A fantastic story even with the later half changing the pace a bit. I loved my time with this game, everything about it was just so different than the other jrpgs at the time. The gear fights to the heavy religious themes it was unique. This game treats your companions with respect and gives them the spotlight here and there in ways you can better understand them and what they stand for, another thing you sometimes don't see in the genre.

I love the look of sprites in a 3D world a lot and is the reason why I love this gen's jrpgs so much. The music is great and I really liked the battle system a lot. It's a shame this isn't easily available to the masses as I think it's a story many should experience.

YOU SHALL BE AS GODS!!!

I don't think after these many years of discussion i can add something there was already been said about this game.

Xenogears is not a perfect game, yet it is a masterpiece. Considering the low budget and the ambitious task, Takahashi and his team made the best they could.

Now i will watch videos about the lore because i love how rich and deep it is.

My first venture into Takahashi's video game design, as well as the "Xeno" series and well... it's interesting that's for sure.

This game is insanely ambitious, to a fault. The combat is unique, but poorly executed and therefore mediocre. The platforming is atrocious, and the sudden shift in puzzle-heavy dungeon level design near the very end is confusing. It just doesn't mesh. But at the same time, I respect the game even at its faults because I can tell there was a lot of innovation, or at least an attempt.

What makes Xenogears iconic is its story and presentation and, even then, I'm widely conflicted. There's much that I really liked, but much of the plot beats and resolutions either just didn't hit or were compelling but extremely convoluted and so rushed that it all comes at you in waves of exposition instead of natural build-up. It's a real shame that the most intriguing portion of the story (Disc 2) is incredibly rushed and cut. Therefore, the most climactic and important part of the story felt kind of... hollow.

I respect the hell out of the ambition this game has, but I also equally don't care for how much that ambition really got in the way of itself sometimes.

Very ambitious and captivating story with adult themes that keeps you playing, especially the further in you go.

The music in this game is great and I wouldn't have expected anything less from Yasunori Mitsuda.

The gameplay is interesting and unique and comes with two modes of combat which helps with the repetitive aspect of battling in a 90s JRPG.

Although this game was arguably too ambitious and forced to take a more story mode pace in the later half of the game, it still managed to turn out great.

This game instantly became my favorite at the time upon playing it on release in 98.

I didn't think this game would age that well but was wrong after replaying it a few times over the years.

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.

This game has exceeded everything possible out there for its time and for now too!
Superb Narrative
Outstanding Gameplay
Remarkable Character Design
Astonishing OSTs

Gameplay wise the game suffers from the full PS1 RPG jank package: Shit combat, shit dungeons, and being terribly sluggish in all aspects of design. Best played with cheats and some sort of turbo mode.

Where the game shines is definitely in its narrative, delivering a unique and incredibly ambitious story that mishmashes philosophy, psychology and religion in a dense and complex sci-fi package that gives plenty to think about. This ambition however can also be considered its greatest narrative flaw: Xenogears is clearly chock-full of "things I find cool!" by Takahashi, lifting cues, plot points and inspiration from plenty other mecha anime and similars, leading to a bloated cast that at times often feel like they are just there to deliver a cool scene and never do anything else for the rest of the game. A more focused cast and character writing would've definitely improved the overall package, as I feel like the game would've definitely benefitted from spending less time on side adventures in Disc 1 and instead spaced the writing regarding main duo Fei and Elly more evenly across the game, as, while they are strong and interesting characters, the meat of their characters is almost entirely relegated to the already infamous Disc 2.

Still, god damn you can't help but respect this game's ambition. Shot for the stars and landed on the moon, but in a time where even now-legendary entries like the PS1 FF entries rooted themselves firmly in the Earth, Xenogears sure as hell is a work deserving of respect. The team set out to deliver an age-spanning sci-fi epic about humanity living under the yoke of its own societal and personal constructions; and while realistic development constraints and, let's face it, the immaturity of the dev team as writers and game designers made the end result a fairly janky game, it definitely deserves to stand as one of the greats of the genre.

God damn that final dungeon sucks though, jesus christ.

Xenogears is a very ambitious game and it’s clear that Tetsuya Takahashi was aiming highly with his vision. Even 25 years later, Xenogears still have more nuanced story writing than most games that came after it. It’s a game filled with interesting and complex ideas that combine Analytical psychology, religious symbolism, and scientific theories wrapped in a war-torn science fiction, mecha-filled setting spanning across centuries. As ambitious as Xenogears is, there is quite a lot of stumbling as the game approached the finish line with questionable game design, plot inconsistencies, irrelevant characters, and a very patchworked disc 2. Despite the many issues Xenogears obtains, it still entertains its promising concept from start to finish and does what it can to share a fraction of the overall scope of Xenogears.

Gameplay-wise, Xenogears is very resemblance to the golden days of the PS1 RPG. Random encounters, action time-based combat, a world map to explore and discover towns, dungeons, and hidden places, etc. all with little to no clear guidance on where to go next to progress the story. However, that’s more of a testament to what was considered standard PS1 RPG design than an element specific to Xenogears. What set apart Xenogears from other Square games such as classic Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger is the Deathblow system. Rather than having a basic attack command, there are three button inputs, square for a light attack, triangle for a heavy attack, and X for a fatal attack. Different combinations can create a Deathblow combo for more damage. In addition, there are ether attacks and abilities (or character-specific alternatives such as chi or arcane) that function similarly to the game’s magic system and the possibility to perform several Deathblows in one turn, known as “combos”, granted if the player has built enough action points (AP) to perform them.

Another major factor in Xenogears’ combat is mecha battles, which are known as Gears in the game. Considering Gears are an essential part of Xenogears’ story, there are several Gears battles to engage in. They share similarities to on-foot combat such as using regular and ether attacks. However, each attack requires fuel to perform and a certain attack level is required to perform Deathblows. The player can also engage in boosting, which will increase the characters’ speed in exchange for more fuel usage. In addition to “special options” that feature Gear-specific attacks or repairing damage granted the Gear has the correct part for the command.

Despite featuring both on-foot and Gear battles, there isn’t much to Xenogears’ battle system. In fact, besides unlocking more Deathblows and ether attacks, the player will see the full extent of its combat system within the ¼ mark of the game. Combat will eventually feel repetitive, especially with the high encounter rate in dungeons and in the world map. Not to mention, the party can only truly get stronger by grinding out battles for more EXP or obtaining better gears to increase stats such as attack and defense for both physical and ether attacks as well as agility to increase speed. However, considering its age and the period the game is from, it’s ultimately serviceable at least.

That said, one of the biggest flaws of the game is at times, the dungeon designs are atrocious and frustrating to deal with. I do not know whose idea it was to include platforming, but it’s some of the worst I’ve ever played in a game. In fact, platforming through Babel Tower was one of the most unenjoyable experiences I had in recent memory and I wanted to just give up on playing the game a few times, especially since it’s quite a time waster to redo certain areas of the dungeon and it have created so much stress and anxiety for me. Plus there are a few dungeons with confusing layouts that feel maze-like and very easy to get lost in without a map. On top of the high encounter rates….exploring dungeons is definitely one of the weakest areas for Xenogears.

Despite its gameplay, which is presented enough at least for the majority of the game, Xenogears biggest strength that often receives praise is the story. It’s a sprawling epic featuring protagonist Fei Fong Wong traveling across the Ignas content to discover the mysteries of the Aveh/Kislev war, the all-ruling Solaris nation, the floating country of Shevat, the religious deity of Ethos, and within himself alongside Elehayym Van Houten, Citan Uzuki, and others. Xenogears have a large scope between various countries, lore, and terminology covered across the game’s narrative and it’s especially impressive considering its age and its fellow contemporaries don’t even come close to the amount of detailed worldbuilding Xenogears contains. One aspect that I’ve particularly found impressive was the occasional updating of NPCs with different dialogue as the story progress. It’s not as text-heavy compared to say…the Trails series that would emerge a few years from now after Xenogears, but it was a pleasant surprise to see this feature in a PS1 game as it helps fleshes out the worldbuilding a tad bit more.

Xenogears starts off very promising with its scale, as the game quickly pushes the plot forward in a very dramatic execution that forces Fei to travel around begrudgingly. During his journey, the player sees Fei develops as a character and understands his role as a Gear pilot as he met key characters that would eventually join his party and understands the current state of each country. However, as the stakes increase all across the country, this means there is more ground to cover and focus for Xenogears. Meaning as the game progress, character motivations and purposes for half of the playable cast will be forgotten and plot points will be more inconsistent and rushed through quickly.

Xenogears serve very well for the protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist. Which are respectively, Fei, Elly, and Citan. These three characters are introduced very early on in the story, within the first few hours, and remain a constant device to advance the narrative. Fei and Elly in particular are explored fully with their own psyche and how both of them play a critical role in the game’s themes of human existence and purpose throughout religious mythology, self-identity, and using technology to achieve the state of godhood and ascension. The two characters complement each other well beyond their surface relationship for each other, but also as the subtext of the role of Psychoanalysis and Metempsychosis. Citan also serves as a foil character to Fei with his calculated methodology approach and juxtaposition to Fei’s emotional and uncontrolled outbursts along with Citan’s own motivations.

While Fei, Elly, and Citan are overall excellent characters that embody the central message of Xenogears, unfortunately, I can not say the rest for the playable characters. It’s common for the PS1 era to let the player form their own three-person team and only the required characters have speaking lines during story moments while the rest are awkwardly silent as if they’re not there at all. However, I personally found that Xenogears mistreats a huge chunk of its characters even for PS1 standards. Besides, Fei, Elly, and Citan, Bart is the most important playable character and does have some significance throughout the game. However, Billy, Maria, and Rico all have a minor arc early in the game that is ultimately used just to spread insight into the game’s world, and beyond that, they have very few lines in the overall story, and if they were cut out from the game, hardly much of anything would be drastically changed. In fact, Chu Chu is merely nothing more than a cutesy mascot character and I’m sure Xenogears will almost be exactly the same game without her. Perhaps Emerlada is the most snubbed playable character. She is introduced right before the end of disc 2 and Emerlada is never a required character to use not once in the game. However, she has so much important lore behind her character that is easily missable and it’s only found at a hidden location right before the final dungeon of the game. It’s quite frustrating and even sad to see how the game eventually forgets about the importance of ⅔ of the playable cast.

Aurbably, a major reason why most of the cast become irreverent overtime is because of the dramatic change of story presentation in disc 2. disc 2, half of the time, is completely narrated by either Fei or Elly at a black void with one of the two sitting down in a chair with a backdrop of still images of them explaining what has occurred. In comparison to how the events of disc 1 unfold, disc 2 feels like a quick summary at times. From my understanding, some say budget cuts are the result of disc 2, while others have said Tetsuya Takahashi felt like he and his team could not fully complete Xenogears within 2 years and have to settle for a compromise. Either way, it’s very evident between the lack of dungeons, open map exploration, and detailed story writing, the development team at some point began to rush through Xenogears.

However, I personally believe not all of disc 2 is messy and incomplete. With how the story presentation is formatted, it serves well to gain and study an introspection of Fei’s psychology and mental state in a way that would be jarring and out of place to do during disc 1. Not to mention the heavy usage of backstory and flashbacks to conceive how much of Xenogears’ setting is built before the start of the game. Disc 2 is rather excellent to enforce the Psychoanalysis and Metempsychosis themes without disrupting the game’s pacing of the present state of events too much.

Xenogears, at a quick glance, is a sci-fi epic that has a lot to tell. Upon further inspection, however, there are some areas that are superior such as Fei and Elly being excellent character studies that enforce the core themes of the game. While other parts such as the rest of the cast slowly become forgotten and the rushed pacing of the plot near the end of the game, there’s still much to be desired as well on top of the awful dungeon design. Xenogears is very flawed but it uses its flaws the best it can to come to a conclusion no matter what, rather than leaving it incomplete, and it’s quite admiring that Tetsuya Takahashi does what he can to tell his vision. While it will be years from now until Takahashi can fully realize his ideas with the Xenoblade Chronicles series, Xenogears is the first example of the boundless potential Takahashi is capable of. As rough and unpolished as it is, there is a diamond underneath the psyche of Xenogears.

A beautiful yet overambitious epic. The only flaws exist in disc 1 with dungeons and long portions being extremely boring, feeling like a rough attempt from a dev fresh off final fantasy. While despite disc 1 still being fun and having a lot of great characters, arcs and moments, disc 2 showed the game's true colours. The momentum the game needed - THE XENO came into play and it showed that this game has one of the greatest outlines for a story of all time. I, like many others, strongly wish the game had put more effort into this stretch of the story over disc 1 but despite this, the dodgy presentation of disc 2 didnt hold it back at all.

For what it was for the time and how the outline of perfect works still holds up among the most well thought out pieces of fiction ever told, it's safe to say Takahashi had a masterpiece in his hands with this one. I'm glad he has the chance to recreate it through Xenoblade but deep down, I hope this version of his universe gets to see the light someday. 9.5/10

A game flooded and rupturing with so much ambition, so many ideas (even with so many barely explored), and such a fascinating, evasive legacy that its incompleteness only creates infinite depth. Xenogears is the oddly-shaped kernel of a still-expanding universe, a beating, bleeding heart of a story that wears its many influences plainly and proudly while still feeling unsettlingly different from any of its peers. There’s so much more that could be here, that is here, that is instead in Perfect Works and Xenosaga and Xenoblade and in everything that’s taken inspiration from it since. I’m obsessed with Xenogears. I think I will be for a long time.

Favorite game of all time. Where had this been my whole life?

I'd started it sometime in mid-2020, got distracted and dropped off in Nortune, restarted it in mid-2021 to play alongside Resonant Arc's Xenogears podcast series (highly recommended for first time players). Suddenly became obsessed with it after finishing Xenoblade 3 in 2022 because it had so much Xenogears influence, making my mind go back to XG again and again.
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I'm the kind of person who primarily plays games for the story, gameplay second. In this case, the combat is lacking, but I still enjoy it, both on foot combat and Gear combat.

On foot combat is fun, but eventually gets repetitive with only really using the most recent deathblows acquired. The game doesn't make full use of its own combat system, I think. It needed more difficulty so that you actually make use of more ether spells and items, I think. And make special attacks actually deal more damage than just normal attacking, because why use them instead? That goes for Gear combat as well.

Gear combat is also fun, but in a different way. One thing the game doesn't explain (until very nearly the end, and hidden away in an optional area, no less) is Hyper mode. Some people call it "infinite attack", because its indicated by an ♾ icon in the attack level UI. Recommended to look up how that works after you finish Shevat, as that's when it becomes available to use. Hyper mode adds another whole level of strategy to Gear combat that I completely missed out on during my first playthrough.
Gear combat is largely about managing your fuel, though. Every time its an iron man until the next fuel-up point, basically. (or until you find a Fix Bot or Heal Seraph in combat)

(The best way to play it nowadays is the Perfect Works Build mod. They've done an excellent job reworking the combat, enemies, rebalancing characters, etc, adding more of a challenge. That mod is still in the works, getting updates to this day. It does more than just combat; retranslation, JP voices, FMV subtitles, fast text with no softlocking- and all of the options are stackable, you could have the retranslation with no other changes if you wanted. I highly recommend it.)
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The story is where its at, though. Best story in gaming, for me personally. And with the addition of the Perfect Works art/lore book its through the roof. Seemingly endless amount of lore to learn that spans 15,000 years.
There's a reason why its the "inspiration" for the rest of the Xeno games that have come since. Takahashi loves this kind of storytelling and its clear a lot of Xenogears' elements have been reworked and incorporated in different ways into Xenoblade 3.

People gave me a bad impression of disc 2, so I guess since my hopes weren't high it helped because disc 2 is amazing. Just about when Ive gotten my fill of gameplay the story takes over. Then just about when I'm getting the urge for more gameplay disc 2 delivers more exploration and combat.
The cliffhanger of disc 1 and it going straight into the iconic chair sequence and flashbacks of Lacan and Sophia is fantastic. If they ever remade this game that'd HAVE to stay the same. The monologues and music during that scene make me so emotional, honestly.

Of course its not all perfect, any XG fan will admit that freely and easily. It suffers from introducing party members and then basically never using them in the story ever again. The story is very much focused on Fei and Elly with a side of Bart and Citan.

For example, Billy had a pretty good story arc start to finish with a "supporting cast" so to speak of Jessie, Prim, and Stone, but as soon as you're done in Nortune Rico is basically forgotten about and his story's supporting cast only consists of Hammer with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from Sigmund. He had so much potential.
Same goes for Maria after you finish Shevat.
As soon as you get Emeralda she is never given much attention ever (until the optional area at the end. the poor girl got the "we've only got 2 flipping years to work on this huge game" short end of the stick. even had her omnigear cut)
And the first time (only time?) Fei and Billy interact its when Billy tells him he doesn't know how to treat a woman. (lmao)
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Having a moveable camera, 2D characters in a 3D world, is something I really love. And the 3D maps are beautiful! Of course, it isn't always handled well in gameplay, especially when paired with platforming, but Ive got a lot of patience for old controls and jankiness like that so it doesn't bother me much.

Primarily, I love how they use the camera in cutscenes, the game's cinematography. Specifically the part when Fei wakes up after the opening events and how it pans to Weltall looming behind him, how it shows the camera from over Weltall's shoulder showing its perspective as Fei walks away.
The perspective of the monster in the sewers, using a red or green filter over its vision to foreshadow something, or another similar monster later where its perspective has no colored filter.
The scene right before the end of disc 1, showing events down at the characters' level rather than from high above (keeping this spoiler free).
The transitions from one scene to another like the scene with Fei and Elly where it pans upward to Shevat in the sky, and then back down to Bart elsewhere. Beautiful!
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Ive played this game about 2.5 times now. No idea how long I've spent playing it. At least 200 hours so far.
Just recently finished my second full playthrough. Going to be starting another playthrough (with the most recent PW Build mod update) soon-ish because I miss disc 1 so much.


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As an aside, I have to shout out the profound impact this game has had on my life.
The amount of external sci-fi this game has gotten me into is unprecedented for me. I wasn't a mecha person before. Now I've got them all over my desk, Takahashi style. Never would've read books like Childhood's End or watched movies like Logan's Run, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Soylent Green otherwise.
Its gotten me into contributing to the fan wiki, translating pages of PW to have accurate info for english sites, modding the game myself, the list goes on.

Without Xenogears I most likely would've stopped drawing/painting by now, I was nearly to that point of quitting entirely after years of being in a slump, but it inspired me to continue this hobby. And in connecting with the fans online I have had such a great experience. Everyone is so kind.
I am not kidding or overreacting when I say this game has changed my life so much for the better. For me it was that once-in-a-lifetime experience that impacted me to my core, and I didn't even realize it until 9 months after I finished it.

I have a soft spot for works of art that make the medium crumble under the weight of the artist's ambition. This game is, to me, the greatest example of that in the history of gaming as a whole. Simply put, 1998 was not ready for Xenogears. The same year that Metal Gear Solid came out and revolutionized storytelling in video games, you have the release of perhaps one of the most complex video game stories ever told. Did you know that this game was the first time that English localizers worked directly with Square? The complexity of the science, philosophy, and religion mentioned in Xenogears cannot be overstated; JRPGs using mythological buzzwords to name things is a familiar tale, but the depth at which Xenogears uses and engages with these things is something that still hasn't been matched today. Disc 2 is perhaps the most well known thing about this game: "Xenogears shot too close to the sun and had to become a visual novel to meet deadlines" is something many people hear and then shortly thereafter decide that they don't want to get in the car if they know it's going to crash. This is understandable, but I think in a way even Disc 2 is beautiful, if not for its content. You can feel how hard the team was trying, see all the areas in which they still went the extra mile and see the scattered pieces of what could've been if the team had more time. It also adds more appreciation, and melancholy, to the amount of effort put in Disc 1. I swear, you walk into a room in any area of this game and it feels lived in. There'll be a unique arrangement of items, furniture, etc. that helps the room stand out from other areas in the game. This level of atmosphere and attention to detail is something that can only be produced if the team loves their work.

Of course, the elephant in the room is Takahashi and the Xeno Series as a whole. I don't think there are very many people who play Xenogears without having already played, or at least heard of, the Xenoblade series. In a way, having played these games adds yet another layer onto the Xenogears experience, because you can see all of the different ideas Takahashi has and how the ones that weren't able to be executed very well were used again when he had another chance. Some of the parallels between things in this games and things in the Blade series, and the way they differ from and build off of each other, are almost more meaningful than the individual content of either game. I'd say that Xenogears is required reading for anyone who considers themselves a major fan of the series, "clunkiness" be damned.

I don't necessarily see myself playing the game again, because it really is clear that the story held priority over the gameplay in this case. But either way, this game is extremely special and is something that anyone with even the slightest interest should play.

I'm not sure what I can really say that hasn't already been said by someone, somewhere else. The story is obviously the main draw here, and it is incredible, but there's a lot more to love here as well.

The decision to make the game 3D with 2D characters really pays off. In-engine cutscenes are numerous throughout and are a cut above its contemporaries' pre-rendered ones, sometimes even Xenogears' own. The cinematography and direction of some of these are very well-done. The spritework and character portraits are beautifully done, as well.

Another thing I appreciate about the visual design in general is the verticality and sense of scale. There's always stuff in your way, from ceiling fans to overhanging pipes to bridges. Even later fully-3D JRPGs don't often play around with perspective and scale to the degree Xenogears does.

The towns are among the best in any JRPG I've ever played, so full of character and life. Every NPC has something interesting to say, and there are tons of little easily-missible moments scattered throughout. One of my favorites was a merchant in Av who tries to haggle with you if you wait too long before giving a response. There are tons of moments like this in all 8 or so major towns and cities.

The dungeons unfortunately are rather bland, with the exception of Babel Tower. If they weren't going to design these as thoughtfully as all the other locations, they should have been trimmed down a bit.

Yasunori Mitsuda's score elevates the entire experience. Continuing the trend from Radical Dreamers, Xenogears' score is a bit more subdued than Chrono Trigger's, but it sets the mood perfectly... sometimes. It's quite a shame the soundtrack is so short for a game of this length because some scenes lose their impact a bit due to repeated track usage.

The combat isn't anything to write home about, it's just there to give you something to do. The UI makes it look more complicated than it really is. There's ATB bars for some reason, but the system is actually standard turn-based. You can ignore all the gear combat UI stuff, none of it affects anything. Saving up your AP to do multiple moves in one turn sounds like a great idea until you realize the damage doesn't scale, so it's useless outside of the 1 or 2 bosses that heal themselves a lot. Gear combat is more interesting on paper since you have to be careful managing your fuel, but in practice it means you'll only be using your most efficient moves. I do at least appreciate the plethora of game-breaking gear to be found in this game, it's kind of a lost art. JRPGs today are too afraid to have things as insane as Ether Doublers and Speed Shoes.

This is a game you play for narrative and presentation first, so thankfully while the combat is undercooked, it never gets in the way, either.

Stories are a bit more subjective to talk about, so I'll just say this is the kind of story that only gets better the more you experience it and the more you read into its allusions and inspirations. While we never saw the full 6-part Xenogears story realized, the way Xenogears unfolds and dilvulges its secrets, including bits from previous parts, I think ends up working in the game's favor. Perhaps my favorite quality of it simply the structure of the plot, which feels like you're slowly unraveling things layer by layer.

Well worth checking out if you enjoy story-focused RPGs, there's nothing quite like it, not even Xenosaga. Runs great on DuckStation, and there are mods you can get to speed up text boxes and provide other QOL features if you so choose.

well..... not sure where to start with this review. disc 1 was a solid 5 stars for me and i really underestimated how much of a let down disc 2 was going to be for me.
while the turn based gameplay is solid, the mech gameplay isnt for me and i Hate the platforming so much it made me use save states when i usually do not use save states. also didnt find much enjoyment in the speed minigame or the random puzzles in the dungeons in disc 2.
getting that out of the way, the story is kind of amazing or at the very least high potential. i knew i was going to like this at least a little bit since id seen a few spoilers and knew the general premise and its relation to ff7 and it definitely met my expectations in that regard. it definitely shows that takahashi is really knowledgeable about religion which definitely makes the game hit harder especially for someone like me whos not religious but was raised in that way. i also really enjoyed seeing all the little similarities to gundam and im definitely going to try watching ideon after this as well. as for the psychology stuff, im the kind of person that can find jung/freud shit to be rather obnoxious so id be lying if i didnt have a few good laughs over that. and of course theres a lot to be said about how feis did is written and i have to say there was a couple aspects that were a little bit disappointing but im unsure what information on the disorder was available in the 90s so i dont know how well takahashi did in relation to that... elly started out as one of my favorites but after disc 2 i just wasnt crazy about the whole mommy stuff going on with her and miang and i get its supposed to be like religious symbolism and also more freudshit but it was kind of annoying. the ending was peak though. citan ended up as my favorite since hes goofy.
all in all i have mixed feelings im unsure of how to word correctly but maybe ill be able to word my feelings on the game better later down the line.
my final thoughts are i cant wait to finish reading dune so i can draw out a venn diagram of that with its relation to xenogears in political writing and i need to hop on ideon soon so i can see where a good chunk of the inspiration came from.
slog of an experience but i found it personally worth it as someone who loves jrpgs and mecha.