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.