My first venture into Takahashi's video game design, as well as the "Xeno" series and well... it's interesting that's for sure.

This game is insanely ambitious, to a fault. The combat is unique, but poorly executed and therefore mediocre. The platforming is atrocious, and the sudden shift in puzzle-heavy dungeon level design near the very end is confusing. It just doesn't mesh. But at the same time, I respect the game even at its faults because I can tell there was a lot of innovation, or at least an attempt.

What makes Xenogears iconic is its story and presentation and, even then, I'm widely conflicted. There's much that I really liked, but much of the plot beats and resolutions either just didn't hit or were compelling but extremely convoluted and so rushed that it all comes at you in waves of exposition instead of natural build-up. It's a real shame that the most intriguing portion of the story (Disc 2) is incredibly rushed and cut. Therefore, the most climactic and important part of the story felt kind of... hollow.

I respect the hell out of the ambition this game has, but I also equally don't care for how much that ambition really got in the way of itself sometimes.

well..... not sure where to start with this review. disc 1 was a solid 5 stars for me and i really underestimated how much of a let down disc 2 was going to be for me.
while the turn based gameplay is solid, the mech gameplay isnt for me and i Hate the platforming so much it made me use save states when i usually do not use save states. also didnt find much enjoyment in the speed minigame or the random puzzles in the dungeons in disc 2.
getting that out of the way, the story is kind of amazing or at the very least high potential. i knew i was going to like this at least a little bit since id seen a few spoilers and knew the general premise and its relation to ff7 and it definitely met my expectations in that regard. it definitely shows that takahashi is really knowledgeable about religion which definitely makes the game hit harder especially for someone like me whos not religious but was raised in that way. i also really enjoyed seeing all the little similarities to gundam and im definitely going to try watching ideon after this as well. as for the psychology stuff, im the kind of person that can find jung/freud shit to be rather obnoxious so id be lying if i didnt have a few good laughs over that. and of course theres a lot to be said about how feis did is written and i have to say there was a couple aspects that were a little bit disappointing but im unsure what information on the disorder was available in the 90s so i dont know how well takahashi did in relation to that... elly started out as one of my favorites but after disc 2 i just wasnt crazy about the whole mommy stuff going on with her and miang and i get its supposed to be like religious symbolism and also more freudshit but it was kind of annoying. the ending was peak though. citan ended up as my favorite since hes goofy.
all in all i have mixed feelings im unsure of how to word correctly but maybe ill be able to word my feelings on the game better later down the line.
my final thoughts are i cant wait to finish reading dune so i can draw out a venn diagram of that with its relation to xenogears in political writing and i need to hop on ideon soon so i can see where a good chunk of the inspiration came from.
slog of an experience but i found it personally worth it as someone who loves jrpgs and mecha.

Xenogears is a story the goes into themes of psychoanalysis and Gnosticism and freudian principles of personality development concerning the character of Fei fong wong who's development is one that is wonderfully capitalised upon dynamics with characters like Grahf, Ramsus and Krelian 3 very good antagonists that fufill there role greatly across the grand scheme of Xenogears.

lemme take a look at just the main plot of Xenogears with just the plot of disc 1 and disc 2. Disc 1 starts off with the introduction of Fei fong wong an amnesiac in Lacan villlage that due to unfortunate events has to leave his village, this enables fei to go on a globe trotting adventure (going to cut this short) the entire game makes visiting each of the locations so unique as there's so many different cultures and history in each region like the desert region of Aveh and Kislev as each region is able to feel so incredibly distinct as class discrimination and different ideaologies regarding which citizens are worthy of luxurious treatent makes the world of xenogears so alive. The plot is something that is able to captivate the audience with every development of it's plot with twists and turns that i wasn't expecting with disc 2 being a complete brainrot with what it does with the story so many new thing that just add so mmuch onto the plot of disc 1 to say that Xenogears wasn't anything mindblowing is selling the game short in my eyes. but with the mindblowing positives there are shortcomings that come along with it as oh boy it feels really unfinished as the game atp really just wanted to tell the main story and flesh out Fei,Elly and Krelian as the gameplay rally just entirely felt like an after thought and really shoved in there and the side cast while i actually like all of them, they barely gotten screen time which really sucks cause character's like rico was a really nice introspctive into the racial mistreatments the demihumans were facing due to the laws instilled by the Aveh goverment and thus had to resorted to using physicaal strength to be able to rise through the prison ranks in Nortune. ( i don't find the amount of cutscenes a problem as i like Vns but i really would've loved more gameplay in the actually game )

AAnyways the entire realisation at the end of Xenogears tells e that i won't find anything like it as Xenogears is well Xenogears it separated itself from the pack and stands as an entirely unique story so bless you Takahashi hope you can pull off something as good as this and hopefully xenosaga can make me feel something simallar to what i felt in gears.