Tetsuya Takahashi is nothing if not a Storywriter. This is the second game of his that I've played behind Xenoblade Chronicles 1 (I made the stupid mistake of watching XC2 and TTGC rather than playing them) but all of his stories so far have been incredible to me.

Xenogears is... a game. The gameplay itself felt quite experimental and fun, albeit kind of samey after a while. Deathblows and spritework were super cool and I appreciate the characters being spritework against the 3d world. However sometimes the gameplay just drags, I find, and it becomes a matter of just clawing through it to get to the next story moment... which is exactly what I was willing to do because this has to be one of the most compelling stories I've ever read.

The characters all feel real, raw, and fully fleshed out, even if a little over the top sometimes but that's all goods. Bart, Citan, and Protagonist Fei are the clear standouts, but the rest of the cast is also incredibly in-depth and enjoyable with a few exceptions (I don't know what was going on with Chu-Chu but at least they were funny at times to me). The world, especially with Xenogears' supplement material also feels absolutely gargantuan and historied, Beautiful work of art and learning all about the interactions between nations, people, deities and a bunch of other spoilery stuff was a blast. I could not tell you how hard this story and soundtrack carried the game; it took me 3 months to get through a certain arc of the game because I got so bored with the gameplay but the story made sure that eventually I would pull through.

On the topic of the sountrack, the compositions and sound themselves are on point, faraway promise plays within the first like 20 minutes and I began to feel really emotional even though the game had just started (Citan quotes it best). However sometimes you notice how limited the OST is when some song choices for specific scenes are quite odd, but never was it so jarring to the point of immersion-breaking

Overall I love this game. I would give this game a 10/10 for someone like me who values story, art, and music above all else, but I have to knock it down a little because for the average RPG Enjoyer I don't know if the gameplay will be enough to drag them along for the ride. It's awesome to see the evolution of this series and where it all began.

I should've written this when I actually finished it, been 4-5 months or so now, but this game has made its way into one of my all-time favourites. SPECACTULAR story, incredibly engaging gameplay (though it is a bit easy), the freeform story choice and all the different scenarios were all very immersive and the finale was honestly kind of touching. I loved watching these characters grow through their short 30-180 minute long adventures, but they were all so well done. Maybe one day I'll write a full review for this game, but as it stands, all I can say is.. thank you, SE. Thank you for officially translating and releasing this game to us all, not to discredit the Aeon Genesis team, they did a fantastic job for the SNES version fantranslation as well, of course.

Ok, ok, this is a weird one. I want to hate this game. I really do. I don't think GameFreak or TPC can keep getting away with rushing out these underdeveloped, unrefined, and unfinished products. If TPC Truly cared about their fanbase, they would give GameFreak and Nintendo the time and money to develop a full experience. It is frankly unacceptable the work ethic they have there.

But like I said, I want to hate it... but I cannot. In spite of all the games flaws, in spite of the performance issues, glitches, and shortcomings, I love this game to pieces, quite possibly in my top 3 favourite pokémon games of all time. I personally do not prioritise graphics or performance, as long as the game runs smoothly, which admittedly, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet do not do all the time, that's all that matters for me.

The story is spectacular, easily top 3, possibly my favourite. I absolutely love the writing in this game, and most of the major characters (besides Penny) I really enjoyed watching act; Nemona is my new favourite rival for sure, the way she's written is absolutely phenomenal imo. The ludonarrative as you explore the world, the story progression of all three paths, and of course, the final stretch of the game feature incredible moments. The gameplay loop itself is also super enjoyable, I find the actual battle mechanics, returning and new mons, as well as the brand new terastilising mechanic (which I affectionately call stoning, of course) enable a number of new tactical avenues akin to games such as Black and White, where diversity was king, which is fitting because these games probably sit right alongside the higher difficulties of pokemon, not quite as hard as the ultra games, but definitely up there.

Overall I love it too much to hate it, specatcular package that feels tailor-made for people like me, but I do hope that TPC is able to improve from the backlash that they got from this game, as frankly speaking it's unacceptable that they treat their workers and fans like this.