Much like with Xenoblade, Xenogears was one of the first RPGs I tried playing. I initially picked it up shortly after beating FF7 and I remember loving it back then though I only got up to the stalactite cave. Now that I've beaten it, my thoughts on it are much more complicated, the game was a real rollercoaster and I'm still trying to process how exactly I feel about it.
Upon replaying it again now, it's clear to me why I dropped it back then. Its all down to the narrative and how intimidating it can be at times. Right from the opening cutscene, you are assaulted with questions and for every one that gets vaguely answered, you get like 3 more. Using enigma codes to push the player to keep going on so they can figure things out isn't a bad thing, but I think Xenogears crosses a line where it just became disheartening for me at points with how little of the narrative I felt I had a good grasp of. The worst parts for me are the early scenes with the Gazel Ministry with how terms that haven't been explained to the player yet get flung around constantly and it reached a point where I was mentally checked out during these scenes. The story can feel extremely daunting at times and I initially wasn't too keen on it, but as I progressed through it and more of it started to make sense, it ended up really gripping me. I can't help but admire just how grandiose this narrative manages to be and the wide range of topics it tackles is something to behold. Slavery, warfare, psychology, mysticism, gnostic imagery, nature of humanity and God and so much more. I beat the game but I only scratched the surface of what all the symbolism and motifs mean because it feels like every dialogue exchange and every area is so meticulously crafted and filled with purpose. Despite covering such monumental subject matter, I think Xenogears is equally strong when it focuses on the smaller scale character moments. From Fei telling Elly how he acts the way he does not because he's "heroic" but merely so he can find a place of acceptance, to Maria talking about what Seibzehn represents to her and how her memory of her father is gradually fading. Scenes like this are so powerful, but are few and far between since they get buried under the rubble which are this game's larger themes. Still, whether its focusing on the small stuff or the big stuff, Xenogears' narrative is quality throughout once you start piecing things together. The only area where the story can feel a little questionable is in its handling of the core cast. Fei, Citan, Elly and Bart are all great, playing a role in the story that remains relevant for the whole game, but the same can't be said for the others. Billy and Maria gets introduced in an area, and their entire arc is resolved in that area, afterwards they just sort of hang around and help out but never really feel important. Rico and Emeralda don't even get the luxury of having anything that resembles an arc and they can be taken out of the plot entirely without anything being lost really. I still like these characters, particularly Billy, but this shift to having a more episodic approach in the middle of the game does create a disconnect between the care that went into integrating the first 4 party members and the ones that come after. Also, to me, this game just looks beautiful, the blend of sprites for human characters and 3D models of the Gears works really well and a lot of the cutscenes in this game make me forget this is a PS1 game, particularly Weltall IDs introduction.
All the games cutscenes are beautifully punctuated by the soundtrack. Talking about music is just something I rarely do when reviewing games because I don't think I have the ability to properly put into words what makes an OST good or bad, but what I can say about Xenogears' OST is that it makes you feel things. Yasunori Mitsuda does a wonderful job at elevating the emotions of a scene with his music here and it is easily his best work imo. It's not always perfect though, the music always sound great, but the number of tracks is quite low for an RPG of this length so some tracks end up getting really worn out and there is even the occasional instance where the music doesn't quite fit the scene, or is completely in contrast to it. Luckily, this issue doesn't occur too often.
So in terms of story, graphics and music, this game is beyond incredible, but the problem is just about everything else. This game is insanely uneven. Anything gameplay related plays second fiddle to the games story. The combat is okay at best, it's split into two parts, one where you control human characters and one where you use the Gears but both are extemely simple. There's no strategy involved to either, around 95% of gear battles can be won by turning on the booster function and spamming deathblows on the enemy and human fights are also won via constantly using deathblows and occasionally healing. There is some fun to be had just from how cool deathblows look and using the Combo function to decimate enemies is satisfying but for a 60 hour game, the actual gameplay here feels shallow. It has also got a lot of things that irk me, switching out party members is a little annoying with it usually requiring you to go back to the Yggdrasil every single time, certain characters leave the party for long stretches of time so getting their deathblows is just not worth it and the game makes no attempt at explaining how exactly you're meant to unlock new deathblows, levelling up here feels almost pointless since human fights are too easy and Gears' stats are dependent entirely on their equipment. Honestly, the only time I really loved the gameplay was in Nortune, where the game randomly turns into a 3D Fighter, other than that, the actual RPG elements of this game are underwhelming. Then there are the dungeons, Xenogears' cutscenes can often feel like never-ending dialogue dumps so, to balance this out and not make gameplay feel like an afterthought, the game's dungeons are designed to take as long as possible by being structured like mazes that are exhausting to get through. Except, this isn't a solution, it just makes gameplay sections in this game feel like a chore at points, with the worst offenders for me being the final dungeon, the solaris elevator shafts and the platforming required in Babel Tower. Not every area has a dungeon required to progress, like the section on the Thames which only has like 2 battles total and the rest is all dialogue but this brings me to another issue, pacing-wise, this game is all over the place. Xenogears never reaches a state of equilibrium between its gameplay and narrative so the entire experience feels lop-sided and anytime I had to play the game instead of read it, I just wasn't as interested. Also, there's like no side content here, the only time the game opens up is right at the end and even then, there isn't much to do.
Then there's Disc 2 and it is a little tragic, the fact that a game that up until that point paid so much excruciating attention to detail is now relegated to having to give a rough summary of events followed by a battle at the end is a real shame. It's not all bad though, there's still striking imagery to be found and it does have my favourite part of the game, that being the backstory of ID and "The Coward". I like also like how it's presented with the pendant swinging back and forth while a character narrates, it's oddly relaxing. The fact that this disc is so light on the gameplay is something I'm actually fine with since the story is the best part of this game anyway. A lot of plot threads from Disc 1 end up being either abandoned or rushed through but I'd still say I enjoyed this part of the game almost on par with the first one, which only makes the fact that it's unfinished sting more because I can't even fathom how incredible this story could've been had it been completed.
I complained about a myriad of things here, and I don't think I'm really wrong in doing so either. Xenogears is a fractured, uneven, and incomplete mess but beyond all that, it's also a game with so much passion poured into every pixel that I can't help but ultimately respect and enjoy it even if it took a long time for me to feel this way.
Upon replaying it again now, it's clear to me why I dropped it back then. Its all down to the narrative and how intimidating it can be at times. Right from the opening cutscene, you are assaulted with questions and for every one that gets vaguely answered, you get like 3 more. Using enigma codes to push the player to keep going on so they can figure things out isn't a bad thing, but I think Xenogears crosses a line where it just became disheartening for me at points with how little of the narrative I felt I had a good grasp of. The worst parts for me are the early scenes with the Gazel Ministry with how terms that haven't been explained to the player yet get flung around constantly and it reached a point where I was mentally checked out during these scenes. The story can feel extremely daunting at times and I initially wasn't too keen on it, but as I progressed through it and more of it started to make sense, it ended up really gripping me. I can't help but admire just how grandiose this narrative manages to be and the wide range of topics it tackles is something to behold. Slavery, warfare, psychology, mysticism, gnostic imagery, nature of humanity and God and so much more. I beat the game but I only scratched the surface of what all the symbolism and motifs mean because it feels like every dialogue exchange and every area is so meticulously crafted and filled with purpose. Despite covering such monumental subject matter, I think Xenogears is equally strong when it focuses on the smaller scale character moments. From Fei telling Elly how he acts the way he does not because he's "heroic" but merely so he can find a place of acceptance, to Maria talking about what Seibzehn represents to her and how her memory of her father is gradually fading. Scenes like this are so powerful, but are few and far between since they get buried under the rubble which are this game's larger themes. Still, whether its focusing on the small stuff or the big stuff, Xenogears' narrative is quality throughout once you start piecing things together. The only area where the story can feel a little questionable is in its handling of the core cast. Fei, Citan, Elly and Bart are all great, playing a role in the story that remains relevant for the whole game, but the same can't be said for the others. Billy and Maria gets introduced in an area, and their entire arc is resolved in that area, afterwards they just sort of hang around and help out but never really feel important. Rico and Emeralda don't even get the luxury of having anything that resembles an arc and they can be taken out of the plot entirely without anything being lost really. I still like these characters, particularly Billy, but this shift to having a more episodic approach in the middle of the game does create a disconnect between the care that went into integrating the first 4 party members and the ones that come after. Also, to me, this game just looks beautiful, the blend of sprites for human characters and 3D models of the Gears works really well and a lot of the cutscenes in this game make me forget this is a PS1 game, particularly Weltall IDs introduction.
All the games cutscenes are beautifully punctuated by the soundtrack. Talking about music is just something I rarely do when reviewing games because I don't think I have the ability to properly put into words what makes an OST good or bad, but what I can say about Xenogears' OST is that it makes you feel things. Yasunori Mitsuda does a wonderful job at elevating the emotions of a scene with his music here and it is easily his best work imo. It's not always perfect though, the music always sound great, but the number of tracks is quite low for an RPG of this length so some tracks end up getting really worn out and there is even the occasional instance where the music doesn't quite fit the scene, or is completely in contrast to it. Luckily, this issue doesn't occur too often.
So in terms of story, graphics and music, this game is beyond incredible, but the problem is just about everything else. This game is insanely uneven. Anything gameplay related plays second fiddle to the games story. The combat is okay at best, it's split into two parts, one where you control human characters and one where you use the Gears but both are extemely simple. There's no strategy involved to either, around 95% of gear battles can be won by turning on the booster function and spamming deathblows on the enemy and human fights are also won via constantly using deathblows and occasionally healing. There is some fun to be had just from how cool deathblows look and using the Combo function to decimate enemies is satisfying but for a 60 hour game, the actual gameplay here feels shallow. It has also got a lot of things that irk me, switching out party members is a little annoying with it usually requiring you to go back to the Yggdrasil every single time, certain characters leave the party for long stretches of time so getting their deathblows is just not worth it and the game makes no attempt at explaining how exactly you're meant to unlock new deathblows, levelling up here feels almost pointless since human fights are too easy and Gears' stats are dependent entirely on their equipment. Honestly, the only time I really loved the gameplay was in Nortune, where the game randomly turns into a 3D Fighter, other than that, the actual RPG elements of this game are underwhelming. Then there are the dungeons, Xenogears' cutscenes can often feel like never-ending dialogue dumps so, to balance this out and not make gameplay feel like an afterthought, the game's dungeons are designed to take as long as possible by being structured like mazes that are exhausting to get through. Except, this isn't a solution, it just makes gameplay sections in this game feel like a chore at points, with the worst offenders for me being the final dungeon, the solaris elevator shafts and the platforming required in Babel Tower. Not every area has a dungeon required to progress, like the section on the Thames which only has like 2 battles total and the rest is all dialogue but this brings me to another issue, pacing-wise, this game is all over the place. Xenogears never reaches a state of equilibrium between its gameplay and narrative so the entire experience feels lop-sided and anytime I had to play the game instead of read it, I just wasn't as interested. Also, there's like no side content here, the only time the game opens up is right at the end and even then, there isn't much to do.
Then there's Disc 2 and it is a little tragic, the fact that a game that up until that point paid so much excruciating attention to detail is now relegated to having to give a rough summary of events followed by a battle at the end is a real shame. It's not all bad though, there's still striking imagery to be found and it does have my favourite part of the game, that being the backstory of ID and "The Coward". I like also like how it's presented with the pendant swinging back and forth while a character narrates, it's oddly relaxing. The fact that this disc is so light on the gameplay is something I'm actually fine with since the story is the best part of this game anyway. A lot of plot threads from Disc 1 end up being either abandoned or rushed through but I'd still say I enjoyed this part of the game almost on par with the first one, which only makes the fact that it's unfinished sting more because I can't even fathom how incredible this story could've been had it been completed.
I complained about a myriad of things here, and I don't think I'm really wrong in doing so either. Xenogears is a fractured, uneven, and incomplete mess but beyond all that, it's also a game with so much passion poured into every pixel that I can't help but ultimately respect and enjoy it even if it took a long time for me to feel this way.