Xenogears

One word can only describe this game, "Amazing". If your looking for an amazing storyline this is it. The story is a mixture of freindship,love,reigion, and saving the world. Characters are really attacted to the game.Other than the storyline itself there is a downfall to the game and thats the camera angles, It gets really annoying at times but you learn to cope with it. People who posted poor reviews about this game probably got lost in the story. When you get lost in the story thats when it gets boring and confusing. I would recommend to more mature rpg games because it can get complicated.

As an avid gamer with well over 5,000 hours under my belt playing RPGs, I can easily say this is the best game I ever played.

I first purchased Xenogears when it first came out, and have been loving it ever since. The gameplay is excellent, the storyline is in-depth, and the soundtrack is beautiful. Yes, this game does involve some religious themes. Yes, this game does not have much gameplay on the second disk. Yes, this game is not everyones allmighty little final fantasy game. (The following opinions are mine, and mine alone).---I hear alot of people saying that this game is "anti-religious". I disagree, this game IS religious...in the world of the game. Just because a game mentions the word "god" does not mean that it is talking about the human worlds god. As far as the second disk goes with gameplay, I found it to be a nice little break considering I spent about 45+ hours on the first disk leveling up my characters and getting their deathblows completed. There is no rule in any game that all gameplay all the time is mandatory. Besides, it kind of completes a little forgotten part of the story when id keeps saying who's turn it is on the "stage". The soundtrack goes above and beyond in complimenting the game. Yasonuri Mitsuda has made another masterpeice, and Joanna Hogg sang very well for the ending song "Small Two of Peices" not to mention the extra song she has in the soundtrack "Star of Tears", an upbeat folk-ish version of the world map theme. As I said before, these are my opinions and mine alone. I am sure someone will find reason to pick apart what I have typed and turn it into something else...go right ahead. Until then, enjoy a wonderful game with a great story. Just remember to keep an open mind, and don't hold your bible like a redneck with directions to wal-mart when you first see a reference to religion. PS- Does anyone still get a little shiver when they see Kreliens head floating in the Wave Existence?

This is a very fun RPG. The characters are great, the graphics for there time were so so but I'm not one to run a game down on graphics cause a game is mostly based on playablity and funfactor. The only way graphics can decrease a score on my part is if it takes away playability or the fun and in this case it doesn't take away anything at all. Well enough with my yammering im going to rate the game on a scale of 1 to 20 with these factors involved; Story, gameplay, funfactor, length, and then finally graphics.

Story-20/20

Gameplay-20/20

Funfactor-19/20

Length-18/20

Graphics-18/20

Final Score-95/100

Xenogears is an odd game that manages to both excel and fail horribly at the same time.

GRAPHICS / VISUALS
For the time it came out in, the graphics are decent. When exploring sometimes becomes difficult to navigate when underground though, becuase the low-res washed out "rock/earth" textures all blur together making it difficult to tell if something is a wall, or has something you can jump onto, etc. Also, while the game allows you to move the camera, it's just a token gesture since you can't change the elevation or distance. Oftentimes you'll be completely unable to see the character as he goes between two tall buildings or things like that.

The game features some anime cutscenes which are, unfortunuately, mostly worthless. They're well drawn, but are often nothing more than something like 2 characters staring at eachother for 5 seconds; with the exception of the ending almost no plot ever happens during them.

The combat visuals, however, are great for its time. The characters do more than just move up and swing a sword. You can chain different moves together (and learn deathblows, which are powerful combinations) that are usually visually appealing. For instance, a character will run up, punch, jump in the air and do a sping kick, sweep the enenmy as they land and then finish off with a headbutt.

GAMEPLAY
While the combat graphics are nice for its era, it also makes the battles take too long (and boy are they frequent, often 1 random encounter/ 2 seconds of movement). It's like final fantasy summons all over again, making each combat last minutes upon minutes...even when you fight the enemies from level 1 when you're level 60 it still takes forever.

There is a bit of load time anytime you change rooms/go into your character menu etc. Very annoying.

My 2 biggest complaints are:

The dialogue is waaaaaaay too slow. There is a lot of excessive dialogue, a lot of repetition, and it comes on the screen so slow you'd think a 4-year old child was typing it. Sometimes you will have to go through an hour and a half worth of this only to get to a difficult part in the game, die, and have to go through all of that dialogue again without the chance to save in between.

Secondly, as many reviews here have pointed out, the 2nd disc is drastically different. I thought people were exaggerating; they were not. It happens suddenly. Exactly at the point you put the second sic in, most exploration is taken away from you. A character literally sits in a chair and tells you what happened. It becomes 1 hour of dialogue, then fight. 2 hours of dialogue, then fight, etc. You get to explore again though right before the very last dungeon.

CHARACTERS / STORY / PLOT
This is where the game is good...for the most part.

In typical squaresoft fashion (or is it just all Japanese RPGs?) the main character is fairly UNlikable. He's whiny, immature, a jerk even though he means well, and at times a bastion of self-sacrifice and purity in the name of good willing to risk everything for some small good and pulling it off through rediculous Deus Ex Machina.

Fortunately, in typical squaresoft fashion, the supporting cast is well done. There's a suprising depth to most of the characters, above and beyond most games I've seen. Most are mature, and the game itself brushes with some mature topics of innosence, when is war right/justified, the cost of it and what its worth to end one.

The story is a bit overlarge. It's good, but needed an editor to trim it down a bit as it just gets too big for its britches by the end of the game.

Overall I enjoyed the game. I'm glad to have played it, but some of the gameplay problems means I have no desire to ever play it again.