Xenogears
PlayStation
Nostalgia Factor:
Be forewarned: nostalgia is going to play a giant factor in this review. Me and Xenogears are old friends. We go back a LONG way together.
Xenogears came out in a general area of time that I consider to be the golden age of video games. It was 1998. Nintendo 64 and Sony’s first PlayStation were vying for video game supremacy. I owned both of these systems, and I must say that there was no shortage of awesome games to play. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid, and Banjo-Kazooie are all examples of great games that were released in 1998. This was clearly an epic year for gaming, but I am going to make the argument that the best game released that year was actually Xenogears.
Prior to playing Xenogears, the only true turn-based RPG I really had any experience with was Final Fantasy VII, which I thought was amazing. Considering that Final Fantasy VII may be my favorite game of all-time, Xenogears had a lot to live up to. And boy, did it rise to the occasion. While I won’t lie and say that I loved Xenogears right off the bat as much as I do now, it is safe to say that I enjoyed the game and sunk a countless number of hours into it. But there was just something about the game that wasn’t clicking with me. It was so “lore heavy” that I had no idea what was going on half the time, the relevance of certain terms and locations lost to me. About a third of the way through the game, while trying to battle my way out of Kislev, I got stuck. I hadn’t been upgrading my gears properly, and I was repeatedly getting my ass handed to me during a series of boss battles. I quit the game in frustration, and went on to play other things.
It was several months before I came back to Xenogears. I started the game from the very beginning, taking notes and keeping track of important names, locations, and events in a notebook. I found that I was able to enjoy the game MUCH more this time around. I dived deep into the world of the game, not emerging until I had defeated the final boss some 80 hours later. I explored nearly every nook and cranny of the game, I found nearly everything that there was to find. Coupled with my extensive notes, this was perhaps the most dedicated I’ve ever been to immersing myself completely into a video game world.
I loved Xenogears so much, I played through the entire game multiple times in the ensuing years, soaking in even more details I hadn’t noticed the first time through. I must have played through Xenogears at least five or six times between 1998 and the year 2000. I wrote fan fiction for the game that I submitted to online forums. I even started working on a novelization of the game that I never finished. I was SO obsessed with this game. Even though time has passed, I still haven’t lost my love for Xenogears. In the ensuing 20 years, I would say I probably come back to play through this game once every six or seven years or so.
I'm not sure of the exact date, but he last time I played through this game was around the year 2013 or 2014, about a year or two before beginning this blog. I recently started getting an itch to play this game again. I fired it up and bam – just as good as I remembered – if not better. The graphics, the music, the storyline: playing through this game felt like coming home to a good friend after a long time apart. Clearly you can tell by my words that this game is going to get an A+, but hang with me. Not a whole lot of people I know have every played Xenogears, and I want to make it my goal to sell as many people on this game’s greatness as I can. If you are an RPG fan and you haven’t played Xenogears, it is a crying shame. Hopefully after you read my review you’ll find a way to get your hands on this. It is criminally underplayed.
*Random Dan trivia: I purchased both this game and Metal Gear Solid on the exact same day. I remember thinking it was funny that I had purchased two games with the word “gear” in the title. Little did I know I’d be bringing home two games I consider all-time classics.*
Story:
Normally I just like to give the Cliff’s Notes version of a game’s storyline, but Xenogears is far too complex to break down in just a paragraph or two. Be forewarned: this section will contain spoilers.
The events of the game center around a character named Fei, a young man who lost his memory after being dropped off in the small village of Lahan in the middle of a bad storm three years ago. Fei integrates well into the village, becoming well-loved among the town folk. Lahan soon comes under fire, however, when a battle between two warring nations breaks out in the middle of town square. These two factions battle in giant mech-like suits called Gears. To try and save his friends from certain death, Fei hops into an empty Gear and tries to fight off the attackers. He blacks out in the middle of battle, and when he awakens he finds that he has completely destroyed Lahan while in a blind rage.
Ostracized by the remaining survivors of the village, Fei is exiled and heads out in shame. In a nearby forest, he encounters a mysterious woman named Elly, who we find out was one of the Gear pilots that had been fighting in the middle of Lahan. She had stolen the prototype for a new, powerful Gear, and was being chased by the people she had stolen it from. Hence, the battle that wiped out Lahan was pretty much all her fault.
Fei and Elly team up and are soon joined by Fei’s friend Citan, who has arrived with the aforementioned super powerful Gear in tow. Citan, who seems to know more than he lets on, convinces Fei to get back in the Gear and come with him to help explore its origins.
There’s so much to recap here, and I’ve barely gotten started. Anyway, Elly soon parts ways with our two heroes and returns to her superiors to give them her report on the events of the battle. Fei and Citan are captured by a pirate named Bart, an outcast and long thought-dead prince who is the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Aveh – one of the two powerful nations at war in the game. After getting off to a rough start together, they team up and work to take back Aveh and free the world from the grasp of the evil behind-the-scenes Empire of Solaris. Elly, a native Solarian, plays the role of traitor and jumps sides to aid her friend and eventual lover, Fei.
As the game goes on, you discover that game events are being manipulated by "God", who is in turn manipulating a Council called the Gazel Ministry, an ancient group of the planet’s first humans who transferred their consciousness to a computer when their physical bodies were destroyed. The Ministry is in cahoots with Gebler, a militaristic group that tries to gobble up all the advanced technology being excavated from dig sites around the planet. The game eventually ties into its mysterious opening cutscene, where you see a giant space ship from an advanced alien society being taken over by a biological weapon and crash to the surface of the planet below.
The characters from the game are descendants of the sole survivor of this ship (Fei's ancestor) and a woman created by the biological weapon (God). The weapon’s physical form has been almost completely destroyed, and its entire goal over the next several thousand years is to breed enough people to use as parts for rebuilding its body. There is also some kind of 'Wave Entity" at work whose ripples through time keep causing Fei and Elly to reincarnate throughout the years. Yeah. I've even left out about 85% of this game's craziness in this recap. Xenogears is intense!
There’s so many interesting themes this game explores. Religion, reincarnation, love, destiny, repressed memories, the ego and the id. And it’s all woven together against an incredibly detailed sci-fi backdrop. This is by far the most complex RPG storyline I’ve ever encountered. I’ve played through this game a countless number of times in my life, and I still can’t say I really understand everything 100%. But take my word for it: it is epic. You have to play this game to believe its storyline. One of my all-time favs.
Gameplay:
If you've ever played a 90's era JRPG, nothing about Xenogears should surprise you too much, at least on the surface. You control your character from an overhead perspective. You walk around, you explore, you talk to people, you open chests, you buy items, you watch the story unfold.
What makes Xenogears different is its battle systems. And I say systems plural because there are two different ways to fight in this game. When you fight on foot, you have a choice of standard weak, medium, or strong physical attacks. If you use weak attacks, you can save up extra battle points and use them to unfurl a strong combo attack on your enemy. Or you can just go straight for the kill from the get-go by using stronger attacks. You can cast spells, use items, and also link together different combinations of strong and weak attacks to do extra damage to your enemies.
The other way you can fight is from within a Gear. Gears use fuel and each attack drains a certain amount of fuel from your meter. You can boost your Gear to use more fuel, but attack quicker. You can use magical or special Gear attacks. You can even link combo attacks similar to how you would on-foot. Use too much fuel, however, and you'll be stuck forfeiting your turn to charge your meter back up.
Combat is actually quite fun in this game, and is rarely tedious. It can be a bit difficult at first, but once you get the hang of how Xenogears works you should be good to go! The pace of the game flows along nicely, and is rarely ever too difficult or frustrating. But it is not easy, either. It's just right. One thing I don't like is dying after a super long cutscene, which happened to me several times on my last play through. You can't skip these cutscenes, so I was forced to just sit there spamming the x button over and over again, sometimes for 10 plus minutes.
On the world map, Fei is pretty easy to control. This isn't your typical "flat" 90's JRPG. Your environments are fully 3D and have a lot of depth to them. You can jump, run around, and climb things. Some areas and dungeons even have platforming elements to them. Precision jumping can be a bit rough in this game, but luckily you don't have to utilize this skill too often.
Graphics:
This is the area of the game that will probably scare the most people off. I personally grew up with games that look like this, and I absolutely love its visual appeal. But if you are someone who only plays games that look like the Final Fantasy VII remake, you might never get past this game’s primitive look. Characters are blocky and pixelated. Textures are messy and jagged. The camera can be hard to get under wraps. I can see some young snot-nosed kid playing this for ten minutes and then saying it is lame and never playing it again. It definitely does not have the timeless universal appeal of a game like, say Chrono Trigger, which is even older than this game.
But like I said, I personally love this game’s look and feel. Each area of the game has something about it that is memorable or unique. The colors are beautiful. The music and the graphics often blend together to create some truly amazing set pieces. There are some very heartfelt and genuine moments in this game as a result. Despite some of this game’s graphical shortcomings, it is still an amazingly immersive experience for me.
I appreciate that SquareSoft did something different from Final Fantasy VII with this game’s visuals. Instead of being 3D characters against a 2D backdrop, it is the complete opposite. Characters are 2D and the environments are 3D. To me, this works quite well. Right from the get-go you can tell that even though the makers of Xenogears were working with limited technology, they still poured a lot into this game’s graphics. In Lahan Village you see that the insides of the houses are incredibly detailed and different from one another. You see small personal touches like dirty sinks with dishes in them, unique furniture in each location, toys, fireplaces, rugs, pets running around, paintings on the wall. Later on when things take on a more futuristic tone, you see computer consoles, holograms, gadgets, and big wall-mounted screens in each location. There are so many small touches and details to take in as you play. I love it. The camera allows you to rotate your view and see everything in its full glory. Seems like small beans now, but this was a big deal back in 1998.
The characters are fun to look at. The enemies are creative. Some of this game’s backdrops are absolutely gorgeous. And like I said, this game is incredibly immersive. The feeling in the air when day turns to night, the flickering light of a roaring campfire, the serene inside of a holy church, the creepy, damp feeling walking around a sunken city, Xenogears just nails it.
Sound:
I may not have a rock-solid case for Xenogears as the best game of all time, but I certainly have a case for its music being the greatest ever. This is such an incredible soundtrack. There are so many iconic tunes to be heard here. Premonition, The One Who Is Torn Apart, Singing of the Gentle Wind, and Ship of Regret and Sleep are some of my favorite video game musical tracks of all time. Below I included a link to this game’s soundtrack. Please do yourself a favor and look them up.
Once again I am going to mention how atmospheric this game is. And it is not just the game’s visuals that do all the work. This game’s music and sound effects work in perfect tandem with its graphics to get the job done. The drip of water in a dank, echo-filled cave, the crackle of a campfire, a choir singing in a vast church as a ray of sunlight beams in from above, the mechanical humming sound that fills the room when you check in on the Gazel Ministry, their distorted features rotating around the room on oversized computer monitors. SquareSoft really nailed this game’s sound effects. It’s just all so very immersive.
But the music. My god, the music. It sets the tone so well. It is always perfect for whatever is happening on screen. I am in love with this game’s music. If you think I am kidding or trying to over sell the point, you are gravely mistaken. It is really that good.
Overall:
I already told you in my intro that his game was going to get an A+, so hopefully I’ve done a good job explaining why. The story is amazing, the combat is a blast, the musical score is one of the greatest ever, and the game’s environments are incredibly immersive and detailed.
What does this game do wrong? Very little. Some of the game’s story segments can be a little bit out of control. I remember wanting to go to bed one night, but I just had to beat the next boss first. Little did I know that this fight would be followed by 50 straight minutes of talking and plot exposition. 50 minutes is one of the game’s more extreme cases, but be forewarned that you are going to be watching some LONG story segments here.
Also, some of the game’s plot elements are pretty dang wacky, and borderline completely unintelligible at times. What are these characters ranting about? Why are they talking about the meaning of destiny in the middle of an intense Gear fight? I’d even say there are too many plot twists in this game. Its story is already pretty complex to begin with but they just keep piling it on and piling it on, especially towards the end. My eyes glazed over from time to time as the characters just kept. On. Talking. The game’s plot doesn’t dissolve into Kingdom Hearts levels of ridiculousness, probably due to its darker tone, but it comes dangerously close at times.
I can overlook these flaws, however. To me, this whole game is about as perfect as you can get when you examine the sum of its parts. I put it right up there with Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time as one of the greatest games of all time. Maybe I’m not being impartial because of all the great memories I have of this game. But I don’t care. I wouldn’t have these memories if this wasn’t an awesome game.
When I hear the word Xenogears, so many wonderful images come to mind. I think of its characters: Bart, Fei, Elly, and Citan Uzuki. The music starts playing in the back of my mind. I think of the game’s locations: Lahan Village, Blackmoon Forest, Babel Tower, the Thames, Shevat, Nisan, Elly’s house in Solaris. I think of the complex plot, I think of Fei and Elly reincarnating through time. I picture Emperor Cain sitting on his throne, surrounded by psychedelic artwork. I think of the Gazel Ministry. I think of Id. I think of Esmeralda, Ramsus, Miang, Sigurd, all of the game’s amazing secondary characters. I think about taking Bart’s kingdom back. I think about killing monsters in the sewer. I think about three Gears nailed to crosses against a gorgeous sunset. I think about the game’s combat, and how satisfying it is stringing up 28 points worth of combo points and unleashing holy hell on my enemies. This whole game just makes me smile.
Have I sold you yet? I hope so. The more people that have played Xenogears out there, the better. If I can get just one person to play this criminally underplayed classic, I feel I’ve done my job here. Play it. You won't regret it.
Overall:
A+
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