Xenogears

[salm]

what is it?
i know that it´s a game, but what is it about?
and on which system is it available. since i´ve seen a lot of folks quite exited about it i´ve been thinking of getting it in case it´s available on pc, play station or psII.

[Drooling Iguana]

It's an RPG for the original Playstation where you lead a group of angsty mecha pilots in their quest to kill God (literally.)

I haven't played it, but I've heard that, while the first disc is pretty good, the second one sucks.

[Joe]

Fei is the only really angsty one..

It's a great game, in my opinion, wonderful, addictive storyline. It takes more than a few pages from the Book of Eva, but it's not a total and blatant rip-off. It's one of those games that divides people right down the middle pretty thoroughly on its merits vs. flaws.

As for the second disc, well, yeah, it kind of sucks. The storyline is as good as ever, but the game completely compromises the gameplay for the sake of storytelling, which isn't excusable.

HAB members would do well to stay away from this game. The mecha wanking can get pretty hard.

[Durandal]

I loved Xenogears. It kicked ass.

[Joe]

I loved Xenogears. It kicked ass.

It also has a good humanist message (find fulfillment through others, not God).

[Vendetta]

The first half of Xenogears is mostly brilliant. Very well paced, very focused on the characters, if a little lacking in the grammar department.

The second half has massive problems. The story forgets everything that happens in the first half, and flies off at a massive tangent, trying to get everything out of the way as fast as possible, and completely forgets that it has any characters other than Fei and Elly.

And then, when you put disc II in, it stops being a game completely, and starts being an incredibly badly written book, which goes by incredibly slooooowly because of the unchangable text speed..

It's worth playing, if you can find it reasonably cheap.

[Joe]

The second half has massive problems. The story forgets everything that happens in the first half, and flies off at a massive tangent, trying to get everything out of the way as fast as possible, and completely forgets that it has any characters other than Fei and Elly

It was a rushjob, so that's to be expected.

[SAMAS]

Also, a demi-Prequel has been made for the PS2 -- Xenosaga Episode I: dur wille zur macht. It's also a great game, but has a reputation for having very long cutscenes.

And that reputation is deserved. Some cutscenes can run over thirty minutes!

Here's a review I did on the G4 Forums:

It's been a while(what, a whole week?), so here we go again:

This time is another newer game, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht by Namco for the Playstation 2, a prequel/remake of Square's Xenogears.

First of all, before you start on this game, get some popcorn. The stories are true. This game has some long cutscenes. Fortunately, they aslo give you the option of pausing and even skipping them, for those much-needed bathroom breaks.

The game starts off with a slightly Stargate-ish scene as an archaeologist activates an ancent, but very high-tech artifact sometime in the 21st century. You somehow get the feeling that a can of Dune Sandworms has just been opened.

but enough about that. Fast-forward to 4000 years into the future, where a spaceship is picking up a monolith that looks a lot like a part of the machine that was activated previously. Why it's floating in the middle of space is as yet a mystery. While all this is going on, elsewhere inside the ship, a group of engineers is working, conducting a test. Heading all of this is a brown-haired girl with glasses.

This is Shion Uzuki, and she's the main character. Not a heroic knight, badass-angsty mercenary, rookie soldier, or slim-built, sword-swinging Teenaged Farmboy With A Destiny. Shion is working on an android known as KOS-MOS, the blue-haired beauty seen on the cover art.

KOS-MOS is being built to combat the Gnosis. Imagine the Phantoms from the Final Fantasy movie, only spacegoing. That's the most basic discription you can get. Humanity has been presently fighting them with mecha and genetically-engineered biodroids, with limited sucess. KOS-MOS is supposed to change all that.

It's about this time that control is finally given over to you(told you the cutscenes were long), and the battle tutotial begins. The game's battle system is a little complicated at first, but go through the tutorial, and it will become second nature by the time it's over. Battles are done in a combo-like system similar to Chrono Cross, where your characters perform a series of moves for their regular attacks. Charge up your AP Meter to full, and you can finish it off with a huge Limit Break-style attack.

As in Xenogears, you can also battle in a large mecha, complete with big guns. These mecha are fairly customizable, mostly in the weapons department, although unfortunately, you don't get to have all the badass configurations you wish you could, due to space constaints.

Shion and KOS-MOS go through a simulation, which begins to mess up when Shion tries to push the testing a little further. Afterwards, Shion is called to the bridge of the Woglinde. Eventually, the ship comes under attack from the Gnosis, and Shion and KOS-MOS manage to escape the ship before it explodes, along with Allen, a rather wimpy co-worker who happens to have a serious crush on Shion. Don't worry, you get a lot of gameplay in this area, too.

This is the Quest portion of the RPG, where the story fully kicks into gear. KOS-MOS wants to go to the planet Second Miltia, and isn't listening to Shion as much as Shion would like. Meanwhile, a Cyborg(the game's prerequisite badass) is given orders to rescue an adorable little biodroid girl from a secret organization. Now we have to leave the story behind, lest I spoil too much.

Xenosaga's characters are a mix of original and derivative character types. Aside from Shion and KOS-MOS, you also get:

the soon-renamed Ziggurat 8, a 100-year-old Cyborg with some rather painful moves.

MOMO, the aforementioned adorable biodroid who fights a lot like a Magical Girl,

chaos(that's right, no capitalization), a mysterious and powerful angel-like being who seems to have a thing for KOS-MOS.

Jr, whose appearace could be described as a John Woo character in a 12-year-old body.

Mind you, those are the members of your party. They are also surrounded by a wide cast of suppourting characters and villians.

The world of Xenosaga is extremely high-tech, pretty much at the Technology-Indistinguishable-From-Magic level. Fortunately, the game has a great Database function that picks up all relevant data as you learn it, so you can look through it at any time to learn more aobut the world.

World(more like ship/station/city) maps dispense with repetitive background music, instead immersing you with a myriad of background sounds from the ships and machines around you. Enemies are visible on the screen, and if you're good, you can avoid many battles altogether. This becomes crucial in the Gnosis attack, when you have to go through half the stage without a weapon, or any way to hurt the enemies. In additon, you can aslo find the occasional trap, objects you lure enemies into to give yourself an edge before battle begins.

The game also has a lot of extras. At many save points, you can play casino and drill games. There's even a Virtual On-like Mecha combat game, and even it's own collectible card game. Many subquests can be used go get special cards or abilities for some of your characters. There is also a E-mail system that can be used to get some much-needed cash or special weapons for your characters.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't give you a lot of time to enjoy all this. Much of the time, you're almost cresting from one crisis to the other due to the fast-paced storyline, and you often have to go out of your way to get all the bonus stuff. This game can literally have you take a shopping trip while an enemy battlestation is powering up to destroy you.

In addition, as said before, the game has a lot of cutscenes. Basically, 80% of the scenes in other games where they would run fixed in-engine sequences in other RPGs, you'll get a full-blown CGI scene in Xenosaga. You'll either love or despise it. I liked it a lot. But on the other hand, it does mean you get a lot of beautiful dramatic scenes, as well as space battles that put Star Wars to shame. The scene on the Woglinde where they show KOS-MOS cut loose on the Gnosis attacking Shion is breathtaking, while your stomach will turn watching one of the villians when they're tormenting MOMO.

[Tommy way-out-there-nitpick mode]
And speaking of which, there is one flaw in her character. Her dress is far too short. Normally this isn't a problem, but it does lead to a disturbingly high amount of (hopefully)unintentional panty shots. This is a bad thing in that MOMO has the body of a 12-year-old. However, I've found myself unconsiously tuning them out the second time around.
[/Tommy way-out-there-nitpick mode]

The final true drawback is that the story ends with little, if any, real conclusions to many of the story points. Then again, this is Episode I, and there's a lot more story to go.

Overall, Xenosaga Episode I gets a solid 8.

+ Excellent graphics.
+ Original character designs.
+ Cool battle system
+ Good music.
+ Great cutscenes.
+ lots of extras

- Almost too many cutscenes.
- Loooong cutscenes.
- Pushy storyline
- Too much of MOMO's panties.

[Vendetta]

Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Boese is also in the works.

[Joe]

An animated series, as well.