Xenogears Review

Squaresoft certainly has given the gaming community quite a few games to gawk over and play into immortality. Most of these games are probably now in some kind of video game hall of fame somewhere. The name Final Fantasy comes to mind. But sometimes a company can release a game that seems to silence the grandiose and revered name that I've mentioned before. It just so happened that Squaresoft quieted itself with the release of Xenogears in 1998, which is one of the greatest RPGs to date, in my humble opinion. However, the success of Xenogears hasn't reached it's peak yet, to my knowledge and of course again, I state my own opinion on that. I may not know much about the world of video game producers, but I do know the games that they make and this is by far my favorite.

It's a mix of anime style cut scenes drawn in movie-quality art and polygonal worlds, which are fully rotational, and sprite based characters. The story goes beyond itself and sweeps the graphic-minded right off their feet. All of this melded together with the music of Yasunori Mitsuda, who also composed the music for Chrono Trigger for the SNES, makes for an epic quest to find the truth behind the main character's history and the history of his world.

The story begins with the space vessel, The Eldridge, which is carrying some kind of precious cargo, and its attack by some force that has invaded their computers and compromised all of the ships systems. This in effect turns the ship against its them, causing escape pods with people to be shot down by the ship's own cannons and the engines to go awry. The Eldridge's captain decides to take matters into his own and hands and self-explodes the craft, sending it plummeting down to the surface of a near by planet. As the smoke clears and the debris lay still, a single young woman with indigo hair stands on the beach to watch the birth of a new day.
Thus begins the current story of Fei Fong Wong in the tiny village of Lahan, where he lives without remembering much of his past due to an unknown trauma. Then as Lahan is visited by a stolen Gear, or a giant combat robot, that's piloted someone from the war-ridden countries of Kislev and Aveh, sending Fei and his allies into battle for more than a country. They find out that their fight is for the right to exist and to fight the intentions of an "ancient" evil that will make them all gods in its eyes. The story is a very complex tale of technology and science with the usual dosage of RPG magic. Fei and his friends all grow together to make an unstoppable fighting force. However, they don't always get along at first. If they did, then there wouldn't be much left for story branches...but I digress. It will leave you guessing and thinking as you play throughout the game. And with up to 50-60 hours of gameplay, you will have a lot of time to fall into the storyline, which is the main driving component of Xenogears. This story's sheer epic feel and spirit will have you begging for more!

As mentioned before, the music for Xenogears was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda for Chrono Trigger fame. It's a blend of triumphant trumpet fanfare and banging timpanis and soft, melancholy wind instruments. Although the sound in the game will differ from a live orchestra, as in any video game, it will definitely leave you satisfied! The soundtrack is the one of the most important elements in an RPG. It, along with the story and characters, gives the game a soul and will give the player a chance to know the character's personality. Xenogears' soundtrack is very appropriate for its content and has something for everyone's taste in game music. It even has a very beautiful ballad at the end of the game which is the very reason I purchased the soundtrack to this game, not to mention the Mitsuda album "Creid", which is based on Xenogears music.
The sound effects are good, but in my humble opinion, weren't as welcome as the music. Some of them were just loud machine sounds that were necessary for the game to have the feel that it was given. However, hearing these sounds over and over again began to become monotonous, such as the clanging sound of a Gear's footsteps and the explosions of enemies machines when you defete them. But this is just a minor annoyance and can be overlooked if you are a true RPG fan. The voice overs in the game were not as clean as they could have been, especially in the anime scenes, but seeing as how these were originally taken from the Japanese version, this again can be overlooked.

The graphics are one of the hottest commodities on the current market today in the States and Japan. Squaresoft has done some excellent work with their game and has never failed to impress the public and myself as a gamer. The graphic side of Xenogears was not one of Square's best works. Xenogears has 360º rotational worlds and backgrounds with sprite based characters as its media. This is fine of me, but I think that it could have been better presented. I find that the battles with Gears involved can be somewhat slow and choppy when there are multiple gears on the screen. The battles between the human characters are all 2D and are quite nice I think. The screens on the overworld are sometimes too crowded and it will take the player time to master how to look around tall objects like trees and buildings. I have to admit that the camera work in the overworld is very nice and doesn't require any loading and will not slow down gameplay. I do have to say that the anime movies were one of the greatest graphical features of this game. I loved the sequences and the quality of the movies. They all were wonderfully drawn and directed. I do have one complaint about them: they are too far and few between. There should have been more, but I'm not complaining....lol.

The gameplay system in Xenogears is one that seems complicated at first, but will blow you over in its simplicity. In the battle sequences, you are usually playing in a party of 3 and you will either be fighing as the human characters or in the character's Gears, which are huge fighting machings. When playing as a human, each character is given a certain number of ability points. At the beginning of the game, you will have only 3. These points can be alloted to execute a combination of martial arts or sword skills or gunnery (that depends on what your character uses as a weapon and is predetermined by the game). For example, Fei starts out with 3 points and can execute a combo by pressing one of the three buttons, TRIANGLE for a weak blow worth 1 point, SQUARE for a strong blow worth 2 points or "X" for a fierce blow worth three points. Once Fei has reached a certain level, a combination of buttons will become known as a "Deathblow" and can be used as many times as in battle as desired, as long as the character has enough AP. Eventually, every playable character will accrue 7 AP each turn and about a dozen deathblows for his of her use. These AP can also be saved each turn in battle to gain a maximum of 28. Then a long combo can be made from several Deathblows, causing major damage.
In Gear battles, basically the same rules apply when refering to the buttons. However, each time a move is made, it will cost that character fuel that must be carefully rationed out to continue fighting. As the game progresses, the Gears can gain Attack Levels and unlease deadly manuveurs against any enemy. The overall gameplay is great. The battles are smooth, but can sometimes be a bit slow when there are many polygons on the screen. This is an easily overlookable matter that shouldn't hinder anyone's enjoyment of Xenogears. There aren't many side quests or arcade-sytle games in Xenogears, but the ones that do exist are enjoyable yet frustratingly difficult to the new RPGer, especially the fast-paced XenoCards game that's played on the Thames in the middle of Disc One.

There is one thing that I would have to say that would contribute to any replay value would be the very complex storyline. I personally played the game twice before I understood all of the details and am even now a bit confused. There are so many things to remember in the story that are important to the plot that is would take the average player at least twice to understand and I classify as the average player and am no body special...lol.

Overall, I would say that Xenogears is definately ahead of its time. I loved the game's plot and characters and humorous side as well as the darker side of the human nature involved. I highly recommend Xenogears for the PlatStation game console to any RPG fan. There are so many RPGs that stir one's imagination....this is the one that has completely sent mine to new heights and ways of thinking of RPGs and their future.