Quite honestly, considering this to be one of my favorite stories told in a JRPG. Everything, for lack of a better term, resonated with me and I cannot be more glad. My extensively long journey, encompassing 80 hours throughout the span of 2 months, has finally come to a close. That final screen damn near brought me to tears, I love this game.

Disc 1 just felt… perfect. I can't really describe it. I had so many qualms and issues while playing, but I can't put myself to say I really disliked much. The arena fighter mini-game was legitimately so hype, the game just kept surprising me over and over and the feeling is unrivaled in my experience. I spent so much time engaging in superfluous content that my playthrough was damn near double what I've heard about the playtime of others.

I don't quite fully understand the hatred for disc 2 to be honest, sure, some dungeons were sloppy. But to be honest, I actually kinda liked the change in direction (somewhat)? I will say that a lot of the action taking place through visual novel did stink. Though, it would also be a bit redundant to make the player go back and forth and back and forth, grinding out more and more. The visual novel segments are a great way to give a player a break from the combat without halting progression of the story.

Additionally, I absolutely LOVED the bonus content that takes place before fighting Deus. The interactions based on whom you had in your party were so bittersweet, and I loved that I would be able to have some connections with the characters just one last time. Closer to the actual end of the game (post-killing Deus) was just a constant wave of chills being sent down my spine, the anime scenes at the end just felt like the perfect way to top everything off.

I bought a copy of Xenogears for ~$120 and a PS1 for about ~$10, and I can say that playing the game through that on a CRT was absolutely worth the cost. I regret nothing.