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.
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.
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?.."
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?.."
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
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
Will teach you more philosophy in one play trough than Turkish high schools in 4 years
just reading its title and its already better than valorant
Beautiful in its messy soup of random Wikipedia skims of various philosophers and thinkers, and structured like a really good mecha anime. This is my favorite game -- in its amateurish, slapped together state it feels incredibly raw and engaging.