What.... a beautiful ending.

The story was so well written. The dialogue extremely witty, which you hardly see in games. And the cinematography was just exceptional. From what I know, the developers were just fans of films. But they somehow delivered to a degree higher than most films you see. It is truly exceptional.

I did dislike the gameplay. If there is a remaster or remake, it needs to improve the quality of life for combat.

There is no experience. But instead your weapons get more "attuned" to killing certain types of monsters (from what I understood). But the problem is that you have to keep switching between weapons to optimally have strong enough weapons or else you will be doing 1 damage to all enemies. It is the slog of having to go through the menu multiple times that really holds back the game.

If that is improved, then this game would be more bearable and more of an enjoyable challenge. I enjoyed the concept of the gameplay and to recommend it to any hardcore jrpg player looking for a challenge.

But this game shines more in its story. And the story delivers.

If someone says a Pokemon story can never be good, show them this game.

The story is incredibly emotional. And with the special episodes being exclusive to this version than time/darkness, it elevates it to a further level. Those who have played it all know just how good the Grovyle episode was. Which has probably one of the best scenes you can end a story with. It is beautifully sad.

And the music elevates it to another level too. It is simple, but works. I don't think there is a single soundtrack that sounds bad. And when it needs to sound good or emotional, it just goes out of its way to orchestrate some of the best melodies you can hear.

The gameplay being a mystery dungeon is of course not for everyone. It has not aged too well and can be very tedious. Especially for those late game 20+ floors. It is challenging but not everyone can get into it.

One of the classics. Very replayable and fun.

Speedrunning is also pretty fun to do (except for the legendary gulp skip).

This probably doesn't compare to modern games. But at the time, was probably one of the best.

Very charming rpg that was surprisingly enjoyable. Pretty comedic story with a lot of oddities. And a very unique yet great soundtrack. The only thing lacking is the gameplay where it is very plain and basic with some dungeons being pretty tedious.

I would describe this as the most 7/10 game you can play. Does not mean it is bad and would recommend this if you want a unique experience.


I remember my sister got this game when I was a kid because the cover art looked cool. She did not get far, but somehow this game's uniqueness stuck with me. I vividly remember being in awe with the big green open world area in the beginning of the game. The industrial gear themed second town. And the weird shadow guy who helped you out throughout the game.

I forgot what this game was and relearned the name few years ago. To my surprise, it was on the ps4 classic games section in the online store.

Honestly I was blown away by the charm of this game. It has a heavy Tim Burton style, which is already unique. I found myself laughing at many of the jokes in the game. And the world design was so creative.

My biggest surprise was the music. Three songs stand out to me: Theme of Triste, Theme of Rashello, and Highlands. Especially Highlands. They are so catchy and so well strung together that it really makes me sad that this is such a niche and not well known game. What blows me away too is that there are indoor and outdoor versions of each town song that smoothly changes when in and out of buildings. The number of games that do this is extremely little.

The story was fun. In a way I can describe it as "what if Shadow of the Colossus was lighthearted and goofy". You have to defeat demon kings around the land to restore your shadow's power, who is actually the true demon king Stan who took possession of you. But, no one takes Stan seriously and there is some good comedy behind that.

It does get pretty meaningful near the end. The biggest theme of this game is the fear of being forgotten. And in my opinion the way it was done was really good (won't spoil).

The gameplay can be a slog. It is your basic turn based rpg, but with 0 gimmicks. It can be pretty difficult as if the main character dies in battle, it is game over.

I highly recommend you give this game a chance. It ended up becoming one of my personal favorites because of how unique and charming it is from a typical game. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if all this sounds interesting then give this hidden gem a shot.

I wish I can forget this game so I can re-experience it again. Playing through the last three chapters of the game in one sitting is still one of my favorite moments in my life for the amount of emotions I went through. It is the most I have cried in any story.

There are 10 chapters in the game.
First chapter was good. Nice introduction.
Chapter 2 was alright. It kind of went downhill a bit.
Chapter 3 picked up, that was a fun ride.
Then Chapter 4 killed the momentum... hard.

The first half of the game was rough. But all worth to get to the second half.
Every chapter 5 and onward keeps escalating until you get to the climax in the final few chapters. And once you are there, you will get an experience of a lifetime.

The way I see it, Takahashi and Monolithsoft were trying to grab a new audience. At the time this game came out, gacha games with waifus really started to boom. Anime has already gained worldwide appreciation. So to grab this new audience, they tried to replicate that. From the in-game gacha mechanics (no money needed, just grind) and the character designs, and the cringy anime-type scenarios, this game strayed FAR from the first Xenoblade. They did a terrible at doing this.

At the halfway point, Takahashi probably saw the mess of the first half and decided to fix it. That second half of the story is where the real meat is at. More sci-fi, and more Xenogears/saga.

Monolithsoft received a lot of well deserved criticism for its sexualization on many characters. It was absolutely not needed and really reduced the seriousness of some cutscenes. And even outside from that, this game and the series have received a more negative perspective from non-JRPG fans because of the character designs.

Yet even with the above stated, Pyra and Mythra are what drive the story. It is the character development and their place in the story that make this game great. The english dub is even better at portraying their type of character. While the japanese dub used a more cutesy voice for Pyra/Mythra, the english dub (thanks to Skye Bennett) went with a more lower or tomboyish voice. Pyra/Mythra are supposed to be strong female characters, especially with the way they are written, and keeping your typical cute high pitched voice would definitely detract from that.

Gameplay wise, it drastically improved from its predecessor. It is way more chaotic and fun, with a lot more customization and more fluid combat gameplay. It is slow at first. But of course once you get to the second half, it becomes more fast paced and fun to play.

And the music. Man it is incredible. ACE and Yasunori Mitsuda really went all out. Honestly it was their music that made me play this. If you watch the first E3 trailer for this game, it seems like a very generic anime jrpg. That is, until you reach the end. Rex staring off to a sea of clouds with a giant tree piercing the sky. And a slow piano soundtrack plays. That music, gave that scene an otherworldly feeling. The game's soundtrack has some of the most emotional music of any video game, and I highly encourage anyone to take a listen to it.

Overall 9/10. To quote Etika: "This is not even a game. Its a whole interactive movie".

Words cannot describe the experience when finishing this game. It is, in a way, life changing.

Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife Soraya Saga both bonded over their shared interest in philosophy, psychology, and mysticism. They saw that all these ideas were not singular absolutes but instead many paths of a whole.

This idea of incompleteness and becoming whole is the big theme of Xenogears as it explores a huge number of themes (see the wiki for the list) to explain the human experience and how to become "whole" with yourself. Although many of these topics are complicated, the goal wasn't to make this game a philosophy crash course. But instead to introduce these ideas to you, in the form of a story, as a guide in how to feel whole or complete with yourself.

This theme encapsulates every plot point, character, and even objects. As each thing is fragmented in some way. Layer after layer the story builds up itself and slowly unveils all its secrets. And once you finish, and you finally get to see the whole picture, everything will click and make sense.

Music is amazing too. Its by Yasunori Mitsuda so enough said.

This game is not perfect however. In my opinion, the gameplay has aged terribly and is bugged. You can't take 5 steps without some random battle. The deathblows progression system is also bugged, you have to use a guide to properly understand how it works because it is not explained well. The Gear (the mechas in the game) fighting system is terrible. You have to constantly upgrade your parts to have your Gears strong enough to fight the new bosses. And they have limited fuel, throughout the dungeon. You know how annoying that is to manage while you have the bugged random battle system? Fuel becomes a precious resource that you have to manage now and make sure you have enough before a boss battle.

There are translation issues as well. It is not the translator's fault however, but instead the situation that he was put in that caused rushed translations.

The second disc becomes a picture novel essentially. Ultimately, this game was too ambitious for its time.

Regardless, with some flaws forgiven, this is easily a 10/10 and a highly influential piece of work.