Xenogears

The opening of Xenogears is a lavish CGI sequence spliced with anime that begins with the famous biblical line: "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last." The cryptic events of the opening scenes (the tragedy of the Eldridge, and the emergence of the woman from the wreckage on the beach) lead into events that take place nearly 10,000 years later.

Following a lengthy exposition in text, the story leads to a small village on the border of the kingdom of Aveh and the Kislev Empire (the two warring nations) named Lahan. And the tale of Fei Fong Wong begins.

The general feeling at the outset of the game is one that is familiar in the realm of RPGs: Young man with amnesia involved somehow in the fate of the world. We've seen it a thousand times. However, the gods at Square turn the tables very early in the game, adding heart-wrenching tragedy to the carefree world Fei inhabits. Very soon, the once two dimensional plot gains a considerable amount of depth. Fei begins to doubt himself and his past as more and more becomes known to him about the truth... of everything.

This game literally has everything: Great villains (Grahf, Id, Ramsus, Miang), memorable characters (Wiseman, Zephyr), a barrage of the most complex plot twists (watch out once the attack against Vanderkaum begins) known in RPG land, and quite possibly the greatest love story a video game has to offer (Fei and Elly were meant to be, and finding out why is one of the most fascinating plot points in RPG history).

True to its tagline ("Stand tall and shake the heavens"), Xenogears delivers a storyline that raises questions about existence, God, and the relevance of religious doctrine. Name-dropping like "Fatima" and "the Magi", backed by inquisition style priests named the Ethos heighten the whole experience to a new, groundbreaking level.

Solidified by a simply sublime soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda, Xenogears is one of the best games of all time, and it's a shame that more people don't know that.

This is simply one of the best RPGs ever made, if not the best. The story far surpasses FFVII, FFVIII, or even Chrono Trigger. The characters are vividly detailed and believable. The dialogue can be stilted at times, but it only adds to the game's charm. The art design is fantastic, and Yasunori Mitsuda's score is beyond description.

Xenogears is a fairly challenging game even for RPG buffs; expect to attempt some major boss battles 2-3 times and trying different strategies. It's also a long game; my first playthrough was around 50 hours. I've recently started to play through it again, just to relive the experience that nearly consumed my life for a month or two in 1999.

If you somehow missed this one, buy it ASAP. It was hard to get for a while, but a Greatest Hits version was reissued a year or two ago. This is not a game - more like an experience. It probably sounds like hyperbole, but you have to play Xenogears for yourself. After the first hour or two, you won't be able to stop.

This game for the most part is excellent. Its story hooks you right from the get go and the combat is rather varied for a turn based rpg. Great characters and great story too. The combat is turn based, however for some of the fights you will fight using the characters themselves and you push the buttons in certain order to perform super attacks that you can chain together for deadly result. The other fighting involves mech warriors the characters pilot called gears, and while the fighting doesn't have quite the combos in this form you do get to do very devastating attacks to your opponent. The game features cut scenes ala final fantasy, however, with the exception of the first one most are done in an anime style. The story follows a young man whose tiny town is invaded by warring nations and who becomes involved with a rebel group to take back one of the countries at war. However, not all is as it seems as secrets are learned and outside forces trying to help one country over the other have appeared. There are a lot of mystery's to unravel, a super powered villain out to destroy seemingly everything, and people with differing motives to be found. Yes, this game would nearly be perfect until the start of the second disc and from here on out the game seems a tad rushed as you basically get told what is happening without any involvement in some areas and you must fight a little in others. I am guessing the makers of this game were pushed into releasing the game a bit faster than they wanted. Still after awhile you take control of the game again and it once again becomes very good, just a shame that this one section of the story had to unfold the way it did.

It's hard to choose between this and Super Metroid as my personal favorite game of all time, but I'm probably leaning towards choosing this game because of its length and for it being one of the few games to actually make me think...

Anyway, this is a perfect game from every angle. The music, the characters, the battles, pretty much anything that you could find flaws in any other game is perfect in this game. The main selling point, of course, is the multi-layered and very convoluted storyline. Though obviously very indebted to Evangelion, the 70 hours or so of story in this game is full of plot twists and shocking revelations about humanity, existence, God, love, death, and everything else in between. Not your typical RPG fare by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, don't listen to people who say disc 2 sucks... there is more than enough gameplay in this game that disc 2 comes as somewhat of a relief after 50 or so hours of disc 1's constant battles.

Just a perfect game... what more can I say?

I'm not much for words, and not here to write a review, but I must say that Xenogears is one of the best games I ever got sucked into. Xenogears took my breath away, not to mention 72+ hours of pure gaming bliss. It had a few rough spots, nothing is perfect, but overall as far as story, battle system, graphics, and music and sound effects, I have to say Xenogears is one of the best games for the Sony PlayStation, if not one of the best games in known history.