remember back in my re1 review where i talked about how the charm of how "clunky" the voice acting and story was made me really appreciate it as trying to emulate a playable b-movie? in one hell of a twist, that same strength works both ways for this. silent hill is actively straining to deliver smth beyond the normal mould of horror gaming, and even putting aside how it spun off into a gigantic franchise and because a blueprint for the genre, it's almost hilarious how deceptively simple approaching the game is. that might sound ridiculous to some, but when stripped down to its bare elements, survival horror is any other video games' concentration on surviving taken up to 11, where every element from saving items, health, and time works to make for a suffocating experiences that's as routine as a game of catch with your dad and him preparing you for the big leagues when you were fiddling around with shit like a nintendo switch just yesterday

but silent hill never loses sight of the ball. every single minute of this game is milking as much gameplay as it can to see how far it can go to actively torment me as much as humanly possible; not so much in the battles or even the puzzles, but some of the absolute best level design and application of tank controls yet, limiting itself to keep me in the dark about what is essentially many elements of stock horror stories drawn out to liminal spaces akin to an open-air prison. the amount of mental suffocation that the game uses at any time (that sound of the glass breaking out of nowhere even when there was no one around made me scream 'fuck' out loud) is staggering, and enough to disorient my already piss poor sense of video game direction, even with the maps

it shouldn't be ignored tho that, at the end of the day, this is just as much indulgence in becoming a part of horror as resident evil was, no matter how many critics and gamers call this game the moment survival horror "grew up." like i said, it's mostly toying around with how far an experience like this can go made with the same love that keeps the genre alive, and it obviously doesn't take much to get spooked for the same reason

i often talk a lot about nostalgia and how much it has been used as a weapon to make us weak in the worst way possible. it is just always crushing to me, to see so many ppl not willing to take the extra step to move towards the future, able to only look back in the past for reference as if it isn't just some other construction of our memories and happiness being used against us. i wish i could open with smth less bitter, but it's hard for me not to, not because i'm not doing well - matter of fact, i'm doin better then i was a few months ago - but the lingering of dread is always there, sifting thru my body, as much as i can also sense the discomfort that is just being alive

it feels especially tragic but not surprising that, at least in game critic circles, the idea of mother 3 not being as "innovate" as earthbound was is around too often, because let's be honest: earthbound was a fantastic game - smth that used the nostalgic fun of video games as a way to fend off that cosmic despair that came in the form of giygas, but through development hell and nintendo being another corporation focused once again on profit over art and people, it seemed all but given that its grip went thru the wringer as a mere product instead of smth beyond that definition. in other words, it's the same moral of the story: if you can't take the heat, then stay out of the fucking kitchen. you don't deserve to be a chef and not just in playing cooking mama, but choosing to boil one of the many chimeras of this game instead of grilling it, even then, not considering why this game, for the absolute safety of it, should never fucking be brought to american stores. i do not care how much you say to be against piracy even when all of y'all played this from a beautifully dedicated fanbase that essentially pirated material to give this goddamn beautiful game; think about the censorship, how they would remove all that would make this game a hollow shell of itself, ignoring why this is one of the best of all time. we don't deserve nintendo as much as we don't deserve to degrade ourselves begging for their attention when they are focused on churning out whatever mario game they announce to make people forget their bullshit

so, for starters, as much as i love rpgs, it is quite incredible the glowup in terms of combat, making me attack to the rhythm and beat of the enemy music and memorizing each one to get good precision. not only is the music really good, but in terms of that medium being a moodsetter, it makes the stakes more high. it asks for your full attention in a way very few rpgs have managed to accomplish

taking the basic elements of earthbound and amplifying them is a no-brainer for a successful game like that, but it works in a way that addresses the foundation and structure behind it. lucas starting off as a crybaby and being made into a real strong boy comes to being it's own platitude in gameplay storytelling, but for as strong as he grows, the more isolated he becomes from everyone save for the party. as the pigmasks further infiltrate the nowhere islands, there's an undeniable loss of innocence that takes the standard rpg tropes into question in similarity to the acceleration of capitalism and hypermodernity. matter of fact, while i did get angry at ppl not looking towards the future, it's a special kind of retrofuturism that keeps the dream alive. obviously, video games are more then a toy, but as horrible fusions of different animals in the vein of a body horror themed mr potato head attack me, it's the horror that makes lucas, for all his blank expressions, a literal player avatar for witnessing how his world gets ruined as much as it is in our reach to connect the dots ourselves. it's easy to get angry at the townspeople of tazmily village for blindly following along to false answers in times of manufactured scarcity and stress, but i just gotta remind myself that the pain alongside nostalgia is also my own fear of an uncertain future.
sometimes, it's hard for me to accept that, just like mother 3, there comes a time when the dragon has to be awoken and can't be appeased anymore, the needles to wake him up like pulling off a band-aid in slo-mo; it's the bravest thing anyone can do, and to play a character able to go for it is as bitter with how it may all be for nothing as if it was some video game we always get a second chance or as sweet as a video game we always get a second chance at

in the epilogue, in total blackness in an ambiguous ending, one of the characters asks if the world is treating me well. it varies, so long as there's pigmasks and friends around me

“In those dreams…
I loved one woman
No matter the day
No matter the era…
That did not change…

Nor did her name”...

as a joke, it's pretty damn funny to call the only original work of art the very first cave painting way before history started to be recorded. i know that i heard many people come to that conclusion whenever they'd call a movie or game unoriginal and got into a debate that needed growth and time flesh out. but you know what? i'm going to take take that conclusion and push it as far as it can go: for a hypothetical, let's say it was of a poorly drawn human. the details are scarce enough that historians can draw anything from it. it's about the love for another, the capability of destruction, a simple portrait. history in the mix as something where the lack of information becomes both a drawback for finding out facts and a boost for multiple forms emerging. then the cave drawing got expanded into bigger things: paintings, photography, etc. we used it to craft the biggest pieces of world culture, becoming the forefront of powerhouse religion and spirituality, the people in power who are only in it for themself, and all the way up the very idea of a god

i could go on a half-hearted gush on why smth like xenogears has a lot of what i said in mind, but at the same time, i realize that i'm just going to be repeating myself; i do it too often with my own reviews, always tracing it back to my deepest fears and anxieties, hope and despair for this world in beautiful but exaggerated poetic. i don't want it to change for the most part, but there comes a time when i just have to let it move out of the front seat to the passenger seat next to the one handling the wheel, working together and not letting two extremes lead me to missing the point of art, which includes xenogears.

but i am doing it again, huh? well, things don't come as easily as i want. the base of this write-up still is the same: xenogears is the second greatest work of art i have ever personally experienced. there is always an unfair barometer where i have to see how art holds up in comparison to eva (my all time fave), but the fact that this is pretty close to being on the same-level as life-changing as it is enough to be of shock to anyone who is familiar to me, even if it's only vaguely

for the obvious facts about this game that are talked about: how vast the plot and lore is, how emotionally taxing it can be, the unfinished disc 2 leaving parts just involving narration, the troubled production with both game development and translation. i can go on, but it's not only a miracle that it came out to begin with, or even that it's as incredible as it turned out, but the very fact that the game comes at the crossroads of the split of storytelling and gameplay and works together in intricate ways that, in a turnabout way, answer the question of why there is still often a useless debate in many circles on if video games are art

truth be told, and as much as i hate to say it, especially on this site for...obvioius reasons. i see where ppl like ebert come from. if you look at the games that people bring up to prove the medium is actual art, you get things that appeal to the nature of storytelling that are heavily story-focused. ebert's overall critique of the industry and the games being mere "products" is undoubtedly selling it short, but who i am to judge a dead man when i think more about how the best thing someone had to do to get "reddit gold" was post a vast video game landscape with a title trying to dish ebert in a way that only furthers his wrong assumptions. as the medium grows older, so does the power that comes with making games as fun as others are in it for the sake of money. (quite an ironic fate in a way case seeing as how the ceo of square ruined the company by going all in on nfts.) essentially, it's a battle that comes as a detriment to the promise of this medium on both sides; on one end are outdated people taking the marketing of video games grown in narrow-minded spaces fit to a capitalist narrative, and the backlash involving those trying to market games the same way one can try to give a sense of a gigantic movie franchise by posting a shot they think is cool

and then you have xenogears. the fact that it was released in the midpoint of some of the first games and the modern scene feel almost too obvious to recognize it as a major example of games beginning to lean into the cinematics of visuals and storytelling. for as much flak it's gotten for a supposed emphasis on narration over gameplay, this is a game where both those elements are part of the same body. the random encounters of enemies - both regular and bosses - and the different kinds of battles - on-foot and in the gears - is heightened by a refined active time battle, with the two gameplay mechanics bringing the stakes the story and characters are in to even greater extremes. it's so easy to get caught in either aspect, that the other can be drowned out by the sheer thrill. it definitely took me some time to not only get used to the controls, but to try and calm myself down whenever something so stunning with the lore, characters, and story to get in a right headspace during battle

ofc, an rpg character team is nothing new, but with all the characters that are given a spotlight, no matter how small they may be, it was enough to remind me of the stakes of sports that have been constantly developed for the modern era since the dawn of humanity. watching ads for last year's world cup was a bittersweet reminder of it, hearing players say that they're in it to win, not to have fun, liable to lash out at teammates for representing a country's whole ability. it's not just the pressure, but the dedication that the athletes and fans have, driving themselves for some sense of a united nationwide community. it is easy to go on to something bigger like the olympics, but what about the fact that video game tournaments are starting to be recognized as sport? it's poetic irony that way, how starting from the organization of sports ends up with those very roots of humanity being broadened, at once good for a great understanding of what we are capable of in the mix of technological use to understand our souls, and at once bad for those capabilities used for playing with the fire of charred earth and soul

haha, there i went again. guess i really can't stop philosophizing whenever i get super touched by something as beautiful as this...on with the final boss battle!

so yes, all this talk of roots and games to the very meaning of life, and whatnot. i wouldn't be going into all this if it wasn't for the fact that xenogears, something made in those roots, is as self-aware of its ambitions and shortcomings then a lot of its harshest critics make it out to be. why else would a game like this spending five and a half minutes on an anime opening and the next thirty or forty driving home not just a simple anti-war message and the games and tools central to its nervous system, but testing the reflexes having the character you play be placed already in forces beyond his understanding of the rules and tools themselves? why else would that story splinter off into twelves connected plots that all lean back to giving you a chance to become a part of a grand plot unfurling and offering an answer - no matter how subjective it is - for what it takes to truly face yourself, the people you love, and not be bound by full determination and full free will? it's not just using gnosticism as a way to be edgy and "too cool" for christianity, but as a way to use a very ancient religion that is the predecessor for the overarching ideology that the most powerful countries in the modern age to rub in just how easy it is for the fact that, just like fei, just like elly, like citan, rico, bart, billy, maria, margie, things are in fact working exactly as the victors of the war before the war intended them to be: accepting that we're too good or evil for ourselves to be worthy of such an idea as power, as strength...as love

i'm not gonna sugercoat it: february 2023 was absolute shit for reasons i don't wanna make public yet. the base line of it tho was anger at how it seemed like everyone around me - those who i know and others who will never meet save for a second-long awkward look walking down the same street - was nothing but charred souls, not just simply corrupted or born evil, but so fucked up by the brutality of power and false messages from God and gods, so deep into habits that we keep playing despite bring us closer to death, that it seemed like everyone who has ever existed, the entirety of humanity, were naturally disappointing, naturally able to hurt each other at the same level of emotional and physical pain, naturally doomed to keep walking the dead of the earth until the dirt becomes sand and the oceans cover a third of california. i didn't just want it to burn, i want it all to disappear in a snap of the finger

i'm not going to pretend like xenogears absolutely changed my life or altered my perception of the world. i already said enough about it when i first got obsessed with eva back in '16, and become older, tried, and true enough to see it was in me all along. i will, however, say sometimes you need something to give you that extra push to not only keep you sane but process art by having it reflect the core of who i and many other people are. it doesn't matter whether or not the very first cave painting is original; what does, however, is how a simple carving that has probably been mulled over as the world presses on has lived not in its existence, but the fact that something that has stayed there for so long was able to preserve itself. how wonderful and strange it is to see that be applied to rendering and programming this game being one of the few human works that don't just fully believe love will save the world, but is as much a tool for pushing thru weird enemy, giant robots, monsters, dictators, and a fucking god if it means you get to live another day to find the beauty in the person you love the most. if you had to ask what appealed to me about video games to begin with and why i decided to start getting into the medium back in mid-november, i'd say and still believe that it offers a bridge between the games humanity has played since the dawn of our existence, the mid-point of technology able to craft an image in real time with photography and film, and the use of modern-day technology to fulfill experiences made for being a part of the world deeper then "suspending disbelief" at a movie, flying directly towards coming to terms with some of the most ancient yet still powerful ways we remind ourself why we live to begin with. in that way, xenogears is just another step in how i will survive the rest of the year and beyond, and it's now that it can be possible to recognize the love and hope it truly takes to not take eternity and a day for granted

for as much as video games have been arguably the dominant form of art today, my world with them has been distant. the most i have ever had was a wii and ds with a huge obsession with pokemon; games that were mentioned everywhere growing up, from friends to countdown youtubers like joshscorcher, seemed to be hidden treasure on a giant hill that seemed unable to be "conquered" by me. i do not have a lot of nostalgia for video games as a whole, save for pokemon, but from listening in on school convos and videos gave me the closest experience to capturing the magic that the medium had for a lot of people

stumbling onto earthbound felt like a fever dream come true; the place i live at recently got a snes that had pre-packaged games, one of which was, of course, earthbound. it was an opportunity i had to take before it might one day vanish in front of me. not counting a majority of the games i played as a kid, this felt like the first holistic game experience i ever had in my entire life

and i didn't know why for most of it! i deffo knew how it was considered one of the greatest games ever made, i knew a lot about giygas and his disturbing boss battle, i was familiar with mother 3, i was absolutely clicking with it, but something was missing to help unlock whatever "secret spell" it had cast over me. as the game's innocence started to become more and more wistful tho, it suddenly hit me like a freight train. beneath all the beautiful quirky weirdness was smth that directly talked to me about what it truly means to be a part of a video game. i'm sure you can find a lot of ppl saying the story is nothing special, and while they're right, it's the fact that the entire thing hones in on baseline fantasies, directly speaking to ppl about their lost sense of happiness and innocence as they get involved with ness' journey becoming a quest to destroy, what in essence is, the foreboding world of dark adulthood. giygas is the final triumph, a final boss so terrifying for such a colorful game that is perfectly out of place as the fear of facing off something an existential cosmic being wraps around the sweet homely portrait of ... well, home! the relief i felt at being freed from the nightmare of giygas' terror was something so powerful, making me discover for real why video games are such a wonderful medium of art like i was that bubbly kid who kept most of their despair at bay

it is honestly everything i could ask for as the first true gaming experience and the start of my journey in a medium i've neglected for too long

In his excellent video review/retrospective from around a decade ago, youtuber Derek Alexander of Stop Skeletons From Fighting (formerly the Happy Video Game Nerd) describes Shigesato Itoi's Earthbound (known in Japan as Mother 2) as "criminally underrated" and "one of the greatest games ever made." The first statement is, happily, no longer correct in the year of 2022. Sure, back when the video was made, Earthbound (and the Mother series as a whole) was a more niche title, heck the only reason I found out about the game and decided to give it a go was through Derek and this video. At this point in time, though in the larger gaming sphere its probably still relatively niche compared to titles like Call of Duty and Fortnite, in the JRPG sphere Earthbound is much more well-known and accessible, thanks to it being released on New 3DS XL and Wii U Virtual Consoles, SNES Mini, and Switch Online Virtual Consoles. The second claim is correct, though I found the reasoning Derek provided in the video was lacking. He claimed that the reason that Earthbound was better than most RPGs is that it has a modern setting and you are playing as a normal young boy and not some medieval, chosen hero. Modern settings in JRPGs are nothing new. They were present in the 90s when Mother 2 came out with titles like Shin Megami Tensei (though you could argue that while it begins in a modern setting, it delves into post-apocalyptic territory quite quickly) and Live A Live (though you could also counter that only a single scenario out of multiple takes place in the modern day). RPGs with modern settings are also present in the current day, with series like Persona taking place in modern day school settings since its inception in 1996 and going on to the recent release of Persona 5 Royal in 2019. I would argue that this was and still is not as unique as many tout it to be. The second point, that you play as a normal boy and not a chosen hero, is false in a few ways. Firstly, technically Ness is a chosen hero, as he was prophesized to defeat Giygas by the Apple of Enlightenment. Its not as prominent of a prophecy or as driving of a force in the plot as in games like Dragon Quest, but its still there. Second, while the trope can be oversaturated in the genre, the claim made implies that the chosen hero archetype is not good inherently, which I definitely disagree with. Such a trope is put to excellent use in games like Dragon Quest III, with Loto/Erdrick growing into that role by becoming a more worldly individual (see my DQ III review for more), but I digress. None of this is at all meant to be an attack on Derek or SSFF, they are one of my favorite channels on YouTube and Derek as the HVGN is one of the three people I credit for helping to foster my love for retro gaming (the others being James Rolfe and NintendoCapriSun). His video on Earthbound is excellent and honestly one of the best he has put out on his channel. The reason I go so in-depth in the beginning of this discussion on the reasons why he loves Earthbound is because rewatching his video made me reflect on why I adore the Mother series and Earthbound so much.

To me, Earthbound stands the test of time not because of originality of setting or of protagonist, but by virtue of its central values of love and empathy. There is no other JRPG series I have experienced that has approached its characters with the level of sincere kindness, empathy, and understanding as the Mother series. In Earthbound, and the Mother series as a whole, Itoi rarely if ever characterizes the enemies you fight as being wholly and purely evil. Characters like Frank or Everdred attack you but you get the sense that they are testing you more than anything. Mr. Carpainter and Geldegarde Monotoli are corrupted by idols or money and under Giygas' influence conduct their terrible deeds, but when you remove the influence they are repentant. Animals and other living creatures that you fight are not "killed," they "become tame." While many have jokingly (or not) chastised games like Pokemon for not having the balls to have their cute little animals die in battle, this fact is thematically relevant in Earthbound since the animals and other creatures are under the influence of Giygas and are otherwise innocent, and its telling of Ness and his friends' compassion that they would not outright kill these opponents.

This humanization of villainous characters is seen most poignantly in Pokey/Porky and Giygas/Giegue. Pokey was already quite an annoying child, and under the influence of Giygas he becomes a constant, nagging thorn in Ness' side throughout the entire game, becoming Giygas' right hand man until the end. Yet, from the beginning he is humanized as when you return him to his house next door after the meteor first crashes, you see signs of abuse in his mother and father when you talk with them. Later on, in Magicant, Pokey appears alone on a bench, saying:

"Ness, you're so lucky...I envy you. Let's be friends forever, alright?"

One could interpret this as the true Pokey appearing to Ness in Magicant, revealing that his true feelings underneath all the villainy and evil deeds are those of a boy abused by his family who just wants the love of a friend. This leaves out the fact that Magicant is a place in Ness' mind and the people, objects, and animals there are more like manifestations of Ness' memories of them. This does not discount the above analysis though, as with this context it can be inferred that the Pokey in Magicant is how Ness views Pokey, which not only hints at the greater truth of his character described above yet never explicitly stated by Pokey himself but also further reinforces the empathy that Itoi imbues in this character. Through all the evil antics, annoying laughter, and attempts to sabotage their journey, Ness sees Pokey as just a lonely and sad child, reaching out for love (an idea perfectly bridged into Mother 3, where in his domain in New Pork City we see a collection of nostalgic items and vehicles from Earthbound, showing that even when Pokey supposedly becomes the ultimately evil Porky, he has retained this human desire for love and companionship and is still holding on to the memory of Ness and his journeys).

The same can be said of Giygas. In Mother (Itoi's magnum opus), Giegue is defeated by Ninten and co through the power of love via the lullaby of Queen Mary, revealed to be Giegue's surrogate mother, Maria, and Ninten's grandmother. In Earthbound, as Giygas, he is torn apart at the reminder of the loss of his mother, and without this mother's love, spirals out of control into an unrecognizable and incomprehensible being of supposedly pure evil, corrupting the creatures of Earth. During the final confrontation, Pokey claims:

"So, isn't this terrifying? I'm terrified too. Giygas cannot think rationally anymore, and he isn't even aware of what he is doing now. His own mind was destroyed by his incredible power. What an all-mighty idiot! Yep, that's what he is! Heh heh heh heh... and you... you will be... just another meal to him!"

Giegue has become Giygas, the all-mighty evil power, and has lost all rationality or agency, needing to be contained by the Devil's Machine...or so the game initially claims. Throughout the final battle, Giygas cries out for Ness, and one of his dialogues is just "...friends..." You could argue that him calling out for Ness is this irrational being still grasping at the last bits of rationality left to focus all of his chaotic evil energy on his goal of defeating Ness to prevent the prophecy of the Apple of Enlightenment, but I see Itoi's empathetic hand in this. Here, Giygas is still wounded from the painful memories of losing Maria, and rather than grow and move forward, he has become distorted and is in many ways like Pokey: a lonely being seeking friendship and love.

Love is the core theme of Earthbound and the Mother series as a whole. There is a reason it is called Mother, after all. The love of not only individual human mothers but Mother Earth permeates the series and is especially poignant in Earthbound. In the same way that heroes like Erdrick in Dragon Quest III mature and become a hero by traveling the world and becoming more worldly, Ness matures and becomes more worldly by traveling all around Eagleland and gathering the Eight Melodies from various "Your Sanctuary" locations, all different places around the Earth. The center of the circle of locations when you bring up the Sound Stone in your inventory looks like the Mother Earth from the logo for the series, further emphasizing Ness gathering the love of Mother Earth to use as his power. Ness gains his power and strength from coming of age: leaving home, venturing off into the great unknown, gaining many friends and companions, yet he always keeps the love of his mother back at home close to his heart, even though he is away. By contrast, Giygas, due to the loss of Maria and his intense pain and anguish, cannot recognize that no matter how far away from him, or whether she is living or dead, Maria's love for him endures. He is too haunted by the pain and loss that he regresses into an incomprehensible mess of emotions, like that of a child, emotions lacking the the logical construction and consistency of maturity. Inside the Devil's Machine, he is a veritable "Boy in the Bubble" of his own regression. A widely circulated fan theory, and one debunked by Itoi himself, is that Giygas' sprite, when viewed in the negative, resembles a fetus. While this was confirmed as not being intentional by Itoi, it fits: Giygas has regressed so much that he is like a fetus, caught in the past of when he was a baby raised by Maria and tormented by the loss that he cannot move forward. Ness and Giygas are perfect foils, and ultimately Ness and co defeat him with prayers sent out to all of your friends and, most importantly, Ness' mother, freeing Giygas from his incomprehensible pain and destroying him with love, in what could be considered euthanasia.

This is what sets Itoi's masterpieces apart from the rest. Earthbound's characters are imbued with such strong love and friendship that you cannot help but love them. Itoi writes his villains with empathy and understanding, not in a hackneyed and overdone "You and I are not that different" manner but in a sincere and vulnerable manner. No other games or JRPGs explore the importance and power of love quite like this one.

Earthbound and Itoi's legacy is not one of quirky dialogue or outlandish difference. It is a melody of love.

My first actual horror game playthrough, and damn does it hold up well. Silent Hill offers an ominous and devoid experience, paired with incredible ambience and a uniquely chilling atmosphere. The plot, while pretty basic, was delivered quite well with a good balance of gameplay and story elements. The controls which seemed clunky at first, were easily adaptable and served in favor of the gameplay and especially in high tension moments such as multiple enemy encounters and boss fights (While sometimes a bit frustrating, you have to cut the developers some slack, the moveable camera alone was quite impressive). Overall the presentation and execution, especially for an entirely 3D PSX title, are only praise worthy, and I can whole heartedly say that Silent Hill lived up to all of my expectations. Despite some instances of repetitive level design and enemy types/encounters, these pale in comparison to everything else the game has to offer. Very much looking forward to continuing this awesome series.

approaches the stage with 73809 page manifesto on xenogears' impact and its troubled dev cycle and why it is both one of the most interesting, rewarding narratives told in gaming history and one of gaming's most incredible dev journeys, from beginning as what was originally ff7 before being repurposed into xenogears and then being cut in half, and how legal battles have prevented it from ever truly being returned to in the manner it deserves
ahem
screams into microphone, tears running down my face
BROKEN MIRROR A MILLION SHAPES OF LIGHT THE OLD ECHO FADES AWAY BUT JUST YOU AND I CAN FIND THE ANSWER AND THEN WE CAN RUN TO THE END OF THE WORLD, RUN TO THE END OF THE WORLD
is dragged offstage while vocalizing the guitar solo

After a week of grinding, i am officially done with xenogears

Xenogears most definitely has my favourite story/narrative in gaming. Seamlessly being able to juggle a multitude of themes/topics such as: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to truly live? Importance of free will, how our connections with others shape our identities, overcoming one's own destiny, accepting our bleak reality and moving on from it e.t.c

For one thing, the gameplay is REALLY GOOD! Infact too good for something from its time. I really love how they integrated combos into its mechanics to make turn based gameplay that much more interesting and worthwhile in the longrun. Actually making the player experiment with the casts movesets to pull off some cool ass chains of attacks.

Xenogears shows an absolute masterclass in how to write a compelling and heartfelt romance. Effortlessly intertwining the fates of Fei and Elly (Wont go into specifics) together to provide some heart warming, organic, saddening but also hopeful moments between themselves. I love both of them ALOT!

I 100% get the hype about fei and i was incredibly surprised. He is definitely the most well written and fleshed out character in gaming. I was completely blown away by his character conflict and how it tied a huge amount of the narrative together. The Dreams Section in DISC 2 is the best thing gears could have done for his character. The revelations forcing him to accept the truth, the harsh and cold reality he chose to escape from and showing his immense character growth in the process was masterful writing. As a person who didn't necessarily turn to games to expect GOAT level characters, xenogears proved me wrong.
YOU CAN'T TAKE HIM OUT. HE’S DIFFERENT. HE'S NOT THE SAME! YOU ARE YOU BUT HE IS HIM!!!!

The cast is filled with a lottery of charismatic characters who mesh and coexist with each other pretty well. Citan is an obvious favourite of mine off rip (HE IS HIM!).

The music is immaculate, id say my clear cut favourites are Bonds of sea and fire, june mermaid, tears of the stars hearts of the people. Just to name a few, but the entire soundtrack is picture perfect for the dichotomy of lighthearted content to the dark and bleak filled stretches in the game

My goodness there are some HARD/Maybe BS bosses tho lmao. If i had to go by difficulty it would be:
Deus
Ramsus/Opiomorph
Shakhan
The adrenaline rush i got when i beat these bosses felt great

That last portion of the game after beating DEUS till the ending is one of the best stretches in media for me. An emphatic way to close out Feis/Lacans Character Journey and put a neat bow on the game.

Enough Said, GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME!