I AM A BELIEVER!!!
STORY Infinity/10
What is a great story? A great story is a tale that begins with a mystery, builds the plot on questions and ends with ‘most’ of the answers to those questions; leaving the remaining questions to individual interpretation. If at least quarter of the RPG game producers in the world knew this apparently ‘secret scroll’ revelation to story telling, the RPG genre would have a lot more good games to go around. But what makes the “perfect” story? The perfect story is one that stops entertaining you and scares the crap out of you. Look at the movies, music etc. that have made it big in the entertainment business. What do they all have in common? The answer is they all have controversial topics that scare the crap out of you; you feel the stable ground under you starting to fall apart. Isn’t that really what it feels like when you listen to an eminem song or watch Brokeback Mountain? That feeling of sudden instability that you feel is your beliefs and customs being challenged. Sort of how Neo felt when he realized that his whole world was fake.
Xenogears first places you in a world much like our own (real people, human issues, emotional scars, guilt, faith, and shame) and then pulls everything that you think you know (the ethical way to deal with the previously listed human emotions) right from under you. You are then left with a maze of unanswered questions-who am I? Why do I choose to behave the way that I do? - relating to your own reality and not just the game world. It is at that point you realize that the game now owns you! I know by now you are extremely confused and rightfully so. The game has a very complex story line with plot points taken right from your sociology, philosophy and theology college textbook. Yet these college level topics are never mentioned in too much detail so you never feel like you need to be a college graduate to play this game (though a little knowledge in philosophy would be nice).
I am deliberately not mentioning much about the story as not to spoil anything for you. Yet I must give a line or two about the main plot. You are Fei, a teenager with a mysterious past (more mysterious than you can ever imagine) who is brought to a village by a masked stranger (Fei himself being covered in blood) and left in the care of the village chief. Fei grows up with no memory of his passed until one day an unfortunate event awoke his latent powers. He has no intension of making friends or saving the world (the most annoying aspects of RPG stories) but is forced into alliances and thrown into battles that he really doesn’t want to fight. You will see Fei and other characters (intelligently introduced and thoughtfully developed) grow as individuals and change along their life journey making the game experience that much more memorable. Ok, I have said enough about the story.
GRAPHICS 9.0/10
The world of Xenogears is fully 3-D with a rotating camera. The camera itself can only be rotated sideways and not up or down. Why did I feel the need to mention that? A lot of areas in the game will have you wishing you could move the camera up or down (some views are poor and make maneuvering hard no matter how many rounds you make with the rotating camera). It’s bearable but it’s a flaw of the game none the less. The world, though it feels big, does not look all that great in 3-D. But then again, this is a PSOne game. The designs of the gears are very well done and the many locales in the game are varied and well designed. Even the combos during battles look great, actually they look amazing!!
MUSIC Infinity/10
I promise not to spend as much time on the music as I did on the story. This is in fact the best original soundtrack for anything that has ever had an original soundtrack (OST). The songs and melodies can bring a tear to your eye even if you have never played the game before. On top of that, hats off to the music director. The songs seemed to be played in the right places at the right times to heighten the emotional experience and bring out the beauty of the song. Even when silence was used in the background during events, the silence seemed to play a vital role in setting the right mode for the scene. The battle music also has an epic feel to it. I have almost every song for the game and I listen to them all the time. If only for the music, this game would have still been worth playing. Oh, and yes, this game has some of the creepiest tunes ever to match the creepy story points in the game
GAMEPLAY 9.5/10
Someone needs to release the Xenogears card game on the PSP or something. This mini-game was definitely a rush!! I think I almost fainted once because of a quick rush of blood to the heart (that’s how fast paced this mini-game is). Finally I started to used the slow-motion function on my controller (makes it easier to see what’s happening) and now it’s not so life threatening anymore. The most dreaded element in RPGs is back and in all its glory and splendor. Yes, random encounters are the worst thing to ever have been invented!! I still am not sure who thought it was a great idea to never see your enemy coming 5000 times for 50 hours. Not only are there random battles in Xenogears but there are a lots of them. Yes, I am talking about every few steps. You will get angry, you will curse your friend out, but then you will here the music (and calm down), wonder about the unsolved mysteries and go buy a new controller (you smashed the old one on the floor) so you can resume your saved game.
The battle system makes the random encounters bearable though. When you encounter an enemy, your (up to three) party members are placed on a 2-D battle arena (ala FF VI) facing the enemy party. The battles are turn-based (ATB ala FFVII) but the action is so not! Xenogears has a combo system called deathblows. Deathblows are acquired when the Deathblow gauge is filled through multiple battles (meter is filled by frequently using normal attacks in various combinations) and are executed through their particular sequence of buttons (button inputs are not timed like in a fighting game). Deathblows look like a kung fu fighting game and are a sight to see!
But there is a catch. You simply cannot execute a deathblow at will. You must first accumulate the number of action points needed for the attack. You see ever turn each character is allocated four action points on his/her six slot action gauge. The only way to use deathblows (which usually require five or more action points) is to give up a turn so as to let the current action points be carried over to the next turn. Here in lies an insane amount of strategy. You must judge when it’s best time to give up a turn and when it’s not. This is important because the game is not on the easy side. Some bosses get real nasty at times. A great battle system is one with two million ways to fight an enemy but only 500, 000 ways to end their life. Xenogears does not necessarily give you the feeling of having an insane arsenal at your fingertips but it does provide each character turn in battle with multiple paths of which many could spell death for that character.
CONCLUSION
I did not say all there was to say about this game because the review was getting to long. But I can assure you that anyone who “thinks” at least once in a while will like this game. If you hate “thinking” and your GPA shows it, you may want to pass on this game. The truth is this game is only for a select few who are intelligent, open minded, and love a challenge. This game isn’t even for the causal RPGamer because it maybe considered too hard or the story to confusing. I even encourage renting first before buying. But as for me, Xenogears will live on in infamy.