tanta07's Full Review: Xenogears for PlayStation 1
Ah, Xenogears. What can really be said about such an outstanding experience? Namco recently released Xenosaga, which is supposedly a spin-off of the Xenogears universe (think “Archie Bunker” in relation of “All in the Family.”). Apparently Xenosaga is meant to be a completely separate tale that takes place in the same universe as its earlier counterpart, Xenogears. Anyway, enough with “xeno this," and "xeno that." Where it all started was a lovely little game that barely even made its way to the United States. Back when Xenogears was first launched in Japan several years ago, Squaresoft decided that its "adult" themes dealing with religion, drug use and vengeance were just too much for an American audience to handle. Thankfully, though, Squaresoft eventually came to its senses and decided to translate the game and send it on over. While it never really got the hype it deserved before its release, it quickly gained a cult following and is now widely respected as one of the best RPG's ever, even though production on the game is now halted, and copies are hard to find.
There are many elements that make up a great RPG, and Xenogears encapsulates them all. Good battle system? Hell yeah. The game not only reinvents the wheel by employing a battle system that ingeniously focuses on mixed attacks, but also finds a way to never be boring. Intriguing story? You better believe it. While some (including myself) had a hard time even wrapping their heads around what the hell Xenogears is even about, everyone had to admit: it was thorough, involved, and epic in scope. Great characters? Yup, it’s got them in spades. Fei is one of the deepest and most complex main characters in a video game ever, and we’re not even getting into some of the great side characters like Citan and Elly. Music and graphics? Eh, admittedly, the graphics in the game are not that fantastic, and they don’t really stand the test of time to look all that great. However, if you consider that this game is several years old and utilizing a fairly new idea at the time (pixellated characters on pre-rendered backgrounds), then it comes out looking pretty good. The music is outstanding. The score is at the same time emotional and restrained, over-the-top and somber, joyful and depressing. This is one of those games where a purchase of the soundtrack would actually be warranted. In a nutshell, Xenogears has got it all, and stands right up there with some of the best RPG’s ever.
You start off the game as Fei, a strange young man who has found himself living in a small little village the last few years, unable to remember much from his past, and basically trying to build a humble new life for himself. Everything goes to hell in a handbasket as the village is suddenly overrun with gigantic, mechanized battle robots, called gears. Fei suddenly loses his mind and leaps into the controls of one of the gears, and unloads on the other gears. He seems to know what he is doing, but in his blind fury, he destroys the village, and kills many of his newfound friends in the process. Fei comes back to his senses only to find that he is once again a lonely outcast, and the villagers don't want to have him around. He hooks up with his old friend, Citan, who seems to know a little more about gears than he is letting on. As you may have guessed, they start to unravel an intricate plot that is about much, much more than gigantic, fighting robots.
Storyline
Make no mistake, the plot of Xenogears is long and convoluted. It is so full of hidden agendas, mysterious characters and elements that don't get revealed until late in the game, that it will put any Mexican soap opera to shame. I will try to sum it up as well as I can, but bear in mind that even after reading several summaries of the plot after finishing the game, I'm still not totally clear on what the hell happened. Basically man created Deus, which was to be a super weapon, capable of destroying whole worlds. A higher power that is one with the universe (call it "God" if you want) becomes intertwined with Deus. While the builders of Deus are transporting it, it suddenly takes on a life of its own and tries to steer the ship toward some sort of home planet, but not before the people on board set the ship to self destruct. The ship crashes, but Deus' plan lives on in the form of a "mother" who is supposed to give birth to a new race who will serve as fuel so that Deus will once again be reborn.
Errrr...and this is in the first few minutes of the game, folks.
I'm still convinced that whoever came up with the story of this game did it as the result of some sort of acid flashback, but it will give it this: it is absolutely epic in scope. I mean, RPG's do tend to dabble in religious themes such as corruption in the church, but Xenogears goes balls to the wall, baby. The game also features a theme of corruption in the church, but in Xenogears, the Gazel Ministry plans to sacrifice all of mankind in order to make the fodder for the return of Deus. Now that's not exactly like a priest getting frisky with an altar boy. And let's not even get into the aspects of the plot that deal with man trying to recreate God from scratch, or the ideas that deal with "destroying God." There is plenty of fodder here for people to claim this game is sacrilegious or anti-religion, but I’m not so sure about that. There certainly are elements that show people of power in the religious world having a hidden agenda, but it’s not really so much of a stab at our real religions today as it is an insight into the dangers of power. To wrap this up, though, Xenogears’ plot is about as involved and complicated as you are ever going to find in a video game, but it still satisfies because it managed to keep me interested, even though half the time I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.
One aspect of the story that I feel people can rightly complain about is what is contained on the 2nd disc of the game. For the first 80% of the game, the intense storyline is told first hand, as you get to see everything yourself as you venture from place to place. Suddenly, on the second disc, you are made to be just an observer, as much of the story is scrolled across the screen, and you must read what is going on, instead of actively participating in it. I can only imagine that this was the result of the project running a little long, and they had to cram in the remaining story, or they ran out of rescources, or something like that. Either way, it's a jarring diversion from the presentation you see throughout the rest of the game, though the story still comes across well.
Graphics
While the graphics of Xenogears certainly isn't the best reason to pick the game up, you won't exactly run screaming in horror, either. The world map consists of your character sprite running around in a 3D world which you can rotate using your L1 and R1 shoulder buttons. The world map's graphics are fairly bland, and can get a little ugly when zooming in. In battle, the ugliness of the pixels stick out a little more, as the definition of the character designs loses a little of its luster. The animations while in battle are very well done, however, and tend to push the most out of the graphical limitations. You will also be able to enter your gears while in battle, and they look very nice and move fluidly. Say what you will about the graphics of this game, but the somewhat low-res graphics leave room for the animations to be smooth and glitch-free. There are some in-game anime sequences, but they are really rather few and far-between, and don't play a really significant role in the game. What there is of the anime is nicely done, however. The graphics should never really be the selling point of any game, and while there is nothing all that impressive with the graphics of Xenogears, the sheer expanse of the world you will explore more than makes up for it.
Gameplay
Xenogears is like many standard RPG's in the sense that it is mainly exploration mixed with random battles, gaining experience, and triggering plot elements. This shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone familiar with RPG's, but this game does do everything just a little bit differently, which is part of its appeal. First off is the battle system. I'll try to explain this as effectively as I can, but as with the storyline, my explanation may be inadequate. You will enter battles and each of your characters will have a set number of action points that they may draw from in order to attack. Each will have an option of a light, medium, or heavy attack. The light attack uses the least amount of your action points, the heavy attack uses the most, etc. Part of the strategy of the battles is figuring a way to mix in weak attacks every so often so that you can conserve some of your action points. Save enough of them up, and you can string together massive combos that will unleash all sorts of whoop a** on your unsuspecting foes. Your first instinct may be to just use heavy attacks round after round, but the only problem is that they have a lower hit percentage, and one heavy attack doesn't do that much damage when compared to a monster combo attack. You won't like doing a small amount of damaged the first couple of turns, but it's worth it when you chain a few nice combos together.
Probably the most widely known aspect of the gameplay is the combat with the gears. While in battle, you can jump into your gear and fight with a few different options. The gears also use much the same setup as the regular hand-to-hand combat as far as the point system for the different attacks. You can do weak, medium and hard attacks, but instead of just using up your action points, they also use up certain amounts of your gear's fuel. Fuel adds an interesting elements to the fight, because for longer boss fights, conserving your fuel does become an issue. You have the option to "boost" in battle, which will give your character more opportunities to attack during the battle, but also doubles your fuel consumption. You can upgrade your gears throughout the game with all the latest and greatest options, but they must be also be repaired and refueled at special stations, so you want to use them only when necessary. As you may have guessed, many of the tougher boss battles late in the game can only be won by fighting in your gears, so mastering this aspect of combat in the game is vital (and quite fun, to boot).
Music/Sound
The music of Xenogears is stunning. The game itself is moody, dark and restrained, but this is mainly a byproduct of a soundtrack that sets this blue tone throughout. Yasunori Mitsuda created a complete piece in this game in which all of the tracks seem to fit together into one theme. For many of the scenes in the game, the music lays back in the shadows, only filling in the gaps in a minimalistic kind of way, but it is always there, contributing to the overall experience. At other times, the music will swell to dramatic heights to make your heart pound. There are only a few video games out there that I actually recommend you try to get the soundtrack for, and this is one of them. The sound effects themselves are also pretty well done. The most noteworthy of the sound effects would be the digitized voices you hear while in battle; each character has a little snippet of speech you will hear when they unleash a combo. They are in Japanese, but they sound pretty good and can be pretty entertaining. There is even a minimal amount of voice acting in the game, but there isn't enough of it to be significant, and what there is of it is fairly poor quality.
Xenogears has earned its reputation as of the finest RPG's of all time. Very few games out there combine such a vast storyline with characters you don't want to strangle, all the while keeping you interested with fun and intense gameplay. It's still a mystery to me why Squaresoft hasn't hyped this game more, as far as re-releases or even putting in back in print. It may be a little of a chore for you to find this game at this point in time; it is out there on Ebay, but you may have to spend a pretty penny to get it. But believe me: you won't ever regret buying this game, at whatever price.
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