Xenosaga: Episode I - Der Wille zur Macht

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.