Ah, Xenogears: the game whose content was considered so offensive and so overly religiously-themed that it almost did not even see the light of day in the US. Of course, this was the aftermath of Final Fantasy VII making Square one of the most powerful companies in terms of pushing units in the US, and after Electronic Arts agreed to help Square distribute some of their games, Xenogears was finally released stateside. It was highly critically acclaimed (then again, what Square RPGs weren't in those days? SaGa Frontier, anyone?), but for most gamers it was a “love it or hate it” affair. Obviously, the game's appearance on this list is indicative of which side of the fence I staked my claim on, but there is truth to the notion that the game failed miserably on many levels. It's the few successes that it achieved that made this game stick out to me; the things that it did right, it did very well.
The sheer ambition of Tetsuya Takahashi is perhaps to blame for some of the failures of Xenogears. After all, the story is MASSIVE, and relates the tale of the entire history of mankind in the game world. What starts off as a standard, run-of-the-mill story of two nations at war and the related political intrigue blossoms into something much greater and more sinister. The way the story is told is masterfully layered; every time a question is answered, two more questions take its place. I remember being completely enthralled, and I was completely hooked well before I got to the conclusion of the first disc some thirty hours in.
If you listen closely enough, you can STILL hear echoes of the complaints about the second disc of Xenogears, which became more of a “tell the story, go to a dungeon, tell more story, repeat” endeavor than anything else. Granted, this was a design choice necessitated by encroaching deadlines, but the difference was still very stark. Personally, I was not bothered by the second disc because, as I said, the story had me in its clutches. Yes, the game would have potentially been better had the second disc been more like the first, but that would have made the game perhaps a hundred plus hours long.
No, the flaws that I find with the game stem from relatively minor things such as the smorgasboard of anime references, the textbook philosophy, and the terrible translation. Giant robots are one thing, but having a team of females whose robots combine like Voltron is a bit much. Sure, terrible translations were the norm in those days (think Final Fantasy Tactics), but the sheer amount of dialogue in Xenogears made it even more problematic than other RPGs of the time.
The combat system was also problematic for me for a couple of reasons. First of all, boss battles ended up boiling down to the strategy of “charge your action points to 25, then unleash a large combo and repeat.” There was really not that much variety to them. Secondly, though the gear battles started out being pretty fun, they were inevitably a straightforward affair as well later in the game.
But oh, the story! There is no doubt that storylines were the focus of Square's RPGs in the PlayStation era -- which is kind of scary to think about considering how many of the games had a jumbled train wreck passing as a story (think Final Fantasy VII). Xenogears had its jumbled moments as well, but I didn't seem to object to accepting them in light of the larger picture. I actually cared about what was happening to Fei and company. I wanted to know the secrets behind Solaris and the Ethos. Just who was this Grahf guy, anyway? (Of course, it's blatantly obvious now, but at the time I didn't catch on.) The answers to those questions were for the most part satisfying, which is perhaps even more difficult to pull off.
Despite the game's flaws in gameplay (I won't even get into the jumping puzzles), the blatant copying of WAY too many anime clichés, and a scope that was way too ambitious for a PlayStation game, Xenogears was a spectacular experience for me. I realize now that it failed in many areas, but it still holds a special place in my gaming heart. The sheer wonder I felt from piecing together the puzzle (except for the all-too-obvious Id scenario) has seldom been matched.
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