in a Gear). Each attack or skill consumes a certain amount of fuel, and if it runs out, you can basically say goodbye to that attempt and reload the save, as until the end of the game, the only way to recover fuel is by selecting the option in the battle menu, which spends a turn and recovers ~50 each time, which is a negligible amount. To give you an idea, the engine with the least amount of fuel has 1000. Yes, recovering 50/1000 PER TURN. In the first half of the game, it’s quite difficult to run out, but as you unlock more powerful Deathblows (which, consequently, consume more fuel) and when you unlock the action to heal the Gear (which consumes at least 400 fuel), you have to severely limit the actions you take to avoid running out of reserves before halfway through the fight. Some Gear bosses are ridiculously unfair, with attacks that quickly deplete your HP bar, forcing you to heal and consume fuel. Of course, you can break the game if you know which items to equip on which characters, but playing blindly is hellish. And it doesn’t stop there; remember the parts I mentioned above that can be upgraded? So, you upgrade them in shops scattered throughout the game, and the parts are expensive. But as I mentioned in the previous section, money is abundant in the first half, but in the second, prices inflate too much, and it’s practically impossible to have enough money to equip all the Gears with the best equipment without grinding. I can’t stress enough how necessary it is to have the best parts equipped if you want the slightest chance of beating the bosses. And there’s more; it’s a JRPG, so of course, there will be dungeons. As you might have guessed, they are also terrible. Most are straight lines with a few deviations here and there for treasure chests, and the ones that try to be more complex are even worse, becoming extremely confusing, and not in a good way like Megami Tensei, just in an annoying way. And of course, with the encounter rate through the roof. One, in particular, even tries to have platforming sections, PLATFORMING. WITH. ROBOTS. ON. PLAYSTATION 1. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine how poorly this controls and how imprecise it is. To wrap up the gameplay part, the world map is pretty bland; there are no side activities to do until right before entering the last dungeon, and even when they do appear, they are mediocre. It seems more like an excuse to take the player where they need to go rather than a world that's genuinely fun to explore. But at least the interactions and dialogues with NPCs in the cities are very good. Everything exudes inexperience, which is due to the fact that the team was really inexperienced. Most of the developers were new to the market, and the director himself, Tetsuya Takahashi, despite having worked in important positions in some Final Fantasy games, was only 22 at the time, and it was the first project he was directing alone. Understanding this, it’s clear where most of the numerous gameplay flaws came from.

Leaving hell behind and talking about good stuff, more than good actually, the story is exceptional. Almost all the main concepts and characters introduced have perfect arcs and conclusions. The dialogues are masterfully written, and the way everything makes sense in the end is brilliant. “Brilliant” is what you’ll find yourself repeating when trying to find words for this game’s plot. The way the game handles the psychology mainly of the protagonist, but also of other characters, is brilliant, heavily relying on the studies of Freud, Jung, and Lacan. Having at least a basic understanding of these figures’ work is crucial to fully grasp the story. The way the game deals with human relationships on all fronts—love, rivalry, friendship, enmity, selfishness, conflict with others and with oneself—is brilliant. Kaori Tanaka is easily one of the best writers to have worked in the industry. The few criticisms that can be made are related to some party characters who fall into the background for most of the plot after their arcs end and concepts that are quickly forgotten after being introduced, which are relevant to the plot, but nothing truly hinders it. Even hating the gameplay, I never felt like dropping it. The curiosity and desire to see how the narrative unfolds keep anyone playing until the end, and almost all the characters have extremely unique and charismatic personalities. Even in dialogues that don’t add much to the story, you remain interested simply because of who the characters are. Fei, Elly, Krelian, Citan, and Grahf certainly make it into my ranking of best characters of all time. It’s really something you don’t see in any game, even those focused on story. This is on par with the best stories ever told, and maybe, it’s really my favorite.

Graphically, the game is impeccable. It abandons the static backgrounds common in Square’s RPGs of the time and adds fully 3D environments with 2D character sprites, à la Persona 2, resulting in a beautiful visual. The art direction at several moments is breathtaking, and the rare pre-rendered 3D scenes are extremely cool. In combat, instead of the horrible models of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, we also have 2D sprites, which, like the Gears, are extremely well animated and beautiful. The only downside of the environments is that sometimes the camera simply doesn’t have a good angle to stay at, but it doesn’t interfere much.

The soundtrack stands alongside the best of the era. Unfortunately, there are very few songs, so you’ll hear the same tracks over and over again, which quickly becomes boring, but when a new composition appears, it’s another masterpiece.

Now, the elephant in the room... even if you haven’t played it, there’s a chance you’ve heard about the infamous second disc. It was here that the budget and time issues worsened, causing various gameplay sections to be left out and replaced with walls of text narrating what happened. Let’s face it, not having more sections of this wonderful gameplay isn’t a big loss, but it’s still disappointing to have a dungeon narrated to you instead of playing it. The real problem is that even some story parts, which would clearly be cutscenes, receive the same treatment. Unfortunately, chances for a remake of this game are rare, so the magnificent story has to be experienced in a less than ideal state, but it’s what we have.

In the end, despite several stumbles and parts that made me tear my hair out, Xenogears is an experience I will never forget, and I will always cherish it as one of the most engaging and brilliant stories I’ve ever consumed. I’m looking forward to seeing how the spiritual successors continued the legacy that started here. 9/10.

If reviews for video games were a simple game of math, adding and subtracting with strengths and flaws to find a raw number that serves as some semblance of an assessment of quality, then I don't think I could give Xenogears too high of a score. But I don't think that's helpful. The art we experience isn't meant to adhere to a rigid set of criteria. It's fun to be sure, but is it productive? Is it accurate? Because truth be told, I don't think it is. A review primarily serves to tell other people what you think of a video game, and if it's worth playing. And Xenogears is worth playing.

This probably sounds like the game is horrendously flawed, but it definitely is not. That being said, there are MANY issues with this game. The combat is fairly shallow, especially in Gears, the random encounters really disrupt the flow of gameplay, some dungeons are confusing and boring, there's a few minor translation errors, and of course there's disc 2 which was so rushed to get the game out on time that there's barely any gameplay and huge story beats are squeezed into brief narration segments.

These flaws are real, and I don't want to dismiss them. But did I enjoy Xenogears? Yes, wholeheartedly. It's so clearly a passion project and something everyone who worked on it cared deeply about. The story is so intricately detailed and well-told with probably the best worldbuilding I've ever seen in a video game. The characters are likeable and fleshed out. The music is by Yasunori Mitsuda so you know it's amazing. The spritework is amazing. Despite my gripes with it, the combat is really flashy, satisfying, and pretty fun. And, for what it's worth, most of the flaws with this game were things that couldn't be controlled - time and budget constraints placed on a pretty small team without a whole lot of experience who just wanted to create something incredible. And I they still did, despite all the compromises.

I think this is why we should judge games as a sum of their parts. Individually, a lot of things in Xenogears are rough and difficult to get over. You should go into this game with the expectation of being frustrated at times. I honestly recommend having speed-up during some sections. But... I still think you should go into this game. It's a magical experience that is absolutely worth trying. Just keep pushing through the rough patches and you will experience a phenomenal work of art. I'm going to go read Perfect Works now.

(I tried to go further this third time)

Better check out Neon Genesis Evangelion, you may or may not like this work but rest assured it will respect your time unlike xenogears which is another failed "RPG" abortion that dares to drag on longer than my patience can take.

P.S. Tetsuya Takahashi looks more like a frustrated novelist than a game director as such.

Pretty great story that is privy to some pacing issues.

Gameplay initially seems pretty promising but stays simple and never evolves much the entire game. The idea of having a mech system and a normal system is pretty interesting but I think is executed pretty poorly.

I preferred the pacing of disc 2 more than disc 1 due to how I feel towards the gameplay, besides that you can obviously tell that they had a lot of ideas they weren't able to fully develop and had to rush to finish the game.

What an incredible game. Even after finishing the masterpiece that is FFVII, this makes it look weak in comparison in nearly every way outside of presentation. The gameplay is solid and still holds up as having one of the most unique battle systems in RPGs 26 years later, and I feel like it's nearly perfect aside from some gimmicky boss fights — which would be fine, if you didn't have to sit through long cutscenes to get to that fight again. Unfortunately, most of the actual gameplay is limited to disc 1; infamously unfinished, Xenogears disc 2 is essentially a visual novel, taking you from cutscene to cutscene with an occasional dungeon or boss fight to break it up. However, the story is the real treat here anyways, because this is one of the best video game stories ever written. It has its corny moments of course, but it never feels out of place or immature when tackling its more serious themes. I'm always amazed by the amount of pretentiousness narrative-driven video games seem to have when talking about say, mental health, but the Xeno series has always been exceptional, even in the very first game. It's also fun to see the beginning of the meta-narrative that set in motion the entire series, and how later games like Xenoblade revisit these concepts and elaborate on them.

The music is wonderfully composed, as is typical of Yasunori Mitsuda, though it feels a little derivative of Chrono Trigger at points. Still, it's one of my favorite soundtracks in any video game.

So far, this is the best PS1 RPG I've played.

I'm a huge Xenoblade fan, and decided to check out the origins of the Xeno series; the cult classic 1998 JRPG for the PlayStation 1, Xenogears. This game is infamously complicated, and I've seen many describe it as the most complex and ambitious game ever created, and it's certainly the most complicated game I've ever played with an unspeakable amount of lore and concepts presented during the 80-hour run time, so I'm not gonna go too deep in detail with this review otherwise I'd be here for hours, but I will summarize my thoughts on this game and simply say that this was an enjoyable game, but I definitely had a lot of issues with it. Primarily the combat not being deep or difficult enough for an 80+ hour game, you can pretty much win every battle by spamming Level 1 deathblows repeatedly. It also doesn't help that the random encounter rate in this game is pretty high, leading to battling getting repetitive really quickly. Even further, battle animations are really long and unskippable. The animations look great, but it gets tedious watching them over and over again. I played this game on an emulator, allowing me to use the emulator's speed-up mechanic to quickly go through animations, and it was still tiring to sit through the animations, so I can't even imagine playing this game on actual hardware where you can't use speed-up.

This game also has a lot of incredibly tedious and sluggish dungeons that are a chore to navigate and get through, and the story is full of really slow pacing... at least until the infamous Disc 2 when the game decides to move the story along insanely fast due to budget and time constraints. That being said, Disc 2 surprised me, as I've only ever heard negative things about it, with many saying that it's the worst part of the game. But I genuinely found myself enjoying Disc 2 to be the best part of the game. Yes, there are a lot of problems that come with the sudden fast-pacing (some details being omitted, character development being hindered for a lot of the cast, etc.) But honestly, I enjoyed Disc 2 since the game basically turns into a visual novel, meaning there's less of the annoying combat and dungeons, and more focus on the great story.

However, this game is full of a lot of heart and at its peak is truly incredible. The story is really complex and layered and it's possibly my favorite story in all of gaming, only rivaled by Xenoblade Chronicles 1. None of the plot makes sense until the final 10 hours and I love that, makes it feel like a mystery slowly being unraveled, even more so than the Xenoblade games. The themes in this game are also incredibly strong and heartfelt, and they're easily some of the most well-handled themes in the series.

The music was fantastic (it's Mitsuda, what do you expect), and this probably has my favorite art direction in the series, since I love the fusion of old PS1-era 3D models and the 2D sprites. And of course, the anime FMVs are really great-looking with their abstract imagery.

And while I did have some problems with the cast being underdeveloped by the end (besides Fei and Elly), since Citan and Bart don't really do a whole lot in Disc 2, and the rest of the party doesn't even get any screen time past their initial arcs. The villains were good too, but I think some of them get sudden character arcs way too quickly that makes their development feel a bit unnatural at points, though that's probably an after-effect of Disc 2's fast pacing. But that being said, I still did enjoy the cast and I think Fei and Elly are some of the best-written characters in Xeno, but I think all the Xenoblade games have overall better casts.

Overall, Xenogears is a masterpiece of a story packaged in a not-so-good game. The Xeno team improved greatly by the time they reached Xenoblade, as Xenogears was poorly-designed in many areas. But the story and thematics are just so good I can't possibly bring myself to rate this anything lower than a 7/10.

Final rating: 7.5/10

Il mio legame con i jRPG è conflittuale, dato che a loro mi avvicino da un punto di vista più intellettuale che specificamente ludico: più che giocarli mi interessa conoscerne e studiarne le circostanze dietro lo sviluppo, siano esse storiche e politiche come anche, più nel dettaglio, gli usi e costumi della popolazione giapponese. Questa separazione la vivo in modo molto meno netto per qualsiasi altro genere

Devo dire che, in generale, mi accade sia con i jRPG che con gli adventure in generale, comprendendo le Visual Novel nel discorso. Trovo molto interessanti i punti di contatto con la cultura occidentale, a partire da ispirazioni ben risapute come DnD, Colossal Cave Adventure, Wizardry, Rogue: tutti esempi ben noti e che hanno lasciato un segno evidente nella produzione artistico-ludica giapponese. La cosa più intrigante, per me, è il modo con cui siano stati (più o meno) tutti rielaborati efficacemente per dare vita a lavori o particolarmente complessi o totalmente riadattati per accomodare le abitudini dei giapponesi: dai jRPG stessi ai replay

Queste basi si possono notare in modo più o meno sottile sia su base visiva che sul piano del gameloop e del setting

Xenogears è stato partorito da un team di Square, già allora ben impegnata nella produzione di jRPG di derivazione potremmo dire tradizionale: sono ovvi i primi Final Fantasy, King's Knight e Romancing Saga

Si tratta spesso di giochi con alla base una certa volontà di sperimentare, sotto più profili. Oltre ciò, Square ha manifestato sin da subito un certo interesse per la fantascienza e per tematiche politiche. Gli esempi più interessanti:
1)Cruise Chaser Blassty - Oggi è forse ricordato solo per gli arrangiamenti musicali di Nobuo Uematsu, ma anche lato storia e gameplay ha delle notevoli particolarità. Mi soffermo sul fatto che il protagonista, alla guida di mecha in tutto e per tutto simili a certi Gundam (realizzati, infatti, da Mika Aki), si ritrova nel mezzo di un conflitto tra un governo oppressivo e una fazione ribelle. Tra gli sviluppatori coinvolti, Sakaguchi e Kazuhiko Aoki;
2) Alpha - probabilmente altrettanto oscuro, in questo caso si tratta di un ADV game (ciò che noi chiameremmo indistintamente Visual Novel). La protagonista soffre di amnesia, e si trova su una nave spaziale incaricata di raggiungere un nuovo pianeta già che le risorse naturali della Terra sono state consumate. Anche qui, il setting prevede un conflitto tra un sistema dittatoriale e una fazione ribelle. Cosa da ricordare è che, alla scrittura, c'è Hiromichi Tanaka.

Xenogears nasce un po' da tutto questo, e da molto altro. Il fulcro del gioco ruota attorno al ruolo di Tetsuya Takahashi, già coinvolto nella realizzazione di altri giochi di spicco di Square: prendo ad esempio Chrono Trigger e Final Fantasy VI (sua la realizzazione delle Magitek, intro in CGI compresa). Assieme a lui lavorano su Xenogears molti altri professionisti provenienti dall'esperienza Chrono Trigger: alcuni di questi già menzionati, altri sono:
Katsuhisa Higuchi e Kiyoshi Yoshii (combat programmer che perfezionò l'ATB di Hiroyuki Ito), Yasunori Mitsuda (compositore), Tsutomu Terada e Tadahiro Usuda (character designer), Yoshinori Ogura (mecha designer), Yasuyuki Honne (texture mapping), e soprattutto Masato Kato. Quest'ultimo fu co-scrittore di Xenogears, e fu in effetti l'elemento di spicco dietro la scrittura di Chrono Trigger. Ci sarebbero diverse altre menzioni da fare

Questo spostamento di professionisti ben si sposa con le intenzioni iniziali del progetto, pensato come prosecuzione proprio di Chrono Trigger. Vi fu anche la volontà di renderlo settimo capitolo di Final Fantasy, per poi venir scartato proprio per il suo mischiare un setting tra il fantasy e lo sci-fi con tematiche e atmosfere seriose e cupe

Ecco, da questo punto iniziano a intrecciarsi certi fatti curiosi: lo sviluppo di Xenogears portò in effetti alla nascita di altri giochi che ne condividevano i toni, personaggi ed elementi narrativi. Prima ho menzionato Alpha e Cruise Chaser Blassty non a caso: Takahashi, sua moglie Kaori Tanaka, Masato Kato non furono direttamente coinvolti, ma presentano anche Xenogears presenta un protagonista che soffre di amnesie e il tema dell'oppressione

Spesso e volentieri si vuole attribuire una proliferazione di determinate opere e determinati temi al cosiddetto decennio perduto giapponese, per sommi capi corrispondente agli anni '90. Questa è una correlazione che devo ancora conoscere in modo che mi soddisfi, e del resto nulla vieta che esista una produzione anticipatoria di questo fenomeno e che introduca sviluppi legati alla tecnofobia e all'anti-war - vedendo, per esempio, la tensione sociale e politica derivate dalla Guerra Fredda (es.: The Death Trap)

Per ora trovo ben plausibile che Xenogears sia effettivamente figlio di quel decennio di insicurezze e instabilità politiche ed economiche, che ne rispecchi paure e trend, anche all'interno di Square stessa. Non si volle renderlo sequel di Chrono Trigger e di Final Fantasy, eppure Square da quel momento prese un nuovo tipo di strada

In FFVII sono fondamentali il Jenova Project, l'enorme potere della Shinra Electric Power Company, Sephiroth. Tutti elementi che riflettono la già menzionata tecnofobia, la paura per uno sviluppo tecnologico dipendente dalla volontà di un soggetto in grado di imporre la propria volontà in modo autoritativo, vuoi in modo subdolo o in modo diretto. Oppure si consideri Parasite Eve con il tema della maternità, dell'identità, dell'ingegneria genetica, dell'ambientalismo. D'altro canto, alcuni di questi sono presenti anche in FFVII, tra Strife, Sephiroth, il gruppo AVALANCHE

Una corrente tematica che si rileva anche in giochi come Einhänder, Treasure of the Rudras, Another Mind. Difficile stabilire se vi sia una corrente percorsa da un certo quantitativo di altre case di sviluppo, occorrerebbe perderci un po' di tempo per capire la portata del fenomeno

Xenogears è un po' tutto questo e anche molto di più, mettendo in mostra il notevole ecletticismo di tutto il team di sviluppo. Takahashi in particolare, avendo avuto ampia esperienza come lettore e spettatore di testi e cinema occidentali. Più che evidente è il suo prendere a piene mani da Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, e poi da Clarke, Harrison, George Lucas, Kubrick, Heinlein, Asimov. Le identità manifeste Fei, nate anche dal trauma oltre che da una volontà esterna, sono uno degli elementi più complessi di tutto il gioco

La scelta stessa di ripiegare su un combattimento spesso e volentieri basato sull'uso dei mecha riflette certe idee care alla letteratura fantascientifica, nonché all'animazione giapponese stessa, ripercorrendo la corrente anti-war. Spesso e volentieri si vede un confronto tra Xenogears e Neon Genesis Evangelion ma, al di là di un paio di situazioni, la scrittura rimane molto distante: il tema prevalente è quello del terrore evocato dalla guerra, dall'impossibilità di allontanarsi da essa e, al netto dell'avanzamento tecnologico, il fatto che la guerra ha sempre lo stesso volto scavato dal dolore e dalla tragedia

In Xenogears la tragedia è onnipresente, in alcune rare occasioni si riflette anche all'interno dei combattimenti (penso a quello tra il protagonista e Dan) ma viene soprattutto espresso mediante filmati realizzati in engine di gioco. Più volte questo manifesta la già menzionata tecnofobia, l'incapacità dell'uomo di controllare il mezzo o, in alternativa, la sua tendenza a farne abuso - si può pensare qui a una disillusione dall'econophoria asiatica

Attraverso l'ingegneria genetica c'è perversione della vita, proponendo riflessioni sul post-human (si pensi anche e soprattutto a esempi nell'animazione e nel cinema, da Oshii a 964 Pinocchio, da Marginal di Moto Hagio ai romanzi di Mariko Ōhara) e una sfiducia generale anche verso la spiritualità e le autorità religiose. Tra l'altro, in quest'ottica, mi piace rimandare la mente anche a Silent Hill 3 (they looked like monsters to you..?)

e il potere porta unicamente a classismo, razzismo, abuso (anche di natura sessuale, il gioco non si mostra timido verso nessun tema). Gli intrecci tra i personaggi e gli eventi sono molto complessi, la scrittura è meticolosa. Si tratta di un'opera dal sapore realmente cinematografico, adottando spesso e volentieri cambi di punti di vista, movimenti di camera virtuale, composizione che mostrano un certo tipo di ambizione molto (forse troppo) comune nell'ambiente videoludico giapponese - e sempre, assolutamente sempre dando più di uno sguardo al mondo occidentale. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Metal Gear Solid, Snatcher sono gli esempi più popolari che mi vengono in mente. Chiara è l'ammirazione nei confronti degli Stati Uniti e una parte d'Europa, chiaro il tentativo di raggiungerne i mercati, e a voler essere maliziosi si potrebbe anche ipotizzare uno scarso interesse verso i propri stessi ambienti intellettuali e la propria stessa produzione artistica. Un fatto da tenere in considerazione per rifletterci

Altra cosa interessante in Xenogears è l'esplorazione: più volte ho espresso il mio interesse per la varietà di modi con cui gli sviluppatori giapponesi hanno deciso di affrontare la componente adventure nei propri titoli, dai Metroid a Yume Nikki. Il fascino che provo verso un jRPG simile deriva anche, molto banalmente, dalla possibilità di ruotare la telecamera e di saltare: questa scelta ha permesso di includere anche alcune semplici sezioni di platforming e di gestire diversamente l'architettura delle città. Sembrerà una scemenza, ma così facendo rende anche possibile nascondere alcune cose che possono semplicemente essere trovate grazie a un minimo di curiosità da parte del giocatore, ampliando la dimensione degli spazi. Magari si sarebbe potuto fare a meno della Babel Tower

Peccato per la questione del Disco 2. Peccato che non siano stati in grado di evitare lo sgradevole meta rappresentato dal memory cube. Peccato anche per i combattimenti che ogni tanto mi hanno veramente rotto i coglioni nonostante l'intelligenza dietro il sistema di combo, ma questa è la mia solita repulsione per il combat ed encounter system dei jRPG. C'è comunque una certa cura nella loro progettazione: mi viene in mente Calamity, che un po' insegna al giocatore che dovrebbe iniziare a pensare a fare upgrade al proprio equipaggiamento se vuole sperare di proseguire. Oppure, mi viene in mente il torneo col suo alternare due personaggi tra esplorazione e fasi di combattimento. Si tratta in ogni caso di sparuti episodi in un gioco della durata di 50 e passa ore