Xenogears

The Good
You know those games. Games, that don't require you to save the world, don't feature outlandish mixes of fantasy and sci-fi, short on exposition and usually dealing with "relationship" problems and personal dramas. These games can be adequately described as chamber games, taking cues from filmmaking and classical music. Do you like the sound of it? Well, suck it up, pal. Because, Xenogears, is the exact opposite of the game I described above. It's 100% concentrated epic. Hell, if you ever wanted to define "epic" in a single word, Xenogears is the word to go for. This game is grand, it plays with titans and gods, Freudian psychoanalysis, organized religion and Jungian philosophy. It doesn't shy away from destroying nations and exploring the genesis of life itself. It's an enormous leviathan, filled with delusions of grandeur and megalomania. It's monumental and relentless on its mission to explode your brain from within, with hundreds of plotlines, dozens of twists, numerous characters and the whole library worth of backstory, shifting gears (no pun intended) far beyond the capacities of any reasonable gearbox. And it also has giant robots and a cutesy sidekick animal that says "chu" instead of "to" or "too".

You can immediately tell its a Japanese game. The maxim of making everything either as cool as possible, or as grand as possible or as saturated as possible is in full play here. However, there is also aplenty of stuff that really separates the game from other <moby>SquareSoft</moby> RPGs. The most important difference here, is that story is the ultimate boss, not a single character can be named a protagonist, even Fei - the character you play with most of the time is but another thread in weaving the tapestry of Xenogears story. Leave your emotional problems upon entry, nobody cares if your father didn't appreciate for what you were, nobody cares if you can't express your feelings adequately, here people play with gods and demons, far beyond the petty problems of mere mortals.

In the end, it's definitely cool, that moving at a breakneck pace, in effort to tell its grand story, the game forgets the half of its cast on the sidewalk, once they've served their function as many cogs moving the story of Xenogears forward. Including an obligatory cutesy animal, thankfully. No time for comic relief, we have a powerful story of majestic proportions to tell! Actually, there is rarely time for anything. Thinking about it now, it seems that the game pace moved with the speed of light, changing major players, motivations and identities every two minutes or so. Which is rather impressive, for despite its length, neither part of the game's narrative feels dispensable. Something happens all the time, the development of plot never stops. And it's nothing but commendable, in light of many jRPGs, artificially prolonging their narratives, just to put a bullet point about 100+ hours of story and gameplay.

About gameplay. It's hilarious how immersed the creators have become in their story, that they often forget that its actually a game, and that the player is also expected, by definition, to do... stuff. It feels like they've hired someone specifically for the purpose of entering the busy room of developers team once in a while, and saying "Are you working on gameplay portions?" followed by the disgruntled sighs "Oh, yeah... totally forgot about that. Let's put a boss fight here... or something". Not to say that the gameplay isn't without its share of imagination. It's part generic jRPG fare, with random battles and grinding, part a fighting game with combos and special moves. Once a selection of moves has been learned, one can employ those abilities while fighting in giant robots or, as they called them in the game, gears. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really have time to explore this promising system at any significant depth, for the reasons mentioned above. Thankfully, the gameplay portion of this visual novel is never a nuisance, the game is very easy. Every single boss requires only but a few strategically placed kicks in the nuts to get out of your way.

Another thing worthy of praise is the game's presentation. It's basically a Playstation game with SNES sensibilities. No need for fancy 3D model, if a lushly animated sprite will do the trick. And looking at the horrible simplicity of character models in <moby>Final Fantasy VII</moby>, I think it was a correct choice. The environment is in full 3D, however, removing much of the annoyance of pixel hunting in the prerendered stills of Xenogears bigger and more popular <moby game="Fina Fantasy VII">sistergame</moby>. The design is also great. Especially the interiors. Little cups, pots, pictures, sinks, stoves are painstakingly detailed with warm light flooding the room through the open window, evoking the first moments of <moby>Chrono Trigger</moby>, the game featuring the same level of detail. Another similarity with <moby>Chrono Trigger</moby> is Xenogears score. While not exactly well-versed in Japanese game composers, I have still unmistakably identified the author of Xenogears music, by his style and touch alone.

Robots are cool too. I'm not a mecha fan, but I definitely enjoyed the introduction of every new gear, and always looked forward to trying them out in battle. <br><br>**The Bad**<br>The major problem is the one I've already mentioned. While I don't mind long cutscenes to munch popcorn (I hate popcorn, btw) to, I do become easily annoyed when I'm asked to hit a confirmation button every time someone finished a sentence, or even performed the infamous Japanese art of dots pronouncing i.e. ".....", ".....!", ".......!??!", and my all time favourite  "!!!......!?..I..?". No idea what those are supposed to mean.

No to say that substituting dots with actual words makes sentences any better. While on macrolevel, the narrative of Xenogears is incredibly complex, entangled and rich, on microlevel of words, sentences and phraseological units, its rather dull and pedestrian. A sin shared with many other jRPGs, so no big deal, if you're used to this strain of Japanese/American teenage anime talk.

Another point I would like to make deals with the fact, that the game is unfinished, and obviously was rushed towards the release by the forces unknown to me. The 2nd disc is a good indicator of that. Having lost the support, money or time, but not willing to sacrifice the original story plan, the developers chose to present the rest of its grandiose storyline with walls of text backgrounded by a handful of still frames. Obviously, the game suffered as a result. The already fast pace nearly skyrocketed, with events happening so fast, that its beyond human abilities to keep up. Side plot lines like those of Rico's claim to royalty, or the relationship between Bart and Sig are also never explored, let alone resolved, the same with many other characters arcs like Billy's, Emeralda's etc.

And lastly, although it isn't really fair to criticize the game for being what it is, I can't help but feel, that perhaps Xenogears does take itself too seriously. Don't get me wrong, I did dig all the Biblical stuff, and as I said in oneliner, it definitely is a much more enjoyable piece of work than Bible, now that it has giant bipedal robots, and god is nothing but a... nah, won't spoil it. But really, sometimes, it does go a bit too self-conscious with its epic madness of a story. And given the amount of symbolism it carries over from religion, philosophy and psychology, it wouldn't have hurt to be, I dunno, more playful with it. Mirroring the crucifixion scene at Golgotha, with Jesus substituted with a giant mech is an example of that. And, unfortunately, it never gets any wilder that that.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that if you never experienced even a faint interest in the genre of jRPG, Xenogears won't sway you over. If, however, like me, you are equally mesmerized by them as you are frustrated by their deficiencies, Xenogears is a gem. It's a game, which couldn't have been made outside Japan. It's a grand, awe inspiring and a genuinely deep adventure, with no equivalent to be found in miles. It's better than any Final Fantasy and it's one of my favourite jRPGs ever.

Basically, if there ever was a way to convincingly marry Jesus and Freud in a ceremony involving giant walking robots and flying submarines - this is it.