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 probably need to play a fair bit more to come to a fully formed opinion, but I think I have seen enough to say that this game, despite being disappointingly unpolished, has a very, very, very funny core gameplay loop. Like, very few things in a video game are as funny as hearing the muffled, barely audible screams of one of your friends along with monster noises. When in the first three hours of playing a game you laugh out loud more than you have at pretty much any other multiplayer game besides maybe Mario Party. It bears a lot of resemblance to Among Us, which also relies heavily on social interaction to supplement its simple gameplay, and I still love to play a game of Among Us with my friends, even three years later. So even though I'm sure the internet will forget about it, and even though I probably won't be playing it a whole lot going forward, I think this is a social game that will stand the test of time for me personally and be something I pick up with my pals every so often for the foreseeable future.

Video games as a medium have led up to this game. It is the conclusion of a story that Tetsuya Takahashi has been trying to tell since Xenogears in 1998. The characters are all amazingly written and have great chemistry, the combat doesn't quite reach the highs of XC2 but the field gameplay is far better. The music takes a bit to get used to from past games, but ultimately is amazing as well. And the story is by far the best in the series, tying together the main themes from XC1 and 2 while introducing new ones as well, all tying a bow on the series as a whole with an emotional, unparalleled ending. Basically, this game is peak fiction, peak gameplay, just peak video games. It's my current favorite game of all time, and it probably will be for a very, very long time (i.e., until Xenoblade 4 comes out).

I absolutely loved this game, and I'd call it my new favorite game on the NES.

I think to really talk about why this game is special, you need to talk about the artistry that went into this game. In my opinion, this is one of the earliest examples of video games being an art form. The visuals are simply phenomenal. Each level has gorgeous backgrounds and tilesets. Level 3 in particular, when you get to the end and see Dracula's tower off in the distance against a dark sky illuminated by the moon... it's just fantastic. The enemy designs are also amazing. It's a weird hodgepodge of classic movie monsters all realized in amazing sprites, many with lots of animation. And the SOUNDTRACK. Every single track is an absolute banger, no exceptions. The music never gets old, never gets stale, which is especially impressive given how much you're going to hear each one. Every piece of music is extremely upbeat with surprisingly complicated rhythms and melodies that just perfectly evoke the haunted castle motif. The visuals and soundtrack come together to impeccably form the classic cheesy horror movie vibes. Absolutely incredible.

The gameplay is less fantastic, but still very good. Simon is extremely limited at all times. You walk fairly slowly, and you can only jump straight up or forward with fixed momentum, unable to move in midair. Your whip has decent range but using it stops you and leaves you vulnerable. You have access to a variety of subweapons (the holy water is insanely broken) but you have to find those in the level, and if you die, you lose it. Enemies meanwhile take no knockback, often move quickly and have weird patterns or have ranged attacks that take off a huge chunk of health or throw you directly into a bottomless pit. The odds are stacked against you, and while the limited options can be frustrating, it also allows for greater control and precision. You always know exactly how far your whip will go, how far you'll jump, if you can move out of the way in time. This puts far more of the responsibility for deaths on the player.

That's not to say there isn't some classic NES unfairness to be seen. The hit detection on platforms is really weird, and you'll often fall off of one when it really looks like you should have made it. Enemies can have weird spawn patterns that they deviate from and make it hard to predict when they'll show up. Worst of all, some enemies have different attack patterns that they seem to switch between randomly, making some of them a roll of the dice if you can get past them easily or lose half your health trying to beat them. However, unlike a lot of games, these difficulty imbalances are pretty infrequent. Levels 2 and 4 are the worst offenders, but even they aren't that bad once you get the hang of things.

Overall, I really really liked this game. Definitely one of the best games on the NES.

Taking this game down is one of the worst mistakes Nintendo has ever made. I am not kidding when I say that this game had some of the funniest and most enjoyable matches of any multiplayer game I've ever played. Mario is such an inherently fun game but that just gets taken to the extreme with the chaos that ensues in this one. Getting sent to an endgame level with a timer that's running out, no coins, and then seeing a legion of Lakitus spawn in, all chucking their ballistic missiles to lay waste to the ecosystem is genuinely one of the funniest experiences you could ever have playing a Mario game. And now you can't ever play it again. Thanks, Nintendo! I'll always miss the fun I had playing this game, and I seriously hope Nintendo brings it back (or more likely, a fan recreation) because the few weeks I played this game were truly special.

Very fun game, I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's very satisfying to take down enemies and build up an army to help you conquer the dangerous landscapes. My only gripes were the inconsistent difficulty and the AI of the pikmin which led to some disasters that weren't my fault. It can also get a little samey as the game goes on, but it doesn't overstay it's welcome and ends up being a fairly short game, so I didn't get very sick of the gameplay. Overall a great game and I'm excited to play the rest of the series

Pretty fun and innovative platformer. It's a shame it didn't see much success -- I can't even imagine what kinds of games we would have gotten in the Super Mario series in a different world

Okay in all seriousness this was one of the first games I ever played and man this game seemed impossible as a kid, I could barely get to world 4. But I decided to go back and give it a shot, beating every single level without warps and it felt amazing to finally complete this game that holds a special place in my heart. That being said it's not perfect, Mario feels extremely stiff and imprecise in this game which can make a lot of sections really annoying as Mario seems to almost disobey the player at times. It's kind of amazing Mario feels as good as he does since it was the first game in the series, but every game after (except for JPN 2) improved vastly on this one. Also, game overs in this game are bogus. Replaying levels you've already beaten is simply not fun and, again, every game that came after handled this much better. All that to say, a really short and sweet platforming game held back a bit by stiff movement and a lack of continues.