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.
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.