there may not be a single video game that so perfectly encapsulates my entire personal approach to art as intimately and specifically as xenogears. as the second in what i consider a 'spiritual trilogy' of developmentally-intertwined and thematically cohesive squaresoft jrpgs including final fantasy vii (my favorite game of all time), xenogears (my other favorite game of all time) and chrono cross (one of my favorite games of all time), i feel that xenogears represents the bleeding-heart passion for nearly every specific niche in art that i'd built over my teenage years - mecha, political drama, 20th century philosophy and psychology, psychological drama and horror, religious studies and analysis, and the golden-age turn based jrpg, to name a few - combined with a tenacity and never-say-die attitude that could only belong to those crazy sumbitches that made this dream come to life, most specifically tetsuya takahashi, soraya saga, masato kato and yasunori mitsuda.
during this playthrough of xenogears (my fifth) accompanied by veteran xeno fans and wide-eyed newcomers, i had the opportunity to reflect on this game through several points of view all at once, reflect on my journey as an artist and a person, and what xenogears means to me now at this point in my life. i've lived the lives of many of xenogears' characters - i've been fei, i've been elly, i've been billy, i've been hammer, i've been ramsus - and the intricate web of connections, lies, deceptions, and relationships that are bound in xenogears' vast expanse feel closely related to me own. this is a game that breathes through me in a way virtually no others except its older sibling has.
xenogears encapsulates the purpose of discovery in the wide world of gaming more than ever now - this is a game which has essentially been deliberately pushed to the bookends of time, having the perfect works narrative constantly tweaked and redefined through the likes of xenosaga and now, loosely, xenoblade, and while its contemporary b-tier influence psx jrpgs like legend of mana, chrono cross and saga frontier continue to see re-releases and re-imaginings, xenogears stands tall all on its own merits, an amber bauble of its era. yes, it's a mess of a game, but i'd hardly change anything about it.
disc 2 is a common topic of controversy when it comes to xenogears, and i'm a vehement defender. in a period of the story where it feels as if the entire tone set up within the first major arcs has been dissolved and a hulking, ugly, hateful core rests underneath it all, disc 2 captures (albeit unintentionally, i know) a paranoid, scatterbrained approach that feels exactly as claustrophobic, distorted and maligned as i think it SHOULD. for a game in which the opening hour resolves in one of the most shocking moments in an early jrpg, the developmental segments of xenogears end up feeling trivial or sophomoric as a result, once the brush is put to the canvas and takahashi/saga's grand vision begins to take form. by early disc 2, almost every major jrpg plot point has been completed and resolved. the world is no longer ambitious and explorative. it feels cold. empty. bleak. what comes next? what happens after the story is told? with a stifled frown and heavy eyes, xenogears leads you deeper and deeper into its thematic core, the heart of its very purpose and means to exist. the game constantly guts you with the uncanny feeling of anticlimax. this is a cold dead world and yours is the path that will see it through to the end. this is a game that will challenge you to push through shortcomings and wears its blemishes and faults with pride. it knows exactly what it is, and when that miasma of dread clears and that final fucking screen appears and in bold letters it declares EXACTLY what it set out to be, a greater purpose in store that never came, you'll understand - if you're anything like me, if you and i see art similarly at all, you'll feel what i felt.
stand tall and shake the heavens.
during this playthrough of xenogears (my fifth) accompanied by veteran xeno fans and wide-eyed newcomers, i had the opportunity to reflect on this game through several points of view all at once, reflect on my journey as an artist and a person, and what xenogears means to me now at this point in my life. i've lived the lives of many of xenogears' characters - i've been fei, i've been elly, i've been billy, i've been hammer, i've been ramsus - and the intricate web of connections, lies, deceptions, and relationships that are bound in xenogears' vast expanse feel closely related to me own. this is a game that breathes through me in a way virtually no others except its older sibling has.
xenogears encapsulates the purpose of discovery in the wide world of gaming more than ever now - this is a game which has essentially been deliberately pushed to the bookends of time, having the perfect works narrative constantly tweaked and redefined through the likes of xenosaga and now, loosely, xenoblade, and while its contemporary b-tier influence psx jrpgs like legend of mana, chrono cross and saga frontier continue to see re-releases and re-imaginings, xenogears stands tall all on its own merits, an amber bauble of its era. yes, it's a mess of a game, but i'd hardly change anything about it.
disc 2 is a common topic of controversy when it comes to xenogears, and i'm a vehement defender. in a period of the story where it feels as if the entire tone set up within the first major arcs has been dissolved and a hulking, ugly, hateful core rests underneath it all, disc 2 captures (albeit unintentionally, i know) a paranoid, scatterbrained approach that feels exactly as claustrophobic, distorted and maligned as i think it SHOULD. for a game in which the opening hour resolves in one of the most shocking moments in an early jrpg, the developmental segments of xenogears end up feeling trivial or sophomoric as a result, once the brush is put to the canvas and takahashi/saga's grand vision begins to take form. by early disc 2, almost every major jrpg plot point has been completed and resolved. the world is no longer ambitious and explorative. it feels cold. empty. bleak. what comes next? what happens after the story is told? with a stifled frown and heavy eyes, xenogears leads you deeper and deeper into its thematic core, the heart of its very purpose and means to exist. the game constantly guts you with the uncanny feeling of anticlimax. this is a cold dead world and yours is the path that will see it through to the end. this is a game that will challenge you to push through shortcomings and wears its blemishes and faults with pride. it knows exactly what it is, and when that miasma of dread clears and that final fucking screen appears and in bold letters it declares EXACTLY what it set out to be, a greater purpose in store that never came, you'll understand - if you're anything like me, if you and i see art similarly at all, you'll feel what i felt.
stand tall and shake the heavens.