Xenosaga: Episode I - Der Wille zur Macht

The Good
This review is about the entire Xenosaga trilogy, not just the first game. The three games are very similar, so whatever I'm going to say here should be applied to the whole thing.

The series had some pretty big shoes to fill - fans of the extravagant, intensely plot-driven RPG Xenogears were impatiently waiting for a game that was supposed to be a prequel of sorts. Xenosaga succeeds in imitating the older game's reliance on cutscenes that present a highly complicated plot. Whether this is a good thing or not is another question.

The battle system of Xenosaga varies slightly from installment to installment; the most sophisticated version is probably found in the second game, but overall there are a lot of common features (boosting, etc.), some of which are quite interesting. Particularly in the second episode, even some regular enemies can be somewhat difficult to defeat, and you do need to think and make plans for the bosses. All three games also have functional, not overly simplified skill trees and a good variety of characters to put in your party.

Giant mech ("gear") combat is back. It is least interesting in the first game, but becomes much more prominent in the third. Needless to say that fighting in those huge, yet agile metallic beasts is fulfilling no matter what the actual battle system is. And the battle system is probably the least of Xenosaga's problems.

There are no random battles. A Japanese RPG that has no random battles can't be scored as an absolute zero by me even if it has no other redeeming qualities. And in Xenosaga you can even sneak past enemies! Another nice ability is the destruction of objects. Using the square button, you can destroy all kinds of objects for various reasons: find hidden items, secret passages, or as part of solving puzzles. Speaking of which, there are some simple, yet nicely designed puzzles in some of the dungeons in all the three games.

Xenosaga has what some people consider the most complex plot ever written for a video game. Xenogears looks like a sweet, simple fable compared to this monster. Unresolved mysteries and plot twists pile up until they are finally dealt with in the last episode. Surprisingly, the latter does a really good job at filling out all those plot holes, and in the end the story appears to make sense after all. Lovers of gratuitous references to Jewish-Christian themes may rejoice: if a character doesn't have a badly spelled German name he is probably based on a Biblical persona. On a regular day, you'll be fighting the Gnosis while avoiding the Testaments because Abel insisted you need that Zohar. Again, the good thing is that it's not all completely stupid and irrelevant. The Nietzschean quotes do have a meaning, and the whole thing is wrapped up nicely as you slip into the familiar role of a fighter for human free will against the oppressive forces of quasi-deities.

The Bad
Did you think the (in)famous second disc of Xenogears was a monumental achievement of exploration-based gameplay? Me neither. But apparently the designers of Xenosaga did, because that's what those three games resemble most.

The days of Final Fantasy VII, when players could explore a large world with optional areas and uncover secrets, are long gone. Ultra-linear design rules the Japanese RPG realm with an iron fist, and Xenosaga happily submits itself to it. It takes linearity to the extreme: you can't even travel properly in these games. Most of the time you are simply taken to the next location automatically, and all you can do is explore the confined areas the game throws at you, advancing the plot. This kind of suffocating, patronizing, lazy design effectively turns the games into a long string of cutscenes connected by isolated gameplay segments.

This hurts the game even more because it is supposed to be a space opera. Just think of those words, be mentally teleported to Star Control II and feel how pitiful Xenosaga feels in comparison. But why go outside of the genre boundaries if the Japanese RPG industry had Alshark? Look at the pompous, overgrown plot of Xenosaga and compare it to the actual size of playable areas. All the locations of all the three games can fit into one planet of Alshark! How can we speak of evolution in this genre if its games keep shrinking like this?

Say what you want about Xenogears, but at least it had beautiful, large cities to explore. The populated areas of Xenosaga are disastrously small and empty. There are few places to visit, few people to talk to, and very little to do. Add to this cold, inexpressive visuals and lack of any camera rotation despite the 3D graphics, and you'll have pitiful decorations instead of a supposedly gigantic space. You can't navigate a spaceship, you can't explore planets, you can only follow the prescribed plot.

But at least the plot is great, right? Well, no, not in my opinion. Real passion was felt behind the convoluted contraptions of Xenogears. The emotional presentation of its characters was convincing. Not so in Xenosaga, where much of the story is just an artificial construction overloaded with fake religious themes and annoying anime-esque figures ridden with cliches sometimes bordering on perversions (do Japanese game designers really enjoy looking at a little girl's underwear?). The writing is weak, sometimes very annoyingly so, with characters repeating the same words over and over again, and the dialogue fluctuating between "... ... ..." and "I'll adjust the S-2356GH circuit in order to produce the maximal temperature of the A-V3 series Hilbert Effect according to the information stored in my neuro-physical cerebral connection to UBT-37 port".

Abundance of cutscenes can be tolerated if they are good. The reason why some people managed to accept the cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid games was because they were actually pretty cool. The cutscenes in Xenosaga, on the other hand, are thoroughly unexciting: there is no direction and camera work worth mentioning, and very little drama or suspense. The voice acting is sub-par as well.

If you are still willing to endure all that for a great revelation in the fields of religions and philosophy, you should stop right now, because all you'll get are disjointed chunks of badly digested second-hand ideas ranging from apocryphal gospels to inflated psychoanalytical images. Just because a game has a character called Yeshua doesn't mean that it goes any further than Master and Margarita or Jesus Christ Superstar in denigrating a sacred name to suit the tastes of our disillusioned times.

The Bottom Line
Xenosaga games are the epitome of contemporary Japanese RPG design: horrible linearity further weighed down by endless cutscenes. There are some nice ideas in the dungeons and the battle system is solid; but if you value gameplay more than badly written space operas with dubious pseudo-religious allusions, you might as well turn to another saga.

The Good
Whow, and I thought I saw everything in the game's realm. Huh, was I surprised when this piece of jewel knocked on my door. Can't say I am or ever was a fan or role-playing games of any kind, and SquareSoft was particularly brutal in making me dislike the genre. So, as they did Xenogears I was prepared for the worst, but was still hoping for the best as it wasn't developer by Squaresoft. Not only was this game much easier than any Squaresoft's RPG ever made, but it let you follow the story completely and addictively as you can and want, not marching you towards hourless upgrades just in order to pass some incredibly silly point you got stuck with. I'm not saying this game doesn't offer any challenges, it does indeed, but it lets you follow the story, which is the main thing every game should let you (unless it has no story, in which case extra hard bosses would be acceptable, I suppose). I barely reached somewhat below level 50, yet I had no trouble beating final bosses in my first attempt. Not to mention, various upgrading options were so confusing at first that I was playing it fully weak until much later in the game, and still didn't encounter too much of a problem. Gotta admire them for that.

The game itself doesn't seem like it has any pre-rendered cinematics except the very opening to the story premise, but ingame graphics is so cool and beautiful you will not cry for anything pre-rendered. Oh, and if you thought that Metal Gear Solid 2 has too much cinematics, guess again. This game has at least twice that size, and they're all in motion. the music, although a bit scarce, takes the upper hand through the cinematics and is beautiful in every part of the game, thus having a soundtrack for this one is nothing hard to believe. Some of the tracks are fully voiced and perfectly depict serious situations, while others are so joyful you get a feeling Larry Laffer will pop outta nowhere any second now.

This is a party-based RPG, but bottomline, the game still majorly follows the story of Shion, a Chief Engineer of Vector Industries, who has her past haunting her, and her work to push her forward. Speaking of her work, the newest creation of anti-gnosis weapon, KOS-MOS (check up the cool little blue angel on the front cover, a-huh :) The main story progresses steadily but easily in the right way, isn't too fast to mess your mind up, nor too slow to make you bored. And in all that, many characters are to join you on your journey, Chaos, Momo, and some more, that all seem to have something to atone for one way or another, so you'll be following each of their background stories not to be too one-track minded, and some of them are quite interesting and daring.

The Bad
This game made me feel proud carrying a title of a player, and did something to me I haven't experienced in a while - forcing me to play it constantly until its very end. However, the main female protagonist has got to be one of the most annoying characters I've seen in a game. Not only does she never finish a sentence, but she constantly seems trouble by whatever's haunting her from her dark past and never answers differently than "It's... it's nothing." which can become really annoying after thousandth time. He's very unsure of herself, and everything else. Her insecurity would pretty much cost everyone else around her lives, she is way too self-centered and in dream-like state. She may be a genius when it comes to science, but... she acts like a spoiled brat and doesn't seem to think rational in almost any situation.

The Bottom Line
This game has great gameplay, a perfect balance between easy and hard, graphics are astonishing for the time being, the art itself is amazing, the color effects, the direction of cutscenes, it has really long movies which will often give you impression you're watching some pretty cool sci-fi anime, and it has a brilliant set of characters, goodguys as well as badguys, all creating a perfect harmony in this twisted yet highly likable storyline. I don't get it why the rating was this low, though, it has some scenes that might require a bit higher level, but guess not by a far, most of the time it's what it stands for. Also, the game shows an excellent point how people can be stupid, how military is but a mere puppet on a string of a madman, and gives an interesting balance between life and death all throughout the game. This game is as serious as it can be silly at the times, yet it's undoubtedly amazing.

The Good
Poorly distilled cliff note quality quasi-Jungian philosophy, pre-pubescent robot girls in miniskirts, a female lead so oblivious to the calamities around her that you want to punch her, and giant battling robots. It can only be another Japanese RPG, and despite what I just wrote, it's my favorite game of the last year.

Despite what many reviewers have said, Xenosaga is very much the prequel to Squaresoft's cult classic Xenogears, so players familiar with the latter know what to expect: one of the deepest and most satisfying stories you're ever likely to find in any RPG any time soon. Sure, by movie or novel standards Xenosaga's plot is as hackneyed as they come, but it makes for an astonishingly compelling RPG.

So what's it about? Damned if I know. In the future mankind has been forced to live a nomad-like existence in space. We are at war with an insectoid inter-dimensional race called the Gnosis whose only desire appears to be to wipe us out. Why? Damned if I know. Add in some monoliths straight out of 2001 a Space Odyssey, a whole bunch of religious symbolism, a robotic weapon that appears to be turning into a human, a cyborg who doesn't want to be human, a strange guy in hotpants that might be an angel and a villain who enjoys sucking the life force out of little girls, and you've got a heck of a lot of questions to be answered and one hell of an interesting plot.

It's all told in beautiful FMV sequences interspersed with your average puzzle solving and some good strategy oriented combat. Boss battles are particularly cool.

Some have complained about the amount of FMV in the first portion of the game, but I'd rather watch a (mostly) well voice acted FMV then scroll through pages of text (know what I mean Xenogears people?).

Characters and monsters are beautifully rendered and animated. Backgrounds are uniformly sterile and uninteresting.

Script has some super corny lines of dialogue (in a Japanese RPG? Surely not!) but is for the most part pretty compelling and well delivered.

The music is astonishingly good, but pretty sparse.

Bring on part II....I've got questions that need answering.

The Bad
Racing a giant stuffed bunny rabbit. What the heck was that, Namco? All this religious symbolism and dark characters, and I stumble upon a bunny right in the middle of nowhere....whatever. Lose the bunnies.

The Bottom Line
There is nothing out there (no, not even Final Fantasy X) that approaches the depth of plot and gameplay that Xenosaga offers. It's an almost flawless game and destined to be a classic RPG series. Buy it.

PLOT: 10/10, GRAPHICS: 10/10. CHARACTERS: 9/10. GAMEPLAY: 9/10, REPLAY: 4/10. OVERALL: 10/10.

The Good
I love the battle system. The people in the game are good. I like the way it looks. Everything about it is good!

The Bad
It can be hard sometimes...

The Bottom Line
I would say pick this game up, RPG fans!